Navigating Standardization vs. Customization with Ryan Morris & Luis Giraldo

[00:00:12] Does standardization equal commoditization? Luis Giraldo of ScalePad challenged me with this question, and I love the idea this discussion could spark.

[00:00:24] So I invited Ryan Morris of Morris Management Partners and my co-host on Killing It to join us for a spicy conversation.

[00:00:32] Welcome to the Business of Tech Lounge, the live version of the Business of Tech podcast.

[00:00:37] It's Wednesday, November 13th, 2024, and I'm Dave Sobel.

[00:00:42] I'll be taking questions and comments throughout the show, so make sure to put them in chat.

[00:00:47] If you have a question, we will happily respond to it.

[00:00:51] Now I want to thank Sales Builder, our Patreon sponsor, whose support makes this show possible.

[00:00:57] Focus on your IT sales workflow with the power of automation and visit them at salesbuilder.com.

[00:01:03] That's B-U-I-L-D-R.com.

[00:01:06] Reminder, I am keeping an eye on that chat.

[00:01:09] We'll watch for your questions, thoughts, and comments.

[00:01:12] Well, Ryan Morris is a seasoned professional with over 25 years of experience in the IT channel,

[00:01:18] specializing in sales, marketing, and management within the B2B technology solutions industry.

[00:01:24] As the principal consultant at Morris Management Partners, he focuses on developing successful multi-tiered channel solutions

[00:01:31] and profitable business models for solution providers.

[00:01:33] He's also the co-host on Killing It With Me, where we discuss emerging technologies and their impact on the IT industry.

[00:01:40] Ryan, welcome back to the show.

[00:01:43] Thank you very much, Dave.

[00:01:44] Excellent topic today and excellent to get Luis to come in and have the conversation

[00:01:50] because we have very detailed opinions about this topic.

[00:01:53] It's excellent to be able to get this from people who do this for a living still.

[00:01:57] So this is going to be a great conversation.

[00:01:59] Well, Luis Seraldo is the Chief Experience Officer at ScalePad, a company specializing in asset lifecycle management solutions for managed services providers.

[00:02:09] He leads the partner success organization, focusing on enhancing the experiences of ScalePad's partners and being a thought leader in the industry.

[00:02:17] With over 15 years experience in the IT sector, he's got a diverse background that includes founding and leading multiple technology ventures.

[00:02:25] Welcome to the show for the first time, Luis.

[00:02:27] Luis Seraldo is the Chief Experience Officer at ScalePad.

[00:02:27] Guys, it's great to be on.

[00:02:29] What a pleasure and a privilege.

[00:02:30] Thank you so much for the invite.

[00:02:31] Well, this will be fine.

[00:02:33] Well, you sent me this idea.

[00:02:34] What you said was that there's a real challenge of balancing the technology stack and process standardization while maintaining strategic differentiation.

[00:02:43] Your comment to me was exactly this.

[00:02:46] Things that used to be special are now commoditized.

[00:02:49] And while more and more MSPs seem to grow faster, they also hit that commoditization glass ceiling faster.

[00:02:57] It's not that you think it's necessary to pull back to a strategic level, build stronger relationships with clients and get more in the know of all clients and individual businesses.

[00:03:07] And of course, this is difficult to do because a lot of MSPs over rotated to simplify the QBR and virtual CIO process, which also leads to a lot of them being VCIOs.

[00:03:19] I'm putting that in quote that lack the skills to get genuinely strategic.

[00:03:24] So, Luis, kind of stake out your position on this.

[00:03:27] Yeah, I think you kind of laid it out there with a bit of the setup.

[00:03:31] And it's this idea that, you know, even the large MSPs that I talked to and by large, I mean, you know, $20 million, $10 million, $30 million MSPs are kind of hitting this interesting situation right now where they are losing clientele to pricing downward pressure.

[00:03:48] And one of the issues is because the clients are starting to see that they can get the same thing that they perceive as getting right now from, you know, another MSP just down the street.

[00:03:58] And so the challenge of differentiation is really becoming apparent.

