EP16 - MSPs vs Tech Giants

Justin Esgar:

Oh, tell me about Atlanta.

Eric Anthony:

Oh, Atlanta was great. So we got there Saturday, early morning, right? So we had plenty of time to do stuff Saturday. So we just, we walked around, looked at Centennial Park, you know, couple of things like that, and went to World of Coke that day. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. I did not try the Beverly, because I've been tricked by that before. What's the one? The Beverly is the one that tastes really, really bad.

Justin Esgar:

Oh, okay.

Eric Anthony:

But tried lots of other ones. In fact, I tried one and I forget the name of it, but it tastes like barbecue

Justin Esgar:

Meat or sauce.

Eric Anthony:

Yes.

Justin Esgar:

<Laugh>.

Eric Anthony:

And then Monday was, we did the zoo in the morning, which was extremely disappointing. It kind of reminded me of that part of Jurassic Park where Jeff Goldblum goes.

Ian Malcom:

Now, now, eventually you do plan to have dinosaurs on your, on your dinosaur tour, right?

Eric Anthony:

Because so many of the exhibits were empty. So we right about, or right before lunchtime, we ditched the zoo and went to the botanical garden, which was a much improved experience.

Justin Esgar:

It'd be interesting if at the botanical garden, all the animals from the zoo were there, like on a field trip, you're like, oh, there's the apes. I had no idea There's a giraffe eating a Lilly. Like, what's up everybody? Welcome to the All Things MSSP podcast. I'm your host Justin Esgar with my friend and OG host, Mr. Eric Anthony. And I am in a cave, as you can tell, I'm not in my studio right now because if anyone's paying attention and listening to this in chronological order, I did miss last week cuz I moved and I'm currently in a temporary space, not physically, but more like metaphysically <laugh> because this will be my space. It's just that nowhere near done. But what's up Eric

Eric Anthony:

<Laugh>? I don't know how to follow that. Like the first thing that came came to mind are is, are you in your cave of wonders, you know, from, we're pulling from Aladdin. You know, I, I don't know. I I've, I've seen you gave me the little tour around tour with your camera and I'm, I'm a little jealous of how much space you have there, but we'll, we'll get you set up.

Justin Esgar:

We'll get it set up and, and if anything, I did see, cuz we went to Home Goods yesterday, I saw like some bust of a statue and I was like, oh, can I get this? And my wife was like, why? I was like, I was gonna cut the neck off and I wanna put a button in like the backache. And she's like, you could probably just buy that Shakespeare thing with a button in it so I can make this like a single button in it. Like turn the lights on and do stuff. Because that's the kind of cave I want this to be. If anything, it's gonna be a back cave, even though I'm more of a Marvel fan than a DC guy, but neither here nor there. Here's someone who's really into comics. I know that for a fact. Maybe Mr. Ryan Grimes. What's up buddy? How are you?

Ryan Grimes:

Good. I are you doing Justin? Nice to meet you real

Justin Esgar:

Quick before we even get started. Ironman or, or, or Batman?

Ryan Grimes:

Oh God. So the true character Batman. I just, I'm not a huge fan of Tony Stark. And I think that Batman's psychological story is Fanta is fascinating to me. That's why I like Spider-Man so much because Spider-Man is not about the web slinging and all that other stuff. It's about the torment of being a high school kid all at the same time as being a superhero and dealing with hiding his identity and protecting the people he loves. So,

Justin Esgar:

Oh, this explains so much more about you than I ever knew that the brooding personality of Ryan Grimes coming out in the

Ryan Grimes:

Episode. Yeah, I'm a real brooder <laugh>.

Justin Esgar:

Real brooder. Well thanks for being here, man. For those who don't know about you, why don't you give everybody like a two minute intro on on who you are and what'd you have for lunch today?

