Unlocking MSP Growth through Peer Groups: Scott Bernoudy of Open Approach

In this episode of the "Now That's It" podcast, host Chris Massey sits down with Scott Bernoudy, a seasoned IT professional, entrepreneur, and owner of Open Approach. Dive deep into Scott's unexpected entry into the world of IT, starting from his days at a bike shop to a dairy farm, to becoming the owner and CEO of a thriving MSP. Listen as Scott reflects on the challenges of his early business days, the importance of adaptability, and the transformative power of peer groups. From discussing the emotional toll of entrepreneurship to the passion that drives business growth, this episode offers a candid look into the highs and lows of a tech entrepreneur's journey. Whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur, an IT enthusiast, or someone looking for genuine business insights, this conversation with Scott Bernoudy is a must-listen!

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.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:20

One, two, three. To know that crushing feeling that you just screwed up and that a whole group of people are suffering as a result of it, and you may not even know your way out of it. And it's a horrible feeling. It's also, in my opinion, it's a rite of passage.

Speaker 2: 0:35

I'm Chris Massey On this episode of Now.

Speaker 1: 0:37

That's it, if you're not trying to grind every penny out of your company, but you're trying to drive value to your customers and to your staff. Good things will come.

Speaker 2: 0:47

Scott Bernoudi reflects on his journey and inspirations in building his managed service provider and what they're doing now. That has Scott focusing on growth.

Speaker 1: 0:55

I have shifted so many aspects of my company how we're managing, how we're building, the sort of tools we're gonna use, the way we do things and it has been the most transformative, positive set of experiences in my whole career in the company and I'm not just making that up to fluff up your podcast.

Speaker 3: 1:14

Welcome to Now that's it Stories of MSP success, where we dive into the journeys of some of the trailblazers in our industry to find out how they use their passion for technology to help turn managed services into the thriving sector it is today.

Speaker 2: 1:31

Open approach in Burlington, vermont, is on a strong growth trajectory today, far removed from the bike shops and dairy farms where owner and CEO Scott Bernoudi got his start. For Scott, a few great hires and a commitment to service helped him build a solid business, but a dose of humility and perspective from his peers has Scott on a path he never would have imagined as a young man.

Speaker 1: 1:56

Like a lot of good things in life, it started by accident. I was a big biker, I had been biking forever and I finally got this job when you could work, when you were 14, at a local bike shop and the owner who oddly enough was not a cyclist but he was a country music fan and liked to fish decided he was gonna computerize the place. And so he went out and he bought a computer system. And it turns out that he and nobody else in that shop knew how to computerize. They didn't know what they were doing and I jumped in. I had an act for it and ended up at 14, 15 years old sort of largely computerizing that business on our old triad system out of Texas Green screen with the spider turtles. It was old school, but that got me started.

Speaker 2: 2:42

And so you dabbled, right, you continued to dabble in IT, but then you got a job on a farm.

Speaker 1: 2:49

Well right, I went to college. I think I'm just gonna go ahead and admit it right here. I was more or less a flunky in college. I was not cut out for it and computerized another bike shop during college and then decided that the best thing to do in life would be to go farm. And that's how I ended up in Vermont working on a dairy farm, thinking that somehow I was gonna make it do in that Ran out of money pretty quickly. And what do you fall back on with things that you're naturally good at.

Speaker 2: 3:16

So your love was dairy cows, but what you were really good at was IT, and so it sucked you in it sucked me in.

Speaker 1: 3:24

You know there's a lot to love about farming. There's also a lot to avoid about farming. So it wasn't the worst decision I've made, even if it was a little bit coerced. At the time I got hired by a fairly large regional bank and, just like all good accidents, I had a few more. The accidents were an ice storm that knocked out a bunch of systems and a few other events in this banking world. That happened in a very short period of time, from where I went from essentially high level help desk to running the network. So I got a lot of great experience doing that work with some great people. I got a lot of great experience doing that work with some great local consultants to learn just how to run high grade, securely oriented systems.

Speaker 1: 4:11

So I was at merger with another bank that caused a number of people to leave and its openings just kept coming for me. I probably was a little bit underqualified and fell into it, but I think on the whole I rose to the occasion and it was challenging. It was a very demanding period of life. I had young kids and I've been called to work for the last couple of months work weeks to try and get both recovery from ice, storm and other issues and then two large banking systems merged. It was a great experience for a young guy kind of cut his teeth in the world to work under some really talented, smart, experienced people and it was there. The ITs of standardization and consistency and protocol and process and all the things that make for great IT sort of became part of the way I looked at my business management.

