Now That's IT: Stories of MSP Success

Sales, Service, and Security: How Brandon Layhew Leads ByteTime

• N-able • Season 2 • Episode 20

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In this episode of Now That’s IT: Stories of MSP Success, we sit down with Brandon Layhew, President and Managing Partner of ByteTime, to explore his incredible journey from sales success to leading a thriving MSP. Brandon shares how he turned a stagnant IT company into a fast-growing MSP by blending a service-first approach with cutting-edge cybersecurity offerings.

For current and aspiring MSP leaders, this episode is packed with actionable insights on leveraging strong client relationships, evolving your services, and embracing cybersecurity to drive business growth. Learn how Brandon navigated challenges, adapted to industry changes, and turned adversity into an opportunity to propel ByteTime forward.

Whether you’re looking to strengthen your MSP’s sales strategy, enhance your service offerings, or build a robust cybersecurity foundation, Brandon’s story offers valuable lessons for every MSP leader. Tune in to discover how to balance sales, services, and security to position your MSP for long-term success.

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.

Speaker 1:

One, two, three, four. If I'm being candid, there's a time in a company where we really struggled and I began to believe it was as a result of my lack of IT background I began to feel inadequate and broken. Those feelings of inadequacy and brokenness actually changed the course of the company. Our industry, our organizations and our delivery models face chaos every day, every day. And here's the deal we can either face the chaos, see what we can do with it, use it as fuel for the company, or we can practice what I call the ostrich strategy, which I've been guilty of at times. You know, just burying my head in the sand and hoping it's just going to fly on by, right. And at that moment you start to realize well, the world's going to change around me or it's going to change me as a result.

Speaker 2:

Right, 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. Our guest this week is a seasoned national sales manager, public speaker and proven teammate committed to assisting the clients, organizations and people with whom he helps discover a place for their success. He's the president and managing partner at ByteTime in Katy Texas. And managing partner at ByteTime in Katy Texas. His teammates have described him as the impact that has led to not only the successful relationship with over 300 clients in eight states, but our 95% customer retention and over the last five years. Brandon Lahue, welcome to the Now that's it podcast.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for having me. When's that guy going to show up?

Speaker 2:

Little story for our podcast listeners. Brandon is a longtime colleague, friend and a great storyteller, so I'm really looking forward to the pod this week and I know his story. I've heard you tell it before. It's a great story and so I can't wait for you to share it with folks. Thank you so much for finally joining. You're a busy man, I know. Thank you for having me. So you and the guys at Bite Time go way back. Can you start by telling us how you all first met?

Speaker 1:

Kindergarten. We all grew up in a little town, katy, texas. At the time it was about 7,000, 8,000 people and we all went through kindergarten through 12th grade together. Our parents all knew each other. Rob's mom was a nurse practitioner. His dad was a painter. Scott's parents both worked for the original trash company in Houston called BFI. My mom, to this day, still keeps kids out of the house. My dad worked in print shop and as a handy man for most of his career. Paul's dad was our high school football coach and his mom was our fourth grade English teacher. What were those days like growing up? What would you guys do? Man, we were a rowdy bunch. We were wanderers. I don't know necessarily if we were aimless wanderers, but we were definitely wanderers. Tight group. We'd love you and we'd fight you quickly too. Good group of guys, actually. Scott went on to serve in the infantry in the United States Army, paul went on to be a decorated Marine and Rob Special Forces Airborne.

Speaker 2:

Ranger. Wow, you guys all come from humble backgrounds, and what were some of those values or lessons in those early years that are shared with people today?

Speaker 1:

All of the traditional ones that come with sports, being a part of a team, being a part of something bigger than yourself, hard work, discipline, self-discipline, commitment to excellence are the program that really Paul's dad defined has a standard, and that standard is when excellence becomes tradition. Greatness has no limits and I think it's a quality that not only the young men that are raised in that community believe but the community believes as a whole and that's kind of stuck with us through time and it's kind of a standard of how we do things, standard of excellence.

Speaker 2:

Before ByteTime you had a successful career in sales. How'd you get into that world and what was it like achieving such rapid success in healthcare sales?