[00:04:02] And so a few months ago on my own live stream, MSP Confidential, I had Chris Jensen, who's a CIO in the enterprise, but does fractional CIO work with different companies and such.

[00:04:13] He brings MSPs to work with his clients on some of these projects.

[00:04:16] And he kind of was the one that sparked a bit of this idea because he was telling me how one of the MSPs that came in to pitch one of his clients kind of just came in with this very standardized approach to the whole layout of the opportunity and said, well, you know, we're going to deploy these solutions and this solution.

[00:04:31] And here's the timeline.

[00:04:32] We're going to do all this and you're going to like it pretty much.

[00:04:35] And after the meeting, the client called Chris and said, hey, what was that?

[00:04:39] Like, they don't know the first thing about my business yet.

[00:04:42] They come in and say they're going to do this, the other thing.

[00:04:44] They don't know anything about us.

[00:04:46] They're only focused on what's good for them.

[00:04:49] And so I don't know.

[00:04:50] How does this work?

[00:04:51] And so this is kind of what got me thinking, well, you know, for 20 years, the academic teachings of the industry have been standardized, standardized, standardized.

[00:05:00] And standardization is not bad.

[00:05:02] But I think one of the big challenges is that we over rotate it to standardize on every possible way that we can.

[00:05:07] And this kind of increased the downward pressure of commoditization.

[00:05:11] We reached that point now where the strategic conversations are missing.

[00:05:16] The interesting understanding of the business is missing.

[00:05:19] We're trying to deliver the VCIO function or the CIO function virtually with folks that are typically in an account management level position.

[00:05:27] And we're failing.

[00:05:28] And so this is the conversation I'm having day in and day out with MSPs.

[00:05:32] And they're really struggling to try and overcome a bit of the challenge, get deeper in their conversation with clients, and ultimately find out how to deliver a higher amount of value or perceived value to the client where they're really attaching to the opportunity that the business presents.

[00:05:45] All right.

[00:05:46] So now I'm going to bring on Ryan because, Ryan, one of the reasons, you know, as I was prepping, Louis threw it my way.

[00:05:50] And for listeners, I'll tell you, I texted Ryan.

[00:05:52] I was like, I got this idea.

[00:05:54] I have a feeling you have thoughts.

[00:05:57] And you, of course, immediately blew up my phone.

[00:06:00] Ryan, you have thoughts.

[00:06:02] Would you care to share?

[00:06:03] I do have thoughts.

[00:06:04] And this is, to Louis' point, this is not a new conversation that we've just begun.

[00:06:10] We've been having this debate about standardization versus customization for more than 20 years.

[00:06:15] I think the first time I had this conversation with one named Paul Dippel was about 25 years ago.

[00:06:22] And the first question we have to ask is, why are we standardizing?

[00:06:26] To whom do the benefits accrue?

[00:06:29] If the purpose and the benefit of standardization is to simplify my operation, well, congratulations, that's good for you.

[00:06:36] But what's in it for the customer?

[00:06:38] If the purpose of standardization is to leverage tools and align with core business practices that the customer actually uses, then there's no variability in the way that you engage and deliver with those customers.

[00:06:52] That's a good thing.

[00:06:53] This is the problem.

[00:06:54] The industry itself is far too young and far too little penetrated into the end user marketplace to justify the price pressure that we are currently feeling.

[00:07:06] There are too many customers.

[00:07:08] There's too much greenfield out there for us to live in a world where all we compete on is price.

[00:07:14] And yet, when we have standardized to a point where we use the same tools, we follow the same processes, we apply the same best practices, it is literally easy to say to a customer,

[00:07:27] you know what, I understand what service you get from that competitor that you're currently working with.

[00:07:33] Listen, I do exactly what they do.

[00:07:36] Not just a little bit the same.

[00:07:38] We use the same tools.

[00:07:40] We've deployed them, configured them in the same way.

[00:07:42] We use them in exactly the same processes.

[00:07:45] I guarantee we do exactly the same thing they do.

[00:07:49] I'll just do it for 10% less and I will steal away your customer base.

