Frameworks That Will Fix Your MSP Chaos | EP111

[00:00:07] I want to give a shout out to like this. There's this guy who draws this comic on Facebook. His name is Yale Stewart is the guy's name. Y-A-L-E. And he has this comic called JL8. And it's about the Justice League as second graders. And it's amazing. And he's been doing it for a couple of years. And like he takes some time off and then he writes, then he does a whole bunch more because it's obviously a lot of work to do this. He makes it basically it's a comic book that he's drawing out, right?

[00:00:36] And he hasn't been sued by DC. So if anyone's working at DC, go. Don't don't go after him. He's he's great, whatever. But I love when there's like interactions that don't make any sense. So like there was one of my favorite ones is eight year old Superman is walking down the hallway. And he keeps going, thwip, thwip, thwip. And eight year old Batman comes over. He's like, what are you doing? And Superman's like, oh, I'm playing Spider-Man. Thwip, thwip, thwip. And he's making the hand motion to like,

[00:01:05] pretend that he's shooting webs. Like the idea that Superman is pretending to be Spider-Man as an eight year old playing is amazing to me. Yeah, I can understand that.

[00:01:19] It's a it's a really good comic. It's super wholesome. And it's really funny when like, other people show up like years ago, when he first started, like, the Martian Manhunter came as like the new kid to school and like he was being like shy and afraid. But like, all the other Justice Leaguers came were like, let's play games. And like, he showed them how he can like phase through stuff. And they were like, he's cheating at dodgeball or some, you know, some issue like that.

[00:01:45] Check it out. It's on Facebook. JL and then the number eight. JL eight. I yelled through it. That's my thing. Okay. I got nothing else. Building and maintaining a help desk is costly, time consuming, and a hiring headache. Help gives you a better way. Our US based tech experts deliver fast, friendly support to your clients.

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[00:02:58] The multi-tenant dashboard with built-in remediation guidance and patch management makes it easy to identify, manage, and remediate vulnerabilities quickly, helping you better protect your clients. Visit nodeware.com to learn more. What's up, everybody? Welcome to the All Things MSP Podcast. My name is Justin Esker and with me always is Chewbacca's twin brother, Eric Anthony. Making fun of the beard again. Yes, I am.

[00:03:24] Do you know that all week long I have been coming up with nicknames for you and you're not going to find out any of them until we record? Because then that's funny to me. I do love you though. Thank you. But do you love the beard? Don't get mad. Just shave. I also am getting a little hairy, but that's because I have a, this is my good luck beard. Much like we've talked about this before. Like I don't shave before aces.

[00:03:51] It's weird because the way you look at this on camera, if you come to youtube.com slash at all things you get MSP, you can see that like the middle part of my goatee is gray and the outer parts are still dark. I kind of look like Wolverine from X-Men 1. Yeah, mine kind of has these two white streaks coming down from the corner of my mouth. You have a beard on your beard. You have like a goatee on your beard. This is, by the way, this is a fall. I think this is for years ago.

[00:04:23] We threw an affectionately well-known party known as the White Trash Bash and for said party, I grew my beard and then I shaved everything but my mustache and the goatee. And at the last minute, I just shaved the middle part of my goatee. So I had a mustache and like mutton chops around my chin. I looked so disgusting.

[00:04:45] And what was funny was like I walked downstairs to like, because Michelle and I were planning it. And she looked at me and she goes, no. And she like pointed me back up the stairs. Like she's like, I get that it's a joke and I get that it's for a party. You're not doing that for the next four hours or whatever. But no. But no. The answer is no. But no. Enough about beard talk. That's the All Things Beard podcast coming soon to a podcasting studio near you.

[00:05:15] What's up, Eric? I feel like I haven't seen you in forever, man. It's been a week. It's been a long week. Yeah, well, that's true for you because you're getting ready for aces. However, we are going to see each other in person in like, what? A week and a half? In like two weeks, right? Channel Pro. Channel Program. No, Channel Pros. Channel Pro Network. Channel Pro in New Jersey. Channel Pro Network. The problem is everyone calls themselves Channel Pro something, right? Channel Pro in New Jersey.

