Zack Keeney - Bridging the Skills Gap: Empowering Tomorrow's IT Leaders

[00:00:11] Welcome to the latest installment of MSP Business School. As always, I'm Brian Doyle and I am really glad to be here today. This is the first one I'm recording after IT Nation. For those of you that were down there, it was great catching up with everybody. It was quite a turnout and definitely a lot of fun. But as my guest and I, who I'll introduce in a moment, we're talking about, there is something called recharging those social batteries at the end. It was a week that definitely takes a lot out of me.

[00:00:40] This year, I'm happy. At least I came back with my voice. Last year, I was not successful on that. So this is a good start. But that said, nobody cares about my week. They're here to hear my guests. That's the reality. And I want to introduce somebody I've just gotten to know, but is on an incredible mission. And I want to welcome Zack Keeney from Try Unity Strategies to the show today. Welcome, Zack. Thanks for joining me.

[00:01:05] Thank you so much, Brian. I'm grateful to be here.

[00:01:08] So, Zack, why don't we kick things off with you telling everybody a little bit about your backstory and how you ended up in the MSP world. And then we'll get into what you're doing today.

[00:01:20] Sure. So I'm not sure exactly how far back into my background you'd like me to go.

[00:01:26] As far as you would like to go.

[00:01:27] So I think it's important to note, and it really is something that shaped a lot of my life and learning things really early.

[00:01:38] I was in a single parent household with a mom that around age six started to struggle with prescription medications.

[00:01:48] And it put me in a situation that led me to be highly independent because I had to problem solve on my own in a lot of situations.

[00:01:56] And at that age, starting to learn independence and some social skills and some responsibility.

[00:02:04] It led me to what I like to call entrepreneurial skills very early.

[00:02:11] And then the willingness to kind of think outside of the box and do things in an entrepreneurial nature, starting as early as at age 10.

[00:02:20] And having those skills and that background led me to tremendous work ethic.

[00:02:28] And that led me a lot of work experience as well growing up.

[00:02:33] College, same thing.

[00:02:34] I found a way to get involved in startups, to always have an internship, to always have something that was teaching me more skills so that I could be productive in whatever it was I was going to do.

[00:02:47] I had this fear in college.

[00:02:49] And looking back, I wish I could hug myself.

[00:02:51] It's going to be all right.

[00:02:52] But I was so afraid that I wasn't going to get a job.

[00:02:55] You know, I'm just going to have to fucking go home.

[00:02:58] And that didn't seem like a very great solution.

[00:03:00] So I worked all of the time to be able to say, like, I have these accolades.

[00:03:06] I know how to do this.

[00:03:08] You know, it's very interesting when you share your background.

[00:03:11] You know, when people come from struggle, one of the things I do see is it does build that and instill that work ethic early, right?

[00:03:19] Because you really have to take on a sense of responsibility before most, unfortunately, most children are forced to make that transition.

[00:03:26] And it helps drive you.

[00:03:28] And, you know, it is true.

[00:03:30] I think certain people are really worried that they're going to be unemployed.

[00:03:33] And the funny part is they're usually the most employable people I know because the work ethic goes with it.

[00:03:39] But, you know, that fear is definitely a motivator.

[00:03:41] Kudos to you to, you know, harnessing it for good because it can also take you down another path.

[00:03:46] To credit to my mom, you know, when I tell my story, it's never super flattering of her.

[00:03:53] But she taught me how to trust my gut and how to learn, you know, for better or for worse.

[00:04:00] And she taught me right from wrong and work ethic.

[00:04:03] And all of that was extremely important in my journey.

[00:04:06] So now you're coming out of college and you've got this work ethic going.

[00:04:10] So what was the first thing that you did that you would consider professional?

[00:04:14] You know, obviously, I'm sure you had a number of task-based jobs.

[00:04:18] But what do you feel was your first pro win, if you will?

[00:04:22] Yeah.

[00:04:23] Another – it was another really exciting moment in my life.

[00:04:26] So I got accepted into a leadership and skills development program with Corporate Dominoes.

[00:04:31] They take eight to ten people a year, college graduates, and they put them through this five-year program that's focused on creating operations leaders, training and operations excellence with people that have already proven to be able to create excellence.

[00:04:48] And their thought process in the program is that if you're going to be making decisions for a business entity that has 19,000 business units, you need to really understand what's happening at the core level of the business day to day.

