Johnathan Skofi | The Art of Purpose-Driven Leadership

[00:00:09] Hey, everyone. Welcome to the latest installment of MSP Business School. As always, I'm Brian Doyle here to guide us on our journey. But the guy I got standing here, I think he's going to guide me. That's usually the way it goes in our conversations. I want to welcome to the show somebody most of you have gotten to know in some way, shape or form now, Jonathan Schofield, a.k.a. Skofi. Jonathan, man, welcome back.

[00:00:35] So, you know, listeners, as typically happens, we just had a show before the show. So I wish we were press record on that because that would have been enough probably to share with you right there. But, you know, I always enjoy talking to Jonathan. I don't get to see him enough. And he's doing some really cool things out in the community. So welcome, Jonathan. Oh, my goodness. Thank you so much for having me here, Brian. Back to the show a second time. It's been it's got to be over a year and a half, maybe even more than that. Over two years, believe it or not.

[00:01:04] That's wild. That goes back to I think we had our first show together sometime after IT Nation Secure, I think in 24, maybe. So maybe it's that long. Holy crap. Love it. That's where we met one another, I believe. So, you know, happy two year anniversary, man. Thank you.

[00:01:26] But, you know, all kidding aside, man, in the two years I've watched you kind of just grow and build some really cool stuff. And, you know, there's no doubt you're all about community. That's probably, you know, when we look at labels that we can look at somebody and go, what's this guy do? He's a connector. And you've done a great job of that. And, you know, kudos to you, man, because it's not an easy thing to do. And it's tough to keep that pace up sometimes. So, you know, you've got great energy, too, my man. Appreciate that. That means a lot.

[00:01:59] I'm fortunate to have been propelled into this industry sort of by accident. I know that I'm not alone in that a lot of folks found their way into the IT services world through a job opportunity or COVID or, you know, exiting corporate IT and jumping into their own MSP or whatever the case may be for you. But in my case, it definitely was a very happy accident that I stumbled out of the ERP world into the MSP world and IT services.

[00:02:29] And one of the reasons I stay is that word that you use is community, the people here and the things that we do and the way that we build each other up and move our market forward. And it's just fascinating. It's fun. And it's great to be here. Well, Jonathan, you know, I've given a little bit of an overview of who you are, but certainly have not done it justice.

[00:02:53] For those that maybe don't know you, want to talk a little bit about your background and, you know, how you arrived here in the community and what you're doing today? Sure. So the too long, don't read version of what Scofie does right now. And by the way, just Brian already said it. Jonathan Schofield, my friends call me Scofie. It was my nickname in college. And I've been just boldly slapping it on everything that I do right now. Call me what you want, but a lot of people call me Scofie.

[00:03:19] The way Scofie spends his time right now is really in one of two ways. And the most basic way that I can articulate it is if you're a service provider, I want to help you find your next customer. If you are a vendor or you have a service or product that you sell to or through service providers, I want to help you find your next IT partner that can resell or use your products or services.

[00:03:43] The many hats that I wear to fulfill both of those different categories are multiples of them. And I don't have time to get into all of them, but one of them is findmyitpartner.com. And that's what a lot of people know me for. So how I got here, ERP space. I've been in business development and sales since I was 17 years old, always with some kind of technology anchor to the stuff that I was doing,

[00:04:12] whether it was phone, cable, TV services, and then eventually running into the software world where I was selling integrated solutions through ERP resellers to manufacturing logistics, that kind of thing. And in my case, 2020 shifted everything during the apocalypse. And that's when I started my own LLC.

[00:04:34] My first customer of significance, who I still work with today, has a security product for IT service providers. You may have heard of it, Tech ID Manager, Privileged Account Management for MSP. Shout out to Martin. I highly recommend you guys look him out. But I'm still working with them. If there was no Tech ID Manager, you and I probably wouldn't be talking today, Brian. Because I was the first domino in a series of dominoes in the space where I would eventually work with a cloud service provider that was channel only, infrastructure, backup, disaster recovery.