[00:05:44] Yes, I will be speaking at Channel Pro in New Jersey, which is May 13th and 14th. I'll be on a panel the morning of the 14th. And what's really funny is I thought I was going on the 13th on that Tuesday. But I'm leaving the event a little early to meet up with some friends in Manhattan because we got tickets to see Professor Brian Cox speak. I'm surprised that my friends who luckily don't listen to this podcast. I'm about to make fun of them.

[00:06:12] Bought the tickets because I didn't realize that like my friend who bought the tickets and his wife and we're bringing Michelle also. We're like so into physics to want to see a world-renowned British physicist like Brian Cox. Like I love Brian Cox and I love the way he talks and I love the way he does, you know, he interacts. He's the British Neil deGrasse Tyson. But of physics as opposed to astrophysics. And so, yeah, so we're going to that. And so I'm like, oh no.

[00:06:41] Now that I realize I'm going the next morning, I'm like, oh, I'm going to get home and I'm going to be exhausted. Luckily, this place is like 10 minutes from my house. So I have to be on stage at 945. My call time is 925. I am showing up at 910. I'm getting up at 9. All righty then. Yeah, and it's only like 30 minutes from the airport, which is kind of a bummer, but whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's going to be a good show. I've heard good things about the show.

[00:07:11] I've never been to their shows before. I'm assuming you have, right? I've been to many of their shows and I do like them, yes. Well, other than like the topic I'm talking about, which is going to be challenges for MSPs in 2025, like do you know what other benefits MSPs will have from going since you've been to them? So the biggest advantage in my mind of going to any of these types of events is the peer-to-peer information that you'll get.

[00:07:41] Just talking with other MSPs, right? Listening to what their challenges are and how they solve them and sharing your challenges and then telling you how they solved those same challenges as well. And vice versa, you know, it's an opportunity for you to share the successes that you've had and things that you've solved in that business as well. There's also a lot of great speakers always at these.

[00:08:08] ChannelPro does a very good job of kind of balancing vendor presentations and other useful information from peers in the industry and other subject matter experts. So I think in terms of regional events, they do a really, really good job of pulling together the right variety of content is what I'll say.

[00:08:32] And I've been doing ChannelPro shows probably for the greater part of 10 or 11 years. And I really do appreciate what they do. I want to know, just because like I'm coming as a speaker, so I don't actually even know, like ChannelPro New Jersey registered now. It's free, right? It is free for MSPs. Right. You might have to find a vendor who will give you their code.

[00:09:02] Yeah, this free event exclusively for channel partners providing IT solutions, including managed services, hardware sales solutions, and IT consulting for the end user. The application process is to ensure our attendees meet the above qualifications. I do like that idea. To apply for a seat to attend the event, please fill out the form below. Go over to ChannelProNetwork.com and you click on events, you'll find what I'm reading from. And you'll be notified if your application to receive a free pass has been approved within two business days.

[00:09:30] If approved, we'll send you a link to book your free hotel room. That's nice. For the night of May 13th. So they do put up a lot here giving the attendees a free event. It's a free event and you get a free hotel room at the Parsippany Troy. Hilton. Hilton, which is a super nice hotel, by the way. It's actually a really, really gorgeous looking hotel. I drive past it a lot. Because like I said, it's only 10 minutes from my house.

[00:10:00] But yeah, I'm excited to be speaking at ChannelPro. I'm actually going to be doing the one in New Jersey and I'm also doing the one in LA in November, which I'm super excited about as well. So a lot of stuff. Yes, I am a little stressed out. ACES Conference. When this comes out, I believe ACES Conference will be happening right now. So here's if you want to like a good like timey whammy mind mess. You're listening to me right now in your car while I am currently on stage in Austin.

[00:10:28] Introducing the next speaker at my own event. This will come out on Tuesday. What is that? May. Huh? May 6th. Yeah, that sounds right. Yeah. And by the way, the ChannelPro is the week after that. And if you need a vendor code for that event, you can use EGVIP. Okay? Just putting it out there. EGVIP. Correct.

[00:10:58] That's a good code. I like that code. All right. Well, let's get into today's topic. Enough about events and our lack of shaving abilities. So last week, if you're listening in order, this makes sense. And if you're not listening in order, go figure out what last week's episode was. And you'll understand why I'm saying last week. Last week, we were talking about organizational charts and why we think it's important for

[00:11:23] every MSP, whether you're a 20-person or a one- or two-person shop, to have an organizational chart. And we started to dive a little bit into how organizational charts work in something like EOS, the entrepreneurial operating system. And I kind of want to talk a little bit more about that today. I think that's a really good topic for people. Yep. So number one, raise your hand if you've heard about EOS. Good. You're driving. Put both hands back on the wheel.

