Now That's IT: Stories of MSP Success
Now that's IT: Stories of MSP Success dives into the journeys of some of the trailblazers in the Managed Service Provider industry to find out how they used their passion for technology to help turn Managed Services into the thriving sector it is today.
Every episode is packed with the valuable insights, practical strategies, and inspiring anecdotes that lead our guests to the transformative moment when they knew, Now, That's IT.
This podcast provides educational information about issues that may be relevant to information technology service providers.
Nothing in the podcast should be construed as any recommendation or endorsement by N-able, or as legal or any other advice.
The views expressed by guests are their own and their appearance on the podcast does not imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent.
Views and opinions expressed by N-able employees are those of the employees and do not necessarily reflect the view of N-able or its officers and directors.
The podcast may also contain forward-looking statements regarding future product plans, functionality, or development efforts that should not be interpreted as a commitment from N-able related to any deliverables or timeframe.
All content is based on information available at the time of recording, and N-able has no obligation to update any forward-looking statements.
Now That's IT: Stories of MSP Success
Passing the Torch: How James Thompson Turned a Family Business into a Thriving MSP
What happens when a family-owned computer repair shop faces the recession, changing technology, and the challenges of scaling? James Thompson of ECS Technology Solutions shares how he transformed his father’s local IT business into a thriving managed service provider (MSP).
In this episode of Now That’s IT: Stories of MSP Success, host Chris Massey dives into James’s journey of turning obstacles into opportunities, including:
- Transitioning from break/fix to managed services — and convincing his father it would work
- Building a support group for family-owned businesses to navigate unique challenges
- Scaling from 4 employees to 23 while maintaining strong culture and customer relationships
- The pivotal role of EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System) in fixing leadership gaps post-COVID
- Why culture, accountability, and the “right people in the right seats” fuel long-term MSP growth
Whether you’re running a family business, leading an MSP through change, or looking for inspiration on leadership and culture, James’s story shows how resilience, vision, and people-first leadership can transform an IT business into something remarkable.
Let us help you unlock your business's full potential.
N-able Business Transformation is Expert led and Peer informed.These valuable executive programs are tailored to provide effective guidance and a faster path to a scalable and successful business.
Book a Call with Chris Massey now to learn what Business Transformation can do for you!
'Now that's it: Stories of MSP Success,' dives into the journeys of some of the trailblazers in our industry to find out how they used their passion for technology to help turn Managed Services into the thriving sector it is today.
Every episode is packed with the valuable insights, practical strategies, and inspiring anecdotes that lead our guests to the transformative moment when they knew….. Now, that's it.
This podcast provides educational information about issues that may be relevant to information technology service providers.
Nothing in the podcast should be construed as any recommendation or endorsement by N-able, or as legal or any other advice.
The views expressed by guests are their own and their appearance on the podcast does not imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent.
Views and opinions expressed by N-able employees are those of the employees and do not necessarily reflect the view of N-able or its officers and directors.
The podcast may also contain forward-looking statements regarding future product plans, functionality, or development efforts that should not be interpreted as a commitment from N-able related to any deliverables or timeframe.
All content is based on information available at the time of recording, and N-able has no obligation to update any forward-looking statements.
One, two, three go. We couldn't maintain employees and we couldn't maintain our business customers. I started working full-time. I'm like how am I going to fix this? 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:All right, Mr James Thompson, president of ECS. Welcome to the Now that's it. Podcast.
Speaker 1:Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2:Oh man, it's so great to have you out here in beautiful sunny Arizona. So you told me you never wanted to get into IT yes, but you had a dad as a computer repair shop, right, and you couldn't avoid it, right? How did that play?
Speaker 1:out. Yeah, yeah, no. My original passion I feel like I guess we could put it that way or the first thing I wanted to try was I always wanted to be an architect. I was always interested in buildings and building things, and so that seemed like the right path for me, coming out of high school, obviously, and so originally I went to school. I graduated high school in 2007. So I went to college for architectural architecture and then transitioned to architectural engineering, seeing that I liked science and I liked math and I liked the numbers. So that aligned with me a little bit better.