[00:05:04] We acquired a security practice. So I got an experience with Fortinet products, managed SOC, SIM, EDR, obviously FortiGates, risk scanning. I went down the security rabbit hole and what that means for MSPs. And then done a lot of different things. And whether it be through these companies I've worked with or for, through my own business.

[00:05:28] And now exclusively what I do is I spend my time with IT service providers or folks who work with IT service providers in a consultative capacity and in a service-oriented capacity. And then basically help you get customers. Awesome. And, you know, look, let's face it. That is the number one thing that everybody has to do, right, is understand how to bring business in the door and get a process put together to do it. And, you know, you touched upon a little bit in kind of your story. Most of us are accidental entrepreneurs.

[00:05:57] We've talked about it a lot on the show. We've come into it. This is a, you know, a large community that started with tech founders. So folks, that sales was not their native tongue coming into it. And, you know, and it's always been the challenge to go beyond the personal Rolodex, right, and go out and find some others. So, you know, there's a huge need for people that can put the right structure but also have a path to success. And that's certainly something that you've shown.

[00:06:24] You wouldn't still be with your original customer if you were not showing them revenue and opportunity, right? And I think many of you listeners have gone to sales consultants that you've gone in and out with very quickly because, you know, once you got there, they really didn't have the process to help you drive it forward. So, you know, if you're looking for something like that, say hi to John. Yeah, I appreciate that. I appreciate that plug.

[00:06:51] I know that you and I were, before we went live or started recording just now, we were kind of theorizing about some of the stuff that we wanted to talk about.

[00:06:59] And I'd be curious, Brian, your take on the impact that you think this new wave of AI is going to have on our industry, not necessarily from an automation or capability standpoint, but from a, hey, I run a $5, $10, $15 million MSP. And I am trying to figure out paths to revenue, predictable revenue.

[00:07:29] What's AI going to do or not do for us in your opinion? I'd be curious. I think that's the, you really touched upon the biggest thing right now, right? So as I'm talking to our customers that we work with and checking in with them, what I'm really finding is, you know, the hype engine's real, but the delivery has not really started happening at scale. As I talk to most of my customers, they might be in the infancy of even delivering to a customer an AI project.

[00:07:55] You know, across the board, I don't think I've talked to anybody that has delivered more than two AI projects. You know, save, I've got one exception and actually started an AI automation company a couple years ago in advance of this. So they've got a few more under the belt. But, you know, realistically, people are still trying to figure out where the play is. And, you know, and then the other thing is it's kind of experimental within their own environments.

[00:08:21] They're trying to figure out what they're going to do inside their environments, hoping that could be something that translates out to the market. But I think we've got, and we were talking about this as well, I think we've got to look at from the buyer's perspective. That dentist down the corner, the lawyer that you work with, the small retailer, what are they really looking from from AI and, you know, what are the things that they can potentially automate or make more intelligent that makes sense to them?

[00:08:49] Because I think we're all looking for that killer app to do, right? And it's not universal. I think that's really insightful, especially that perspective of what's in our buyers' minds right now with all of this stuff that's being fed to them. They're watching the same Super Bowl halftime commercials that you and I are. And almost all of them had some kind of AI element to them in the most recent Super Bowl. And they're seeing the news articles.

[00:09:17] They're hearing, they're seeing the TikToks with Sam Altman talking about the future. They're seeing Elon doing all this stuff. And, you know, the consumer market is exploding with AI. And then small business owners are dealing with shadow AI, like shadow IT, but shadow AI. And it's being pushed in their faces constantly.

[00:09:39] And then where does the service provider fit in to this from an education standpoint, from an opportunity standpoint, from an ethical standpoint? And my biggest concern for our industry, because there's so much we could say about the market as a whole and where AI is, the good, the bad, and the ugly. But my biggest concern for that small to medium-sized service provider, Brian, that you and I know so well, that we talk to every day,

[00:10:08] is that before AI, a lot of our peers and colleagues in this space, you said it yourself, sales may not necessarily have been our natural language for all of us. And if you're viewing AI as this messiah that's going to deliver you into this promised land of revenue, I just want to splash just a little bit of cold water on that notion. Not because AI isn't capable of doing amazing things, because it absolutely is.

