How to Ensure Your Clients Get a Return on IT, with Val King (#9)

[00:00:00] I am making your business better. So you engaged in this assessment for me and it wasn't, I finally talked you into it and you did it and it's all my benefit because I'm going to tell you where you suck. Right? And now here's all the projects you need to do so that we can start an engagement. There's value in terms of here's what you're getting. You gave me some of your time and I'm giving you back some deliverable of value. So yeah, there's some projects that need to be done, but here's some insights about your business. Did you realize that your business was a good idea?

[00:00:30] Your support organization is getting too many tickets. And as a result, that's puking on top of your project team, like I said earlier. Now your projects aren't completing on time because all your project people are working support tickets. Did you understand that? You know that that's fixable. You know, oh, oh, wait, what? Huh? So giving them those kinds of meaningful benefits, you know, showing them a new metric, a new insight into their business to how it's better and then putting it in English, not la la la la, you know, gobbledygook, but in English.

[00:01:00] So they get it. Hey guys, Damien Stevens, host of MSP Mindset. Today, I continue my mission to interview 100 of the top 500 MSPs on the planet. And joining me today is Val King of White Hat Technology.

[00:01:20] Now, sure, he's gone from one person startup to 50 employees and is fully remote, which is pretty interesting. But what I think is really interesting is it's one thing to say that you care about work-life balance and your team and your culture.

[00:01:35] And it's a whole nother to use the theory of constraints and employee heat map technology to understand how utilized or overutilized your team is.

[00:01:45] If you care about your team and you want to know more, don't miss out on our conversation today.

[00:01:51] Tell me about the first three years. I think you had some pretty good growth there.

[00:01:56] Yeah. So one of the first things I did was, and being exited from the former company, there were a few customers that I didn't think they handled well.

[00:02:10] Just didn't quite finish projects or just kind of left stuff undone.

[00:02:16] And it didn't sit right with me. Like my name was associated with that. So that, and that bothered me a lot.

[00:02:23] So the first thing I did was went to some of those customers and said, look, I'll, like in one in particular is like, look, I'll give you two days of free time.

[00:02:31] And it wasn't even work that I was, I mean, I was tied to from an account manager previously, but it's like, I don't, I just don't like the way that ended.

[00:02:37] Got an engineer. I'll, I'll give you him for two days and see if we can't get you to a place where you're functional because you're not functional right now.

[00:02:45] You can't get yourself out of this hole without help. And you don't even know what kind of help you need.

[00:02:50] So that's the first thing I did was going to those, those folks and just, and trying to make things right.

[00:02:59] And out of that, we picked up customers and we picked up a really nice customer.

[00:03:02] So it was very easy for us to blaze past a million in revenue our first year.

[00:03:09] So much so that I probably took that for granted. I'm like, well, shoot, this is, this is simple.

[00:03:15] If I can make one, I can make three. I can make, I can make five, 20, whatever. What's, what's the problem?

[00:03:20] So, so that was it. It was, it was fast growth the first year.

[00:03:24] And we, we successfully got to two to 3 million by year three.

[00:03:31] Yeah, I think we got to a little over two years. We got to 3 million.

[00:03:34] I was like, this is, this is cake. I should have done this years ago.

[00:03:39] And then we started hitting a wall. We hit a wall at 3 million. We hit a wall at 5 million.

[00:03:43] Um, and, and I was really, really frustrated by it because the things that were going wrong were the things that we had solved before.

[00:03:54] Right. I mean, it was, this all worked. We had a process and it was, and it was, it was good.

[00:03:59] And it was something, you know, it's like, okay, that part just works. Right.

[00:04:02] I'm going to, I have to go, I don't know, like that first car in high school. Right.

[00:04:06] I didn't have to work with the tires because I just put new tires on it, but the engine and the starter was a little jicky.

[00:04:11] And the door, you know, those are the things I was worrying about. And so then you lose a tire, you know, as an analogy, you're like, wait, wait, I just, I just, we just fixed that.

[00:04:19] What's wrong? And realizing that the processes we put in place that got us successfully to 1 million to 3 million, weren't going to get us to five.

[00:04:28] And, and so they, then, then I, I mean, it, this was not instantaneous, right?

[00:04:34] This is still me being dumb, having to slam my head against a wall, realizing that, oh, this is, this is, this is me at 13, you know, 12, 13, 14, you know, growing and my shins hurting and everything else.

[00:04:47] This is growth. This is, these are breaking, not because we're mailing it and we're doing a crappy job.

[00:04:53] This is breaking because the, the machine is too big. The parts are too weak on the machine.

[00:04:59] So we need to replace the parts to continue the growth. And, and that took a while. I mean, it took us a long time.

[00:05:06] We probably hung out at 5 million for three or four years, right? It didn't matter.

[00:05:11] Like every, every year, you know, it's like, I'd, I'd, I'd back up and take a run at the wall.

[00:05:15] Like, okay, we got this great plan. Here we go. And, you know, start off in, in December, January and, and run at full speed and slam right into the wall and end up at 5 million again.

[00:05:25] It's just like, why, what are we doing? So, you know, it just slowly, but surely worked it out there.

[00:05:31] And after that, it has been, it's been a slog, right? It's little, little, little bits of growth that are, I can't say easy,

[00:05:39] but it's, it's like you, you improve your management practices and then your business improves to that level.

[00:05:47] And every once in a while you can hit one out of the park and, you know, your business goes bananas.

[00:05:51] But if your management level doesn't quickly rise to the level of that revenue,

[00:05:55] then the revenue is going to come right back down on your head and say, look, you know, you're,

[00:06:00] you have the management practices of a $5 million business. Congratulations on doing nine,

[00:06:05] nine, but now you're doing five again because you didn't, you didn't figure out how to level up,

[00:06:10] how you, how you do what you do. You just got lucky and you weren't able to take advantage of that.

[00:06:16] So a little bit of that. But anyway, so yeah, after that, it's, we've, you know, we've, we've had fairly steady

[00:06:24] growth trying to get our Ascent Governance and Compliance Portal product off the ground,

[00:06:30] which started internal, which came from a place of realizing that our, we cared more about security than our

[00:06:37] customers did, particularly our healthcare customers. And then they were trying to kind of shove that risk over to us.

[00:06:43] Like, well, some of this is ours, yes, but whoa, you got some, so we can't be responsible for everything.

[00:06:49] So we built a real version one was a bunch of pre-printed post-it notes stuck on the wall in a conference room,

[00:06:55] which was great until the cleaning lady came through. So I realized we needed, I mean, 1,000 pre-printed post-it notes,

[00:07:03] literally 1,000 of them stuck to big, huge post-it sheets around a wall. It was a beautiful art installation.

[00:07:07] I mean, it looked great. It looked like something out of Pixar, but, but anyway, so, you know, had to go,

[00:07:13] had to go to software. So we built that to, to help keep, help our customers keep score.

[00:07:18] And, and I would say create sunshine reports, which is help them understand where they're accountable and not doing

[00:07:24] anything. So anyway, we tried to, to separate that out and launch it. And that's been, that's been tough.

[00:07:32] And, and trying to, to grow that and, and build and maintain White Hat as well. So we took a revenue dip for

[00:07:39] White Hat because its little brother was taking all of its money getting off the ground, but you know,

[00:07:45] anyway, so, so here we are 2024 trying to finish strong. We'll have a fairly solid year, you know, good margins,

[00:07:52] good people, and you know, trying to figure out what to, what to do next. We've got, we got a few things we,

[00:08:00] we're going to be working on to, to try to make us a better beast, right? I'll, because I'll, I'll make a, another run

[00:08:05] next year on, you know, trying to get to, to 20, 25 million of which we're a long way away from, but

[00:08:12] that's, that's where trying to get this, trying to grow this too. But in a way that doesn't crush

[00:08:18] the soul out of the people that work here, right? And that, that doesn't dilute the experience that

[00:08:23] we're trying to create. So anyway, it's a, it is not without its challenges.

[00:08:30] Hey guys, today's episode is sponsored by Servocity. I created Servocity because I was an MSP

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[00:09:07] Yeah, that does a ton to unpack there. I want to ask you about the last piece there. Tell me more

[00:09:16] about, you know, crush the soul of the people that work here, dilute the experience you deliver,

[00:09:21] because I think it's easy to get wrapped around numbers and think one to 2 million or five to 10

[00:09:27] million or 10 to 20 or, or, you know, 15 to 20 or 20 to 25 or whatever the numbers you're going for,

[00:09:33] you know, and that sounds great from a business perspective, right? You know, we all have these

[00:09:37] charts that go up and to the right. And obviously it doesn't always go that way. But tell me a little

[00:09:44] bit more about how do you, how do you ensure you're not crushing the souls that work for you

[00:09:51] and diluting the experience? That's a, that's, that's a fantastic question. For us, it began,

[00:09:58] so we, we had to, so for us, Autotask was the tool underneath it all. Love and hate over the years

[00:10:05] is what it is. But we couldn't really run projects out of Autotask successfully. And our project,

[00:10:13] our on-time percentage for projects was 60, 70 percent, where we would miss 30 plus percent of

[00:10:20] the time. So I accidentally read The Phoenix Project by Gene Kim. And in their book, there's a

[00:10:27] character named Eric, who's kind of the guru, who's, who's kind of, you know, educating the,

[00:10:32] the young neophyte as he's going through his, it's written as a business, it's written as a

[00:10:37] business novel. But anyway, it's, it's more around dev, but they have some IT operations

[00:10:41] components in it. And the guy in the book mentions, you know, the, the book, The Gold by

[00:10:46] Gold Rat. I'm like, what's a gold rat? And I thought it was just something made up for the book.

[00:10:50] And so I look it up. I'm like, oh no, Eli Gold Rat's a real dude. And he wrote a real book called The

[00:10:56] Goal. So that sent me down a journey of, of, of understanding what resources do to,

[00:11:04] you know, where your bottlenecks are. So I don't know, I use an example of a teddy bear factory,

[00:11:09] you know, you got five little machines, this one can, so, you know, the, can cut out 20 teddy bear

[00:11:15] pieces an hour. This one can stitch together 10 teddy bear pieces, et cetera, on down the line.