Ryan Grimes:

Sure. So my name is Ryan Grimes. I'm the president of my IT Indie. We are an IT services company in Indianapolis. I've been in business for 19 years. Father of three kids two cats and two dogs. And I had a cob salad with buffalo chicken on there for lunch

Justin Esgar:

Today. Nice. I didn't have lunch. Did I? I had breakfast really, really late.

Ryan Grimes:

Really? It, you're, you're all over the place, man. I can't imagine you didn't eat lunch,

Justin Esgar:

<Laugh>. I I I looked at the clock, I realized it was 12 o'clock and I was like, I'll just have some eggs and bacon.

Eric Anthony:

<Laugh>. You never have lunch by the time we're recording this show, by the

Justin Esgar:

Way. That is true. I usually, I typically am like ordering lunch while we're talking to guests. Yeah,

Eric Anthony:

Yeah. <Laugh>, the Uber driver is showing up with his food during the show.

Justin Esgar:

Can you imagine if I was like, Hey excuse me. Like if we were, we're having an actual thing, I'd be like, right, can you gimme one minute? And then I just walk off camera and I come back with like a bag from like Uber Eats or something like that. Glasses. This is my new trick also in my old studio. I was always standing and now I'm sitting for the first time ever. So I can do wheelie chair moves on camera, which is always exciting. Hold

Ryan Grimes:

On a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. What's that in the background?

Justin Esgar:

That's a lamp.

Ryan Grimes:

No. What is that? Like a G five tower back there. What?

Justin Esgar:

Oh yeah, dude, that's my G five tower. I got an X serve and an x-ray in the other room. I'm decking this place out. You have no idea. <Laugh>. Some of it works. I have a 20th anniversary Mac next to it too. That works. That I want to turn it on. I want make it, I want it to be on and always running. So like do something cool. But like you and I both know that OS nine can't be on for more than three days without it exploding <laugh>. Exactly. Apple jokes. I know a lot of you are PC MSPs and you're like, ha ha ha, what are these apple nerds talking about? You'll get it one day. It's cool. So anyway Ryan, thanks for being here, man. So, so let's talk. I've known you quite a long time. I know you, I know you're very opinionated. We were joking around a little bit before the show about things. Let's pull up, let's pull up Peter Griffin. Hey Ryan, what grinds your gear? Gears.

Ryan Grimes:

Oh my God. Well let's talk about trillion dollar companies that move goalposts on us arbitrarily and expect us to just keep up and actually just really want us to go away and they want all the money from everything. How about that?

Justin Esgar:

Okay. I'm assuming you're talking about the Apple test that zones are needing to take. Is that the goalpost?

Ryan Grimes:

Yeah, there, there's that. And it's on the Microsoft side as well. So it's, it's really you know, people don't understand first off, owning a small business is hard and running an MSP is hard. And then you combine them and you're, you're like, why are we doing this? Because, you know, apple and Microsoft, you know, they're trillion dollar companies, we're not, they don't care. They're always gonna do what's best for them. So they're gonna put arbitrary things in place like, oh hey, if you want to work with us, you have to do X, Y, and z. And the answer is, okay. Like, we have to do those things because, you know, we like to pick up table scraps that they drop us every now and then. And to be fair, like there's a lot of really good people at those organizations.

I'm friends with people at Apple and at Microsoft that do a good job, but they work for trillion dollar companies. Like that's a different price point than we are in. And they're always gonna do what's in their best interest, which is fine cause that's, you know, they're a business and they've gotta make money. But at the same time, like they, we've been doing this for almost 20 years now and the relationship has definitely shifted when Apple was only a billion dollar business. And now they're a trillion dollar business and that is just a different relationship.

