EP12 - The OTHER Networking

Justin Esgar:

Ah, <laugh>.

Eric Anthony:

You're getting old Justin.

Justin Esgar:

I just like cracked my neck and it like reverberated all the way down to my book. We

Eric Anthony:

Heard it.

Justin Esgar:

<Laugh>. What's up everybody? Welcome to the All Things M S P podcast. I'm your host, Justin Esgar, along with Mike og, host, Mr. Eric Anthony. Eric, how are you doing today?

Eric Anthony:

Today, I'm doing great. Now, next week when I maybe have jury duty, I don't know, we'll, we'll see about that one.

Justin Esgar:

Also, the fact that we're like 12 podcasts ahead means the people are gonna be hearing this after you're back from jury duty. Then they're gonna hear you're going on jury duty, and then they're gonna think they're in an episode of Dr. Who and get really confused by everything.

Eric Anthony:

That's okay. What's time? Time is relative

Justin Esgar:

<Laugh> time? No, time is not a straight line. My favorite line, by the way, from any movie of all time, there's a movie called Tag. It's a really bad movie, but there's a scene where they're like synchronize your watches and they're all figuring it out. And one of the characters goes, time is a construct and just walks away. Greatest line. Love it. Such a throwaway. But it works perfectly and it fits perfectly here. Speaking of fitting perfectly here, we have an amazing guest today. Ms. Esther Deut from rcs. Got the letters right? We're coming in and we're bringing her in today. What's up, Esther? How are you?

Esther Deutsch:

Hey, so good to be here. Thank you so much for having me. Happy Friday everybody.

Justin Esgar:

Happy Friday though. These come out on Tuesdays. So again, <laugh>, tiny wimy, wibbly, wobbly <laugh>,

Eric Anthony:

You know, we'll, we'll get used to this podcast thing after a hundred or 200 episodes.

Justin Esgar:

Yeah, if you don't know where you are right now or what day it is, it's a day that probably ends in the letter y

Esther Deutsch:

<Laugh>.

Justin Esgar:

There you go. So Esther, we're bringing you on. Esther, you are a master networker and I wanted to talk to you today a little bit about that. We've connected on LinkedIn. We're in a couple of networking groups. But before we jump in, why don't you just tell the audience who may not know you, just like, you know, two, three lines, who are you, what is R c s? And why should we, why should they all listen to you when it comes to networking?

Esther Deutsch:

Sure. I'm not sure they should all listen to me, but if they're going to I'll share a little bit. So I, my background is in social work actually. I've been blessed to found a couple of not-for-profit organizations when I was very young and learned through <laugh> on the job, how to manage, how to build community and how to sort of move others in a certain direction and elevate people. And that's one of my passions in life. So, fast forward, I have been working here with RCS Professional Services. We're an it, it's called M S P, managed Service Provider. So we help other organizations with their IT tech, cybersecurity and infrastructure. And it's been nine beautiful years here so far with rcs. This next month is actually my RCS anniversary. So it's been a long journey. I started out actually in the procurement side of the house and have since moved around quite a few times and I'm constantly in motion, which I love and have been able to help them grow a lot infrastructure wise. But also as you mentioned, with partnership, building strong partnerships and being involved in the community. So community building is what I see as the common thread between all the different places I've been and coming from the not-for-profit world into profit. That's the thread for me. And I believe it's applicable to every environment and industry, regardless of whether it's profit or for or if it's not-for-profit or profit. So

Justin Esgar:

That's awesome. I didn't know you were doing the nonprofit stuff. We'll talk about that later, but let's talk about today that community building and that networking, right? So why is it important for MSP owners to do networking? And for the record, cuz I know y'all are listening and going networking, I do networking. We're not talking about that kind of networking. Yeah, we're not talking about firewalls and like ethernet cables and running patches. We're talking about like human human interaction here. <Laugh> I actually have a a a t-shirt on our funny t-shirt, sir, that says, I'm here for the networking and it's just a bunch of pictures of ethernet cables, but I digress. So why, why <laugh>? Why should MSB owners be networking beyond, let's say, just like their client, right? Because obviously a lot of MSP owners are gonna be talking to their clients especially the owners of those businesses, and they may consider that networking, but we're talking about going beyond that, right? We're talking about like joining networking groups or coming into meetings, becoming parts of the, for example, all things msp, Facebook group facebook.com/group/all things msp. So why should people be, or at least especially the owners of these MSPs, why should they be networking? What is that, what is that gonna do for them?

