Broadcom's Woes & the Impact on VMware Customers, Unlimited PTO: A Data-Driven Approach for Benefits

[00:00:00] Welcome to the Business of Tech Lounge, the live version of the Business of Tech podcast.

[00:00:17] It's Wednesday, April 24, 2024.

[00:00:21] And I'm your host Dave Sobel.

[00:00:23] Today on the show, the nuclear threat to cybersecurity discussing influencers and how

[00:00:29] to reach potential customers, a counterpoint to unlimited PTO with Ray Orsini of OIT VoIP

[00:00:36] and the escalation of Broadcom's woes.

[00:00:40] Plus your questions and comments.

[00:00:43] I want to thank SalesBuilder, our Patreon sponsor, whose support makes this show possible.

[00:00:49] Focus on your IT sales workflow with the power of automation and visit them at salesbuilder.com

[00:00:56] at buildr.com.

[00:01:00] And want to get your logo right here?

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[00:01:07] It's a simple monthly subscription and visit patreon.com slash MSP Radio to sign up.

[00:01:13] I can't do this show without support.

[00:01:15] And thanks again to SalesBuilder for theirs.

[00:01:19] Now I do take questions and comments throughout the show, so make sure to put them in

[00:01:23] the chat.

[00:01:24] We have a dedicated question section in the show with listeners submitted questions, but

[00:01:29] we'll throw chat comments up on screen anytime.

[00:01:32] But first our top story.

[00:01:36] It seems the escalation of the Broadcom acquisition of VMware continues.

[00:01:42] Hock Tan, the CEO for Broadcom put out a blog post to clarify the position of the

[00:01:47] organization.

[00:01:48] Their goal?

[00:01:49] To help customers in their digital transformation.

[00:01:53] We outlined how the go to market strategy for VMware cloud foundation has been simplified

[00:01:58] and made more affordable.

[00:02:00] A focus on R&D and a development of the seamless private cloud experience competitive with the

[00:02:06] public cloud.

[00:02:07] Its focus is on delivering consistent customer experiences, including standardizing pricing

[00:02:12] and technology stack for cloud providers.

[00:02:16] Finally, VMware will complete its transition to a subscription model.

[00:02:21] Now Broadcom's attempts to address concerns over VMware subscription changes have not been

[00:02:27] particularly successful, leading to further backlash from industry stakeholders.

[00:02:32] The cloud infrastructure providers in Europe or CISPE criticized Broadcom's subscription

[00:02:38] based pricing model as anti-cloud and raised issues with unfair licensing practices.

[00:02:45] Despite Broadcom's commitment to research and development and price reductions, CISPE

[00:02:51] argues that the new terms were strict choice and prompt vendor lock in.

[00:02:56] Other industry professionals also have expressed criticism, citing concerns about stifled innovation

[00:03:02] and harm to cloud competition.

[00:03:04] CISPE also highlighted Broadcom's limitations in offering free access to security patches

[00:03:11] and criticized the company's tone and claims of lower prices.

[00:03:16] Broadcom's changes to VMware subscription pricing model has been met with other

[00:03:20] criticisms as well, leading many customers to consider alternative platforms.

[00:03:25] In response, Broadcom is offering ongoing security patches for customers who stick with their

[00:03:30] perpetual licenses.

[00:03:32] However, many VMware customers are already evaluating other technologies and may switch

[00:03:38] soon.

[00:03:39] Here's one comment in the discussion.

[00:03:41] quote, VMware is a zombie product.

[00:03:44] Nobody with any brains is going to hold on longer than they have to.

[00:03:48] It's funny because customers are tired of being raked over the coals with the ridiculous

[00:03:52] price increases with little of value being offered in return.

[00:03:57] And there are some winners in all this, other companies.

[00:04:01] According to the scale computing CEO Jeff Reddy, Broadcom's price hikes and partner

[00:04:06] snubs have fueled scale computing's record growth.

[00:04:11] As VMware has raised prices and focused on larger customers after being acquired

[00:04:15] by Broadcom, scale computing has emerged as an alternative for VMware customers.

[00:04:21] Reddy highlighted the support and value that scale computing provides compared to its competitors.

[00:04:26] The coverage also mentions the concern of VMware customers about diminished support

[00:04:31] and innovation under Broadcom, as well as the significantly higher bills they have

[00:04:35] received.

[00:04:37] Scale computing is experiencing strong growth and is on track to break 50% growth this

[00:04:42] year.

[00:04:43] So why do we care?

[00:04:46] This all feels like a slow motion train wreck.

[00:04:50] Now what I want to focus on is the opportunities this creates.