[00:05:04] Because if you make a choice that seems at a high level like it would be good, but because you don't actually understand how the lemon or how the juice meets the squeeze, you end up adding a major inefficiency that damages the business.

[00:05:20] So I really valued that experience, and I got to go through meeting high-level executives and then getting dumped into the deep end of the pool.

[00:05:30] And I was an assistant manager for five weeks.

[00:05:34] I learned how to make food essentially.

[00:05:36] I had done one food order.

[00:05:38] I had made one schedule, and I maybe had done one interview.

[00:05:41] And I took over a store that was doing pretty decent sales as a general manager and had a team of 20 to 30 people and got the experience of what it's like to struggle in operations,

[00:05:57] which anybody who's been in the restaurant industry or really anybody that's in the MSP space that works long hours and can experience burnout knows that if you're struggling and you're working 60 to 80 hours a week, it is tough on your mind and your body and your ability to communicate.

[00:06:14] So I learned those things firsthand, how to deliver expectations and get productivity out of a team, how to get people to work together.

[00:06:23] And then I moved to Salt Lake City, where I was responsible for the rollout of an operating model they were testing called Power of People, which I'm a spiritual person, and I believe things happen for a reason.

[00:06:37] And what an amazing opportunity for me to be a part of an operating model that was focused on empowering every individual team member of an operation to be successful in the operation.

[00:06:50] I did that for eight months or something, and it was all focused on me supporting managers in disseminating responsibility and setting expectations.

[00:07:02] Both of the markets that I supported became tremendously profitable and were growing in sales.

[00:07:08] I was promoted into a district role where I supervised starting at seven, regularly was eight, and then as many as 15 locations over about two years through COVID.

[00:07:22] We executed the operating model and we had just record-breaking numbers.

[00:07:28] And we had record-breaking numbers in terms of operations and sales in a tremendously trying time.

[00:07:34] But even more fantastically, we had record-breaking retention with managers.

[00:07:39] And in scenarios where the restaurant industry is booming, it's extremely challenging because of the demand.

[00:07:46] It's extremely challenging because of the fear of COVID.

[00:07:48] There's a lot of uncertainty at the time.

[00:07:50] And to be able to have cohesion in a management team and to be able to produce a lot of results, it was just an amazing experience.

[00:08:00] At age 26, coming from the background that I described, which was not one of a bunch of savings to start, I was able to save up enough money to ultimately own three Domino's locations in Pittsburgh.

[00:08:16] And I would call that a tremendous learning experience as well.

[00:08:20] I'll pause for a moment because that's a big mouthful there.

[00:08:24] Well, there's quite a few things that I want to dig a little deeper into that you shared.

[00:08:28] First, one of the things that I find amazing out there is these companies that some people will scoff at and not go to work for, right, that are giving some of the most amazing training programs.

[00:08:39] You know, you look at what you've shared with Domino's here and you look at, you know, places like Enterprise Rent-A-Car.

[00:08:45] They're really investing into people knowing probably 50 to 70 percent of them are not going to stay with them for the long term, right?

[00:08:51] They're making these investments not knowing who are going to be the ones that stay long term.

[00:08:55] But in the same breath, they're doing a better job of raising up the community at large and putting the right people out in the streets.

[00:09:03] And I know that's going to dovetail into a little bit of your story, you know, of today in a few moments.

[00:09:09] The second thing is to be 26 years old and have the responsibility of owning three different Domino's and all the things that go with it.

[00:09:17] Or hubris.

[00:09:19] You know?

[00:09:20] Hubris is part of it.

[00:09:21] But, you know, like you got to give yourself a little pat on the back there because, you know, in that ownership pendulum, we're blessed in the MSP space that most of our people that we hire are very professional just in general, right?

[00:09:35] They have a work ethic.

[00:09:37] They know they're going to come to work today.

[00:09:38] They know what they're going to do and they know they're going to go home and there's an expectation of what's going to be done there.

[00:09:43] But we do know that in, you know, in the world of Domino's where most of the workers are minimum wage workers, a real reality is who doesn't show up just because they don't want to?

[00:09:53] Who quits because somebody gave them 50 cents more, which is real.

[00:09:57] Don't get me wrong, you know, for some of those folks.