Justin Esgar:

I'm sure someone's gonna correct you and I'll do it for you. There were 3 trillion business now according to their stock capital. Oh, but so true. No, this is true cuz like not, and not only Apple. I'm I'll, I'll, I'll rip into Google a little bit because they'll not sponsor us. And so the other week, so this is a true story. So everybody, you all know I've been, I would be talking about moving and things like that. The last two, three weeks of my life have been kind of crazy because I was trying to sell my house. I was trying to buy this house, I was trying to move, my son went away to see Boy camp and I had to take this Apple test. So for those who don't know on the Apple side of things, and Ryan could talk about the ms, the Microsoft side of things is, in order to be an Apple consultant you have to pass a specific training test that they are putting out there.

Now, it's not written for consultants, it's written for anyone who does Apple it, both internal and consultants. So the test is actually very, very hard. And it was stressing me out because it was, I, I know a lot of people who were having trouble with it and I took it. I, I luckily passed only and I was like, woo, done one big thing off my plate only to then find out Google had been sending me emails for the last six months that I had that had gone unanswered because they sent me an email a day with different things saying that if I wanna keep my Google reseller partnership, we have to pass certain certifications. They sent it to me on the 28th and they had had, I had to have 'em done by the 30th. And not only did I have to have it done in two days, four separate people in my organization, I had to take tests because you can't have any one person hold two credentials.

So you need to have two people in your organization with sales credentials and two people in your organization with deployment credentials. And so I got my team, we huddled together, we did it, we got through it. Luckily those tests were online and not ter terribly hard. And I had a, I had a call with my Google contact and I say being like suck it cause we did it. But then I was like, what if you're a one person MSP trying to resell Google? And her answer was, Google doesn't want that to be the case. Google wants you to grow your business. And I was like, who is Google to demand that a person who is content being a single person MSP be forced to grow in order to resell your product? So I felt really like annoyed by that. And then as I got off the phone with her, I couldn't care about it anymore cuz I had other things to worry about. But now that I think about it now that we're talking to you, Ryan, is that, I'm, I'm still annoyed by that situation. Like, you're right, the goalposts are being moved and we have to take these things to stay up. But it's not, I don't think it's fair when the company demands certain things of the M S P when it's not their decision about our companies.

Eric Anthony:

Well I think that, you know, you take this to a different level and MSPs in my opinion, should probably stop trying to resell Microsoft and Google and, you know, Apple's a little bit of a different case, but there's not enough money in it for, for it to matter, right? Yeah. Take the consulting money. They still need somebody to support those applications, right? Because Microsoft is not going to support 365 for a small business. They might say they are, but they're not going to in any practical way, in my opinion. So there's still money to be made by an msp even if they're not reselling 365. And I think at some point there's just a separation from the, by the MSP away from being a resale agent for the Microsoft.

Ryan Grimes:

And that's really what they want. They want all that money. They want all, they want a hundred percent of the revenue, not 95% of the revenue or 88% of the revenue. But one of the things I learned listening to another podcast about MSPs was that 88% of MSPs are under a million dollars in revenue. 75% of that 88% are under 200,000 in revenue. So if 88% of the MSPs out there are very small and these large companies like are, they just don't even wanna work with companies like us and we're under a million in revenue, we won't be long before we're over that. But at the same time, like they don't want us, they want us to go away, they want all the revenue and they want us to support their products for free to them.

Justin Esgar:

I, I, a couple things. So one is I'm a little upset that you listening to any other podcast, but this amazing one that we're on right now. And two, you would've gotten that same figure if you listened to our episode with Dave Sobel, cuz he mentions that on the all things.

Ryan Grimes:

That's who I heard it from actually. Guys,

Justin Esgar:

<Laugh>, there you go. On the all things MSP podcast episode, Eric will throw whatever the right episode number is here.

Eric Anthony:

13, maybe 12 something like that.