Esther Deutsch:

So I could talk about the benefits all day long. Some that I'll just mention that are the biggest, it's twofold. It's number one, the way to lead the most fulfilling life, which I think many of us care about our future and our life. And it's also the quickest, and I wouldn't say quickest, the ease, the best and most effective way to grow your business. So I believe that good people should be successful and I believe networking is the way to do that. And you can both, I like to think you could have it all so you can be profitable and do good for others. So you really, it it it, it speaks to the people who want to do right for the world and it speaks to the people who wanna be profitable and those who wanna do both, which I like to think I am. So, so it's stuff you just,

Justin Esgar:

You definitely are

Esther Deutsch:

<Laugh>. Thank you.

Justin Esgar:

So what, alright, so I'm a new MSP owner, I'm like, yeah, I want network. What, what do I do?

Esther Deutsch:

It's a great question. So there are a lot of resources out there. I happen to run a group that's free that anybody can join that this is a whole other topic, but I invite all MSPs. I think Justin, that might even be where we met. So case in point I'm not a hundred percent sure, but I think so that we don't see competition as competition. We see, we see collaboration instead. And it's something that I can't stress enough in life but also in, especially in the MSP world, it's amazing. I'm part of, this is another area where we do community, but we manage and run a couple of different peer groups for MSPs just from around the world. And it's amazing how we each are learning MSP concepts, but the application looks entirely different. And we literally share things, we share resources, we share HR docs, we share process information and we do that because it makes us all stronger and not only through what we share, but through the friendships that I've created with the people in these groups.

Some of my closest friends, we've all grown. So we can all go further together. You know the saying, if you wanna go, if you wanna go quick, go alone. If you wanna go Fargo together, it's one of my favorites. I think about it all the time because it's true, there's enough room in the market for everybody and why don't we each help lift each other up and help each other get there quicker than go at it at our own. So I'm also somebody who has a very hard time delegating by nature and I learned very early, especially in my not-for-profit years, that I was able to make an impact, but it was much smaller than the impact I could make if I could bring other people along in my vision and enable them to help me reach my goal. So it's something I'm still working on cuz I struggle with it naturally, but I do see the value and I would share that with people that there's so much more value in spreading your mission and getting more people on board.

So, because I hear a lot of, you know, m MSSP owners who don't wanna hire, don't wanna go into the operational side of things. And I think that's been a very interesting dichotomy and something for me to see of a lot of great techs trying to run a business. It's almost like in the social work world where I come from, you see a lot of people with big hearts and a lot of social service orientation that don't, that are running not-for-profits and don't necessarily have the same operational acumen or business skills that they need to run a business, which unfortunately, unfortunately they really are or should be. So I ta I talk about this all the time because that's what I saw in the not-for-profit world and then the profit world I saw was missing some of that HR people type of lens where, you know, we're really, we're we're working in technology but we're working with people first. And all the technology in the world isn't as good, isn't good if you don't have the right people leveraging it in the right way. So that's sort of what we do as MSPs and tell me if you see otherwise, but that's how I see it. So it's mind blowing and it's great because we don't Yeah, good.

Justin Esgar:

I was gonna, I completely a hundred percent agree with you, right? So for like on the MAC side of things, there's a great community, the MAC admin Slack, there's like 70,000 Mac admins in there all sharing information all day long, right? Whether you're an an Apple consultant as an M S P or you know, internal IT or whatever it is. So like those communities really do matter. And also I, I, I definitely, and Eric and I have had conversations about this before about a agree with you, the techs who don't have the business acumen, right, trying to run a business because they fail to remember that like, you know, and I said this before many a times publicly, like if you learn the greatest next terminal commands doesn't make you a better tech, doesn't make you a better business owner, you're not gonna get client, you're not gonna sell a client on your services by being like, you know what I can do in terminal crap. Like, no one cares, no one cares <laugh>. I dunno. Eric, what do you think?

Eric Anthony:

So I think you're absolutely right. I mean we talk about this a lot, you know, it kind of, you know, I'm gonna mention my favorite book again, the EMyth by Michael Gerber. You know, that's exactly what he's talking about. He's talking about a technician. When he's talking about a technician, he's talking about a specialist in a certain area of, you know, expertise. Whether it's a plumber, whether it's an IT technician, whether it's a social worker, whether it's, you know, somebody who does something else but has a technical expertise in that area or or training. You have to step out of that role and learn from others on how to, you know, do the other things in a business. You can't just do the things that you've been trained to do. You have to step out of that and learn the HR and the processes and the operations and the finances and all of those things. And for us, who are it technicians? One of the easiest ways to do that is to go out and talk to other business owners who have started in the same place we were at and had to overcome that as well.