[00:11:20] And, and where's your bottleneck? And your bottleneck is, well, the machine that can only make

[00:11:24] 10, right? So I don't want everybody working at capacity because I just end up with this pile of

[00:11:30] teddy bear parts in front of this one machine because it won't move any faster. So that, that for me was,

[00:11:36] I mean, it seems logical, but it was a light switch moment to say, okay, where's, where's our bottleneck?

[00:11:42] Looking at Autotask and all the tools we had, I mean, you kind of know, you kind of know who your

[00:11:46] particular rock star is the North star who's shining down on everybody, but it's like, oh,

[00:11:51] we need to figure out a way to, to understand what the load is on our resources. So we, we picked

[00:11:58] ultimately a tool called Exopron because I got from the goal to critical chain, critical chain is the

[00:12:04] project management methodology. So we took that and then found a piece of software that embodied that,

[00:12:09] which for us was Exopron. So then we could load what's our ticket and support load, and then what's

[00:12:14] our project load? And we get a little heat map that's out every week, if not every month, where

[00:12:20] you can see green, yellow, red, glowing red, how much you're cooking a resource. And so that for us

[00:12:28] was huge. And as a result of, of changing the way we did projects, our project completion percentage

[00:12:34] on time went to 90, 94%, give or take. So huge improvement for the company. But more importantly to

[00:12:41] me is you could see what you were doing to the people, right? I mean, they're, you see their name

[00:12:46] and they're lit up red this week, they're green next week. So much so it'd be like, okay, this guy's

[00:12:51] getting cooked. He's taking a couple of mandatory days off, right? You're, you're taking Friday off.

[00:12:55] No, no, no. I'm, you know, and these, these are always the people that'll grind themselves in the

[00:12:58] ground and cook themselves. So like, nope, you're, you, you got to cool off, right? We got to, we got

[00:13:05] to get you out of the game a little bit. Or, you know, if they get hosed and having to do stuff over

[00:13:09] weekend and nights, just like IT, right? We're working when nobody else is, then making sure

[00:13:13] that we're balancing that out. But we could use that chart to look at our utilization, to understand

[00:13:21] how, how our team was doing overall. Like we've got one resource that he likes to run at 137%

[00:13:26] utilization. And, and he won't, I mean that that's normal to him. Anything less than that,

[00:13:32] he's miserable. And more than that, obviously he's miserable, but 137 is his number. So that's just

[00:13:38] what, okay, then load him to 137 and he's happy and he can, he can run for years, but put him at 90

[00:13:45] and he's, he's, he's terrible. So it's just very interesting of, so watching that about your people.

[00:13:51] Now we had to get better at keeping, keeping track of time, which is, you know, that's a,

[00:13:55] that's an arrow in the side of every MSP. And we're, we're not without our struggles in that area,

[00:14:01] but that was the biggest piece for us was that was a way for me to kind of have the pulse on the

[00:14:08] people in the organization while watching the growth and what we're doing and understanding,

[00:14:13] you know, if our, if our margins aren't there or revenues not there, or, or what is it? Do we have

[00:14:19] too many people? Do we have too much payroll? Do we have capacity? We're not selling what,

[00:14:23] what are we doing wrong? That's also been a very key metric to understand, okay, well,

[00:14:29] our people are working now, are they working efficiently? So it's, it's helped us ask a

[00:14:34] better set of questions to understand what's going on in our business. I won't say we've perfected

[00:14:38] it. I've recently gone through another round of this of trying to kind of spin the Rubik's Cube

[00:14:43] around for, for the next round of growth to, to try to figure out where some of our challenges

[00:14:48] are, but it's been a very important tool to, to gauge the heat of the company. How, you know,

[00:14:55] how hot are we running? Is that sustainable? What's our capacity look like? Also calm the noise down

[00:15:03] for us. Sorry, I'm answering questions you didn't even ask, but to get back to what you asked,

[00:15:08] that's it. Understanding what my ticket load, what my project load is and what that's doing to our

[00:15:14] resources. And if they're green, you know, light green or, you know, zero capacity to a hundred plus,

[00:15:20] or if they're going to get buried, making sure that we still treat them like humans and give them some

[00:15:25] time to cool off and have time with their family. That has been a great kind of balancing,

[00:15:32] trying to, trying to maintain that equilibrium to, to keep happy people that'll deliver and having a

[00:15:37] good experience that can deliver a good experience to hopefully help us hit, hit the growth. But

[00:15:42] you're right. You just focus on the numbers. Then, um, I don't think you can be successful

[00:15:49] long-term. At least I, I can't. And in the way that I like to operate, there may be other people

[00:15:54] that have figured out how to unlock that. That's a, that's a level I haven't got to yet. I don't have

[00:15:58] the cheat code for that one. It's about the people. So, so many follow-ups I have there, Val.

[00:16:03] Okay. Fair enough. We got time. So ask, ask away.

[00:16:07] I love it. Um, for, for those who are listening, the, the goal and critical chain books are both,

[00:16:15] are both by L.I. Goldratt and, um, who's, uh, just an amazing read. And, uh, so it helps you

[00:16:22] identify the top constraint, the top bottleneck. Um, and, uh, so that was also kind of a game changer

[00:16:28] for me.

[00:16:29] I liked it so much that I'm now a board member of a theory of constraints, uh, the, the, the

[00:16:36] organization supporting it. I mean, it did so much for our business that I attended the, their events

[00:16:41] and now I'm, I'm literally a sitting board member because it, it gave so much to us that I feel,

[00:16:48] you know, I don't know. It's like somebody does something nice for you. So you feel that reciprocity

[00:16:51] thing that you need to give back. So, I mean, ultimately I, I, I, I became a board member or ran

[00:16:57] for it and they were crazy enough to let me on the board. But for that reason is it made such a

[00:17:02] huge impact in our business that I wanted to, to try to give some of that back and help others figure

[00:17:08] it out because it's, I mean, it's, it's just, life is so much better knowing when to start a project,

[00:17:16] right? They give your project to start. No, no, no. This, this resource that we don't have full kit

[00:17:20] until another two weeks. So I'm going to start there when I've got all the stuff. We're not just going

[00:17:24] to run off and start 50 projects and they're all just going to meander around and, and die a

[00:17:30] grizzly death. Anyway, sorry, but yeah, it's, it's, it's meant a huge, it's been a huge one,

[00:17:36] you know, one of those few things you can look back and go, okay, there's a, you know, there's,

[00:17:40] there's, there's an arc in the hockey stick right there with that decision. Thank you for getting that

[00:17:45] one right. Right. Well, I appreciate this because sometimes I go down these rabbit holes and get deep

[00:17:50] in things like the, you know, if I think if I tell somebody about the theory of constraints,

[00:17:54] they're going to look at me and go, you know, I don't know what you're talking about. Right.

[00:17:58] I get that same look, by the way, theory of constraints, critical chain, huh? What?

[00:18:02] You mean critical path? No, no, no, no, no. That's not what I mean at all. But yeah, sometimes,

[00:18:07] yeah, I'm not a hit at parties. If, if that, if that line of conversation comes out, you're like,

[00:18:12] yeah, no, no, let's, let's, let's go back to football or baseball. Cause we're not,

[00:18:15] we're not getting anywhere with this line of question. I love that. I love that. Well,

[00:18:22] on that note, so I wanted to kind of unpack that. What I love about it, right. Is you can read the

[00:18:28] book, you can apply those that that make a big change in my life and in yours. I also love how

[00:18:34] you're tying it to people and process. So we all struggle whether it's your PSA or RMM to track time.

[00:18:43] And then tell me about the name of the tool again that you implemented.

[00:18:46] Exepron, E-X-E-P-R-O-N. They've taken critical chain and poured it into a SAS software product

[00:18:54] so that you can track your individual resources. You can track them by pool. So let's say,

[00:19:00] you know, I've got three people that understand M365. So if a project comes up for M365,

[00:19:06] I can just plug in generic M365 resource. I've got three and it'll work that out. Or

[00:19:11] you've got that one guru who only knows that one secret squirrel thing. That's your bottleneck.

[00:19:16] Then you can, you can layer them all in and size your projects. And they have something in it called

[00:19:21] running the drums. You can take your whole portfolio of projects and it'll shuffle out

[00:19:28] the skill sets that everybody has. So if I need that one guy, I need you here Monday, Tuesday,

[00:19:34] I need you on this project Wednesday. I need you on this project on Friday. It works all that out for you.

[00:19:39] And I need you to work on these specific tasks for that day. So if laid it and it'll lay it all out.

[00:19:46] And then the next thing that happens, like, you know, for us, when we were using waterfall,

[00:19:49] Microsoft project is you'd build this beautiful Gantt chart. And then two days in somebody gets

[00:19:54] sick and the whole thing just, you know, goes sideways that has buffers built in

[00:20:01] to the project itself to it's, it's accommodating for, for Murphy's law and everything that goes dumb.

[00:20:08] I mean, you think about when you're driving on the highway and somebody is merging on what happens,

[00:20:12] everybody in that lane slows down to figure out how to assimilate that car into the line. And,

[00:20:18] and for us that was like, well, why would we expect that to be automagical build a buffer there? So we

[00:20:23] can slow down to, to bring on this new person, get their resources plugged in before we go again.

