Now That's IT: Stories of MSP Success

Leaders Helping Leaders: 9 Memorable Stories of MSP Success

N-able Season 2 Episode 26

In this special recap episode of Now That’s IT: Stories of MSP Success, host Chris Massey and producer Stephen McNulty, are joined by guest John Joyce, revisit nine of the most memorable episodes from the podcast’s 45-episode journey. From navigating the 2008 financial crisis to building thriving MSPs with resilience, transparency, and collaboration, this episode dives deep into the inspiring stories that define the MSP community. 

Highlights include lessons on leadership, partnerships, and finding purpose through adversity. Whether you’re an MSP veteran or just curious about the space, this retrospective offers actionable insights and a look at what’s to come in Season 3.

Listen now and join the conversation shaping the future of IT.

Matt Hutter:

Side Hustle to Successful MSP: Matt Hutter on Starting and Growing His Business

An intriguing narrative of Matt Hutter who transformed his side gig into a thriving enterprise, all while navigating the tumultuous terrains of a recession and family life.

 

Brandon Layhew

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

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.

 

Bente Roycroft

Customer to CEO: Bente Roycroft on Transforming Accurate Network for Growth

Bente Roycroft, CEO of Accurate Network Services, paints a vivid picture of her transition from environmental consulting to leading a thriving IT business. Bente reveals how an appreciation for the written word set the stage for triumphs in hiring, HR, accounting, and strategic business planning. 

 

Ted Clouser

N-able also produces Beyond the Horizon. Hosted by industry veterans, this podcast delves deep into the findings of the annual MSP Horizons Report, providing actionable insights to transform your IT business. 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. 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.

Speaker 2:

Welcome everyone, excited to have you all here for a special episode of Now that's it Stories of MSP Success. I have a couple of special guests. You'll notice it's not just one, we've got two here and the first I just want to introduce. He's a legend in definitely the Florida market, if not the Southeast, a University of Florida graduate and a friend of mine, mr John Joyce. John, tell everybody a little bit about yourself and your MSP, please.

Speaker 3:

I'm not going to tell any legends, that's for sure. So no, thank you and go Gators. No, so CRS, I'm one of the owners here. Company has been internally famously around as long as I have. We're the same age, so company's 37 years old at this point. I'm part of. You know what we laughingly refer to as the fourth generation of ownership, but it's not family generations, it's just always been internally, you know, bought from within, as it were. So it's never gone through outside M&A, it's never gone to outside sale. We're just, you know, it's always been CRS doing its CRS thing for the decades.

Speaker 3:

At this point I'm just, you know, honored to be able to come up, you know, as part of a. You know I was brought into the company. I had started an MSP gosh 20 years ago almost now an IT company, more by the name back then and then grew that to a handful of people, met CRS and then I merged into CRS, but again not in an ownership way. I came in as a technical director to you know not to retell that whole story, there's an episode out there somewhere about it I came through as on the engineering side of the house, but then, when you know, the ownership at the time was ready for their next chapter. My now business partner and I said well, what about us? And here we are. So you know, kind of taking CRS into that again, that next generation of what it's going to mean as a culture, as a company, as partners in this MSP community, that's so, so important to us.

Speaker 2:

Awesome so important to us?

Speaker 3:

Awesome. But more importantly, I wanted to start off with a question, chris, because now for you know, I think it's upwards of 45 episodes you've been asking folks like me about us, so I wanted to actually put you in the seat and ask you know, tell us about you, it's your turn.

Speaker 2:

I never loved to talk about myself, but I'll give you I'll give you some brief background and, by the way, a more detailed explanation of John's sort of background in the history of his MSP. He was in season one, so I'd love for you guys to check that one out, and we're going to talk about some other episodes as well. All right, so about me many of you know this already because I have a lot of friends that watch this podcast, but for those that don't, I actually come from the MSP space as well. I had a chance to join in a small little shop, about a 15, 20 person shop, oh, say, 18 or so years ago. This thing called MSP wasn't really a thing yet. It was pretty much a hardware resale and installation and time and materials hardware resale and installation and time and materials.

Speaker 2:

And we came across a vendor in the field that I actually work with now work for now that had this idea of like, just charge a monthly charge and do stuff proactively and people will love it. And so we tried that and I tell you what it took off. And we grew from that 15 person shop to about a 70 person shop, went through an acquisition, doubled in size, continued to grow to until we got to about 280 employees, and then I had a chance to move on to Greener Pastures and get where we are today. Pretty cool. My background though I've run operations, so I'm definitely on the technical operation side, procedure side, but I took a stint in marketing and I ran marketing for a couple of years. Yeah, I know that's pretty weird, huh, so I did that for a couple of years You've actually done it all.

Speaker 2:

I've had some fun times, but and maybe that's why I love doing this and and again, that's kind of why we're here today is I love letting MSPs tell their stories about themselves, and that's why this podcast is named what it is. And I tell you what I want to introduce somebody else, or pass it over to somebody else. For this man right here, mr Stephen McNulty, there would be no. Now that's it. He is the brains behind the operation, the producer, if you will. He makes it all look good.

Speaker 3:

The actual legend.

Speaker 2:

Makes me look good. So, mr McNulty, please introduce yourself. Yeah, I appreciate it.

