Ever wondered how a couple of fresh college graduates managed to carve a respectable niche for themselves in the cutthroat world of managed services? Tune in to our riveting session with John Joyce, a pioneer in the industry, as he narrates his remarkable journey. From setting up a business right out of college with his friend to successfully navigating mergers and acquisitions, John's narrative is filled with nuggets of wisdom and pivotal moments that played a defining role in their growth.
No journey is devoid of transitions and this is no exception. John delves into the complexities of ownership transition and managing growth in a company. Their story stands testament to how transparency and mutual respect can lead to successful transitions, even in the midst of surging mergers and acquisitions. The conversation takes an interesting turn as we discuss their unique approach to business growth and the importance of aligning vision with action.
As we move forward, the discussion focuses on the future of CRS and its impact on the community. John emphasizes the commitment to the community, and how their mission transcends beyond the walls of their business. Their belief in the power of collaboration and community to create positive ripple effects is truly inspiring. We end on a note of optimism, exploring how CRS, while staying true to its core values, is pushing boundaries and exploring new vistas. This episode is a goldmine for anyone seeking insights on business growth, transition and community involvement. Tune in and get inspired!
Get an in-person rundown on what N-able has to offer including products, insights, networking and more.
The N-able Roadshow is visiting more cities than ever before in 2024. Take a look at our first group of locations; we may be in a city near you! -> http://spr.ly/6000RsTOq
'Now that's it: Stories of MSP Success,' dives into the journeys of some of the trailblazers in our industry to find out how they used their passion for technology to help turn Managed Services into the thriving sector it is today.
Every episode is packed with the valuable insights, practical strategies, and inspiring anecdotes that lead our guests to the transformative moment when they knew….. Now, that's it.
This podcast provides educational information about issues that may be relevant to information technology service providers.
Nothing in the podcast should be construed as any recommendation or endorsement by N-able, or as legal or any other advice.
The views expressed by guests are their own and their appearance on the podcast does not imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent.
Views and opinions expressed by N-able employees are those of the employees and do not necessarily reflect the view of N-able or its officers and directors.
The podcast may also contain forward-looking statements regarding future product plans, functionality, or development efforts that should not be interpreted as a commitment from N-able related to any deliverables or timeframe.
All content is based on information available at the time of recording, and N-able has no obligation to update any forward-looking statements.
Ever wondered how a couple of fresh college graduates managed to carve a respectable niche for themselves in the cutthroat world of managed services? Tune in to our riveting session with John Joyce, a pioneer in the industry, as he narrates his remarkable journey. From setting up a business right out of college with his friend to successfully navigating mergers and acquisitions, John's narrative is filled with nuggets of wisdom and pivotal moments that played a defining role in their growth.
No journey is devoid of transitions and this is no exception. John delves into the complexities of ownership transition and managing growth in a company. Their story stands testament to how transparency and mutual respect can lead to successful transitions, even in the midst of surging mergers and acquisitions. The conversation takes an interesting turn as we discuss their unique approach to business growth and the importance of aligning vision with action.
As we move forward, the discussion focuses on the future of CRS and its impact on the community. John emphasizes the commitment to the community, and how their mission transcends beyond the walls of their business. Their belief in the power of collaboration and community to create positive ripple effects is truly inspiring. We end on a note of optimism, exploring how CRS, while staying true to its core values, is pushing boundaries and exploring new vistas. This episode is a goldmine for anyone seeking insights on business growth, transition and community involvement. Tune in and get inspired!
Get an in-person rundown on what N-able has to offer including products, insights, networking and more.
The N-able Roadshow is visiting more cities than ever before in 2024. Take a look at our first group of locations; we may be in a city near you! -> http://spr.ly/6000RsTOq
'Now that's it: Stories of MSP Success,' dives into the journeys of some of the trailblazers in our industry to find out how they used their passion for technology to help turn Managed Services into the thriving sector it is today.
Every episode is packed with the valuable insights, practical strategies, and inspiring anecdotes that lead our guests to the transformative moment when they knew….. Now, that's it.
This podcast provides educational information about issues that may be relevant to information technology service providers.
Nothing in the podcast should be construed as any recommendation or endorsement by N-able, or as legal or any other advice.
The views expressed by guests are their own and their appearance on the podcast does not imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent.
Views and opinions expressed by N-able employees are those of the employees and do not necessarily reflect the view of N-able or its officers and directors.
The podcast may also contain forward-looking statements regarding future product plans, functionality, or development efforts that should not be interpreted as a commitment from N-able related to any deliverables or timeframe.
All content is based on information available at the time of recording, and N-able has no obligation to update any forward-looking statements.
One, two, three. We need our rivals down the street, we need our vendor partners across the continent. We need the global IT community to look at this and say we serve people that do I can safely say, the most important jobs, because, frankly, we serve people to do every kind of job. What's more important than that? Because it's not about what we're doing for them, it's about what they're doing because of what we do for them. That's really, really huge. That is how it blows outside yo, these four walls, either physically or remotely anymore. For a lot of folks these days, that's a huge piece. It's what brings me back every day, at least.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Now that's it stories of MSP success, when we dive into the journeys of some of the trailblazers in our industry to find out how they used their passion for technology to help turn managed services into the thriving sector it is today.