[00:04:54] Organizations like scale are taking advantage.

[00:04:58] So the question you want to ask yourself is what can you do to take advantage here?

[00:05:03] If you're already embedded very deeply in the VMware ecosystem,

[00:05:06] this is an opportunity to look at changing that.

[00:05:09] And you might consider moving beyond just their strategy to a multi-vendor strategy as well.

[00:05:15] You also might decide to break this up and move some more into the cloud

[00:05:19] or break it up into SaaS applications instead.

[00:05:22] Opportunity is what we're looking for in these kinds of disruptions.

[00:05:27] And to be fair, Broadcom brought it on themselves.

[00:05:30] Note that timeline didn't happen immediately upon acquisition.

[00:05:34] It's happening a few months later.

[00:05:36] This is indicative of what we see in many of these acquisitions.

[00:05:39] And thus note that you're looking for those changes post acquisition.

[00:05:44] Now we're going to continue to track this one and see if anything more comes of it.

[00:05:49] Now, if you've got a question or comment, put it in the chat if you're watching live.

[00:05:54] So one of the benefits of this format is I'm going to have some fun and do different things.

[00:05:58] You may recently remember I had Peter Kujou on the show and we focused on new compensation data from service

[00:06:06] leadership in my interview with him.

[00:06:08] We talked about unlimited PTO and Peter noted it's least likely in best-in-class organizations

[00:06:15] and that often companies with unlimited PTO result in employees taking less PTO.

[00:06:22] Now, Ray Orsini, CEO of OIT VoIP reached out to offer a counterpoint

[00:06:28] and he came armed with data after his organization embraced unlimited PTO.

[00:06:34] So I asked him about it.

[00:06:37] So Ray, tell me about the data you considered that drove you to the decision to implement unlimited PTO?

[00:06:45] So it's actually not that complicated.

[00:06:47] When I go through the same struggles as a small business, every other owner does,

[00:06:51] which is how can I improve my benefits so I can retain a better caliber of employee for a longer term?

[00:06:58] There's only really two ways to do that.

[00:06:59] One, throw a lot of salary at it or two, throw a lot of benefits.

[00:07:02] And if you're funded, do both.

[00:07:05] Unfortunately, we're not funded.

[00:07:06] We're self-funded.

[00:07:07] So we're always and we do pay good salaries, but we're always looking for benefits.

[00:07:11] And since we've already done the 401k and we've already done the insurance and all the other stuff,

[00:07:16] we were looking at some of the ones that nobody else is offering.

[00:07:18] So unlimited PTO has actually been on the table for months or for years.

[00:07:23] I'm sorry.

[00:07:25] The last iteration of this, we looked at 11 months ago and that was based on

[00:07:29] and we looked at the data saying, what are the time off requests?

[00:07:33] What are getting approved?

[00:07:34] What's getting denied?

[00:07:36] I did look at what we're paying out in the case of an exit because that's always one of the chief concerns.

[00:07:41] Right? Businesses do this so they don't have to pay out vacation when employee exits.

[00:07:47] So we did look at that and I'll give you the numbers on that.

[00:07:50] We also looked at how many time off requests were being denied and the average amount of time off

[00:07:55] just requested for employee.

[00:07:57] And then I did balance that against how many disciplinary issues we were having for employees.

[00:08:03] And I wanted to start creating the case for less time off, creates burnout,

[00:08:08] creates underperformance and creates disciplinary issues.

[00:08:13] I have not done the corollary now that we're doing unlimited PTO,

[00:08:16] so I will have to get back to that another time.

[00:08:19] But the numbers were pretty simple.

[00:08:21] It came out to let me pull up the stats here.

[00:08:25] It came out to we were looking at...

[00:08:30] So we had several types of time off requests.

[00:08:32] We had bereavement leave, floating time off.

[00:08:34] I'll give you the numbers.

[00:08:35] Bereavement leave three days minimum,

[00:08:38] although we extended it multiple times for multiple people,

[00:08:40] depending on the case.

[00:08:42] I've never said no to that.

[00:08:44] Floating time off, we would give...

[00:08:46] This was a throwback from my police department days.

[00:08:48] We would give two days of time off.

[00:08:49] Or if you had a holiday you celebrated that I don't celebrate

[00:08:53] or something along those lines, just free time off.

[00:08:56] We had traditional PTO where we would give paid time off for birthdays.

[00:09:00] We'd give a bonus for anniversaries or performance.

[00:09:04] That was one of the managerial things,

[00:09:07] the tools we had to give approval.

[00:09:09] And then sick leave, obviously,

[00:09:10] we would give sick leave eight hours a month.