Speaker 1:

Well, candidly, after my ninth year in college, me too I knew we had a lot going on. I know we had a lot in common. So, no, I really was unsure, directionless, I think, through college and I changed my major many times. One of my favorite quotes of all time is I think it's George. George Eliot said it's a thread that's that's woven through my experiences.

Speaker 1:

But after my ninth year of college I decided I wanted to go to law school and I started applying to law school and uh was um scheduling to take the law school. They all sat and took that and started applying and uh had a rough start date. Um, I was going to go to school in California and I ended up needing some money. In between I didn't come for money and had a lot of things I wanted to do and a lot of things I wanted to buy and a lot of bills that needed to be paid. So a buddy of mine and another guy that we grew up with his dad and uncle had an advertising marketing firm and they were selling marketing advertising packages to health care providers across the country. Advertising marketing firm and they were selling marketing advertising packages to healthcare providers across the country and they were doing this over the phone and like two phone calls and it was. The packages range from 17 and a half to $75,000. And I had a six month wait before school started and and they convinced me to come in and just said you know, come check it out. And so I went and sat next to this young lady and listened to her bang out a hundred calls in a day, and at the end of the day they said you know, come check it out. And so I went and sat next to this young lady and listened to her bang out 100 calls in a day and at the end of the day they said well, what do you think? I said, man, I think I could do this pretty easily. So, sure enough, they said, well, come do this with us for a little bit and make a little bit of money. And I said, okay, and so I, good guys. And so, anyhow, I did this and, and my first month of doing this with them, I got my first check and it was a $16,000 commission check and, needless to say, by the end of that year I had, I had paid more in taxes than my parents had ever made, wow.

Speaker 1:

And so after about a year they came to me and said do you think you could teach other people to do what you're doing? I said, sure, absolutely I do. And so they let me hire a team and started doing them and training them. And we went about it and started generating millions of dollars. And then they came back and they said do you think you can teach other people to lead other teams? Yeah, sure, why not? Right? So we did that and eventually we started growing this company to about 2 million a month and it was a very good experience, learned a lot about sales. They brought in some really high level guys and what I learned was some of these sales techniques.

Speaker 1:

You know, foot in the door, door in the face, low ball I just did, naturally, in conversations, and so that was kind of cool. Maybe I found the direction I wanted to go and got excited about it. And the next thing I knew I looked up and law school was in the rearview mirror. What led you to leave it all behind? Life has a way of humbling you. You know it really does, and I got to a point where my life was out of control. I was wild, I didn't know what to do with that money and I woke up one day and realized I needed to slow down. And so, you know, there were times I'd wake up on a plane in Mexico, times I'd spend some time in Vegas and have to get them to wire me a plane ticket back. You know, life has a way of humbling. We make tough decisions, but ultimately, how do you learn from them? I think that's what matters.

Speaker 1:

And so I slowed down, went to work for a, for a local nonprofit in Houston, and met some great people, and about that time I met my wife and eventually, you know, I wanted to get back into the business world and take another shot at it and start making some money again. And I reached Scott, who's my him and I are the two majority shareholders and Scott was living in New Braunfels. He was actually the IT manager for that company that I was working for, and Scott was living in New Braunfels now and he had started ByteTime. And so when I started to pitch the idea of starting my own business, I was going to get into marketing and advertising, because that's what I knew and my wife said you know, you need to find some references, you need to find some people to talk to, some seek wise counsel, something that we talk about a lot in our house.

Speaker 1:

So we seek wise counsel, and so I reached out to Scott to see about his experience and called him up one day. I said, scotty, well, how's bite time, tell me about it. And he said, man, it's really stagnant. And I knew what he meant. You know, if he was here I'd say this in front of him. He's an IT nerd. And so he didn't have the desire, the heart to go out there and push for new business. And it just dawned on me at that moment. I said why don't we combine our skill sets and see what we can do with it? And he said let's do it.

Speaker 1:

For those who don't know, I'm not technical, I'm the least technical person in this room, but as a matter of fact, he had to drive the two and a half hours from New Braunfels to Katy to set up internet in my house. That's how non-technical I am. He had plugged the router in for me and I don't even know if I owned a computer at the time. So, anyways, that happened and that's how we got started, learned real quickly that we needed to get somebody with some networking experience, and so that's where Paul came in customer service and help desk desktop support type experience, and Rob was at the time working for the second largest banking IT service provider in the country, compushare and so we jumped off the end of the deep end. Originally we wanted to high tech had recently been signed and we wanted to help health care providers, because that was the industry we were familiar with help them become more familiar and develop a process converting from paper charts to EMRs.