Speaker 4:

I run a lot of the organic content for us here at Enable, and I have a journalism background and I believe in storytelling, like you just said, and so I came to Chris about two years ago and said, look, I think that we should do a podcast and just have MSPs tell their story. And Chris and others said, well, what are we going to talk about Enable? And I said it doesn't matter. And he said, well, how do you know, or how do we know these MSPs have stories, or what stories are we going to go out and get and know these? You know MSPs have stories, or what stories are we going to go out and get? And I said I don't know. Just tell me who's interesting, who have you talked to, who have you met, or or who's doing? Pretty well, and I'll take the gamble that, if we talk to them for 45 minutes to an hour, you are going to find some really powerful and interesting stories, whether it be from the entrepreneurship, um, or just, you know, owning a business or running a business at a high level, and I think one of the coolest parts is that you believed me once.

Speaker 4:

We started pretty quickly. I think the coolest part, though, is how quickly the guests believe us after they didn't. They're like what do you want to talk to us for? What do you want to talk to me about? I don't have anything to offer. And then afterwards, when we talked to them for a little bit, they go oh, I get what you mean. Now there's a few lessons in my life that are, you know, maybe worth sharing, and so we tapped into that pretty quickly and I can't believe it's been about a year and a half now 45 episodes and so I thought today it would be fun to do a different style episode and play some clips. We pulled out about nine of some of our most memorable. They're not all of them, like you said, there's plenty, but these are nine of the ones that we chose, and we just want to play the clips for you and count them down and walk through them. So, as I mentioned, it's really about the stories.

Speaker 4:

So let's go ahead and jump into the first one that I've pulled out, and that's Matt Hutter, who, like a lot of folks John you in a different way were impacted by the 2008 financial crisis. I really liked Matt's story about how he got started, so let me go ahead and play that for you.

Speaker 8:

I told myself, chris, maybe I'd go out on my own someday. I don't know if I would have ever had the guts if I wasn't pushed out of the nest. October 1st 2008,. Got laid off, came home at lunch in the middle of the week. My wife's like why are you home lunch in the middle of the week. My wife's like why are you home? And I'm like funny story. The next day the front page of the Wall Street Journal listed that company I worked for with 600 of us. It mentioned. 600 people were laid off from my employer, so it softened the blow a little bit, but I was happy I had the side work at that point.

Speaker 2:

I've stayed in touch with Matt over the years and what's been really impressive is how Matt has stayed so positive, like even on those rainy days. I actually saw him last week in Raleigh for I think his fourth or fifth business transformation program that we've run, and he still was talking about this sort of initial time. We met in his office years ago, you know, when we were sort of pitching this idea of let's get MSPs together and allow them to talk to each other you know peer group style and and he was so excited about it Cause I mean he told us he's like I only know what I know. And then as he got to talk to folks, he realized he was doing some things really, really well and I think I think it's a big reason why he's been able to keep such a talented team that he's hired over the years. I mean he has a small team but his, his turnover is very, very low and it's just what a great personality, what a great guy.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, what you just said, chris, and I and I agree to know, and Matt also, I only know what I know that's a big component of the collaboration piece of this community, though, because we all only have a piece of the puzzle, some more than others because we're all different.

Speaker 3:

You know stages of our own journey and that through you know the maturity of the business. But getting people together in a room and that's been one of the, you know I've also darkened the rooms of many of those business transformation events and hope to do more in the future. And time and time again I get asked why Not in a negative sense, but still just why? And over and over I leave those opportunities with A far more than I ever brought to the table. But hopefully everyone gets that experience because we all have those nuggets, those pieces to bring. And again, that collaboration is one of the things that makes this community and this business maybe not solely unique, but definitely rare. I don't know many other lines of business where people that are objectively competitors can get together in a room and tell the deepest, darkest secrets of their business with as much openness and transparency as we do. Maybe we're all crazy, but I would say, on the whole it's worked out pretty well for us.

Speaker 4:

So a question for you, John. I think you have a unique relation, like I said to Matt, in this 08 financial crisis thing and I think entrepreneurs do as well to what I'm talking about, and that is the unrelenting adversity that you yes. And what that actually does to you. How do you think and I think it may have shaped Matt, and how has it shaped you where coming out in the 08 financial crisis like based on adversity from the start.

Speaker 3:

It was a crucible right. I mean those that you know. Everyone, every business generation, has its own form of adversity. You know whether it's in the best or the worst of times, but I think everyone can universally agree that was a somewhat unique set of times and no matter where you were, he was in the workforce.

Speaker 3:

In my case, I was preparing to enter, I was wrapping up, as Chris mentioned earlier. I was in my later years at UF looking out at a job market that did not want me, or they had a hard enough time dealing with the people that were already on their respective payrolls. They were not looking to take a bunch of snotty-nosed kids out of college that thought they knew what they were doing. We didn't, by the way. But you know I remember the decision to start that business then and again not to redo our episode from a year ago. But I looked at my best friend at the time and said we have two choices, you know roll the dice on ourselves or hope someone else is going to take us up on the offer. And you know, when the I feel that connection to Matt's story and so many like it where that time period.

Speaker 3:

There were a lot of those monolithic decisions to be made. I'm either going to go left or right, up or down. The only choice I don't have is to do nothing. I suppose many folks could make that decision, but that entrepreneurial piece I don't think that's in any of our DNA. To just sit, just sit by and, you know, hope for the best or wonder what's going to come next For better, for worse. We're going to charge forward and try.

