Evolved Radio Podcast: Recent Episodes
Todd Kane: Technology Consultant, Management Consultant, and Mentor
Evolved Radio Podcast: Interviews with technology experts, industry thought leaders, business leaders and other interesting minds. Exploring the evolution of business and technology.
Anup Ghosh - CEO of Threatmate
Welcome back to the Evolved Radio Podcast! In today’s episode, I’m joined by Anup Ghosh with Threatmate. Anup and I deep dive into one of the MSP industry’s hottest—and sometimes most confusing—topics: cybersecurity. But instead of focusing on the aftermath of a security incident (what they call “right of the boom”), we shift the conversation to proactive measures—what it really means to operate “left of the boom.”
We unpack the concept of security as a utility, discuss how to utilize NIST and CIS frameworks, and explore fear-based selling.
This episode is packed with insights that will help you strengthen your security posture before disaster strikes. So listen in to stay ahead of the next big threat.
This episode is brought to you by Opsleader Pro. A place for MSP owners and managers to get the systems and tools they need to build a stable and growing MSP. Part group coaching, part peer group, everything you need to run a successful MSP.
Ryan Barton - CIO of New Charter
Welcome back to another episdoe of the Evolved Radio Podcast! In this episode, I’m joined by Peter Melby and Ryan Barton with New Charter Technologies.
Sure, AI is everywhere these days, but we cut through the hype to talk about how things actually changed when ChatGPT hit the scene and suddenly put powerful AI tools in the hands of everyone.
Peter Melby - CEO of New Charter
Ryan shares how that breakthrough moment inspired him to roll up his sleeves and experiment with AI in real business scenarios.
Peter talks about why New Charter decided to take a hands-on approach with AI, instead of just waiting around for vendors to figure it out.
We talk honestly about what’s working, what isn’t, and why sometimes you just have to make your own path with new technology.
If you want an inside look at how AI is impacting MSPs or you’re just curious about what’s really possible right now, tune in!
We’ve got practical insights, plenty of candid takes, and even a few laughs along the way.
This episode is brought to you by Opsleader Pro. A place for MSP owners and managers to get the systems and tools they need to build a stable and growing MSP. Part group coaching, part peer group, everything you need to run a successful MSP.
Paul Green - MSP Marketing Edge
Today on the Evolved Radio Podcast, I’m joined by Paul Green, the author of "MSP Marketing Start Here," for a deep dive into the world of LinkedIn social marketing. This episode is perfect for MSPs looking to streamline their marketing efforts. Paul shares insights from his book, emphasizing the importance of simplifying marketing strategies and focusing on building long-term relationships through platforms like LinkedIn. He discusses practical steps like creating engaging content, leveraging LinkedIn's unique tools and features, and the power of setting up reliable marketing systems. Todd and Paul also explore the importance of connecting with ideal clients, the impact of video content, and why consistency is key to achieving success in the competitive MSP ecosystem. Use the insights to discover actionable tips that can transform your LinkedIn presence and take your marketing to the next level.
Also there is a time limited ester egg at the end of the pod, so listen early and stick around till the end for that bonus.
This episode is brought to you by Opsleader Pro. A place for MSP owners and managers to get the systems and tools they need to build a stable and growing MSP. Part group coaching, part peer group, everything you need to run a successful MSP.
Welcome to another insightful episode of the Evolved Radio Podcast! Today, we dig into the timeless wisdom of "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.” with Andrea Caldwell, VP of Coaching and consulting at Franklin Covey. Celebrating the book's 35th anniversary, Andrea sheds light on why Stephen Covey's principles have stood the test of time, attributing their longevity to the foundational truths they encapsulate. We explore how these habits have shaped our personal and professional lives, emphasizing the significance of paradigms, proactive behavior, and continuous self-renewal.
Whether you're familiar with Covey’s work or new to these concepts, this episode promises to offer valuable insights into creating a more intentional and effective life. So let’s go!
This episode is brought to you by Evolved Management Training Courses.
Online courses specifically crafted for MSP needs. A Service Manager BootCamp course, a project manager for MSPs course, an MSP Account Management course course, and an IT Documentation Done Right course.
Alex Markov - Strategy Overview
In this episode of the Evolved Radio Podcast, I’m joined by Alex Markov from Strategy Overview. Alex and I continue the rethinking vCIO series.
Alex is a long-time friend of the podcast, appearing in a very early episode of the pod.
I had him back to jam on vCIO again. We explore the importance of mature VCIO practices, the integration of AI and automation, and maintaining high standards in client services.
Enjoy the continued conversation in rethinking the vCIO series.
This episode is brought to you by Evolved Management Training Courses.
Check out my latest course! MSP Account Management.
Jim Tarala - vCIO University
Today on the Evolved Radio Podcast, we continue our series on Rethinking the vCIO role in MSPs. I’m joined by Jim Tarala from VCIO University to discuss the challenges and opportunities of the vCIO role. We'll explore the importance of role clarity, client segmentation, and tips for distinguishing between account managers and vCIOs. Jim shares valuable insights into the need for a strategic approach when targeting different client segments and how MSPs can create value with vCIO services. Listen for more actionable strategies to refine your client interactions and elevate the services you provide.
This episode is brought to you by Evolved Management Training Courses.
Check out my latest course! MSP Account Management.
Adam Walter - Founder of Humaize IT
On this episode of Evolved Radio, we’re continuing our rethinking vCIO series with Adam Walter from Humanize IT. Adam helps give a fresh perspective. Adam, has years of experience as a director of security and as a vCIO in the corporate world. He has great insight on what it’s like sitting on the other side of the table from a typical MSP.
In this episode, Adam shares a compelling story from his career, highlighting the crucial role of curiosity in client interactions.
Whether you're an MSP owner, a vCIO, or someone looking to enhance client relationships, this episode is packed with valuable insights and practical advice to help you rethink your vCIO strategy.
This episode is brought to you by Evolved Management Training Courses.
Check out my latest course! MSP Account Management.
Alex Farling : Co-founder of Empath
In today's episode, I’m joined by Alex Farling from Empath. In the last episode, Luis Giraldo and I were talking about vCIO. Alex was listening to the episode and took up my challenge to fight us in the comments. Alex has lots of opinions and experience in the vCIO field, having built one of the leading platforms for vCIO out there. Interestingly, even Alex says he hates the term vCIO and explains why. We also discuss "firing" clients, the critical role of communication in maintaining positive relationships, agendas, and the nuanced roles required in smaller MSPs.
This is another episode packed with insights and on the role of account management in the MSP space. So get ready to rethink the vCIO role again with us on the Evolved Radio Podcast!
This episode is brought to you by Evolved Management Training Courses.
Check out my brand new course - vCIO and Account Management for MSPs
Or my other online courses specifically crafted for MSP needs. A Service Manager BootCamp course, a project manager for MSPs course, an MSP security fundamentals course, and an IT Documentation Done Right course.
Luis Giraldo - Scalepad
Today, I’m chatting with my old friend Luis Giraldo, Chief Experience Officer at Scalepad. Luis and I are discussing how most of our industry might be doing vCIO all wrong.
vCIO has the Critical Objective of creating real client value by delivering services that lead to genuine business outcomes, but many struggle to make this a reality.
We discuss why people hate the vCIO title and ideas about what we should call it instead.
We discuss some common pitfalls, like focusing too much on tools over processes.
Whether you’re trying to start or improve your vCIO process, this episode is a must-listen. So let’s go.
This episode is brought to you by Evolved Management Training Courses.
Check out my latest course! MSP Account Management.
Megan Killion - MKC Agency
Welcome to another episode of Evolved Radio Podcast! Today, we’re talking Sales strategies and tactics with my guest, Megan Killion, chief consultant with MKC Agency.
We start off by discussing finding strength in adversity. Megan shares her story about an incredibly challenging period in her life and what she learned. This was an unexpected rabbit hole we went down, but it’s relevant since business development means getting a lot of “No”s, which can be so uncomfortable for people that they never start.
Then Megan shares practical tactics on qualifying leads, understanding client needs, and framing discussions to turn prospects into customers. This episode is packed with useful tactics that you can use immediately to grow your business. So let’s go.
This episode is brought to you by Evolved Management Training Courses.
Online courses specifically crafted for MSP needs. A Service Manager BootCamp course, a project manager for MSPs course, an MSP security fundamentals course, and an IT Documentation Done Right course.
Gerwai Todd
Welcome to the Evolved Radio Podcast, In today's episode, I’m joined by industry expert Gerwai Todd CEO of Timezest and Pia. We delve into the transformative role of AI technology in ticket management, highlighting its ability to automate and streamline service desk operations. We chat about the role of dispatcher and how it can be done in different ways in MSPs. We also discuss how AI and RPA tools are not only enhancing efficiency but also creating new career opportunities within MSPs.
Join us for an insightful episode that explores how automation and AI are revolutionizing service management, boosting productivity, and reshaping the future of MSPs.
This episode is brought to you by Evolved Management Training Courses.
Online courses specifically crafted for MSP needs. A Service Manager BootCamp course, a project manager for MSPs course, an MSP security fundamentals course, and an IT Documentation Done RIght course.
Wes Spencer - Co-founder of Empath
Welcome to another episode of Evolved Radio Podcast! Today we have an insightful discussion lined up with cybersecurity expert Wes Spencer. We explore the critical need for governance and how cyber insurance is a catalyst for improved security practices in small businesses.
We also touch on the hype cycle in the cybersecurity industry and the need to move beyond a tool-centric focus.
We also discuss strategies for protecting our kids in the digital age, from screen time limits to open conversations about social media.
Finally, we chat about the influence of private equity in the MSP market and if that is a net negative or positive. Wes is a bright mind in our industry and is also willing to speak honestly and openly. I really enjoyed this conversation, and I’m sure you will, too. Let’s dive in.
This episode is brought to you by Evolved Management Training Courses.
Online courses specifically crafted for MSP needs. A Service Manager BootCamp course, a project manager for MSPs course, an MSP security fundamentals course, and an IT Documentation Done RIght course.
Steve Copeland
In today's episode, my guest Steve Copeland and I are talking about a bunch of nerdy tech stuff, but also some serious business opportunities. We’re covering 5G technology and how your MSP could potentially leverage the technology for a differentiated service offering. We chat about the AI and it’s impact on the technology space and especially data privacy. We also chat about the cloud and why some companies are opting to on-prem their servers again.
Get ready for a fascinating discussion that will leave you thinking about how these advancements will shape our world!
This episode is brought to you by Evolved Management Training Courses.
Online courses specifically crafted for MSP needs. A Service Manager BootCamp course, a project manager for MSPs course, an MSP security fundamentals course, and an IT Documentation Done RIght course.
Kory Kogan - VP of content Development w/ Franklin Covey
Today I’m speaking with Kory Kogan VP of content development at Franklin Covey. Kory and I dive deep into the world of project management. Kory shares invaluable insights on the practical skill of managing projects, whether they're official or unofficial. We'll explore how breaking down tasks and setting specific deadlines can reduce risks.
The discussion extends to the attributes of successful unofficial project managers, emphasizing that good organizational and people skills can often outweigh technical expertise. Kory provides actionable advice for those managing teams without formal authority, stressing the importance of high trust leadership behaviors such as respect, listening, and accountability.
Kory also highlights how everyone is a project manager in some capacity in their life, so I’m sure this episode will be valuable to everyone.
Kory is the author of the book Project Management for the unofficial project manager.
This episode is brought to you by Evolved Management Training Courses.
Online courses specifically crafted for MSP needs. A Service Manager BootCamp course, a project manager for MSPs course, an MSP security fundamentals course, and an IT Documentation Done RIght course.
Rob Rae - CVP @ Pax8
Welcome to another exciting episode of the Evolved Radio Podcast! In today’s episode I chat with industry veteran Rob Rae CVP @ Pax8. Together, we explore the dynamics of technology conferences, from choosing locations and handling logistics to balancing networking opportunities amidst distractions. Rob shares insights from his experience running the PAX8 Beyond event and delves into the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on transitioning from live to virtual events and back.
The conversation also highlights the ever-changing landscape for managed service providers (MSPs), examining the shift from traditional distribution to a more marketplace-centered model and how this impacts the SMB IT sector. We delve into the evolving consumer behavior, the rise of antisocial selling, and the crucial role of MSPs in navigating cybersecurity and product choices for clients.
We also take a deep dive into the potential and pitfalls of AI adoption, urging MSPs to stay proactive and adaptable. Rob offers a cautious yet optimistic take on monetizing AI and emphasizes the importance of consultation and co-managed IT opportunities.
Join us as we uncover the future of technology events, the transformative role of AI, and the continuing evolution of the MSP and IT landscape!
This episode is brought to you by Evolved Management Training Courses.
Online courses specifically crafted for MSP needs. A Service Manager BootCamp course, a project manager for MSPs course, an MSP security fundamentals course, and an IT Documentation Done RIght course.
Matt Linn - COO w/ Thread
Welcome to Evolved Radio Podcast. Join us as Matt Linn, the COO of Thread, shares insights from his journey from account management to spearheading innovative chat solutions in the MSP space with Thread. We'll explore the dynamic integration of internal ticketing systems with platforms like Microsoft Teams, address the real-time benefits of chats for triggering workflows, and consider the pressing challenges and opportunities of evolving chat support models in the MSP industry. We’ll also explore how AI will have a major role to play in chat support. Don't miss this engaging discussion on the critical role chat platforms play in IT support and how it’s set to revolutionize the IT service industry.
This episode is brought to you by Evolved Management Training Courses.
Online courses specifically crafted for MSP needs. A Service Manager BootCamp course, a project manager for MSPs course, an MSP security fundamentals course, and an IT Documentation Done RIght course.
Dr. Heather Denniston
Welcome back to the Evolved Radio Podcast. Today's episode, features Dr. Heather Denniston, a former chiropractor turned wellness specialist who's here to share her insights into maintaining energy and focus during our workday—especially for those of us in the high-stress technology sector.
We dive into practical strategies for overcoming the infamous afternoon slump, as Heather recommends simple recharging techniques you can use. We also navigate the crucial role of setting clear boundaries to conserve energy, and touch upon a client's innovative approach of using out-of-office emails to signal availability.
Heather's transition to wellness was fueled by her personal health journey, embodying the narratives that often inspire those in the health and wellness space. Together, we discuss combating decision fatigue, the pitfalls of a hyper-distracted world, and how retraining our focus through methods like the Pomodoro technique can significantly cut through the noise.
Moreover, we examine the steep rise in workplace distractions and burnout in the post-pandemic era, as indicated by reports from giants like Microsoft and Deloitte. From the importance of restorative breaks to the impact of office food culture on our well-being, we leave no stone unturned in exploring how small lifestyle tweaks can make a mammoth difference in our productivity and health.
Stay with us as we uncover the myths of multitasking, the all-too-common issue of decision fatigue, and why leaders must play a pivotal role in fostering a communication culture that respects personal time and mental wellness.
So, if you're seeking ways to build resilience, improve focus, and adopt a sustainable work-life balance, join us on this enlightening journey with Heather. Let's get Evolved.
This episode is brought to you by Evolved Management Training Courses.
Online courses specifically crafted for MSP needs. A Service Manager BootCamp course, a project manager for MSPs course, an MSP security fundamentals course, and an IT Documentation Done RIght course.
Joel Abramson - Managing Partner at Top Down
Today, we welcome Joel Abramson, managing partner at TopDown.
In this episode, we will explore the ever-relevant topic of maximizing productivity in an increasingly remote and digital work environment. Joel shares his insights on the challenges that businesses face, such as the distractions of technology and the need for better tools to monitor productivity. Together, we delve into Produce 8, an innovative response to the plateaued productivity issues.
We'll also discuss how the pandemic has brought new concerns over employee productivity to the forefront for many CEOs. Joel illuminates the fine line between automation benefits and the additional burdens it can place on technicians.
Join us as we examine strategies to avoid burnout and boredom by focusing on meaningful work, setting intentional goals, and unlocking efficiencies with better workflow and tool optimization. We'll tackle the tricky balance of keeping an eye on the bottom line while improving the work experience to boost engagement and productivity.
We're here to equip you with the tools and thought processes needed to not just survive but thrive in the modern business landscape. So let's evolve your approach to managing time and engagement with Joel Abramson on the Evolved Radio Podcast.
This episode is brought to you by Evolved Management Training Courses.
Online courses specifically crafted for MSP needs. A Service Manager BootCamp course, a project manager for MSPs course, an MSP security fundamentals course, and an IT Documentation Done RIght course.
Jimmy Hatzell - CoFounder of Hatz AI
Welcome back to Evolved Radio Podcast, today we are diving into the groundbreaking revolutionary world of the AI. My guest today is, Jimmy Hatzell, a man who’s not just fascinated by the capabilities of AI but also turned that fascination into a MSP focused AI startup. Together, we’re going to explore the ins and outs of AI in the world of Managed Service Providers.
Jimmy and I reflect on how far the ecosystem has advanced in such a short period. We nerd out abit on the underlying technology behind generative AI, and how it's prompting millions of users and companies to latch onto the LLM bandwagon.