Speaker 3:I'm Chris Massie and on the show today, how John Joyce went from starting his own business out of college to selling that business and then becoming owner again, and how he manages to maintain focus on the why behind IT.
Speaker 1:So a lifelong friend of mine. He was going to another school but we were both said to graduate around the same time. So we still had a year or so left to go at that 08 point. But we were still looking ahead, figuring, okay, what is our next move? Look like, said Ryan, based on what I'm seeing, the only employer out there is us. So what are we gonna do about that? And we used that last year or two that we had to actually start the company that we started at that time and use that runway of school, as it were, to get it off the ground so that when it came time to start paying for bills that didn't have to do with books, we had the ability to do so as best we could. So that was ground zero for us was, looking at it at an economy, at a business landscape, said let's go well, let's take a shot, let's see what happens. It was still better than the alternative, which was crossing our fingers and helping for the best. I'm too much of a control freak for that.
Speaker 3:What was that? Like you and Ryan starting this, obviously you're still finishing up school, and it wasn't only the fact that there weren't a lot of jobs available, but there weren't a lot of businesses spending a lot of money. So how are you getting your business? What were the early days like?
Speaker 1:That was the opportunity right. There were not businesses wanting to spend money, but many businesses realized they do have to spend it. So it becomes a strategy, right how do they allocate those resources? And, in all selfish and fairness, we had a lot of options to be that lesser resource, at least from a cost perspective. We didn't have a big payroll to cover other than again covering our basic living needs. We didn't have a book of business that we were already trying to support or the baggage that comes along with that.
Speaker 1:There's something about that scrappy startup mentality where every dollar can be made to go a long way. So I was my own worst enemy in some ways, because we were able to undercut some parts of the market that we're trying desperately to hold on to pieces of business. And those for us were those opportunities to come in and say we know we can do a good job, we know we have the tools to do a good job, we can just, in all fairness, afford to do it for less. And we did add a narrower margin at the lesser overhead how the survivor mentality starting that business was very, very big, but that enabled us to do more more quickly because, in a weird way, those opportunities were being created by the market around us.
Speaker 3:Did you always you and Ryan, did you always have this vision that you would grow this thing, you would turn it into something bigger than what it was starting out at? Or was it just a you know what? We gotta have something when we get out of college and might as well do this to see what works.
Speaker 1:I have many times been accused by those closest to me of being a galaxy-brained individual, and I don't mean that as a compliment. I mean that I tend to think big, to my own detriment sometimes. So certainly always. The vision was to be bigger than ourselves, and by that I mean just the two of us. We wanted to serve more. We wanted to grow more. We had a vision for where we wanted to go and what we wanted to do. Knowing that would take time, but that was always part of that vision. It was never a job move, it was a career move. It was what we wanted to do.
Speaker 1:I certainly saw it as the ability to be exposed to new and interesting things every day. It's why technology as an industry has always drawn me to it, because, frankly, I get bored easily. If there's any industry that's changing around us by the half second, it's this one. Those growth opportunities were always top of mind, but again, we also knew they were not going to happen overnight. So our focus early on was very much on that survivor mentality. We're day to day. We are. Where are the opportunities? How do we serve them? How do we circle the square here? But for me at least and Ryan was always crazy enough to follow me down. Some of those paths was the vision was always forward looking, but the focus was especially then. Let's get through today and leave ourselves set up well to do tomorrow and the day after that. Well, we'll talk about that tomorrow and there was a lot of that, especially early on.
Speaker 3:Well, so you did grow past you and Ryan and you did. What was that like? What were the triggers? That sort of enforcing you, like we need to add some more staff, and how did you go about that?
Speaker 1:It was always driven by the need to serve. I mean, really and that was something that one of Ryan's superpowers that he thankfully helped instill in me over time was because, going back to my vision being on the next move, the next move, the next move and he was always very good at tempering me back and saying we have people we need to take care of right now, too. It's not about the 10 we haven't found yet. It's the folks that we're serving here and now, today, and what do we need for that? So there were a lot of and these are things that carry through to CRS and today, there were moments where it was those opportunities arise and we could take them, but at what cost? Yes, there might be some dollars involved, there's some growth opportunities, but what's the cost of that move, and is it the right move for us as a business and for them as the customer? And there were some times where we had to say no and say hey, we're not set up. We're not set up to serve this. Yet. Those were those moments, though, where we said hey, in order to do the next thing, we need to have the team and the staff to do so. So there were some gut check moments, some leap of faith moments to say, all right, we're gonna, especially starting out as two people, just adding that third person when you start playing percentages. That's a big change. Yeah, ryan, would give me a dirty look again. Full transparency. I'd get a dirty look on the occasional Friday where maybe the paychecks went out on Monday. That changes when you have an honest to God employee and not your lifelong best friend sitting across the desk from you. So those were some of those early on. But they still just take gut check moments to say when do we move?
Speaker 1:And the answer is early. If we're talking about scaling up after we've brought on the business, we've set ourselves up to fail that business and fail those parts. You have to build that capacity early and serve it from actually day negative one, because if you're not able to hit the ground running with those people, you're going to let them down. The taste that's gonna leave in their mouth is long overcame, if ever. And yeah, so the need to do that early is pivotal. Yeah, we didn't grow to. You know tons and tons of people. That company reached, I think, six, maybe seven people at its height, I think. I think it had settled down to about five, maybe six, so you're servicing a client.