Justin Esgar:

Well, this will be one of those things where like if you watch the YouTube video, this, the actual number will show up on the bottom. But if you're listening to this in your car, you may never know. So yeah, I think that's, that is a big problem. I feel though the, the, I kind of see where you're going with this Eric, right? The idea of like, stop trying to resell that stuff, right? And it makes sense, especially in the smaller, smaller businesses. But I've always been under the, the ideal that reselling those things kept the, kept you sticky with the client, right? If the client is coming to you for everything, reselling your office 365 licenses, your Google licenses, Dropbox licenses, ignite licenses, whatever it is, if you could sell them anything, I mean, Ryan and I have a friend who will go a name right this second who literally his whole thing was sell them SSL certificates and sell them d n s. He would sell everything under the sun and he would just stay super, super sticky. So I'll ask Eric first and then Ryan, I want your opinion on this one. If an MSP is to not be reselling those services, Google workspace, Microsoft 365, whatever, does the stickiness of that MSP drop to next to zero?

Well, cause then you're a commodity.

Eric Anthony:

Yeah. And let me, well let me put it this way. Would, what is the commodity? Is it 365 or is it the service? Is it the support? The commodity is 365. The value to the client is the experience and the support of that 365, which Microsoft is not going to be able to give them the individualized, the verti the industry vertical specialized, you know, experience that that small to medium size business needs in order to properly take advantage of 365,

Justin Esgar:

Right?

Ryan Grimes:

I guess, yes, the issue I have is that again, Microsoft, just as an example, wants all the money. I mean, they have shareholders, they have a board. So if they're directly billing my client, they can solicit my client. They can say, Hey, we're doing, and and Cisco's done the same thing. Cisco's like, Hey, I know my it d soldier's licenses, but we'll give you 40% off if you buy your licenses from US direct. And they're like, well, Cisco doesn't do that. Yeah, they absolutely do. They want all that money. So I I I don't think of it as stickiness. I, I see it as a barrier of protection from having to have conversations like, well, Microsoft says we can just do desktops with them and they'll handle everything because, you know, that's what they're coming for eventually. Like, they want all the money. That's greed. I don't say greed is a bad word to use, but overly inflated value of what they offer or idea of what their value is, is not unno unheard of in this industry. And I think that it's our job to protect our clients because it just is like we understand our clients, Microsoft doesn't, but at the same time, Microsoft will be like, we'll try.

Justin Esgar:

Right. Wait, so are you saying that you think that Microsoft is gonna start offering like desktop support the same way on msp? They already

Ryan Grimes:

Do. If you go to, before the Microsoft stores closed, they offered Microsoft migrations to Microsoft 365. It did not go well. In fact, they, I know for a fact they trashed a lot of data, but they offered it and they offered it for free.

Justin Esgar:

I forgot that Microsoft had stores <laugh>.

Ryan Grimes:

I know, right? <Laugh>

Justin Esgar:

I know before the stores froze and for second I was like, they had stores.

Ryan Grimes:

Yes, they did. And, but they offered that service for free. So they're, they're willing to pick up every nickel. Obviously were not and they're willing to do things for free that we're not, I mean, there's a reason we charge a lot of money for migration because it's hard. Right? But at the same time, I don't wanna get brought in when it, it's gone really south. And they're like, yeah, all of our data is like halfway between Google and Microsoft or our on-premise exchange and Microsoft like, help us fix this. I don't want that to start off a client relationship. I want the vendor to say, you know what, we just don't do that. Let's call in a professional.

Justin Esgar:

I, hold on, I I agree with the second half, right? Call the professional, but I also don't agree with the, I don't want to come in when it's half stuck. Because then if I come in and being who I am and you being you, like we can become the savior, right? Charge a lot extra more, charge a lot more money. And the client at the end of the day is like, oh my God, you saved our business. That's a great way to start a relationship. I mean, granted, you're coming in with crappy scenarios mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, right? Because your data's half migrated, half not whatever, as Microsoft screwed the pooch fine. But like, if you can come in and you can appropriately save that client, you're gonna have a client for life and there you're gonna get your sticky

Ryan Grimes:

Possibly and it it, it could very well go that way. We just don't like to come in and have to drop everything that we're doing and, and rescue a complete disaster because it starts a relationship up on a stressful note. And that doesn't, it can exist throughout the entire relationship because that's what they're associating it with is stress. Right now we usually come in when something's on a sliding scale of being screwed up, it's usually on there somewhere, right? Because if there wasn't screwed up, they wouldn't be calling us. But that's an extreme case. And it's, it's never pleasant because it's, we don't like to start a relationship like that. But that's just us.