[00:20:29] So little things like that, just put logic around projects, took a lot of the mystery out. And anyway,

[00:20:36] so Exapron does all that in a, in a software package. And then when you add a new project,

[00:20:42] you can, you know, what they would say is run the drum and it'll weave that new project in without

[00:20:48] blowing up everything else. So it, it, it's smart enough to know. And then you, if I haven't been

[00:20:54] able to, to monetize it yet, but it can give you a date that is so definite that again, I've, I haven't

[00:21:03] figured out a way to leverage it. I know others that have, that I can say definitively, if I can

[00:21:07] have this done by X date. And if, oh, you need this done in four weeks, well, okay, give me, you

[00:21:13] know, 10% or 20% more money and I can hit that date. I haven't, I, again, I haven't found a way

[00:21:17] to monetize that, but we have that ability to say, okay, well, if I've got to pull this forward two

[00:21:22] weeks, then I know what needs to move to make that happen. So that, that's, that's really empowering,

[00:21:29] especially to a PM team. And I've got one great lead project manager who's, who's embraced it,

[00:21:36] who, who, who makes it dance, but it's been a great tool for us. And in three days, you'll have

[00:21:41] all your projects in it and you'll know how to use it. It's not one of those things where you got

[00:21:44] to have an FTE off in the basement that is chained to a desk, you know, that has to learn this thing.

[00:21:50] And they do the training and it was phenomenal. Yeah. After three days of training, we were,

[00:21:54] we were fully armed and slapping projects in and we, we learned to sense obviously, but it was,

[00:21:59] it was quick and made a, made an immediate impact in our business.

[00:22:04] Nobody in IT knows a certainty when they'll actually deliver. So if you're able to get

[00:22:07] something like that, let alone be able to pull it forward, if there was a way to monetize or if

[00:22:12] your client needed it is huge. Is this something you guys solely use for project management? Do you

[00:22:18] use this for resource allocation inside of managed services?

[00:22:21] We use it. So, so we use two different types of project management tools. All of the projects

[00:22:27] that we're delivering for customers, IT projects, yes, all that runs through Exapron.

[00:22:32] The only thing, so, but if you end up with, I don't know, like a task list, then we'll use

[00:22:39] like a Monday or something like that to just, to just manage tasks. Some, you know, something simple

[00:22:45] that's, there's not, you know, 57 moving pieces and it's not a resource constraint. It's just Val,

[00:22:51] Val needs to do these 10 things today or, and then we'll, if it's a, so basically we've got a separate

[00:22:57] solution if it's just an individual task, some use just to do from Microsoft to track.

[00:23:03] Let me ask a better question.

[00:23:05] Reframe that. What I'm getting at from a resource perspective is everybody in your team

[00:23:09] that you understand this heat map in there, or is this just, oh, well, I've got like 10 out of 50

[00:23:15] that do projects and the other 40 that deliver help desk and manage services.

[00:23:18] Because, you know, we don't really have a deep map.

[00:23:20] No, that's, that's a, a much better question. So the, the challenge as a lot of service providers

[00:23:25] have is our support staff is not separate from our project staff. In other words, if the ticket

[00:23:31] escalates high enough, it's going to move into the project team because that's all really where all

[00:23:36] the super secret squirrel smart people are. So the, the, the Exapron tool runs everybody who's

[00:23:43] involved in an active project that may include support, uh, and it, or it may not, but support

[00:23:49] by itself, if they're not touching projects, they're not in Exapron. I run them off of, off of a different,

[00:23:55] um, metric. So leveraging metric net, which is a organization that does a great job of benchmarking

[00:24:02] service desks. Um, so we understand how many tickets should a customer have, how many tickets,

[00:24:09] you know, what's the, what should be our, our, our closed speed. So I know how many tickets and

[00:24:15] engineers should be able to work a day. And, and we, you know, if they're field support or if they're

[00:24:21] sitting behind a desk or desktop support. So we have various metrics that we put in place to look at

[00:24:26] how taxed they are. So I know, are we, are we, you know, we will, so I don't want a customer to have

[00:24:34] more than, uh, two to really three tickets per, per end user. Uh, that's, that's incorrect. So

[00:24:43] I would say that, let's say it's a hundred user MSP, a hundred end users, employees working for the

[00:24:48] company. When we get there, I don't have, I would expect to see a hundred or more tickets. If it's not

[00:24:54] well-managed, I've got one ticket for every employee that works there. Our job is to systematically

[00:24:59] introduce automation of which we're at about 70% to get that down to, if I've got a hundred people

[00:25:05] working there, I don't want more than 30 tickets a month. If I get to 50 tickets, that's a good

[00:25:10] way point, but ultimately I want it to be 30. Uh, in, in general, that means that we've got the right

[00:25:17] systems in place. We've found the places we need to fix. And then from there, then my time on tickets,

[00:25:23] probably about 30 minutes, total time on ticket. Again, we're going to try to drive that down.

[00:25:27] We've, we've got some customers we started with where they're at 27 hours a ticket, right?

[00:25:32] Uh, and so anyway, it's a, it's a continual set of steps that we go through to get that down, but

[00:25:37] I want to get that to, you know, 30 minutes or an hour, but anyway, just extrapolate out that time.

[00:25:41] So I can look at the number of tickets coming in every month. I can look at the number of resources

[00:25:46] and we've got calculators built where I can tell, do I need another FTE or do, or how, how do we need

[00:25:54] to, how do we need to not cook these resources? And then if, then the challenging part though,

[00:25:59] is if they've got project time, then allocating, you know, I can only have 60% for support and 25%

[00:26:06] for projects. And then there's a certain percentage that we just write off to admin time. Just, you

[00:26:11] know, you're in the car driving, you went to lunch, you went to the bathroom, whatever. We don't,

[00:26:15] we don't micromanage all of that stuff. We just allocate a percentage based on their role

[00:26:20] and write that time off. But anyway, that's, that's how we manage support to make sure that

[00:26:27] we understand the volume of tickets that are coming in, the complexity and what we need to do with them,

[00:26:34] as well as how, how heavily we're loading our staff. And then that informs when I need another one

[00:26:41] or when I need a different skillset. So some of that is fairly well-baked. Some of that is a little

[00:26:47] more, little more magic and art. So I don't want to make that sound like it's this perfect little

[00:26:52] wall chart somewhere who lays all this out, but that gets us 80, 90% of the way there,

[00:26:58] which helps us make sure that, that we've got the right resources in place. And again, we're not,

[00:27:03] we're not crushing those people. Now I don't have anything for that, for the admin staff,

[00:27:06] like my poor trusty assistant. There's, there's, there's no mechanism short of, you know,

[00:27:12] her just flopped over, passed out at her desk or something that would tell me that there might be a,

[00:27:17] problem. But so, but if you're, if you are delivering support or delivering projects,

[00:27:23] then we've got a mechanism to, to make sure that, that we're, we're okay.

[00:27:29] Yeah. I love that. I mean, that's way more pragmatic advice than just track your time and

[00:27:35] run a report. And I find that as an industry, there's best practices of, oh, you can only,

[00:27:42] you know, sell this percentage of their time. You want exactly 75 or 80% utilization. And, and, but,

[00:27:49] but, you know, like you picked out, you've got somebody that wants 130 something percent,

[00:27:54] you know, utilization, people are different. And so I love that you can kind of understand

[00:28:01] that, understand if you're, you know, in the red or, or, or past that and,

[00:28:06] and treat them as people. Right. How does that, how does that show up in your culture

[00:28:14] in terms of how your team works and how you look for new hires?

[00:28:22] Wow. You just asked a question. It's going to take all of our time if I answer it to the extent

[00:28:26] that I want to. So from, look from a, the biggest thing I want is, is a, is a cultural fit with the

[00:28:34] team when we're looking for, for new hires. So we know roughly when we need to add people.

[00:28:41] And we're, we're continuing to turn those knobs to get better at it. But outside of that, it's a,

[00:28:47] it's a, it's such a culture, such a culture thing. What I look for is, unless I'm looking for

[00:28:54] some high-end engineer with some particular skillset that I need to immediately plug a gap,

[00:29:00] I'm looking for a motor in their chest, right? And, and, and can think. And if, if we're there

[00:29:05] and they've got some IT aptitude, then, then great, we can leverage you. But I can take the

[00:29:10] smartest person in the world that knows everything. And if they don't have a motor in their chest to

[00:29:13] get out of bed and do anything, and it can't be passionate about anything, then that's just,

[00:29:18] that's, that's, that's not going to be a good, a good fit for us. Now, but you know, you, you,

[00:29:25] you go over to the, to the sales side and, and I've done an abysmal job of, of, of building a very

[00:29:32] clean, straightforward sales process and hiring the right kind of folks to come in and fit and deliver

[00:29:37] that. I, I, I'm still in the corner with a dunce cap on with that one. I've, I have lobbed hundreds

[00:29:43] into the parking lot many, many, many, many, many times for, for no apparent reason. So

[00:29:47] I would say on the, on the delivery teams, we, you know, and I let their managers, I'm last if I'm

[00:29:55] interviewing them at all, but you know, their managers and, and the key people they're going

[00:29:59] to be working with, they need to make sure they're a fit. We still get it wrong every once in a while,

[00:30:03] but we're quick to, you know, move them on. That's, I guess I would, let me pause there for a second

[00:30:10] because for a long time, I thought when you made, you had a hire and they weren't great and that you

[00:30:16] just needed to invest more and more into them to get them great. And then I realized, you know,

[00:30:22] you think that's the humane thing to do. I'm going to grow this person into the role, but some,

[00:30:26] some people can't grow or don't want to grow. And so you end up doing more damage to your company

[00:30:33] because you say, here's all these great things you want to do. And then people look around and

[00:30:37] everybody knows, well, that person's not performing. So I hear you say this, but what's that?

[00:30:42] So you actually, it is more humane and better for the people that work at a company in some cases

[00:30:47] to separate from an employee than to continue to invest over and over again in somebody who's,

[00:30:55] who's just not a good fit, right? Trying to jam a square peg into a round hole. And it,

[00:30:59] I don't mean that to be inhumane. There's nothing around those people. Some of those people I'm,

[00:31:02] I'm still friends with and, and they're great. They're just not a fit for where they are.