[00:11:52] EOS is a framework, right? It's a framework. And there's a couple of frameworks that are out there. There's EOS. There's the BOS. There's the 90. There's one thing called OTP, something like that, whatever. Pinnacle is another one that I like because it's a little simpler. Yeah. But very similar to EOS. There's a lot of frameworks here. But EOS is probably the most famous, I think, of all of them. Correct.

[00:12:22] It was created by a guy named Gino Wickman. And he has a couple of books. His initial book is called Traction, which is a good book. It teaches you about EOS. And then there's another book. I think it's called Rocket Fuel, which is a story. It's like a fictional book around the concepts of EOS. So there's two great books by this guy. And like I said, it's a framework. It's not software. This isn't something that it's not plug and play.

[00:12:50] You don't download it from the internet or try to get it from BitTorrent or whatever. Like this is a business framework that you can use. So from what I know of EOS, and I'll let you chime in a second. When you're writing on your org chart, we talked about like you have your different functions, right? As opposed to like owner and then people. You have like your CEO, your CTO, your CRO, your CHRO, CFO.

[00:13:19] But you have to put functions. In EOS, what I think is really interesting is like the top box is the visionary. And the second box, which is one line down and no one else across, is the implementer. And then from there, you bring about everything else, including finance, marketing, sales, tech support, et cetera, et cetera. And I love that because I've always found myself – because not always is the CEO the visionary, number one. Most of the time it is.

[00:13:48] But like I've always found myself to be way more of a visionary than an implementer, right? Like I will bring an idea to my team and say, make this happen. And I leave it to my team to tell me to go kick rocks. Well, and to be fair, that's kind of the implementer or the organizer's job, right? Right.

[00:14:11] So visionary and implementer is basically because those two personalities don't frequently exist in the same person. And if they are, they're probably schizophrenic. So that's why there's the separation, right? Because a lot of times you have a person who's focused on the forward thinking of the business. Where is this business going to go?

[00:14:39] What can we do that's new that is going to bring us into the future of the business? But then you have to have somebody who is taking those ideas, vetting them and say, does this make sense for our business to do? Does it fit in with what we're doing, how we're doing it and all of that? And then if the answer is yes, how do we actually put this into practice? And like I said, a lot of times those are not the same person. Yeah.

[00:15:09] I mean, even in a, it's hard, especially if you're like in a one or two person business to be able to separate those. Like I really, as you were saying, like they're not in the same person. And if anyone's watching today, I happen to be wearing a hat just for sake of sakes. And all I can think about is like, you know, we always make that joke around like, oh, you wear so many different hats in the business. And I'm like, oh, this is my visionary hat. And if I turn it around like Sylvester Stallone in Over the Top before an arm wrestle, this is my implementer hat. You know what I mean?

[00:15:38] Like it's one of those things where you, because the implementer is there to tell the visionary no. And that's important in your business. So your visionary is going to be your top level. And it's going to be not only idea creation, but like that visionary position is going to be the one who's coming up with your 10-year target. Maybe your marketing strategy, you know, your one to five-year plan.

[00:16:04] And also bring about all the issues that the company has, your issue list. Because like I do that a lot with Virtua is I will have teams, I will have team calls and I'll be like, these are all the issues that are in my head. We need to get these down on paper. And then you guys need to go and fix these things because they shouldn't just be in my head. And if I'm thinking about them, they're literally issues for everyone. It's not like I'm making up issues for the team, right? Right.

[00:16:31] Getting XYZ done or why does this process, this piece of the business, why is this being slow when it shouldn't be slow? Those kinds of things. And some of them are very theoretical and some of them are very tactile, right? Why is it that this happens when I click this button in our PSA, it shouldn't do that tactile. Whereas my other one is like, why can't we get more customers that's more theoretical? Which is a question we all ask, but whatever.

[00:17:01] Yeah. And, you know, last week we talked about org charts for single person MSPs, right? And why those are important. And for kind of the same reasons, if you are a single person MSP, and this goes very well with you turning your hat forward and backwards, you do need to spend time in both domains if it's just you.