Speaker 2:

So you're going through this personal reset, professional reset. You know almost a start fresh starting over. Professional reset you know almost a start fresh starting over. You reconnect with Scott. Was it the opportunity that you had that really led you to join Scott, or was it a chance to be able to work with old friends again?

Speaker 1:

To be candid. I don't know that I've ever thought about that, but the prospect excited me. I don't know if it was the challenge or you know, working with Scott and eventually with Rob and Paul those guys but I think the vision of it is kind of what really excited me, like not necessarily where we were going to start, but the potential of where it could land or what it could lead to.

Speaker 2:

Things happen for a reason. You're obviously spiraling, you're in a bad place and then you come across some old friends who are you know, have gone through the services and are very grounded and maybe right place, right time situation for you to get relaunch your career and probably so. Yeah, that's really interesting. So the four of you Scott, rob, paul and yourself you've known each other since childhood. How did these relationships shape the way you built Byte Time together?

Speaker 1:

It's a really good question too, man. You're full of good questions today.

Speaker 2:

You know.

Speaker 1:

I think first and foremost the fact that they're all technical and I'm not created this natural sink for us where I have this I don't know if it's a gift or a curse right Depends on who you're talking to you but when somebody says, can you do this, my answer is just instinctively yeah, let's go, let's go. And then we you know we'd go on meetings and and prospective clients would say could you do this for us? Could, could you? Could you do this? And then we get in the car and say, hey guys, how the hell are we going to do that? I don't know, but y'all are going to figure it out. You know we're more and more confident in answering that question. You have a problem. We're going to figure out a solution, we're going to sell you that solution and then we're going to deploy that solution, then we're going to support that solution and that's the way our business was built, Did those relationships?

Speaker 2:

obviously they helped you, but did they ever cause a friction or a challenge between any situations where those relationships may be? So I work.

Speaker 1:

I coach with a guy that is in intelligence or was in intelligence for the US government military guy, and he talks a lot about these really famous historical generals books that they've written and can't think of any of their names, but he talks a lot about them and they all talk about a concept of friction and how friction can drive conflict. And when you control the friction, you control the conflict. When you control the conflict, you control the direction or the process that you're about to go. And so what I've learned over time is you know we know each other's personalities really, really well and we know what buttons to push and which ones not to push. And I know, when we get into conversations, I've learned over time to keep my mouth shut and ask them the questions and let them answer. When they answer, I'm going to get true, honest feedback of what's in their heart and the way they feel. And it helps guide me to my decision-making process or to our decision-making process.

Speaker 1:

And I know that there's certain ones that I can't ask first because if I ask them first it's going to dominate the conversation. There's ones that if I ask last, if I ask them last, well, they're going to clam up and they're going to get frustrated and not want to say anything because they know their voice is different. But I love, love, love when each one of them will say I want to play devil's advocates here or the devil's advocate here, because I know when they do that we're looking at it from all sides and the decision is going to be pretty good. I think it's Colin Powell that says you know, give me, you know, 30 to 80% of the information. I'm gonna make a solid decision. Give me anything less or anything more, and I probably won't.

Speaker 2:

So you go from a no technical background into running an IT company, but you're this sales guru, right? This master, this motivator. Did you feel like my words, my words, right? I've seen it, brandon, I've seen you sell ice to Eskimos, as they say, right, and so did you ever feel that that depth that you had in sales gave you an advantage?

Speaker 1:

It's funny you say that about selling ice to Eskimos, because what most people don't realize is the weather does get warm in Alaska at times and there's nothing wrong with having a reserve supply. That's great. There's a need, right, there's a need for a reserve Salesman. So I disagree with the analogy. When people say that because Eskimos need ice, all right, they really do. They live in it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so did you ever feel that sales background that you had? You'd run a team of sales, you taught people and now you're coming in and you're the face right, a couple of owners, but you're really the face of this IT company. Now Did you ever feel like that background really gave you an advantage to really catapult you guys?