Speaker 1:And then, if anybody knows what happened, in 2008, with the recession, building pretty much stopped. So during that time I had already met my now wife, or so soon to be wife, and we knew we wanted to be young parents and, you know, start a family pretty early on, and we were kind of at the point where we were engaged and I was kind of looking at my opportunities as an architectural engineer and realized that there probably wasn't going to be a lot of opportunity to get a job right out of college and, you know, to be able to support my family. And it just so happened to be around the same time my dad, who had the computer repair shop, had lost an employee and I was at a point in my life where I was like, hey, I could go search for a job. That is recession proof, hopefully. And he also needed an employee that he could trust. So I knew it'd be a reliable employee. So I started working for him part-time and a computer repair shop. I transitioned my degree to MIS and that's where she started.
Speaker 2:Rest is history, yeah so how do you go from computer repair shop to managed service provider? Talk a little bit about sort of those early days. I remember you sharing with me sort of retaining employees, retaining customers. It was kind of hard in those early days. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So when I finally went to college for seven years Eight, for me.
Speaker 1:But when I graduated, finally, with my degree in MIS, that was in 2014. And I came out and we did have an employee at the time and once I graduated, I actually asked my professor. I was one of my professors, the one that I trusted a lot, and I asked him. I was like, hey, my dad has this computer repair shop and, you know, I think there could be something there or I could go get a real job and make pretty good money. And I just kind of consulted with him and I really leaned into his advice and he just simply looked at me and he said how old are you? I was like you know, at the time, if I can math correctly, I was 25. And I was like I'm 25. And he goes listen, you're still really young, you don't get a lot of opportunities to build something, so why don't you go take that?
Speaker 1:and so that's what got me started in the business full-time yeah so when I made that decision, our one employee that we had there we actually had two employees, one had to leave for family the other employee looked at me and he was a good friend of mine and he just said hey, man, he's from North Carolina, he's like I want to move back, he's like I'm going to go move back with my family, because I was hoping I had a chance to take over this company. But obviously you're going to step into that role. And it kind of hurt me a little bit just because we were friends and I was like, oh man, I was really hoping we could do something here. But it made me realize that the business model we had wasn't really set up for success in that manner. Right, there wasn't a whole lot of opportunities the way that we were doing business. So we did have some business customers and you know, obviously we were having difficulty maintaining employees because we were just a computer repair shop and doing break fix work for some smaller companies, and so we had two problems we couldn't maintain employees and we couldn't maintain our business customers, which you know that was a substantial part of our revenue when we did have them. So it was always a big hit. So that's when we we discovered I hired a part-time guy. And you know, when I work start work full-time I'm like how am I going to fix this? You know, we were trying to find a way to solve this challenge of making sure that we can maintain customers and you know, in college I actually did.
Speaker 1:One of my final programs was trying. I used the work that I was doing with my dad as one of my internships and I had to walk away with something tangible or else I wouldn't get the credits for it. So I did a research study on backup and disaster recovery. So I had already spent a lot of time understanding that that was a valuable resource for businesses and it was more of a proactive approach to help companies stay in business right. So I knew there was an idea of proactive IT support, at least in some manner. I had no idea what managed services were. I had no clue. So when I was talking to him about it, he was just like, hey, yeah, you should check out this company. I used to work for them, this is what they're doing. And so I did a lot of research and I mean, everything just started lighting up and it's like, yeah, this is where we need to be.
Speaker 2:So that's awesome, james, but your dad's been running the business a completely different way for a long time. What was that convincing?
Speaker 1:like, oh man, what was that convincing? Like, oh man, what was it like? You might kill me if I say this the way I saw it. Yeah, so I mean, obviously he was comfortable, right, and this is actually when I started to learn, like just the dynamic of a family owned business and really trying to put myself in his perspective and the age that he was at and why he wasn't willing to take so many risks. Right, he was in a better position than me.