[00:31:07] And you've got to keep, you know, I look at, I look at our company like the, you know, you know,

[00:31:11] you look at the face of a watch and, you know, you got three little hands zipping around seconds,

[00:31:15] minutes, hours, but you flip open the flip over the back and take the back off. And you see all

[00:31:20] the little cogs and gears and everything whizzing around in there. That's what I need. I need,

[00:31:24] I need concert behind the scenes and behind the curtain. We can accept a level of chaos because

[00:31:30] we're, you know, we're on the receiving end of stuff, but all the pieces have to fit together.

[00:31:36] And if they don't fit, then, then that I see that as part of my job now is to,

[00:31:41] to take the pieces off the board that, that aren't a fit, right? Don't be mean. It's not,

[00:31:45] there's, there's no ill will towards the person. It's just, you're a fit or you're not a fit. And,

[00:31:49] and then in some cases trying to help them find new and improved places to be that might be a better

[00:31:54] fit for what they need now that I've had some time to work with them. But anyway, so I would say

[00:31:59] that's an important part for services providers looking at this or really anybody is

[00:32:05] focusing all your time on the person who's not working out instead of taking care of the three,

[00:32:10] five, 10, 20, 100 that are working out that can send a mixed message to them,

[00:32:15] which can do more damage to your company overall than keeping somebody around who's,

[00:32:20] who's not a good fit or a drag on the operation. That's, that's, that's an important piece that

[00:32:27] I don't articulate very often, but that's, that's been a very important, hard learned piece of,

[00:32:34] of, of advice there. So do with it what you will, but it's, it's, it's served us well.

[00:32:42] No, no, I, I learned the same lesson. It was very counterintuitive. It seems like if you have the,

[00:32:47] if you have a challenge, you should help. And I think, you know, if you have a heart for people

[00:32:51] like you do and I do, Val, you want to help them. And there are certain people that, you know,

[00:32:56] they just run into a tough time or they just need a little bit of help and that that's wonderful.

[00:33:00] But then there's the folks that just, they don't want to show up. Right. They don't want to play at

[00:33:05] the same level. They're not bought into your mission. And if they're not bought into the mission,

[00:33:09] then I want them to go find some place where there's a mission they can buy into.

[00:33:13] do. I don't want to wake up and not have a fire in my belly to go do what I do. Uh, which is my job

[00:33:20] is to make it a competitive advantage for the companies that we support. Uh, and, you know,

[00:33:25] we go over technical debt with them, help them, you know, chop that down, help them understand,

[00:33:30] you know, we've got like, why, why can, why is this customer over? Why is this company,

[00:33:35] my peer innovating, uh, very rapidly and it's taking us forever. Why are our projects slow? Uh,

[00:33:41] and it's, well, your support organization is out of whack and that's overflowing into your project

[00:33:46] organizations. Your projects don't happen. You're carrying too much technical debt. So

[00:33:50] I can't put in this new app because it's not supported on the version of VMware you got,

[00:33:54] because that's not supported on the OS version that you've got because your hardware is seven

[00:33:59] years old. So a two week application upgrade is now a seven month odyssey of getting new hardware

[00:34:05] and updating all this stuff. So we, we lay that out for customers and try to get them to a place

[00:34:11] where they can do in three years, what their competitors are doing in 10 by just managing

[00:34:16] support and managing technical debt. And then my job is to give that to the senior leaders of the

[00:34:20] business, the way they understand marketing, sales, finance is give them, you know, IT is not just a

[00:34:25] black hole. That's going to suck down every dollar you feed it. There's a logical way to use it from a

[00:34:30] business perspective to certainly it can drive a vision, but just from an operational standpoint,

[00:34:36] how, how it can, how maintaining your shop, keeping the old equipment out and, and keeping a refresh

[00:34:45] allows you to move forward faster because you've got more of your budget facing what you want to do

[00:34:52] and less of it facing on, you know, I, I give it to them in the inference of a, of a tractor pull,

[00:34:57] right? Eventually you're hauling so much junk behind you that it doesn't matter with, you know,

[00:35:02] all the engines and the flame and the fire and everything else. You're not going anywhere.

[00:35:05] You're just slinging dirt because you're pulling too much crap behind you. So helping them get their

[00:35:10] technical debt from, you know, a 90, 10 ratio to 60, 40, 70, 30, where they've got more budget.

[00:35:16] So if I can give you 30% of your budget every year to go forward thinking and do the things you want

[00:35:23] to do. And this other competitor over here has only got 10% of his budget. That's where we get to

[00:35:27] that, right? It takes him 10 years to do what you can do in more or less three. So every, every 10 years,

[00:35:33] you're 30 years ahead of that guy. Yeah. Uh, and that's the game changer. Yes. So that's,

[00:35:39] that's part of the kind of the VCO side of, of helping them understand this. This isn't just,

[00:35:44] you know, a bunch of monkeys down in the basement, you know, beating on pipes and trying to keep the

[00:35:49] lights blinking. There's, there's a level of strategy to, to it, just, just it operations,

[00:35:55] forget what super cool new things you want to do with the technology. There's,

[00:35:59] there's a lot of strategy and just maintaining it properly. Yeah. And it, and it's shown everybody,

[00:36:05] I think that's aware in the MSP space says, Oh, you know, no geek speak, but I was looking at your

[00:36:12] website earlier today and, you know, you started with technology, you know, your technology, your

[00:36:17] tools, um, and, uh, and, you know, often we'll say people process and technology, but yours is better

[00:36:23] with three T's. Um, but you, but you started with talent, which I think, you know, says a lot, um,

[00:36:29] not just the tools and the technology, but started with talent. And so, um, so I see that kind of

[00:36:35] showing through in the messaging, uh, which puts you well ahead of most of the folks that, uh,

[00:36:42] you know, don't get across that core difference. And, uh, in the, I guess the point there is not to

[00:36:47] copy Val, but to figure out why you care. And that's, what's interesting to me, Val, is you seem to

[00:36:52] really care that they actually use technology as a strategic differentiator, not just hire us

[00:37:00] to keep the lights on and provide, you know, help desk and cybersecurity.

[00:37:05] I mean, that's true. Uh, I think it's part of who I am. I mean, when I'm making decisions for White Hat,

[00:37:14] I'm thinking in terms of there's probably 200 people I'm impacting. There's, there's the employees,

[00:37:20] there's their significant others, and then there's their kids and their houses and mortgages and

[00:37:25] everything else. And, and the decisions that I make. So when it, when, you know, if it's just me,

[00:37:30] I'm impacting or, or, you know, my immediate family. Um, but the bigger the MSP gets, the bigger

[00:37:40] the organization gets, the more carefully I've got to weigh those decisions, right? I, I, I mean,

[00:37:46] and I almost kind of virtually see myself sitting in a stadium. I make a decision and I've got,

[00:37:49] you know, 400 eyeballs looking at me like, what, what did you just do? Idiot. Right. Or, Hey,

[00:37:55] that was, that was brilliant. Thank you. And I think about our customers' businesses that way.

[00:38:00] That's, I mean, you know, you, there's, there's some huge companies we support and, you know,

[00:38:05] it's, it's hard to think of them as a group of people. You think they're, there's the big logo,

[00:38:09] right? At this point, they're so huge. And that if, if we do something stupid,

[00:38:13] they're going to, they're going to survive, but the small to medium businesses, I mean,

[00:38:19] some guy, some girl decided to go hang out a shingle and go do whatever they did. Right. And

[00:38:25] they're relying on us to provide that IT component for them to make their business better. No one shows

[00:38:33] up saying here, I'm going to give you cash. Please make my business suck. No one does that. Right.

[00:38:38] Nobody. So I'm there to at least maintain, if not optimally, I would say our job is to make it

[00:38:46] better. Again, I want it to be a competitive advantage for them because I want them to be

[00:38:50] successful. I want them to grow. I want them to, to achieve their dreams. And it's, I mean, it's,

[00:38:56] it's, um, and it's a little self-serving. I mean, I, I look around and there are ambulances

[00:39:02] that get to where they need to get to people out in the middle of Louisiana because of work we did.

[00:39:09] There are children who get bones mended quickly coming in and out of a doctor's office, uh, that,

[00:39:17] that works seamlessly, that gets incredible reviews because of the underlying technology

[00:39:21] that works that allows them to do what they do. There are people that are homeless that are getting

[00:39:29] mental health care because of, because the providers aren't in their offices. We've enabled

[00:39:35] them with technology to go sit on a park bench in the middle of nowhereville city and deliver care to

[00:39:40] a person. And, and I'm, and I, I communicate that to our employees, right? This isn't just,

[00:39:46] you know, XYZ company doing why this is, this is their mission. And this is how we support

[00:39:51] their mission. So yes, an ambulance goes, finds a guy two minutes earlier, because when the dispatcher

[00:39:58] is zooming in and out of the map, it's fast and efficient. So the ambulance isn't getting lost in

[00:40:02] a dirt road somewhere trying to find where to go. They know exactly where to go. So it's, I mean,

[00:40:08] that to me is the juice. Yeah. It's the little blinky lights are running, but, and I mean, my quote

[00:40:14] from the very beginning is for me, the most important metric of all of this is what's sitting 18 inches in

[00:40:19] front of the screen. If I get it right for the end user, then in converting data to dollars for the

[00:40:26] business, then I can feel fairly confident that, you know, the servers are working, the storage is

[00:40:31] working every, you know, everything pretty much all the way back. Okay. Give or take cybersecurity,

[00:40:35] got to keep an eyeball on that. But in general, if I get that metric, right, I'm probably pretty

[00:40:39] good all the way back as opposed to, you know, I think a bunch of, I think back to, you know,

[00:40:45] of my wife, like if we pop the hood with friends of mine, oh yeah, well, that's a, that's a V8,

[00:40:49] you know, it's got the twin turbo, you know, dual overhead cam, 960 horsepower,

[00:40:53] blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. My wife doesn't care. My wife wants to open the door, get in,

[00:41:00] start the car. It needs to be safe. It needs to get her to point A and that battery band,

[00:41:05] it darn sure better start and get her back home. It can be two squirrels under that hood pedaling.

[00:41:10] She could care less, right? Right. And I think about that as, as our customer, right? Yeah.