[00:10:38] I am not a technical person, and I sold my own first AI project earlier this year, and have made eight grand on it. And for an entrepreneur like myself, I was like, what the heck? If someone like me can get this far, I can only imagine what my peers who run MSPs are going to be capable of. So the opportunity is real. The capability is real. I'm not shitting on AI even a little bit. But, if anyone's ever played the Fallout games,

[00:11:09] what's the opening mantra of those games? War never changes. It shows this montage of the technology of warfare evolving over time. But at the end of the day, it's people that are at the core of it. And I kind of co-opted that into sales. Sales never changes. The method by which we deliver value to our buyers and to our customers,

[00:11:34] the methods by which we architect services and products and the things that we go to market with absolutely will change. Maybe a little bit how buyers will find you. Maybe a little bit about how you will find buyers. That may be affected by AI. In fact, it has. It is affected by AI. Undeniably. But the buyer themselves, the one who says, yes, let's work together, the psychology of how that individual works doesn't really change. It hasn't really changed. And I don't think it's going to.

[00:12:04] So if you did not have the infrastructure for connecting with a buyer in a meaningful way before AI, AI isn't going to solve that problem for you on the other side of it. Because at the end of the day, businesses doing business with other businesses is going to require a level of trust that is only given to those who talk the language of the buyer. AI can help teach you. AI can help give you some systems to organize you.

[00:12:29] But if you're not actively working to build your organization around a go-to market through line that your buyer will understand, AI will become a distraction for you, in fact. Because you'll sit down with your customer and say, we need to do this. And they're going to be like, why? Exactly. And I think that's where, as an MSP community, if you're wondering where to start with your customer, don't immediately leap to the project. Get down to the readiness layer of just what are you guys doing with AI today?

[00:13:00] Are your users using AI? Do you have a handle on what they're using? That's right. And are you guys actually sponsoring it? Meaning, are they out there using free AIs where now they're potentially putting your data out into the wilderness? Or have you at least got a control point, right? And really start with the basics, which is, are you ready to pursue the next level? Or do we need to optimize what you're doing today but make sure we're putting the guardrails, right? AI governance has come into my LinkedIn stream. And, of course, we're a governance provider as well.

[00:13:29] So I expect it to show up in mine more than yours, right? But it's come up enough that people are saying there's got to be guardrails on this. And I think if you have frank conversation with your customers first about how they're using it today, are they doing it ethically with the right guardrails, with the right level of security? And do you know what your employees are putting in there? Start with that starting point. Then it's going to start very easily putting you into where you can see the workflows that are being kind of used today

[00:13:57] and go, ooh, now can we build a system around it, right? It's just like a discovery call, but it's a little bit different. You're doing a discovery call with an existing client about something you've probably never talked about before. And the other thing is getting in there before the AI consultant shows up and pushes you to the side because there's also a lot of folks just coming that are AI first, not IT guys. You're absolutely right. You're absolutely right. Absolutely right.

[00:14:24] Something that you said is almost just like running a discovery call. One of the big distractions that new waves in technology brings to sales professionals and entrepreneurs who are trying to grow a business is that they think they must lead with the solution in the sales conversation when that's never been the case. I'll use the chalkboard if you don't mind real fast. Yeah. I love it.

[00:14:51] And for listeners, I promise I'll describe what he's putting on the chalkboard for those that are not watching on YouTube, but absolutely, Jonathan, do it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. For those of you who are listening, I'll describe as well. So on my chalkboard here, I'm going to draw two boxes in a line, okay? So on the left-hand side, we've got box number one, and on the right-hand side, we've got box number two, and then we're going to build a little curved line between the two boxes.

[00:15:18] Almost looks like a pair of spectacles your grandfather might wear, okay? But on box number one, we're going to say SQ. And SQ here stands for status quo, okay? Status quo. And box number two on the right, we're going to say FS. And FS stands for future state. Status quo, future state.

[00:15:43] And then this arc here is the bridge, the bridge from status quo to future state, okay? Now, whether it's, you know, you go back in time to digital transformation when everyone was saying, hey, let's get that on-premise server out of your back office and move it to the cloud. That's a bridge, okay? Talk about cybersecurity, that's a bridge. Talk about compliance, governance, that's a bridge.