[00:09:59] And I'm sure you went through a number of challenges there that also tested your management style.

[00:10:04] Oh, absolutely.

[00:10:04] Well, you have to learn how to I mean, if you really want to retain people, you have to learn how to create a valuable work environment that isn't contingent upon a number.

[00:10:14] And and you'll see in statistics that people will stay in a job where they're making less money, but they trust the environment.

[00:10:23] They're comfortable with the people they work with and they get some sort of other valuable experience.

[00:10:31] It might be validation. It might be comfort. It might be security.

[00:10:35] You know, there's there's other things that are more valuable than necessarily a dollar on an hour.

[00:10:41] Now, if you're in a shitty environment and you're measure you're measuring, well, I'm going to jump from this shitty environment into what could be also shitty, but it couldn't possibly be worse than these than these these mother ducks.

[00:10:54] And it's an easier jump. Right. But if you make an environment where it's like, well, you know, I'd sure would like to make another dollar on the hour.

[00:11:03] But I know that Carlos is going to be fair with me. And when I need to take off or when I don't have child care, my X, Y, Z, it's OK here.

[00:11:11] And, you know, it's not always as flexible as that. Right. But there are things that you can do that can kind of fill the cracks in.

[00:11:21] And that's that's what we call culture. Right. And you hear the word.

[00:11:25] You were just taking the words out of my mouth. I was going to say we talk about culture a lot on this show and we talk about, you know, management style. Right.

[00:11:32] And things that keep people in jobs usually is if there's a culture of comfort that they feel values them and respects them. Right.

[00:11:39] And then the second part is the person that they work for. I mean, most people don't quit jobs. They quit managers.

[00:11:44] That's been proven a million times. And if they feel that the management has their back, is being fair with them, doesn't mean everything's rosy. Right.

[00:11:52] Doesn't mean that the job might not still be difficult or the pay might be low, but that they feel that there's at least, you know, a mutual respect on there and people are being treated as equals.

[00:12:02] They'll stay. Right. And they'll continue to work and often flourish.

[00:12:05] The other side of that coin, you said people don't quit jobs. They quit people. People don't work for companies.

[00:12:12] They work for their bosses. If you ask somebody, who do you work for?

[00:12:16] It's very, very rare that they're going to go into a flowery conversation about the company. Rare.

[00:12:23] You know, it's it's more about the team around you, because that's what makes that's what makes it up.

[00:12:32] You know, you call I'm I'm a sports guy. I'm a big Steelers fan.

[00:12:35] The Steelers are the Steelers, but they're different every year.

[00:12:39] You know what I mean? And if you have a culture, then they're similar every year.

[00:12:44] And I kind of like to think about it that way.

[00:12:46] So now you're just hitting me where it hurts because, you know, I'm a cowboy fan and there's just talk about a toxic culture and in us seeing the same thing every year.

[00:12:56] That was not what we saw in the first half of my life. But that's neither here nor there.

[00:13:00] Just a very painful time.

[00:13:03] We welcome you cheering for us.

[00:13:06] I think right now, you know, we all got to rip for the Lions, man.

[00:13:11] When was the last time you saw those guys do this?

[00:13:14] I agree. I was thinking about I was thinking about wearing a Lions hat and a Steelers jersey to the to the Lions Steelers Super Bowl this year.

[00:13:22] Because either way to just dogs willing to go in there and fight.

[00:13:26] Look at you making predictions. I love it.

[00:13:28] But but you know what? This is probably a good point to transition a little bit into what you're doing today.

[00:13:34] Right. So, you know, we've gotten a little bit of your backstory.

[00:13:37] And I think some of your core values that are going to come into what TriUnity does have come out through that story.

[00:13:43] But talk a little bit about what TriUnity's strategies is doing for the world at large.

[00:13:49] Sure. So there's two different things that we're doing.

[00:13:53] Well, there's a number of different things that we're doing, but there's two different things that we're going to talk about today.

[00:13:56] One is our leadership and skills development program that mimics the thought process of the Domino's program and some other experiences that I had that we didn't get into as much depth on.

[00:14:10] That if you want to succeed, one, it's an intrinsically motivated venture.

[00:14:17] And two, it starts with skills and learning.

[00:14:21] And I think that most MSPs have had the experience of struggling in the hiring process and knowing that when I hire people, they just don't know what I need them to know right off the bat.