Jimmy takes us through his personal journey with AI - from a eureka moment with his father-in-law to starting his own company, focusing on how small businesses can maximize their use of AI.
We’ll look at the breathtaking pace of technological evolution versus the sluggish crawl of regulation and guess what the future holds.
Will MSPs manage LLM infrastructure? Will we see a return to on-premises solutions? Stick around for predictions and our deep dive into these predictive waters.
So sit back, grab a notepad, and let’s get evolved with Jimmy Hatzell on the latest in AI for MSPs.
This episode is brought to you by Evolved Management Training Courses.
Online courses specifically crafted for MSP needs. A Service Manager BootCamp course, a project manager for MSPs course, an MSP security fundamentals course, and an IT Documentation Done RIght course.
Micahel Nelson Co-founder of Scaled
Today, on the latest episode of the Evolved Radio Podcast, we delve into the evolving world of managed service providers with a special focus on staff augmentation. Joining us is Michael Nelson, the co-founder of Scaled and owner of TLC Tech, an MSP in California. Michael's journey began with skepticism towards remote work, but through revolutionary changes and an open mind, he's since embraced a mainly remote workforce, reaping benefits in productivity, profitability, and employee happiness.
In this episode, we'll uncover the transformative impact of remote work for MSPs, the integration of overseas talent into local company cultures, and how these remote powerhouses can reinvigorate your organization. We'll also discuss the distinctions between staff augmentation and outsourcing, the importance of intentional onboarding, and the necessity of regular communication to engage and retain top remote talent.
Michael will share his personal insights on how remote staffing has reshaped his company and practical tips for maintaining company culture in a remote work environment. We'll be exploring the creation of a remote employee engagement plan and the benefits of thorough documentation.
Additionally, we’ll touch on the cultural nuances of managing a diverse workforce and tackle the more subtle aspects of cross-cultural management.
So plug in, adjust your volume, and get ready for an enlightening conversation that might just change the way you view staffing in your MSP. Let’s tune in.
This episode is brought to you by Evolved Management Training Courses.
Online courses specifically crafted for MSP needs. A Service Manager BootCamp course, a project manager for MSPs course, an MSP security fundamentals course, and an IT Documentation Done RIght course.
Mike Psenka - CEO and Founder of Moovila
Welcome to another episode of the Evolved Radio Podcast! In today's episode, I’m joined by Mike Psenka, CEO and Founder of Moovila, to delve into the world of project management, particularly in the MSP (Managed Service Provider) space. If you've ever wondered why projects just can’t seem to get delivered on time, and how you could make your project delivery process better, you’re gonna love this one. We discuss the importance of understanding dependencies, the critical path, and how technology can streamline project management processes. Mike shares his insights on APMM (autonomous project monitoring and management) and its innovative features. Whether you work in a smaller MSP or a larger organization with a PMO, there's valuable advice for all. So join us as we explore the secrets, strategies, and challenges of managing projects in the ever-evolving world of IT.
This episode is brought to you by Evolved Management Training Courses.
Online courses specifically crafted for MSP needs. A Service Manager BootCamp course, a project manager for MSPs course, an MSP security fundamentals course, and an IT Documentation Done RIght course.
Matt Rouse - Co-Founder of HookSEO
In this episode, I’m joined by my long-time friend and marketing expert, Matt Rouse, co-founder of Hook SEO and author of “Will AI take my job?” Together, we delve into the world of small and medium-sized business (SMB) marketing and explore the fascinating role that artificial intelligence plays in this domain. From their personal experiences in the industry to the essential strategies and tactics that maximize digital advertising ROI, we cover it all. We also reveal their insights on leveraging AI tools to enhance SEO, advertising, and content creation. So, get ready to dive deep into the world of SMB marketing and AI as we uncover valuable tips and strategies for businesses of all sizes. Let's jump right in!
This episode is brought to you by Evolved Management Training Courses.
Online courses specifically crafted for MSP needs. A Service Manager BootCamp course, a project manager for MSPs course, an MSP security fundamentals course, and an IT Documentation Done RIght course.
Jake Gregorich, VP Growth for Lyra Technology Group
Welcome back to another episode of Evolved Radio Podcast! In today's episode, Todd is joined by Jake Gregorich, VP of Growth for Lyra Technology Group, to discuss some fascinating topics related to the challenges and strategies involved in exiting a business. Together, they dive into the concept of the "Death Valley" in the 1 to 5 Million range, where businesses face difficulties due to lack of buyer interest, low selling prices, and stalled organic growth. But fear not, because our experts are here to guide you with tactical and strategic approaches to overcome this hurdle.
They explore the importance of implementing cybersecurity measures and running opt-out campaigns to ensure clients adopt best practices, ultimately leading to impressive year-over-year growth of 8 to 10%. Additionally, our speakers share their insight on being more prescriptive about the technology stack, challenging the idea of assuming client preferences and instead advocating for what they believe is best.
Furthermore, they delve into the fascinating world of successful managed service providers (MSPs) and the key factors that contributed to their achievements. By appointing a second in command and giving them equity, these MSPs experienced significant growth and even achieved valuations 10 times higher than the initial value. Our experts provide valuable insights on finding the right person to drive growth in your business and the benefits of promoting them, including potentially granting them a stake in your business.
But that's not all! Todd and Jake also shed light on the division between the external-facing aspects of a business and its internal operations. Through various examples, they illustrate the potential pitfalls of centralization and the importance of preserving culture and customer relationships during integration into larger businesses.
In terms of marketing and sales strategies, our speakers stress the value of being present in the same places as your ideal customers. Whether it's through multichannel marketing, retargeting warm leads, or even speaking at events, it's all about gaining authority and credibility in the eyes of your target audience.
So, for an episode packed with actionable advice and insights on business exit strategies, growth, marketing, and more, tune in to this exciting episode of Evolved Radio Podcast!
This episode is brought to you by Evolved Management Training Courses.
Online courses specifically crafted for MSP needs. A Service Manager BootCamp course, a project manager for MSPs course, an MSP security fundamentals course, and an IT Documentation Done RIght course.
Lucas Acosta - CEO of Foojee
Today on the podcast, I’m joined by Lucas Acosta, CEO of Foojee. Foojee is an MSP that focuses on supporting Mac environments. As a long-time Apple fanatic, I’m always interested in people working in the Apple ecosystem.
Lucas and I discussed how supporting Mac environments is like supporting a stable Windows environment. This provides more opportunities to provide value to the customer. We talk a bit about how Windows-focused MSPs should think about the Mac fleets they manage. We also talk about what Lucas attributes his company growth to.
This episode is brought to you by Evolved Management Training Courses.
Online courses specifically crafted for MSP needs. A Service Manager BootCamp course, a project manager for MSPs course, an MSP security fundamentals course, and an IT Documentation Done RIght course.
Some links that were mentioned in the episode.
training.apple.com
macadmins.org
Kyle Christensen - K7 Leadership
When I started the Evolved Radio podcast years ago, I intentionally made the episode format three digits. "001"I knew this was something I wasn't going to give up on after six episodes, which is the average number of episodes that new podcasts do before being abandoned.
The podcast has evolved. I've focused more heavily on my target market of MSPs and IT service providers, but I still like to throw in some random nerdy stuff like fusion, drones, genetic engineering, and more. To celebrate a real milestone for me as I hit episode 100. I'm again evolving the podcast. This episode is a video podcast! I hope to add video to most future episodes as well. If you’d like to watch the video version, check it out on my YouTube channel here.
This one is a collaboration with Kyle Christensen from K7 Leadership. We are talking about why the service manager plays such a crucial role in every MSP, how to be successful as a service manager, and what owners need to know about making their service manager successful.
This was a really fun episode to jam on with Kyle. With occasional rants and fun observations from our time in the industry helping MSPs with exactly these kinds of issues.
This episode is brought to you by Evolved Management Training Courses.
Online courses specifically crafted for MSP needs. A Service Manager BootCamp course, a project manager for MSPs course, an MSP security fundamentals course, and an IT Documentation Done RIght course.
Orrin Klopper - CEO of Netsurit
On this episode of Evolved Radio Podcast, I’m speaking with Orrin Klopper, CEO of Netsurit, a veteran of the IT industry since 1997. Orrin shares his journey from high school to becoming a leading figure in the field.
But it's not just Orrin's personal story that we explore in this episode. We also discuss the current state of the managed service provider (MSP) industry. Orrin sheds light on the consolidation happening within the industry, driven by private equity firms and the desire for liquidity events. We learn about the challenges MSPs face in finding new customers and the impact of emerging technologies, particularly AI.
Furthermore, Orrin reveals his company's unique approach to customer support agreements, highlighting the importance of incentivizing customers to follow recommendations. We also explore their company's "managed innovation" service and how it differentiates them from competitors.
Moving beyond the industry, Orrin shares valuable insights into building a purposeful and supportive culture within an organization. We discuss the importance of supporting employees' dreams and aligning the company's purpose with that of their clients. We also dive into their programmatic approach to management, focusing on personal and professional development.
Throughout the episode, Orrin emphasizes the significance of cultural alignment and differentiation in an industry where IT services are becoming increasingly commoditized.
Join us on this episode as we explore the MSP industry and the power of supporting the dreams of the doers. Don't miss out on the valuable insights shared by Orrin, a true industry expert with a passion for growth and purpose
This episode is brought to you by Evolved Management Training Courses.
Training built for your MSP specific needs.
Today on the Evolved Radio Podcast, I’m joined by Brian Hoppe. Brian built, grew, and ran his MSP. He then went on to be acquired.
In our conversation, Brian and I discuss the journey of his MSP life. We talk about his early growth through acquisitions, his thoughts on playing to a niche, some great lessons learned, like faking it till you make it, and how peer groups and mentors impacted him. There are lots of learnings that maybe help you on your business journey. Please enjoy my conversation with Brian.
This episode of the podcast is brought to you by Evolved Training Courses. Training built for MSPs.
Today I’m joined by Phil Edgell of Edge Consulting. Phil and I met early in our tech careers and went on a similar journey in an explosive growth phase at the company we worked at. Phil’s experience is extremely wide-ranging, from starting as a tech to leading a world-class IT company and building the sale channel for several high-growth SaaS companies like Hootsuite and Revenue.io. In this episode, Phil shares his insights on winning more business, the importance of role-playing, why cold calling gets a bad rap and actionable tips on identifying your ideal customer. Please enjoy this insightful conversation with Phil.
This episode of the podcast is brought to you by Evolved Training Courses. Training built for MSPs.
Today on the Evolved Radio Podcast I’m chatting with Alex Dow, Chief Innovation Officer and co-founder of Mirai security.
Alex is an old friend and someone I deeply respect for his experience and knowledge of cybersecurity. He’s worked in the federal security space, securing the Olympics, and now runs a fast-growing security consulting firm in Vancouver.
Alex is also returning guest on the podcast. He originally joined me way back on episode 11 when we talked about drone racing.
On today’s episode, we’re discussing the security mindset. What is a “good enough” cyber security strategy? The buying psychology of the business that is looking for security services, a ton of war stories from Alex’s travels in the security world. We even dip into the details of the recent LastPass security breach.
Please enjoy my conversation with Alex.
This episode of the podcast is brought to you by Evolved Training Courses. Training built for MSPs.
Today on the podcast I’m speaking with Colin Knox CEO and co-founder of Gradient MSP. Colin is an MSP channel veteran. He built and sold his MSP, and created Passportal, which he sold to Solarwinds. Now Colin is back at it with Gradient.
Colin and I get real on the composition of the MSP market not being what a lot of people would seem to understand. How that influences the vendors and marketers of the industry and what effects that has on a huge majority of the MSP market.
We get on our soapboxes a bit in this one and talk about some really important topics. I hope you enjoy my conversation with Colin.
This episode is brought to you by Evolved MSP Training. Great courses for MSP leaders, Project Managers, and much more!
Shane Mishler - COO of SD Tech
Today on the Evolved Radio Podcast, I’m chatting with Shane Mishler from SD Tech. Shane and I discuss the power of partnership. The lessons he’s learned in running an IT business with his business partner. We chat about the pros and cons of having a business partner.
I explore how Shane and his partner share the responsibilities of the business and ensure effective communication between them. We also dig into how partnerships should be considered with clients and vendors.
This is a great conversation for anyone who owns a business with someone or is considering taking on a partner.
This episode is brought to you by Evolved Training. Training courses built for MSPs.
Matthew Call - Assistant Professor at Texas A&M
Today on the Evolved Radio Podcast I’m joined by Matt Call, Assistant Professor of Management at Mays school of business @ Texas A&M. Matt’s research seeks to understand how organizations can create and capture value from their workforce, with a particular interest in star employees. His work has been featured in Wall Street Journal and numerous academic journals.
We chat about identifying high performers, the downside risks of high performers, and how they should influence our thinking about stars as managers as well as members of teams. It’s a fascinating and practical discussion about how to increase the collaboration and cohesiveness of your teams.
Please enjoy my discussion with Matt.
This episode brought to you by Evolved Management training.
Alastair Woolcock - CSO w/ Revenue.io
Today on the podcast I’m joined by Alastair Woolcock, CSO with Revenue.io. Alastair has had an incredible career in technology sales, strategy, and industry analysis. Today Alastair is rolling those skills together to help build a sales enablement platform with Revenue.io. It’s a very cool technology that we touch on at the end of the interview. Alastair shares his thoughts and experience on the art and science of being successful at sales, the people, the tool, and the technology. Please enjoy my conversation with Alastair.
Today on the Evolved Radio Podcast I’m joined by Emily Glass, CEO of Syncro.
Emily and I chat about the future of the PSA and RMM in the MSP industry. How emerging MSPs needs differ from large MSPs and how Synchro is developed to support that community.
We also talk about running an all-remote company, the importance of mental health in the remote age, and a great discussion about how values help you manage decisions in a company.
It’s a great conversation about the MSP industry and company leadership. I hope you enjoy it.
Today on the Evolved Radio podcast I’m chatting with Kevin Crowe. Kevin is the Executive VP of Customer Experience with Long View Systems.
If you’ve ever heard me tell my origin story about working in an early hyper-growth company, I’m talking about my days at Long View. Even back then Kevin was a fantastic storyteller and an adventurer.
In the episode today Kevin talks about how his adventures, like doing 240-mile endurance races prepared him to tackle all kinds of challenges in his life. Including a life alternating condition.
The lessons here are about challenge and adversity are useful in business and life, so please enjoy this entertaining and enlightening conversation with Kevin Crowe.
Want to hear about Kevin’s charity Give A Mile? Checkout out a previous episode on the podcast. ERP012 - Give A Mile
Dave Sobel - Host of The Business of Tech
Today on the Evolved Radio podcast I’m joined by Dave Sobel host of The Business of Tech.
Dave and I talk about the current state of the MSP industry and the economy. Dave has a watchful eye on the trends of the tech industry as a whole and is an outspoken voice of the industry. If you enjoy our discussion today I would also encourage you to check out his daily podcast and YouTube content.
This is a special episode of the Evolved Radio Podcast. It’s my first solo show.
Work from home (WFH) and hybrid work models are here to stay. Today on the podcast I'm doing a solo show to detail some of the ideas I have about how MSPs need to shift their management models. The opportunities and the pitfalls of this change being forced on the work world.
Here is my blog post with an expanded write-up on this topic.
Mike Slater - Head of Channel sales at Sherweb
Today on the Evolved Radio Podcast I’m joined by Mike Slater w/ Sherweb. Mike and I dig into the Microsoft NCE program, what’s changed, and what you need to know. We also chat about how this partner program is an indication of where the industry is trending in general. Mike’s passion for the channel and his depth of experience is perfect for this complex topic. I found it really valuable. I hope you enjoy my conversation with Mike Slater of Sherweb.
Catherine Mattiske
Today on the Evolved Radio Podcast, I’m chatting with Catherine Mattiske, founder of The Performance Company. Catherine and I talk about a topic that is important to everyone, learning.
Everyone spends huge part of their life learning, but we’re making a mistake in our approach to learning. You may have heard the terms “Visual Learner,” but in fact, there are many more modalities that we can leverage. If we understand how we learn and process information, learning becomes easier and our ability to acquire and use the information we’re learning grows dramatically.
Understanding these learning modalities is crucial in business as well. Knowing how your staff, your peers, and your clients learn can be a massive competitive advantage for your ability to communicate.
So let’s dive in with Catherine as we discuss how to unlock your Inner Genius.
Jay Brister, Chief Business Development Officer @ General Fusion
Today is a special episode of the Evolved Radio Podcast. I’m chatting with Jay Brister, Chief Business Development Officer with General Fusion.
General Fusion is a Canadian company and one of the leaders in the race to develop commercial nuclear fusion energy. Fusion technology has been around for 70 years but has historically remained elusive. Recently things have changed. Funding of private companies has been rushing into the space as technical advancements are being announced regularly.
Today I chat with Jay about the state of the industry and why General Fusions approach holds so much promise to bring the world a clean and safe source of power to bring us into the future of energy production.
Thanks to this week’s supporter Cisco!