Esther Deutsch:

You could learn it or you can get people who know how to do it and have them buy into your mission and help you get there again further together. But Justin, I just, I don't think I answered your question about where they should start. Cause I went off on a tangent about our group. I was going No, it's

Justin Esgar:

Ok. Don't worry about it. We, ok. Our entire podcast is just tangents. There's literally like, we're like the multiverse of podcasts. There's no, there's no real podcast. It's just a bunch of tangents.

Esther Deutsch:

Love it. I was gonna offer our networking group as a, as a place where people can begin their networking journey if they need, but there's also, yeah, go for it. Many other like data resources, I was gonna suggest Google, Facebook groups, there's a million ways to network there. There's a lot of groups on LinkedIn. You could go to meet up, you go to Happy Neighborhood Project, they have networking groups free virtually all over the world. So there's always ways to network. You just have to be interested and look for them,

Justin Esgar:

Right? And there's groups, I mean you have your Facebook groups, you have LinkedIn groups of all the same types. I think part of, I think part of it is you need to be dedicated to being involved in it, right? Because like, it's one thing to just be a member of a Facebook group or a LinkedIn group, but unless you're actively doing anything in it, it's just more annoy. Like, I, I can't tell you the number of LinkedIn groups I'm a part of. It's really funny cuz like I get a connection request from some random person. They're like, you're in the on startups community 4 0 1 group. And I was like, I'm being mad. I had no idea. Cause I've never interacted with that one ever. Right? so you know, find the, find the like-minded groups that work for you and, and be involved with them.

Ask questions. Like, I know that a lot of us fear asking questions because we don't wanna seem dumb, I guess, right? But like, we were all dumb once, like <laugh>, like we didn't all just, like, none of us were born innately with this knowledge, right? And so to come in and say like, Hey, how do I do this thing? Whether it's technical operations, management, whatever, like be okay asking it. And then, and we've talked about this before, Eric, like be nice and answer the person's question the right way. Don't lead them down some like horrid path. I I just, the one thing I hate about those kind of groups is the, like somebody asks the question and everyone just like crap posts in response as opposed to like helping the person, right? Which you don't get with in-person networking, which I think is hilarious. Like, I don't think I've ever been in like an in-person meetup and someone's like, you know, I'm having a real tough time with my X, Y, Z and everyone's like, that thing sucks. Like, that's never happened in person. I don't know why we think that the internet is okay to do it with, but I dunno. So be it.

Eric Anthony:

It's because they never think they're actually gonna see that person in person. But that brings up a great point. What about networking at live events? What's the difference between, or how do we leverage networking online versus networking in person? And, and do you have some advice as to the best ways to leverage both?

Esther Deutsch:

Sure. I think you're, you're actually can have a great advantage networking you know, in cyberspace because you could, you have an opportunity to do hit more people in a quicker because you're not having to travel to them. So that's the first thing. I would also say that one of the things I do is every time I'm in a networking space, and Justin, I love that you said that, you know, showing up is nothing. I, I have talks and talks about this because I say, I always say, I'll say it all the time and half the people won't do it. But it's amazing to me how many people show up to events and then there's no follow up or preparation. And it's, to me it's like, don't waste your time at the event, just don't come to the event because the magic really happens after the event.

It's like, you know, you, you're, you're, it's like when you go to the gym and then you burn fat after the workout. It's not in necessarily in the gym that the magic happens. So the magic is in the follow up. And I'll take time after every event to reach out at the very least every single person on the meeting on, and I'll put in the message, so great to meet you at x, Y, z, Yvette, because maybe now you're starting out, but down the line you're gonna have many, many connections and you wanna remember where you met them in case you ever revisit and or for their, for them. So that if they ever reach out to you in three years, you have that immediate connection and commonality because you know where you at. Like, we should have done so <laugh>. So that's something that I do that's like a really simple tip, but like you said, there's no point in being an event, in my opinion, if you're not gonna do anything after, even if that means reach out to one person, one person on the event because it adds up even one person.

But you also made a great point earlier to say that the way to get involved in networking is to commit time to it. Anything you care about, you have to, you can't just set it and forget it. You have to give time to it. You have to nurture it, you have to give attention to it and be mindful of it. So you have to set time. It's, it's time consuming. It's an investment. And I think you have to understand the importance of the investment and be willing to give the time. Not everybody is so be honest with yourself and is this something I wanna do? And it's not gonna reap results right away, at least not the way that if you do it right, it's not, it takes a long time. You have to water it and you have to stick with it. And if you're not gonna be able to stick with it, maybe don't embark on the journey because it's, it's just an investment of time for nothing. So

Justin Esgar:

Yeah, and that's probably the hardest part, right? Like I, I, I've fallen into this trap many a times. Like, I, I went hard on networking starting in January and it's gotten me a couple things. I wouldn't say got any clients, but it's gotten me a couple things, some new relationships. I've built up people who I can fur to back and forth and things like that. But then all of a sudden now the last couple weeks have been so busy with work, I've kind of like fallen off of it and I've realized that like I'm all of that first three months, three and a half months of, of work on it can all just disappear in a heartbeat because like, I can't commit that time anymore cuz of other things. And that's like a really hard thing because I'm not giving up networking to go help a client.