[00:17:24] And EOS, just because you don't have two people, you don't have a visionary and an implementer, doesn't mean you can't do EOS, right? Or maybe something simpler. But it does mean you need to spend time in both domains and actually say, for these two hours, I'm going to work as a visionary. For these two hours, I'm going to work as an implementer.

[00:17:45] You know, that's why you do the org chart so that you can manipulate your time properly to make sure you're doing the different jobs that you need to do, which can be hard if you're just doing it kind of off the cuff because you are naturally going to be drawn to certain tasks because of your personality and because of your background. The ones you like to do as opposed to the ones you don't like to do. Correct. Correct.

[00:18:13] But if you specifically schedule time for the different roles that you know you have to do, it'll be much easier to switch between those roles to get that work done. So I'm looking at an EOS org chart here. And like we said, the visionary is on top and that's the one who's coming up with new ideas, new products, new services, thought leadership, planning, things like that.

[00:18:34] Right under you have your integrator, lead, manage, accountability, implement the vision, implement EOS, business reporting and forecasting and executing the business plan that came from visionary. From the integrator, we split into, this is a generic one, so it doesn't necessarily encompass MSP. It encompasses MSP, but it encompasses all businesses. But from there, you have three sections that EOS kind of gives you.

[00:19:01] Sales and marketing, which is your strategy, department reviews with your team, content marketing, implementation, things like that. There's a box for operations, production strategy and implementation, capacity, forecasting and reporting, process development, and a section for finance and admin, budgets, AR, fiscal reporting, et cetera, et cetera. And then from there, you can break it down.

[00:19:22] You may even, as an MSP, have in that same line across, you might have infrastructure, networking lead, who's going to be in charge or tech lead, who's in charge of all of the tech team and reporting how many tickets are being closed, who's doing the best, who needs to get certifications, et cetera, et cetera. But it all flows upwards.

[00:19:45] And it's very easy to look at this and flip it as CEO, president, directors, right? So it's very easy to look at an org chart and one that you may already have and flip it to be an EOS org chart. I think the big piece, and we're driving this point home today, I think, is that visionary integrator position because it's very easy.

[00:20:13] I mean, if you're a one or two person shop, it's a little tougher. But in a bigger shop, we always say like work on the business, not in the business. This is a literal translation of that because the visionary is very much told many times in the EOS books, including Rocket Fuel, get out of the trenches. And like we also say like, you know, it's once in a while, it's a good time.

[00:20:40] It might be good as the CEO to like do tier one just to show your team that you can still do it or something like that, right? Or sometimes, to be honest, I get passive aggressive when too many tickets are coming in and I'm like, I'm like, F it, I'll do it myself. And I go in and I do all the tickets for the day because I can get it done faster than the tier one. I'm not helping anyone. I'm aware of this. I have problems, whatever. But separating yourself out allows you to do things. And I kind of feel that I'm slowly getting more and more into the visionary role from the integrator.

[00:21:10] I'm doing less day to day with tier one tickets. I'm mostly talking to my team and I have two integrators, I would say. Working on projects that I'm coming up with. But if I take like a bigger step back from this, this is what has allowed me to open up the business to create things like the conference or acquiring companies or selling hardware or selling T-shirts or writing books or whatever.

[00:21:36] Like all the other pieces that I've done because I've had this bigger, broader vision for what virtual consulting should be with virtual computers being inside of it. And I'm letting my team like Luke and Fred be my integrators and implement the things that I've suggested we implement. And they've also told me no on things which normally should be the right way to do it. But because I'm me, I'm like, no, no, no. The answer is yes.

[00:22:06] Well, I mean, sometimes, you know, it depends on the relationships there. I have always looked at the visionary integrator type of relationship as kind of the CEO and the COO. Right. Because the integrator is very much the operations and the CEO is very much the leader driving the vision. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:22:30] And so if you're going to kind of compare it to a traditional org chart, that's kind of where I would go with it because that to me makes more sense. So it may make more sense to somebody else out there. And then logically, when you are dividing it up, you know, the business is basically going to have three responsibilities. It has to go out and get new customers. It has to do the work of the business.

[00:22:59] So that's operations. And then somebody has to keep track of the money and file the taxes and, you know, do all the paperwork and that kind of thing. So that's just a natural how that should be laid out for any business. Obviously, your situation may be a little different. And so modify it as you see fit. But in most cases, that's kind of how a business in general is run.