[00:09:13] I'll listen to all the Europeans laugh at me later.

[00:09:17] Vacation between two and eight weeks

[00:09:19] started at two weeks for every new employee

[00:09:21] and then added a week every extra year you worked here.

[00:09:25] And you could always stack up to double of whatever you had.

[00:09:27] So if you had two weeks, you can stack before,

[00:09:30] which will go to the vacation question.

[00:09:32] Now of that, in PTO hours given,

[00:09:38] and this was the real problem for me,

[00:09:41] we were providing 672 hours of PTO floating time off.

[00:09:46] Only 378 hours was actually used.

[00:09:49] So a little over half of traditional PTO.

[00:09:54] We gave 84 hours and then they took 545.05 hours

[00:10:00] of unpaid time off.

[00:10:01] That was the red flag for me.

[00:10:03] That are people that are choosing,

[00:10:05] I can choose my personal life versus work

[00:10:08] and I'm going to be at a deficit work wise,

[00:10:10] have less money to pay my bills

[00:10:12] or do whatever recreational things I wanna do

[00:10:14] because my personal time is more important to me.

[00:10:17] That is 545 hours of that choice,

[00:10:19] which is a problem to me.

[00:10:21] Then you had sick leave,

[00:10:23] we had granted 2,016 hours of sick leave.

[00:10:26] We actually used 883.42 hours.

[00:10:32] So that doesn't even come at half.

[00:10:34] That comes in at was at 40%.

[00:10:38] And then the big one, the painful one that kills me.

[00:10:41] This is the one you see in the news

[00:10:42] all the time you've reported on yourself.

[00:10:44] Vacation, 6,400 hours

[00:10:47] actually used 1,323 hours.5.

[00:10:53] That is a six.

[00:10:54] That is insane to me.

[00:10:58] When you have 18% utilization on vacation,

[00:11:02] that is, and this is not because people are exiting

[00:11:05] and take money, we traditionally have very low turnover

[00:11:08] as far as employee wise,

[00:11:10] but this doesn't make sense to me

[00:11:12] when you have employees choosing

[00:11:14] to take one six of their vacation.

[00:11:17] And now we go approve versus denied

[00:11:20] because then the question becomes

[00:11:21] where they're getting their time off request denied.

[00:11:23] And this is all under the period of 15 years

[00:11:27] of regular PTO, the data I'm using here

[00:11:29] is 12 months prior to our limited PTO.

[00:11:32] So it is the most recent with our current staff.

[00:11:34] And about 10% of our staff is new

[00:11:38] from when we first started.

[00:11:40] So PTO requests, we had traditional PTO requests

[00:11:46] 332 requests and 11 were denied.

[00:11:51] So 332 approved 11 denied under traditional PTO.

[00:11:55] That is over a 12 month period.

[00:11:59] Over a four month period that we've had a limited PTO,

[00:12:02] same number of staff,

[00:12:04] 340 requests of time off that were approved

[00:12:08] in the four months, not the 12 months, nine were denied.

[00:12:13] So because like anything else,

[00:12:15] unlimited PTO still has to go to the employee,

[00:12:18] the manager and ask the questions of

[00:12:19] do we have staffing and is there appropriate all that?

[00:12:23] As a company, we push down from the top,

[00:12:25] use, give PTO be liberal with it.

[00:12:28] I approve more than you deny.

[00:12:30] If it's getting denied, HR already has a series

[00:12:34] of questions they will validate

[00:12:35] against to make sure it's not undo.

[00:12:38] That has to be done from the top down.

[00:12:40] You've seen all these people before

[00:12:42] that talk about unlimited PTO.

[00:12:44] And then we just had this.

[00:12:45] This is a direct quote from my director of marketing.

[00:12:48] She just came from another company.

[00:12:50] I won't say who, but as she gave her notice, they said,

[00:12:54] you know, one of the things is we have unlimited PTO.

[00:12:56] We don't advertise it.

[00:12:57] We don't tell anybody,

[00:12:58] but you can ask for whatever you want.

[00:12:59] We'll always approve it.

[00:13:01] You know how asinine that is?

[00:13:03] You know how ridiculous that is?

[00:13:04] Yeah, you can call for 911

[00:13:06] but we're not gonna tell you the number

[00:13:07] unless you express an interest.

[00:13:10] Mind boggling to me.

[00:13:11] And that's the real catch, right?

[00:13:13] The employees come in and they go into these companies

[00:13:16] where they see unlimited PTO on the job posting

[00:13:19] and then they get the job accepted

[00:13:20] and they're excited about it,

[00:13:22] but they never ask the qualifying questions.

[00:13:25] Do you have a policy as far as how you approve time off?