Speaker 2: 4:59

Sounds like you didn't have much time, but were you trying to do any side work? I mean, it seems like everybody that's a network admin has to have a side hustle or something like that. Was there any of that, or was that always in the back of your mind?

Speaker 1: 5:11

I did that for a little bit. Then the sort of merged banking world became. Well, it just wasn't that much enough and became my life, and so I got recruited by another company near to my home that was in dire need of a major systems transformation. There were about 300, so it was a fairly sizeable system and it was during that that I built that system for them. It was successful, they were rolling and I realized like I got to keep doing this, like my thing is building but it's not only maintaining. So at that point I did start moonlighting and the company I was working for at the time was very supportive and actually gave me some room in the company to use their systems to start building out. Some of my colleagues from that company went on to other companies. I was lucky enough to have their respect enough that they called me and said, hey, we need your help over here. And that really is how open approach started.

Speaker 2: 6:03

You had an opportunity to build a business while you were sort of sheltered or protected somewhat by this other entity.

Speaker 1: 6:13

Yeah, you know, healthcare and the whole line yards and I mean I was moonlighting. I didn't get to do it during the day, but I had office space and some. You know it was really a very generous setup. I'm very thankful for this effort I received from those folks early on. There did come a point, though, where it was time, and when I did that I'll never forget this.

Speaker 1: 6:30

I was building a house and the house was going way over budget and it was taking too long and we just had another kid, we had three kids and life was crazy and I decided, well, I'll just quit and go start working on my own company. I had two clients that were gradient, I don't know something on the order of like $12,000 a year and which is not enough even way back when for the younger folks to survive on, and I told them, if I left my job and there was another one of these moments in life where I think she looked at me and thought she had made the wrong decision and open approach officially started then that moved from moonlight to daylight.

Speaker 2: 7:07

You're by yourself, you're on your own. How are you going after business then? And, obviously, keeping the right number of customers coming in and the right amount of work going out?

Speaker 1: 7:20

That's it. You know, sometimes I look back and I don't know how I did it, like I don't know at this stage if I could do it again. And that's not to say that you know you can't do it, it's just that it took a lot of elasticity. But I will say that I had a good pitch and my pitch was that we're going to do enterprise-grade computing, no matter what the size of the company. That was the whole idea. If you, my client, work with me on helping me standardize so that you know the 80, 90% of what we do as MSPs is the same, we're doing it right. It's the same as our competitors, right? There's just a lot of you know road work in there. If you allow me to standardize that, I can save you money and produce a better system. And thankfully I was able to convince enough people to go that route that with the references that I had.

Speaker 1: 8:09

I was in the early days, right where people were starting to have trouble finding decent talent. And here comes this person says well, we can create this pretty, you know, stable system as long as you agree to. You know, use Dell equipment and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And I had pretty good traction. With that early on, I was able to ramp up fairly quickly. I should have looked at these numbers.

Speaker 1: 8:30

I don't remember exactly how quickly, but I was not going into debt any further, if that's a measure of success after about 18 months, as I recall, and it took me a couple more years three, four more years to fully dig out of debt. This is a new thing. Back then, right, you know, we didn't even call ourselves MSPs at that point. I just said, you know, it's unlimited support for a fixed fee and it resonated and I did have a good reputation and I think that helped. You know, a lot of people were looking to build out of Nobel Networks into Microsoft Networks at the time. They were having all sorts of problems with managing passwords and file system securities and they were just dying to get anybody to come in and structure their systems and we had a pretty decent offer at that moment.

Speaker 2: 9:19

That's great. So it took you some time until you hired your first employee, right? It was a couple of years, and then your first employee still with you today, right.

Speaker 1: 9:30

An excellent guy, an excellent employee, an incredible engineer and, like all great relationships, he's very different from me, but I think I read him well, he reads me well and he's a key part of the company.

Speaker 2: 9:43

Still, how did the business change, though, when you weren't supporting just yourself, you were now supporting another employee, right Another person.