[00:07:53] Because that's really unfortunate because it is self-inflicted.

[00:07:59] Okay.

[00:08:00] So I'm going to lay out my position here because I'm actually going to say I don't think standardization is related to commoditization.

[00:08:09] I think services is related to the commoditization and standardization is something else.

[00:08:16] Here's where I'm thinking of it.

[00:08:18] So from my perspective, the operations of an organization, when you start standardizing your technical staff,

[00:08:24] the intention is to get the operational efficiency across your customer base.

[00:08:28] That actually has nothing to do with the services that you are delivering to customers.

[00:08:35] That I could make an argument that you could have no standardization of your technology stack,

[00:08:41] yet also sell the same services to those customers and be commoditized.

[00:08:47] Because if you are just selling a set of services that looks identical to everyone,

[00:08:51] because no customer actually cares about your technical staff.

[00:08:55] They simply care about what they buy.

[00:08:58] You could still end up commoditized.

[00:09:00] So I don't actually think, I would make that sort of like correlation is not causation,

[00:09:05] would be my sort of statement on this.

[00:09:08] And what I think, from my perspective, and I want to get each of your take on it is,

[00:09:12] is I think we're conflating the standardization of the tech stack with the services that MSPs are delivering

[00:09:19] that are far too often looking the same to customers.

[00:09:24] Luis, this was your thought.

[00:09:25] Give me your perspective on where I might be wrong here.

[00:09:28] I think you're not wrong, but I think you've minimized a bit of the over-rotation that I talk about

[00:09:34] on the standardization.

[00:09:35] Because it's not just about the tech stack.

[00:09:37] We tend to associate standardization with just sort of this idea of the tech stack.

[00:09:41] But, you know, I love that Ryan brought up Paul Dippel,

[00:09:44] because I also have heard him say from 20 years ago,

[00:09:47] things like deliver 80% of your service with the least expensive people possible.

[00:09:52] And so just from an operational perspective,

[00:09:53] outside of the tech stack altogether,

[00:09:55] we have this interesting issue of we're trying to simplify how we deliver services for the sake of scale,

[00:10:00] which again is not a bad thing.

[00:10:01] But I think there's a point where you need to say,

[00:10:03] okay, we're going to have to customize from this point onward.

[00:10:06] We have to get deeper in the conversation.

[00:10:07] But since we've brought in very inexperienced folks that are not necessarily able to dig in,

[00:10:14] to have a business level conversation, a C-level, a boardroom conversation with their clients,

[00:10:19] and we've been relegated to the office manager, to the IT point of contact,

[00:10:23] this becomes increasingly difficult to have, you know, a true business outcomes conversation

[00:10:28] and try to align a bit of what the technology is trying to deliver,

[00:10:31] or even uncover opportunities where technology can drive some kind of interesting innovation

[00:10:35] or change for that business out in the market.

[00:10:38] And so there's, I think the challenge is really that we need to continue doing all the other things still,

[00:10:43] because they are good for the MSP.

[00:10:45] And I think the standardization, the operational efficiency,

[00:10:47] none of these things should be ignored.

[00:10:49] But there is this missing gap now in this strategic level conversation

[00:10:53] that is causing a bit of this downward pressure and feeling like,

[00:10:57] yeah, we're commoditized.

[00:10:57] We don't feel special.

[00:10:58] We're getting like pulled out and replaced, displaced by another MSP

[00:11:03] who just literally was able to come in and compete on the price alone.

[00:11:06] And so it's, I think we're all right.

[00:11:09] The challenge is really how do we elevate the discussion?

[00:11:11] And I think it comes down to understanding how to get deeper into the conversation

[00:11:15] with clients earlier on in the process.

[00:11:17] Because by the way, and Chris said this during the live stream with me,

[00:11:20] once you come in at that very sort of operational, tactical level,

[00:11:25] it's really hard to pull back out to a strategic level.

[00:11:27] Because at this point, you know, it's really difficult to really pull out,

[00:11:31] to have a conversation at another level.

[00:11:33] I mean, I get that.