[00:13:28] What is management stance on personal lives?

[00:13:31] One of the things Dean Trumplis used to mention

[00:13:34] when he worked here was that we treat the employee

[00:13:36] like a whole person.

[00:13:37] Your job is to serve your personal life.

[00:13:40] That has to be a management directive.

[00:13:42] That has to be, the company has to understand this, right?

[00:13:45] You can have all the things that are important to you

[00:13:48] that you want, but if I don't have those same interests

[00:13:52] and those same priorities,

[00:13:53] you're never gonna get the benefit of it.

[00:13:54] If I don't tell my leaders and my managers,

[00:13:56] make sure on the same page, give time off,

[00:14:00] then it's always gonna be seen

[00:14:01] as what we've seen in the market so far.

[00:14:03] So since adopting it,

[00:14:04] what have you seen change

[00:14:06] in terms of those numbers to the new metrics?

[00:14:09] So we're doing four times the number of requests

[00:14:13] over the same time period.

[00:14:15] We have vacation taken

[00:14:18] because we do still categorize the time off.

[00:14:22] So traditional PTO, they took 3,400 hours of PTO

[00:14:26] under traditional vacation,

[00:14:27] unlimited PTO, 4,196.

[00:14:30] We're seeing the time usage increase,

[00:14:33] which is the design to any business owners

[00:14:36] probably hearing especially small business owners

[00:14:37] are terrified, right?

[00:14:38] They're like, oh my gosh, you're using all this time.

[00:14:41] I build it into the budget.

[00:14:42] My cost for carrying the company is X amount of labor.

[00:14:46] Whether they're here or not,

[00:14:47] I need to be able to do the job.

[00:14:48] Starting from the top down, I look at it

[00:14:51] and I say, I don't need to be here.

[00:14:53] How do I build my job to not be here?

[00:14:55] I extend that through the rest of the company

[00:14:57] so that they can have the freedom to take time off

[00:14:59] because somebody else can cover.

[00:15:01] Now, how does that work?

[00:15:04] How does that work without breaking me financially?

[00:15:06] That works very easily.

[00:15:08] You don't over burn your employee, right?

[00:15:10] We should be doing 75, 80% of employee burden

[00:15:14] to have a successful employee.

[00:15:15] Everything else is just gravy.

[00:15:18] You have to have multiple people.

[00:15:19] Nothing can be that only,

[00:15:21] no job can only be done by a single person.

[00:15:23] That doesn't work.

[00:15:25] And I require my managers to know

[00:15:27] how to do their employees jobs too.

[00:15:28] So anybody can step in,

[00:15:30] anybody can help myself included.

[00:15:32] So nobody feels the weight of the world on their shoulders.

[00:15:35] Add to that.

[00:15:36] Managers are told,

[00:15:38] plan things out.

[00:15:39] Don't do things last minute,

[00:15:40] whether it's frontline employees,

[00:15:42] whether it's large project teams

[00:15:43] or whatever plan things out,

[00:15:45] that gives us freedom to manage.

[00:15:47] And then finally our backup plans

[00:15:49] give us the ability to the confidence

[00:15:52] to be able to assign that time off.

[00:15:54] Well, what are the numbers look like?

[00:15:56] The numbers look like we have,

[00:15:58] now I don't have the performance numbers yet.

[00:16:01] Unfortunately that took a little longer to compile,

[00:16:02] so I wasn't able to do them.

[00:16:05] But I will tell you that anecdotally,

[00:16:08] we are seeing better CSAT reviews.

[00:16:10] We've had CSAT going since last April.

[00:16:12] Unlimited PTO has enabled and acted last August.

[00:16:17] So we had four months of CSAT.

[00:16:19] And you can say it's not correlation.

[00:16:24] I will argue an employee that does,

[00:16:26] that has a more free life

[00:16:28] that they can enjoy their personal things

[00:16:30] and come to work and just work

[00:16:32] and just move on with their life.

[00:16:33] Like it's not their entire all-containing job

[00:16:36] are going to perform better

[00:16:37] and the clients are gonna see that.

[00:16:39] And with the way our CSAT,

[00:16:42] our customer satisfaction surveys were going,

[00:16:44] I'm satisfied with the results.

[00:16:46] Also we've had our employee surveys,

[00:16:48] we do annually.

[00:16:49] We've had two employee surveys

[00:16:51] during these time periods.

[00:16:52] So thankfully, compare one versus another.

[00:16:54] An unlimited PTO was asked.

[00:16:56] And we have a hundred percent of the employees

[00:16:59] say they enjoy the unlimited PTO.