Speaker 1: 9:54

That starts to keep back out for a little bit. Right, yeah, and there was. I will say I'm quite proud of the fact that I've never paid a paycheck late ever, and I was pretty committed to make sure that we had the financial resources to carry this. I mean, you're always taking risks, but I was pretty sure that I could pull it off. And sure enough, steve. This employee was so talented and so quick to come up to speed that he was contributing in ways that allowed me to go do more sales and handle the company, and it was just great to have a collaborator. I've been three years of working alone. It was the best. I mean, a lot of people complain about hiring. In my experience, treat people well, do the best you can to pay them as much as you can, and people are absolutely fabulous to work with and I have not regretted any hire along the way, even those that didn't stay long. You always learn something and Steve's just one of those. It was a gamble that paid off in droves.

Speaker 2: 10:53

Wow, that's fantastic to hear. So obviously you still played IT tech mission there for a while, even after you hired Steve. But after a period of time and you brought a few more folks in, you obviously had to make a transition to really the business owner and then to CEO, and so can you talk a little bit about sort of what that transition was like, to sort of, you know, get out of working in the business to on the business.

Speaker 1: 11:17

I was lucky and I was trying to think about, like I never think, in terms of mentors, but I've known enough people through the years and read enough and heard enough that one of the things I knew that was just innate to me was that in order for the business to grow, in order for the business to succeed, to get through all the various different ceilings you're gonna hit along the way, the key was, when you hit a ceiling, was not to step into it try to pull more level, literally push more buttons but to step back and figure out how I could work with other people, other tools, whatever it took to get me out of it. I used to have this saying for employees and for myself, which is I'll pay you more than more obsolete you make yourself, and I think there's truth in that and I think that that's one of the reasons that's allowed us to succeed. Is it's egotistical to say that I'm not egotistical in the sense that I was able to back away enough from the business that other people could develop, which is really key. You just gotta let people make their own mistakes, recognize that you've made a ton of mistakes and, of course, you can see why when you're the owner or whatever they get the boss. But you know you've made those mistakes and you gotta give room to other people to make those same mistakes.

Speaker 1: 12:25

I used to say to every new tech that came in like you're gonna have your day when you inadvertently take down a network. And it's part of growing, it's part of becoming what we are is to know that crushing feeling that you just screwed up and that a whole group of people are suffering as a result of it, and you may not even know your way out of it, and it's a horrible feeling. It's also, in my opinion, it's a right of passage. To know what you're doing is important. It has big impacts and you can't just go around hit the switches and pushing buttons without really paying attention to what you're doing, and so I think, in a way, I was able to back away. I knew that was an ethic, but I need to stick with it. I'm not gonna be the one to solve all the problems for this company. I'm gonna make it possible for good people to get in there, figure things out on their own and work with them when they make mistakes. I think, if anything, that's probably the one thing I did really right.

Speaker 2: 13:17

What would you say to 14 year old, 18 year old Scott about sort of the way that open approach has evolved?

Speaker 1: 13:27

You gotta trust that most people are good, most people wanna do well and you gotta go towards people that you trust and you see who things in. I know that sounds kind of fluffy, but we turned down business from people that I had a bad sense about. It's probably the smartest things we've ever done. Your people, your staff and your clients have got to line up with your values. That's a huge part of it. You gotta feel good about working with them and your people. That's a big piece. The other piece is trust that for somehow, by some magic, this system of ours in the United States I'll speak to the United States alone if you listen, you pay attention, you take care of people, you have integrity, this system will reward you. It may take a little bit. Good things will come to companies that are paying attention and building out well. If you're not trying to grind every penny out of your company but you're trying to drive value to your customers and to your staff, good things will come. So I would say to somebody who's young take good care of your people, take really good care of your clients and believe that if you keep doing that, you'll get through the rough spots.

Speaker 1: 14:34

Our clients when we had rough spots.

Speaker 1: 14:36

They knew that we were in the game with them.

Speaker 1: 14:37

And if we called them and said, look, we are stretched and we may need some more time on this or I'm sorry, it's taking a bit of time for us to get back to you on some of these tickets, and they say, without an exception, no problem at all, and they knew that if they had a real issue they could call me and we would drop everything, you go, handle it for them.