[00:23:28] And it's just a very easy way of thinking about it. That's really that's only five boxes on the org chart. Right.

[00:23:36] And even if you're doing all of it, especially in the beginning, it allows you to split your time up into those different roles and know that you have to spend a certain amount of time being the CEO, being the CEO, being the VP of sales and marketing, being the VP of operations, and then being, you know, the CFO as well. Right. Right. So it goes a little bit. Let's go beyond, right? Because we've talked about the org chart.

[00:24:05] We've talked about the layout. I like that. To bring it a little further, there's also an accountability piece of this, which is that the roles all have to be accountable for one another. So if the finance role, as an example, isn't doing what they're supposed to be doing, because they're one under integrator, the integrator needs to hold them accountable.

[00:24:26] And this allows you to, like, hire when you're ready to expand, whether you're hiring full time or outsourcing, whatever it is. If you have this accountability chart for who's going to take care of who and also what the job description is, like what the actual functions they have to talk about, like we talked about last week, it allows you to hire based on the appropriate strategic fit, as opposed to thinking that that person knows what they're doing.

[00:24:54] Because, like, you can very much lay out, these are the five things a person in finance needs to do, and that's what my job description is going to say when I put a call out for employees on, like, LinkedIn or whatever. And you can easily say, if someone comes in and goes, well, I can do three of the five, they're not the right strategic fit, right? Like, you need someone who can do all five.

[00:25:14] The other big thing about EOS is that, especially in a smaller business, we tend to make decisions with emotion. And not that that's wrong. However, EOS tries to teach us to not do that and do it based on facts and figures, right?

[00:25:37] EOS has a whole thing about scorecards and putting in the right metrics to make sure that things are, like, laid out right and you're keeping track of things. This way, you're doing the exact right steps based on the framework. Now, again, the framework may not be 100% for your business, so the scorecard may not work. And we do talk about the fact that, you know, from a marketing standpoint, people buy on feeling, they don't buy on necessarily data.

[00:26:07] If you're going to get a new customer, that new customer is going to want to believe that they can trust you. That's a feeling. You're not going to hand them a scorecard. However, and I'll tell you this from a personal anecdote, I was just talking to a new customer yesterday, trying to close a deal fast. And she's like, well, how do I know I can trust you? And I was like, well, that's a feeling, but I can back that up by data because I showed them our trust center for how we're getting our SOC 2 compliant. And granted, she had no idea what I was talking about when I talked about SOC 2 compliance, which is fine.

[00:26:36] But the website is trust.virtualcomputers.com. It's in the name. Like, it's one of those things where we were able to prove facts and figures to enhance feelings. EOS tries to dive more into those facts and figures, which I think will help you create a better business and will help validate your feelings. Well, and the scorecards are about metrics.

[00:27:04] At the end of the day, they're about metrics, which, you know me, I'm crazy about metrics. Yep. And it's basically to give you accountability on two things, activity and results. Because each one of the people in your organization should have a specific number of objectives and key results that they're trying to accomplish in a quarter, in a year. Yeah. Right?

[00:27:31] And so you have to have something to measure that by to know if the business is making progress on the things that the visionary and the integrator agreed on. And so keeping track of those things, the activity, if the activity is fine, but the results are less than what you expected, it's a problem with the process. Right? You're doing enough work, but you're not getting the results you expected.

[00:28:00] You need to change what you're doing. Or you need to do more activity. And maybe that means hiring more people. But it gives you the facts, the figures, to make that decision versus just, you know, sticking your finger in the air and seeing how the wind is blowing. And that's a key part of this. For those who really want to see something fun, go to youtube.com slash at all things MSP at this time, Sam.

[00:28:25] And you can watch Eric lick his finger and literally try to feel the air that's in his attic to make that point. But you're right. You're right. Like, it's so easy for us, especially when we're smaller. Like, it's a lot easier to work on feeling than it is on facts when you're smaller. If you're a one, two person. I mean, I remember when I was a three person company and I was like, all right, this is what we're going to do. And like, the two people who worked for me were like, why? And I'm like, I got a good feeling about this.

[00:28:56] Right out of the gate, I should have been shut the hell up. Like, there was no proof that it worked. And granted, I may have gotten lucky once or twice with whatever ideas I have. It doesn't mean that they were the right things to do. And if there was a system that can track that EOS, we probably would have made better decisions. Because again, it's not just about, you know, profit margins here.