[00:17:02] Didn't expect otherwise,

[00:17:03] but it's a nice stat to have.

[00:17:05] You can never get a hundred percent of your,

[00:17:07] and for just for a baseline, we're 42 employees.

[00:17:14] They are through US, Canada, Philippines,

[00:17:20] a missing one, Brazil.

[00:17:22] Our employees are all over.

[00:17:24] So, and this doesn't take into account

[00:17:26] we still have the regular time off holidays

[00:17:28] and stuff like that too.

[00:17:30] All of that goes into it,

[00:17:31] but we're seeing higher performing employees.

[00:17:34] And we're seeing employees that are willing to do extra.

[00:17:37] That's, and again, this is anecdotal,

[00:17:38] it's hard to quantify.

[00:17:40] But when we ask for something,

[00:17:43] when we ask for overtime,

[00:17:44] or because it's always an ask, not a requirement,

[00:17:46] when we ask for somebody to pitch in on a project

[00:17:49] or we ask for somebody to do a little bit extra,

[00:17:52] they're happy to,

[00:17:53] because they're not getting burnt out.

[00:17:55] And not to say we don't have employees

[00:17:57] that have high workloads and get frustrated

[00:18:00] and tired, we all do.

[00:18:02] And we make accounts, we do that too.

[00:18:05] And then from a financial perspective,

[00:18:06] this is gonna be dumb, but you're gonna appreciate this.

[00:18:10] So remember I said traditional PTO,

[00:18:12] 332 requests over the time period,

[00:18:14] 332 requests at three minutes per.

[00:18:17] The reason the three minutes,

[00:18:18] they have to check that the employee

[00:18:20] has the balances available,

[00:18:21] and then they have to approve it.

[00:18:23] By not having that check,

[00:18:25] it's just a limited PTO,

[00:18:26] it's just was it approved by the manager or not?

[00:18:28] So we shave that down to two minutes.

[00:18:31] As ridiculous as it sounds,

[00:18:33] yes, we shaved 30% off the three minutes it was taking,

[00:18:37] but from a numbers guy,

[00:18:39] three minutes times 300,

[00:18:41] that's a lot of time, that's 900 minutes,

[00:18:43] I can do something else with,

[00:18:45] or 300 requests, that's 900 minutes,

[00:18:46] I can do something else with.

[00:18:48] You know what I mean?

[00:18:49] That is valuable time.

[00:18:51] If I said I could give back 900 minutes

[00:18:53] and reduce that from my HR salary,

[00:18:56] because an HR salary is not small,

[00:18:57] I could reduce that and apply it

[00:18:59] to something else more productive,

[00:19:01] any efficiency expert will call that a win.

[00:19:03] And I was able to do that

[00:19:04] by doing the same thing we were already doing,

[00:19:06] just giving time off.

[00:19:08] Right, this is awesome.

[00:19:08] Thanks for the insights, really appreciate it.

[00:19:11] Yeah, my pleasure, man, thank you.

[00:19:14] So we have to ask why do we care?

[00:19:16] Now I went long on this because Ray brought data.

[00:19:20] Anybody coming to this show

[00:19:21] and brings that kind of data in that kind of depth,

[00:19:24] I wanted to make sure that we share it.

[00:19:25] What really my takeaway for me is,

[00:19:27] is there's not one way to run a business.

[00:19:31] That's what's growing with.

[00:19:32] What Ray describes is finding that competitive advantage

[00:19:36] by heading in a different direction.

[00:19:38] It's possible that you could listen

[00:19:40] to the best in class data coming out of service leadership

[00:19:43] and decide that the only way to do it

[00:19:45] is perform exactly the same way

[00:19:47] that the best in class are doing.

[00:19:49] In that case, most best in class

[00:19:50] are not executing an unlimited PTO strategy.

[00:19:54] But what Ray did was look at the numbers

[00:19:55] and say for his business,

[00:19:57] he could take that insight and say,

[00:19:59] I can differentiate and position myself

[00:20:02] in the market differently by doing something different

[00:20:06] from the best in class and achieve better results.

[00:20:09] And one of the things that I wanna make sure

[00:20:11] to continue to do to push back on my show

[00:20:13] and the way we do analysis of this data

[00:20:16] is to not fall into the trap of thinking

[00:20:17] that there is only one single way to execute.

[00:20:22] There's not, there's multiple ways

[00:20:24] to get to the results we're looking for.

[00:20:26] And as long as you're doing it in a way

[00:20:28] that's thoughtful and data-driven,

[00:20:30] you're gonna be able to measure that success over time.

[00:20:34] Now remember, we do take questions

[00:20:36] and I'm watching that chat.