Speaker 3:CRS is servicing the same client. They love both of you and they say, hey, why don't you guys have lunch together or figure this out, because we really don't want to just pick one of you.
Speaker 1:We want you both Never forget the days we met for lunch and it was almost two the hour. 90 days later we had gone from how can we work together on this one mutual partner to maybe we should work together on everything. And we merged 90 days later just because it was an instant culture fit, the vision fit. And going back to a point you made earlier about you know the growth, that was one of those moments where I had to go to my team and say, guys, I have every confidence in our ability to do what we're doing right now and that will grow. We're already doing great things. If I have the faith of the people in this room to follow me on this, I can accelerate that growth by a number of years by hitching ourselves to. This is a group of people that are doing what we're doing. They just started doing it 20 years earlier and we can help them and they can help us and propel that forward into the future. And that's what we did.
Speaker 3:What were the things that you and the CRS team owners talked about over lunch that you made you realize, wow, this is actually a great fit.
Speaker 1:The funny part was we talked very, very little about our respective businesses. We spent almost the entire time talking about the people in those businesses, our internal partners, our team members, getting to know them and the folks that they were again serving internally. They were. They asked me a million no one questions about. You know they are of Ryan through reputation and Cody and some other folks on our team and just you know the understanding that that Internal-looking focus that was so shared that if we don't Foster and maintain these groups of people, we get to have jobs because of them. Yeah, we don't provide them jobs, they enable us to have jobs. I can tell you I would not be doing this by myself. I couldn't do it by myself. They like that, they employ me and it to a certain degree and it's up to me to earn them.
Speaker 1:Showing back up tomorrow, the next day, in the next day, and that culture fit, you know, of course, with then transitioned into, you know, we're engineers, the end of day, right? What are you doing for servers? What are you doing for firewalls? What's the switch is? You know, we we settled into some of that too, but that was, that was the shop talk, right? That's just two people with common interests.
Speaker 1:I've met many folks that I would happily spend hours and hours talking that talk. I don't want to work with them every day, right, but the conversations about the company, the culture, the people and the vision there was some. I will admit, there was some vision talk there too, about where, where CRS had come from, where they felt they were going. They of course want to know you know what, what was Republic and where was it going? And I, I I'd like to think everyone was thinking very similar things, but not coming out and saying it. But I also remember leaving that lunch and said you know the typical, we have to do this again sometime. And I got a Counter-back to well, if we do it again. I talk about a couple things. One of them is what, if we work together and that was kind of one of those you see in the movies good time kind of slows down, everyone starts talking really slow and you have that oh crap moment.
Speaker 3:Well, that was it and you're thinking, you're thinking partner, not just like we're gonna go do some stuff, like you're thinking this is real.
Speaker 1:We all had a very natural understanding of each other very quickly, so there was no mistaking the intent of the question, but I'm still me. So I asked for some clarification right hand in there. And because that's just how I am, and as Suspicions were confirmed and yeah, we actually met again just a few days later, exchanged some, you know, aggressively rewritten text messages that I probably rewrote 10 or 20 times each time to make sure it was just right. Because, again, when this went from pleasant, you know, conversation on pie in the sky thoughts to a negotiation as pleasant as a negotiation is, I also remember I'm playing with a handful lives that I'm responsible for.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know I get excited about a shiny object and I suddenly, you know, ruin the livelihoods of people that have served me and my partner so well for as long as they had. That was not an option, so, seeing that through, there was no keep it under wraps. For a while. It was about a 30-minute ride back to my office and 31 minutes later I was briefing each and every one of them on what had transpired and I wanted to gauge their temperature on it right then and there, because, in all frankness, I'd keep talking shop till I was blue in the face. That Conversation, where it went, was gonna stop right then and there if I didn't have the buy-in from everyone in the room, because it's a zero-sum game at that point.
Speaker 3:That's amazing, john. I would say that there are a lot of conversations about, you know, m&a or future partnerships and things like that, that never Include the converse like including the rest of the employees in the organization. The fact that the first meeting that you had was really about each other's employees and you were talking about you know that. I mean, this is a family, that's that's different. And my guess is that you know, until you brought it to them, which wasn't that much longer than that, but until you brought it them, don't? They never knew that.
Speaker 3:That's what that first conversation was, and and most companies that go through M&A, where the employees are the most important, a lot of times the employees don't don't understand that. They don't they just thinking, oh no, they're in it for the money or whatever, and that wasn't the case. I mean, this was about Making like you two were better together than you were separately. Yep, right, and that just made the most sense. So what was that transformation? I know you talked about it like you move quickly, but Republic becomes CRS and what. What was that transformation like? And and what was it like? Sort of blending teams together?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean there, there was even just one transformation. Right, this was a major change for everyone involved. I'll be selfish and start with me. I told several you know very dear, close, trusted advisors outside of my business but you know personal advisors that each and everyone said, well, a first look at me like I was crazy. And then, of course, each one asked me, are you sure? And and reminded me that again, I'm a bit of a control freak. And was I ready to? I was captain of a rowboat, but it was still my rowboat under you with Republic.