Speaker 1:

I think if it gave me an advantage, it's given me the ability to kind of get outside, step away from the day-to-day interaction with the clients on the technical support side. If I'm being candid, there's a time in a company where we really struggled and I began to believe it was as a result of my lack of IT background. I began to feel inadequate and broken. Those feelings of inadequacy and brokenness actually changed the course of the company.

Speaker 1:

How'd you get through that brokenness actually changed the course of the company. How'd you get through that? Well, you know, rewind to COVID. Right, we're coming out of COVID and we had lost about 60,000 in MRR at the time, which is for us we're not a big company, we're 14, 15 employees. We had lost a significant amount of our reoccurring revenue and our customer base was obviously shrinking and we were really struggling with lead generation. We were really struggling with marketing. We were really struggling with the changes in our industry because, man, our industry, if you don't like it, just wait a day or two. It'll be something different tomorrow, different tomorrow.

Speaker 1:

And ultimately, what evolved out of that was I started getting bombarded by this guy on Facebook, former MSP owner, talking about how he could teach you how to sell MSP services for $100, $200, $300 a seat, and I drank the Kool-Aid man. And what I got out of it was cybersecurity. Wow, right. And I didn't know much about cybersecurity. We hadn't really been impacted by it. Ransomware was obviously a big deal, but beyond that we really hadn't been touched by it. And anyways, I started researching everything I could about cybersecurity because I didn't understand what it was, but I realized, if I could make it the foot in the door sale. I could sell it and we could turn the course of this company. And so about that time I got some notification for like certification course through the Booth School at the University of Chicago. I was like, well, that sounds interesting, you know. So I'd signed up to take this course on cybersecurity and the day before it was scheduled to start I got notified that it didn't make. So I scrambled and wanted to stay.

Speaker 1:

The course found a course that was being offered of all places, at Harvard, or, as some of the guys I work with like say, harvard, and it's a little bit convincing. I got my foot in the door there and they let me take this course. Man, did I overshoot? I outkicked my coverage. It was just filled with dignitaries, state department officials and these people from some big time organizations. Wow, the certification was in cybersecurity, risk management and compliance, which I was just looking for.

Speaker 1:

Cybersecurity. The other things were bonus. I had no idea how it all tied in. So, anyways, to make a long story short, I started taking this course and the proctor first thing he says is this is taught by Harvard. The certificate will say Harvard on it. You should expect to be treated and prepare like a Harvard student. It was about that time I said, oh crap, I think I bit off more than I could chew. But anyways, I stuck with it, finished the course. It was supposed to take about 20 hours a month. You know I'm not the brightest, smartest cat in the litter, so it took me about 20 hours a week of studying and worked my way through it and in the end I was a little more adept at speaking the language and I'm actually certified now to be able to go on to any businesses' front doors and tell them how to harden their cybersecurity posture. That's great, brandon.

Speaker 2:

Thank you for sharing that story I remember you telling that before and thanks for going into a bit more depth on who was actually in the room for these. So have you always been that way, brandon? Someone, that's, if you didn't know know the answers. You either read a book or you went and you researched it because it seems like you know, you started out and you have an MSB. You weren't even really familiar with the term MSB, yeah, and then you're being asked to sort of transform this stagnant business into something else, something new. So how did you figure out? What the heck? I don't needed to.

Speaker 1:

I don't think that I was asked to do it. I think we were just in a place where we were kind of drifting along.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

And that's the thing I think in the number one bestselling book of all time. It talks about that. We've got to pay close attention to what we hear, because if not, we'll drift away, will drift away. And if you think about the last time you were on a boat or in the ocean, you get in the water and you pull up to a spot and you're sitting there and all of a sudden you're having a good time, you're enjoying yourself listening to music, fishing, and all of a sudden you look up and you're way over here and you start asking yourself well, how did I get from way over there to way over here? Well, what does it take to drift from way over there to way over here? And you know what? The answer is Nothing. It takes absolutely nothing. You do nothing and you will just drift.