[00:20:37] If you've got something you wanna chime in with,

[00:20:39] throw it in the chat or ask a question

[00:20:42] and I will take the questions during our question section.

[00:20:46] Now over on the weekend this past weekend

[00:20:48] I released an interview with Rodrigo Larrero.

[00:20:51] He's the CEO of the Cyber Connective Corporation.

[00:20:55] Now let's remind you a bit of that conversation.

[00:20:59] Pevin, a little bit here.

[00:21:01] You've termed AI as a nuclear threat to cybersecurity.

[00:21:06] Now I'm impressed that's a big bold statement.

[00:21:08] Let's observe that nuclear weapons

[00:21:10] wipe out all life on earth.

[00:21:12] So tell me more about why you think

[00:21:15] that this is that AI is a nuclear threat for cybersecurity.

[00:21:19] A nuclear threat is a nuclear threat for cybersecurity

[00:21:26] because of the massive capabilities

[00:21:29] of the adversaries, all attackers

[00:21:34] to be able to have an army of,

[00:21:38] and whether we call those the AI today as conscious

[00:21:42] or not that's really besides the point

[00:21:44] but it's tireless bots that can execute

[00:21:49] and penetrate an organization.

[00:21:51] So imagine this, imagine for example,

[00:21:56] the threat that is represented

[00:21:59] by what we call the script kiddies, right?

[00:22:02] You know, it's the curious young people around the world

[00:22:07] with armed nothing more than a few scripts

[00:22:11] that penetrate into your organizations

[00:22:13] and they have a good success right at doing that.

[00:22:15] Now imagine multiply that by millions

[00:22:19] because to create an AI bot,

[00:22:23] you don't need anything else than a small computer

[00:22:26] and imagine that those bots are working 24 seven

[00:22:31] constantly attacking organizations.

[00:22:34] And then you multiply that by the millions

[00:22:36] of scripted kids that are out there.

[00:22:39] So for me I termed it that way

[00:22:41] because for me it arms those hundreds of thousands

[00:22:47] or millions of cyber attackers

[00:22:50] that don't have a lot of skills

[00:22:53] and arms them with the skills and the power

[00:22:55] and the knowledge to cause serious damage.

[00:22:59] And then you couple that with what I talked at the beginning

[00:23:03] that most organizations lack basic hygiene

[00:23:08] in terms of cybersecurity.

[00:23:10] And that's why I see it as a very serious threat

[00:23:14] to the stability of our digital infrastructure.

[00:23:19] Now, I wanna understand the difference between current

[00:23:22] and what you're thinking about

[00:23:23] because while I appreciate the threat of script kiddies,

[00:23:26] I would push back and say like,

[00:23:28] look ransomware is run by mafia gangs.

[00:23:31] Like it's these are well run corporate entities

[00:23:35] that just happen to implement illegal practices

[00:23:38] rather than legal.

[00:23:40] I don't think of script kiddies attacking businesses.

[00:23:43] I think of mafia style businesses

[00:23:45] that have multi-tier administration

[00:23:48] have automated their processes to the level

[00:23:51] of already implementing those bots

[00:23:54] have affiliate programs where they can sell it out

[00:23:58] and have armed those non-technical people already.

[00:24:02] What's the difference you think AI is gonna bring

[00:24:06] to the landscape that makes it that much more threat?

[00:24:08] Well, AI will be able to,

[00:24:13] the big promise of AI when organizations look at it

[00:24:18] is increasing productivity, increase of efficiency.

[00:24:22] Now think about that and apply it to those nation states

[00:24:29] and to those mafias and to those gangs

[00:24:31] that are organized as cyber crime.

[00:24:35] It is going to impact and increase their effectiveness

[00:24:39] and increase that productivity,

[00:24:41] which in my book is a terrible thing

[00:24:44] because they're already very effective and very productive.

[00:24:50] So we have to ask why do we care?

[00:24:53] I keep thinking about automation in these scenarios.

[00:24:56] What Rodrigo's focused on is less the AI

[00:25:01] and more what AI will do for automation in general.

[00:25:05] I think thematically this fits in with all of the conversations

[00:25:09] that I've been focused on around artificial intelligence

[00:25:12] and how it's gonna make a difference in our businesses.

[00:25:14] It's not about automating away to the level

[00:25:17] that you have no interaction.

[00:25:18] It's about making individual humans much more productive

[00:25:22] in the way that they go to market

[00:25:24] and the way that they do their jobs.

[00:25:26] For cybersecurity, it allows the threat actors

[00:25:30] or criminals because we wanna use the right words

[00:25:33] to be much more scalable,

[00:25:37] deliver much more from a single individual

[00:25:40] beyond what they're able to do on their own.