Speaker 1:I was still really young, so I wanted to take a lot of risk, but it was a different business model. So when I explained it to him, obviously there was a lot of companies where they have a minimum, so you had to spend a minimum amount for so long. Obviously, there was a lot of companies where they have a minimum, so you had to spend a minimum amount for so long and, from his perspective, that money wasn't guaranteed to come back in until you sold it right. So there was a lot of risk there, at least to him and to me. But I was like, hey, I'm 25 years old, we have to do this. So I tried convincing him and convincing him, and convincing him, and nothing would really work. So then I started to go other avenues of trying to convince him.
Speaker 1:So we actually at that point we had hired a commercial level support engineer and I was talking to him about it and I was just like, hey, you need to go tell my dad that this is the way we need to go, nice. And he was like, okay, so he went and told my dad and then it was like, hey, we're all good, we're ready to go. There was one other big piece actually I should align with also I was able to find so at the time. It was GFI Max. Now buy in Central it's Insight. At the time they didn't have a minimum, so that was another huge piece to the buy-in was making sure that we weren't going to be trapped in this huge contract. But yeah, I was fortunate to find that and yeah, it was pretty awesome to get it started.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. I am sure that parents always want their children to be successful and, deep down you know, I want my kids, when they get older, to to come up with their own ideas and be able to bring those to the table and me support them. And I'm sure, deep down your, your father, wanted this to work. Mm-hmm, it's just he wanted to make sure that this wasn't gonna sink ECS right and so for for him to put that faith in you and I think a lot of it, right from when I hear you tell this story, you obviously had buy-in from another staff member part-time, but then you were able to convince other employees as well that this was able to go. So you showed this sort of sense of leadership right off the bat by sort of building a business case for it. Right, sure, and what that was going to look like Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Talk a little bit about. You know it's great that you chose Enable GFI Max back in the day, but talk a little bit about maybe, those first customers or that first customer. What was that sale like? What was that like? How were you trying to convince them that this was the way? This was different than ECS had done it in the past.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was yeah, and honestly it was a big part of it too was getting my dad convinced that this was going to work, because actually the first customer that we got it's going to be 10 years coming up.
Speaker 1:We got them to sign on full time and they're still a customer, which is awesome. I know a lot of msps here have incredible stories where they've had customers for 20 years plus and I I think that's just amazing. But you know, we're obviously proud about it and uh, but they were one of his first customers and so it was kind of a big step for all of us because it was like I, my dad, finally bought into the idea that we're going to do this and me and him went and met with one of his first customers and we were just, I mean, it was kind of nice that we already had that great relationship because it kind of helped us on how we were going to sell it. It was kind of interesting. We went through a lot of trial and error when it came to like pricing and figuring out how we're supposed to be doing this, but they were a great sport about it and very helpful and, I think, just injected a lot of confidence for the rest of us that this is something that's going to work.
Speaker 2:Wow, I remember listening to you talk about sort of the dynamic that you and your father had. It was interesting because I think you mentioned that you actually created a support group, right yeah, for family businesses. Talk a little bit about that.
Speaker 1:You know, I always knew when I went to work for my dad, one of the deciding factors was he needed someone that was reliable. So I always knew that there'd be some friction but that we would both show up the next day, right? So we'd both show up and we'd continue to work and continue to grow the company and work together. And you know, my sister works for the company as well and it's a truly family-owned and operated company. And it was kind of interesting because I knew I had all these challenges but I didn't really know what else was out there. So I was at a chamber event one time and at the chamber event I met a basically it was a president of a company where they were a family owned and operated company as well. And you know it was, he was the president and his brother worked for the company and his dad worked for the company. And I was like, oh, that's interesting. I was like they're in a similar situation that we're in. So more of us do exist and no idea, right, it's so naive when you're stuck in your own little corner, but it I asked him out to lunch and thankfully he accepted that invite and I had him at lunch and I'm just like, hey, man, you know we have employees now and I'm like, how do you do this? How I'm like how do you do this, how do you do this, how do you do this, how do you do this and how do you manage your relationship with your dad? And I was just I felt bad. I was kind of reeling him with questions, but it was a good conversation and then towards the end of the launch, he's like you know, like we've had similar experiences. He's like I bet we could make a group of a lot of people that would have the same type of experience. And that was like you're absolutely right. It's like everyone talks about networking groups and tips groups and all these and I'm like I mean basically it's like a business support group, right, um? So yeah, I mean we basically started there.