Speaker 1: 14:55

And just that sort of rapport, that trust, allowed us to grow. You can't grow without your clients supporting you, period, and so I don't look at this as an extraction business of how much money I can take out of this company or take out of my clients. I look at it as how can we get to a really mutually beneficial state where they're profiting from what we're investing and we're profiting from what they're paying us, and if you focus on that, you can succeed in this business. But you can't if you're pulling out a contract when there's a problem. In my opinion, this goes against the grain of a lot of MSPs, but if you're having trouble with a client, you feel like you need to go to a contract you belong in. So it's about trust and about believing that building that will get you over the rough spots.

Speaker 2: 15:41

Wow, that's really good advice. Scott, you guys have hit a pretty key milestone your several million dollars and you really hit that, that key sort of spurt, that gross spurt over the last couple of years. And when I look at how my former MSP and how even some of the other partners that I talked to, how they grow, I think the way that you guys grew over the last couple of years is pretty unprecedented. What were some of the reasons why you guys grew so rapidly? You know what's the growth engine today. Were your customers growing or was there something else that you were doing to go get net new?

Speaker 1: 16:16

I think it's a combination of a number of things. One we did have growth in our customers. One of the stats that I love with our company is that all of our clients across the board have grown with us. No client has gone out of business, they've all grown. Now we're a small part of that, but I think we have contributed to that. We are growing with our clients. I think that's probably one of the bigger pieces. We figured out for a while pre-COVID how to push that sales wheel. We eased up on it a bit during COVID and we're sort of pushing that again. So I think new sales were a bit of that.

Speaker 1: 16:48

I think another piece which was we handled well and we made some big mistakes on, was this recent, like the last four or five years the significant push into the security round where MSPs are having to take their clients into higher and higher levels of security resilience. Not only was it something to capitalize on from a revenue standpoint, but it was important for our clients to do. Where we missed is we didn't really bait that value in to the level that we should have. And I hope we're not alone, because I'd like to think that we make normal mistakes and not just really epically stupid mistakes, but factoring in how what that impact was gonna be on our staff and so far has been a struggle for us. We've earned money on it.

Speaker 1: 17:36

I think we could have done better. So I think a big piece of that is the security piece, and I think another element is just that we have got better at providing a great product for our customers. So when we've had to go for price increases and we're probably a little bit low on our billing right now we've been successful. They receive it very well. They're always generally pretty happy. We get very little resistance and again, I think a lot of MSPs can have that, but can claim that for good reason. They take good care of their customers and we do too, and they know we've got skin in the game with them. So when we come and say time for us to raise prices we're struggling a little bit here they're generally right out of work with us.

Speaker 2: 18:14

We talked a little bit about Steve right, Talk a little bit about Andrew, who's someone that I got to know over the last couple of years through some of the business transformation programs. When did Andrew Croy join the group and you talk a little bit about how that happened.

Speaker 1: 18:29

That was a funny one. Andrew joined us in 19, so it's been over four years, I think I've got that right and he came from a bank that we were working with, actually a large multi-site credit union that we worked with, and I had known and worked with Andrew for a few years. But here's the beauty of like developing other people. As charming as I am, it was not me that sold Andrew on OpenForge, it was Steve. Steve and Andrew worked so closely together. He has this deep mutual respect for each other and I think Andrew did like me and he kind of liked what we were doing with the business and he was a CIO but I think he had sort of built the system up to the point where he was done and he's a builder in the end, just like me and I was looking for some, you know, much more diverse challenge, and you can't find more diverse challenge than in an MSP the difference between running within a company, a singular network, and the difference between running multiple networks. It's fast, right. And so he reproached me and Steve endorsed him, of course, and we talked a little bit about him coming all the way across the country to be in Vermont and I first told him you gotta be nuts. It's cold. The winter's along here, maple syrup's great, but you know it's cold. And he was like I'm looking for a change.

Speaker 1: 19:45

And he made the switch and he has been incredibly instrumental in maturing this company. I mean, there are a lot of pieces that were looking pretty good across the board, but they weren't as cohesive as he's made them. He came in and pretty quickly tripped on the role of CIO and built out a much more formalized and process-based, documentation-based side of the company. Like he's, he has done an enormous amount to lift us to the next level of maturity and I credit him with having built what it took for us to go from you know to tack, on several million dollars worth of roads and private Also a quiet guy but very, very smart, and if you can get him cornered and talking about the things he loves, he'll tell you all kinds of good stuff.