Cisco MSP Program Link
Today on the Evolved Radio podcast, I'm chatting with Ben Worthen, CEO of Message Lab, an award-winning agency that combines journalism, data, and design to create content that resonates with any audience. Having studied how more than 1 million people engage with online content, Ben is the go-to expert when it comes to customer engagement and brand storytelling.
This episode is packed with practical takeaways that will help you improve your marketing by engaging with people in the correct way and at the correct point in their journey. I especially liked Ben's concept of the idea store.
Please enjoy my conversation with Ben
Today on the podcast I'm joined by Bad Ass IT guy, Ben Brennan, Founder of QSTAC. Now I call him badass cause he did write a book called "Badass IT support." That idea of delivering top-shelf badass support forms the basis of what we talk about in our discussion on the podcast today.
We talk about Ben's experience rising up in the ranks of IT and what it taught him about IT that led him to develop his customer satisfaction software QSTAC. Ben is also a trained therapist, so his perspective on the psychology of work is an area we really connected on. We also talk a bit about Ben's journey as an entrepreneur starting a software company. There's lots to get in to here, so I hope you enjoy my conversation with Ben.
Joining me today on the Evolved Radio Podcast is Stephen Pasiciel with Kerkhoff Technologies. Head of coaching, culture, and talent development.
Stephen and I discuss emotional intelligence or EQ. Emotional intelligence is often a stronger indicator of people's future success. However, it's an amorphic subject that isn't well understood by most. We talk about coaching, and how you can check in with people beyond the "hey how ya' doin'?"
We talk mental health and what leaders should be looking for in their staff as red flags. We also help define EQ and emotional intelligence to better understand these terms in a business context.
Please enjoy this important conversation with Stephen.
Today I'm joined by Peter Melby CEO of Greystone Technologies.
Peter tells a fantastic story about how he grew his company from 800 bucks to cover rent and beer to a 10 Million dollar MSP powerhouse. Peter also shares his view on company culture and how that influenced his decisions in recent acquisition activity.
Please enjoy the fantastic shared in my conversation with Peter.
Joining me on the podcast today is Keith Daser, Director of Data & Security with WBM Technologies.
Keith came to the technology field from sales and we chat about building a funnel, why selling IT service contracts is harder than selling products, and how to manage a skeptical prospect.
It's a great episode with a few tips that could help you grow your business. Please enjoy my conversation with Keith.
Ernest Murry - Genuine Technology
Joining me today is the MSP Channel champion, Ernest Murry of Genuine Technology.
Ernest (Ernest.Pro) is a well-recognized member of the MSP community. His focus on SOPs and strong technical standards is often used as a reference point for others.
We also talk quite a bit about his view of security in our industry and Ernest provides a host of insights from his experience growing his Managed service business.
Please enjoy our conversation.
Joining me today on the MSP insights series is Ron Harris, VP of Sales and Partner at Omega Computers Services.
Ron and I talk about how they developed their pricing strategy. Omega also has a very low client churn rate and we explore that as well. Ron tells us why they decided to roll their own MSP tools, the strength of their brand presence, and why the up-market clients are where you should be.
It's a great conversation with Ron as he shares his experience in growing a successful MSP. Please enjoy.
Paul Vedder - VXIT
Joining me today on the MSP insights series is Paul Vedder with VXIT.
Paul talks about the division of responsibilities running his MSP with a partner. How to handle the conflict created by winning a new client away from a competitor. We also chat about one of VXIT's superpowers, which is brand sophistication. Paul is also one of the co-founders of the MSP community IT Pool Party, so we chat a bit about community building.
It was great to connect with Paul for a very friendly and open conversation, like catching up over a beer. So please enjoy the discussion and lessons learned.
Aaron Zimmeran - TotalCareIT
Today on the podcast we're continuing our series of interviews with MSP owners and operators. Joining me today is Aaron Zimmerman founder of TotalCareIT.
Aaron shares his experience growing his IT business from side hustle to a full-time gig. Aaron shares what he's learned operating in a more rural market. Aaron also recounts a difficult period where he lost a significant portion of his revenue, but ultimately was better off.
Lots of great stories and experiences were shared in the episode, please enjoy my discussion with Aaron.
My first guest to kick off this series is Brad Ruben, President of Archway Computers.
Brad's business isn't a typical MSP. Brad's early experiences in the IT industry shaped some of his decisions about how he runs things. His approach is intentional and has served him really well in growing the company. Brad's primary role in the business is sales, so we also chat about how he thinks about sales and growth. Please enjoy this insightful conversation with Brad.
Paul Green - MSP Marketing Expert
Today on the podcast, I'm joined by Paul Green, MSP marketing expert. Paul and I talk about why IT companies really struggle with marketing, despite knowing it's important.
Paul details where to start from scratch on your marketing strategy and how to focus down on qualified leads.
We also chat about the tremendous opportunity to market to your existing client base.
Finally, we talk about how many MSP websites are downright embarrassing and why you should ensure your website represents you in the market.
Paul is knowledgeable and super passionate about MSP marketing, so grab a notepad and get ready to soak up some learnings here.
Books mentioned:
E-Myth
They Ask You Answer
Today on the podcast I'm joined again by Eric Rieger of Webit.
Eric and I are chatting about the important topic of Mental health. It's a heavy topic, but one that doesn't get enough of the spotlight. The IT industry can be an extremely challenging field. Lots of demands, risks, and an extreme pace of change. Now after almost 2 years of a pandemic, the cracks are starting to show in even the most stoic of us all.
In the conversation today, Eric shares his challenges with mental health. We also chat about some management practices that can help.
So if you're struggling with a mental health challenge or even if you're not there's great info for everyone in this episode of the podcast. Please relax for an hour zone out and enjoy the episode.
Today on the podcast I'm joined by Eric Rieger with WebIT. Eric has been running his MSP for 25 years and has learned many lessons through his growth.
One that has had a profound impact on his business is using a system called open-book management. This is the practice of being highly transparent with your finances. Sharing as much financial information as possible with your staff and using it to instill a sense of ownership and awareness of the company finances.
We also talk about his experience in developing an Employee stock ownership program or ESOP.
Eric's insights here are super valuable and align very closely with what I've observed in leveraging open-book management practices. So please enjoy this enlightening conversation with Eric Rieger.
Resources
If you’d like to check out the book we discuss you can find it on Amazon here:
Jack Stack - The Great Game of Business
Jay McBain - Principal Analyst at Forrester Research
Today on Evolved Radio I'm chatting with Jay McBain, Principal Analyst at Forrester Research.
Jay is a well-recognized and trusted voice in the IT Channel. He lives and breathes this stuff. He's super passionate about the industry trends and our industry future.
I get Jay's insights on the evolution of the distributors, the role of community in the channel, and his perspective on potential regulation of the IT industry.
Resources:
Jay’s Blog
Matt Lee - Iconic IT
Today on the podcast I'm joined by Matt Lee, CISSP, Director of technology and security with Iconic IT.
Matt and I chat about his experience and lessons learned in growing an MSP from a handful of staff to a multi-million dollar business. We talk about staffing, team structure, client management, and tech stack. There are a ton of insights that you may find familiar in your growth story. There are also come great takeaways that could help you in your business.
Matt is a great guy, very open and honest and this was a fun discussion that I'm sure you'll enjoy.
Professor Piers Steel
Today on Evolved Radio I joined again by Piers Steel. Piers is a Professor at the University of Calgary. He has an interesting field of study, procrastination.
I had Piers on the podcast a couple of years back in episode 41. We explored the psychological roots of procrastination.
Today Piers and I hit on something that I'm sure you have felt in the past year, Quarantine Procrastination. We also chat about some systems to help you and of course, end up talking about productivity since we're both a bit obsessed with the topic.
Enjoy the discussion and I hope you find it interesting and helpful.
Today on Evolved Radio I'm chatting with Vadim Vladimirksiy, CEO of Nerdio.
Vadim and I discuss our shared experience in the early days of remote-delivered desktop computing. Vadim was an early visionary of what the technology could eventually become. He built an MSP and set to work in building a solid cloud desktop solution for his clients. His success with the platform led him to spin out Nerdio from his MSP and have built one of the channel's leading solutions for serving and managing Windows Virtual Desktops (WVD).
We talk about some of the early issues with the technology and how things have matured. As the company name implies this episode gets pretty nerdy, so get ready to go deep to better understand the power of Windows Virtual Desktops past and present.
Limited time offer from Microsoft and Nerdio for up to 6 months free access to the Nerdio WVD platform!
John Hammond - Huntress Labs
Today on the podcast I'm chatting with John Hammond, a Security researcher with Huntress Labs. John and I discuss the recent Microsoft Exchange attack sweeping the globe, the evolution of the AV platform, and some really cool security training platforms that John reviews on his Youtube channel. It's a scary world out there on the internet and we're here to arm you with some resources to stay safe.
You may also be interested in a previous episode with the CEO of Huntress Kyle Hanslovan. You can check out episode 43 here.
Megan Gilhooly - VP of Customer Experience
Today on the podcast I'm joined by Megan Gilhooly (@MeganGilhooly), VP of Customer Experience at Zoomin. Megan has made it her mission to change how organizations think about product content.
Megan has a really interesting perspective on how information creates a user experience. This spans from technical documentation to user prompts in software. It's an area of the technology industry that isn't as flashy as others, but the conversation with Megan really opened my eyes to the importance of being intentional about how you present information to anyone. Users of a product, technical staff reading documentation. These are all areas that would benefit from an intentional approach.
Rick McCutcheon - Microsoft MVP
Today on the podcast I'm chatting with Rick McCutcheon. Rick is a Microsoft Dynamics 365 MVP.
Rick has a strong history in the CRM and Dynamics world. Now Rick helps businesses and vendors develop their Dynamics businesses.
In the podcast Rick and build on the previous episode, growing your cloud business. We chat about the opportunity that's available in building a dynamics practice, how to do it, and the huge impact it could have on your business.
Rick’s interviews of ISV partners mentioned in the show
- Velosio
- Provanance
- John O’Donnell
Doug Fiore w/ Tech Data
Today on the podcast I'm speaking with Douglas Fiore with Tech Data.
Doug is a former Microsoft Dynamics business owner who now works as a partner enablement manager for Tech Data. Doug and I discuss some of the opportunities available to Microsoft cloud partners. Dynamics is a growing practice area for many MS partners and if you haven't considered how it could help your business, this podcast will help to highlight the opportunity available.
Steve Petryschuk
Today on the podcast I'm joined by Steve Petryschuk, Technology Advocate with Auvik Networks.
Steve is here to chat about the findings of Auvik's network field report. Auvik surveyed hundreds of IT Pros to get their perspective on their knowledge and practices around network management. The report is an interesting mix of insights. I've included a link to the full report in the show notes, so be sure to check that out. For now, enjoy my conversation with Steve as we discuss some of the insights from the report as well as some general discussion about network management.
ResourcesAuvik 2021 Field Report
Stephen King, CEO of GrowthForce
Today on the podcast I'm speaking with Stephen King (@sKingGForce)with Growth Force.
Stephen is the CEO of GrowthForce one of the largest providers of outsourced bookkeeping and controller services in the US.
With three decades of experience in supporting businesses with their finances, Stephen has seen it all. The topic of today's conversation is an important one, Fraud! Stephen and I discuss how businesses are impacted by fraud and how to build better systems and processes in your business to ensure you're not one of the thousands of businesses every year that have money stolen from their business.
This discussion spans cybersecurity, process management, human psychology, and trust.
Please enjoy this useful discussion on how to protect your business from financial fraud.
Resources
CEO’s Guide to Reducing Fraud EBook
Gabriel Gumbs, CIO at Spirion
Today on the podcast I'm chatting with Gabriel Gumbs (@gabrielgumbs), CIO of Spirion. Gabe had an early passion for technology and focused on the security field. Gabe has deep experience as a security practitioner. In the interview, we discuss where people tend to go wrong when implementing a security framework. We discuss some of the industry frameworks and how they can be leveraged for your own needs. We also touch on finding the balance between security policies and user friction. I hope you enjoy this thought-provoking discussion with an innovative leader in the security and privacy space.
Resources:NIST Framework
NIST Zero Trust Framework
Privacy Please Podcast
Stephen King, CEO of GrowthForce
Today on the podcast I'm joined by Stephen King, President, and CEO of GrowthForce.
GrowthForce is one of the largest outsourced accounting services in the US. His experience as a top executive in a Fortune 500 company is now put to work helping his team provide accounting system design and data-based management.
In our discussion today we talk about the tough times that likely lay ahead for the economy in 2021. Why and HOW businesses should be preparing for a rough economic future. We also chat about the human element and how to balance the needs of your company with the desire to be a compassionate leader.
Regardless of where you're at in your company journey, you should always know your numbers. This episode is a great resource to reflect on what you need to know and how you should be preparing for the future in order to protect your company's future.
Luis Giraldo - CEO of Ook
Today on the podcast I'm joined by Luis Giraldo. Luis is well known in the MSP channel for his role at IT glue, but Luis has recently moved to Solarwinds. Also, a lesser-known fact is that Luis is also an MSP owner. I'm not sure where he finds so many hours in the day, but I'm glad to have him as a return guest on the podcast. Luis was one of the very early guests of the podcast way back on episode five, which I'll link to in the show notes.
The topic for today is MSP tools again, Luis and I are chatting about the evolution of the RMM tool for MSPs and how the pandemic is influencing network management.
Chris Timm - Sondela Consulting
Today on the podcast I'm joined by Chris Timm (@sondelaconsult) with Sondela Consulting. Chris is a former MSP owner who now runs a consulting group that focuses on helping Managed Service providers get the most from the PSA.
The PSA or professional services automation tool is a central tool for most MSPs. The trouble is the tool often doesn't get as much love or attention as it should. Yes, can do ticketing, but there is also SO much more that the PSA can provide for your business.
Enjoy my conversation with Chris on why these tools are underutilized and what you can do about it.
Additional Resources mentioned in the episode.* Chris’ book PSA Profitability * TopLeft (CW Kanban Episode)
Josh Weiss - LA Creative Technologies
Today on the podcast I'm speaking with Josh Weiss with LA Creative Technologies.
Josh experienced very difficult personal events in the past year. The standard pressure of running an MSP was compounded by his girlfriend being diagnosed with cancer and his father entering palliative care. Then to top if off the coronavirus pandemic forced everyone into lockdown.
It would have been understandable that Josh would have been overwhelmed by the pressure.
Instead, adversity has created an opportunity to reflect on his values and his habits.
Josh and I talk about what these challenges have taught him about how he lives his life and how he manages his business.
To be honest, I have avoided talking about the pandemic in the podcast, but I also see now how this event will have long-lasting impacts on our businesses and our society.
I hope you enjoy this discussion with Josh Weiss on adversity and values.
Resources:
Psychological Safety blog post I mention.
Profit First - A book that Josh mentions.
Anti Cancer Living - A book that Josh mentions.
Nigel Moore - Leader of the Tech Tribe
Today on Evolved Radio I'm chatting with Nigel Moore, leader of the Tech Tribe.
Nigel is a favorite guest on the podcast and if you haven't heard Episode 35 when Nigel and I discussed the transition from Time and Materials provider to the MSP model, I encourage you to check out that previous episode.
Today Nigel and I are chatting about one of the most common questions that gets asked in the MSP community, "How should I package and price my offering?"
What should you include? What should my seat price be? Should you have Termed contracts? All this and some fun war stories about life in the MSP channel.
If you'd like to check out the Tech Tribe Community. You can use my affiliate link to get 40% off your first month.
You can also check out Nigel's book here.
Today on the podcast I'm chatting with Linda Rose. Linda is an author, speaker, and advisor. Linda's background building, running and selling not one, but several technology companies. In the episode today we explore some of the lessons she's condensed from her experience into a book entitled, "Get Acquired for Millions."
Linda and I discuss topics like valuing your company and what goes into that. Should you still be considering selling in a depressed market, how should you be preparing your company for a sale, and you may be surprised by how long that process takes.
Linda also has some valuable resources to share below. So check those out as well.
Additional Resources from Linda:
Quiz: How Ready are you to Sell: https://rosebizinc.com/buy-sell-quiz
Blog post Linda mentioned about the “rule of 40”:
https://rosebizinc.com/4-key-metrics-to-track-now-so-you-can-sell-your-business-for-millions-in-the-future/
On the podcast today, I'm joined by Robert Merki to talk about ADHD. ADHD is well recognized in modern culture. However, there are also a lot of misconceptions and stigmas associated with the condition. Rob explains his journey in finding he had ADHD, how it affected him, and how he manages.
Rob is a software product director and is currently writing a book entitled ADHD Pro.
Book link: https://adhdpro.xyz/
Twitter link: https://twitter.com/robmerki
Michael Argast - Founder of Kobalt
Today on the podcast I'm speaking with Michael Argast founder of Kobalt (@kobaltio). Kobalt is a security consulting partner that specializes in helping small to medium businesses secure their technical operations with an enterprise approach.
Michael and I explore what team should consider when they are building cloud infrastructure. What are some of the common mistakes? Is On-prem more secure than the cloud? Also, since everyone is dealing with the COVID19 work from home issue, we explore some tips on ensuring people are staying secure when working from home.