Speaker 1:We met again and we invited some other family-owned and operated business operators and we created a group. It was called Legacy Dynamics and it was where family members from family-owned and operated companies who are executives we would meet. It started off once a week. We eventually transitioned it back to twice a month. We would meet, um. It started off once a week.
Speaker 1:We eventually transitioned it back to um twice a month where we would meet and we would just come up with topics about, I mean it's. You know it's not just dealing with your family members but it's also dealing with the staff. And you know, especially as a son like I, had this horrible fear that everyone would think I'm the son just taking over dad's business and um I. It always bothered me a lot so I worked really hard to maintain my reputation, um, and those were things that I could talk about and I could help people with and people could help me with. And it was just kind of interesting because it turned out to be a very resourceful group where we're all able to kind of get different perspectives on how that we would manage those types of situations and yeah, so that was fun, amazing.
Speaker 2:James, really cool story. I love to hear about what you, what you did back then. So let's talk a little bit about that growth spurt that you had. You went from four employees to about 23, right while While you while adding the managed services line of business. What really fueled that growth during that time period?
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, one of the big things for us is and one of the things that my dad did really well was building incredible relationships with all of his staff. Obviously, our first managed client was one of his first customers.
Speaker 1:And we had that relationship where they bought in and they were willing to come and connect with us, and I think it's really spawned because of that right and just the amount of passion that we put into the way that we support our customers. It's a similar story to a lot of people I meet here, which is pretty incredible, because when you're getting customers from a lot of our competition, you're like no one out there cares about their customers and that's the beautiful thing about the people that we find here at Enable is that there's so many of us that have the same mentality and it's just going above and beyond for those customers and treating their business like your own. You know, I have a phrase that I use all the time, and it's the rising tide raises all ships. So we do pretty much anything and everything we can to help our customers continue to be successful in whatever manner they mean to be. So that, paired with incredible people, that that's gotta be a pretty big push for why we continue to have success. That's great, james.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so 2017 through 2019, big growth spurt, and about that time you told dad it was time to go. What was that like?
Speaker 1:Yeah, um, you know, it was all in good faith. Um, you know, kind of like we talked about, he was worried that it wasn't going to work. Right, when we first started doing managed services. And you know, he was just worried about the success of the at the time it was Elkhorn Computer and transitioned to ECS. He was worried about the success of ECS and making sure that we had the business to help contribute to our family's success and in his success as well. Right, and it was around that time, you know, we were going through pretty substantial growth year over year where I think he finally realized like, okay, this is not a bad idea, this is a great idea. It's. It's bringing value to it's bringing value to our customers. So maybe we'll let this go.
Speaker 1:You know, and it was also around that time. You know, we already had kids. My sisters, they were having their. My oldest sister, she already had her kids. My younger, still older sister than me, she was having her children and I was like, hey, you know, they live sister than me, she was having her children and, um, I was like, hey, you know, they live out of town. You know, maybe it's not a bad idea for you to spend a little bit more time traveling and going and seeing your grandchildren and um, and that's really how we try to sell it, um, but the reality is is, you know, long story short, the reason we got into this industry he got into this industry altogether uh, was because he, you know, long story short, the reason we got into this industry, he got into this industry altogether was because he, you know, back in 99, he actually had a pretty horrible accident where he fell off a barn roof, and this is where the tears come in.
Speaker 1:But, you know, he's always been a hard worker and trying to do everything he can to support our family and it's really inspiring. It's kind of built me the way that I am now because of the hard work and efforts that he's always put into everything. When he had that accident, he actually wasn't able to walk for nine months. He was in a hospital bed for nine months Actually, he was in a wheelchair for another year. After that. They thought he was supposed to be dead or paralyzed for life. Wow, and he made an incredible recovery.