[00:11:35] And Ryan, I'm going to throw it to you because, I mean,

[00:11:37] I know you've been working with a number of providers that are thinking this way.

[00:11:40] You know, how related to price is it about where they're coming in?

[00:11:44] Ryan, I know I'm reading your mind.

[00:11:46] I know you have thoughts.

[00:11:48] You are correct indeed.

[00:11:50] And I will go where we started, where we talked about that partner who came in

[00:11:56] and made a presentation to a potential customer and said,

[00:11:59] these are all the things we will do.

[00:12:01] This is the timeline on which we will do them.

[00:12:04] And you will like it.

[00:12:05] Or basically, I'm not going to be your provider.

[00:12:07] That is the conflation that you're talking about, Dave.

[00:12:11] It is my tech stack, which is standardized for operational benefit, a good thing.

[00:12:15] But then it is presented to the customer as a mandatory configuration of the engagement

[00:12:21] that we will deliver.

[00:12:23] So many times we hear from MSPs, either you adopt my stack or else you can't be my customer.

[00:12:30] Either you adopt everything in my stack or you can't be my customer.

[00:12:34] Either you get rid of existing tools, existing infrastructures, paid solutions that you already

[00:12:41] have and re-standardize on the things that I provide, or you're not allowed.

[00:12:45] You see, that's exactly what the problem is.

[00:12:48] It's not the tools that we use that actually communicate value to the customer.

[00:12:54] As Luis said, it is the outcomes that we can predict and actually deliver for our customers.

[00:13:00] That means we have to do certain things in a standardized way in order to be reliable and predictable.

[00:13:07] But if we conflate, my tools must be standard with the message I deliver and the value in the

[00:13:16] engagement that I propose requires that you adopt absolutely everything.

[00:13:21] That's when we over-rotate.

[00:13:24] And quite frankly, it is tied to the data, right?

[00:13:27] Our research will show very clearly that when you have only a single standardized practice

[00:13:33] offering for your customer, right?

[00:13:36] One MSP offering that everybody either takes or does not take.

[00:13:41] Those sales cycles are 25% to 40% longer.

[00:13:45] The average price point is 10% to 15% slower.

[00:13:50] And if you do the arithmetic on those two data points, those companies grow anywhere from 25%

[00:13:57] to 35% slower.

[00:14:00] Now, I'm not saying no standardization and just free for all, let's customize everything for

[00:14:06] every customer.

[00:14:07] I'm saying if you must standardize, standardize on the terminology of the customer, right?

[00:14:14] Don't say, these are my seven things that I do and you will adopt them.

[00:14:18] And say, I know your industry.

[00:14:20] These are the three critical business processes that you run.

[00:14:23] These are exactly the standard ways I will support your processes.

[00:14:28] Okay.

[00:14:28] So, Luis, I'm going to ping it here with a little bit of a context.

[00:14:31] And then, Ryan, I'm going to swing it back with you for a kind of vendor analysis piece.

[00:14:35] So, Luis, if you're thinking about this, is your take that MSPs will move back towards

[00:14:41] like bespoke solutions to escape commoditization?

[00:14:44] Or do you think they're going to seek new ways to innovate within a more standardized framework?

[00:14:49] Number two.

[00:14:50] And I think this is exactly one of the challenges of over-rotation is that we tend to think in

[00:14:56] very black and white terms about all these things.

[00:14:58] And MSPs are guilty and self-inflicting the pain because they say, okay, this is a new way

[00:15:03] to do it.

[00:15:04] We're going to go and do that with all our customers.

[00:15:06] And they just kind of dive off the deep end to try and do the exact same thing across

[00:15:10] the board.

[00:15:10] And so, there's very little room for wiggle when you try and do that across the board.

[00:15:15] Now, to continue a bit of Ryan's point, and I think you're just on the spot.

[00:15:21] The irony is the MSP that comes in and has a customer-friendly, a prospect-friendly conversation,

[00:15:27] understanding your business better, can eventually still put in all their standard tool stack

[00:15:32] the same way they would have if they come in really strong from the beginning and said,

[00:15:35] this is our tools, you're going to do it our way.