Speaker 3:

Many, many, don't mishear me. Many things didn't work, tons of things didn't work. I could spend a lot more time talking about those than the ones that did. We just always managed to sometimes be lucky a few other times, be good and have the end result be what we built out of school and then, I said, or said earlier, later came to CRS and then has become part of the CRS DNA over the last decade and what I hope you know, it continues to evolve for years ahead and for all those other MSPs. But those of us that can draw the roots back to those moments, I agree with you. I think there's there's something again maybe not unique but certainly special about looking into that kind of very murky future and saying let's go, cause that's the only choice we had.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, interesting, so to to move on to our next one there. So, brandon Leahy. I'd like to play a clip from his episode. It was a recent episode and another one who you know, in a way it was forced where he he decided to step back himself, but kind of step back and looked at, looked at in the face and said what are we going to do? And then I one of my favorite parts of his episode is how he shared the support of his wife and how his wife supported him and pushed him again. That was a big part of Matt's story as well, so I'll play that clip here from Brandon.

Speaker 6:

Life has a way of humbling. You know we make tough decisions, but ultimately, how do you learn from them? I think that's what matters.

Speaker 6:

And so I slowed down. I went to work for a local nonprofit in Houston and met some great people, and about that time I met my wife, and eventually I wanted to get back into the business world and take another shot at it and start making some money again. And I reached out to Scott. He had started BiteTime 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 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. So Seek Wise Counsel, you know. And so I reached out to Scott to see about his experience and called him up one day.

Speaker 4:

I said Scotty well, how's bite time. So, Chris, let me ask you. I mean, he talks a lot about, you know, seeking wise counsel, and I think that's something that you guys have really pushed forward in in business transformation and it carries through throughout a lot of the podcast there. So, kind of, what's your reaction to, to the story?

Speaker 2:

Well, brandon is an amazing person. I mean every person, everybody we're going to talk today. I'm going to say this they're amazing people.

Speaker 2:

And everybody that's on the podcast is as well. Brandon is, and he'll be mad that I call him this. Brandon could be a prophet. Like Brandon says the most wise things and it's just what he's thinking at the time, or what he's thought through, and he's very composed. He doesn't you know, he doesn't spout nonsense. Like he says some of the most amazing stuff at the most amazing times. A very religious person, very sort of you know, founded. His home life is very, very solid. I met his wife in Raleigh a couple of weeks ago. I mean, she's an amazing woman.

Speaker 2:

But this interview was especially memorable to me. If you listen to it, you probably didn't catch this. If you watch the YouTube version of it, you may have seen a little bit of a glassy eye tear. I've been known to wear my heart on my sleeve, but I remember how this episode affected me.

Speaker 2:

I was just so happy and like and proud of of the point that Brandon was able to get to, both personally and professionally. I mean, he takes us through this entire journey and he had had a really, really tough time in his life personally that you know that many of us may not be able to get out of. And not only did he get out of that? But he's been incredibly successful and inspirational to so many others. He's another close friend of mine. I've heard him talk to so many other people business folks as well as friends. They don't even know what an MSP is. They've heard this story and they walk away going man, that's a story that really hit home. So I hope you listen to every single one of our episodes, but this is one that if you got some time over the holiday.

Speaker 2:

Definitely check it out.

Speaker 3:

Now his is there. There are some stories that are MSP stories, right, and they connect with us because we're professionals and it's what we, it's what we do. So much of Brandon's story. It's a human story and that transcends more than the business. That transcends more than what we're all here to do every day. That is, I agree with you.

Speaker 3:

I've gotten to know him very well and several of his peers are at bite time and I respect the heck out of all of them. But Brandon especially, just every time I talk to him, what I said earlier walking away with more than I brought to the table. You want to talk about somebody. I owe in that, in that, the equitability of that exchange. I have never felt where I'm like man. He got it out of me today. No it's. I've always walked away with more than a nugget, a bag of stuff to really ponder and think about, genuinely wise, but also heartfelt, and again, that's, that's human and that's a. That's something special. So I couldn't agree more. If you, if you've got the 45 minutes I don't know many things you're going to better invest that time in the coming days and weeks.

Speaker 4:

So another part of Brandon's story that's interesting is he says in the episode that he had to have someone come over, and he may be joking, but had to have someone come over and set a router up for him.

Speaker 3:

I remember that.

Speaker 4:

He's not the IT guy. He has a unique journey and another one that comes to mind and we have a few of those stories throughout but another one that comes to mind was Benta Raycroft, who we spoke to at Empower Frisco, who was actually a customer of the MSP that she would eventually go on to lead.

Speaker 10:

He says that he was wooing me for years. I don't know that. I even recognized that at the time we would go out for coffee and everything would be like, hey, can I bounce this idea off of you? And so it was that sort of approach that he took to bringing me into Accurate, and so by the time he actually had the direct conversation with me, I was already invested in the growth of Accurate.

Speaker 10:

The other thing is with Luke and any partnership. I think that knowing your partner, knowing the values and the vision that your partner has for the business and being aligned with them on that, that's the main thing, and I knew at that point, like I already knew, that Luke and I were going to be good partners, and so it wasn't too much of a jump for me to to dive in.

Speaker 2:

How long did that take for you to to see that, hey, I'm bought in. I'm going to take this thing forward.

Speaker 10:

It was probably close to a year from the time that I started the consulting and the time that I I actually bought in to Accurate. If you talk to Luke about it, he'll say that this was inevitable. It was going to happen. He just knew it was going to happen and so it just occurred.

Speaker 2:

And yes, God, my hair looked so much better back then. It wasn't that long ago.

Speaker 3:

I won't comment on the hair, but it was a great shirt though, chris really I was wearing the brand.

Speaker 4:

You've seen a lot of MSPs. How unique is that setup and what do you think makes it so powerful?

Speaker 2:

It's extremely unique. First of all, let me mention Benta Incredibly inspiring, incredibly passionate. She makes the perfect CEO the perfect leader. I don't know that she ever sort of set out to be that, but she gets people to follow her into battle, into war, into the trenches, and so I think that's what Luke, her partner, saw in her when she was a customer and why he quartered her for so long.