[00:29:25] It's about getting the activities done, like you said, and getting them done correctly or efficiently or with the results you're expecting. If I say, hey, I want X, Y, Z done and I expect the results to be, you know, this and we do X, Y, Z and the results are that. Either A, I didn't have the right data to formulate the plan or B, I'm just talking out of my butt, which is most of the time.

[00:29:53] Well, you know, when you're small, it's easy to drive the ship with feelings, right? Because you are still hands on in the business. You know exactly what's going on. But there's a lot of, you know, a lot of people, including myself, aren't real great at living that way and working that way. Because we need a level of personal accountability to drive the things that we want to drive to get to the destination that we want to get to.

[00:30:23] Right. And for me, that's a lot of it when it comes to my own personal productivity and my own framework for getting shit done. But as soon as you add those other employees, without a scorecard, it's even more than just accountability. The scorecard acts as almost a roadmap for those employees.

[00:30:48] Once you give them a scorecard to fill out, there is no question of where they're supposed to focus their activity and the results that they're expected to bring in. And that drives success. I'm wondering, like, what kind of activities, specifically for an MSP, I'm going to actually, because we like doing things like, you know, live here on the show all the time. And I'm going to ask our good friend, the robot here.

[00:31:16] Hey, what's a good scorecard for a managed service provider? Let's see what the robot can come up with. Okay. Well, I'll take my guess. While it's coming up with its answers, I'll take my guess. So you've got to have something to measure net new revenue. And by that, I mean new customer acquisition, right?

[00:31:44] So your scorecard for sales and marketing would be, you know, how many outbound reaches are we trying to make? How many social media posts? How many outbound calls, et cetera? And then how many meetings, the results of that would be how many meetings am I scheduling? I feel like you, I feel like you did this exercise with ChatGBT and you're reading what I'm reading. No, it's literally going.

[00:32:09] Because you're literally going in order, like just, I don't mean to interrupt you, but like literally the first one was like function sales, new leads generated. And the second line is sales meetings booked. And like, granted, that's like a normal thing to think about, but you literally did it like in that right. Like it's not even like service ask was first. Like the first one that the robot spit out was sales. Yeah. And then, you know, who knows? Maybe I can keep this streak going. Okay. I don't know if it does operations next, but we'll follow the EOS framework.

[00:32:39] So I'll go with, in terms of operations, it is tickets handled, right? And the results, because the activity is the tickets, the results is going to be a CSAT or an NPS score. CSAT is on there. Yep. Yep. Okay. It's on there. And then we have revenue, right?

[00:33:02] And revenue doesn't necessarily have an activity because all the activities in operations and in sales are what are the activities leading up to revenue. But, you know, obviously revenue is the kind of leading indicator of profitability. And so that's where I would kind of do the scorecard. So revenue, revenue didn't make the list. So here's just a couple of things. So you have your sales function, right?

[00:33:28] Newly generated sales meetings booked, proposal sent, and deals closed. Those four in order. That's obviously your entire life cycle of a sale. Right. But what's more important is that there are target numbers. So, like, you should be hitting 10 new leads, booking five, sending three proposals, and closing two deals, which I'll tell you this much. ChatGPT is giving a lot of leeway on that one. Yeah. All right. So service desks.

[00:33:54] Service desk has tickets opened, which would be less than 100, which makes sense. Tickets resolved, equal or greater than the tickets opened, makes sense. Your SLA compliance rate, how fast you're doing it based on your SLA that's in your contract, should be greater than 95%. And your average first response time, I like this one, less than 15 minutes.

[00:34:24] Next, you have your NOC slash security. Patching success rate should be greater than 98%. And critical unresolved alerts that are greater than 24 hours should be zero. Operations, you mentioned CSAT score. So that gave it a greater than or equal to 4.5 or 5. Time to invoice, less than five days. This one I thought was interesting. Device onboarding time, less than two days. Two days.

[00:34:54] I find this hilarious because I literally have clients who do not believe me that it takes two days to onboard anyone. Someone is like, why can't I hire them today and have them up and running in two hours? And I'm like, because that's not how the internet works. Leadership. I look forward to your tweets and emails about that one. Leadership. Employee scorecard completion rate. So here you have, like, this is a good check and balance. 100%. You should have 100% completion rate. L10 meetings, which is an EOS language thing.