[00:15:37] But the difference is the client is now at least bought into the understanding of the

[00:15:41] perspective, and it's because they've been listened to in the process.

[00:15:44] I think the challenge of the MSP kind of shoehorning what the potential client's value

[00:15:50] is of their standard stack is kind of a little bit shallow now because I think clients

[00:15:56] understand that, yeah, this is kind of only good for these guys.

[00:15:59] And I think as much as the MSP wants to believe that their own internal operational efficiency

[00:16:03] or standardization is good for the client, I think there's a little bit of a stretch there.

[00:16:07] And so, it's just about engaging in a different way up front, understanding where you can customize,

[00:16:13] standardize your framework to a certain point, and become modular above that.

[00:16:16] And I think if you're niched in a specific vertical or industry, you know, all the power

[00:16:21] to you, that's great.

[00:16:22] If you're not, then I think it's even more important to have these very customized conversations

[00:16:27] to understand what are some of the challenges that you're seeing inside your business.

[00:16:30] How does your business make money?

[00:16:33] How does money move from one department to another?

[00:16:36] And these are the questions that I think the average VSAO is not asking today because

[00:16:40] they're more focused on trying to sell the standard priced and packaged services and offerings

[00:16:45] that they have into the existing client in a very much account management feeling type of approach.

[00:16:51] Gotcha.

[00:16:52] Gotcha.

[00:16:52] Now, Ryan, we're coming off of two weeks of kind of events in the IT channel where platform

[00:16:59] was clearly the message, like moving to an MSP.

[00:17:02] So, I really want to ask you, how significant do you think the impact of the vendor solutions

[00:17:07] and their market consolidation has been on MSP commoditization?

[00:17:12] Like, is this an impact?

[00:17:14] Because they're clearly pushing towards single platform to run your business on.

[00:17:19] That would be all tied in.

[00:17:20] Yeah, that is an impact.

[00:17:23] And it's something inevitable that happens in the technology industry, right?

[00:17:27] We live in an industry that's pendulums back and forth between there's best of breed technologies

[00:17:34] from a bunch of different providers.

[00:17:36] And then there are standard platforms where everything is integrated, whether or not each

[00:17:41] of the tools is actually the best of the best out there.

[00:17:45] We swing back and forth around that.

[00:17:47] We see it in hardware, that infrastructure layer.

[00:17:50] We see it in software applications, management systems, et cetera, right?

[00:17:55] As the MSP industry swings towards consolidation on the vendor side, it becomes easier for an

[00:18:01] MSP to say, I'll just rebadge the standard platform that you offered to me, lock, stock,

[00:18:08] and barrel, my logo on it.

[00:18:10] And that makes it easier to go to market.

[00:18:12] Okay.

[00:18:13] Easier to go to market is rarely the right answer for differentiation and profit performance,

[00:18:20] right?

[00:18:21] If you do what everybody else does, you get what everybody else gets.

[00:18:25] And that's literally the definition of average.

[00:18:28] If you hope to outperform the average in the marketplace, then by definition, you must do

[00:18:34] something different from what others in the marketplace are doing.

[00:18:38] You have to be rare, but in a good way, not chaos, right?

[00:18:42] And I'll build on what Luis said.

[00:18:45] Modularity is the way forward, but think of it in the context of software application development,

[00:18:51] right?

[00:18:52] Reconfigured objects that we assemble in custom configurations to achieve a specific functional

[00:18:59] outcome, object-oriented programming, right?

[00:19:02] We are able to bring it to market using standard components that inside, we know what they are

[00:19:08] and we understand how they work, but they get packaged in a way that is appearing to be

[00:19:14] customized to the customer.

[00:19:15] They get what they want.

[00:19:17] We operate on a standard model that we want and everybody gets the benefit.

[00:19:23] Bottom line here is if you must standardize your presentation to the world, standardize

[00:19:30] on the basis of the customer marketplace, right?

[00:19:33] Our research, again, I mentioned a couple of standards data points earlier.