[00:25:42] And I think thematically that's what we're looking at

[00:25:45] and why he talks about it as such a potential threat.

[00:25:49] And I think what we're looking for is more ways

[00:25:52] for our organizations both to become more automated,

[00:25:56] yet at the same time make sure

[00:25:58] that that automation is amplifying people

[00:26:01] and any organization that's able to do that

[00:26:03] are the ones that are gonna be the most successful.

[00:26:06] Now we are taking questions

[00:26:07] and you can still submit anytime in the chat window

[00:26:11] or submit for next week if you're watching the recording,

[00:26:14] sending to question at mspradio.com.

[00:26:18] Remember bring your questions live

[00:26:20] and you'll get a live response.

[00:26:23] This is my most fun portion of the show.

[00:26:25] I do really enjoy taking questions

[00:26:27] as it gives you a chance to get involved with the show.

[00:26:31] So let's take our first submitted question.

[00:26:35] How do you evaluate a vendor's performance?

[00:26:38] What do you consider when examining a vendor?

[00:26:40] Any advice is welcome.

[00:26:43] I get asked about vendors on a regular basis.

[00:26:46] And so how do I evaluate a vendor?

[00:26:49] Well, how I evaluate a vendor is probably a little

[00:26:52] different than anybody who's a managed services provider

[00:26:55] or IT services provider.

[00:26:57] For me, I get the role of being an analyst and saying,

[00:27:00] I want to understand what their strategy in the market is,

[00:27:03] what growth mode they're in

[00:27:05] and what value they're delivering.

[00:27:08] Where you overlap as an MSP

[00:27:10] is you're gonna probably start with that last one.

[00:27:12] What value are they delivering to me?

[00:27:16] How are they aligned with me in the market

[00:27:19] and how can we deliver solutions together

[00:27:23] through the execution of that strategy?

[00:27:25] Oftentimes I get asked about this,

[00:27:28] particularly when a vendor has a moment,

[00:27:31] whether they've been acquired,

[00:27:32] whether they go public, they get a funding round

[00:27:35] where there's a new leadership change.

[00:27:37] Those are the moments where strategy might change

[00:27:40] more dramatically or it's a bellwether

[00:27:43] for that strategy will happen sometime soon.

[00:27:46] But for me, the way that I'm evaluating vendors

[00:27:48] is how do I think they're building

[00:27:51] additional value in the market?

[00:27:53] And so for you, the IT services provider

[00:27:55] or managed services provider,

[00:27:57] I want you to be evaluating that same bit

[00:28:00] in alignment with your own business.

[00:28:04] If you got a question, throw it in the chat.

[00:28:05] We do have time for a little bit more

[00:28:07] and I do love taking them.

[00:28:10] If you're watching the recording,

[00:28:12] know that you can send it in at question

[00:28:14] at mspradio.com and I'll answer it next week.

[00:28:18] Now I wanna give you a highlight

[00:28:19] to an upcoming interview this weekend,

[00:28:22] an interview with Joe Vazzani.

[00:28:24] He's the CEO at Lunar Crush.

[00:28:27] Let's hear a bit of that interview

[00:28:30] because my interest in Lunar Crush

[00:28:31] is their ability to listen online

[00:28:34] and bring back actionable insights for brands.

[00:28:38] A little bit about the way influencers work

[00:28:42] for these technology companies

[00:28:45] that are gonna consider like,

[00:28:46] hey, we need to go to market

[00:28:47] and reach potential customers

[00:28:48] but also our customers are learning things

[00:28:51] from the influencers.

[00:28:52] Talk to me about how,

[00:28:53] like help them understand how this economy works.

[00:28:57] So influencers start in all sorts of different ways

[00:29:00] and these platforms are all different

[00:29:02] in the way that they create content.

[00:29:04] You have a lot of, I think, hobbyists that start

[00:29:06] and they kind of think to themselves,

[00:29:09] can I do this?

[00:29:10] Can I create some sort of audience on here?

[00:29:12] And it, I think the best people have started

[00:29:15] with just an idea,

[00:29:16] hey, I'm just gonna start

[00:29:17] putting myself out there a little bit

[00:29:19] and I'm potentially a subject matter expert

[00:29:22] on a specific topic that maybe has a broad use case

[00:29:26] or maybe it has a niche, right?

[00:29:28] Like you might be the most influential person

[00:29:31] on ice baths and cold plunges, right?

[00:29:34] Or you might be on just broad-based AI

[00:29:36] and you have some great opinions.

[00:29:38] And so these things start in all sorts of different ways.