Jon Scott - CEO of ScopeStack
Today I'm joined by Jon Scott from ScopeStack. We talk about some of the best practices you should use when scoping projects. Things like fixed fee vs. TnM, the difference between a proposal and a SOW, and how you can make your project scoping easier. This is a great episode with useful insights to help you to up your project delivery game. You can increase profit and client satisfaction while reducing the burden on the tech team.
Today on the podcast I'm joined by Nate Freedman from Tech Pro Marketing. We talk about some of the common mistakes IT companies make when building their marketing engine. We also discuss some of the effective tactics in marketing to your clients. We focus heavily on using LinkedIn as a vehicle for generating leads. We also touch on using your website and paid click campaigns. There are tons of useful ideas and strategies in this episode, so listen up and maybe make a few notes.
Today on the podcast I'm speaking with Jennifer Bleam with MSP Sales Revolution. Selling Cybersecurity is critical for any IT service provider. After all, the impact of a cyber attack on your clients has an impact on you with recovery work and potential damage to reputation. So How do you sell cybersecurity to your clients? Is it appropriate to use fear as a sales tool? How do you counter the pushback that you get from some clients? Jennifer and I talk about these questions and much more, so please enjoy this topical and actionable conversation with Jennifer Bleam.
Download Jennifer’s 30 Day Cyber Security readiness roadmap here.
Jennifer hosts a facebook community which you can check out here.
Jennifer Bleam is a veteran speaker and respected leader in the IT channel. She has had the privilege of speaking at countless industry events including ones hosted by Continuum, Kaseya, Technology Marketing Toolkit, CharTec, ASCII, and ChannelPro throughout North America, Australia, and Ireland. Not only did Jennifer own an MSP, but she also had the privilege of coaching hundreds of MSPs on selling cybersecurity. She is now consults with IT companies privately to help them sell cybersecurity quickly, easily, and profitably.
Some other resources we mention in the podcast.
- ID Agent Identity monitoring
- NIST Cyber Security Framework
- ERP043 - Podcast w/ Huntress Labs
Rachel Gertz Cofounder of Louder Than Ten
On the podcast today, I'm speaking with Rachel Gertz about project management. Rachel is a return guest to the podcast. We've previously talked about the role of the project manager in episode 9. She also joined me in episode 19 to talk about some futuristic topics like AI and medicine.
Today, we dive deeper into project management, especially people that find themselves as accidental project managers. We share some tips about dealing with people, how to run project meetings, and the huge career opportunities in project management.
ERP009 - Project Management
ERP019 - Futurism and AI
Training from LT10
Michael Seiler - Taconic
Today on the podcast, we're diving into the evolution of biosciences and genetic engineering. I'm speaking to Michael Seiler with Taconic. Michael is an expert in genetic engineering. At Taconic, they help researchers to test drug therapies and even gene therapies with highly controlled animal models. The field of biosciences is evolving fast and Taconic is at the cutting edge of what a more modern test tube looks like.
On the podcast, Michael and I discuss gene therapy and the science of genetic engineering. We also discuss the quickly advancing field of the microbiome.
Resources
Amazing Radiolab episode on CRISPR
Likky Lavji
Today on the podcast I'm speaking with Likky Lavji about blind spots. Everyone has blind spots. We have them in our personal life and our work lives. Being aware of our blindspots can open up a universe of options for us to advance our goals. Likky is a former MSP owner and EOS consultant. He speaks honestly about his own experiences as a business owner as well as his observations inside other people's businesses. This is a great conversation that hopefully gets you thinking about your own blind spots that may be quietly controlling your world.
Likky on Linkedin & likkylavji.com
Most MSPs are great at solving technical problems, but being a great MSP is more about how you make your clients feel, more than what you do.
On the podcast today is Alona Bolotnikova of Perfecting Service. She helps MSPs with the soft skills and service coaching to ensure your support team is providing the best possible service experience for your clients.
We talk about common client complaints, best practices for updating clients on tickets, and top tips for helping your techs improve their service skills. Enjoy my conversation with Alona about creating a great service culture.
Aydin Mirzaee - CEO & Co-founder of Fellow.app
Today we're talking about my favorite topic. Management.
Earlier this year I found a software tool that filled a gap that I've struggled with for years. Both as a manager in previous roles, but also the managers that I've coached.
Keeping notes for meetings, one on ones, sharing deliverables and provide feedback. There are some tools that help with some of these, but it was always imperfect. Then I found Fellow. They call it a manager's co-pilot, but I would argue it's more than that. It uses the management practices that I advocate for and puts all of that information in a lightweight, easy to use platform.
I invited Aydin Mirzaee (@aydin), CEO and co-founder of Fellow of the software to discuss management practices and how Fellow can help. I hope you enjoy this conversation with Aydin.
To Try Fellow.app for free, click here.
Dan Wensley - CEO of Warranty Master
Most IT Service providers are sitting on top of a multi-million dollar sales opportunity in their existing customer base. This episode of Evolved Radio will show you how to take advantage of this massive opportunity.
Today on the podcast I'm joined by Dan Wensley, CEO of Warranty Master. Dan is a veteran of the MSP channel, having worked at Level Platforms which was a darling of the Canadian tech scene. Dan was also the president of Passportal before joining Warranty Master.
In our conversation, we talk about how MSPs can leverage warranty data to ensure their client environments are more stable which benefits the customer as well as the MSP.
Kyle Hanslovan - CEO of Huntress Labs
There has been a string of coordinated attacks on MSPs recently. Large players like WiPro, Fujitsu, and IBM. As well as a number of smaller regional MSPs. Kyle Hanslovan (@kylehanslovan) of Huntress Labs joins me on the podcast to give us his expert viewpoint on the risks these attacks pose and how IT service companies should be securing their environments to avoid being the next victim.
Links mentioned in the podcast:Huntress Labs Attack Debrief Webinar
Art Markman (@abmarkman) is a leading cognitive scientist. Art is a professor of psychology and marketing at the University of Texas at Austin. He is also the author of several books and hundreds of scholarly articles.
Today we discuss his new book "Bring Your Brain to Work. Using Cognitive Science to Get a Job, Do It Well, and Advance Your Career."
Art also has a podcast called "Two Guys on Your Head."
Professor Piers Steel
Today on the podcast I'm talking to Piers Steel, Professor at the University of Calgary and author of The Procrastination Equation. Piers has spent years researching the reasons for and impacts of procrastination. Today we chat about the reasons why you fail to follow through despite your best intentions. It's a surprisingly complex topic. A fascinating mixed conversation on self-help, psychology, biology, and productivity. I'm sure you'll find the conversation as fascinating as I did. Enjoy.
For more read Dr. Piers Steel’s book the Procrastination Equation
Chris Day, CEO of Top Down Ventures
On the podcast, today is Chris Day CEO of Top Down Ventures.
Chris is a well recognized member of the MSP channel, as the founder of IT Glue. IT Glue's remarkable growth curve and industry attention are unlike anything we've seen in the market. He recently exited IT Glue after selling to Kaseya. Now he's working with SaaS application entrepreneurs to provide capital and scaling strategies for their businesses.
In our discussion we catch up with Chris on the recent M&A activity of Glue and Fully Managed, the projects currently on deck at Top Down, and we discuss the current M&A madness in the MSP channel.
The products being managed by Top Down we mentioned
Quoter
Backup Radar
Warranty Master
Mark Colgate PhD
Mark is a Professor of Service Excellence at the University of Victoria, Gustavson School of Business. Mark is the author of "The science of service, the proven formula to drive customer loyalty and stand out from the crowd." Available on Amazon. Mark has spent years researching how to deploy high quality service.
Mark has done work with the government of British Columbia, Telus, Whistler Blackcomb and the Commonwealth Bank of Australia.
Linkedin | Twitter
Kevin Behr CSO @ PaxisFlow
On the podcast today is Kevin Behr, @kveinbehr, Chief Scientific Officer w/ PraxisFlow.
Our conversation is a stimulating discussion on the evolution of the IT industry as we know it today and some exploration of what it may look like in the future. How you can remove bottlenecks in your in your organization and how you can grow the skills of your team to ensure everyone’s commitment and success.
Kevin is a co-author on several popular books including The Visible OPs Handbook, The Phoenix Project, and more. His industry expertise and insights are wide ranging and the discussion is fascinating and enlightening.
Books & resources mentioned in the podcast:
The Goal - Eliyahu Goldratt
Unlearn - Barry O'Reilly
Free CISA training
Kevinbehr.me - (coming)
Doug Hazelman - VP Technical Marketing
Today's podcast is brought to you by Cloudberry. Your #1 cross-platform cloud backup platform. I’m chatting with Doug Hazelman (@VMDoug), VP of technical marketing with Cloudberry.
Backups are an important offering for any IT service provider. Cloudberry is focused on supporting MSPs build a flexible backup offering that protects servers and workstations, as well as cloud app data like Office 365 and G suite.
Cloudberry allows a free trial of their software, so why not sign up and give it a spin?
Doug hosts an MSP focused podcast called MSP Voice that you should subscribe to.
Transcript
Todd: On the podcast today, I have Doug Hazelman, vp of technical marketing with cloudberry. Welcome Doug.
Doug: Thanks todd. Glad to be here.
Todd: So we're going to be talking about backup an extremely important topic for any it service provider as far as the things that you absolutely should be doing. Virus Protection and backup rank pretty much one and two are the things that that should be important as it service providers. So this is an important topic. You're with cloudberry and it's a cloud backup software born in the cloud type approach. If you want, give us a rundown on what excites you about cloudberry as a product offering for msps and it service providers.
Doug: Sure, so I've been in the backup is for awhile, but you know, one of the things I love about cloudberry is first they're focused on the it service provider, managed service provider market, so our managed backup service is targeted towards that and then I think what really sets us apart in his unique differentiator is the fact that we don't provide the cloud storage. The managed service provider provides the cloud storage and we support over 30 different cloud storage providers so you can go all in on aws s three if you want to or maybe azure or you can even mix and match and what that allows you to do is create offerings for your customers. Maybe they want the platinum level and they have a certain budget. Or is this someone who just needs some basic stuff and it doesn't have a lot of money. Maybe choose a different cloud storage provider that's a little bit easier on their budgets, so it really gives a lot of choice to the managed service providers and it prevents any kind of cloud lock in because even though you might choose aws to beginning, you can always move that to azure or google or Wasabi or backblaze, you know, doubt down the road. So you're not locked into any one particular platform.
Todd: Right. So the front end is yours to manage and even brand as well. And the back end is kind of irrelevant as long as the data's safe and backed up, it allows you a bit more flexibility to work with your own stack without that really affecting the day to day operations of the backup for the, for the client, right?
Doug: Yes, exactly.
Todd: And the system does image based backup as well as file based backup. Is there a distinction in the product or is that just a part of the, configuration?
Doug: It's, it's really just a part of the configuration. So whether you want to do image or file, um, is kind of up to you and what your customer's needs are. Um, you know, the Nice thing about image is it gives you quick recovery of the complete, you know, server or workstation, but you know, a lot of times if you're on limited bandwidth, file level backup, you know, you're, you're protecting the data that might be just good enough for, for what that customer needs because sometimes image level can take a while to upload to the cloud versus file level, which is usually pretty quick.
Todd: Right. And do you find people who have a different strategy for the server infrastructure versus managing maybe backup for an endpoint and can you mix and match that as well?
Doug: Oh definitely. So what we see a lot is, especially for critical servers as the image level backup, just because recovery can be so much quicker. And then for desktops, a lot of times it's just kind of file level backup or backup, the profile directory, those types of things where the, where the data is. And then the other thing from a recovery perspective is, you know, we talk a lot about the cloud and backup to the cloud, but you can also backup locally. So, you know, when I talk about that image level backup and recovery, maybe you do image level backup locally, but then file level backup to the cloud. So it's completely configurable in terms of however you want to do that. Again, based on needs, budget, bandwidth, all those types of things.
Todd: And the, I see a trend in the industry with kind of the alignment of some of the other vendors around a single stack. You guys are off obviously feature based in the fact that you are a kind of roll your own and design your own backup strategy as is. You're either cloudberry sense of this or your own personal situation or a feeling on having an appliance or not having an appliance given your history of veeam. I think there might be, uh, maybe some, uh, some influence in that. But I'd love your thoughts on appliance or no appliance. And what does that matter?
Doug: So it goes back to what I said about vendor lock in. You know, as soon as you have an appliance, you're locked into that vendor and to that appliance. And if you want to change, then how do you get that data that's on that appliance or in that proprietary cloud out and into the new system that you want to use. But actually if you've got regulations where you need to keep backups and those types of things, it kind of goes back to that whole vendor lock in. So those are. Those are kinds of things you want to be kind of concerned about. The other is [inaudible]. Not all companies are this way, but a lot of times is the upfront cost with the appliance because you're getting hardware now, some offer rental models and those types of things. But in an office of 10 people, do you really need a $20,000 sitting in their office to kind of handle the backup needs? Or is it fine just to have the backup locally installed on, on the pcs and servers and sending it to the cloud and to a NAS that you have local that you only spent a couple hundred bucks a month.
Todd: Right, So I guess to extend on that, if you don't have a local appliance to backup to, it can slow the recovery. What are the options for folks if they're gonna use cloudberry for that. Being able to do quick recovery from a local image rather than have to stream that image from the Internet, which could obviously take a few hours.
Doug: Yeah, there's actually a couple different scenarios that are. So if you're storing your image backups locally, then if you're a virtualized you can take that image and spin it up as a vm restored as a virtual machine and your, your, your backup and running that way. If you have hardware that's a desktop or laptop, you can do bare metal recovery onto new hardware. You know, and again you're, you're doing it locally so you don't have to like copy it all down from the Internet. And when we talk about cloud specifically, if you're looking at Amazon or Azure, we also have the option of recovering that image as a cloud based virtual machine. So you can recover it. You're saving it to s three. You can recover it as an [inaudible] virtual machine in Amazon or as an Azure vm and in Azure, so, and we're looking to add additional platforms to that, but that way in the event of a disaster where male, maybe the entire offices is no longer there, but you know, you still need to have people access the servers and those types of things. You can spin it up in the cloud and have people access to it in the cloud versus having to have anything locally in order to recover it too.
Todd: And is that something that's built into the software that you can ask for that image to be pushed up into the EC2 image and run from your platform and you have to do that separate from cloudberry?
Doug: Uh, no. So from a Cloudberry perspective, if you're sending your image level backup to either Amazon, S3 or Azure, then you get the option to recover that image as a vm in either of those platforms. So that was nothing. There's nothing else special that you need to do.
Todd: Cool. All right. And the other half that I found interesting about the platform as well as you guys also offer cloud application backup, so Office 365 and g suite and this is something that is becoming a lot more important a lot. A lot of people don't think that this is something that they would require back in the day of or like, well it runs in the cloud, it's managed. Someone else pays to look after this. It can be a pretty awful mistake once people realize that is not a and inherent protection for those cloud based systems. So maybe just tell us a bit more about the cloud backup functions of cloudberry.
Doug: Sure. You know, I always like to say it's your data. You need to protect it just because you're running office 365 or G-suite, they may have a backup of your email, but it may only be for the last two weeks. You know, they don't have any kind of retention unless you want to pay extra for it. The fact is it's still your data or your customers stayed at the thing. You'd be able to access it if they need to. So I always recommend even if you are running in the cloud, backup your data and you know, with our, our Office 365 and G-suite protection, one of the cool things I think is you can backup cloud to cloud. So if you're, you know, Office365, you can back up to Amazon s three if your G-suite you can backup to azure or Amazon or any other cloud. So that way you know the data's protected on a different platform. You need to recover, you can still do that.
Todd: So you guys really play the glue in the middle to shuffle stuff around in whatever cloud you choose and clouds you need. Right?
Doug: Correct. We live in a multi-cloud world, so yeah.
Todd: And that's truly the case now. I mean you often see people discussing it in forums and things like that. Asking your, you guys on Azure or Amazon and people seem to be sort of a, some things here, some things over there. So being able to be portable between those environments as you figured out your footing would be important for sure.
Doug: Yeah definitely.
Todd: And from a branding perspective, really nice addition that you guys have is that you can white label this so that it doesn't look like the vendor is using a particular piece of software in the background. Not that that matters maybe, but you know, some people really like having that brand identity and that this is our ABC, a it services backup software. So that's a nice play. Have you found people really gravitate towards that?
Speaker 1: Definitely. And the one area you know and where I see it's really valuable to have that capability is if a program prompt pops up and it says cloudberry, what's the customer going to do? Are they going to call their IT service provider or are they going to contact cloudberry? You want them to see your name if you're managing their it. And that's what this allows. So something pops up, it says ABC it, okay, I know to call my abc it guy, you know, whatever it makes it look like. Yes, this is an offering that we have. It's our brand that customers typically don't necessarily care about the back end technology. They just want to know that they're protected and it's the best way to do that.
Todd: That's a good point. The other one I thought of as you were, you were talking about that would be hopefully they're becoming security aware and if they see some prompt from a piece of software they don't recognize, maybe they would question that hopefully.
Doug: Exactly.
