Now That's IT: Stories of MSP Success
Now that's IT: Stories of MSP Success dives into the journeys of some of the trailblazers in the Managed Service Provider 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.
Now That's IT: Stories of MSP Success
Navigating Growth: Dave Wilkeson on Becoming the MSP Advisor
In this episode of Now That's IT: Stories of MSP Success, we sit down with Dave Wilkeson, the founder and CEO of MSP Advisor, to uncover the key strategies that propelled him from a tech hobbyist to a renowned leader in the Managed Service Provider (MSP) industry. Dave shares invaluable insights into the critical role of financial discipline in scaling an MSP, offering candid advice he wishes he could give his younger self.
Listeners will learn how Dave successfully navigated the complex waters of MSP growth, from securing a solid financial foundation to leveraging strategic partnerships and recurring revenue. Discover the pivotal moments that shaped Dave's journey, including the lessons learned from early ventures, the transition to managed services, and the importance of surrounding yourself with the right talent.
Whether you're an aspiring MSP owner or a seasoned pro, this episode is packed with actionable takeaways that will help you steer your business toward sustained profitability and growth. Don’t miss out on Dave’s expert advice on becoming a successful MSP advisor in today’s competitive landscape.
Hosted by industry veterans, this podcast delves deep into the findings of the MSP Horizons Report, providing actionable insights to transform your IT business. Each episode features in-depth discussions with experts, thought leaders, and successful MSPs who share their experiences and strategies for navigating the ever-evolving landscape of managed services. Listen & Subscribe Wherever You Get Your Podcasts.
'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, four. You need different kinds of personalities to really really be successful. I think it's really hard for a single business owner to just be super successful on their own. Even if it's not a partner, they've got somebody in the business. That's that X factor.
Speaker 2: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 used their passion for technology to help turn managed services into the thriving sector. It is today Dave Wilkison, or Wilkie as his friends call him, founder and CEO of MSP Advisor and a new venture called Instrumental Dave. Welcome to the Now that's it podcast. Thanks for having me, chris, so sarcastic. An entrepreneur, it leader, school board member, pilot, ex-school board member Is there anything you can't do, Dave.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can't shoot par in golf.
Speaker 2:That'll come with practice. You're a member in a beautiful country club in. Youngstown, ohio, old world. Very good, keep practicing and you'll get as good as me someday.
Speaker 1:Right yeah.
Speaker 2:So you went to school for chemical engineering. Let me ask you have you ever touched a chemical in your career? Oh, I've touched, oh chemical in your career.
Speaker 1:Oh, I've touched. Oh, in the career yeah, no no, no, never done it, no in college sure yeah, yeah, yeah that, but that.
Speaker 2:So what? What was so exciting about it? And computers that made you want to start in tech?
Speaker 1:well, you know, computers were my hobby, right like when I, when I was young, I did programming. I worked for a company and we did well, it was a couple of guys, right, we were writing software for schools and I was having a blast. I mean, I was the 16-year-old that was able to go out and pay cash for a car a really nice car because I had been working programming and it was really just a hobby. I, I, I just thought it was super cool, um, but I never really thought of it as a career and never. It was never really what I, what I, pictured myself doing. Uh, my dad was an electrical engineer and he actually transitioned to computer, basically an early version of a computer engineer. Um, but I, I just, um, I never pictured myself doing that. It was too much of a hobby I didn't know that about your dad.
Speaker 2:I obviously got to know him. Um, I didn't know that he was. Uh, he got you, he was the one that sort of inspired you. Mine is the same yeah, packard electric.
Speaker 1:He worked at Packard Electric and he ran the only computers they had at the time there.
Speaker 2:So can you talk a little bit about maybe some of the early lessons that you learned, sort of pre-MSP business days, because you had a couple of different ventures there.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, one thing I learned in my first venture was essentially a computer store, I guess, for lack of a better term. I started actually when I was in college and we did, we built PCs you know early days like this was 89.
Speaker 1:I think I started this and you know I learned a lot of things. I learned number one I never wanted to sell to consumers like residential bad idea. I learned that you have to be super careful about your money. I had a controller that basically stole a bunch of money from me. So I learned that. You know you really you can't just go along and not understand your finances. You really have to have a good handle on that. You know, I thought I'd just turn this over to this nice lady that knew what she was doing and that's just a really bad idea. And I learned that.