Speaker 1: 20:34

He's an internal processor, he's a thinker and he'll take something and work on it for a while and then he's got it in a rolls. I'm kind of the as owners often are just kind of tunneling into the future, and it takes some guys like Andrew and Steve that are a solid counter to that so that you create sanity, and I appreciate both of them for what they've done. There have been others I just want to be clear that have contributed, but Steve and the oldest, andrew, being sort of the outside hire that came in deliberately to build that operation side of the company.

Speaker 2: 21:07

That's really important, scott, when you're growing your MSP, to have process and just sort of that attention to detail of the org. So it's great that you found somebody like Andrew.

Speaker 1: 21:19

I would also caution users like this is the fine line, the process is fantastic, documentation is excellent, like the standards are, you know, the underpinning of it all. They can also be the death of what you're doing If you take them too far. There's some art mixed in with the science, and if you're too scientific, you'll kill it. If you're too artistic, you'll kill it. So find your balance. Get your people in that are counter to you that you can have a conversation with, bounce ideas off of, deal with a disagreement and then come up with something that's essential.

Speaker 2: 21:52

One of the ways I got to meet Andrew and obviously yourself, was through the business transformation programs that enable runs. When did you become an enable partner? It's been a while we were a.

Speaker 1: 22:04

Hound Dog is Easy user, so by that measure I'm an agent partner, right, because that's rollups through years into the product set. Andrew was using some enable products that his former employer and then I think we really went all in. I mean we were using the console, we were building it out, we were solar winds and so forth and then about four years ago we really went all in on the product set as far as we could and made a commitment to enable to use the product set as widely as we could and in a much more standardized way across our whole client base. I mean we've always worked towards standards but sometimes you're using a product here, a product there and we decided to consolidate on the platform. We looked at enable as a partner, as a company, and thought like the innovation and the sort of Truly, the commitment to partners meant something to us, right.

Speaker 2: 22:57

I know one of the things that you really, really enjoy as being a part of the peer groups that we run out of business transformation. Can you talk a little bit, Scott, about why peer groups are so valuable or why they've been so valuable to you, and obviously Andrew, because he's part of these as well?

Speaker 1: 23:16

at Open Approach there's a certain hubris that you have to have to go out there and build something and try something and piss your wife off and doing so, and all at risk your financial well-being, etc. You just have to have a certain hubris to do this. I'm not saying it's wise or it's admirable, but it is something. It's the something that gets you out doing this. That same sort of push to do something different had made it such that I wasn't as receptive as I should have been to other thought leaders in the industry and opportunities like peer groups.

Speaker 1: 23:49

I've only been doing this since Semper of last year, when you all invited us down, and it has been the most transformative, positive set of experiences in my whole career in the company and I'm not just making that up to fluff up your podcast. I have shifted so many aspects of my company how we're managing, how we're building, the sort of tools we're going to use, the way we do things. I feel like I have really tapped into the full power of having colleagues that I can speak freely with, that will send me information that will give me cold, contradictory advice to my nutcase ideas. I have talks with people offline and in the peer group and what is doing for our company. I simply cannot say enough good about it. Where you are in your growth pattern, you've got to enter one of these things because you'll learn so much that you're just not aware of it. And I would say just lean into it.

Speaker 1: 24:45

You've got to trust that you're probably not right on a lot of things and that are people that have gone before you that have really really good wisdom to impart to you, and it's a nice group of people. They're happy to share this secret sauce that my company is benefiting from it tremendously, and we have new, really scratchy surface. We are on the precipice of serious growth, serious positive change, and I would attribute the fact that that's happening now 100% to the fact that I joined these peer groups and started working at this, started listening. I went through the epic amounts of shame and like, oh gosh, I'm terrible at this and these moments of like deep darkness. You're not going to go into this and not have to square up with your faults. It was crushing.

Speaker 1: 25:34

I think one of the things that is really important to talk about is that you put a lot into these companies, right, you think about them, you dream about them and then you get down thinking you're probably going to be pretty good up against some of these folks and it turns out that there were a number of significantly off elements of my company that I was just wrong. I remember sitting in the room going I just want to go home. I just I, just I just went home and like it was really really profoundly affecting for me to sit amongst other really intelligent, some significantly more successful or more oysters than me, but to realize that I don't know all the answers and I haven't figured this all out. There's a lot of wisdom that I don't have that's sitting in this room alone. On one hand, it's crushing.