Todd: So in some circumstances, but if it is ABC it backup, then they're more comfortable with that piece of software running if they're somewhat security sensitive. Right?
Doug: Exactly.
Todd: Yeah. What about the traditional competition that backup faces in maybe the client where you've got a weekend warrior it guy and he you, you proposed some backup pricing for them and he does some quick Google research and says, wow, this is really expensive compared to la, la, la, whatever. Backup service. This is something that I've seen historically in the past where people don't really understand the distinction between backup services and why they're different.
Doug: So most people would probably not say that cloudberry is too expensive if you actually look at the pricing so you know, so that that's kind of one aspect that we do have going for us. But you know, people are going to shop around and they're going to look at pricing. A lot of people are very price conscious and price sensitive and again, because we're not offering the cloud, we don't have a data center, we're restoring your data. It allows us to offer very competitive pricing for the software component and then you can go out and shop around for the cloud storage and for the cloud services. So that takes kind of the pricing pressure out of it in terms of, of you know, cloudberry. But what you do see is they will shop around and, and you'll, you know, like you said, you brought up appliances and someone's, oh well give me a free appliance and then it's only so much per month. That may be the case, but then you know, what's your maintenance, what's your refresh cycle on hardware and those types of things. So things that people don't necessarily always think about it, they just look at price there. There's a lot more to it than just price.
Todd: Yeah. And I think the, the options of how you're backing up things are important. One of the distinctions that I found people didn't really understand in those scenarios where they would, they would do some research and try to compete with some off the shelf software is most of those systems or file based and that's okay if you just need to recover the files, but if you lose an entire server or a workstation, there's still the effort of recovering that machine versus just being able to restore from an image. So it's important that people educate their customers on why the backups are different and where that situation may apply. Uh, and again, advantage for you guys that you can kind of mix and match and whatever those scenarios are for sure. The other spots or you do have some PSA integration. So you guys plug into connectwise and autotask, can you expand a bit on, on what the features are that, that are allowed for by having that PSA integration directly?
Doug: Well, one of the nice things is from a ticketing perspective, you know, if it's, if it's with your psa, then it can obviously we can tie into the ticketing system and, and bring those up. The other is, you know, from a billing perspective, we could bring in that usage info from, from what they're using on cloudberry, hold that into their PSA if they're, if they're using it for billing and we even bring in the amount of cloud storage they're using. So you can set the price on cloud storage that you charge the customer. Okay. They're using, you know, this is how many gigabytes or terabytes that they're using a cloud storage, so this is going to be their price this month and those types of things. So really streamlines that process. And then besides psa we also have our mm integration with connectwise automate and we have a couple of others that we have integration that aren't necessarily on our website, but they're integrated from the perspective of that RMM vendor. So like Ninjas and example, and really deep integration with Ninja. But if you purchase from Ninja add cloudberry to it, then you get that deep integration.
Todd: And you guys have really easy deployment because you're just software and you can kind of just pop that onto whatever managed assets the, the, the vendor would need, right?
Doug: Yes.
Todd: Okay. And what about a roadmap? What are some features that cloudberry have in the archives you guys are looking to spin out?
Doug: We're always working on something and a couple of things. We're looking at expanding some of the support we have for our cloud storage vendors to offer things that, you know, currently we might only offer on Amazon or Azure. So like synthetic backup is one of those items where rather than having to do a weekly full backup, you can just keep doing an incremental and then have the synthetic backup buildup in the cloud. So that's something we offer for Amazon and Azure. We're rolling it out some other platforms as well. Also the recovery verification, I'm looking at doing that automated so that once a backup is complete, let's run through a restore scenario and verify that yes, this is a good backup. You'll be able to restore from it if you need to. So that's another thing that's coming down the road on the backup side. Very cool. And what about the vendors that you guys deal with, the cloud vendors, have you developed relationships with them or do you sort of Wade into that at all? Like red? Do you leave that more agnostic for the providers
Doug: No, we have relationships with all the vendors for most of the vendors that we support. So we have a great relationship with Amazon. Great relationship with Microsoft and Azure. There was a webinar today with Wasabi, a joint webinar that we're doing with them. We've done joint stuff with backblaze. We've done a lot of work with Ninja, so we do have a very healthy partnership ecosystem and managing those partnerships moving forward.
Todd: Excellent. And if people are using some form of backup or they're looking for alternatives, what are your suggestions for them and learning more about cloudberry? Well, first off is we offer free trials. So if you want to get in, just take a look at our managed backup service go to cloudberrylab.com. Go to manage backup, um, and sign up for a free trial. And once you get access to the free trial, we verify that you are a managed service provider first before we give you access I, but once you have access to it, we actually throw in some free storage. We are testing, so I just a couple of gigs of Amazon S3 storage. So you get that for free so you can test it within also that unlocks access to the pricing information. So we don't put our for our managed backup service, this targeted MSPs, we don't publish, we don't publicly put the pricing on the Internet just because we don't want our MSP customers to see the pricing, you know, they're like, oh, you're only paying this much for that, for the backup. Why are you charging me more, but once you are signed up for the trial, you can click the buy button and it brings up the menu of pricing. You can put in numbers, you can see we have very aggressive volume discounts so you know that first number you see is that just the list price, but you know you up the quantity, the 30, 50 ,100 and you'll see the discount kick in and the price drop and really significantly so that's one of the best ways to get started and take a look at it is just do a trial
Todd: And you go outside of the MSP market, you do offer enterprise backup as well, so if someone is in host it and they would like to look at this and wanting to experiment with some, some backend vendors like S3 and azure and things like that. There is options for the direct to enterprises as well, right?
Doug: Yeah. We again are managed backup. We target for managed service providers, but if there is in house it they can take a look at that as well. We do have some customers that aren't managed service provider using our managed backup service, but if you're at home and just a home user and a prosumer and you like this idea of being able to backup to the cloud, but you don't need this whole management interface. We have what I call our standalone backup, which is cloud, very backup and you can download, install that. The pricing on that is published. There's a free version and that can help you get started. You just at home, you've got a couple of computers that you went back up to the cloud. Cloud backup is the way to go.
Todd: Alright, Doug will appreciate your time here and uh, informing us on cloudberry. If people would like to find out more about the product or cloudberry itself, any social channels or other mediums they should look for you and follow you on.
Doug: Yeah, so for cloudberry, it's cloudberry lab. Which is on twitter and in other areas. So and then cloudberrylab.com is the website. For me personally, I am @VMDoug across most of the socials, so you'll find me there on twitter, instagram, and other areas including reddit and then finally, one other thing that we do have is as a kind of a resource for the community is we do a podcast. I do a podcast called MSP voice and the goal of MSP Voice is it's not meant to be a podcast about cloudberry, but it's meant to be a podcast for MSPS, hearing from other MSP, so each week I interview a different managed service provider or someone in the industry and we don't talk about cloud or we talk about what's going on in the industry or know how they grew their business and any tips and tricks they have for other msps.
Todd: Yeah, it's a good one. I've listened to MSP voice. It's a. it's a fun podcast, so definitely check that out. All right, well we'll wrap up there and thanks for your time dot all.
Doug: Alright, thank you. Todd.
On the podcast today I'm speaking with Canon Bryan, CFO with Terrestrial Energy. Terrestrial Energy is an industry leader in next-generation nuclear energy. Nuclear is a fantastically efficient and clean source of energy, but over the years it's earned a bit of negative reputation. As Canon and I discuss this reputation is really unfair when you examine the facts. Terrestrial Energy is building the next generation of nuclear power. It's much more compact, it's dramatically safer, and could be the key to our energy future.
Resources mentioned
4th Generation Energy Blog
Terrestrial Energy on Twitter & Facebook
Taylor Wilson - MSR Ted Talk - This is the TED Talk that got me excited about the MSR technology
Turning CO2 into gasoline
Nuclear facilities have killed far fewer people than you may think.
Today on the podcast, my guest is Nigel Moore, Founder of The Tech Tribe. Nigel built and sold a successful MSP in Sydney. Now he is leading a tribe of MSP owners looking to grow their MSP practice. Nigel and I talk about the evolution of the IT service company to an MSP. The mistakes people make and what makes it difficult. We also explore the idea of if you should do TnM & MSP or just go pure MSP. Nigel is a fantastic guy, and is truly passionate about the industry.
Resources mentionedManaged Services in a Month - by Karl Palachuk
The Tech Tribe discount link here. Use this link and get 40% off your first month and the tech tribe will donate mosquito nets to communities in Africa!
Today's podcast is brought to you by Simplesat. Your tool for stupidly simple satisfaction surveys. I'm joined by Derek and Cory Brown, the father-son team behind Pronto Marketing and Simplesat.
If you're in a service-based industry it's important to know how your customers feel about your service. Traditional satisfaction surveys are terrible and the response rates show that's the case. Simplesat can increase your client feedback 10 fold. Simplesat also makes the data more actionable.
I recently did a blog post about Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT). So if you'd like to learn more about how getting customer feedback can empower your business, check it out.
Podcast TranscriptTodd: Welcome to evolve radio where we explore the evolution of business and technology. Today's podcast is brought to you by Simplesat, your tool for stupidly simple satisfaction surveys. I'm joined by Derek and Cory Brown, the father and son team behind Pronto marketing and Simplesat. If you're in a service based industry, it's important to know how your customers feel about your service. Traditional satisfaction surveys are terrible, and response rates show that that's the case. Simplesat can increase your client feedback tenfold. Simple, sad. Also makes the data more actionable. Jump over to Simplesat.io for a free 30 day trial and try it out yourself now onto my interview with Derek and Cory.
Todd: Joining me on the podcast today, or Derek and Cory Brown, cofounders of Pronto marketing and simple set. Welcome to the podcast guys.
Derek: Hey, thanks for having us.
Todd: So this will be a bit of an experiment. This is actually the first time that I've had more than one guest at a time on the podcast, so we'll start with a bit of the background as we usually do. If you guys want to give us some history. I think people in the MSP market, especially, you're probably familiar with Pronto, you guys do a fair bit of work on web pages and marketing efforts for the industry. Some people may have seen simple set and the new product that you guys are working on. If you want to kick us off and give us a bit of background on where Pronto came from and your development through the, uh, through the industry.
Derek: Sure. Um, you know, I'll take that. This is Derek. Before I started pronto, Cory and I started Pronto. I worked at Microsoft for about 13 years in a variety of different positions, mobile devices and such. For one period of time I was responsible for windows small business server back in the day and spent a lot of time. Um obviously getting to know our, our partners around the world. I met partners in Australia and India and Europe all around the US had a partner advisory council. People like Curtis Hicks Arlin Sorenson and just learned a lot of, you know, really got to enjoy my time with the it guys and, and what became msps out of that. And when I decided to take a break and do something different than Microsoft and got talking to Cory about starting a company, you know, I really thought from my experience with these guys was a lot of struggles around marketing and marketing execution and getting things done. Um, and so we started pronto with the idea that we would be kind of like manage what we called managed services for marketing at that time that we would do execution and get things done for our MSP clients. And that's worked out really well. We've been doing it for 10 years. We have over 1500 clients, which are probably 900 or something. Are MSPS on all on some sort of ongoing subscription full service program along the way. Customer service became really critical to us. You know, we're doing thousands of requests a month. Major websites reduced to a quick short little updates to fixing things like broken forms. We have new customers on boarding, new customers going live sort of all through the life cycle. We started collecting this data and different sort of ad hoc ways zendesk had things are we use survey forms. Um, and you know, we're really kind of a super data geeky company. I have a fulltime data analysts that worked for me on this kind of stuff and we just started wanting to build better tools that gave us a more holistic view of things both from a CSAT or customer satisfaction at a transactional basis such as um, you know, were you happy with the support ticket to specific sorts of moments in time like the website goes live? What was that experience for you? We do NPS when people cancel with us and ask us, you know, how, what could we have done better and how do you feel about, um, you know, pronto with that kind of exit moment. And then we do quarterly N and lots of things. So really simple sat started for us as an initiative to just get better data for us and have a more holistic view. We also thought about it in terms of, you know, just wanting to have a full life cycle on our customers. For instance, we had a lot of people saying a lot of great stuff in our feedback, but we had no way to share it. That was really scaled. So we thought about that particular challenge as well. So really simple set, don't you grew out of two things which is our deep passion around customer service and doing better along with working really closely with hundreds and hundreds of MSPs day in and day out and the kind of things that they ask us, um, and the kinds of challenges that they have. And strategically for our business, it made a lot of sense because we really have come from just being a website to a full range of marketing services and adwords, facebook campaign management and custom content development and that we really have a full funnel. And the last piece in that funnel is really about customer retention and customer satisfaction and sharing feedback, you know, back to the top of the funnel. So we felt like it was a really good fit for our business.
Todd: So what I would take out of that is that the more things change, the more things stay the same. When you mentioned two things that I'm certainly familiar with that the marketing is always a heavy interest for, for customers, um, for especially people in technical fields. It's not an area that they're super comfortable with and usually need someone else to lean on for, for some of that support. And the other part that you mentioned that I'm a big believer in is that the knowledge is the easy part. The execution is where the rubber meets the road and I think that's a certainly an area where more businesses should take advantage of, uh, agencies that can support them in the areas that are not core to their business. So I think that's a really interesting that, that, that is still very evident in the industry today as well.
Derek: Yeah, we're big believers. I mean execution is hard, um, and something as simple as saying you should get a monthly newsletter out. You're in the tornado of taking care of customers and your focus is, you know, with small businesses and you're their it guy. It's so easy to punt. Send the newsletter to next week, week after week after week. And, you know, we just get it done for our clients.
Todd: The move to simple set, you mentioned a customer satisfaction scoring. This is certainly something that, uh, I'm a big, big believer in because how do you know how you're doing with your customer service if you're not actually collecting that feedback directly from the people that you're serving? And I think a lot of people make a mistake in making a lot of assumptions about what they think is happening and what they feel the client thinks about them and the relationship and they don't really have a lot of data to validate that, that visibility and to be able to justify what they either feel is the case or you know, sometimes they can just get scared and start to worry about, you know, are we okay here? Is this client or we as our relationship solid, I don't really know. They seem to say the right things when I speak to them, but they're not really giving me the warm fuzzies. So I, I think, uh, the customer satisfaction scoring really helps to objectify that data and make it clear that the clients on the ground are giving you appropriate feedback and people are satisfied with the level of service that you're giving and being able to have that as a defensible measure if anyone ever questions what you're actually offering and whether or not people are satisfied with the service. So that's sort of my view of CSAT. But uh, uh, you know, cory, if you'd like to expand on that, maybe touch on how you, your view of CSAT is important to a business,
Cory: right? Yeah. And it's a really good point that it's Kinda like before you would do all the other cool stuff with satisfaction, like publishing those testimonials are publishing your satisfaction score or integrations with third party systems like your crm or your psa. It's really getting it in place in the first place. Going from nothing to something is definitely the most important part. And it's like, you know, you're driving at night with the head without headlights on. You're just, you're completely in the dark where once you get this set up is there's kind of a peace of mind and a competence like you're saying that you know, you know every interaction, the customer at least has a chance to rate the feedback and provide feedback and it comes into the system or comes to you in a structured way where it's not just anecdotal and email to the founder of the company about a complaint or something. You hear offhand. All the tech is on site. It's captured in a structured way every time which allows you to take each piece of feedback and investigate that and dig into it in a structured way. Like in our team for example, when we get a bad satisfaction of Pronto, it sends an email to a group of people and our support manager is the person on point to dig into it and let us know what happened and we kind of do a little mini five why's analysis on that. So all of us in the company, we just know that if a customer leaves a bad review, we know that we're going to talk about it and we know that we're going to do something better to improve from it.
Todd: You hit on it being a two pronged approach. The one you have to find your way in the dark and just knowing what the customer satisfaction score is to begin with is sort of the first effort of that. If you roll this out or a and you find, hey, the satisfaction scores are great, good, and then you can continue to maintain that and address any negative feedback, but also in some cases you may launch it. And maybe this is the resistance in some why some people are not comfortable sometimes rolling out these systems is they're fearful of what they're actually going to find out and if they validate that clients are unhappy than that. That can sort of lead to some fear of validating the truth of that, which I think is kind of hiding from the inevitable. You're better off to know those things and be able to manage them appropriately rather than just sticking your head in the sand and saying, well, I don't want someone to say that what we're doing isn't working. You're much better off to be able to know that in order to fix it.
Derek: Yeah. We had a period of time where we were, at that time we were using zendesk and we were always getting 99 percent, 99 point five percent good ratings and I forget quite what was the question they would ask,
Cory: Just how satisfied are you?