Speaker 1:It was a small, scrappy little organization but it was mine and earlier on part of that and I didn't I didn't M&A into any form of ownership. I came in, as you know, elite engineer and a technical director and circled back to you. I now own, I you know now one of the owners of CRS. But there was a number of years there where I went from employer to true employee and several people that knew me Well enough to ask was I sure that was something I could do, and that almost took that as a challenge, like maybe that's why it worked, because enough people asked me that I've maybe uncovered something about myself I needed to know. So there was that transformation, right, and and really looking at it, say hey, these folks have trusted me Formerly, my company and my team. Now let's get to work earning that trust. And that was a big thing, you know, bringing my collection of you know partners in and making part of the broader CRS body, and how that integration took place. Those were all transformations from a partner facing perspective.
Speaker 1:Our goal from day one that year was to was to ensure that the Experience was so consistent. We did the tour right. We got around to everyone face to face and let them know it was changing and what was happening. It was because things did happen so quickly was impossible to get to everyone before it took place. Right, the goal was for it to be so Transparent to them that it was happening that if we met with them after the transition date, the goal was that they didn't know the transition had happened until they got a chance to hear from me and I was actually surprised that not a single.
Speaker 1:I didn't have hundreds of clients I want to say we were about 60 or 70 at the time you know partners and we got to the key one, the ones that we worked with many, many times a day, every day that needed to know that they really needed. Oh, before it took place. But all the other ones, even if they called us every week, every month, we got teaching every one of them face to face and Unless they're all much better liars and I think they are and played cards with a few of them I know they're not we were able to keep a consistent experience. They found out about that transition as we wanted them to. Their services were not interrupted, the way they submitted tickets, the way we serve them. We kept the faces consistent. If it was a place that Cody went to every day, cody kept going there and then, once they were brought up to speed, then they were introduced to their new, broader CRS family and all the things that that brought to the table.
Speaker 1:But it was not going to be a, you know, lower one flag, raise the other congratulations. Here's your letter. That's not how this was going to go. These people were important to me again. They enabled me to have a job and I'm going to make sure they're very well taken care of.
Speaker 1:So there was that, that transformation, but at a team level. For sure it was that scrappy startup that was now going into again. Not a huge company, but still to us it seemed massive, right, and it had been around. If we make jokes, myself and CRS were born the same year, but, historically speaking, so the company predated us by a lot. So the culture and the traditions and whatnot were very, very well established. And here we are. Were we there to bust all that up? Absolutely not. We wanted to make sure that that wasn't the the narrative either. So to prove to the existing team that we were coming into, that we were there to collaborate, to help, you know, to passionately join that mission and then all become one team.
Speaker 1:My number one fear going in was how long was that going to take? And I look for Verbal cues from people in a lot of ways, and one of the things I was tracking was how long did it take for things like your team and my team to fall out of the vernacular? Hey, can you get one of your guys to handle this? I can't get one of my guys out there fast enough. And I said at the time unspoken goal of I wanted to see it disappear in 30 days, and I don't have your in every room, but I never corrected anyone either, but as I would sit in the meetings and the team huddles and things like that, it became let's go will go, the team will go. If it was outside of two weeks I'd be shocked. And again it goes back to the theory for why it was going to work. The cultures were so aligned.
Speaker 1:Crs was going through a phase at the time of structured reorganization in a downward direction. You know we were growth, growth, growth. They were. The eye was always on growth. But CRS was at a moment in that moment of the only way to grow is first to shrink down some because to shut off the business that, having been in business for over two decades, at that point we've all been there. They've accumulated business that respectfully needed to go. It wasn't good business. They weren't good partnerships, they weren't bad people, they weren't a good fit. You can have that internally as well as you can externally. Thankfully, in these situations it was almost entirely good people that just need to be taken care of by someone else that aligned better with their organization and their goals or their needs.
Speaker 1:So the irony I think back in it hit me actually a couple years in that, the moment that we were able to enter in because we came from more of a frontline everything's a fire, it's five or six of us against the world, kind of thing we were tooled for.
Speaker 1:That environment this year's was trying to grow towards, which was when we came in and there was 30, some people, and we reorganized it into three teams of six. On the engineering side. It occurred to me again, probably going further down the road, that it should have that we organized the company into three republic sized units. We took a formula that I knew so well, tweaked it, made it better at the tools and the other things that CRS had at its disposal, but the raw formula was what had allowed us to grow the way we did and build the unit that we did over those years and then just hit copy and paste three times and that was really cool because it also gave my team a sense of continuity, my incoming team, where things went from feeling so, so different to oh well, this is, I know how to do this, I can, this is a place I can work, this is a thing I can do. So those were all really cool experiences throughout.
Speaker 3:Sounds like it was a very positive merger, and did you have any folks that were not on board with it? Did you have any employee churn during the merger?
Speaker 1:Oh, great question. So everyone came over. Everyone came over. We had one by media me.