Speaker 1: 26:23

It's a really hard feeling to do. On the other hand, I was immensely grateful because somehow I knew that if I stuck with it I was going to learn enough to get my company moving in the direction I wanted to take it. You do have to be committed to getting knocked around a little. If you're pretty convinced that you're all right, then I don't know if your breach can help you. But if you're wondering like I'm not sure how to do this or like I'm meeting resistance here, I don't know, I might wait through. You got to humble yourself and do it because it is it's the best thing you can do for your company, probably at any size. I can't recommend them enough.

Speaker 2: 26:58

Truly. Thanks for sharing that. Scott Appreciate it. You wanted to build a really fair-minded company where the people are really really treated well. Why was that so important to you, scott?

Speaker 1: 27:10

The reason for that is because early on in my career, I had to go through a couple layoffs, meaning I had to lay off employees. And I was young enough. I had just hired one of these employees that I had then later had to. In fact, this employee had come to me and said hey, I'm about to sign on a mortgage, how am I doing? And I said we need to break, sign away, let's get, let's keep going, I'm super excited for you. And a couple days later I learned that we were going to be having to do layoffs and they were, you know, last in, first out kind of layoffs, nothing else. And I was personally devastated. Donalds didn't want to go through with it. I, you know. I remember touching the shoulder of one of my employees as the layoffs were taking place over a few days, and she crumpled underneath me because she knew what that sort of like hey, I need you to join me in the conference room.

Speaker 1: 28:02

And it was then that I chose to take very seriously the welfare and that I would not leverage labor and employees for growth and let them show her all the risks that I was going to be careful about. You know, companies growing and so forth and starting a company, there's inherent risk. You can't please everybody, keep everybody necessary, but I wasn't going to be flippant about it and I've kept that all the way through. What's interesting about this which put a little bow on it is that one of the things I lost and all of that which I'm learning by peer groups more than anything, is that you know you got to be careful, kind of make sure that you know the wrong person sitting in the wrong seat of the little EOS talk there isn't good and it's not good for the company and I've been a little slow to react to that and I think that I'm now realizing that you know this company to be remain vibrant and growth-oriented and pay well and responsive to the market and everybody's careers are protected.

Speaker 1: 29:05

As we're developing and growing needs to be able to react to people that might not be the right fit. So I think there's a balance there. But I think you know, as they say, you hire slowly and fire quickly and there's wisdom in it. I don't want to say drink the Kool-Aid, because you know EOS can sound a little culty if you're on the outside of it and not understanding it. It's really excellent, Like it's been very clarifying, very, very positive. Another peer group benefit you know just sort of to have people that you respect and trust say this is a great thing, you need to do this. You'll benefit greatly. It was kind of the kick in the pants I needed. There were about a few those moments when you did the kick in the pants.

Speaker 2: 29:46

Obviously, as you get larger, things get more rigid, right, and how have you been able to sort of cope with that, scott?

Speaker 1: 29:54

I'm going to use some EOS-ish terms even though I'm definitely a newbie, but part of what I've had to realize and come to groups with and again the peer group helped me with this I did a CEO hot seat about a month ago. I'm up there lamenting that I'm not sure what my role is in the company and cultural development. I sort of downplay them because they're so natural to me. And the peer group sort of stepped in and said oh you idiot, there's a lot contributing culture matters and taking care of people, envisioning what's going on with a company. So far. These are key things and not everybody has talent for them. And I think that hearing that allowed me to at least hold that and not just immediately dismiss it but look at it and think maybe there really is significant value in what I can provide if I shift into that place and not into sort of the in-between stick, because the organization really does take care of itself in a lot of ways. And yet I wasn't picking up the torch of being the sort of visionary leader, ceo as actively as I needed to to get us to move into the next phase. And again the peer group talked the CEO. The looking at EOS really helped me to realize that, to gel, that that was a necessary step for me, that I had to accept that my kind of older roles were over, my new role was here and I could fit it, that I could do that and it was necessary.

Speaker 1: 31:21

And so responding to the rigidness is to acknowledge that Denise takes place, but I may not be the right person to build those parts of it, but to also make sure that it doesn't become too rigid, that we have to be able to flex. Every client is different and so we, even though we want it to be standardized and rigid, it's never going to be so. Finding the right balance on a per client basis is necessary in our business. We are, whether we like to think of it or not. I mean, there are MSPs out there that are super standardized and they have a different client setting us. We're a boutique, you know. We take our clients, know us, we know them, no matter what size they are, whether there's 300, 400 computers or 10, we know them and we'll always be that MSP, or at least it seems that way. So flex is a part of it, but also standardizations and processes and, you know, stack consistency. We really do focus on that.