Derek: Happy, you know, like people go happy. Yes. And we changed the wording a little bit, you know, something like was everything perfect. And we intentionally wanted that score to go down some because we weren't getting enough enough feedback, you know, of like, okay, we were good, but were we great? Um, so yeah, you can't hide from it. You want to keep, you know. And then then we started to get those. It dropped down to whatever, 97, 98 percent, but we got some really great feedback of people who were overall happy but like, well, now that you ask, you could have done this a little better. Um, so, you know, we just keep digging for it and sure it hurts your feelings sometimes, but you got to know
Todd: Better to know. The other piece I think is really important as well as sometimes the users are happy and the business owner is not. Usually the account manager is having a conversation with the business owner who maybe has some negative feedback and as saying, You know, well I've heard that people are not satisfied with the service that you're delivering. And being able to present some evidence to say, well that's, you know, that's not the indication that we're getting. Everyone seems to be really pleased. Maybe you're just hearing from one noisy person who keeps walking to your office to say that they're dissatisfied. Uh, so I think the, the, again that, that objective data to be able to have a data point to control the conversations that you're having with the client around certain narratives that may or may not be true, I think is really, really helpful as well. The other piece that I think is great for the, the approach that you guys are taking is reducing the friction from giving surveys and collecting that data. Uh, I'm sure everyone has been sent emails that says, Hey, please fill out the survey. And most people delete them. But if are actually inclined to fill out that survey, they click a link and realize that it's a four page, a web forum that they have to weed their way through typing into open fields and scoring on a rating of 10. And uh, they, they go through the first page and probably give up after that. And you guys are taking the approach of limited friction where just give me a thumbs up or a thumbs down or a smiley face or a frowny face. And that really helps the user to be able to just give you a single click within the email, within the ticket, within the webpage, and reduces that friction of them actually being able to provide the feedback that you are looking for.
Cory: Yeah, there's a few parts there. One is about the one click feedback, which is really important. Like you're saying, if you get an email that says please take five minutes out of your day to take a survey and there's a button there, it's the response rate's going to be super low because right there, you know, you're asking kind of like you're asking something that just no one wants to do in the first place. And the second part is that once you're on a survey, it's, they're usually the user experience is pretty bad and the design is bad. And there's a, you see the pagination and it's like one out of 20 and you're like, no, no way. I'm going to answer this so that we combine the one click feedback. So that's where you see the smiley faces in an email or thumbs or um, an NPS net promoter score, zero through 10 question and email. Once you click that, you're already answering question number one and that is already captured in the system whether they complete the rest of the survey or not. So that's already there, increasing your response rates and increasing the number of overall responses you're going to get. And then two, once you're on the survey, we're doing as much as we can to create a fun and interactive and intuitive survey process that is really different from the mean right now, which is this really kind of boring, ugly, arduous task where it's actually kind of fun and it shouldn't be a, you know, leave a positive image for your company after your customer takes a survey that it's like, wow, that was, that was cool what they just did that, you know, they have their stuff together.
Todd: Excellent. So you guys are generally serving the MSP and IT service market, but obviously CSAT is something that's pretty universal, especially in any type of a service entity. You, you guys don't limit yourself or view the product, as centric around it service providers do you?
Cory: So at the moment I'm kind of yes and no, we do have customers that are non MSPs using the product and most of them are still technology companies that are relying on a help desk, zendesk or a freshdesk to collect customer satisfaction. Um at the moment we are over 90 percent of our users are msps and we're finding more and more as we get into this. Just how um, you know, there's, there's all these different industries and niches and just how much each individual one requires an incredible amount of focus and attention to really get it right. So while we, it's kind of just the, the non msps are just coming in through word of mouth or organically, but the product that we're building right now is really centered around Msps, around support that we offer and the integrations that we have and the marketing and everything around that. Mainly it service.
Todd: Okay, great. And what type of feedback are you getting from the clients? I imagine there's the party that it didn't have any type of a program in place and I'm sure they're wowed and then you may have some people that are coming over from a different types of surveys systems. Can you maybe touch on both of those scenarios or any other type of success stories that you have?
Cory: Yeah, sure. So, um, and like you said that there's definitely two camps. One, they were doing nothing before and now they're, they're completely eye opening for the company to have this sort of data a user for to be an internal mail just the other day that they've sent out to their team where they say, um, you know, this, this data is beyond valuable and they're sharing the dashboards with our team in an email and kind of doing a weekly pep talks with the team and saying, you know, now we're up our satisfactions up a few points. We drop one the last week, so let's keep it up. Stuff like that. So that's really cool to see that it's actually making a, um, a driving impact on a company from other users switching over from other services. We've received a lot of feedback that they're receiving more responses, the response rates are going up from other solutions they were using and also our testimonial testimonial publishing widgets on websites are a huge hit where before they were just, they weren't really able to take advantage of positive feedback and one feature was simplesat is you can publish it, you can publish feedback on your website in real time and display it on your homepage or a testimonials page. So that's a big hit where we have a lot of users displaying that feedback on the webpage.
Todd: Yeah, that's a cool feature as well that you can actually see, hey, this was feedback from this morning or yesterday afternoon. It gives, uh, the, the, the, the, the vision around the fact that this is real time data that you're not sort of cherry picking testimonials from four years ago and leaving them up on the website, that there's fresh stuff coming in and people are satisfied with the service that you're, that you're providing something that's a really cool plus as well. That kind of leads to I guess some of the other feature sets. That's one of the differentiators that I certainly see in simple sat from the other products in the, in the industry. Um, it's not something that didn't exist before. So I'm curious why you guys decided to develop your own product to meet this need. If you either saw that there was something missing in the market or you felt that there was a competitive advantage that you can produce a against the competitors that were there.
Cory: Yeah, sure. So, um, as they are in the beginning, as simple as that really came from us with Pronto not having the solution that we really want. So a lot of this comes from our learnings about everything from feeling like the surveys aren't interactive and intuitive enough for users to, um, know there's no, a lot of different survey tools. They only do one thing, so they only do a CSAT ticket feedback where a lot of other tools specialized just in net promoter score collection or um, you know, there's other tools like survey monkey or type form that make really great survey tools, but really don't focus on the customer satisfaction element or focus on the MSP market. So when we look at customer satisfaction, we really view it as there's three areas that, one is surveys, so doing a great job at presenting surveys to customers and collecting data on two is the insights piece where once you collect the data as taken advantage of it in your own dashboard, uh, leaderboards and stats, integrations, notifications, reporting, and the third one is taking that customer satisfaction back out kind of top of funnel thing where you're actually using it as a marketing tool to increase website conversions and show your satisfaction percentage on a website or point positive customers to leave a good review on Google or facebook or some industry pay.
Cory: So we've seen a lot of, there's other competitors or other companies that do a great job at one of these areas, but we're not seeing a lot of it does a great job in every area and we really want to take ownership over every part from beginning to end. And that's how we think we can have the most high quality. Yeah. Product in that process.
Todd: Right. So kind of wrapping in a bunch of the different products that are available out there. Uh, the CSAT is the one that, that is sort of the core of the product right now. Uh, the, the other components that we've tucked on, touched on are more in the roadmap and things that you're developing. Do you want to touch on sort of what you see as the development and the roadmap for the product and what people would hope to see in the next six to 12 months?
Cory: Working on a net promoter score email feature. So this will allow MSPs to sync their customer list with simple sat. I will start with connectwise and autotask and infusionsoft and you sync the customer lists and all the fields that you need there. And you can create an audience within simple sat to make sure that you're only sending that net promoter score email to like active contacts with connectwise or infusionsoft. We use the person type and we'll manage all of the sending rules and delivery and where you can set it up on autopilot, where email sends out once a quarter to all your active contacts between Monday and Friday, five to nine, nine to 5:00 PM, evenly spread about the distribution between your lists, so it'll be a great. We've done this for Pronto for years now, but it's a great autopilot where you just know it's not like something you need to put on your calendar to do the NPS survey and like just like marketing, you're going to forget to do it or punt it. It's just on autopilot. It's always working. The feedback's coming in just like CSAT, so that's the the nps feature and we have that. We'll be ready to start testing in August. Other types of integrations, we're just working on getting deeper in the IT market, so for example, we're working on getting with a direct integration with bright gauge now users can integrate with BrightGauge at the moment through our dropbox integration. We'd like to get deeper with Brightgauge with that and just working with other partners and vendors and tools such as IT Glue and connectwise and autotask and all of them just getting deeper with that.
Todd: Great. And the NPS, we kinda touched on it a couple of times when people may not be as familiar with it because we kind of elaborated on CSAT. Maybe if you could just give us a bit, uh, a bit of a download on, on the usefulness of NPS as well.
Derek: Yeah. NPS is great for, for two reasons. It came from some research that, um, that you guys did at Bain, it must be 20 years ago or something and wrote a book called the ultimate question. And what they found was through kind of two things, one, that the most effective kind of question you could ask someone was, would you recommend this company to a friend or a colleague? Um, in one way or another. Um, they also did some interesting research that companies that actively did do customer service and follow up on it had greater growth in their, in their, um, in their stock price. It was actually kind of an analysis on the impact of the financials of a company that are focused on customer service. The great thing about NPS is not only, it's a proven methodology in terms of this question, but it's now benchmark across all kinds of industries and you know, you can go out and find benchmarks and see how you can compare. So I think it's just, it's a, you know, it's not a, it's not a solution for everything. There's other information that you need, like nps is not good for a ticket satisfaction. Maybe it's more like a quarterly or something to kind of check in with your customer on this kind of. I'm feeling about the overall relationship. You know, we also use a methodology, you know, something like raider that's kind of in between CSAT and NPS and of digging down a little bit more. Um, but I think at a minimum, especially say for an MSP, you need that CSAT transactional, how do we do on this ticket? And that's kind of a real hot, you know, kind of question that you can watch go up and down over time. And then you step back and ask your NPS and get that feeling of overall how people feel about the relationship.
Todd: Right. That's a great summary. So you're kind of collecting that, that similar type of data both from the top end of the relationship as well as the transactions within that relationship. Right?
Cory: Right. And then once you have those in place, it's really insightful. Um, when you're collecting both CSAT and NPS feedback. At Pronto, we know this where you'll, there'll be cases where you might have a really high CSAT score for customer, but in lower NPS score and the other way around and something like that could happen where, you know, the techs are always friendly and they always get things right the first time, but maybe overall your service is really overpriced or maybe you're missing a, a service component that's really inconvenient for the customer. So while they're really happy with the day to day interactions, they're not likely to recommend your company to a friend, but you know, it could be the other way around to where maybe there's a few texts that they just don't really like working with. But overall they're super happy to recommend you because they see a lot of value in the service and know they couldn't live without you. So that's been really helpful for us at Pronto that, you know, if you're only doing, it's Kinda like you're not doing anything, you're totally driving in the dark, but if you're only doing one that it's half the picture. So getting both in place really helped us.
Todd: Yeah. As I often say, a data does not give you any answers. It'll only help you out. Ask more intelligent questions.
Cory: Yeah. And like with asking questions, it's one thing that's great too about getting this feedback is it opens up a conversation with your customer and that's really what's important, that it's giving more channels and more opportunities to open up the conversation and the real meaningful insights that's going to happen. Or once they answer a question that you follow up with them and then you have a conversation about that. That's really one of the biggest values of a tool like this.
Todd: Yeah. And customer satisfaction is something that people absolutely need to take seriously. It's your best defense against commoditization in any type of service based industry. You need to develop deep, meaningful relationships with your clients and being able to collect that data and know that you're on track is super, super critical. If people are not collecting CSAT information and they're curious about the product, where would you suggest they go to check things out?
Cory: Right? Yeah. You can go to simplesat.io and just follow the sign up process. From there we have a free 30 day trial where you can use the product in its full form, do test it out and implement your system. So super easy to get going and I'm always available for support or helping implement with anything. So
Todd: anything I haven't asked or anything we haven't touched on that we showed in the conversation.
Derek: You've done a pretty good job.
Todd: If listeners want to connect with you and ask a follow along on social, any avenues that they should look for you on?
Cory: Yes, so you can find us on facebook and linkedin. Our emails are cory@simplesat.io or derek@simpleset.io. I'm probably the best way to get in contact though is to go to our website at simplesat.io and just chat. Start chatting with us with the widget in the bottom right corner.
Todd: Okay. Awesome. Well appreciate you coming on the show and talking a bit about NPS and CSAT and all the cool stuff that you're delivering to the market.
Cory: Yeah. Well thank you so much for the time and yeah, thanks a lot.
Derek: We appreciate it.
Todd: I hope you've enjoyed our conversation about simplesat and the importance of client feedback. If you haven't already, go to simple sat.io and test it out with a free 30 day trial. Also, if you haven't yet subscribed to evolve radio, please subscribe. That way you'll get the latest episodes straight to your smartphone.
Ian Paterson CEO of Plurilock
Today on Evolved Radio we're talking everyone's favorite IT topic lately. Security!
I'm joined by Ian Paterson CEO of Plurilock. His company has a really innovative approach to security. It's an advanced form of user identification that can tell who you are by how you type and move the mouse. We talk about why users hate passwords, security requirements for regulated industries, and much more.
To see a short video about Plurilock, you can check it out here.
Richard Tubb MSP Growth Advisor
Richard Tubb is one of the best-known experts in the global IT Managed Service Provider (MSP) community. His track record speaks for itself, as he launched and sold his own MSP business before creating a leading MSP media and consultancy practice. Richard is also the author of the IT Business Owner's Survival Guide and the author of the Tubblog & co-host on the Auvik Frankly MSP Podcast.
We discuss why you may need a business coach, what business owners tend to struggle with most, and how technology is evolving MSP businesses as well as their client's businesses.
Several books are mentioned in the podcast in addition to Richard's book.
The E-Myth revisited
Getting Things Done
Alex Markov CEO of Strategy Overview
On the podcast today, I'm chatting with Alex Markov, President of Red Key Solutions and CEO of Strategy Overview.
Red Key is a mature and successful MSP in the New York area. Alex and his team work hard to deliver business value to their clients. One of the best way for MSPs to do that is implementing a QBR/TBR. Alex recognized the value in the system they had built and has created a SaaS product called Strategy Overview to help others deliver effective technology planning to their clients.
Transcript:
Todd: 00:00 Joining me on the podcast today is Alex Markov , president of red key solutions and CEO of strategy overview. Welcome Alex.
Alex: 00:07 Hey Todd. Good to be with you.
Todd: 00:09 Today. We're going to be talking a bit about a more MSP process and specifically we're going to be talking a lot about the position of the cio or the virtual cio and the role that that plays in an MSP as well as a general it service providers. Alex, you're a particular pro at this area of the business and know that this would be an interesting discussion. This is an area that is developing pretty rapidly for a lot of MSPs as they look to provide more business value rather than just the straight up technical value and maybe just to get us started, if you could tell us a bit about your msp and your background and how a strategy overview came to be.
Alex: 00:49 Yeah, sure. So I started my career or my kind of journey as an it person. Back in 1992. My Dad got me a computer and I got on compuserve and then got on aol after that and have done nothing else except consult and work with businesses and people on setting up technology. So I really go back to the beginning of the functional Internet in 2002. I started a company in college. I'm actually did a real entity and started consulting for businesses and then eventually we switched to managed services. I merged with a partner here, those local and area, and we started Red Key Solutions and today we support over 50 different companies. We support the New York City Tri state market and we use connectwise, Labtech, it glue, bright gauge, know the full msp stack and have really invested a lot of time perfecting our vcio piece of the business and how to do qprs.
Todd: 01:51 Excellent. You launched into starting a product to actually help you out with that Vcio product process. Do you want to touch on that briefly?
Alex: 02:00 Yeah, so we, we used to have a great process that we use spreadsheets for, um, because I have to be really easy to use and we were never able to find anything in the market that was, was it is easy to use as our spreadsheets, so we had an opportunity where my brother is an enterprise quality developer and he said that he can absolutely do this and we started a different company called strategy overview, um, which basically took our process on how to do a risk analysis for clients and um, and converted it into an app that's now used by over 260 msps today on every continent.
Todd: 02:37 Awesome. So let's step back a little bit here for the people that maybe you're not this deep into the it space. A, let's help define what is a Vcio, and specifically let's talk about Vcio and the overlap between what other roles this could be defined in or maybe how they differentiate. There's the, there's the technical account manager and there's also the traditional account manager or salesperson. For Yourself, how would you define what is the vcio role that, uh, have you found success with in, in your organization?
Alex: 03:13 Yeah, so we really started the journey many, many years ago where we are trying to figure out a way how do we communicate with clients in a structured strategic way. So when we, when we all started as MSPS, we as owners is the main kind of the principles and the companies are the main people that communicate with clients, explain to them what they need to get, you know, what the risks that we see. And then as it evolves, we need to make it a formal position. Right? So we tried a number of models. We tried having an account manager, um, we tried even calling it a technical account manager. It never really worked for us, um, because they, the person that really communicates to clients really needs to be almost like a cio as the same way as we as principals. And we started MSPS, we communicate to clients as a cio would. Um, so we, we heard the term in the industry, it's a common term virtual cio and it really is a great term to define what a role does that has that type of communication with clients and that's what we call it. Again, we've tried other ways and I'm sure there are other MSPs which get the account manager model to work and for whatever reason in our MSP, our market, the way that we do it, we never were able to get that to stick.
Todd: 04:33 Yeah, I find it's, it's almost a confluence of a few different issues where it's the type of person that you have available for the role. It's the needs of the client base that you have in particular. And also what maturity level you're at in your, uh, your, your journey as an MSP. Uh, the, find the, there's a lot of components you have to get right beforehand. There's a maturity level that has to be in place before this really becomes a viable option for your business. Is that something that you see as a hindrance to people getting started on the VCIO process as well?