Speaker 2:

So, yeah, very, very unique that you see someone not not only I mean, you see someone, not only I mean occasionally a customer, it tech or something like that will jump to an MSP. There's usually a conflict of interest, so it doesn't happen too often, but occasionally it's okay well, we're going to go a different direction and then you make your way back. I don't know that I've ever seen one that's been a customer non-technical and then become the leader of the whole thing. She's not only charted her sort of success with her personality and her business acumen, but you know she's found this partner in Luke that believed in her so much that he took that risk. You know and we haven't had a chance to interview Luke yet but I'd love to ask him where was your brain when you were?

Speaker 2:

like we're going to hand it over and Luke's still very much involved. But to be able to give Ben to the controls like obviously she is an amazing person and well deserving of it, but also an amazing guy on the other side in Luke that gave her that opportunity.

Speaker 3:

Partnership comes in so many different flavors, right, there's different versions, and it either works or it doesn't. Obviously, that's an extreme example of man From the outside looking in at least, and gotten to know them as I have. It sure seems to be working real well. And it does make me think about you know. We know what we know and it's as important, maybe more important, to know what we don't know, and that's one of those types of partnership that I think excels above most of the rest. It makes me think about, you know again, the blessings we have, even internally here.

Speaker 3:

You know, I'm, I'm, I'm half of a whole. You know I obviously bring more of a technical background, but you know, business has always been seated through all that. But you, but you know, business has always been seeded through all that. But you know, julie, my business partner, entirely non-technical. So it's that's, that's everything I don't know.

Speaker 3:

No one wants to be in charge of benefits, nobody wants me making sure payroll hits on time, like all these things that are again have to do with the quality of life for the humans that show up and work every day. Could I sit down and read a book and figure it out? Sure would it be done with the attention to detail and the efficiency and the effectiveness at someone that's good at that job? Absolutely not, and that's so hearing like. Their version of that was like we know what we bring to the table, but it's as important to know what we need from the others at that table to make the whole that much better. I just think that's. I get so many different types of partnership, but that's one that speaks to me because I watch at work every day, here and elsewhere.

Speaker 4:

So that may be one of our most unique journeys, partnerships that we have, I think and while the next episode is that we'll talk about is Ted Clouser, it's not exactly the most unique. It's a lot of those same storylines that we hear in a lot of these. I think he may have one of the most transparent and authentic episodes and stories and that was really powerful. So let me play a clip for you In 2018,.

Speaker 12:

After we purchased the company, I found myself in a state of depression. I really wasn't myself and I had to work through that. And I remember part of the turning point. My wife looked at me and she said listen, this has been a hard road, but I just want you to tell me what is the worst that can happen. And so I said, well, I'm so glad you asked this and this and this and this and this. And she said, wow, that would be really bad. What else? I said, well, then, it would be this and this and this and this.

Speaker 12:

And she said, oh, that would be awful. Then what? I said? What do you mean then? What that's like as bad as it gets. And she said you're right, but now, if that's as bad as it gets, let's focus on digging out of this hole one day at a time. And so the go win the day mantra was really as much for myself as it was to try to encourage others. So it was my technique of how I got out of that state one day at a time, the one and O mentality.

Speaker 4:

Chris, I know that was a memorable episode for you.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, another emotional one for me. You know, we had, I had, I'd known, I'd known Ted before, met him before, spent some time with him, we talked about his story and he sort of gave us the cliff notes. But when we went, when we got into this episode and I started to ask him about this win the day, because he uses it all the time in his social posts and he gave us that answer and he started talking about this deep depression, this buyer's remorse that he had after he acquired his MSP, you know, the one that he had worked at for years. So this wasn't like it was a I don't know what. I just bought the one that he had worked at for years. So this wasn't like it was a I don't know what. I just bought, it was oh boy, I'm in charge.

Speaker 2:

And he and he really, really, you know, went into sort of a downward spiral.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I almost lost it.

Speaker 2:

It was really really hard to hear him tell this story, but then to hear him talk about his wife, stephanie, who I've also met and is an amazing woman, and how she and a couple of the other sort of leaders in the organization basically said you know, ted, you go, take care of yourself, right, we're going to keep this thing afloat, we're going to keep it moving and then, when you're ready, you get back into it.

Speaker 2:

And Ted was able to do that. And you know, I just I just think that this is one that I know that when you talk about unique, I don't think what happened to Ted is very unique, like, I think that's something that a lot of people go through, especially when they do something that's sort of outside their comfort zone or the risk tolerance. And again, really cool guy, another inspirational guy, very religious, and I and I love that sort of he was able to use religion to help him get out of that that depression. And I and I love that sort of he was able to use religion to help him get out of that, um, that depression.

Speaker 3:

And and I'm so happy for him today, Even just the concept of winning the day man. Talk about stuff that speaks to anyone that sits in the chair and just deals with. You know every business is different, but it's one that I think is a through line through the MSP community is there's never a permanent solve right. Our job, if we're doing it correctly, is never done. I tell people when we're doing mutual interviews all the time for prospective hires, if I ever come to work one day and say I figured it all out, I'm good at it all, that's my sign. Right, that's it, I'm done. I better have found the next thing because the time's already passed the need to not just win the day but invest in that day and what's next every single time.

Speaker 3:

I think it's what makes this business amazing. I'd get bored so fast doing anything I could actually ever get quote, unquote good at that need to show up and fight, cause, especially in the modern version of this business, it is a fight. I mean, we're on this. You know the cybersecurity landscape and everything else. You know.