Speaker 1:And then, when he came, while he was in a wheelchair, he went to school to get his MIS degree and, coming out of 2000,. He couldn't use it because there was the tech bubble burst, yeah. So he was forced to start Elkhorn Computer Service and he continued to work so hard to contribute to our family and to help us, you know, be where we were. So it was almost a mission for me to give him an opportunity to relax. You know, just once and for all, don't work. Granted, that will never happen, because if you ever met the guy, he cannot stop working, sure, but at least he has less responsibility. So so that's uh, that was a big part of the conversation is like this is why I came here. This is why I came to work with you in this company, so I can give you a chance to retire. And we were able to make it happen.
Speaker 2:So that's so incredible, james. Such a good story man. So talk a little bit about the computer repair business. How has that fared?
Speaker 1:yeah, um, you know, the computer repair business has been so good to us. Um, it continued to grow while we continue to grow. So when we started offering managed services, the, the business from residential to commercial was about 75 residential 25 business and about middle of the year last year we we just decided to reevaluate what what that looked like and we realized that now residential services, even though it continued to grow, it was now 10 percent of our business versus 90 percent commercial. Um, so it was around that time where we looked at it and we're like, hey, you know, it's only doing 10 percent of our revenue. We spend about 40 percent of our time managing this.
Speaker 1:Maybe it's a good opportunity for us to look at focusing on the part of our business that's growing the most and trying to give all of our energy towards the people that are really trusting us to help them with their IT and help them grow and thrive their business. So, july of 2024, we decided that we're gonna stop residential services and computer repair and, like I said, we've been doing it for a long time. So we're trying to take care of those customers and make sure that they're getting taken care of appropriately. It was just the best move for us. And then, yeah, actually coming into 2025, we cut off all break-fix and residential computer repair.
Speaker 2:That's fantastic, man, like a lot of growing MSPs that we always talk to. You guys embraced EOS Enterprise Operating System. You talk a little bit about that journey. Oh yeah, where can a little bit about?
Speaker 1:that journey. Oh yeah, where can we go with that? No, yeah, well, it actually started after 2020 and COVID. After we'd gone through a lot of growth and come after COVID, we kind of realized that we had an issue and it was horrible. Leadership, right. But I did read a lot of business books and I read Traction before and I didn't like it. Then I read a lot of other business books and then I went back and I just I don't know why I just re-read that book and I'm like holy buckets, they just took all of all these other books and they basically crammed it into a system that would allow us to run our business more efficiently. So we said, hey, let's take a look at it, we'll see if it's a good fit for us and we'll see how it works. And so we self integrated or self implemented I really go see, I don't even know what they officially call it because we did it ourselves, but it's it's.
Speaker 1:It's been good right. We've had our challenges, we found ways to make it work for us, and it's it's forced us to be accountable. It's forced us to continue to, you know, continue to have our L 10s, continue to have our weekly meetings, continue to have our check-ins. Give us our you know, our scorecards to make sure that we're we're keeping each other accountable and making sure that we continue to do what check-ins. Give us our scorecards to make sure that we're keeping each other accountable and making sure that we continue to do what we need to do.
Speaker 2:That's good. It's an interesting direction that MSPs have gone and it's been around for a long time. And it's not just the MSP industry that's obviously taking the industry by storm, but a lot of the folks that are in the room this week are EOS shops as well by storm. But a lot of the folks that are in the room this week are EOS shops as well. Some that are self implemented, some that are sort of hybrid EOS, eos Lite, as a lot like to use, and there's some hardcore EOSers in here as well, but everybody sort of says the same thing it absolutely transformed the way we run the day to day operations, and so it's great to hear that that worked for you as well. Oh yeah, so talk a little bit about what's next for uh, ecs james um, yeah, obviously, 20, 2025 is a whole new chapter for us.
Speaker 1:Um, so it's exciting. Um, this is it's kind of like a breath of fresh air, right, this is the first time where we're not worrying about residential computer repair, and you know we're still in a transition. So there's going to be a transition as we get all of our customers to an appropriate plan for them and, you know, we figure out what we're going to do with our current client base. But, um, man, it's like let's go to the moon.