[00:16:11] And AI, also a bridge. So for the purposes of our conversation, we'll just put AI here. Now, the mistake that a lot of people will make in their go-to market is they think it's all about the bridge. They think it, when they go to their prospect, they go to their customer and say, let's talk about AI. Let's talk about governance. Let's talk about cybersecurity. Let's talk about digital transformation. Let's talk about help desk.

[00:16:39] How the sausage is made is secondary to how it tastes. It's secondary to how we go from the status quo to the future state. So if you're a service provider and you're wondering, how do I start the conversation around AI? I think this idea of, like, let's sit down and have a discovery conversation first and foremost, where phase number one is mapping out in exquisite detail all of the things that make up the status quo that your customer lives in.

[00:17:08] Because therein, you will find the opportunity for future state. And, hey, Mr. Customer, just so happens, AI is going to be how we build that bridge. Now they're going to care. Because you're not promising them some lipstick on a pig. You're not promising them some tool they don't really necessarily know about or care about or understand. You're talking about, hey, the impact. What we're going to change. What's going to be different for you now. And just so happens, AI is part of that solution.

[00:17:34] Now there's a different kind of buyer who's curious, who's educated, who wants to know. And they care about the bridge more. But I'm here to tell you the majority of your buyers, they're the ones running businesses and dealing with the grind day to day. And they're the ones in that status quo. They do not have the mental bandwidth or capacity to think about your bridge yet. Until you've shown them, articulated, saying, hey, Mr. Customer, I see that your claims adjustment process takes really, really long.

[00:18:04] And you push on that bruise ever so gently. It's like, what if I could show you some future state where that was 80% faster? Would that be worth a few minutes of our time? It just so happens we use AI to do it. That's a bit of a lesson that I know I wasn't necessarily expecting to go into. But there you have it. I mean, I think that dovetails perfectly with really a little bit of what I was sharing too, which is it's doing that readiness prep first to understand what matters most.

[00:18:30] Because you can't show a customer a future state unless you understand what they feel the pain is. It's talking to those that are using the AI tools today and understanding, well, why are you using them? What is the problem you're trying to solve for yourself personally? Because that might be a more widespread problem in the organization than you think. But then it's also remembering the buyer is worried about continuing to generate revenue for their organizations,

[00:18:56] continuing to pay the people that work for them, continue to scale or maintain their businesses, depending what the type of business is, right? And if you're not showing a path to those stories being answered, they're not, you know, AI to them is just a shiny new toy. And, you know, and we've got to show purpose into what we're looking to deliver in order to get them to take action.

[00:19:18] So I have had people in my family, I won't name anybody, but like they're outside of our industry, right? And so they don't necessarily get it the same way that folks in our space do when we hear us talk about AI. And I remember having this conversation. You know, one of those family members was asking me about how my business is going. And I was sharing some of the stuff that I'm doing now that is just worlds different than six months ago

[00:19:48] and how AI has played a significant role in me being able to do so much more in many different ways. And then you just sense the eyes glazing over as you talk to them. And they're like, that's really nice, Jonathan. And I'm really happy for you. And what they don't understand is we're talking about tens of thousands of dollars saved and hundreds and hundreds of hours saved

[00:20:13] and profitability ratcheting up in a way that it couldn't have been for me six months ago. And it's hard sometimes to, when you get so excited about the thing, the bridge, like you want to talk about it. And you want to sit down with your customer and be like, oh my gosh, let me just show you. This is amazing. And they're just looking at you and they just, they don't get it. They don't see it. Because the senior partner at that law firm, because the CFO at that CPA firm,

[00:20:42] the president of that large nonprofit that you run, that you help support, they wake up in the morning and they've got a finite number of things that get to occupy their mental real estate for that day. And guess what? AI probably isn't one of them. In fact, IT probably isn't one of them. That's why they hired you, right? So how do we, as the trusted advisor, approach the prospect, approach the customer, approach the buyer

[00:21:10] from a standpoint that's like, I see you right where you're at. I know exactly how things are for you today. And I can speak to the things that are true about your reality, your status quo right now, where I know you're going to be like, wait, wait a second. I maybe need to listen to this guy. I maybe need to understand a little bit more about this bridge he keeps talking about. Because he's talking about some type of future that I only heard dreams about from competitors or peers or colleagues. Maybe that can be true for me too.