Speaker 3:

I tell people all the time we all got into this business fixing printers for a living and woke up one day as cyber cops. No one asked. That's just how we came to work one day, and so the concept of literally winning the day. There's a lot of very cold hard fact to that statement, because A we had to celebrate winning today but we have to come back and do it again tomorrow, and that's not meant to be a negative. But that journey, that struggle continues and if that's not what you're there for, that could be one of your signs that the business is not for everyone, and I was thrilled to see you know how he came out the other end of it, but at least having the presence of mind to decide is this for me anymore. You know, some folks should have those harder conversations not fun, but they should happen.

Speaker 4:

I think another episode that really speaks to everyone like you said, but in a different way, with the wise counsel, is Boyd Smith, another business transformation veteran and very candid about the struggles of being an entrepreneur, and full of good one-liners and tips. So I'll play a clip of it there.

Speaker 9:

There is a big difference between being self-employed and being a business owner and a lot of small business people. They go into it that they just really want to be the best them they can be. They want to be the best salesman they can be, they want to be the best technician they can be, they want to be the best coder they can be and they really want to not held back and just be the best and they actually own their job. A business owner in contracts has a totally different mindset. It's all about the team that you built, it's all about the systems that you built, it's all about the integration.

Speaker 9:

And if you want to really know the difference between a self-employed person and a business owner, you know. If a business owner leaves for a week, you know are people still served If a business owner leaves for a month or three months or whatever the case is. If a business owner leaves for a month or three months or whatever cases, are the customers still cared for? Does the income still come in? Are people still served to a high level? Or if you're not working, does the income quit? Does the service quit? Does the people you're serving suffer? And that's the big difference between a self-employed and a business owner.

Speaker 3:

John, I'd love to hear your take on that. Talk about a whole other episode, but the best version I can do right here right now. I got to know boy, we've met several times through numerous other events, but really by luck and absence got to connect at the most recent Enable Austin security event and generally spent the better part of an evening just trading those war stories about exactly that and the business owner versus self-employed. Again, because that was a big part of our conversation, because I've lived, continue to live, through all versions of that. Again, when we started out, my, my, my again lifelong friend and I started that first business, um, you want to talk about self-employed? If I wasn't awake, there was, the work wasn't getting done. I mean, it's just that, was it? Um, we were it for a very, very long time and then the, the byproduct of that, was so built into me that even once I then entered a larger body at CRS, sure, I had what to me was an enormous amount of resources, still a small business, for sure, but you know, compared to four or five people, you know, upwards of 30, felt like an army. But I reacted the wrong way. I held on to even more. I, if I, you know, I'll just do it myself, was far too often the mantra of the day for myself and some of the hardest habits to break that I continue to work on. Today I'll come back to what's actually best for CRS as a company, what's actually best for our team as our culture and how I support them in my chair, and, you know, what's best for the partners that we serve every day and me. Needing to be involved is the opposite of that in so much as something we're journeying through right now. We just we just changed one of our major software platforms internally.

Speaker 3:

It was a conscious decision. I can't be assigned a ticket anymore and that's by design, and that wasn't because I was. You know, you don't give me stuff to do. It was to stop me from saying just give it to me, they can't, they can't, I can't even tell them to just give it to me, and that was. You know. Again, it's a. It's a very technical, you know, minute detail, but it was a big Rubicon for me to cross.

Speaker 3:

So that, and that's that's a, you know, a 15 plus year journey in the making to say, in my role, how am I best serving those three things I listed before. Doing that work is almost never the answer, because I've got the people that, the people that are empowered to do the right work, they're given the right tools to accomplish it and they have the drive and the focus to get to the other side. I'm there to remove the roadblocks, make sure they have all those things. That's so, you know. Listen to Boyd's episode, but also I said, talking to him one on one on that very topic, that I actually think back on those conversations you know very recently, making some of those conscious decisions. What are these things that we can do to, frankly, put the guardrails on me and help me continue to break the bad habits and be the best version of what I'm supposed to be doing for the company, our people and the partners we serve?

Speaker 2:

I've talked to Boyd a lot about this guys. He's very passionate about this subject of the difference of sort of a business owner and just a single person business, but it's like what he's done. First of all, he's one of the good guys for sure. He is someone that I love. There's something about all the business transformation folks, folks that come through the program. They're all willing to sort of share both their successes and their failures. Boyd does this a lot to get immediate feedback so that he can pivot and obviously improve his business but also help others. He shared his mistakes with others so that they can obviously realize oh, by the way, I'm making the same one now and even today he still tries things that you know may not be sort of the norm, but he needs to sort of feel that out and make sure that it doesn't work before he pivots, and so I love that. He's very, very passionate and he's very, very grounded. He's an avid pilot. I don't know if he mentions that in the episode, but he's offered to fly from Goshen Indiana to Youngstown Ohio and pick me up and bring him back to his house and enjoy the fun of Goshen Indiana.

Speaker 2:

But I've gotten to know him really well over the years and, like many of the others on this list, he truly cares about his people and I think he goes out of his way to show gratitude to those people. Even for a small business owner, he has had very little turnover. Matter of fact, we were just talking about sort of the one employee that he lost recently. That's like the first in a long time and it was really sort of a mutual decision. You know, it was like a distance thing and the remote work wasn't working and they really had to have a heart to heart because the employee didn't want to go. But it also, you know it just, and so it's just like he does everything that he can for his team and I think that's what's amazing about Boyd.

Speaker 4:

So the next episode is someone on the personality spectrum could not be more different maybe than Boyd, but when you have a conversation you leave with just as much wisdom, who is as willing to give and really does love to help, share, but just does so with a different touch, and that's Mr Ori Seaton.