Speaker 1:It was within the first six months I had one team member choose to move on a different direction and it was strictly motivated by he was so forthcoming with me and the reason I'm taking a minute is because I want to be respectful, overly respectful. How great he was when he came to me and expressed and even the concern. It was the hey, I'm so excited by what you guys are doing with this, the intensity level that came with the scale of what we were trying to do. He's like this is hey, maybe he was lying, but I'm pretty sure he wasn't because we've known each other long. And he's like this is not you, it's me, kind of that situation.
Speaker 1:And he wanted something a little more low key and the position we were able to provide him in the old structure was because he was transparent about that from day one. Right, this is his happy place and we had crafted the ability for that to exist in the new team structure as well. But he actually attended all the respect in the world. He came to me and said I've reached the point where I feel like I'm letting people down more than I'm helping and I'm so excited for where this is going that I don't want to be the thing that hold it back. And of course I disagreed with him because I know what he's capable of, but it was. My capability is about right seat on the bus and he realized he made the personal decision that the right seat was on a different bus and helped him through that transition. Actually, happy to say he was in that next position he took for longer than he was with Republic, so cool things can happen.
Speaker 3:That's great, that obviously you did something in his growth and he respected the opportunity that you had given him at Republic to come to you and have that conversation. I mean, there's a lot of people that would just say I'm giving you my two weeks, I've found something, yeah, I'm out, yeah, and so to have that conversation, and obviously you guys talk man to man and say I really think we can make this work. And he just said, no, I don't want to hold you back. That's fantastic, John, and I give you all the credit for what you had done to get him to that point. We go John owner, John employee back to John owner at CRS. But it wasn't just you, it was you and Julie who I met and then I think it was the original two owners.
Speaker 1:So you said, right, julie and I, my business partner, laughingly call each other the fourth generation of ownership and simply I mean it's not a family business, other than we all think about each other that way. But you know there was. I said the company is quite literally almost of the day, as old as I am, so it was a family run business way back in the Stone Ages. I mean break fix websites, ransom cables, you name it true old school. Then another owner came in, reorganized into kind of one of the earlier vestiges of what would become the MSP space. You know that transition phase, jordy Tahiro came in, bought the company from her in right around 2010, 2012. Jordy and Brittany, his wife, owned the company throughout the Republic merger and kind of his vision for the company he both purchased and inherited and the company he wanted it to be. So it was that leadership, it was that vision that really brought the company to what it was, both the place that drew me to it in 2015, when I looked at it and says I want to be a part of that, my team wants to be a part of that, I want my partners to be a part of that. So that was 2015. And then, you know shoulder to shoulder with Jordy and the entire team throughout those next five years. That led us kind of rashing into 2020 and what that was. And Brittany had you know again, always the visionary thinkers the both of them. They knew where they wanted their next phase of life to be.
Speaker 1:We all started to have some earnest and open conversations about CRS for better, for worse. It's not always for better. It's different. Always has been different. The vision is always to be different. The as the.
Speaker 1:When I say M&A, I don't mean what Republicans CRS went through in 2015. I do mean the buy-sell culture that exists, that, especially in 2019 through somewhere in 2022, red hot culture that's going and not to discredit or say it's a bad thing, we knew it wasn't good for us. What made and kept us different was not going to survive being sucked up by a larger organization. Growth at that scale would be to the detriment of what we felt made our product and our deliverable different for the folks that we serve every day. So Julie and I, somewhere in 2020, there had a very, very frank conversation about we either let things change or we put our money where our mouths are, and all of it no. So Jordy and Brittany were so incredible. Through that process worked with us. We came up with a you know multi-year arrangement for how that was going to work. Yeah, we became you know again, as you said, from owner to employee to owner. So we purchased our then respective shares of the company, you know, there at the end of 2020 and went into 2021, still very much in the COVID time period, still in the economic uncertainty around that time period.
Speaker 1:The MSP space especially still red hot with the I would call it a hyper aggressive M&A culture that was doing some. We're having some questionable impact on the broader industry, in my opinion, because all of the focus was on that growth curve and not on I don't mean just other MSPs, I mean the entire industry was about how do you build your business for sale, and that was having some negative impacts. I think that we're all still kind of careening from as an industry. I remember looking back on 2020 in 2021 saying, well, we kept it flat and we're not good at celebrating. That was celebration worthy. Employees are all here, partners are all here, the things that mattered were all there. The company was still there.
Speaker 1:The company we entered the year with is the company we left with and that was not guaranteed at all times, and what it took to keep that family together, to keep the band together, was no short feat, but then it was immediately transitioning back into all right, no more survivor mentality, let's get back to the growth mentality. What's really about? The things that make us different are the things we need to be doing. We were talking to you and what later became our current marketing firm, and we were meeting with the principal when we were out there and I'll never forget she looked across the table after talking about who CRS was and what we wanted it to be. And marketing people are always going to have a spin right, that's their job.
Speaker 1:She didn't bother with the spin. She jumped straight to something that really cut straight to the heart and told me are you even aware how many people are out there that need what you're not providing them and that really really wrong home about? Yeah, we're really proud of what we're doing for our partners, but there's people out there that also need those things that aren't getting it and the disservice we're potentially doing by not bringing it to them and I don't mean by bringing it to the masses in crazy scale and because again, that'll water down the deliverable so much you'll lose what you're trying to bring people, but to not be looking for those opportunities to serve the folks that need it the most, that was a side that was an aspect of growth I had really thought about from the service perspective I do mean the actual servant service of it. That was really really important and that's fueled a huge part of our growth strategy from that point forward.