[00:21:41] Then you get the opportunity to show them the bridge. But not before. I love that. I love that. So we're getting near the end of our time, unfortunately, together, Jonathan. I mean, like always, we could talk for probably hours, right? But I want to make sure that you've covered everything that you wanted to share today. Is there anything else that you want to share before we wind up our time together? Well, this is not meant to be self-promotion at all.

[00:22:08] I'm just incredibly passionate about helping see peers of mine, partners, providers, vendors even in our space do well and do better. And understand that sales is not a dirty word. And it's also not complicated. We have this tendency to vilify this idea of picking up the phone and asking a customer for money.

[00:22:35] But I'm here to tell you that it's not necessarily easy, but it's also not complex. So if you're struggling, even if it's just to have a coffee with me and you want to pick my brain, I would consider it a privilege. On my LinkedIn profile is a calendar link. Do with that information what you will. No pressure or expectation. Jonathan, I'd be remiss if before we didn't wrap up, we also talked about the other endeavor that you've been working on that really kind of speaks to what you just said there.

[00:23:03] And that is the Upstate Collab that you've kicked off in the Greenville area of South Carolina and really have been rapidly growing over, God, it's probably almost a couple years now, right? Yeah, we celebrated our two-year anniversary for Channel Collab. It was previously known as Upstate Channel Collab here in Greenville, South Carolina, but now it's called Channel Collab as of two months ago, two years old. And the vision behind it is you shouldn't have to get on a plane and go to the other side of the continent to connect with your peers and learn from each other.

[00:23:33] That most of us in our own backyard have channel energy that we have just yet to tap into. So the vision is big. Right now we're in Greenville, South Carolina. We're looking to launch a North Carolina chapter hopefully in the next few months. And the vision is by the end of the year to have chapters across the U.S. And that's meant to be for service providers or vendors once a month, show up, support each other, no sales pitches, let's talk, let's encourage each other, let's learn from each other, enjoy each other, and make this community brighter than it was before.

[00:24:02] So thank you for bringing it up. I appreciate it. No, no. I mean, that's one of the interesting things. You know, I watch it from afar. I see it in my LinkedIn stream, right, and I'm a little bit jealous because I'm unfortunately about 600, 700 miles away from you. So not something I can jump in and see on a monthly basis. But what I've really been impressed with is it is cross, you know, cross-customer, if you will. You know, there's vendors, there's MSPs, and yet the numbers keep going up.

[00:24:28] So it speaks to that you're keeping it about relationships, conversations, about bettering things, and not sales pitches, right, because the MSPs would stop showing up if it became a vendor pitch, right? If you ever want a sales pitch, that means that you've kept good control of how you want to operate that as well. That's right. That's right. Well, I appreciate you mentioning that. And absolutely. Coming soon to a city near you.

[00:24:56] Well, Jonathan, man, I'm sorry that we are out of time. It's always a blast to chat with you. For anybody that's looking to get in touch with Jonathan, we're going to have his LinkedIn line in the notes both on YouTube. Hit the subscribe button if you are watching us there. And, of course, anywhere that you get your podcasts that you can download. With that, we will also have links to findmypartnerit.com. Did I say that correctly? FindmyITpartner. Really close. FindmyITpartner.com.

[00:25:23] You know, and other resources that Jonathan has made available as well. And certainly, if you're anywhere within driving distance at Greenville, keep an eye for his promotion when the next channel collab will be because it really has become quite the event. All right, Jonathan. With that, I want to say thank you. And, you know, we'll do this again in another couple years. Yeah, we don't have to wait a few years. No doubt. No doubt. All right, my man. Enjoy the rest of your day, and we'll talk soon. See you, everybody.

[00:25:53] Thanks for being here. Thanks for being here.