Speaker 13:

It's very hard when you're growing the business and a lot of you all are. You know one, two, four, six people shops, eight people shops. It's definitely not easy, but I'm gonna tell you that in the long run it will make it easier for you. You're like we're at a point where we have to fire a ton of customers. We have a ton of customers that are killing our technicians and the morale, and we're huge on culture. If I would have said no years ago, I think we'd be in a way better place at this point. We're in an amazing place, but now we have to go through something that no one ever wants to do is fire people that you've known for so long, and Jimmy spoke about it. It's not an easy thing to do, but you could say no at any time and you should say no and definitely provide one package my buddy Ori.

Speaker 7:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

He, he's. He's so incredibly smart, he's so funny, he's extremely passionate about the things that are important to him. Yep, um, the giants, the yankees pretty much most new york teams. Uh, I actually went to the yankees guardians alcs game with them and, yes, his yankees beat my guardians and it was enjoy. It was fun to watch Ori and his sort of like comment just absolutely.

Speaker 2:

He was just so happy the podcast to look in the in many of the things that Ori gets sort of pumped up about. But something that I thought was would be really important to share with folks is that you know Ori lives with this mantra of MSPs helping MSPs, similar to what I said about Boyd, but like he uses that term I use that term now, I use that hashtag term because it's really what, like what I try to do at Enable. I think you've got to give to get, and I think that's a really important thing that Ori believes in as well is getting together peer groups, like if you asked Ori what's one thing that I wish I would have done sooner, he'll say join a peer group, right, like getting in with others that I can say this is what we're doing and them go. No, that is not what you want to do. It's so, so important and so great person.

Speaker 2:

I'm sure you'll see him in the channel. Say hello, he's a great guy. Tell him the Yankees suck or something, and you'll get them all fired up, you know. But anyway, he'll go out of his way to share. You know his processes, you know the tools that he's using. He's a huge advocate of shared learning and peer groups so, and a good friend of mine as well.

Speaker 3:

I enjoy every single exchange I get to have, when they're never enough and they're never long enough, because I always feel like there's there's more. There's, there's more to this conversation than something else will come up. He's, the conviction he feels around the business is so genuine. I just I said every interaction, whether it's, like I said, in a smaller setting or even on the other side of a podcast, just when he talks about culture, when he talks about, you know, the decisions they made that led the business from where it was to where it is and to where they hope it's going. What he said in that clip, stephen, that you just had there, about learning to say no, man, that is something that going that's, you know, counter the DNA of your typical entrepreneur or business person saying no to the sale, saying no to the next piece of business, but having the maturity and the presence of mind to know is it the right piece of business? Is it? Is it what's best for the company? Is what's best for them?

Speaker 3:

You know, taking their money as exchange for a service, it's not actually going to deliver for either party. You're setting up such a massive future failure. Why bother? And I've, you know, obviously, obviously they've seen their own flavors of it, cause that's me. That's where you learn those things. But the difference is I hear it in his voice again, even in that clip, and I've heard it in person the conviction behind it to know that, no, this is how we're going to deliver our product. You know, this is, this is the way it is from us. If that works for you, great. If not, there's plenty of other providers out there that maybe aren't even doing it wrong. They're just doing it different and this is the way we're going to choose to do it, and I've watched that serve them so well. But just to hear them talk about it, if you count yourself lucky enough to be around for it, listen, because there's always going to be a lot there to take away.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, and you guys talk about MSPs, helping MSP and all that wisdom. I think one of the ones, of course, with Chris and our Robert Welburn, but more from the MSP side, of course, that really does live that is Dave Wilkerson, and it was really interesting to get his full story and not just his lessons.

Speaker 5:

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 x factor, and that was true. You know, I had that happen, uh, 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 and I had it happen at the isp as well, and it's you need that kind of energy.

Speaker 5:

So we had that 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:

If you're lucky enough to have ever met Dave, he's probably left a lasting impression on you. He's a huge part, as you mentioned, of what Robert Wilburn and I do with Bizzard Transformation here at Enable. He's a former MSP owner that he talks about and he was and still is a very strong-willed leader who most of his staff would run into a burning building for, or a downed data center in my situation and I recommend you seek Dave out in the channel if you're a reader and be sure to check out his book. It's a great look inside the wealth of an MSP sort of knowledge that he brings back to folks. So great guy, a mentor of mine and I wouldn't be where I am today without Dave.

Speaker 3:

My respect for Dave is many layered and all positive. He's one of the few people that's ever looked at me square in the eye and be able to conversation, said are you nuts? And he meant it. And, and and you know, crs and myself especially are well known for doing things a bit different in a lot of ways and it works for us and, much like Corey, we're convicted to a lot of those things and, you know, keep plotting our path.

Speaker 3:

But I that was one of my earlier interactions with Dave he didn't know me all that well and and he wasn't saying that any, any kind of malice he truly was one. And was I nuts? And we actually talked about it sometime after and I thanked him for it. I said always do that, anytime we are, challenge me, because I do. You know, I know how much he's seen his career is. Again, if you never dove into it, chris, your point he's. He's seen it all and been a part of all, all levels, all aspects of it, so that the font of knowledge it's there. But just, you know the gut check, because when I then said challenge me, I also followed that up with.