[00:19:39] The one that I think is the most compelling of the entire research set is if you specialize and

[00:19:46] communicate based on the thing you sell versus the person that you sell to, growth rates

[00:19:53] are radically different, right?

[00:19:55] If I sell a branded product to the customer, if I sell a standardized offer to the customer,

[00:20:01] it's about me and I'm here to tell you why I'm great.

[00:20:04] But if I can standardize based on the customer and say to them, you are law firm, you are CPA firm, you are small,

[00:20:13] discrete manufacturing firm.

[00:20:15] I understand your industry.

[00:20:16] These are your critical business processes.

[00:20:19] Exactly.

[00:20:20] The conversation Luis was proposing.

[00:20:22] How do you make money?

[00:20:24] What are your cost centers?

[00:20:25] What are your process flows?

[00:20:27] How do you use technology to support that?

[00:20:30] Look, we understand that.

[00:20:32] Not we understand what we do and therefore we are the best, right?

[00:20:37] I mean, it's classic old Dale Carnegie, right?

[00:20:41] If you want people to be interested in you, talk about them, not about yourself.

[00:20:46] Well, the classics are classics for a reason, right?

[00:20:48] There's always my clip on this.

[00:20:50] And so Luis, I want to paint these because I know in your role, you spend a lot of time

[00:20:53] specifically talking to MSPs and I'd really like to get a little bit of sense of like where

[00:20:57] the most successful ones draw the lines and have found that standardizing versus customized

[00:21:02] solutions work best or how they're best doing it.

[00:21:05] Is there field experience that you like to cite and direct people to?

[00:21:10] Yeah, maybe I'll mention a couple of things.

[00:21:12] And our friend, Peter Melby of New Charter last week, we had a conversation about this and

[00:21:16] he dropped the best soundbag.

[00:21:18] He says, you know, the MSP that has the best client engagement wins.

[00:21:22] And I think this client engagement comes from those conversations, from really understanding

[00:21:26] the business, from understanding from the client understanding that you're truly trying

[00:21:30] to understand how to give them value.

[00:21:32] And so I think there's a couple of things that we need to look at.

[00:21:36] We've been talking about the return to consulting for a little while.

[00:21:39] You know, more of the tech that people deploy these days works perfectly out of the box.

[00:21:44] The things that we used to, and I said this in my email to you, said the things that we

[00:21:48] used to think were special, you know, setting up a server, setting up a workstation,

[00:21:51] are really no longer even necessary for the most part, because these things kind of work

[00:21:56] out of the box.

[00:21:56] Autopilot auto configures a device.

[00:21:58] All the tools that we have behind the scenes are fixing and remediating stuff automatically.

[00:22:03] So none of these things are really creating ultimate value for the client, especially when

[00:22:07] they more increasingly expect perfect uptime at all moments.

[00:22:11] You know, there was a time when we used to have monitoring of like internet connections

[00:22:14] and websites and stuff.

[00:22:16] It turns out we get a call from a client five seconds after their internet goes down and

[00:22:20] 30 seconds through the monitoring tool.

[00:22:22] So it became useless and irrelevant to have this kind of thing because the customer expects

[00:22:26] a very, very different level of service than we've been accustomed to delivering through

[00:22:29] automation and tools like that.

[00:22:31] And so I think the opportunity here is to sit down and have a conversation internally,

[00:22:36] but like, how are we actually thinking about everything that we do in terms of what value we create

[00:22:40] for the client?

[00:22:41] And that's a very different conversation than the internal facing conversation of like, oh,

[00:22:45] we need to standardize so we can increase our bottom line.

[00:22:47] Those are things that are obviously necessary, but not necessarily in function of a service

[00:22:52] based business that are ultimately focused on the client on the other side of the equation.

[00:22:57] And bringing the client to the same side of the table is really the objective here, not

[00:23:00] to always sit on the opposite side and be combating them or battling them to try and get them to

[00:23:05] understand what value you deliver.

[00:23:06] You know, the second that they ask you, what are we paying you for?

[00:23:09] You know, you're done.