[00:14:34] And I wish these college educated people knew how to X, Y and Z.

[00:14:38] And there's X amount of time that it takes to get somebody to be productive and valuable.

[00:14:41] And those are hard equations to make, especially when you're in a one or two or three person operation and you're looking to try to figure out how to scale.

[00:14:49] And then if they come in and they can't figure it out, you're talking about losses that can be really frustrating.

[00:14:54] So one of the things that and then on the other side of that, there are people in the restaurant industry who are amazing.

[00:14:59] There are people in college that are coming out that want to differentiate themselves.

[00:15:02] There are people like my mom that are single parents that struggle with were single.

[00:15:09] I don't know how you say that, you know, you know what I mean, that went through the experience of being a single parent and and having to make choices about what types of jobs they can take or where they can get an education.

[00:15:22] So the purpose of the program is to give folks that are intrinsically motivated to create change in where they're at in their life or their career, the opportunity to learn core skills, whether it be interpersonally or in a career path.

[00:15:40] And we're hoping to build that in a way it's completely free right now for what's going to always be completely free for the folks that are in it.

[00:15:50] And our goal there is to create a really clear pathway from either homelessness to transitional housing to I'm in not stable jobs and I want a good career to I'm in this career and I want to, you know, go from in this part of the startup world or I want to be an entrepreneur or, you know, I want I want to be able to create that because I was able to move.

[00:16:18] You know, from that moment when I was six years old and I realized I had to take some ownership here to a point where I love every day that I wake up because I get to talk to people like you and I get to be a part of, you know, interesting business conversations.

[00:16:30] So I think it's I don't think I know it's possible because I've lived it and I want to give as many people like me the opportunity to do it as well.

[00:16:39] So that's the leadership skills development program.

[00:16:42] So let's stay on that for just a couple of minutes if we could, you know, there's there's definitely so, you know, I heard a few things there that resonate with me.

[00:16:50] Right. First one is MSP space training challenges.

[00:16:54] Right. There's a reality to it.

[00:16:57] You know, we talked about all the great things that a large corporate organization can do in training because they do have the funding, the heels in the resources to do so.

[00:17:05] So in the MSP world, and we hear it all the time, especially during that front end phase where where companies are going from.

[00:17:12] I just hung a shingle outside to getting to some level of scale where they can develop true blue processes and then insert people into the right seats.

[00:17:19] Getting that training is difficult.

[00:17:21] And that that statement you said about learning is hard because we all know.

[00:17:25] I mean, I think one of the statistics I saw is we're actually roughly around 400,000 cybersecurity professionals short just for the open job recs that are out in the marketplace.

[00:17:35] Right. So, you know, the reality is we know that there's this gap between the skills that we come out of school with and the skills that we need to really fill the jobs that the MSPs are looking for.

[00:17:46] And the only way that we can close that gap is either MSPs realizing that they're going to have to do a little bit more professional development, be a little bit more tolerant and try to help out in that.

[00:17:56] And there are plenty that are doing so. So I don't want to pigeonhole anybody like it's not being done, just saying that's something there.

[00:18:02] Or there's programs like yours where you can help accelerate some of those skills.

[00:18:08] And then we'll get to the people themselves because I'm hearing a couple of things there that I'd love to touch on.

[00:18:12] If I could just add one little thing there and I'll give Domino's credit.

[00:18:18] One thing that I really learned in operations is you put your aces in your places.

[00:18:23] And if you've got somebody that's a really good trainer, let them train.

[00:18:27] If you've got somebody that's a really good coder, let them code.

[00:18:30] If you've got somebody that's a cybersecurity expert, don't put them in sales.

[00:18:34] You know, and I think that in ecosystems and in the economy, you can create that.

[00:18:43] Right. You've got your bakers and you've got your firefighters and we should do the same types of things, especially where we have problems in the space.

[00:18:51] We should work together to solve them. And I appreciate you highlighting that.

[00:18:54] No. And it's you know, when you talk about getting people in the right places.

[00:18:58] Right. You know, we alluded to sports earlier, but that's really the job of a coach or a manager.

[00:19:02] Right. And things change. The other part is that a lot of us, when we're in the early curve of our career, we don't really know what our skill sets are.