Speaker 1:You know it's not easy. It's not as easy as just kind of focusing on the tech. That you really had to kind of learn the business side. And you know I wasn't a business guy. My parents, my mother specifically had a bookstore and so I had a lot of exposure to all that and was interested in it. But that really I never, really I never really focused on that piece. You know I sort of almost got it as osmosis, but it was really. You know it's a critical. It's a critical piece to a business Sure.
Speaker 2:What was you were? You've been a multi-time entrepreneur right Started several businesses. What were a couple of those early ones that you started?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so there was the computer store. You know we sold the businesses but we also sold to residential. We had a storefront all of that good stuff. Somewhere along the way in there I saw, I guess, what we would call now the next killer app. You know, of course there were no apps at that time but email. I was like man, this electronic mail stuff is awesome and I really saw it in college, right.
Speaker 1:So I was going to Youngstown State University and you know it was just basically an education thing, right, and there was no internet, there were no dial-up internet providers in Youngstown. So I started a separate company kind of behind my computer store, started buying modems and started that up just to do email. That was my focus. And quickly the World Wide Web came along and we started doing web stuff. I Like that was my focus. And quickly the worldwide web came along and we started doing web stuff. I thought that was super cool, that that pulled me back to my programming. You know from my early days I'm like, oh, this is, this is awesome, um and so, uh, we, that's a really growing. I ended up selling the computer company because I wanted to focus on the internet stuff and we ended up building a lot of big early web applications for the state of Ohio, for the country of Trinidad and.
Speaker 1:Tobago, the city and county of San Francisco. So we were doing work all over the place in these web applications, basically early web applications.
Speaker 2:Very neat. So, 2005, I think, you decided to buy into a small IT services business in Youngstown. What was the opportunity you saw that made you want to not only sort of take your talents there? If I pull a LeBron quote there but also buy into it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what I saw was, first of all, they had a data center which I was kind of enamored really quickly with, because the internet business that I was always run was almost run, you know, like in a closet, almost like the technology piece, and we ended up moving it to that data center, which is how I kind of got exposed to the guys um at at drs and, uh, I thought that was super cool. You know that techie and me came out and thought, man, we could really do some cool stuff here, um kind of do next level isp stuff, um the hosting, you know the the. They were kind of playing around with Citrix as a service, you know, in those days and they were a big Cisco shop. I love the Cisco gear, microsoft and I had basically I had sold at that point I had sold my ISP to a company and had worked for them as kind of part of the deal and had realized how bad an employee I really was and how that is just not, you know, and I think that probably resonates with a lot of MSP owners.
Speaker 1:In fact, somebody told me that yesterday that they were completely unemployable. So we did that and you know I just saw really good possibilities. They were like I don't know possibilities they were. They were like I don't know, they were probably like 10 employees, nine employees, something like that, and had a pretty good bar business. You know, cisco, microsoft, uh business, hp, and then the data center.
Speaker 2:I thought we could do big things you talk a little bit about your other business owners, just what sort of talents, personalities they had um are we talking? All business owners just no, no, the ones that you for the msp, that you bought into oh, okay, yeah, well, that was pretty cool actually.
Speaker 1:So, um, you know, our, our one partner could sell ice to eskimos, like literally. He was so good, he sold managed services to an IT company and he did it, I think partially because I told him he couldn't do it. He came and he said hey, I think I've got an opportunity to sell managed services to this large, much larger than us, by the way, it company. I go, why would anybody? That's stupid. Why would anybody do that? Particularly because we actually would bid against them, like we would go into deals and they would be one of the bidders on the deals, and I was like you know, you can't do this, and a couple of days later he drops the contract on my desk and he's like we're onboarding those guys, so, um, so he was just really really good, um, at sales, um, and then we had a couple of tech like highly technical guys, uh, a microsoft guy and a cisco guy you know, ccie, um, and there was just there were a lot of kind of bones there and what.