Speaker 1:

And I felt like that's what we were doing. We had lost sight of, like when we started the company or when I got involved. We went from just you know 14 accounts and we're just kind of it was all break, fix. And then we went to this situation where we were showing up at customer sites and they were saying, hey, can you do this? And we say yeah, and I mean we got involved with an RMM tool because somebody asked us how we were going to monitor their devices. I had no idea what they were talking about, figured it out, and so we found an Able and Able became our first partner, our first corporate vendor partner Customer would ask us.

Speaker 1:

And then eventually I got to the point where I was like there's got to be a better way to do this. And so I started reaching out to again buddies of mine that I grew up with and you know guys working at Halliburton and Shell and Exxon, and said, man, how are y'all doing this? How are you supporting 50,000 users? You know, and they started telling me about tools they were using and different resources they had. And so I started.

Speaker 1:

I got my second best friend in the world is Google, and so I just started Googling these resources and started reaching out to these people and telling them what we're trying to do. And, hey, is there a way that you can give me what you've got at a price that I can go sell it to small businesses? I want enterprise level services and solutions that I can provide at a small business price. And that's how we grew the company and that's how we grew and it went fast, really fast, and then all of a sudden, I think the market got stagnant, like we just got saturated with we hit this MSP boom, you know, eight or 10 years ago, and the market just went flat, you know, and so leads started drying up and COVID hit. And I don't know that I can take credit and say I'm this great visionary or strategist. I just think crap happens and you either embrace it and work through it or you tuck tail and run.

Speaker 2:

I don't think you give yourself enough credit. I'm sure it wasn't you alone, but I think you have the personality to be able to get people together and solve problems and motivate them. You're a pretty good thinker, you know a pretty good logical thinker.

Speaker 1:

Chris, it goes back to that first comment I made. I'm waiting on this guy you keep talking to show up, because the guy sitting here doesn't feel that way. I mean, I got a great team. We just really try to focus on alignment, assignment and execution. You know, are we properly aligned? Are we where we're supposed to be, when we're supposed to be there? You know, assignment, do our people understand the assignment? And if you can do those two things and put them together, this third step being relentless, relentlessly pursuing, success happens on its own.

Speaker 2:

So ByteDime's service-first approach has been a cornerstone to the success of your business.

Speaker 1:

How did you develop that philosophy and how do you keep that focus with the company as it grows? As you know, I'm a high school coach and been a high school football and baseball coach for close to two decades, and one of the things that I say to my players I say to other coaches all the time, it's a staple I love you, I love you. And for me, like, love is what this whole thing is about, and I know it sounds cheesy, but just bear with me here because you'll understand where I'm coming from. If you love what you do, you're going to show up and do a good job every day. If you love who you do it with, you're going to show up and do a good job every day. Right, you're going to do your best, you're gonna put your best foot forward. And if you love why, you do it same thing. And those first two things become even easier, and so if you're capable of telling somebody that that's the hard part, showing them is easy.

Speaker 1:

For me, anyways, saying it, backing it up, becomes that much easier, right, and so for us, you know, I think that I'm surrounded by guys that I've known since I was five, for 45 years. Those dudes are all old. They're all 50. Now I'm only 49. I'm the baby of the bunch. We show up to work every day because we love each other and we have for a very long time and we love our parents. We love, you know, each other's parents have been a part of our lives for as long as we've been alive, I mean. So service to us is just simply being a part of something bigger than yourself, and that's the way we were raised, and we're still cutting cloth with the same guys we've been cutting cloth with for 45 years.

Speaker 2:

That's great. You mentioned you love coaching. Why is that?

Speaker 1:

I'm a believer and I'm an obedient believer. For those out there listening that they'll know what I'm talking about. I think that God calls me to be a spiritual head of my household. It's his words, not mine. So in that area, that arena, I'm in a leadership position. I'm father to four children. In that area I'm a leadership position.

Speaker 1:

I don't consider myself the head of bite time, but I carry the title of president. I'm in a position and when I get on that football field it allows me to be a part of something bigger than myself. It allows me to just be, not to take anything away from real guys out there who fight wars for a living, but it allows me just to be a soldier and get to be on the front lines and in the trenches. But I tell my kids all the time this that the greatest gift God gave you is your spirit. He gave you that brain to protect your spirit.