[00:19:09] We chose jobs based on an interest, but it doesn't mean that was really where your strength really was meant to be long term.

[00:19:17] Right. You know, I know personally I've been pushed into some operational positions when I know that's not my strength.

[00:19:24] I'm not the most detail oriented human being.

[00:19:27] I think you were looking for a link before this podcast.

[00:19:31] And, you know, but what I am is the guy that can connect people, that can get people rallied up.

[00:19:36] And fortunately, somebody earlier in my career figured that out.

[00:19:39] That's awesome. I love that.

[00:19:42] So cool. So, you know, we've got that piece of it.

[00:19:44] Then when you go to the other side of the coin, you know, when you talk about the people themselves.

[00:19:48] Right. One of the toughest things to do is break through.

[00:19:52] Right. A lot of people become a victim of circumstance, not through their their desire not to get out of that that rut, but just not having the skill sets or the connections to get themselves into a place.

[00:20:05] So maybe talk a little bit about where, you know, try unity can help there.

[00:20:09] Absolutely. Well, the first thing I want to say, and I think you'll probably love.

[00:20:13] Well, maybe maybe I'm hubris thing again, but you can't change the mind or the brain you have with the mind or the brain you have.

[00:20:21] And if you're in an environment where there are it's not very supportive, which many low socioeconomic environments don't have a bunch of leaders because either they leave or because, you know, the community struggle for a reason.

[00:20:35] If you don't have people there to support you, you may be intrinsically motivated, but only know what you know and not.

[00:20:46] Know some of the strategies and solutions necessary to create agencies.

[00:20:50] So similar to in the career side. Right.

[00:20:53] We just talked about the leadership and skills development program.

[00:20:55] That's also true in business.

[00:20:57] And there are things that people build businesses around knowing that are your natural skill sets.

[00:21:05] I love to have the conversation about grandma that's a baker opening a bakery and she knows everything about dough and yeast and bread, but sales and tax and, you know, the legality of setting up, you know, what size sign can she have and all this different municipality law.

[00:21:22] That's not her.

[00:21:23] I think I'm hearing a little emith in this in this story here.

[00:21:27] What is that?

[00:21:29] Emith.

[00:21:29] Emith.

[00:21:30] Michael Gerber wrote the book, The Emith.

[00:21:32] And one of the things he was talking about is somebody that was a baker.

[00:21:34] Okay.

[00:21:35] Who really didn't know how to do everything else.

[00:21:36] And while she had the most wild, you know, wild bakery goods, it couldn't get out of the way.

[00:21:40] So I thought you were referencing to that a little bit.

[00:21:43] It's probably where I've been taught.

[00:21:45] Somebody probably referenced it to me, you know, but I'll have to check it out.

[00:21:51] But anyway, I didn't mean to interrupt you.

[00:21:53] I just.

[00:21:53] No.

[00:21:54] Point was made.

[00:21:55] It's.

[00:21:55] Yeah.

[00:21:56] You're going to have those scenarios where you don't necessarily have all the knowledge that you wish that you did.

[00:22:04] And you might have to look outside either your team or your immediate environment to find it.

[00:22:11] One of the things that is really interesting about the MSP space right now is we're tremendously sound technically, but more than 50% of us are learning some of the soft skills that are required to build structured high level teams.

[00:22:31] Holding people accountable is a challenge.

[00:22:34] Setting expectations is a challenge.

[00:22:37] Long form communication can be a challenge, especially dealing with highly technical things.

[00:22:44] So when you're considering the idea of aces in your places and the idea of your environment that might not always support your learning, even if you are intrinsically motivated.

[00:22:55] One of the things my organization is really excited to do is offer two different ways that we support businesses in growing.

[00:23:05] One is strategic support where we go in and help build competencies in the organization so that when me and my team walk away, whatever was intended to happen continues happening in perpetuity.

[00:23:21] The other thing we do is service work on a slightly simpler scale.

[00:23:26] Hey, we need to hire one person or three people.

[00:23:29] Or, hey, we want help creating SOPs and process documentation for this type of stuff.

[00:23:35] Or, hey, we would like some grassroots marketing things done.

[00:23:38] We do that type of stuff too, but where our real bread and butter and excitement is helping build competencies in organizations.

[00:23:45] So, you know, let's expand on that a little bit.

[00:23:47] You know, I've gotten a good sense in this conversation and, you know, I know we have limited time to get it all out here.