[00:41:16] They got all the blinky lights in the boxes. They don't necessarily know what they do. They know

[00:41:19] they need them, but all that stuff is important, but they don't really care. They want to get to

[00:41:24] their destination. So my job is to make sure they never have to pop that hood, right? It just works

[00:41:29] and it's IT. It's all built by humans. So it all goes stupid because we got a support desk. It's not

[00:41:34] magic, but we're trying to give them that experience. So that for me is, is important.

[00:41:42] It's what I want for my business. It's what I want for their business. And it's how I want my people

[00:41:45] to think about these businesses is it's not keeping XYZ working. It is keeping ambulances

[00:41:51] going. It is keeping healthcare being delivered. It is helping a lawyer get to trial and defend

[00:41:57] somebody or, or whatever, right? What is, what is the end result of what we're doing? And that,

[00:42:02] that makes it more real and more tangible and also gives a sense of pride to some of these guys of,

[00:42:08] of the things they're touching around the world. Like most, if you've got a vacuum cleaner in your

[00:42:13] house, that's thanks to one of our guys. Because somewhere there is a container load of, of,

[00:42:19] of electrical bits were bought and shipped to that factory that made that vacuum cleaner.

[00:42:24] And I can pretty much tell you where those bits came from. And they were processed on an order that

[00:42:29] on a system that we're fundamentally supporting 24 hours a day, seven days a week around the world.

[00:42:34] So every time I hear my wife vacuum, I'm like, okay, thank you very much. Uh, ex customer. Uh,

[00:42:39] there's places I go get gas because thank you very much ex customer, because we're supporting

[00:42:45] their stores and their stores open operate and function because of the work that our team does.

[00:42:51] It's not me, but it's, but that's what gives it life. And that's what gives it juice. It's not just

[00:42:56] one more stupid switch and one more stupid closet somewhere you've got to deal with.

[00:42:59] Right.

[00:43:00] You understand what the humans are doing with the technology that you're providing. That,

[00:43:04] that's got juice. That's got meaning that makes you want to get out of bed.

[00:43:08] I love that. It's too easy to get lost in updating the hypervisor, patching the OS,

[00:43:16] you know, updating a switch, whatever it is. And, and, and then you, and then it,

[00:43:20] you lose the meaning. You feel like you're a commodity. You feel like you're just,

[00:43:24] you know, banging on keyboard.

[00:43:26] You're just a cog in the machine, just, just backing away. I'm going to do the same thing tomorrow.

[00:43:30] You're right.

[00:43:30] Yeah. But when you frame it in, you know, uh, they can't make the vacuum or the dispatcher can't

[00:43:39] dispatch the ambulances quickly, or, you know, any of these other things that have this incredibly

[00:43:44] real world impact, that's, that's a whole different meaning. Um, I want to tie that back to,

[00:43:51] you've had unprecedented growth. You've reached a different size and scale than most MSPs. Um,

[00:43:58] is there's always room for sure. Is this correlated or I'm sorry, what do you attribute? Is it,

[00:44:03] is it correlated to this meaning you tie or what do you attribute to a lot of this,

[00:44:08] you know, continued growth, even if you've hit walls from time to time?

[00:44:12] My nose is a little, boom. Yes. Uh, uh, yes. Uh, I, I would, so we've, we've done,

[00:44:21] we've done well at the midsize. Uh, so we don't have a bunch of, you know, five to 25 employee

[00:44:29] companies, which is what the average MSP tends to, to have, make it spread and butter on. Most of ours

[00:44:35] are larger, uh, than that. So I would say part of that is, is the, the staff that we've brought in

[00:44:41] have their enterprise guys that have been working for, you know, for Citibank or for,

[00:44:47] for some huge corporations. So we're able to bring some of that expertise, uh, that frankly,

[00:44:53] isn't particularly valuable in the really small business because who cares, right? That's not,

[00:44:58] these aren't the problems, uh, but has been beneficial for us to move upstream and have a

[00:45:02] hundred, 300, 500, 2000 seat, even, you know, 6,000 seat customers. Uh, and, uh, I would say that's,

[00:45:12] that's part of it. And for those really huge ones, we don't do everything. We've got our,

[00:45:16] our slice. So co-management has been part of that. And I would say, yes, communicating and

[00:45:21] demonstrating that we care and being able to prove it, right? Some level of, of, you know,

[00:45:28] there's, there's companies that look at us and like, you know, you're 50 people, what, you know,

[00:45:32] we're 11,000. What are you idiots doing? Right? Literally just, just giving us crap on the phone

[00:45:38] call. Like, why are we even here? Uh, being able to prove that. So we've got various small services

[00:45:44] to large services that sometimes cost nothing that we'll go execute to demonstrate some level

[00:45:49] of expertise that help us, um, quickly establish that we're not a bunch of knuckleheads. We know

[00:45:56] what we're doing. Can you give me an example there? Uh, yes. So I'll, I'll go to, to virtual

[00:46:02] desktop. So we have a, a fairly healthy managed virtual desktop practice. So, um, we know one of

[00:46:10] the pain points in that space is slow login times. So we will guarantee that give me eight hours.

[00:46:15] I'll get your login time, 30 seconds or faster. I don't care if it's five minutes, two minutes,

[00:46:19] 10 minutes. I don't care what it is. Well, we've been places where it's been five minutes,

[00:46:22] right? They start their machine, they go get their cup of coffee. They talk to Janie and see what she

[00:46:26] did for the weekend and make the rounds and come back and sit in their chair in time to do their work.

[00:46:31] Um, so we'll take and, and mirror their, their image and then go to work putting our best practices

[00:46:40] around it. No third party tools, no, no secret squirrel mojo, just fixing it and then run those

[00:46:46] things side by side. And we, we haven't lost, well, we did, we lost one, but we still picked them up as

[00:46:50] a customer over the all year, all the years of doing them. If we lose, they pay nothing. If we win,

[00:46:56] they pay us, you know, two grand for the day. Uh, and, uh, and, and that's, so it's just,

[00:47:02] it's just a set challenge and, and various light assessments to heavier assessments, all to give us

[00:47:08] an opportunity that are, you know, low cost to no cost to establish some credibility and make sure

[00:47:14] that we can explain how we demonstrate value. Uh, and then, I don't know, maybe part of it's me,

[00:47:20] maybe it's part of, uh, I wouldn't say me directly, but culture in that I'm going to take care

[00:47:26] of you. If it, if it goes stupid, I mean, one of our early customers literally in, yeah, year one,

[00:47:34] uh, the engineer that we hired, right. The guy that I had to have the conversation with, like,

[00:47:39] what are we going to do after 10 weeks? Um, he butchered a customer to the tune of, you know,

[00:47:44] $60,000 in labor. He chunked out the window, just getting it wrong, like to continually tearing

[00:47:48] down and rebuilding and redoing. And this was, this was a financial services organization and made a

[00:47:54] mess of things. And, you know, we're little, right. And we're living off of, not off of, you know, VC

[00:47:59] money or, or we're living off of, you know, check to check, getting projects and everything else. And

[00:48:06] just had to take it the punch in the face and go sit in front of them. Like, look, yeah, it's expensive

[00:48:10] and it's a mess, but we're going to make it, we're going to make it right. And it took us a while, but

[00:48:15] I would say that, that helps, right. I'm, I'm in it with you. I'm not just going to abandon you on the

[00:48:20] side of the road when you've got a problem. You created it, I created it. I don't care.

[00:48:24] We were involved, we're tied to it. So, and for us, it's, you know, tie goes to the customer.

[00:48:30] So we'll, but, but, but they, but tie goes to the customer. It's, it's a very simple rule and go take

[00:48:36] care of them. So I would say some, some milkshake of all that stuff swirl together is probably what

[00:48:42] does it. Uh, the VDI space kind of pushes us into a higher tier. A lot of little ones don't have it.

[00:48:49] We do have a hosted environment now. So the little bitty guys where VDI makes sense,

[00:48:54] we'll just stick them in our data center, uh, and, and run them there. Um, but I would say that that's,

[00:49:00] that's probably part of it. Um, I don't know, some, some mix of that is how we have been successful at,

[00:49:06] at, at moving, moving upstream and kind of having more, more M B instead of S B, uh, as,

[00:49:15] as part of what we do.

[00:49:16] I think everybody's used to leading with some assessment, but it, you know, there's so many

[00:49:20] and somebody did it poorly that it just feels like everybody's doing the same thing.

[00:49:24] Well, you gotta, you gotta deliver something. And I don't mean to interrupt, but it's not,

[00:49:29] I'm doing this assessment so I can really see where you suck and where I can tell you, you suck,

[00:49:34] because otherwise I'm going to say, how's your IT doing? You're going to go, it's fine. And then I

[00:49:37] got nothing. Right. So, so deliver value. Right. I mean, and the way I think about it is who are,

[00:49:46] closest to you personally. And this is true of everybody watching or listening.

[00:49:50] You think about those people, those people that are closest to you. I mean, it could be family,

[00:49:54] it could be friends. You may have friends that are closer to you than family. You may have that

[00:49:57] weird uncle that nobody likes, right? There's always that guy, but those people that you keep

[00:50:03] around you are people that add value to your life, right? You feel better. You are better.

[00:50:09] They're a good source of wisdom. You have old stories that you can swap and tell for the hundredth

[00:50:14] time and it not get old, but those are the people that make your life better. That's who gets to sit

[00:50:19] inside those, those two or three rings right around you. And I am trying to create that for the

[00:50:25] customer. I want us to be in that ring. My goal is that when I walk in, it's not, well, do you have

[00:50:30] an appointment? It's foul. Hey, you know, come on in. Right. So looking at it from that mindset of,

[00:50:37] of what you're delivering and how you're trying to deliver it for your customers is, is important to me.