Speaker 1:

And you know we're raising young men in a world today that is defined to confine a young man's heart with political correctness, racism, feminism, liberalism. I just pissed off half your listeners, off half your listeners. But look, truth is is that a football field, a baseball field are two of the last places on earth that you can go, be what God meant you to be, and that's fearless. In Genesis it says that he created you in his image and I think it's in Ezekiel. He says that he has a warrior-like heart, or the heart of a warrior. They call him Yahweh, and if he created you in his image and he has the heart of a warrior, what type of heart does he expect a young man to have? In some small way, I had coaches that poured themselves into me, that carved out a path for me to turn back to when I strayed, and I feel like I'd be cheating the system if I didn't repay that.

Speaker 2:

I got to witness your coaching firsthand a couple of years ago, and what was really fun about this at your practice is you had a mic on and so we got a little of the behind the scenes and what was interesting to me was yeah, there was X's and O's Tog, but you're asking the kids how are you doing in school, how are you doing with your grades? You're treating your parents with respect, I mean, you're having different conversations with those kids. Why is that so important for you?

Speaker 1:

Again, I had coaches that poured themselves into me. I mean absolutely poured themselves into me. And it goes back to that what I said earlier If you're going to tell somebody you love them, you better know them. Don't just say it, you better mean it. And how do you mean it if you don't know them and you got to engage in their lives?

Speaker 2:

You talked earlier that success got the better of you, so how have you handled it differently, now that bite time is starting to thrive?

Speaker 1:

Well, I'm going to correct you there. Success didn't get the better of me, money got the better of you. Money got the better of you, money got the better of me. Okay, you know, I think that it's for a different reason, right, and I hope, if anybody takes this away, what they take away from this conversation we're having today is that, you know, loving other people, being of service to other people surrounded myself by great people and, as a matter of fact, you know, you said earlier, everything happens for a reason, you know, and it all kind of connects.

Speaker 1:

And, and I actually had have recently had the opportunity in our company to offer wise counsel to a person going through similar situation, and I'm not gonna say I did a good job, but I felt like I would not have been able to be there for this person in the way that I was had I not been through my own trials and tribulations. And, by the way, one thing I've learned through coaching and doing this is that nobody wants to hear a story from some dude who's been silver spoon fed. They want to hear about a guy, a gal, who's challenged hell with a bucket of water and believe that they had the faith to put the water out. Confidence to put the water out.

Speaker 2:

Brandon, you talked in the past about embracing chaos and using fuel. Can you share a specific example of where you've had a chaotic situation at bite time and maybe turned that into a positive outcome?

Speaker 1:

Well, I mean coming out of COVID was pretty dang chaotic in itself. But I'm thinking of two and I'm just wondering if I want to put one on a podcast.

Speaker 2:

You can speak in generalities.

Speaker 1:

if that's no, I mean, I think, if I could speak just in general about the chaos our industry faces, it's constantly changing. 10 or 15 years ago, let's go 20 years ago the term MSP really came into existence. And I'm speaking this from from. Uh, my second best friend told me right, yeah, google says that the term MSP really didn't come into existence until the early 2000s. So let's go 20 years ago.

Speaker 1:

Well, 10 to 15 years ago we started calling ourselves MSPs. But if we were even in business, most MSPs weren't business. 10 or 15 years ago, what we really were was we were selling some specialty. But if we were even in business, most MSPs weren't in business. 10 or 15 years ago, what we really were was we were selling some specialty service or we were a break-fix company. And then you fast forward 10 years ago, we really started hitting the MSP boom. Like, you know, that's when your customers started knowing, when you told them, hey, I'm an MSP, and people stopped going. Well, what's that? You know, they knew. Well, five years ago we really started the cybersecurity boom. You know, two to three years ago we started pushing compliance and insurance regulations. Right, Mm-hmm.

Speaker 1:

Well, think about recently, more recently, how much our stacks have changed, right, like the things we've added email security suite, edr, mdr, soc and SIEM. You know, hardware as a service. We've gone to hardware as a service, left hardware as a service, came back to hardware as a service. I mean, the list of things we have now that we provide as MSPs is just too long, right, but it's like this necessary thing that we have to do. I remember a time when we first got started, all you needed was a good RMM, and so my point in sharing all this is, like our industry, our organizations and our delivery models face chaos every day, every day.