Justin Esgar:

That's fair. That's fair. So the, so then what do you think, what do you think MSB should be doing here, right? If, if, if the goalposts are always gonna be moved and we wanna be in this industry, should those smaller MSPs be giving up or should they be actively looking for better ways to grow? Should it be, you know, cause I, we have a lot of friends that are, that are single person MSPs or whatever they wanna call themselves cuz they don't blame 'em, don't like the term that don't want to grow. They're content being a one person shop, right? Are they inevitably dooming themselves by not having that desire to grow?

Ryan Grimes:

I say yes. Because I mean we're, we're a four person msp. It's very hard to do a good job at the level we feel that should be done. We even have outsourced security operations centers for some of the things that we run because we're not monitor able to monitor things 24 7, 365 and remediate at the same time. So we outsource that stuff to a security operations center or a soc. So I think that being a one person M S P is impossible. Like to do the things that I feel an MSP should be doing. I feel it's absolutely impossible these days. You have to have resources available to you to protect and to remediate issues. And you're inev inevitably gonna have, you know, as a one person shop, you're gonna have two things go wrong at any given point. Right. and what do you do?

How do you take care of clients? Being a one person shop back when I started this 20 years ago, yeah, it was possible to be a one person IT provider and do a good job. Just like being a doctor 20 years ago was a different thing than being a doctor today with all the specialties and, you know, specializations and, and medical people, you have to go see a cardiologist or a dermatologist or all these things. Like your primary care physician could pretty much take care of you back in the day. Well now they send you to a specialist for everything. Well it's kind of the same thing in technology. It's that complicated.

Justin Esgar:

Right. Eric, what do you think?

Eric Anthony:

I think it depends on the definition of msp, right? I think that what the three of us probably think of as an MSP Ryan is exactly correct. Now does that mean you can't provide IT services as a single solopreneur? I think you can. They're just not managed services and you certainly can't do security at an acceptable level as a one person msp. Now can you do micro business? I mean literally one person small to medium sized businesses probably mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, can you do residential it? Absolutely. As a single person because the prior I know, I know Ryan, I get it. And by the way, for those of you listening on the podcast Ryan's facial expression was exactly what you probably are doing exact what you know right now listening to this in the car. And it's true residential, it can be absolutely a nightmare.

However, we probably all three of us know somebody who's doing a white glove residential high-end client type MSP or T S P if we wanna call it that that is successful. So I think there's, it depends on the definition of of msp. I think there is room for the single person IT service provider, and I'm gonna use that term specifically. I don't think you can properly do MS P for your average small to medium sized business unless you get up into probably at least the three to four. And then you still have to have that outsourced SOC like Ryan was talking about.

Justin Esgar:

I do like, I like that I T S P thing. And, and we should dive into that a little bit further cuz I, I think one of the things we don't have to do is, I think maybe another call would be a lot of people who are, a lot of people like to say their MSPs but don't actually manage any services. I remember years ago I was at a conference and I was hanging out with a, a friend of ours, Ryan, and I have this friend Mike Thompson from Australia who was in town. And he's like, and even back then, and this is we're we're talking about seven years ago. He goes, he goes, what services are you managing? Like you are not managing their cable line, right? That's a service. You're not managing that. You're not managing their printer, right? You're managing the fact that they can print, but you're not managing the printer.