[00:50:42] Right. I, I'm looking at it in, in those terms all the time. Are we a value to them? Yeah. Well,

[00:50:48] they couldn't live without me. Yeah. But are you helping their business? And again, can you articulate

[00:50:52] how you're helping the business, which is another problem for service providers? Anyway, so coming

[00:50:57] back to the assessment, that's the point, right? I am, I am making your business better. So you engaged in

[00:51:03] this assessment for me and it wasn't, I finally talked you into it and you did it. And it's all my

[00:51:09] benefit because I'm going to tell you where you suck. Right. And now here's all the projects you

[00:51:13] need to do so that we can start an engagement. There's value in terms of here's what you're

[00:51:18] getting. You, you gave me some of your time and I'm giving you back some deliverable of value.

[00:51:24] So yeah, there's some projects that need to be done, but here's some insights about your business.

[00:51:28] Did you realize that your support organization is getting too many tickets? And as a result,

[00:51:33] that's puking on top of your project team. Like I said earlier, now your projects aren't completing

[00:51:37] on time because all your project people are working support tickets. Did you understand that?

[00:51:42] Did you know that that's, that's fixable? You know, oh, oh, wait, what? Huh? So giving them those kinds

[00:51:48] of, of meaningful benefits, you know, showing them a new metric, a new insight into their business

[00:51:53] to how it's better and then putting it in English, not la, la, la, la, la, you know, gobbledygook,

[00:51:59] but in English. So they get it. So I'm, I'm a huge fan of analogies to, to lay stuff out.

[00:52:05] Like, I mean, I don't know, yesterday evening, my trusty assistant, like Kubernetes came up.

[00:52:09] She goes, what's Kubernetes? I was like, well, it's like cooties in the playground, right? You

[00:52:12] know, you don't want, you don't want to get it right. But seriously explaining it to her and broke

[00:52:17] it down into the term of, of, of a babysitter. And, and, and the things a babysitter does is really

[00:52:22] in parallel to what Kubernetes does. Doesn't matter for this conversation. But anyway, then she's

[00:52:26] like, oh, I get it. Does she have an IT background? No, but now she could go have a conversation

[00:52:31] about Kubernetes because she understands it in terms of babysitters and what they do with kids.

[00:52:37] So that's, they need to get something back out of it. If, if, if they're getting juice,

[00:52:43] another analogy, you go to the, you don't go to the doctor's office, you know, you don't want to go

[00:52:47] like me. I mean, something better be hanging off of me if I'm going to actually go to the doctor.

[00:52:51] Fine. I go, you go sit on the crinkly paper in the little clinic room. The nurse comes in,

[00:52:55] takes your blood pressure, blah, blah, blah. Why are you there? Do you want to be there?

[00:52:59] No. Again, who wants a room full of computers? Nobody, but I'm there. So, and then they get,

[00:53:04] you get a whole bunch of diagnostic questions. Well, what about this? What about this? And you're

[00:53:08] in a, you're in a trade with that person. You're essentially saying, yes, is this valuable to me?

[00:53:14] No, I know all this information. Here is my name. Yes, this is where it hurts. All this crap. I know,

[00:53:20] I don't need you to, for this part, but we have a, we have an exchange going on is that I'm giving you

[00:53:26] information that I know this is adding no value with the idea that somewhere in that little brain

[00:53:32] of yours and that white coat, you're going to give me something back that says, here's what's wrong

[00:53:36] with you. And here's the pill or the medicine or what you need to do to go fix it. And I think that's

[00:53:41] where service providers go wrong. We ask all the diagnostic questions. One, they don't want to do

[00:53:46] it. They don't, ah, it's IT. Ah, whatever. I don't know. I'm not comfortable. This is,

[00:53:51] this is high calorie burn conversation. Anyway, you ask me a bunch of questions. I give you a bunch

[00:53:56] of answers. Now where's my payoff? Where's the trade? Oh, I get to give you money to go,

[00:54:01] to go fix stuff. I mean, what, give me some, give me some value. How am I going to feel better?

[00:54:08] I don't feel better when I go to, to CVS or Walgreens to write the, write the check. Or when I go back up

[00:54:15] front and the little insurance person is, you know, the little office manager person is there taking my,

[00:54:19] I don't feel good about any of that, right? I feel good after I have the medicine, I'm home,

[00:54:23] I take it for my 10 days or whatever. And okay, now I'm better. That give them that. Don't give them

[00:54:29] the, the check at the front counter and the write the prescription at Walgreens, give them value so

[00:54:35] that they're, they're willing to make that trade with you. They'll tell their friends. He'll be like,

[00:54:39] yeah, I know IT sucks and it's no fun, but this guy, this guy makes it understandable. This guy will

[00:54:44] help your business. Okay. Now, now we're cooking. Now we got something. It's not just a standard old

[00:54:49] stupid assessment. It's, it's, it's meaningful to them. And that was a seven minute weave out into

[00:54:55] the bushes. So I apologize, but as you can tell, it means a little to me. That kind of stuff annoys me.

[00:55:01] I love it. No, no. I feel like we could, we could probably talk about that all day and I would enjoy

[00:55:07] it. I did want to come back to one part. Where are you now? And what do you see as your top

[00:55:14] constraints? Going back to constraints theory, theory of constraints, what's your top

[00:55:18] bottleneck or constraint? So where we're at now is, I think we are too wide. I think we have,

[00:55:27] we have let the edges creep out to where we're focused on too many things. So I'm making a

[00:55:35] concentrated effort to find those spots where we add the most value and cut those pieces of the

[00:55:43] business, prune the tree, right? Every once in a while you got to go prune the tree. Well,

[00:55:47] we need to prune the tree. We, uh, marketing costs get ridiculous because you've got so many service

[00:55:53] lines and so many products. Your sales training becomes painful because there's so much stuff.

[00:55:58] Your delivery teams have problems. So the wider you are in terms of a product set, it's just,

[00:56:05] it's an order of magnitude problem downstream for everybody who's trying to manage that. So for me,

[00:56:11] that, that has become obvious. That was a palm to forehead moment this year that we need to narrow

[00:56:16] that back. Um, and we need to, we got some work to do in our leadership team to make sure that we're

[00:56:22] all on the same page. Um, um, we've got, we've got some, some different ideas of, of, of how to grow

[00:56:30] and how to do things. So that's like, I think, and I think that's probably part of our, some of the,

[00:56:36] the stuff leaking in the corners culture wise that, that we need to, to nip before it becomes a thing.

[00:56:41] So we, we need to get our leaders all on the same page. Now we're fully remote. Uh, so we have

[00:56:48] people in India, India and Bulgaria and North America, and then other people just kind of scattered

[00:56:53] all over the place. Um, uh, so, uh, we've been remote long before remote was cool. Uh,

[00:56:59] yeah, but it's super unique. Um, yeah, it is. And, uh, but, uh, we've, we've got some work to do to,

[00:57:08] to make sure we're, we're still on the same page. It's something we haven't paid enough attention to

[00:57:13] of late focusing on other things, but now it's time to, to make sure that we're, we're back on,

[00:57:18] on the same bus and, or, and, and going the same direction. That's an important part. And also we're,

[00:57:24] you know, we're under, so we're, we're moving away from auto task into halo. Um, so, and that's,

[00:57:32] I guess, I didn't realize we had a complex business, but apparently we do because of, Hey,

[00:57:35] you know, four months and you'll be in and it'll be great. Yeah. Pigs flew first, right? Here we are.

[00:57:40] We're, we're, we're coming up on a year and we're, we're just now starting to get to a place where

[00:57:46] we can make that transition. So, uh, that's, that's been a, you know, I've, I, I can't say I've got

[00:57:53] one of my four tires is flat, but I can certainly say it's low because we've had, we've had to put

[00:57:57] some attention on the machine itself more so than normal as opposed to continue to drive the

[00:58:03] business. So for me, it is, it is finish that migration, make sure leadership team is on the

[00:58:09] same page, uh, and that we have narrowed our focus to what we're really, really good at. And that may

[00:58:15] mean, you know, narrowing some of our customers as well and helping them transition. Don't know yet.

[00:58:20] Uh, we'll see. Um, but, uh, making sure that we're, we're, we're, where we are best, right? I don't,

[00:58:27] I don't want to play in spaces where we suck. I'd rather find a good partner to plug them in

[00:58:31] to take care of that piece, uh, and not trying to be everything to everybody. I mean, we're not there,

[00:58:36] we're not that wide, but it's, it's, we need to be more focused. So those are the places that we're

[00:58:42] going to play for the balance of 24 going into, to 25. And, and ultimately, um,

[00:58:49] I'm trying to find the, the next little rocket to ignite, to, to get us, you know, into, uh,

[00:58:56] well, well into the double digits of, of value and, and, and grow the company. And I, and not just

[00:59:04] the revenue, but, but everything under it, making sure we have the systems to, to drive it. So that's,

[00:59:09] that is my, uh, focus. We've got some, uh, and then yeah, out on the fringe, there'll be some time.

[00:59:16] We've got some good partnerships with some OEMs and some other things that, that we're developing

[00:59:21] that, uh, will hopefully help drive more volume for us as, as we're doing services on their behalf,

[00:59:29] uh, that, you know, we've, we've built enough expertise that we're getting some notice from some,

[00:59:34] some companies that want us to do some of that work on their behalf. That looks like a potential,

[00:59:38] uh, strong growth avenue for us. So that's, that's where my head, uh, is at. And then along the way,

[00:59:46] making sure that we were adding good people and not crushing the ones we got. So we all get there

[00:59:50] together. I love that. And your understanding of how to not crush them is just, just an incredible

[00:59:55] takeaway for me. I want to switch gears and, uh, ask you what's the biggest lesson learned over the,

[01:00:03] all these years, Val? Wow. Biggest lesson learned. Uh, you know, I, I would say that it's,

[01:00:23] you gotta, you got to want to get out of bed to do this, right? I mean, there's whatever,

[01:00:31] whatever you're doing, you know, I was young, still had brown hair and everything else. And I was

[01:00:36] going to, you know, rule the world. And I, I honestly, seriously thought at young enough,

[01:00:41] dumb enough age that if I needed to shift the orbit of the earth, half a degree, I could do it. Now,

[01:00:46] I don't know how I was going to do it, but I could do it. And probably all by myself. Right.