[00:35:24] 8 out of 10. And issues solved across the board greater than 3. So there's some really good, excuse me, good scorecard metrics here that you can use as a takeaway. I do, like I said, I think it's giving a little bit of leeway on the sales thing. Because, like, getting 10 new leads a week. I don't know if it's a week or a month. It doesn't even say. Your mileage may vary, right? It's all you have to say about that. It really depends on how much time you have to dedicate to sales and marketing. Right.

[00:35:54] I still feel, I mean, we're going to get in the weeds on that one. But, like, I still feel like there's a lot there. So there's, like I said, you know, there's a lot here where, as this framework, you're building out your org chart. You're building out job descriptions. And you're building out accountability. And it's giving you the tools to stay on track of that accountability to make your business better.

[00:36:22] Now, you must be saying to yourself, well, Justin, if this thing is so great, why haven't you done it? That's a good question. I don't have an answer for that, to be honest. Just, like, we have, I have heavily looked into this. And not that we don't subscribe to this particular framework, but the way my business has been built out, we've kind of just fallen into that.

[00:36:47] And like I was saying earlier about how I'm not, with the exception of the days where I get passive aggressive about it, I'm not really doing tier one tickets anymore. I chime in when I need to or if one of my techs needs help. But for the most part, I'm coming up with new ideas and trying to find new ways to make the business better, more efficient, whatever it is. And that might be, you know, if you've listened to the last couple episodes, doing this hospitality guidebook that we're writing. Like, that was a visionary idea that I had to make my business better.

[00:37:17] All the way down to, I literally had an idea today that I mentioned, I messaged Fred, which I'm not going to mention here because I don't want anyone to steal it. But like, we're thinking of changing phone systems. We're thinking about how that phone system interacts with our PSA. We're thinking about, hey, there's no integration out there. We can build something and sell something. That's a visionary idea. Fred's job is to come back to me and say, yeah, we can do it. No, we can't. And then go get it done. So like, we've kind of just solely fallen into it.

[00:37:45] And I've, I'll admit, I've read half of Rocket Fuel. But again, we've talked about this. I'm not a good reader. And I don't have time to listen to audiobooks as much as I want to. Actually, if you go back a couple episodes, we've talked about how the fact that I should be listening when I walk the dogs. I have, just as a point of reference, and I'm telling Eric for the first time here live, I have for the last couple of days been taking my headphones, putting them on to go walk the dogs. And then I go, should I listen to my book? No, I'm going to go watch TikTok instead.

[00:38:13] So like, I'm setting myself up and then still failing. Working on it. I'm working on it. Working on it. And in the meantime, since we, since that podcast came out, what, probably four weeks ago? Yeah. Something like that. Yeah. I have read or listened to, well, I've read almost one book. I'm probably only about 20 pages away from finishing one book.

[00:38:35] Um, and then I have listened to one and a half books since then on audio. Um, by the way, 5am club, absolutely recommend, uh, especially the first half of it anyway. And then the one that I'm halfway through and so far very happy with is, uh, the miracle morning. Uh, so if you are struggling with getting stuff done in the morning, definitely recommend those two.

[00:39:03] I mean, I'm sure I'd have more time if I wasn't shaving as much as you're not shaving. I'd have more time to listen to books and getting up at four 30 in the morning, not doing that either. Um, and walking four miles a day. It's, um, let me get through next week. Um, it's, and it's timey, why me? I said next week, I meant last week when you're listening or this week, when you're listening to it. And then, and then by the time I listened to it, it'll be last week. It's weird. Anyway, my point though here is, you know, there are a lot of frameworks out there that

[00:39:33] can be used to make your business better. And I'm not saying you need to subscribe to any one of them. What I am saying is if you're legitimately thinking of making your MSP better, you should at least be aware of the ones that are out there. And if you're not going to like hardcore and keep on, I have friends in the industry who have hardcore gone in on EOS, BOS, whatever. And they love it. They they've proven over and over again that it works.

[00:40:00] So I know that it does work, but if you're not the kind of person to be able to go in on that, or you feel like you're like, there are people who are out there who are like, who mentally cannot handle a framework like this, not in a bad way, but like, just because they think frameworks are, are, are Ponzi schemes. Um, that was actually that the one person who yelled at me about a framework literally was like, it's a Ponzi scheme. And I was like, I don't think you know what a Ponzi scheme is.