Speaker 1:Um, we're kind of at that point now and I'm so fortunate I have an incredible team, right, um, I have, I have Tyler who's my operations manager. My sister still works for for us and you know she makes sure that all of our accounting and bookkeeping, everything's on track. And, um, and I have an incredible sales team that we just hired. We have a brand new. I mean, we made four major hires last year that really helped bolster our management or at least our top-end support teams. And so I'm kind of at a point where I'm like, hey, I can let them run stuff and we can start looking at what's next for ECS. And you know, there's still a lot to be figured out, but we just know that we need to grow for our team, so that's what we're going to be doing Awesome.
Speaker 2:As an outsider, I think you have a lot to be proud of. Is there anything in particular that comes to your mind that you're the most proud of?
Speaker 1:Oh man, I'm like the hardest person on myself. I don't. That's probably consistent with a lot of people here. So, um, you know, I never feel like I've done enough. Um, you know, I obviously, outside of my family um obviously extremely proud about my family and everything we've been able to do there. Um, I have a wonderful wife who's extremely supportive, so I'm happy about that.
Speaker 1:But from a business perspective in our industry, you know, I'm extremely proud and really I think lucky, right, I always say you make your own luck, but at the same time, I feel so lucky all the time. But I'm lucky to have the team that I have. We have an incredible culture. I feel like we're one of very few MSPs where we've had hardly anybody ever quit from our organization. And even now the handful of people that have quit from our business, most of them have asked to come back, which is incredible. You don't hear about that often. So we've been able to create a pretty awesome culture and a place where people can be excited about coming to work, and we've had the success that they've all been a part of. That, I feel like, gives them what they're looking for, right. So I'm not saying all of that's my fault, but it's definitely exciting to be a part of it.
Speaker 2:Awesome man. So one last question I like to ask, james, and hopefully you're ready for it, uh-oh yeah. When did you know? Now, that's it.
Speaker 1:Now that's it. Oh man, like I said, I'm always very critical of myself, so I always feel like I'm not done. We still need to figure it out. But I will say I feel like one of the most valuable things that we've done and really a turning point for us in our organization where I could say that's what set us in the right direction, and that was. It was post-COVID, when we started, actually when we started Traption and we had a.
Speaker 1:We did have a hard time with having the wrong people in our organization and we fixed it. We got the wrong people out, we found a way to bring the right people in and that was it. The bus just starts going on its own and the business really starts to thrive on its own. And you know, when you put a group of the right people in the right room, not only are they happy, but your customers are happy, families are happy. It's just really exciting to be able to have that experience and being able to figure it out right.
Speaker 1:As business owners, we're always trying to troubleshoot what's wrong, and that was one thing. That was. It felt wrong and it turns out it was wrong and now that it's right, it's been incredible and honestly, it wasn't easy. That was actually one of the hardest moves I ever had to make. One of the things I had to do is I had to let go of a very important person our organization, at least it seemed that way but he was detrimental to our culture and I was scared to let him go because he was friends with one of his friends, with our top engineer actually the engineer, the first engineer that we hired for MSP who helped us build it. So they were friends.
Speaker 1:So I knew if I let him go that I would lose him and that was a big piece of our business. And I basically had to jump off a bridge and just a leap of faith and and say we're gonna do this for our culture, we're gonna do this for the people in this business and we're gonna do this for our culture, we're going to do this for the people in this business and we're going to do this for our future growth. And it's been incredible ever since. And we did lose that engineer and we have talked to him about coming back because he even realized after later that it was the other person he was causing a lot of the stress that he had. He wasn't the one solving it. He was the a lot of the stress that he had. He wasn't the one solving it, he was the one causing it and you know that was a pretty pivotal moment for us, if I could say that word.
Speaker 2:That's great, james. James, I'm so excited to have gotten to know you. You know, over the last month or so Excited that you're here in Phoenix with us this week and you're part of the business transformation sort of community. Now I want to wish you and the ECS team the absolute best of luck and thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, thanks for having me and obviously, thanks for everything that Enable does to help, support us and give us the opportunity to continue to be incredible. So thank you, guys.