[01:00:50] And that's, I mean, that's a young man talking and I deserve the punch in the face that that young man

[01:00:54] should have received at that particular time. But I honestly, it's like, it was just, it was just

[01:00:59] will, right. I could, I could just will it through anything. So that's that 25 hour a day.

[01:01:04] Yes. So I would say that, that is a, a couple of lessons. One, there are not 25 hours in a day

[01:01:12] and working harder is not necessarily going to get you to your goal any faster just because you're

[01:01:20] pedaling twice as fast in 10th gears. The other guy is pedaling in first gear does not mean you're

[01:01:25] getting up the hill any faster. That's an important lesson. The second lesson is get up,

[01:01:31] keep moving forward. Right. I, I have clearly jumped off and taken on things,

[01:01:37] companies and everything else that I probably had no fricking business waiting off into where I could

[01:01:43] have had some, you know, some parent relative, somebody going, what do you really know about

[01:01:48] that? And I'd be like, nothing, but sheer will, you know, love, guts, determination, and the occasional

[01:01:53] candy bar, uh, will get me, will get me through. Right. So, uh, take those risks. Everybody

[01:02:01] says it, but you have to be willing to get up when you get punched in the face. If you can't take a

[01:02:06] punch in the face, don't, don't go waiting out into the deep end. Stay in the shallow end, go to work,

[01:02:11] punch your clock, do your thing, grab about your boss, get in the car, go home. Uh, you have to be

[01:02:17] willing to be just absolutely set upon and crushed and know that you're going to spring back into your

[01:02:26] shape. Right. And you're going to be able to get up and you're going to be able to go forward. If you

[01:02:31] can't do that, get out of this. And if you're in something that's, that is a people business

[01:02:37] and you suck at people, then don't do it or don't start without somebody phenomenal. I'm giving you yes

[01:02:44] for one, I'm giving you three. Don't start without somebody who's phenomenal with people. Uh, quit it,

[01:02:50] quit it. Yeah. Don't do it. So those, those would be my three. And there's probably 10 more I could

[01:02:55] think of, but that middle one I think is the most important. Make sure you can get up. And I didn't,

[01:03:02] I mean, I've been crushed with other organizations trying to build them that I did. I wasn't sure,

[01:03:09] right. It pushed me past my own limits and it, it made me stronger. It made me better,

[01:03:13] but honestly, it makes you question when you get, when you take a, a, a hard enough hammering,

[01:03:18] you're, you're like, Whoa, Hey, maybe, Hmm, maybe, maybe nine to five is not so bad. You know,

[01:03:23] Hmm, maybe, ah, sounds really good. Yeah. I need to rethink this. And so, uh, you're,

[01:03:30] you're going to get, you know, I guess, what do they say? You put steel in the fire

[01:03:34] and it gets stronger. It gets tempered. Be ready for that. Cause that's, if you want to be your own

[01:03:39] boss, if you, if you want to hang it out there and, and get the rewards and the, and the fruit of

[01:03:44] your labor, uh, which isn't guaranteed, you're going to take a couple of, you know, that's what I say.

[01:03:50] I wear jackets because they're all lined with Kevlar. Right. So I can, I can take the flames

[01:03:54] and the bullets and keep coming. You, you, uh, there's, I don't know, maybe other people,

[01:04:01] maybe I'm just the only one, you know, wandering around in the minefield trying to figure out how

[01:04:04] to do this stuff. But that's, that's been the most important thing for me is, I mean,

[01:04:09] I've had people even with this company, we had a very, very rough 2015 for us. Um, uh, and that,

[01:04:15] you know, one of the guys, Oh, I've seen this before. We're doomed. And I never lost more

[01:04:20] respect for a person ever than just, and it was sitting over lunch. I remember exactly where I was

[01:04:24] like, we're doomed. What? You're, you're all the way from, yes, it looks bleak. I will not lie,

[01:04:31] but doomed. Yeah. Nah, I've, you've, you've not looked death in the face. You don't know what

[01:04:41] we, we will, you know, I will find a where I will make one. And yeah, we, we got out of it. It's

[01:04:45] like, I'm surprised we made it. I'm like, and, and I, you're not getting that respect back from me.

[01:04:50] It's, it's disappointing that, that you're all ready to, to throw in the towel and, you know,

[01:04:56] we're in the foxhole, we're getting shelled. And now's the time for us to rally together. And

[01:05:00] you're like looking, looking for the first, you know, white flag and Jeep out of here. It's like,

[01:05:04] no, come on. So again, more, more answer than you wanted, but those have been the most important

[01:05:11] things for me. You know, I, for me, if, if I, if I end up in hell someday for, for living a

[01:05:18] miserable life, what I will be doing is I will be taking bolt A, I will be putting it in hole B

[01:05:23] for the rest of my life. That is the definition of hell that, but there's people who can do that

[01:05:28] successfully and love it and build a lifetime around it and go live their life in other ways.

[01:05:33] Uh, and, and get a lot of reward out of that. And that's great. I just, I'm not one of those

[01:05:38] people. Yeah. If there's one thing you could do over, what would that be? Wow. Uh, one thing

[01:05:52] I could do over, uh, I think I would go find my young self and probably get me drunk.

[01:06:02] because that's the only way a young self would listen to me, but not so drunk. I would forget

[01:06:06] the next day and try to educate my idiot self on, on how to live life. Uh, like this version of me is

[01:06:19] the best iteration I've got. Uh, you know, I've, I've come through many, many lessons learned,

[01:06:25] you know, a little more hotheaded, a little more fiery and, you know, just, just chill, right? Just

[01:06:32] keep, keep the drive and determination, you know, knock the flamethrower back a little bit,

[01:06:37] pay more, be more intentional with the relationships with the people around you,

[01:06:41] right? Just, yeah, there's probably a handful of things I'd like to say to young me, uh, that would,

[01:06:49] would maybe make it a, uh, I can't say an easier path, but lessons I would have learned,

[01:06:55] you know, decades sooner. But the other side of that is I might not have my wife. I might not have

[01:07:00] my two beautiful daughters. I, you know, so, uh, would I do it? No, I wouldn't trade for where I am

[01:07:07] now, but I would really like to have been a lot smarter, a lot sooner. I'd like to have had somebody

[01:07:13] put their arm around me and go, Hey, now I don't know if it would have plinked off my forehead or if I

[01:07:17] would have absorbed it, but I would have liked somebody to, to give me those messages, uh, and,

[01:07:22] and help that resonate earlier that this stuff, a young man can't see because he just, you just,

[01:07:28] you just haven't, you haven't been through it yet. Right. You just, you don't know. So that's,

[01:07:33] if I could do anything that would, that would hopefully be it. But I, again, I don't know that I

[01:07:38] would because, uh, the, there's a lot of, you know, again, wife, kids and everything else that's

[01:07:45] been built around it that, uh, I would, I wouldn't, I wouldn't trade for, right. I'm not, I'm not

[01:07:49] going to go back and hit the reset button and start all over again and, and risk, risk the, you know,

[01:07:55] every scar I've got. I mean, I tell people I wear long pants so you don't see where the bear traps

[01:07:59] have snapped on my shins over the years. You don't see the scars. Uh, I'll, I'll keep my scars,

[01:08:05] right. They've, they've helped shape me into who I am for, for better or worse and on a,

[01:08:16] I appreciate that. What's a common myth or misperception about MSPs that you'd love to

[01:08:24] change? Uh, that we all know what we're doing would be one, right? Uh, I think, you know,

[01:08:34] just like salespeople, there's some guy in white shoes and a bad plaid jacket on some little crappy

[01:08:39] lot somewhere who scares the hell out of people and nobody wants to buy a car because of that guy.

[01:08:45] I think there's MSPs that are the same way. I, I think there should be some minimal standard

[01:08:53] like CPAs. You know, if you're going to a CPA, they're accredited. They've got some sort of,

[01:08:56] they've had to go through continuing education training. I think we need that in the business.

[01:09:01] I don't think it can be, I'm mad at my employer. So I'm going to hang out a shingle on Monday and

[01:09:05] I'm going to be an IT guy because you might be a phenomenal IT guy and a miserable business person.

[01:09:11] Now the market, the market will take care of you, right? It will sweep you out of business if you're

[01:09:17] not worthy of being in business through bad breaks or whatever. But I, I think, I think we need a

[01:09:23] standard of, uh, uh, uh, a certification of sorts of this. This is what an MSP is, who is doing the

[01:09:30] right thing, who's taking care of cybersecurity. I mean, I don't mean huge firms cause I don't think

[01:09:35] you have to be a huge firm, but I think there's certain things you need to be doing right as an MSP to

[01:09:39] get to call yourself an MSP. Uh, otherwise you need to go apprentice with somebody else and figure

[01:09:45] it out, right? Not as a barrier to keep people out, but go somewhere who's figured it out, learn,

[01:09:50] and then go apply your trade. Uh, don't just slap out a shingle and, you know, wing it and,

[01:09:57] and hope, and hope for the best. I was, uh, you know, my advice would be different if it was 15 years

[01:10:04] ago and cryptocurrency didn't exist and, and people that are professional organizations paid to hack our

[01:10:10] customers. Uh, it's a, it's a different level of the game, right? Regulation is coming for MSPs at some

[01:10:17] point, as much as I hate regulation. Uh, but it's, I mean, it's already creeping into our world. So

[01:10:23] because the stakes are high, uh, it's just, so that's, that's what I would say to MSPs is,

[01:10:30] is gone to the days when it's full on cowboy town and you can just go out there and wing it.