Alex: 05:06 Yeah, definitely. I mean, there's definitely a prerequisite. You need a PSA, connect wise auto task or any of those you need tools like an RMM, you need to get your service down, right? Um, you need to just have ideas and quoting and that stuff organized. So those are definitely prerequisites. Um, and then you definitely need to find the right person and the right team that could do that. It can't be a salesperson. We've learned that it's, it's not a sales role even though they are involved in sales, but the sales just fall out of the role. It has to be somebody that really could have a, a coherent logical conversation. Um, and in our MSP as well, we still keep principles involved in the process as well. So it's, you know, I may not go to every single meeting with clients, but especially the big clients, I'm there and I'm helping guide them in the overall strategy.
Alex: 05:57 Clients get both of the vcio and then a principal that's on the vcio team.
Todd: 06:02 And what would you say are the particulars? Like if someone is looking for that person either outside of their company or preferably inside their company, what are the qualities that you would look for in someone that you feel will be successful in that role?
Alex: 06:16 So they definitely need to be personable but not salesy, personable, just like a relatable person. They have to be sharp and be able to learn, understand technology. They have to be technically minded because the cio needs to really understand technology if they don't understand, you know, even like basics of like dns and domains and active directory and all these other things, they, it'll be difficult for them to make strategic decisions. So they definitely have to be technically minded in our company. We are. People came from the project services world, so they ran projects.
Alex: 06:51 Um, so that gave him the ability to understand budgets, understand financials, understand, you know, different companies have different needs and different budgets. And so there's definitely, it's not like a scientific black and white thing. Um, they definitely need to be flexible and be able to communicate that with clients.
Todd: 07:13 Yeah. It's an interesting mix of, um, like you said, they have to be technical to have that authority and understand the sort of, the, the issues at work and would a successful technology implementation looks like they need a bit of sales to be able to impart the value to the organization and to the client that they're speaking with, but you know, any one of these that is out of concert or, or too much on one end of the spectrum. So I think that's why it's so difficult to replicate this outside of the principle. The principle of the organization will usually know enough about the business has had to do sales in order to build their business and has that, that relationship and that authority with the client. Um, uh, do you feel that that's the Vcio role should stick with the principal before it's replicated outside of that office? Is that maybe the best approach to take there?
Alex: 08:05 Yeah. You know, what I think now that thinking about it, I think in the way that we are able to succeed in it so much as we took project people that were also comfortable speaking to c level executives and speaking financials and budgets and then they basically shadowed me for about two years. Um, and then over time, smaller clients, they were able to run themselves, but they had to invest a lot in business logic and overarching, you know, she's really explain a lot about how businesses work was important to a business. Explain concepts of what a balance sheet is, you know, cap ex and op ex explain things how P and L business would look at, um, financially burden rates, just like business fundamentals where project management understand technology, but then you infuse this business knowledge into them. And that's how I truly VCIO was created.
Todd: 08:59 I think it's really fascinating to understand who is the right person and what is the process that makes this successful. Um, and every time I've, I've sort of gone through this process and work with folks to develop their vcio practice or to help develop a Vcio and their skill set. There's always one component that that is that Aha moment where they really start to get this and you hit on a couple there. The first place I usually start, um, I'd be interested in kind of your feedback on this as well as uh, asking the person, the client if they actually have an it budget or if it's just reactionary spending. And it's surprising the number of times a client that is doing multimillion dollar business and develop, doing very well, but they have no predictive spending on there. It, they've never even thought about it. And that first step to sit down with them and say, okay, here's a draft budget. Here's all the things that I have, I have visibility to. And I've wrote this down on our spreadsheet and this is kind of what I predict as your annual spend. And you just see their eyes light up and they're like, oh my God, this is amazing. Like, we've never even thought to do this. It, it's as simple as that. And then it gets way more complex down the line. What are some of the other components of the process that you feel are really important?
Alex: 10:13 Um, so first and foremost, consistency. It can't just be something that you do once in awhile and again, reactionary. You have to build a process around it. So in our MSP, we've standardized scheduling with calendly, but there's a number of solutions you can use and we use connectwise to automatically send a ticket to every client every quarter to give them an opportunity to schedule a meeting. We call it a technology strategy meeting and then essentially they can schedule that meeting. It can pick to either for us to go to their office and to come to our office or do a Goto meeting. And that consistency behind it creates rhythm and we live in, in the MSP world. We constantly, you know, we know eos and all these other types of systems. We just have to bring that same logic to this process. Um, and just keep consistency with it and then have a platform. And a process, so it doesn't matter what platform you choose, you know, we use our platform because we really like it. Um, strategy overview and, but it doesn't matter what pro platform or process or whether you're still using spreadsheets, just some kind of process that's consistent across all your clients know,
Todd: 11:22 You must have run into some resistance as well. A certain clients that maybe don't see the value in this meeting and they're resistant to either I'm starting the meeting to begin with or keeping the pace or the consistency with the meeting. Um, any, any input from you on that client that says, I don't know. I don't understand what we're trying to do here. I don't think this is valuable, so I'd, I'd prefer not to do it. Is that something that you, you try to change their mind on or is it a, you just adapt to what the client says that they need? What's your feeling on that?
Alex: 11:54 Yeah, so I, I believe there's definitely a lot of thought leadership in the industry about you need to have all your clients consistent and have them all respect to strategy and want to focus on growth and everything like that, but when we found in our market and just an are where we are as an MSP, that there's still some clients that don't really care about growth and we asked them that question like, do you, are you focusing on growth? And a lot of times they'll say no, they just enjoy their current spot where they are. They know that growing pains is difficult and painful. Right? And it's difficult to grow. Sometimes you have to spend a lot of money to grow and some clients who are just comfortable maintaining their operation. So and we still, I would say 20 percent of our business is clients like that.
Alex: 12:39 We still have clients, if they're local, if they're friends strategic for a number of reasons, referral partners will stay still. Take them and for those clients will at least tell them about all the different strategy elements. They should pay attention to elements with their stack. Even if they don't meet with us, we'll send them a report from our software and just basically outline all the different things that they need to pay attention to and if it's like a legitimate risk, we'll mark it as a risk and then that's a risk for them and for us. So that gives us a little bit of extra, um, uh, kind of liability protection because then we've identified the risk for them and then they don't, they don't have to wonder and then if something does crash, we can just reference the email that we sent saying, look, this was the risk we identified. So at the very least, even if they don't care about strategy, we can at least limit our own liability by identifying risks for them.
Todd: 13:32 Right. So you're still doing the process, their involvement is, is, is to some degree up to them, especially dependent on the risk. Yeah, I liked that approach. Um, you know, I do a lot of work in BrightGauge and I liked the idea of setting up the monthly reporting, which I would say is we're one of the first early stepping stones to a Vcio processes, at least monthly reporting on service, uh, and the approach that I take in this I think is similar in that, um, you want to at least train the person how to read a report so that you can send it to them in an automated fashion later. So if you get them on a web session or you'd go to their office and visit with them and on the first couple of times they see this report and review it with them so they understand what they're looking at. Then down the road if they want to self serve and it just comes to them automatically, that's a less of a risk than automatically just sending them this report that they don't see any value in. So I think training them in, in the value of what they're seeing through these, uh, the, the tools and the reporting I think is really critical as well. Uh, like I said, just that first stepping stone to getting started.
Alex: 14:36 Yeah, and the way we handle that actually is so in the onboarding with every client, we add them to our app and then to close the onboarding, we generate their first report and we'll bring it to them as kind of a regroup post onboarding and most clients they'll want to meet with us at least once after that to find out even if they don't care about growth and strategy and all this stuff, they still care for their quickbooks to work. They still care for their computers to work on the Internet to work. So that's our opportunity to sit down with them and say, look, if you did want to grow, if you did want to look at all these different elements, here's what you should pay attention to, but at the structural foundational level, let's make sure that your basis covered right, because if their wireless is not set up properly, if their network is not set up properly, all of that creates issues and that's issues for us and issues for them. No one wants issues. It's a waste of everyone's time.
Todd: 15:27 So in your process, in the vcio process, how much do you feel kind of a percentage split of this? Um, a lot of the industry talks about them being technology business reviews rather than the quarterly business reviews and there's some discussion about how technical they should be versus business minded and I think there's, there's a need for both, what do you see within the clients as far as their attachment or their need for these meetings to be technical versus business focused.
Alex: 15:56 So from a business focus perspective, we just have an open conversation with the client, find out where they want to go, find out are they looking to grow and they're looking to expand and understand what they're currently doing in their business from a sales perspective, distribution, um, if they're servicing their accounts, how they're dealing with just having an open conversation about that. But then we do look at all of the technology behind it that affects that. So as we understand how they're running their business, we'll explain to them, for example, if we know that a construction company, companies doing $10,000,000 a year in revenue and they, they say they want to go to 50, right? But they're still on quickbooks enterprise, that's not going to work. We know they're going to start hitting growing pains. So at that point we start talking about the technical piece of it, that they should be looking at a larger Erp and they should be looking to streamline their bidding, their takeoff process, all these different things. Same thing for healthcare provider. Um, we, we look at all those elements, so definitely understanding where they've going into business, but then definitely relating to the actual technology and things that we do. Um, and, and then marrying it all together.
Todd: 17:04 Yeah. So it goes the technical components of the Prereq's to leveraging more business solutions. I view this sort of similar to the MSP business model before you're doing a vcio processes. You mentioned you want to make service a really rock solid because if service sucks, then your client is not going to listen to you about the other needs. You know, you're, you're standing here trying, trying to sell me something, uh, and the, uh, in the meantime, you can't get this problem fixed. That's been an open ticket for two weeks. So I feel like the, those, those, uh, stepping stones are important to get right. Work on your service, make sure that stable, then you can move into more advanced measures. Same thing with how you're managing that Vcio, processes a standardized stack, eliminate sort of the technical noise within the business and then start to look for other solutions or other issues to solve within the business. Further up the stack, right?
Alex: 18:00 Yeah, definitely. And I think service can actually be broken down into two categories, services, the managed services piece, which is everything, you know, our helpdesk and proactive monitoring and um, you know, all the different antivirus, all that other stuff. Right? And then there's the project piece and the project piece is just as critical as a service piece because you need to be able to quote the projects either if you're doing fixed fee, they have to be relatively accurate, right? If you're doing block hours, anything like that, they have to again be relatively accurate and it has to be timely. Um, that's another thing we found that if you get into a process where you're quoting things and you don't have a good structure behind it, a good scope of work process, I'm a good template in your quoting system, then it creates an issue where if it takes two weeks to get people quote, then they lose interest. Right. And then the actual project delivery itself, if that goes rocky, then it kind of destabilizes the whole process. So definitely MSPS as part of the making the process successful should focus on their service piece and making that consistent and then making sure that project quoting pieces consistent and you lay the VCIO on top of that. And then it's just value generation for everyone involved. The client, the MSP is just a beautiful thing.
Todd: 19:12 Yeah, that's really good advice. I often view the VCIO process, um, from a revenue generation standpoint, uh, as a, uh, project accelerator because how we're better can you get a funnel of projects than meeting with your clients on a quarterly basis to find out what their next need is and that's how it helps you figure out how that can actually lay out in sequence. So in next three months we want to do this and the next six months we want to do that and a year from now we're going to maybe focus on these things. If nothing else changes, then you can kind of work on that on a, on an annual basis. And from a sales perspective, it always blew my mind when people would come back from a client and say, oh, they're cheap. They don't want to buy this. And you know, you would, you would have follow up conversations.
Todd: 19:59 And what you would tend to find out is that they're not really saying no. They're more saying not now. Uh, and I think if you don't have sort of a business minded focus on this and understand how the business works, if you're not catching them at the right time where they're in budgeting cycles and doing planning proactively with them, then they can't make room for those OPEX are for those CAPX expenses if you're not planning with them on a progressive basis. So rather than do you want to buy this right now, it's when can we fit this into the budgeting cycle to make sure that this works for the business that opens up huge channels on developing your project funnel.
Alex: 20:36 Oh definitely. So in our APP, what we do is we used to do this in excel is basically do a three year roadmap for your budget and pick the quarters and where things are gonna move and we're flexible with, right? As long as they're okay with the risk of something being, you know, potential risks and having some glitches were still flexible with the clients. But we look at everything on a three year cycle. So our clients know roughly what the budget upcoming is for next year. That's the other really important thing about being consistent with the process because if you fall behind and it's really easy to fall behind, you know everyone's busy, everyone's focusing on their businesses. If you fall behind, then you may not be kind of telling clients about what's coming up and a year will pass and then the server that should be server 2008 needs to be upgraded. Then you surprise them with a bill. No one wants to surprise. Right, but if you tell them ahead of time, nowadays what we do is we never really even quote anything unless the client virtually says that this price is okay off of our roadmap, which saves a tremendous of time, amount of time on sales engineering because sales engineering is also very, very expensive time and if you can do the VCIO process right, that dramatically reduces the amount of investment that msps make towards sales engineers.
Todd: 21:49 Yeah, that's a huge point. I couldn't agree more that I'm. One of the areas of major inefficiency in project quoting is a, people are using statements of work to go fishing and a sales engineer sitting down for four hours to architect a solution when you know, they've maybe got a 30 percent likelihood of buy in from the client, but you know, hey, can I get you a quote so we can talk about this. It's not a piece of sales material, it's a definition of work that is essentially already been verbally agreed to. So that's great to be able to split that process and be able to have that person have visibility on, okay, yeah, let's go ahead with this. Okay, now we can actually start architecting and develop a SOW for it.
Alex: 22:30 Correct. That's a huge hidden cost that a lot don't pay attention to is the amount of time they spend on sales, engineering. And then where do you put that cost? You know, we classify the cost of sales engineering under service. There's a weird way that, that, you know, motivates the team and drives a team efficiency and then you really can look at the burden rates on that and make better decisions. Um, but whatever you put in whatever bucket you put, even if you put it on just sales and that really inflates your sales cost. So again, now we very rarely will quote something and do a scope of work unless the client pre approves it off of the roadmap document that our app generates
Todd: 23:08 and the preapproval like that, the numbers there are probably just like approximate approximate numbers. So you know, variations of up to 20, 30 percent once
Alex: 23:19 now we tell them that this is, you know, this is not set in stone, this is just a like a roadmap, you know, and especially if we don't understand if we just signing on with the client, you know, yeah, we'll do a full blown assessment sometimes before we sign up with the client. But sometimes we don't still. Right. And we explained to them that we can't know, we can't predict the price. Exactly. And it's also we have to have a more serious conversation with the client about where they want to go. You know, if they want to do multi location, if they, if they want to expand, if they, you know, or if they're more interested in cap ex versus op ex, you know, all these different elements. Those are conversations that we need to have, but putting sales engineers to architect something without a understanding that the client's actually going to commit to it and buy it is, it is a huge waste of time and just a huge money hole of time.
Todd: 24:07 Yep. Couldn't agree more. Um, so let's, uh, maybe we'll try it a bit about the solution that you guys have developed with strategy overview. Do you want to give us a kind of, you're a short pitch on how this solves problems for the MSP owner?
Alex: 24:22 Yeah, definitely. I mean it's basically like a souped up spreadsheet where there's a template behind the spreadsheet which create standardized dropdowns and has a budgeting roadmap component. So it allows us to analyze the client risks. We give all people that sign up our template that we use at our MSP. It's over 115 points of items that we look at for every business. And then we also have vertical specific items, so we look at healthcare, financial services, construction, we have different elements that we pay attention to all those clients once we run through this process with them. And again, it's template based so people can use our template, build their own template, we have people using it that are not even Msps, I know you guys have been using it and then kind of playing around with it. I'm just, it's a way to standardize a consistent approach to doing things.
Alex: 25:13 Um, and then it has a three year budget and a roadmap per page that's generated off of all those items. And there's an executive summary section. It kicks out a beautiful pdf report. It's just a really easy to use software. And then on top of that we have a dashboard that forecasts the pipeline pre opportunity and then gives you a total view of health into your entire stack in like a visual format. We were doing it a little differently where we're an MSP and we know what people, you know, what msps like, and now we're trying to treat ourselves like we want to be treated. Um, so anyone can get a free account, they can run it on one client and play with it, just stay involved in the project, pay attention to it, and now whenever they're ready they can upgrade. We did the pricing where it's very affordable for any MSPS at any size and it really allows people to standardize. There's a whole stack really elevate themselves to a, a larger trusted advisor perspective, standardize the whole qbr process. Um, it limits their liabilities and MSP it super fast, super simple to use. So that's what we did. We built it for ourselves and you know, we're sharing with MSP community and we have over 260 msps using it and a number of top 100 guys and then a ton of MSPS and every community huge Robin Robbins, a HTG group. So know we're spreading through word of mouth right now and everyone should check it out. Strategyoverview.com.