Speaker 3:You and Julie by Jordy and Brittany out and you guys take over as sort of the faces of CRS going forward. And it's been a number of years. I remember that buyout did not move as quickly as the Republic purchase. I know you guys.
Speaker 1:No no.
Speaker 1:This was definitely and it's still I'll get in transit still ongoing. I mean, jordy and Brittany are still awesome partners in the company. They empower us to your point to be that face and to be out there with our partners that we serve. They're always a phone call away. When they're neither, they're still in the office, you know, forming critical tasks right alongside us. I mean, I'm so glad I know there are many people that when these transactions take place there's kind of just that clean break moment where it's you know good luck. Thanks for the check, we'll catch you later. They're incredible business partners. They're incredible partners within the company and to our team. Can't say enough awesome about them and they enable us to do again what we're doing.
Speaker 1:But the nature of the size and the scale of what we were trying to do and how we want to do it Because what did share a lot of continuity with the Republic transition was all of our goal from day one was, if anyone knows what we're doing before we've had a reason to tell them that we've done something wrong. That means something changed for the worse, that means something didn't go as planned. And for this to be our partnerships with most folks are over 10 years. We're adding partners any given time, but not by the dozens. That's not our growth plan. Never has been, never will be.
Speaker 1:So the partners we do serve have been with us for a long time. For many of them, this isn't even their first ownership transition and that goal, to keep it consistent to, we're not just we're not providing any one service for them. We mess up at our jobs. Their business is potentially grind to a halt in some meaningful ways. So looking at ourselves of stewards, of those aspects of their business going back to my flights of fancy, my delusions of grandeur should never be to their business's detriment. So the main driver for that, that slower process you're talking about, was just because this was about a changing of guard that was going to potentially impact the day to day for thousands of people, and that was the one thing we didn't want to have happen.
Speaker 3:Did you and Julie change the way that you were thinking about the business? I mean, you were owners before this, but did you? Did you change the way that you thought about growing the business or or making the business more efficient, or whatever, once you became the faces of the company?
Speaker 1:It's interesting because Julie will say and I've always agreed, we've treated it like owners a lot longer than we were. You know, treat it like it's yours and we and we make it our goal to empower our team to think about it that way as well. So when they're talking to our partners, talking to a prospective partner working with a vendor partner, you know, treat it like it is yours. So in that way it was very, very natural, because the care that I take about the company today and the and the lives that we take care of, both internally and externally, I thought about them the exact same way as technical director. I thought about them the same way as lead engineer. I mean those, those who there are no more or less important to me to say that they were seven years ago or 10 years ago, when it would have been under Republic. It was the same. So that mentality is the same.
Speaker 1:What do I would say is different is the willingness to let myself. You know I talk about. You know, vision's always very important to me looking ahead, but now that I do feel that that vision has so much more ability to be implemented because it's just I have a lot of support for some key and wonderful people, but then by the. You know, the double edge of that sort is they are trusting me to have thought that vision through and to bring them something that's not just doesn't this sound fun or cool or interesting? It's no, this is something that's going to bring value to people. It's going to bring value to our team. That's going to make for a better experience. So that's, I guess.
Speaker 1:What would be different is the extra gut checks I forced myself to have to say okay, at any given time. This has the ability to go from a crazy idea I have while driving home one night to suddenly being a real thing that's impacting people's daily lives, Maybe days or weeks later. Because that's just the great folks that I work with every day. They, they take those visions and they run with them with such, you know, well checked, reckless, abandoned, for lack of a better way to put it. I have to check myself to say, hey, if I, what is different is they hear me just shoot from the hip with those things.
Speaker 1:I'm thinking about it twice. The trust is so there, they're just going to run with it to their own detriment If I and that's as a leader, that's my responsibility to check those thoughts and say, hey, before I take this wide, as it were, is it really a good idea? And they're not always not, not by a long shot, because I also have a great team that is also very empowered to say are you sure, john, are you really sure? And sometimes, like you know what that was just one Celsius too many? Let's dial that one back and let's, let's see what that really looks like.
Speaker 3:I've gotten to know you and Julie pretty well in the last three years. Obviously I mentioned that I've been to your office, I've seen your office and it always felt like that you, that, you guys as a group or just such a tightly, tightly knit group and I told you this before that the way you and Julie work together, I think, is pretty unique. I feel like you see each other's point of view more and you agree with each other more than you don't, more often than you do, and obviously you want somebody that's going to challenge you occasionally. But when you can have two partners that really sort of have that vision of the business moving forward, I think that's pretty special and I love what you guys have.
Speaker 1:Oh, thank you. We've always been in great alignment on the strategic right again, those vision pieces. There's a lot of trust there. The tactical, the day to day, is where we very respectfully make sure that we're challenging each other, whereas if I see something from a more engineering or technical perspective to say, hey, I see you with the business case for this, but here's the technical reason why it could be outmoded in six months or be a bad play. Or, julie, will you know, check me and say, hey, I can see where you're going with that as a really cool thing our partners would enjoy. But what about from a business value perspective? You know, talk to him like a human and that's a human going to see value in that and so that that back and forth. We are always very, very open about those, those particular things. But we have made it a point to ensure that it all points throughout that we are aligned on the vision, because all those tactical things serve the strategic and when those things are all aligned, good things happen. That's awesome.