[00:23:52] But you've got the ability to bring, you know, your people that are looking for that leg up and get them trained and give them the skills that they need.

[00:24:01] It sounds like that's really something that you offer to them at no additional cost, which is great.

[00:24:05] Now we pivot to the MSP space.

[00:24:08] And really here it sounds like you're helping them solve traditional problems in leadership that many who were accidental entrepreneurs, tech founders that found themselves into the industry, not really expecting to run a company per se, but saw an opportunity to go out on their own, get the soft skills they need to grow.

[00:24:27] But more importantly, you're helping them with resource expectations too, right?

[00:24:32] Yeah.

[00:24:33] Yeah.

[00:24:34] Well, there's a bunch of different things that you have to consider as it relates to building a scalable business.

[00:24:39] And so many folks that want to grow, again, like we discussed, may not know exactly what it takes because I come from the restaurant industry.

[00:24:48] You know, I don't know tech perfect, but I'm learning it and I'm making concerted effort to educate myself in my free and for fun time.

[00:24:55] But what I do know is scalable processes and people.

[00:25:00] And that's the same in restaurants as it is in sports, as it is in the managed service provider environment.

[00:25:06] And when you're dealing with people, those soft skills translate as well.

[00:25:11] Toughest part where you see with, you know, relatively green founders is letting go, right?

[00:25:16] Passing the baton and letting others then take the reins with it.

[00:25:20] And those are the steps that you take that fosters that growth and that training that these folks need.

[00:25:25] You have to.

[00:25:26] So, Zach, any closing thoughts before we get into, you know, where people can find you and, you know, what's out there for people as well?

[00:25:36] Absolutely.

[00:25:37] My first thought is thank you again for having me.

[00:25:40] And I'm looking forward to getting to know you more professionally and personally.

[00:25:45] The second closing thought or I guess my true closing thought or last closing thought is my closing closing thought is we're looking to find ways to engage with folks in the service provider space slowly.

[00:26:01] Absolutely. We recognize. I mean, I come.

[00:26:05] So the two years or 18 months prior to me making this transition and going full time with this mission was focused on learning in the tech space with with a vendor and really understanding the problems in the industry so that I could be supportive.

[00:26:23] Now, one of the things I do know to be true is that the buying process, whether it be for a tool or a solution, requires building trust.

[00:26:33] And when you're talking about bringing somebody in, especially somebody from the restaurant industry or for outside of the industry and that's an entrepreneur or a business owner that's my age.

[00:26:45] Right. There's a lot of things that I recognize could be.

[00:27:22] Very valuable to be.

[00:27:22] And I think that's a mission that's really near and dear to my heart.

[00:27:26] And then we provide a no touch roadmap to making some improvements in those areas in your business.

[00:27:34] Now, if anybody wants support in executing that roadmap, we freaking love to do it and we look forward to it.

[00:27:41] But we're committed to not hassling you with a bunch of marketing and providing you with some solutions that can help you take some next steps with a low stress way.

[00:27:51] So hopefully we can start to really pick things up and get to know more service providers out there.

[00:27:57] And again, I'm really grateful to be able to share that on your platform.

[00:28:00] Zach, really appreciate you joining me today.

[00:28:02] You know, the things that you're doing and the way that you're helping out both the community of folks looking for jobs, looking for new opportunities in the career.

[00:28:10] And then, of course, the MSP is being able to broaden their scope a little bit and take some of the onus off the entrepreneur who's just getting started is great.

[00:28:17] You know, kudos to you for finding a problem that I think a lot of people in the industry really didn't couldn't vocalize or couldn't understand directly.

[00:28:24] You know, that I'm what the need is.

[00:28:27] And certainly if we can support you getting the word out, we'll work to do that.

[00:28:31] In the meantime, folks, I want to thank Zach for joining me today.

[00:28:34] As always, you'll be able to find this podcast up on YouTube or wherever you download your podcast.

[00:28:40] So, you know, keep an eye out for that.

[00:28:42] Zach, it was great having you on here.

[00:28:44] I look forward to getting to know you better as well.

[00:28:46] And, you know, we'll look to catch up soon.

[00:28:50] Thanks, Brian.

[00:28:50] All right.

[00:28:51] Take care.

[00:28:52] Cool.