Speaker 1:

And here's the deal we can either face the chaos, see what we can do with it, use it as fuel for the company, or we can practice what I call the ostrich strategy, which I've been guilty of at times. You know, just burying my head in the sand and hoping it's just going to fly on by Right, and at that moment you start to realize well, the world's going to change around me or it's going to change me as a result. Right, and back to the food analogy. Chaos is kind of like fuel for your company. It's food for your company. If we put the right food in our body, we're going to live a healthy life, we're going to grow, we're going to thrive, we're going to excel. And if we don't, if we put poor quality food or bad food, or we don't put food in our body at all chaos, challenge we're going to end up falling apart, deteriorating, be passed by, eventually absorbed or done away with, and so, for me, embracing chaos is the fuel for growth.

Speaker 2:

That's great, Brandon. Appreciate you sharing that. So what are you the most excited about with Bite?

Speaker 1:

Time as you look towards the future, man, I don't know if I have the best life in the world, like I. Literally I've got a beautiful wife who, like is fantastic, supports me. Happy anniversary. Well, it's funny, you brought that up on camera. Like literally 10 minutes ago, my wife texted me and said happy anniversary. Well, it's funny, you brought that up on camera. Like literally 10 minutes ago, my wife texted me and said happy anniversary. And so happy anniversary, man. So I forgot just to be honest.

Speaker 1:

I mean. So we got four amazing kids Our oldest daughter's in school in Georgia. Our oldest son's committed to play baseball. He's a switch hit and catcher at Rice. Our two youngest are fantastic.

Speaker 1:

Yeah just can't say enough about them. But to answer your question, here it is. I wake up every morning and maybe this is selfish of me to do this, but I force a leadership call and every morning at 8 am Rob, scott, paul and now Nauf have to get on a call with me every single morning at eight o'clock. I look forward to that call, man, like like I'm forcing, maybe I'm buying my buddies, but hey, I force them to get on this call with me. And we don't just talk about business, we talk about life. You know, we I'm all over the place, man. That's, that's what I look forward to every day, I mean that that call.

Speaker 2:

That's awesome, Brandon. So the question we ask everyone is when did you know?

Speaker 1:

now that's it you know there was a time Scott and I were trying to figure all this out and my wife at the time was selling advertising and we were running out of money. Just to know, we were running out of money.

Speaker 1:

You know, just to be candid, we were running out of money trying to get this business off the ground and we were I don't want to say desperate, but we knew something had to change. She's one of the extremely encouraging women. And did I say she was beautiful? Because she is? You did say it, she's stunning. I outkicked my coverage man. I do that a lot. So one night, you know, we're in this situation where we don't know where we're going or how we're going to get there. Clearly, I'm feeling inadequate and starting to doubt myself, you know. And we were laying in bed and the lights were out and I hear her sweet voice say it might be time. It might be time to find a real job. And it wasn't. It wasn't that she had given up hope or that she didn't believe in me. She knew how to motivate me. And about a year later, I thought about that conversation and we had money in the bank and we had employees and we were still doing it.

Speaker 2:

And that's when I knew I made it. Thank you so much for sharing that, brandon. That was really special. You are a good friend, a great colleague. I'm really glad you could join us this week, share your story, and I wish you and the Byte Time guys the absolute best in the future. I just have one question for you.

Speaker 1:

What's that. If you were to rank how handsome all of your guests have been. If I didn't have this beard, where would I?

Speaker 2:

be. I've actually seen a picture of you without your beard. Have you really? I didn't recognize you. Have you really? I think it's your LinkedIn picture.

Speaker 1:

I think you need to polish that. I cut that out. Me and my bride were at a wedding.

Speaker 2:

I'd have you two without the beard, two without the beard, but one like one, far above everybody, with the beard.

Speaker 1:

Let me share one last thing with your listeners. I don't know where I heard this from or who said it, but I'm on this quote right now, and that is that the best teams are made up of a bunch of nobodies who love everybody, will serve anybody and don't give a crap about being a somebody.

Speaker 2:

Awesome. Thank you so much, Brimman. Thank you for having me.