Speaker 3:I think the first time I met you was in your office, and the reason we came down is we wanted to hear the types of things you guys were dealing with, and obviously one big thing was you were going through a buying out of Jordy and Brittany, which was was probably not you know that uncommon Other MSPs are doing the same thing but you did share about you should share some other things that you struggled from an efficiency and a growth perspective, and so that really reinforced our vision that you know our partners need to hear from other partners what they're struggling with and what they've been successful at, and so Robert and I, when we were down there, we shared with you that in the next year or so, we were going to be creating these business transformation programs, and you were one of our inaugural members of one of our programs last year and then you've been to another when you and Julie came to our security program as well.
Speaker 3:Can you tell me what you've gotten from those programs and what you like, what you take and and just just the style, what it feels like to be part of this?
Speaker 1:Well, highest, highest level. They're one of the most positive reinforcement experiences that I can that I can put a finger on, and it's not, it transcends the subject matter, right? So we, you know. Let's take the security, you know, meeting in Austin, you know, recently here, as an example. Security is top of mind for everyone, right, it better be. You know, I tell people all the time I used to be an IT person that did some security. These days I feel like a security person that happens to do it and that you know. So the subject matter itself was obviously going to be valuable, but the actual value for me and what you know. To that example, I told Julie you need to be there, and it's not because she don't let her fool you she's got a very, very technically savvy mind, but her role and her greatest talents are on the other side of the house. But I said you need to be there because my longstanding belief in the reason why I insist in the CRS's participation in the community that is the technology industry is anytime you get the right room of people together, the synergy, the net value of that, is far going to outweigh some people talking about a better way to roll out EDR or a better way to stop ransomware or a new widget that we can put in place. For me, that's the value that collaborative environment, the teamwork experience of saying I see what you're running into there, we've done this. Or hey, what has everyone done to address this consistent need across your partner base.
Speaker 1:I did a small panel for one of our local chambers on emerging AI in the business space Again another topic. Everyone's talking about that. No one actually knows what it means, neither did we, and that's why we were there to talk about it. I get people together in a room but one of my quote unquote direct competition was in the room and he came up and we were having a great conversation afterwards and another business owner came up to address us both and I said, boy, aren't you both in the same industry? I'm like, yeah, we are, but we're not. I don't use his competition rivals, sure, I mean rivalries are a good thing, but competition is a little different. You know, fort Myers, greater Southwest Florida, is not a huge area. We're not a metropolitan. There are still plenty of business out there.
Speaker 1:And for people to come together and actually as an industry and say, how about? We all worry about addressing the need and not about outdoing the next guy, because if we're all doing it just that well and then the prospective partner has that many great choices in the competitive landscape for someone to serve them, if they can't lose, I'm gonna be happy. So sorry for the tangent. But back to the point of your question those business transformation environments. They're all.
Speaker 1:The subject matter itself is very valuable. I don't want to. You know, when you see something that piques your interest, go because you're that much more likely to engage and that's where the value starts. But it's anytime you get people together in a room with a common goal, a common interest, that are entering into it not as people going after similar business or people looking to outdo each other, people that are participating in a community, that want to improve that community. Great net effects. First order, second order, third order.
Speaker 1:The trickle down of that is gonna be dramatic and I'll point it right at us. There are things that we're rolling out to our partners today that were never on the sheet, they were never on the agenda but still ground zero, for those thought processes began in the rooms with other enabled partners, with other industry leaders, with people that just planted a seed, and I bring it back to my team and they say well, what if we did it this way? And now there's people that are benefiting from those tools just to view short months later the people that are better protected just a few short months later. And my hope is if there were 75 businesses in that room I don't remember the exact count, let's just use the number. My hope is there's 75 and then some Organizations out there that partners are being equally or better served as a result. That's the why, and that why transcends what anyone's session or agenda is gonna be about.
Speaker 3:That's great. John really appreciated having both of you there in April and can't wait till you're at the next one as well. You always bring a bunch of color to the room as well For better, for worse, right. So what does the future hold for CRS? What's next?
Speaker 1:People look at me funny when I say more of the same, but I mean that very, very intentionally. If we're constantly looking to change who we are, what we're doing, then what's the point? Right Again, that consistent I'm not saying to be stuck in time either. This is an evolutionary industry. It is changing all the time. So the tools we're using, the services that we bring, how we do it, that can change on the daily, sometimes because we are by nature.
Speaker 1:We all talk about wanna be proactive and it's very, very important. There's a good piece of this business that's reactive by nature, because you can't respond to a threat you don't know about. You can't react to a need that doesn't exist yet. So as those things are created, as they emerge, we have to react. It's foolish to say that we're gonna be proactive all the time, because then you're guessing, and guessing's not a good place when you're dealing with other people's other people's livelihoods. So what's next is, in one way, more of the same, because CRS isn't going anywhere. That's why Julie and I did what we did. That's why Jordi and Brittany committed to following us down that path. Was we all knew we had fostered together something special to sacrifice that for the sake of something new or interesting or better. That's not worth it. It never will be. So in one way, more of the same. But also, what's next is is all new, because it is our commitment to be at the forefront, to be challenging what's next for our business, and our partners and the vendors like Enable that we get to that. We're, frankly, honored to get to work with every single day.