Speaker 1:I really didn't realize that at the time. But like what I call now the X factor, like you need different kinds of personalities to really really be successful. It's, you know, I think it's really hard for a single business owner to just be super successful kind of on their own. You know, even if it's not a partner, they've got somebody in the business. That's kind of that X factor. And that was true. You know I had that happen myself. One of my employees at my computer company that was just, you know, he was just a really good salesperson, didn't know it kind of thing and technical, and I had it happen at the ISP as well and you need that kind of energy. So we had that. I didn't really know it at the time, I didn't consciously go. This is the mix that's really going to work, but it was definitely there.
Speaker 2:So you mentioned that DRS started out pretty much as a VAR business. Obviously they had some time and material doing some service, some projects. But how did the idea of managed services come about?
Speaker 1:Well, uh, um, my partner was at a conference, a Cisco conference, and Paul Dipple spoke at the conference and he came back and he came to my office. He goes, he goes, man, I'm. There's this thing called managed services and you, you sell flat rate it to companies and I'm like that sounds really dumb, like, oh, how are you going to figure out the number of hours?
Speaker 1:Like what happens when somebody uses a hundred hours and somebody uses two? Like he goes, he goes, we're doing this Like we got to figure this out. And I'm like I was you know, I am the eternal pessimist, you know he's the eternal optimist, he was, and I think that's part of that yin and yang thing too, by the way and he's just like, oh, we can figure this out, we'll just, we can make this happen, right. And I'm like, yeah, this is.
Speaker 1:But I started looking at it and what really attracted me was, you know when I, when I switched from that computer company to the ISP, the big thing I saw there that made business easier was the recurring revenue you know we had when we were selling that dial-up ISP and the hosting stuff. We had money coming in every month. You know it was just, you know it was right there coming on in and in the computer company it was. You get up in the morning and you go, okay, I got to sell something today. You know, I got to sell a computer system. Or I got to sell, you know, this business that I've been talking to. I got to close that because I'm not going to make payroll if I don't sell something and you just don't have that in recurring revenue. So when Mike, my partner, started talking to me about that, that was the really attractive piece that made me sort of kind of come over and say, all right, well, we're going to kind of look at this seriously and try to figure this out.
Speaker 2:That's great. I think there's another Mike from Enable that came into your life during those early MSP figuring it out days. Mike Cullen, Can you talk about the impact that he made on DRS and really the future of that business?
Speaker 1:Yeah for sure. So Mike Cullen, some people call him the godfather of the industry. So we had joined a peer group. It's called True Profit Groups. We had joined a peer group it's an invitation-only group and that's kind of where I found the power of working with peers. And we were having a lot of troubles with Ncentral.
Speaker 1:There was a really bad rollout and we're talking, by the way, like version I think it was like version 2.6. It's kind of burned into my memory and I was at a peer group meeting and I was complaining about this rollout, how much trouble we were having, how much trouble we were having kind of getting support to kind of get it all figured out, which was mainly because everybody was having the entire user base was having trouble. And we did a thing in the peer group where a vendor would come and sponsor dinner and Mike Cullen from Enable came and sponsored dinner and you know I was introduced by one of the other guys in the peer group. I started talking, mike Cullen's, you know, pouring the wine and he goes. I'm telling him my problems, he goes, we're going to get this solved.
Speaker 1:And literally, you know, he made a few phone calls and we got this thing figured out and he became, you know, I would talk to him probably every couple months, you know that entire time, and we would just talk like he would call and say, hey, you know, he would kind of pull a bunch of companies and say, hey, you know, we're thinking about this, or you know, we came up with this idea. What do you think he was? Just he was so open to kind of the industry and thinking big, just a, just a super smart guy, sweet guy, and literally I mean I bet I talked to him at least annually, if not more, you know, until last year. So great guy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he was definitely a great influence on so many people in the industry and I remember you sharing how he helped DRS back in the days as well.
Speaker 1:And such a strong partnership. You know, like he he was the guy at Enable and then and then eventually kind of Dave Weeks as well. You know they were like the guys that, um, you know if, if there was a problem or or just a concern, or you know I remember in the old days having a big conversation about integrating with our PSA, like guys, we got, you got a right to the PSA, it's so critical. And those were the guys that champion that idea in the, in the enable organization and kind of, I think, pushed that through and got it done.
Speaker 2:So DRS grew organically pretty quickly and thanks to you and the other executives, did you ever feel you were growing too quickly?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I mean as a as a eternal pessimist. You're always, you know, really concerned about. You know that when you, when you get yourself out there right and things are maybe not quite as right as they are, the eternal optimist says, oh, it's all great, we're going to figure this out. My brain goes through the scenarios. That keeps me up at night.