Todd: 26:41 As you mentioned, I've been using for the onboarding process, so I've taken the template and dumped all of the, well some of the MSP best practices that I like to see in, in, in the client that I'm onboarding and then use it to stack rank the, the uh, initiatives that could be undertaken to improve the, the development of, of the company processes or approach or metrics that they should be viewing for their business. So it's pretty flexible that way. I do like the, the template base and it helps eliminate, I think one of the push backs to doing a qbr process to begin with is writing these reports is really time consuming and I think that's a big piece that limits people from doing it on a wider basis to more clients. And I think having a tool like this to make it a bit more repeatable and just you pull up that template, run through a bunch of clicks once you. You've got the first one done. The iterations after the factor a ton simpler. So it really helps facilitate those meetings and eliminate a lot of the manual labor of having to create these reports and get something from the to review with the clients once you actually show up.
Alex: 27:52 Yeah, and besides the fact that we saving a fast amount of time on sales and engineering resources not being wasted, just the time to prepare the reports. That's another really important thing that you know, these reports are not prepared by your level one engineers, right? They're prepared by either you or your project engineers, you level threes. So we've cut our preparation time down from two to three hours down to about 15 minutes per client per quarter from some of our most expensive resources. And that's tremendous savings, right? Each be cio and each critical resource can support a lot more because with the software it allows you to pre-populate every answer through a template, you could always overwrite anything at any moment, but it allows you to pick from a standard list of common questions and we just keep refining and adding to that. So most of it is clicks and it just makes it so much faster. So, and it's structured like excel, so it's really easy to use as well.
Todd: 28:51 Yup. Awesome. Uh, well, uh, we'll look towards a closing up here. Um, if people want to follow you, uh, personally or reach out to you to find out more, can you tell them where they should reach out to you and, and to, to look at strategy overview if that's their interest.
Alex: 29:10 Yeah. strategyoverview.com. You can connect with me on linkedin. My name is Alex Markov on the strategy overview site. There's a little chat widget in the bottom right corner. You can just go on there and chat and say hi. Go get a free account, test it out, play with it. And um, you don't get to keep building it for the community and keep adding features that our MSP runs into. We just launched a partner advisory council, so we have like 10 bigger msps that have been using the platform for like six months on there. I know you're going to be taking part of that as well with us and we're just going to keep building it for what the MSP community needs and you know, find ways to make our life easier and bring more value to our clients.
Todd: 29:50 Yep. Excellent. Well, we've talked about the VCIO and the technology advisor is definitely the way that the industry is headed. So this will be a great addition as people start to head down that road or a continued to refine their process, uh, once they're on it.
Alex: 30:05 Yeah. I think that's really the future of the MSP world. Um, I think msps eventually it will be something more of like managed strategy providers really can help guide the strategy for, for clients as services become easier. The strategy, something that I don't believe it will become a commodity. It's something that there's, you know, every MSP can have their slight flavor on it, but every msps qualified to do this. They're doing it for their own businesses today. So we just have to bring that same mentality that we bring to our own businesses to all of our clients.
Todd: 30:37 Yup. Excellent. Well, we'll, we'll close it up there. Thanks for your time today, Alex. I'm sure we'll be chatting more about the process and the evolution of the MSP industry. Awesome. Todd, thank you so much for your time and yeah, stay well.
Dan Sutton CEO of Tantalus Labs
Dan Sutton is a vocal leader in the BC cannabis industry. Dan started Tantalus Labs, a cannabis production company in 2012. Dan has been a strong supporter of greenhouse-based production of Cannabis. We talk about the social and financial impact of that approach. We also discuss the fast dissolving social and professional stigmas associated with cannabis. Canada is expected to federally legalize cannabis in 2018. The Canadian market alone is expected to be worth about seven billion. Dan and his team hope to position sun-grown BC bud as a market leader in the industry.
If you've never heard of Graphene, you can bet you'll be hearing a lot more about it in the coming years. Graphene is a material that quietly holds the keys to many of our next generation of technological advances. Filtering water at an atomic level, creating impossibly lightweight bulletproof material, building a quantum supercomputer, and powering nanobots. This little-known material called Graphene is central to a series of fascinating technical discoveries. Today I'm speaking with Dr. Joseph Meany. Dr. Meany is and his colleague, Les Johnson, have written a book about this amazing material.
Check out this amazing infographic that summarizes the highlights of Graphene.
Graphene Infographic - https://goo.gl/gA5LJW
Anyone who has worked in software development or project management is familiar with a Kanban.
Kanban is a work management methodology where work is represented by cards or stickies that progress through stages in order to manage the flow of work through a system. This method was popularized out of the lean production system championed by Toyota. Today it's probably most recognized in the agile software development method.
Wim saw the power of this system when he used it in the software development side of his business. He wanted to carry the same principles to his other business, which is an IT managed service company. His team developed Kanaban for Connectwise to bring the power of lean and the kanban system to IT management.
Since Kanban for Connectwise is a visual tool, here are some links to give you a sense of what the system looks like.
Video – Visualizing ConnectWise Sales Pipeline using Kanban
Video – Huddle friendly Kanban interface
Website link: www.cwkanban.com
The Books mentioned:
The Phoenix Project on Amazon
James built an offshore support team to augment his MSP business. He found the offshore strategy enabled a scaling of his business that he otherwise never could have achieved. As more and more peers asked him how to do the same he recognized a business opportunity and Benchmark 365 was born. James and I discuss his journey, some of the common resistance points around offshoring and how his team integrates with existing MSP businesses.
Chief Revenue Officer at Itopia - Ted Hulsy
Ted is the Chief Revenue Officer at Itopia. Itopia's mission is to make it easy to migrate Windows workspace environments to the cloud. We talk about the evolution of Cloud computing, including Desktop as a Service (DaaS) and using the public cloud for rapidly deploying computing infrastructure. This is a rapidly growing solution in the IT industry enabling providers to spin up remote desktop environments in no time at all. Ted and I also talk about the competition between AWS, Azure, and Google in the public cloud arena.
Tim Kane is co-founder and CEO of myHSA. myHSA is a technology company that facilitates Insurance brokers with the ability to offer in-house health spending accounts. In my interview with Tim, we explore his evolution from brick and mortar business owner to digital entrepreneur. His journey has been filled with hard lessons about building a software business as a non-technical founder. His passion, determination, and strong focus on customer service have served him well. Tim and his co-founder Steve have grown the company from two people and a database to 8+ staff and a fast growing client base.
You have probably heard the term Big Data. What does that mean anyway? Today I'm joined by Alastair Woolcock (@AlastairKW), to talk about Data Science. We uncover the science of data analytics and how data is unlocking market changing insights at all levels of business. Whether you're a small business trying to understand social media and it's influence on your marketing efforts, or an enterprise organization trying to understand client behavior, data can be a powerful tool. There is a growing industry of data science that is trying to use the power of hypothesis to mine for insights in the mountains of data that our modern businesses produce.
Credera
Cavu
Today's podcast I'm joined by Raj Goel, CISSP (@RajGoel_NY). Raj is the co-founder of Brainlink and the creator of SOP Culture. Raj and I explore the benefits and the challenges of creating a SOP driven culture in your business. SOP Culture was formed out of years of Raj standardizing his teams work at Brainlink to ensure a consistency of service that gives him an unusual competitive edge in the market.
If you're an MSP looking to improve your operational maturity, Evolved can help here.
Alex Sterk returns to give us an update on what is happening in the blockchain industry. It's been a busy year for the maturity of the industry. Lots of news and changes surrounding bitcoin and Ethereum. We talk about the growth of altcoins, the forking in both bitcoin and Ethereum. Alex tells us about his Ethereum project called UBIQ. Finally, Alex also gives his thoughts on how segregated witness (segwit) could bring lots of new functionality to bitcoin and lower transaction rates.
BIO
Alex is the co-founder of UBIQ and the host of Block Talk, a block chain talk show on youtube, which interviews developers and other blockchain industry notables.
Doctor Ray Hsu (@thewayofray) is back for round two of our discussion. In the previous podcast Dr. Ray and I touched on the fact that education hasn't evolved to keep pace with the modern world. In this second discussion, Dr. Ray and I explore this idea. How the incentive structures of modern education are misaligned. Also how commercial interests could be better facilitated by education while providing a better experience for students.
Dr. Ray Hsu (@TheWayofRay) professor at UBC. He is both the founder of the VR/AR working group and faculty in residence at the emerging media lab, conducting research on the immersive technology. When most people think of VR they think of video games. Like many of us, Dr.Ray sees the value of VR in the gaming field, but his vision for its impact goes far beyond that. In particular, I wanted to talk to Dr.Ray about his view on how VR/AR will influence education.
Image by Michael Cordedda
This episode of the podcast is a bit of an experiment. This is a break from the typical format of conversations with experts and thought leaders. This episode is a long form conversation between myself and Rachel Gertz. Rachel appeared in episode 9 to chat about her experience in the project management field. In that episode, we went off on a couple of fun tangents on futurism. So we decided to get together again and discuss of those tangents in more depth. So I hope you enjoy our exploration of AI and the future implications to humanity. This is intended to be thought-provoking, yet light-hearted approach to a fascinating topic.
My guest today is Miguel Sanchez @MSanchezWorld with Mass Ideation. I think that augmented reality and mixed reality are going to have a massive influence on how brands market their ideas and products. Why simply have a glossy photo with some cool print, when you can have a mini-movie built into your advertisement. Miguel's company is leading the way in the industry helping companies use leading-edge technologies to create a more memorable and engaging experience in their marketing work. This market is evolving fast with all the big names getting behind AR after the success of Pokemon GO. I hope you enjoy my conversation with Miguel.
Miguel's BioMiguel Sanchez is the Founder and Creative Director of Mass Ideation, a Bronx, NY-based Media & Technology Agency specializing in Strategy, Design, and Emerging Technologies like Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality & Mixed Reality. Prior to creating Mass Ideation, Miguel spent 8 years in the New York digital ad world creating animated and interactive experiences for some of the biggest brands in the world. In 2009 he founded Mass Ideation, where he took his experience and led teams to create campaigns for brands like Pepsi, & IHOP to name a few. Viewing augmented & virtual reality as an emerging technology with vast room for growth, he created ARnews.tv to chronicle and promote the best practices and examples of companies using the technology. Realizing there was a dire need for minorities to see technology as a viable career path he moved his business to the Bronx in 2012 and began partnering with non-profits, to teach technology to disconnected youth.
My guest today is Bill Stucklen, CEO of Stack Advisors. Bill and I discuss a specific portion of the Managed IT space. Stack Advisors is a company that provides expertise to MSPs using Labtech and Connectwise. The reason I was interested in having Bill on to chat was that it seems counter-intuitive that an IT company would outsource its internal systems management to a third party, but it makes a ton of sense for many MSPs.
BioBill has over 20 years of experience as an IT executive, leading and mentoring a diverse range of technology professionals, from help desk personnel to system administrators. He is seasoned in building technology teams, establishing technical policy, and managing large-scale technology projects. He is a co-founder and the CEO of Stack Advisors, a consultancy for MSPs, IT service providers and ISVs. He has assembled a team of MSP industry experts at Stack Advisors to provide strategic planning, consulting and expert integrations with a large focus on the ConnectWise Business Suite of tools.
New threats are emerging on the internet. Just in recent months we have seen shockingly more mature attacks on the internet. State sponsored cyberwar tactics are being brought in to the public eye. Last month we saw one of the largest DDoS attacks ever recorded. So I wanted to chat with a friend of mine that has deep roots in the Internet Security industry and get his thoughts on the rapid evolution of the security industry.
Rob Malec
Rob Malec is an author, consultant, active keynote speaker to the business community and business columnist. He is the President of Businessworks Consulting Inc. Based in Vancouver British Columbia he has been helping his clients increase the revenue their company’s generate while operating more effectively as an organization since 2001. His work includes management consulting, mentoring and facilitation.
Rob has a wealth of teaching and facilitation experience, having traveled across North America teaching leadership, sales and coaching skills. He regularly addresses audiences such as TEC, EO and Women’s President Organization to name a few.
Originally from Toronto, Rob spent four years living and working in the United States in a start-up environment, helping to build the US division of a Canadian transportation company from scratch. That enterprise grew to $18M USD over the course of that time.
Continuum has a strong and diverse marketing approach that is geared toward the digital age. Some of the topics we cover are social media, content marketing, and how to noticed amid the noise of the internet. This episode will give you some actionable advice on how to mature your digital marketing strategy to drive your success.
Nate Teplow & Joe Tavano are senior members of the Continuum marketing team. If you're in IT, be sure to check out their podcast MSP Radio and loads more content at the Continuum web page.
Vancouver is often talked about as future tech hub. Already big companies like Microsoft & Amazon are expanding their presence in Vancouver. I reached out to our guest today to chat about the expanding tech sector in Vancouver. We discuss some of the opportunities and challenges with this growing sector of our local economy and how it fits into the global tech market.
Tyler Orton is a reporter at Business In Vancouver newspaper who specializes in B.C.'s tech sector. He also hosts BIV's daily show on Roundhouse Radio 98.3, tackling headline news and interviewing the city's most notable names in business.
Kevin Crowe is the founder of Give A Mile. Give A Mile is a ‘not for profit’ online platform that enables people to visit a palliative ill loved one or people with a life threatening illness through crowdfunding of flights via donations of travel loyalty miles. Kevin was inspired to start Give A Mile after losing a very close friend to brain cancer. Kevin is also a member of the leadership team of Long View Systems a technology company. As a member of the Long View leadership team he has helped take the company from 11 people to over 1,100 people working across North America. Kevin also loves to pursue endurance sports having completed several ultra-marathons including the Canadian Death race and the Ironman. He currently lives in Calgary with his amazing wife and awesome son.
Alex is a cyber security expert professionally but also has a deep passion for drone technology. His passion led him through a hobby interest in flying drones, to building and racing drones. He now helps organize a regional drone racing league in Vancouver. In the conversation, we chat about the growing sport of drone racing, some of the safety concerns around drones, the development of flying AI, and a few of the numerous commercial applications for drone tech. Lots of people are familiar with drone tech, but few appreciate how dramatically this tech will weave its way into our daily lives.
Robert Merki is Director of Product at CognitiveVR. He started exploring web development at the age of 10 and continued building technology products all throughout his youth. After working at a variety of technology startups, Robert joined cognitiveVR to head up product development. CognitiveVR is a virtual reality analytics company based out of Vancouver BC. The company’s analytics platform helps their customers overcome the complexity of VR to bring them deep insights into how their users are interacting with their products. With the advent of VR, analytics becomes a vital way VR experience creators hone and optimize their narratives, games, and tools.
Rachel is a consultant and trainer to project managers, freelancers, and creative teams. She is also an active leader in the Digital Project Manager community in Vancouver, BC. This episode is a lot of fun, Rachel and I talk about the evolving history of project management and it's increasing role in the digital economy. Then we go down a few fun rabbit holes about finding a higher purpose, machine learning, AI, and other futurist topics.
David reviews with us his eco-system for a healthy culture and we chat about the evolution of corporate culture through the years. We also touch on some of the key struggles that business owners deal with when trying to develop a healthy culture.
Kevin is a Microsoft MVP specializing in App-V and application delivery technologies. We chat about the MVP program, App-V itself and its evolution from Softgrid. We also touch on application delivery options for IT shops and MSPs. Then we look forward to the future of application delivery, how Azure will play a role and industry adoption of cloud infrastructure.
Vanbex is a group that specializes in strategy, marketing, and operations consulting for blockchain companies. Lisa has a relatively long history with blockchain tech having worked with companies like Mastercoin, Ethereum, Factom, and Tendermint. Lisa is a strong believer in the future of the blockchain and its power to evolve countless aspects of not just finance, but all businesses. We chat about the politics of bitcoin, the fast evolution of the blockchain markets, and hurdles still in place before the mainstream adoption of blockchain currencies.
Luis Giraldo is the Founder and CEO of Ook Enterprises, a Managed IT service provider focusing on the small business space in Vancouver. Luis and I explore the what and the why of managed services for businesses. As well as, some of the trends we see in the partnering and sales process for managed service business owners as well as companies looking to outsource their IT to a partner.
Marc Stoiber is on a mission to make speeches and presentations interesting and engaging. Marc has a rich history in advertising and has won numerous awards for his work with all sorts of brands including local brands as well as huge multi-national ones. We talk about the evolution of marketing and advertising in the digital age and why TED-style speeches have become such a pop-culture phenomenon.
On the podcast today I talk with Alex Sterk. Alex is passionate about all things blockchain.
For the past year, Alex has been interviewing members of the blockchain and fintech space on his podcast Blocktalk.
Alex and I talk about the power of the blockchain, some of the cool projects he's come across in his interviews and what the future may hold for this technology.
Jessie Adcock brought her deep experience in enterprise organizations to government. The City of Vancouver has a vision for a digital strategy. Jessie is responsible for the development and implementation of that strategy. We explore the evolution of government and technology, how the city of Vancouver is supporting their digital economy and the city's open data initiative.
Interview with Lachlan Turner of Arkinfosec (@ArkInfosec). We discuss the current state of cybersecurity. What hack attacks look like and how the hacker conducts the attacks. How can people and businesses protect themselves? What does the future hold for cyber security?
Some portions of the audio have a slight echo. I'm quickly learning how to properly engineer the audio for future episodes.