[00:23:10] You're cooked.

[00:23:11] Gotcha.

[00:23:12] Well, and a reminder for listeners, I can keep going all day, but I am definitely taking

[00:23:16] questions.

[00:23:17] If you have questions or thoughts you want to throw, we will definitely throw them on screen.

[00:23:21] Now, Ryan, with all of this, again, we're trying to, as we trend toward wrapping here, I want

[00:23:26] to give people some execution type stuff.

[00:23:28] Like if MSPs are thinking about trying to grow without falling into the commoditization trap,

[00:23:35] are there particular alternative success metrics that you think they should focus on that can

[00:23:41] be like tied to differentiation rather than just growth?

[00:23:46] Absolutely.

[00:23:46] And in fact, again, this begins at, and I'll say this carefully because I understand that

[00:23:52] the industry where we all live and work has a hard time understanding and applying the concepts

[00:23:58] of marketing without thinking that they are voodoo, right?

[00:24:02] But it begins with an understanding from a marketer's perspective.

[00:24:05] Who are the audiences that we will target?

[00:24:08] What are their principal triggers?

[00:24:09] And then how do we align our service offerings to their preferred outcomes, right?

[00:24:16] That realignment, the translation inside, that is something that we need to be able to do.

[00:24:22] I will argue that the principal metric that we need to measure against is the idea of defined

[00:24:29] customer outcomes and customer-specific metrics for performance, right?

[00:24:34] Don't say server uptime and website uptime and data throughput integrity, right?

[00:24:40] Those are things that we monitor inside the tool.

[00:24:43] As a driver of a car, there are a thousand metrics that happen inside that machine that

[00:24:49] I don't care about.

[00:24:50] They show me the three or four things on the dashboard that I think are important because

[00:24:55] they indicate that I can get where I'm going at the rate that I want.

[00:24:59] We have to interview the customer, define what the metrics are, and then say, this is how we

[00:25:05] will define success.

[00:25:07] And we will track it and measure it.

[00:25:09] It has to do with customer adoption of specific tools.

[00:25:13] It has to do with meaningful changes in the way that they do their jobs to do them more efficiently

[00:25:20] according to their own industry standards and attainment of those outcomes that we've agreed

[00:25:26] with on the customer.

[00:25:27] Now, I get that all of that sounds like the Wild West and like we're going to be ultimately

[00:25:33] customizing for everybody.

[00:25:35] But if you align your go-to-market within the package of industry conversations, if I sell

[00:25:42] to healthcare, financial services, and manufacturing, I can identify within half a dozen customer

[00:25:51] engagements what the top five metrics are that each one of those industry pockets really

[00:25:57] cares about.

[00:25:58] And then I'm not guessing.

[00:26:00] And you can see from a consultative point of view, I'm not just going to say, you tell

[00:26:04] me the five things you want to track and I'll track those five things.

[00:26:07] I'm saying these are the fives that your peers track in best practice.

[00:26:12] These are the three that we would recommend for you.

[00:26:15] Are you okay with them?

[00:26:16] Do you want to pull one out?

[00:26:18] Put one in?

[00:26:19] There were still standardizing in the engagement, but we're doing it on the platform of what the

[00:26:24] customer actually cares about.

[00:26:26] The output of that is a customer facing dashboard that says, these are the things you're paying

[00:26:34] for and the benefits that you are receiving.

[00:26:36] That doesn't have to be the same as my internal dashboard that tracks tickets and system performance

[00:26:42] and uptime.

[00:26:43] Those are two different dashboards, inside voice, outside voice.

[00:26:47] We have one presentation to the customer, a different presentation to our own performance

[00:26:52] engineers.

[00:26:53] I think Ryan just nailed it.

[00:26:56] We've been using the inside voice with the customer for the last couple of decades.

[00:27:00] And that's the thing that needs to shift and evolve and get a little bit better.

[00:27:05] You know, I'd love for a dashboard on a car to just show me how good I look while driving

[00:27:10] it.

[00:27:10] That'd be an awesome metric.