Speaker 3:

I'm not always going to agree, by the way, I might still just you know, the stubborn child that I am still go the other direction, but I still want to always be. You know, iron sharpens. Iron, you know, help me, galvanize me to what I think is my path. And then, every so often I'm like you know what you're right and we'll pivot, because we also have to have that humility to realize when we're going down the wrong path and to have to have as many people as possible in your life that can challenge you at that level. That's something if you can seek it out, do so when you find it, hold on to it, and he's one of those valuable assets in that regard I've ever come across in my career.

Speaker 4:

Dave's story is a lot like many of the other stories that we tell, which is very MSP through and through, from the start to the finish, where IT company to MSP. One of the stories, though, full as as much wisdom, has seen it all equally but in a different way, would be Doug Alexander in the sales world.

Speaker 2:

Doug, he comes from the value-added reseller space, right? So for those of you that haven't lived in that space, pretty cutthroat, right. I mean selling high-end. He worked at Dell EMC it was just EMC, I think, at the time pre-Dell acquisition and he was one of their top sales people. But once he got his hands on the MSP market, he definitely made his mark and he's shared that with many people. Some of it controversial, but it's like some of the others feels very passionate, very strong-willed and was able to move the needle, at least for the focus team.

Speaker 11:

This is going to sound weird, but I I spent a lot of time staring at our org chart and just moving the chess pieces around on the board and because I'm really big on it's, it's, it's all the people do. You have the right people on board? Are they in the right seats doing the right stuff? And after we acquired nsk, I saw some people there that were kind of in the corner doing their thing and I'm like that person has a lot of talent and it's not being tapped. So you just move some pieces, create some new boxes. It matches up with the go-to-market strategy and then boom, you know they start to flourish.

Speaker 2:

He was able to transform Focus from a 95% hardware sales and 5% services to like a 50-50 mix in a very short period of time and he's an open book and in this episode he shares some of these tactics and again some of the things that you'll agree with and some that don't. But he does not lie. He is a honest, willing person and, I think, an enjoyable person to talk to.

Speaker 3:

I think about, you know, I'm a big podcast person in general, this one included, obviously. But I think about, you know, scrolling through the back catalog of different shows I listen to because it's impossible to keep up with them all right, and you know I'm guilty of it. Sometimes I'll just skip right over top one because the topic just doesn't stand out to me or maybe doesn't feel like it's going to align with me, and I'd be the first to admit, you know, I think about Doug's episode, which I did really enjoy and took a ton away from, but I think about that scrolling through on many other shows. There's a good chance I would have skipped over topic because I'm not a big capital S salesperson.

Speaker 3:

You know, again, the way you have CRS kind of do things a little differently. Again, not unique, but somewhat rare. We don't have. We don't have sales because everyone's in sales, blah, blah, blah. But truly that's just, that's not how we do our business. No-transcript, it can either open your mind to something you hadn't thought about before or galvanize you again to you know. No, I like the direction that we're doing. Both of those are good things and that's why I appreciate about how I've also, you know, had the opportunity to hear him speak in person a couple of times as well. And again, it's an open book and that's fine. Whether I'm going to agree with you or not is up to me, but just getting up there and putting it all out there in such an open, honest and earnest way, again, we could all do with a little bit more of that.

Speaker 4:

So that's eight episodes that we've talked about so far. There's so many more we could still talk about. I've got one more clip because I realized that the eight that we've played so far are all from North America and that doesn't do the show justice, because we have lots from Europe. We have Australia and South Africa represented as well, but as you know, if you may be able to figure out just logistically, as Chris mentioned, he's in Youngstown, ohio. It's not always the easiest to get him out and about to the world, but we do our best and you did make a trip over to to the uk, to edinburgh, and we we got to sit down with alan turnbull, one of the legends, if you want to talk about legends of the channel and the msp space to talk about his career journey.

Speaker 7:

So I'll just play one of those clips it's making sure you retain the clients and making sure you retain the staff because you've not spent a lot of money on that and making sure you can melt these people into our ways and our thinking. Some of the things like our charging mechanisms where people might not used to have been expected to pay that before, and stuff like that, that can be a bit difficult I mean, you have to have these conversations but overall it's been really exciting. I wouldn't say it's been bumpy, but it's been really exciting. Eight and a half, eight and a bit years getting to where we are and hopefully we can continue that trend going and getting to our next target, which is 50 million within the next couple of years.

Speaker 2:

I should start by congratulating Alan Just announced his retirement last week. It is well-deserved, but he will definitely be missed in the channel, especially in the Unable channel. He's been very influential, come to many, spoken at many of our events and been very, very involved. Alan's expressed he's experienced a lot of different things in the industry. He has a lot to offer, but his passion is really around the mergers and acquisitions side and this episode was really neat because he was able to share some of those stories, both the good and maybe one not so good, because they don't not all acquisitions, not all deals go off without a hitch. So really interesting to give him the chance to be a little candid, and he did it justice by sharing some of these stories. I can't wait to stay in touch with Alan and see what he does post-retirement. But definitely check out this episode if you are in the mergers and acquisitions market or even just curious what that experience is like. I think he does a good job explaining it.

Speaker 4:

So I want to wrap it a little bit here with a couple of questions. John, I want to start with you as a listener, as a listener of Now, that's it. If you could speak to the future guests that we will be getting, what would you like to hear more of or get more of from the guests?

Speaker 3:

I'm going to lean into more of something that's already happening, but just more of it right, which is that transparency. We can all use just a little bit more of the innate humility that comes packaged with this, is it? These are all the moments in time. It's what it all is right. That journey is a collection of moments, a collection of decisions left right up down, like I talked about earlier, and the more we all learn that, it's okay to put that out there.