Speaker 1:I'm running the scenarios in my head, and so you tend to see the bad things and the worst things that can happen along with the good things, um, and so, yeah, I mean, when you're growing quickly, you know there's there's part of me that always said, well, I mean we need to maybe pump the brakes a little bit.
Speaker 1:One of the things, though, that I've learned over the years is you, you have to be pushed out of your comfort zone to grow, and I'm not talking financially grow, because you know we could have just kind of grew slowly, you know, 10, 15% a year, comfortably, but I'm talking like when we would have years of hyper growth, 50, 60% growth. It was always uncomfortable and I realized that that that that's what makes a company better. You know, doing doing the things that they're not comfortable, forcing kind of everybody to just go, oh man, how are we going to do this? And just roll up your sleeves and figure it out and make mistakes along the way, by the way, and, you know, hopefully not make the clients miserable. Sometimes make the clients miserable, but, you know, make employees miserable as they're trying to figure it out. That's what, in the end, like after you come out of that on the other side, those are the kind of wins that make a company really really strong and, I think, makes employees kind of bonds them and really works well there too as well.
Speaker 2:That's great. I'm speaking of employees. I'm sure you've hired hundreds of employees across your career. What are some of the qualities that you would sort of look for in someone that you really didn't know, right Like during the hiring process? What are some of those qualities that you look for?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I think one of the big things I look for is somebody that's excited, right, like they don't necessarily have to be excited about a specific things thing, but you know, has that kind of energy and, and you know, really wants to do something different or or, you know, or maybe better than what they're doing.
Speaker 1:You know, I tend, when I'm doing an interview and I do interviews now for to help clients, sometimes mainly because I've done so much, you know, I kind of I get a, I really get a strong impression about people quickly in an interview.
Speaker 1:You know, if they're just kind of laid back doing the interview, kind of just kind of checking the boxes, you know, and they don't have that fire kind of underneath, that's always a bit of a red flag for me. But one of the things I've learned too is that you've got to think it's hard to generalize an employee across the company. Some people do that and I've, you know, worked with MSPs where they're always looking for the same type of person and I really think that's a mistake. I think you've got to look at the role, what they want, and then try to find a person you know and a personality that fits that. But I think universally you want somebody that's excited, you know to work in the environment, in the job, in the company. You know they need to be able to express that, you need to feel it.
Speaker 2:That's great. I'm sure you've had some good ones, but can you think of maybe your best employee you've ever hired? Best?
Speaker 1:employee. Well, there was this guy named Chris Massey that I hired to help me on the help desk. And, by the way, if anybody's talked to Mr Chris Massey here, the thing that comes out immediately is his excitement for the job and the challenge. And I mean, I guess that goes and I didn't really plan it like that because I didn't realize you were going to ask that. But you know, that's the thing that initially I didn't realize you're going to ask that but, uh, you know that that's the thing that initially got my attention about you and I remember distinctly thinking because I don't, I don't remember what you I don't think you applied for that job no, I wanted to be a sales engineer.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and Mike didn't want a sales engineer.
Speaker 1:Yeah and I remember I remember thinking there's got, we got to come up with a place for this kid because he's just, he's just, he's got like a fire. And I remember sitting and talking to mike and going like what do you think? Like? He's like wow, we don't, we don't need a sales guy, yeah, okay, well, I'm gonna figure something out. And I remember talking to you and sort of negotiating with you like hey, I can't do what you want, but how about this thing over here?
Speaker 2:I think it worked out pretty well because it was definitely I was, my career was heading in a direction. I saw this really cool company again and I think you were 30 people at the time yeah, I don't remember it was small and so I saw this cool culture and there's this opportunity to come back to Youngstown and work in Northeastern Ohio and, yeah, I just saw that opportunity with a growing company. It was pretty cool and I learned a lot. Right to be able to say I ran operations eventually, right?
Speaker 1:Well, you did a lot of different. We moved you around and then, after I sold, you moved around again to marketing, which I always thought was crazy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was the best, yeah, that's great. So, speaking of that, so 2013, I think that was the time when it was time for you to exit and start something new. What's the opportunity that you saw, sort of after years of building an MSP?