[01:10:36] Uh, I mean, you, you may be able to build a business and be successful and crush us and

[01:10:40] everybody around us. And, and, and honestly, I hope you do. I hope, I hope the best for everyone

[01:10:44] out there, but I really want to see us up our game to make sure that we're doing what we need to do

[01:10:49] to protect ourselves and protect our customers. Cause we're the first line of defense for 80% of the

[01:10:54] businesses in the United States. It's us. So if, if no one's holding us accountable,

[01:11:01] that, that to me is, there's, there's, there's a fundamental problem. We, we need to fix that.

[01:11:07] Um, 80% of the economy runs on the back of, of 80% of the jobs run on the back of what we do. So

[01:11:16] we need to not suck. Yeah. Understatement of the year there. Uh,

[01:11:24] what over the next few years are you looking forward to when, what is that? Whether it's

[01:11:30] industry change or just where you are in life or in your business, Val, what are you looking forward

[01:11:34] to? Well, I would, I like to think I'm closer to the end than the beginning of my career. So, uh,

[01:11:40] at some point, uh, I want to be, uh, an, an owner of businesses, but not standing in the trenches

[01:11:50] doing it every day. So I, I don't know how many, how many years out that is, but that's certainly

[01:11:55] something that, that I'm looking forward to is taking a crop of leaders that I've developed or

[01:12:00] that I've met other places and putting them in place to be successful, uh, and, and run this

[01:12:08] business or, or, you know, some other business. I don't, you know, who knows? Somebody may show up and

[01:12:13] want all the eyeballs we've collected over time and, you know, make us a bargain of the century offer.

[01:12:18] We can't refuse, but I would say that's, I, I look forward to, to being able to have a bigger

[01:12:25] impact, more, more board work, more, more, I don't know. I can't say speaking necessarily, but,

[01:12:33] but more helping, right? I feel like I'm in it and, you know, I've got the blinders on

[01:12:38] a lot of the time executing the work and, uh, I'm looking forward to a day where I can take a step

[01:12:44] back, put somebody else in this role or in whatever I'm doing and my income is all right,

[01:12:52] where I can go try to have a bigger impact on the world. And by impact, I don't mean more for Val,

[01:12:58] but I can help in a bigger way. Uh, that to me is, and that's how I would like to, that's how I would

[01:13:05] like to, to finish things up, right? Is, is I, I get to spend the balance of my time helping other

[01:13:13] people grow businesses or get better professionally or personally and, and being more engaged and

[01:13:19] having a bigger impact than I've been able to have because I've been grinding through companies and,

[01:13:24] you know, getting them, getting them, getting them from, you know, an idea to, to formed. It's probably

[01:13:30] never something I'll get fully away from, which is why I'll, I'll own. I want to participate a little,

[01:13:35] but I want to, I want to spend less time doing that and more time being able to, to try to impart

[01:13:41] whatever wisdom or stupidity I've managed to collect over the years to others to, to hopefully,

[01:13:47] hopefully, you know, uh, when I'm done, look back and have had some sort of meaningful impact. I mean,

[01:13:53] I don't, I don't want my name on a building anywhere. I don't care about any of that stuff. Um, but just

[01:13:57] to have made to the best of my ability, made this place better than when I got here, which I think is

[01:14:03] really tough to look around and do, uh, today. Uh, it's very, it's very kind of scary where we are,

[01:14:09] honestly. Um, but that's, that's where I want to, that's what I would like the last chapter to be

[01:14:16] is, um, you know, I've, I've learned what I needed to learn growing a business or businesses and helping

[01:14:23] others get better at whatever they want to do at wherever I fit. I'm not sure where I fit in the grand

[01:14:27] scheme of things, but, but yeah, that's how I'd like to finish. I love that. Speaking of that,

[01:14:33] for those that are listening or watching, if they would love to benefit from you, would love to reach

[01:14:39] out, um, what's the best way to get ahold of you? Sure. Uh, uh, email is the easiest. Uh, thank you,

[01:14:48] uh, podcast scrapers who will take this and I'll get 9,000 emails from random people I don't care

[01:14:53] about that are trying to sell me their widget, but, uh, uh, uh, val.king at white hat virtual.com.

[01:15:00] White as in color, hat as in on your head, virtual as in not real. Uh, send that to me, uh, and I'll,

[01:15:06] I'll be happy to engage and help to whatever extent, um, I can help you get better at what

[01:15:13] you're doing. You know, I can't give you all of my undivided attention, but, but I, I welcome being

[01:15:17] able to give back to the best I can to help people, um, get better at what they're doing.

[01:15:23] Um, be that a business owner who just wants some advice of, of how to make things better for them,

[01:15:29] uh, and, and, or a services provider that wants to know how to make their business better. And,

[01:15:34] you know, we do play nice with other services providers. We, we work with probably, I don't

[01:15:39] know, we do VDI services for probably a dozen or so around the United States. So if there's a way

[01:15:43] that we can partner up and, and they can, we can partner up in a way that makes their business better

[01:15:48] and we can help support them and make sense for both of us, certainly, um, open to,

[01:15:52] to those kinds of conversations, uh, as well. So I, I love it. You know, it's, uh,

[01:16:01] I've discovered that business for me is also a bit of a hobby and I figured that out and I'll

[01:16:07] finish with this story, barring any other questions from you, uh, is when I was, you know, sitting in my

[01:16:12] chair and in the house and my oldest daughter, you know, she's graduated and I'm just sitting there

[01:16:19] and I was still, you know, playing a game on the phone, right? Just, I got some time to kill.

[01:16:21] So I'm playing a game and my daughter walks up and you know, what are you doing, dad? I was,

[01:16:24] you know, playing a game, waste a little time before we go, go to dinner. And she goes, is that a

[01:16:29] business simulation game? Like, Hmm. Yeah, you're right. So even in my time off, I'm still playing

[01:16:35] in business. So fortunately I have found something that is, I'm passionate about and enjoy that is also

[01:16:43] kind of my hobby. So that, that helps me. I mean, I don't really, I mean, I get tired,

[01:16:49] I get exhausted just like everybody else, but it's, it's, it's a, it's a fascinating space,

[01:16:56] helping and watching businesses grow and making them grow. So I'm, I'm very lucky in that regard

[01:17:01] in that one, I do not need a lot of sleep. And two, uh, I, I thoroughly love kind of being eyeball

[01:17:08] deep in, in all of this, even though you have those days where you put your hands on your knees,

[01:17:11] you're like, what was I thinking? I, but, uh, yeah, I wouldn't, I wouldn't trade for it. It's,

[01:17:19] it's been fun and I'll, I'd do it again. I wanted to ask one more, which is what's the number one book

[01:17:25] you would recommend to those that are listening? Wow. You're fully good questions. Uh, thank you.

[01:17:34] Uh, yeah, you're, you're, you're doing your job well. So, so far so good. Wow. What one book

[01:17:39] would I recommend? Um, so many different ways to, to take that. And I, I mean, I can look around in,

[01:17:57] in this office, there's two bookshelves and there's probably 400, four or 500 books here that

[01:18:02] I've absorbed over time. Uh, and this will sound cliche and, and, but for me, uh, the book for me

[01:18:11] is the Bible. That is the book that I start with. Uh, and I don't, you know, whatever your faith is,

[01:18:17] I don't, don't care. You do you, I'll do me. That's fine. But, uh, you want to know how to be

[01:18:24] as a human and how to participate and you lose your way and you get kind of ornery and you get testy

[01:18:29] and you, you, you get out of your own lines. That's a, that's a good book to understand how to be,

[01:18:35] forget the religious overtones, just a, a manual to being a human. That's a, that is a very good book

[01:18:41] for that topic. Uh, if I'm a services provider, uh, I think I'm going to go start with, uh,

[01:18:51] uh, you know, if I, if I need process, I'll start with Gino Wickman's book, uh, Traction.

[01:18:57] Traction. Uh, if I want to understand and how to make projects and stuff better, I'd, I'd start with

[01:19:03] the Phoenix project because it's an easy read and it's a fun read and, and see if, uh, if it lights

[01:19:07] you up to go hit up critical chain and, and go down that road. Uh, uh, yeah, I'd say that's it.

[01:19:14] I don't really read any fiction. Everything I read is, is nonfiction. It's a perpetual journey

[01:19:18] or, or audible trying to, uh, make myself better. And if it's a small business, uh, Alex Hermosi,

[01:19:26] he's got a bunch of content out there for free at how to create offers and how to do marketing.

[01:19:31] And, and it gives it away for free. Uh, uh, and it's good stuff. It's not, you know, it's not a

[01:19:37] blog article you think is going to be phenomenal. And it's like cotton candy where it looks like

[01:19:41] something and then you end up with a mouthful of nothing, right? There's actual substance there.

[01:19:44] So if you want a crash course at, at, at building offers and helping getting yourself out of a primary

[01:19:50] sales role, I'd go look at Alex's stuff is a hundred million dollar offers. Um, uh, that'd be a good

[01:19:57] place to start. So anyway, but that's, uh, as everything you ask one question, I answer like

[01:20:02] four. Sorry. I love it. I would, I would love to, uh, to, to do this again. I would love to interview

[01:20:10] you all day long. Um, but I, I, I, I won't, I know we both have things to do. Um, from the bottom

[01:20:16] of my heart, thank you for being on MSP mindset. I've enjoyed it. Looking forward to seeing it come

[01:20:21] out and I'm going to go, uh, go find your episode with Alan and see how he did. I'll, I'll see him

[01:20:26] in Germany in, uh, in, uh, September cause we've the, the annual conference for TOC is there. Anybody

[01:20:33] wants to show up, please do. So I can, I've done my board member duty to encourage people to attend,

[01:20:37] but, uh, yes, I will see Alan there. And so I'll be, I don't know him well enough to harass him

[01:20:43] mercilessly if, if he did not do well, but, uh, I'll make sure and get my, my jabs in. I'll at

[01:20:48] least let him know that I saw it, but yeah, I like Alan. He's a good guy. He's a wonderful guy.

[01:20:53] Say hello for me. I've gotten the opportunity to speak with him a number of times. Uh, Val,

[01:20:57] thank you so much for being on MSP mindset. Sure. Thank you.