[00:27:12] And by the way, that's what AI for.

[00:27:14] And we didn't even have that portion of the conversation.

[00:27:17] So congratulations, gents, for an entire deep conversation where we didn't have to do that.

[00:27:23] Now, I'm going to ask each of you to give listeners, if they're interested in learning

[00:27:27] a little bit more, how can they best get in touch?

[00:27:29] Luis, how can people get best get in touch with you?

[00:27:32] Hit me up on LinkedIn or send a message through the Skillpad website at skillpad.com.

[00:27:38] Or maybe I'll come into the live stream post video and I'll drop my email there if anybody

[00:27:43] wants to reach out.

[00:27:44] But LinkedIn is a great way.

[00:27:45] My DMs are open and just hit me up anytime.

[00:27:49] Gotcha.

[00:27:49] Ryan, how can people get in touch with you?

[00:27:51] Excellent.

[00:27:52] Same platforms, right?

[00:27:54] At RyanMorris303 on LinkedIn and rmorris at morrismp.com.

[00:28:01] Email or LinkedIn are both great ways to continue the conversation.

[00:28:05] But guys, this has been great.

[00:28:07] Really appreciate you joining me.

[00:28:08] I look forward to having you back to mix it up again in the future.

[00:28:11] Spicy is the name of the game.

[00:28:13] That's the trick.

[00:28:14] Well, listeners, did you miss Monday's episode with Wayne Self, who's Vice President of Cybersecurity

[00:28:19] Programs at CompTIA, where we were discussing the state of cybersecurity in the managed services

[00:28:24] provider industry?

[00:28:25] Wayne shared his insights on the challenges providers face in addressing cybersecurity risks

[00:28:30] and the need for better education and training to help build effective programs.

[00:28:35] He emphasized the importance of developing a risk management strategy, and he spoke about

[00:28:41] helping to align with business objectives to ensure organizations' long-term success and

[00:28:45] resilience.

[00:28:46] Here's a preview of that interview.

[00:28:49] The vendors, I think it would be great if they could start moving towards this secure by design.

[00:28:57] And I would argue, because I know there's going to be people watching your show.

[00:29:01] If I didn't mention secure by default, I would get called out for that, right?

[00:29:06] Because they go hand in hand.

[00:29:07] So as they're developing, they do the secure by design.

[00:29:11] But as they launch, the items that need to be turned on by default should be there.

[00:29:17] So out of the box, the technology is secure, whether it's an application, a device, or some

[00:29:23] other piece of software.

[00:29:25] Now, I went one step further in some of my CISA, Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative, JCDC

[00:29:31] meetings.

[00:29:32] And I said, when we were talking about creating this, we actually talked about creating the

[00:29:38] pledge.

[00:29:39] And one of the things I suggested was the vendors to help protect themselves, do a pop-up.

[00:29:45] So if somebody goes to turn off one of those things by default, give them a pop-up, a warning

[00:29:50] saying, hey, this you should not do.

[00:29:53] We don't want you doing this, right?

[00:29:56] But if you do it, you're assuming all the risk.

[00:30:01] So videos like this, my Patreon supporters get early access to.

[00:30:06] That one's available in the feed, but my patrons are about to get a new one just from IT Nation

[00:30:10] before everybody else, which will drop on the weekend on YouTube and the podcast.

[00:30:15] If you're interested, I encourage you to join and visit patreon.com.

[00:30:19] slash msbradio to sign up.

[00:30:22] Now, I want to thank Sales Builder, our Patreon sponsor whose support makes this show possible.

[00:30:27] Focus on your IT sales workflow with the power of automation and visit them at salesbuilder.com.

[00:30:33] That's B-U-I-L-D-R dot com.

[00:30:36] Now, vendors, you too can get your name mentioned on the live show.

[00:30:40] It's a simple monthly subscription.

[00:30:42] Visit patreon.com slash msbradio to learn more.

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[00:31:04] If you have a question and are listening to the recording, send it in at question at msbradio.com.

[00:31:09] Thanks for joining me for the Business of Tech Lounge, and I will see you next time.