Speaker 2: 32:18

So, speaking of always, be that. What's next for open approach, scott? What's the future hold?

Speaker 1: 32:24

Ah, let's see you know we're going to US. That's going to be a really refreshing and profound set of changes for the company. We're growth oriented and that we're looking to potentially triple growth in the next four to five years. We're developing some new marketing because I still do. You know some of the bigger sales and I love doing that.

Speaker 1: 32:49

I really love interfacing with our clients and learning about them and, you know, sorting out whether we're a good fit and where we can fit, et cetera. But we also need to. You know I'm not going to be able to do that forever, so there's some challenges there to bring in, you know, sales staff that can hit where an over gets, and boys there are a lot of magic involved in that. But really, ultimately, I would like this company to continue to be a fun company to be in. I would love to continue where we have. We have great customer satisfaction scores. We have great rapport with our clients, and I look at it as a challenge. Can we grow and can we still be a great service based company that takes really good care of its employees? And ultimately, if my dreams come true, we'll get to a point where we can sell this company, come up with a employee owned, or a solid factor along those lines where we all benefit.

Speaker 1: 33:44

Like I took probably to a fault I'm, the whole boat floats. I want all of us to sort of move up at the same rate. We may not move as fast as if I focused on me or a couple key people, but I genuinely believe that we can float this whole boat and that includes our clients. We all benefit and we should all be very good at this, will financially benefit and succeed without coming out and saying it. I want to be able to build this company to where it's substantially larger, has a deeper management tier, set of tiers and it's able to run itself completely without me. Then you know, essentially, then I'll say success and everybody is drawing from that. Everybody's benefiting from the fact that we've created a company where people work together, the management is structured well and our clients are happy. I mean, would that be a great thing?

Speaker 2: 34:36

One last question for you. We love to ask this to all our guests on the podcast. So when did you know? Now that's it, scott, now that's it.

Speaker 1: 34:46

When did I know there have been a? Did you have more than one? That's it moment? And it would be like me to ask for more than one.

Speaker 1: 34:53

I think when I rolled my first larger network, even before the company was fully formed, as a moonlighter, there was a moment where we turn, we roll that system. I cameras, need computers, manufacturing systems, printers, lots of stuff going on and in one weekend I flipped the whole thing and they came in and they were fully operational by about nine or 10 o'clock on a Monday morning and I felt like that's it, like we just did it. We just did that was older school, like T. We're not doing it quite the same way anymore, but that was it when you would take a company, was in shambles, was not working well, the systems are all like. We renumbered the network, the whole nine yards. We did it one weekend and we turned up and they were ecstatic, right, and I knew like okay, that's fun, that's really good stuff right there. And then the next.

Speaker 1: 35:48

You know there've been a few moments along the way, but I would say it was recent when I realized that you know, it's really about empowering people and sometimes you don't realize how you're not empowering them. But there was another moment like that's it, you've got it. You've got to build it in so people know what they're supposed to be doing and how they expectations. And then you got to really cut them loose, even more than I have in the past. More you do that, the more success you'll see. Period.

Speaker 2: 36:18

That's amazing, scott, and I just wanted to thank you for telling us your story today. It's always great catching up with you. I told you I was looking forward to this one for a while. You're very, very humble, so I appreciate you sharing some of your successes and I wish you and the open approach team the absolute best in the future. You guys are a great group of individuals there and you're doing a great job, so please keep up the great work up there and beautiful Burlington, vermont. I'll be coming to see you in a couple of months, really looking forward to that. You're going to get keys treatment here, so for those of you that aren't from here and Scott and I follow our LinkedIn, we'll have a picture of us together or something right Well with with Naples syrup.

Speaker 1: 37:03

We've got some other things that will go on. You know, vermont desk right, some flannel et cetera Sounds good, hey, but thanks a lot for having me. It was really great talking with you, chris. I appreciate the fact that you guys are doing what you're doing, sort of get the word out there and letting us share some of what we've learned and listening to others and what they've learned. It's been great. Thanks very much.