That's the printer service company, right? So the term MSP gets tossed around on. And I think also the other thing is the second you go from I T S P and you go, well I have monthly recurring revenue, I'm now an mssp. That doesn't mean anything there. There's two things. Don't crisp, you know, cross paths. So I don't think that matters either. So let's bring this back to the original thing with what Ryan's coming in brooding about all Batman like against Google and Apple and Microsoft, which is that maybe the MSP concept as we know it, for those 88% of people who are sub what we say who are sub million, right? Or sub 500,000 shouldn't be MSPs. And I don't mean that in a bad way. I mean, you can be an I T S P and we can start, let's start the revolution of changing, changing what people think about themselves. Stop selling Microsoft. Stop selling Google. Google be true to who you are and offer the best quality service to whoever. Again, you mentioned residential people, Eric, like I don't, I got like three friends who like do nothing but residential and they crush at residential and they're making monthly recurring revenue, right? That they're not s p in any way, shape or form. And then I have friends who are doing, you know, 30, 40, 50 person businesses and they're sucking ass at it. <Laugh>

Ryan Grimes:

The bar is so low to be an msp, it's literally just laying on the ground. And you could just walk over like, I mean case in point, we had a a prospect come to us and we went there to examine what they're doing and they're all in all window shop. And we're like, well what's the admin login on your computers as we're documenting this stuff? And they're like, hang on, let me call the IT guy who was across the hall from them and he came over and typed a bunch of stuff and he's like, I don't know. Like, what do you mean you don't know? Like you don't know what the admin user is on the computers. Here he is like, Nope.

Justin Esgar:

Nice.

Ryan Grimes:

Like we can't, like nobody could do anything on these computers cuz they're all standard users and nobody has the admin. I mean that's what someone's paying for. And then I was like, oh my god.

Eric Anthony:

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And I think what we're gonna start seeing, and I think we're already starting to see it, I, I think I was having a conversation with Jay McBain the other day and we were talking about the whole ecosystem and how things are evolving. I think a lot of these smaller, what call themselves MSPs today are going to you know, these one, two person shops are gonna move more into consulting because that's really, at the end of the day what they're doing. They're not managing the IT environment. They are consulting on the IT environment and then they're brought in as needed. They're not doing the proactive stuff that the three of us all think of as providing a managed IT service.

Justin Esgar:

I think the, I also, I rip into this one a lot also. I think the proactive thing, we, I think MSP needs to stop saying we're proactive cuz we're not, because you can't be right. Like proactivity means, sure. We, we make sure that you, you we've set you up with backup. But like everything we do in our job is a reactive move. We only get called in cuz the backup failed. We get called in because there's a new employee story. We're getting called in because someone can't answer their computer. We can't proactively stop that person from not being able to turn their computer on. That's physically impossible even in the metaverse. Right? So I think MSPs need to stop talking about being proactive right. And be truth to what they are. We will manage a couple of services. But at the same time, like you said, I we're co consultants, which I have a little bit of a problem with the cons the, we're a consultant cuz as a Apple consultant, a member of the Apple consultants network, a lot of cns and you know what, and if you're listening to this and you're an A C N and I know you hit me up on Slack and yell at me.

A lot of you aren't even consultants. You're, you're,

Ryan Grimes:

Oh boy, you're

Justin Esgar:

A mechanic. It's another conversation we started with grinding my gears and I'm getting into it. <Laugh>.

Eric Anthony:

Yeah, we noticed.

Ryan Grimes:

Oh my goodness. Yeah. I mean the, the idea, Justin, I agree with you. The, I we're not proactive. We're very, very quickly reactive. And that's what they say proactive is because we told the client the thing was wrong, but we're still reacting to the thing being wrong. Right. and I totally agree with that. And I had something else. Oh yeah, the smaller MSPs Yeah. They're gonna get kicked out. So we're Microsoft Silver Partners until October then we will no longer be Microsoft Silver Partners because the requirements have gotten stupid. It's like you have to add 10 net new customers per year. You have to have certain level of certifications. Oh, and by the way, you were paying 17 or $1,800 a year, now it's five grand a year. And I was like, oh well that sounds stupid. And it it, I mean that's just the thinking behind these things. Now they're like, again, we want you to not, so we may or may not resell Microsoft. I don't even know if they're gonna let us do it anymore. No clue. They may just say, you know what, you have to do 10 grand a month in order to even sell licenses.