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, the interesting thing about that is, I did not plan that at all.
Speaker 1:So when I sold you know I have a big farm I thought, you know, I'd worked so hard as an entrepreneur for so many years. I thought, you know, at that point I had done pretty well. I thought, well, you know, maybe it's time to just kind of mess around with things. See what you know comes along. You know, maybe it's time to just kind of mess around with things. See what you know comes along. Um, we had just, uh, just uh, built a new house, which you know. Uh, my wife was like, so you're not gonna work, and we just are like, literally I I was, you know, still finishing things in the house because I I did the general contracting on the house. Uh, actually, I take that back. That was the second time, yeah, that was the first time that I was in that um, so, uh, I was, I was kind of puttering around the farm doing things that needed to be done and I started uh getting calls because I posted on linkedin, you know, that I had uh left, uh, drs, and I think the first call I got was from an MSP that had called me over the years I'm pretty sure I either met them at an Enable event or a ConnectWise event and they called me and said hey, I see you.
Speaker 1:You know you're not the COO of DRS anymore. You know we're struggling with some things and would you mind just just helping. And I'm like, well, I don't know. Okay, and we came up kind of with a deal where I charged them by the hour and worked with them, and that was pretty fun. I realized that I was able to just focus on solving problems, which is kind of in my DNA, without having to worry about all the stuff that kind of comes along with that, and that kind of started things for me. Then I got some calls from Mike Cullen. He's like hey, I hear you're kind of helping some MSPs, would you help this one? I got some calls from ConnectWise hey, would you help this one? And it just sort of grew. And then all of a sudden I was like, well, okay, I guess this is a business and I guess the rest is history there.
Speaker 2:So let's talk about how you service the MSP industry today at MSP Advisor. What are some of the ways that you help MSPs?
Speaker 1:MSP industry today at MSP Advisor. What are some of the ways that you help MSPs? Yeah, so one of the things we do is one-on-one consulting and coaching. Basically I think of it more as coaching. So we will typically figure out sort of a budget of time that they want to spend, because basically if we're spending an hour, they're spending an hour or more, if we're spending an hour they're spending an hour or more, kind of as homework almost. So we do that.
Speaker 1:We also have peer groups. So we have online and in-person peer groups in North America and then also in the UK and Europe and soon Australia, which that one's a little challenging from a time perspective. So we do the peer groups. We also do consulting around PSA. So we work through you know. Basically we've run into so many problems, you know, when we bring a new client on inside the PSA, that we felt we had to kind of build a practice around fixing that stuff and getting it to a standard. And we also do like stack consultation, those kinds of things. So sort of projects, bespoke projects around those kinds of things. That's exciting.
Speaker 2:So for the past 11 years you've worked with MSPs all across the world, as you mentioned. Are there any observations you can make about sort of the current state of the MSP industry?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I think it's changing a bit. You know, I don't think the fundamentals are changing, but I think that we are on a precipice where the RPA and ai side of things is going to change the, the labor component, so dramatically and so quickly. I mean, you know, two years ago I don't think we were even talking about this um, and now it's. You know, I don't. I mean, I think they're talking about it right now over at the Empower session, which says a lot in the industry to have this change so quickly. And some of the things I'm seeing are taking onboarding from an hour a user to 10 minutes, and of the 10 minutes, only maybe two minutes were a human and the rest of it was just it takes time to to do all the steps and it's doing it perfectly every single time.
Speaker 2:And if you had a human, do it you know, yeah, um, what are some of the common mistakes that msps tend to make when they're trying to grow their business?
Speaker 1:Oh, there's a lot of them, yeah, I mean, I would say the small MSPs. One of the biggest problems are they don't understand their finances, don't understand how to read that, and so everything is done by gut feel, and I think it actually is a testament, gut feel, and I think it actually is a testament. If a company makes it to probably $3 million and they haven't focused on the financials, which is the majority, because they come from a technical side of the house and that's just not their background generally, I just think that they, they it's a testament to how well their gut feel works. And then what happens is then they, they think they can rely on it forever, and the problem is, as you get bigger, you don't know everything anymore. Like you don't know, you may not. You get to the point, hopefully, that you don't even know all the clients, and once that happens, gut feel relies on essentially having all the information. You may not know. You do, or you may not know how that works if you're a very intuitive person, but you've got to know everything and that all falls apart. And so what happens a lot of times is, as they're trying to grow and trying to rely on that gut feel, they start making mistakes and in some cases really big mistakes. So that finance component, I think, and really understanding that finance component, is critical. And then I think the second piece of that is starting to rely on data. So if you want to make decisions, you've got to understand and have good data and then also understand what good looks like.