Speaker 3:

A these are not competition. These are our mutual partners in this business and again, this is what I love about it. We're all in this fight I was talking about earlier, together. So the more we make each other better, the more this community serves who we serve and make them safer every day. That transparency, that openness it starts with no half measures. This is how we go to market, this is how we foster our culture, this is how we deliver the best possible service every day.

Speaker 3:

And the more we talk about that and the more it becomes okay to talk about that, then the conversation suddenly becomes organic. Suddenly. We don't have to sit down for a podcast for it. We have the next time we're at an event or the next time you bump into someone at a trade show or whatever it be we on the side of the street, because at the end of the day, the part that actually matters is what can help us do that job better.

Speaker 3:

So it's not introducing any new third heat to the show or anything like that. It's really about everyone bringing more of the same in ever more interesting ways and come prepared to just lay it out there, knowing that some folks are going to agree, some folks are going to really not agree, and there's going to be a whole middle probably the majority that at least walk away saying wow, I never thought about it that way. I was talking about me and Dave earlier Might not even change your action based on that, but it did force you in that moment to think differently. I promise that's going to have a tangible or even sometimes intangible impact down the road.

Speaker 4:

So, chris, I have a question for you, then, and I maybe should have prepped you for this, but I promise I just thought of it. When did you know with the podcast, because I don't know that you knew from the start when did you know? Now, that's it, this podcast is working, I think it was the.

Speaker 2:

So, first of all, this is not work. This is a passion product project for me. I love talking, talking to people and allowing them to to tell their stories. I think about episode 10 or 11 in the first season. I just said stop worrying about how you're going to ask the question, what the follow-up question is going to be. Just be in the conversation, which is what I do every single day. Right, like when I'm talking to people, you listen, you ask a follow-up question, and so it was less about the preparation and more about being part of it, and that allowed the guests to obviously go wow, he really, really cares about this. And so I think that was the point when it just clicked for me and it was like man, I can do this, I do this every day, I enjoy it, I love it. This isn't about me, it's about them, and that's exactly who I am. I mean, I love to give people their platform to be able to share their stories.

Speaker 2:

One of my favorite things and you just asked me about it and is in each one of these episodes we ask these folks like when did you know I made the right decision, I made the right change, whatever it was. When did you know? Now that's it, and I think that's one of the coolest things, and thank you, stephen, for coming up with that idea, because, man, it's been a killer and I am so looking forward to, you know, season three and all the future episodes. I know there's a number of you out there that you know might be a little shy, might not want to jump on a camera. I promise you, I make this easy. If you would love to tell your story, reach out to me via LinkedIn and we'll jump on the phone and we'll talk a little bit more, because I'd love to have some great episodes in season three.

Speaker 4:

And I want to make a special call out to our European partners, or those who are willing and planning to travel, because where we actually launched Now that's it and got our first episodes was in Prague at Empower in 2022. And we will be, or at least I'm sure Chris will be. I do not know that I will make the full trip, but the Enable crew will be in the Now that's it crew will be in Berlin at Empower in April. So if you'll be there and you want to get it on an episode, that is a great time to get on the episode and you should be there either way. Chris, do you want to plug Empower at all?

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. It's going to be a great, great event Two days of thought leadership. There's some amazing sort of tracks and and and and sort of side sessions that are going to be really, really good, focused on the CXO, ceo, cto, cfo roles. We've got some marketing tracks and and then always a bunch of technical tracks that are really more of these types of stories though MSPs talking about how they've done some really cool things in their business, and I think it'll be very impactful to those that can make it to Berlin and I hear Berlin's just beautiful in April. So why not come out there? And even if you're not an European partner, you Americans, you Canadians, all the rest of you around the world come on out to Berlin. Let's make it a, let's make it great.

Speaker 3:

I was just going to say, if I can throw in an unsolicited plug, I saw him. We swear from the attendee side. Truly, we'll be there in Berlin Looking forward to it. If, if you're listening to this in the U? S or anywhere, and can make that trip.

Speaker 3:

Collaborations one of our four core values and opportunities to collaborate at an international scale, how. How does it get any better than that? We're just now getting good at collaborating with the people down the street, but when we have these opportunities from here in the US states, away, from across the country, but in this case across the globe, that's where special things are going to happen. I insist on believing that every time we attend one of these events, large or small, you get people from this community together. Great things are going to happen. But I just think there's something even that much more unique, that much more special when you have people from such genuinely different walks of life, the opportunities to share, collaborate and therefore all leave better. I don't think there's a better cocktail for that to happen than opportunities like that. So if it's in the cards, do it. It wasn't even a thought for us. We'd committed before we left the last one. So it really is things you can do for your business and then, by extension, for the MSP. Community is attending things like that?

Speaker 2:

I want to thank you know, obviously both of these, these guys right here for doing this sort of special episode. It's great to have Steven sort of in the limelight, finally. He's been behind the scenes for for so long, and so I really appreciate everything that you do, steven. You you make this podcast as good as it possibly can be, and and thanks for for believing in me and allowing me to do this. And then, john, you were one of our early, you know, interviews and probably the one person that I know that's listened to just about every single one of the episodes, which is why we wanted to have you on here, and so thanks for taking time out of your busy holiday schedule to talk about some of these memorable episodes.

Speaker 2:

And, as Steven mentioned, we only included nine. You know there's 30, some others that are just as good, and so I just recommend you either go out to Spotify, apple Podcasts, wherever you get your podcasts. We've got a YouTube channel as well for these, if you like to bring it up on the big screen. My kids love that. They love to see daddy up there talking about stuff they don't understand. But check it out and let us know what you think, like and subscribe and comment and all that sort of stuff and really can't wait to see you guys all in the new year with our season three.