[00:29:40] There's also some of these influencers

[00:29:42] start anonymously, right?

[00:29:45] There's someone that potentially is working at a business

[00:29:47] and they can't put their face and name out there

[00:29:50] the way that you or I can,

[00:29:51] but they want to get their ideas out into the world.

[00:29:54] And even in our industry, in Web 3,

[00:29:57] there's a lot of influencers and creators that get hired

[00:30:00] and you don't know who they are, right?

[00:30:03] But you do know that they have a great reputation online

[00:30:05] and then how do you utilize a partnership there

[00:30:08] to potentially get your brand out there with these people?

[00:30:11] And so we've created some tools at Lunar Cross

[00:30:13] that were launching that help this kind

[00:30:15] of micro influencer economy work

[00:30:18] where if you're a brand, you know,

[00:30:20] you're used to hiring a creator

[00:30:23] and we have a lot of budget leak, as we say, right?

[00:30:26] You're kind of like,

[00:30:27] that's the same thing as having a billboard.

[00:30:30] You don't necessarily know it's more of an awareness play

[00:30:33] where we're trying to shift that

[00:30:34] into more of a performance play, right?

[00:30:37] Where it's, I know exactly how many impressions

[00:30:40] I'm getting from this budget,

[00:30:41] from every influencer that's out there.

[00:30:44] And as the transparency and the data starts to happen,

[00:30:47] we're now able to correctly get those people

[00:30:50] the right amount of money for the campaigns

[00:30:52] that they're doing.

[00:30:53] And so, you know, as you look at social media data,

[00:30:56] there's a lot of different use cases here

[00:30:58] for understanding the creator economy.

[00:31:03] So a reminder for my listeners,

[00:31:05] my Patreon supporters already have this video

[00:31:08] and you can get all my interview content

[00:31:10] early as a supporter.

[00:31:11] Visit patreon.com slash MSP radio to find out more.

[00:31:16] Now we do have a question that's thrown in there

[00:31:18] from the chat and so I wanna make sure to take that now

[00:31:22] was asked, when is part two coming out

[00:31:25] for the starting a managed services provider video?

[00:31:28] Now, interestingly, I will point out

[00:31:30] I have actually a couple of videos

[00:31:32] on my channel already about that.

[00:31:34] If you haven't seen them,

[00:31:35] you may wanna take on the,

[00:31:37] are you starting an IT services business

[00:31:39] or don't start an MSP,

[00:31:41] which are two follow on videos from there as well.

[00:31:44] I'll give you a preview.

[00:31:45] I am working on a 2024 version of this video

[00:31:49] and some of my thinking is around the idea

[00:31:52] of being much more of a sales engine

[00:31:55] for engaging your customers.

[00:31:57] The idea, you'll go out into the market,

[00:31:59] identify problems and then leverage other partners

[00:32:04] to sell more.

[00:32:05] In particular, I'm very keen

[00:32:07] on what's going on with distribution.

[00:32:10] And if you haven't watched it already,

[00:32:12] I would watch my video from the end of the year

[00:32:15] around the future of distribution.

[00:32:18] It's an interview that I,

[00:32:19] it's multiple interviews and did all in the same video

[00:32:22] and that'll give you a preview

[00:32:23] of some of the way that I'm thinking.

[00:32:25] And I wanna thank you, Abdullah for that question.

[00:32:28] I will continue to take questions in the show.

[00:32:30] Now I wanna thank sales builder,

[00:32:32] our Patreon sponsor who support makes this show possible.

[00:32:36] Focus on your IT sales workflow with the power of automation

[00:32:40] and visit them at salesbuilder.com, that's B-U-I-L-D-R dot com.

[00:32:45] And vendors, you too can get your name mentioned

[00:32:48] on the live show.

[00:32:49] It's a simple monthly subscription.

[00:32:51] Visit patreon.com slash MSB radio for more.

[00:32:55] And listeners, you too can support the show

[00:32:58] like, share and follow on your favorite platforms.

[00:33:01] It makes a huge difference to the show

[00:33:04] when you follow us and share it with your colleagues.

[00:33:08] And if you wanna support directly,

[00:33:10] you can do so with our give what you want model.

[00:33:13] You said what you think the content is worth

[00:33:16] and contribute directly to the success of the show.

[00:33:20] And if you have a question or listening to the recording

[00:33:22] send it in at question at MSB radio dot com.

[00:33:26] Next week, this live show is on Wednesday

[00:33:28] and catch us live on Wednesday, 3 p.m. Eastern.

[00:33:32] Thanks for joining me for the business of TechLounge.

[00:33:35] And I will see you next time.