Speaker 1:I distinctly remember having a conversation in my MSP before we got into the peer group where we in, in fact, when I joined, our utilization rate of our guy, our professional services guys, which was, you know, three quarters of the company, was um 31 or 32 percent and I and and two of the partners were professional services guys.
Speaker 1:So we were, I remember, sitting around there and going, guys, this isn't enough. And they they looked at me like I had two heads and going we're busting our butts here, like you can't do more, we can't do more billable right and um. So I remember saying, well, can we just get it to like 45%, like let's make that the goal? Well, come to find out once I joined the peer group that 70% is kind of the target for that. So you know, not knowing what great looks like, not knowing what good looks like and trying to just make it up based on what, at that point, was just horrible performance. You know, I thought it was bad performance. It was horrible performance. You know, I think that's really kind of a critical piece.
Speaker 2:So, dave, you have tons of stories over the past number of years, obviously tons of experiences. Have you ever considered writing a book?
Speaker 1:It's funny. You should ask, chris, we just uh released a book. Yeah, um, focused on on you know, msps yeah, you got it there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, talk it down yeah yeah, focused on msps and and really, um, the, I guess the theory of running a managed services company, the idea of how to think about your business. There's a lot of how-tos written for the MSP industry and we wanted to really focus on something that was more big picture. Let's think about this, because that's really how you drive excellence, I think. Awesome. What's the name of it? It's called Profit and Growth for MSPs Dragon Boats, catamarans and Super Yachts and I wrote it with Enable's own, rob Wilburn Awesome. He focused on the growth side of things, the marketing and so forth, and I focused on kind of the operational and organizational pieces of the book.
Speaker 2:Any listeners. They can get it on Amazon right.
Speaker 1:It is on Amazon right now and hardcover and Kindle, and I have been asked so many times now for an Audible that and I keep telling Robert we're going to have to record this thing, and he keeps going, oh, because this was, by the way, a ton of work to do, so we're going to record something.
Speaker 2:So, Dave, what would you tell younger Dave?
Speaker 1:Oh boy. Well, I would tell younger Dave to buy more Microsoft stock and don't sell it, because I had a whole bunch of it and I sold it and I should have never done that. I would have told younger Dave to buy Amazon stock, so that was probably.
Speaker 1:I was thinking more like like younger Dave from a professional oh okay, yeah, yeah, well, you know, I I think that, uh, you know, focusing kind of on the numbers, focusing on the financial side of the business, I would sort of reiterate that I would have told me, you know, when you're hiring people, particularly key people that you know, worry less about the money, I guess, and worry more about kind of how they, what they're going to bring to the organization. I mean, that's what I do in MSP Advisor now and it works phenomenally well. I want to make sure people make really good money. If they are phenomenal people and when you surround yourself with excellence like that, you can really do great things. So I would say those are probably the two big lessons.
Speaker 1:We don't want to take in what stocks to buy?
Speaker 2:So we call this podcast the Now that's it podcast. So I want to ask you when did you know Now that's it?
Speaker 1:Well, what does that?
Speaker 2:mean? It means that you were in the right spot, you were doing the right thing, you were helping the right people.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean mean probably you know what it was, I think, for msp advisor at least covid times, because that was so stressful for so many companies. You know I did webinars, I I had just strings of calls with msps that I had never really dealt with, that were just, you know, freaking out like not to not knowing what to do and, um, you know, I was drawing from my experience in 2007, 2008, with the you know the kind of the housing crash and banking crash, um, and at the end of that I had so many people say you know to me, you know, thanks for the advice. You know, that kind of helped us get through it, that kind of thing, and I was like I'm really helping a lot of companies here and it really felt good.
Speaker 2:Dave, thank you so much for being here for talking with me. I wish you the best of luck. Wish you the best of luck with the book and have a good rest of the year.
Speaker 1:Thanks, chris, appreciate it.