Speaker 1:I keep talking about the IT or the technology community, because it is one. The more we treat it like one, more interesting things are gonna happen. So for me, very selfishly in my role, what's next is even greater involvement, very intentional action within that community to challenge ourselves and those around us to figure out what's next. Again, not guess, but I use the expertise that's at all of our disposal to suss out what's next and then be there for us. So there's no one widget, no big. Here's a new line of product that we're gonna be servicing. It's not about that. There'll probably be 10, I don't know what they are yet and if I did, I probably wouldn't say I'm here Now. I'm getting email me Somewhere Julie's side eye, I mean, she doesn't even know it. But what's next is a focus on keeping the company what it's always been and always will be, but also ferociously almost going after. How do we bring that to more people in more ways?
Speaker 3:What's powerful. So one of the things that you told me in the past was that your mission goes beyond the walls of CRS. Why is that the case?
Speaker 1:First and foremost, I do believe that the thing that we all get to do for a living every day touches so many businesses and so many lives and so many people. If we don't look at that as a responsibility, we're already doing it for the wrong reasons. I have brought up the why in a few different contexts and that's something that's very, very important to CRS and always has been the why behind anything, and the why behind doing this is not just to make lights blank green and backups to finish on time and servers to boot up when they're supposed to, but it's the trickle down effect of what those things do for people and that why is very, very important to us. But for me you know all about me from CRS it's all about that why. But for me it does go way beyond the walls of CRS because, as I've already alluded to the last few minutes, we get to be a piece of a much bigger puzzle and participating in that, making it better today than it was yesterday and setting it up to be even better tomorrow there's nothing more important to me than that the opportunity to participate alongside the folks that we get to, in the arenas that we get to, and be a part of that conversation. There's nothing more exciting to me than those opportunities and saying, hey, this is all really cool we're doing today, but imagine what we could be doing tomorrow if we just did this. That's bigger than CRS we're.
Speaker 1:I got a great group of folks that would. They would very foolishly follow me if I said that's what we're going to do, but going back to, I won't let us go that alone, because that's a fool's errand. We need our rivals down the street, we need our vendor partners across the continent. We need the global IT community to look at this and say we serve people that do, I can safely say, the most important jobs, because, frankly, we serve people to do every kind of job. What's more important than that? Because it's not about what we're doing for them, it's about what they're doing because of what we do for them. That's really, really huge. That is how it blows outside. You know these four walls, either physically or remotely anymore for a lot of folks these days, that's a huge piece. It's what brings me back every day. At least Awesome, that's powerful.
Speaker 3:John, really appreciate you sharing that. It was. It's pretty inspiring when you shared that with me before. So thanks for sharing with the group, Of course. So the question we always like to ask in this podcast you know, now that's it. So when did you realize that now that's it? Which time?
Speaker 1:No, no, as if I would be allowed. There's three, because there were three distinct moments. This whole industry, for funny enough, is full of moments where we get on the stage and we talk about something and we sit across the meeting and we, you know, we get the signature you're going after. You know there's little moments, but for me there were three big ones and we've actually, ironically, touched on all three. But, to summarize, for me there was the moment I decided to try right that first go, you know 2008,. There was that one where it was like the only way I'm going to be able to do this, the way I want to do it, is to go do it. And that's very, very reductive, but it's what it was, not that many years.
Speaker 1:You know, seven years later, sitting in a burger joint in Cape Coral and you know, and it suddenly in a moment, going to have a nice conversation about how great our people are to, am I actually willing to undo that moment seven years prior and hand all that over and say I trust you with this thing that I've played a role in making. Let's see where we can take it. That was a pretty big one. And then you know, five years, and change later for it to come full, full circle Again very suddenly. The process took longer but the opportunity was very sudden to say fork in the road, we can all walk together down this path. It's probably going to turn out really great. I mean, there were opportunities available. They were just not the opportunities that I wanted, but they still wouldn't have been bad. But the other fork was going back to 2008 and saying are we going to do this again? Are we going to not start over but definitely sit back in a chair that I had gotten out of several years before and see about going onward?
Speaker 1:That was obviously for me the most recent but probably the biggest, because you know, in 08, it was me and again a dear friend, but still one other person. In 2015, it was about a handful of people. The totality of the decision in 2020 for where, what we were going to do with CRS and where I wanted to take it. It was bigger than me. It was bigger than the 20 couple people. It had become about that building of people, the thousands of people that we get to serve and the trickle down effect again of the tens or hundreds of thousands of people that they serve. So, as that totality built over the years. That was it. That was the moment where it was either hand over the keys or put them in the ignition, and I still like the decision.
Speaker 3:Awesome, john, thank you so very much for being with us today. It's always great catching up with you. You're one of the most positive, optimistic people that I know, so whatever keeps you going every day, please keep it up, and we wish you the best of luck, buddy. I appreciate you guys as well.
Speaker 1:Anytime.