Justin Esgar:

I, the, the, the net new client thing is what gets me. Cuz Google did that also, right? To be the next level of Google. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> you have to have something like $7,500 a month in net new clients. Who are you to dictate my business? Are you paying for that marketing Google? No you're not. So you don't get to make those calls. Also, I think this leads us into a great thing, which is like if we're not gonna resell the licenses directly, there are big vendors out there like PAX eight who we can use, who will do it for us. And I'm hoping that these Microsoft changes don't, do not affect our ability to do it through companies like them. Cuz like they're, they've been a lifesaver, especially for us cuz we're not Microsoft certified in any way, shape or form. But we can sell 365 all day long, you know, through them, which has been a great thing. Mm-Hmm.

Ryan Grimes:

<Affirmative>. Absolutely. Well that's, yeah, we're PAX eight partners as well. Yep. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt Eric.

Eric Anthony:

No, that's okay. I mean, that's really a lot of Pax Eight's success in this side of the industry with MSPs has been giving MSPs the flexibility to buy the way they want to buy. And I think that's, you know, part of the secret sauce of why PAX eight has grown as fast as they have is being able to do that for the MSPs when the larger, more traditional companies just will not. Mm-Hmm. And, and that's the power of what I just like to call convenience buying. Right? MSPs traditionally have purchased more like consumers than they've purchased like businesses because they are smaller.

Justin Esgar:

Right. Also, let's just stick on here. Hashtag not an ad <laugh>.

Eric Anthony:

No. But PAX eight, if you are listening, you know ATMs P link slash sponsor

Ryan Grimes:

Sponsor

Justin Esgar:

<Laugh>.

Ryan Grimes:

I totally agree. We're PAX eight spon partners. We actually went to PAX eight beyond and, and I know Jay, I know all the same people you guys are talking about. I listen to him talk. Yeah. The small business consultant is going to have to evolve very quickly because, you know, one of the things PAX eight showed us was they're go, oh, we just totally lost Justin d go get his snacks. There he is. But they're going to allow us the ability to do custom web stores for clients. So we can actually build our product catalog in PAX eight and sell it to people who are, who might not even be our clients. Or allow our clients to simply buy services through our own custom web store and we could drop it into jam throw or drop it into sync sync row and have a link be on every computer when they need to buy something.

I mean, that's really, I I think that they're going to change our industry for the better. And I think that they get us right. I think that they understand that their success hinges on our capabilities to grow our businesses, so they make it worth our while to grow our businesses. If you're gonna do this stuff, you have to evolve. You can't be reliant on somebody else's sandbox to make your living. You can't rely on Apple or Google or Microsoft to care about your company. You have to find your own value in what you're doing and the value to your, your clients and new clients as to you know, ultimately get them to pay you money for your, your expertise.

Eric Anthony:

Well, and that's where the evolution and change comes in, right? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, because technology is changing, because business models are changing because Microsoft and Apple are changing. We have to change as IT service providers. And I say we, I know I sold mine in 2013, sorry, I still say we when I'm talking about MSPs and TSPs, but that's where the evolution has to come in because the market's going to change. All markets change, so we have to change along with it. The question is, and, and the, the smart part is how do we look two years, three years, five years into the future and decide what the strategy's going to be so that we're starting now and not getting caught being left behind two or three years from now.

Justin Esgar:

Yeah. But in order to do that, we'd have to be proactive, which as we've already determined, none of us are.