That's understandable, right? You're gonna have emergencies, but when you give up networking to like sleep late or do something else, or you know, watch Netflix, that's when it becomes a problem. So you do need to put that time in and like, we'll have a, I'm sure we'll have another podcast episode where we're talking about how do you use your calendar the right way and, you know, get it on there and get it. So this way it's sacred and you always remember to go actually, as you and I are both in the in this together podcast podcast <laugh> in this together networking group, which happens Tuesdays at 11:00 AM Eastern love that group. And I've missed the last two because of reasons. And now I'm like, are they gonna, when I go back, I'm like, are they gonna remember me? Like it's so that momentum just has to keep going and it's really hard to like keep that, to keep that up if you keep missing it. So, Esther, I know we're short on time today, but real quick one, where can people find you online? And two, where, where can you invite people to to get them started on their networking journey?

Esther Deutsch:

Sure. So LinkedIn is the best way to reach out to me. I'm very active on there, so you can find me on LinkedIn, our website, rcs professional.com. My website esther d.com. We can put the spelling maybe in the comments so people can find me, but LinkedIn's the best way. We're at rcs Pro Services on all social media, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and a couple others, but it's too many to list. So <laugh>, find me there. And then as far as networking as Justin mentioned, join us every Tuesday morning on Zoom in this together, roundtable.com. Check us out, we have a podcast link there. You could sign up to be on a podcast, host a podcast and it's free every Tuesday morning. Business building and relationship building. That's it. You can come at any stage of your entrepreneurial journey if you're looking for a job, if you're hiring, if you've made it and you wanna give back or if you're a vc. A vc, anything else, you're welcome. So that's what I would advise.

Justin Esgar:

Yeah, it's a good group of people. Pretty large group, but they break it out into smaller groups, which is really good. You always get to learn something and I've met a lot of really interesting people and actually I've been able to guess on a lot of podcasts also because of that. So that's, that's been really awesome. Esther, it's been a pleasure. Eric, any final words for us there?

Eric Anthony:

Just thanks for being here. We really do appreciate it. Networking is one of those things that I think this crowd in particular needs to pay attention to because they need to expand their horizons. And right now, with talent being as hard as it is to acquire it is, you made a great point, a great way to get that new talent into your business.

Esther Deutsch:

Thank you so much for having me.

Justin Esgar:

Thank you. That's it for us. Check us out, facebook.com/group/all things msp. New episodes drop every Tuesday. Go to youtube.com. Look for Eric Anthony, you'll find him on there. Our videos are there too. That's it for us from all things MSP the podcast. Bye.

Eric Anthony:

That's it.

Esther Deutsch:

Sorry guys. There was such a delay. I, I feel like I was talking over you

Justin Esgar:

<Laugh>. Don't worry about it. We'll fix it in okay, we'll fix it in edit.

Esther Deutsch:

It was just cause I couldn't hear. I think it, it, I answered later than I actually answered.

Justin Esgar:

Yeah, but don't worry. It was good. It was good.

Esther Deutsch:

Think I watched. What did you have on here recently? Was it Rafi?

Justin Esgar:

Mm-Hmm <affirmative>.

Esther Deutsch:

I watched somebody in my network on here. Was it Greg?

Justin Esgar:

No one, no one from in this together has been on this show yet.

Eric Anthony:

Nope.

Esther Deutsch:

That's where I heard about it. Somebody that I knew was on. I

Justin Esgar:

Told you about it cuz I, I dmd you during one of the, well I know

Esther Deutsch:

You messaged me, but I saw somebody that I knew. Hmm. I'll go back and look. <Laugh>

Eric Anthony:

Well, it could have been somebody I had, I had on the live stream too.

Esther Deutsch:

Oh, maybe that's what it was.

Eric Anthony:

So

Justin Esgar:

Are you in the all things M S P Facebook group?

Esther Deutsch:

I don't think so.

Justin Esgar:

You should join.

Esther Deutsch:

I'm going to right now. Hold on. Actually, let me check if I am already.