[00:40:27] Um, but like go out there and do a little research on EOS, BOS, the 90 pinnacle, whatever. See what they're about. Ask robot for some information. That's always a good thing. And then see how that can fold into your business. See how that, like how you as a one or two person shop can see how that would fold in. And, and like we talked about last week about building out your org chart, build out your accountability chart, because whilst yes, you might talk for one minute with your hat forward

[00:40:57] and you might talk another minute with your hat backwards, but your hat also can go left and it can go right. I mean, you look silly doing it, but like the fact that you can always change hats. Um, but the fact is, is if you have these things written down, I truly believe if you have them written down, scratch paper to pencil, like, like pen to paper, you will have an idea of

[00:41:21] the, where you want to go and it will motivate you to get better and to get to that level. So you may not need to jump into EOS right now. And if you do read, read traction or read rocket fuel, you may not want to jump into the 90 and have the way their meeting structure is now, because you have one or two people. You don't need that, but look at how that format is and look at what those core concepts are. And how can you apply those to your business?

[00:41:46] Because I truly do believe that if you do even the modicum of research on any of these, your, your, your, your mind will open up to so many different possibilities of how you can structure your business. And to be honest, for those who are listening, if you go do this, there's what? 6,500 people, 7,000 people in the ETMSP group, right? If all 7,000 of you do this, there's 40,000 MSPs that are out there.

[00:42:13] Your seven, the 7,000 of you are going to be light years ahead of the other 33,000. Yeah, I truly do believe this. And if, if you think that, well, I don't need, you know, all of that structure fine. That's like, not the point of this. The point is that take one thing that you go, oh, well, if I did that, it would make a huge difference in my business.

[00:42:42] And, you know, if you want to do probably the, the simplest way to get an introduction to this for doing frameworks in your business period is the book that I mentioned. It's called Pinnacle. It's, it's a relatively short book. It covers the basics. And I guarantee you that if you just take one idea out of that book, you are going to improve your business in some way, shape or form.

[00:43:08] And then if you apply time limits to it, which I think is super important, you know, look into the 12 week year. The 12 week year was just mindset changing for me in terms of how I look at goal setting and making things more urgent rather than looking at a 12 month period, looking at a 12 week period. And then I think that's a really good thing. That's interesting. Well, let us know how you're implementing one of these frameworks with your business at

[00:43:38] Facebook.com slash at all things MSP or sorry, Facebook.com slash groups slash all things MSP. Check us out on high def at YouTube.com. Let me redo that part. Sorry. I don't like when I screw up the part that I should know by heart. Let us know how you're implementing EOS or one of these frameworks with your business at Facebook.com slash groups slash all things MSP. Check us out in all of our high def glory and watch Eric find the wind in his attic at YouTube.com slash at all things MSP.

[00:44:07] You're already listening, but download us on other tools. We just want to bump our download numbers up. Don't forget to like, subscribe, review. Let everyone know that you love this and love us other than my mom leaving us a five star review every time she hears an episode. She's like, my son's on a show. It's like, mom, I'm the host of the show. It's a little different, but we're everywhere. That's how we are. Eric, any final words before we say goodbye to everyone? Just that, you know, frameworks really help you pull everything together in your business.

[00:44:36] And whether you're a one person MSP, two person or 20 person, something in here is going to help you bring structure to your business that I can almost guarantee you, you are lacking. I'm lacking a lot of things, but structure is not it. For all of us, that's Eric. I'm Justin. Bye. Thank you for listening or watching the All Things MSP podcast.

[00:45:04] If you liked this episode, go ahead and give us a thumbs up. Hit that like button and consider subscribing to catch all our weekly episodes. And from your host extraordinaire, Justin Escar, and myself, Eric Anthony, your humble producer and All Things MSP founder, thank you very much for spending your time with us. If you are not aware, All Things MSP started as a Facebook group and now supports over 6,000 members. We also have a LinkedIn page for those of you who don't do Facebook.

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[00:46:00] The All Things MSP podcast is a BizPow LLC production. The views and opinions of the hosts and guests are their own and do not reflect the thoughts and opinions of any employer, vendor, sponsor, or random taxi driver in the metro DC area. Be sure to join us next week for another exciting episode.