Eric Anthony:

Well be

Ryan Grimes:

Proactive. No business plan side. Yeah, you can be. Yeah,

Justin Esgar:

Excellent

Ryan Grimes:

Point. Like how do you know where everything's heading? Like you we're all kind of, you know, good guessers we've done this for a long time, we can kind of see where things are going. Oh, we've done this for 20 years. Like, I kind of know where the road's leading. So we have to stay ahead of where things are right now and plan accordingly so that when a customer says, Hey, what about this? Be like, yeah, we've already done that. It's, it's, it's hard, you know, that's what makes this industry so brutal is that you have to swim fast.

Eric Anthony:

Yeah, for sure. I mean, listening to people like Jay McBain, Dave Sobel who, who love numbers and love data, right? They can give you some insight into what's going on. Listening to crazy podcasts like this, you know, might give you some insight. Hopefully. I mean, that's, that's the goal, right? Is that you get something educational out of these. But you're right. I mean, it's, it's moving fast is the only way to, to stay on your feet because it just, it changes so fast.

Justin Esgar:

Oh wait, that's a good loop then. Ryan. Ironman Batman or the Flash?

Ryan Grimes:

Oh God, seriously? Look good. <Laugh>.

Justin Esgar:

We're moving fast on our feet. I'm pulling it in so I can close off. I can bookend the show.

Ryan Grimes:

Oh my God. To like Batman,

Justin Esgar:

Just say flash. Just say you like Ezra Miller, you like, you like the flash

Ryan Grimes:

Fine. <Laugh>.

Eric Anthony:

Justin. It's it. I'm sorry. It's Batman.

Ryan Grimes:

It's Batman. Thank you. It's Michael Keaton's Batman. Thank you very much.

Justin Esgar:

By the way, if anyone hasn't seen this, go watch when he did the his commencement speech and he finally, he's like, he's like, and before I leave I only have two words to say to you for the rest of your life, for you to remember forever and ever. And he like, bends download and he goes, I'm Batman. And he walks off stage and it was amazing. Yep. Well it seems like a good time to end this show. I promise we'll do better next time cuz I'll have better internet. Ryan, where can where can people find you online to commiserate and brood with you?

Ryan Grimes:

I love brooding on LinkedIn. It's a great place to hang out. It's where the big people use social media. I'm not really on Facebook not really on Threads or Instagram or whatever the new fangled stuff is. I hang out with the adults on LinkedIn or my itd.com. If you wanna talk about it stuff. I love talking shop, so definitely hit me up.

Justin Esgar:

Awesome. Thanks so much. Hey

Eric Anthony:

Ryan? Yeah, this mostly goes to a Facebook group.

Ryan Grimes:

Oh, that's okay. I'm on Facebook. That's okay. If you wanna

Justin Esgar:

Facebook and, and if you want a friend Ryan Grimes, most of Ryan's Facebook posts are him growing hot chili peppers in his garden and

Ryan Grimes:

Exactly, exactly the important things and pictures of my cats and dogs,

Justin Esgar:

Pictures of the animals. Eric, anything before, before we finish?

Eric Anthony:

Probably just to say that we are on LinkedIn too, so if you do wanna play with the adults we do, we are on LinkedIn. Just look for all things MSP on LinkedIn. If you wanna be a guest on this podcast, simply go to at msp.link/podcast. Fill out the form, Justin and I will talk about it and get back to you as quickly as we can.

Justin Esgar:

Awesome. And also don't forget to check out our YouTube youtube.com/at all things MSP subscribe and like this way you get notified when new episodes are coming out. Usually they're on Tuesdays except for when there's a federal holiday that always gets in the way of things. Hey, but

Eric Anthony:

The podcast still came out on Tuesday, the podcast,

Justin Esgar:

The YouTube

Eric Anthony:

Video just waited till Wednesday.

Justin Esgar:

Yeah. Which it didn't matter. I wasn't in it anyway, so don't worry about that episode. Pay attention to the ones I'm kidding. It was a really good interview. I liked it. Anyway, that's it for us over at T M S P. Hope you guys have a great week. Bye.