He Overcame Losing 90% of His Revenue - Here's What He Learned, with Seann Moreno

[00:00:16] They say to you, we're bringing it all in-house.

[00:00:18] So I got six months to figure this out.

[00:00:20] Yeah, and like what percentage of revenue was it?

[00:00:22] 90% of my revenue.

[00:00:24] So you have six months to figure out how to replace 90% of your revenue.

[00:00:26] Yep. That sounds like quite the challenge.

[00:00:28] It was. It was a challenge. So as we start trying to figure out, I'm not a sales guy. I wasn't doing any sales.

[00:00:34] It was just by referrals. I landed the cash cow, the dream that everyone wants.

[00:00:40] I look back now, wish I did things different, but we didn't. We didn't focus on sales at all.

[00:00:48] Hey guys, Damien Stevens, host of MSP Mindset. And I am super excited to be live at Grocon 2024, day two.

[00:00:57] And I'm really excited to spend time with Seann Moreno. And I believe you're the VP of regional operations?

[00:01:04] Yes.

[00:01:05] At the 20.

[00:01:06] Yes.

[00:01:07] Got it right. Okay, good. So I'm curious, let's go back before the 20. Tell me about your journey as an MSP.

[00:01:17] So originally I didn't start my business as an MSP.

[00:01:20] Okay.

[00:01:20] I started as a consultant.

[00:01:22] Really, my focus was helping companies grow.

[00:01:26] About what time?

[00:01:27] That was in 2008. I was working for large organizations like HP, Microsoft, things like that.

[00:01:35] Okay.

[00:01:35] I was tired of being a number, tired of not giving a value add to the actual customers. It was just, you know, as much as you had to track everything you did and just upsell, upsell, upsell, upsell.

[00:01:49] It didn't matter. It wasn't what the customers wanted. They wanted just you to be working continuously and giving a dollar back of how much you're pulling in from that customer.

[00:02:00] So I wasn't about that. I was more about learning about the customer, understanding what their needs are to grow.

[00:02:07] I worked for a company called Pulte Homes. Bill Pulte built a culture of customer success. He wanted customer for life from time you bought your first home to your retirement home.

[00:02:18] So I really enjoyed working for that culture, understanding how to give that success to someone who's buying their first home. It's stressful, but then going into retirement.

[00:02:30] So same thing with business. You start your business. The first thing you're doing is you're putting things together, trying to figure it out, understand what's going on.

[00:02:39] Well, technology is tough. People don't, you know, you rely on it every day. Tech has to work. Your phone has to work everything. So I wanted to help people understand technology.

[00:02:49] So that's how I started. I was like, how do I do that? How do I? So a consultant, I was a consultant. I came into businesses, started helping them out.

[00:02:56] Let's look at your business as a whole. Let's see where we can help you out, streamline things. Maybe standardization was big. How do we standardize things?

[00:03:05] Everyone had every different device you can think of. Yeah. So then we from there, I was fortunate. I landed a customer that was T-Mobile and they had T-Mobile dealers across the nation.

[00:03:20] Well, a dealer local to Michigan had 20 stores that dealer called me in as a consultant. We did some work, called me up on Christmas Eve and said, hey, do you have a support desk?

[00:03:33] And I said, no, we're more of a consulting company. It's me and another partner of mine.

[00:03:38] And they're like, well, we're really in need of a support desk. If this is something that you can find for us or is this something that you can provide for us? Let us know. We'd like to start up January 1st.

[00:03:49] This is Christmas Eve?

[00:03:50] This is Christmas Eve. Wow.

[00:03:52] And I said, okay, I get it. We're friends and I'm also helping you grow your business. Let's see what we can do.

[00:04:01] At that point, I decided, let's try this. Let's do this. So I created a help desk, got things moving forward. Start 2009, 2010.

[00:04:11] Next thing you know, we're from 20 stores with them. We created standards. We built a help desk for them.

[00:04:17] And that was a help desk for how many stores initially?

[00:04:20] 20 stores. So it was 24-7 weekends. T-Mobile stores are open all the time.

[00:04:29] After that happened, we helped grow to 40, 60, 100 stores. T-Mobile recognized what we were doing, started talking to other dealers at T-Mobile conferences.

[00:04:41] And next thing you know, we became the number one dealer IT support for T-Mobile.

[00:04:44] So we grew overnight nationally in one year. So by 2012, 2011, 2012, we started supporting, I would say, most of every dealer T-Mobile had.

[00:05:01] Wow.

[00:05:01] I'd say 80%. So we'll go with 80% of the dealers in there.

[00:05:04] I don't have any sense for what that is. Do you have any idea what that was?

[00:05:08] So we'll say 300 locations at the time.

[00:05:11] Wow.

[00:05:12] I don't know how many employees, but we're supporting across the nation.

[00:05:17] I had built the staff up, built a MSP that I didn't know about. I didn't even know what MSPs were.

[00:05:22] I worked in corporate world.

[00:05:23] Right.

[00:05:23] So next thing I know, I'm learning about MSPs, learning about how to build a better help desk.

[00:05:30] And this was just help desk, not monitoring or anything.

[00:05:34] Just coming in, answering the phone so that they could sell phones.

[00:05:39] They needed to be able to, if something happened to the computer, a customer sitting there, they need to be able to sell a phone.

[00:05:44] So that was our goal. We had to learn T-Mobile systems. We had to learn how they operated and support the store from internet all the way to the keyboard.

[00:05:54] Oh, wow.

[00:05:54] So what did that cause you to grow to you at that stage about how many folks at your company?

[00:05:59] So I went from originally starting off with two to, I think we had 24, maybe, I'd say 15.

[00:06:09] So let's say 15 at that time. By 2016, I had 700 locations, 10,000 employees, or 10,000 users we were supporting across the nation.

[00:06:22] So all of T-Mobile?

[00:06:23] All of T-Mobile. We had a few verticals that we did get referrals from, and we were doing just small SMB 10, maybe 15 employees.

[00:06:33] Nothing like T-Mobile.

[00:06:35] So we built T-Mobile stores, so brand new stores. We built the infrastructure. We were out on the road constantly.

[00:06:42] So that was our start in the MSP world. Got us moving forward. The journey for that was exciting. I learned a lot.

[00:06:49] Grew that to 700 plus stores, thousands and thousands of users.

[00:06:56] Merger happened with Sprint. Next thing you know, all the T-Mobile dealers started merging with each other.

[00:07:03] They brought it all in-house. By 2019, I was losing my biggest customer.

[00:07:08] Wow. And how many folks did you have at that time?

[00:07:11] So I had 35 at that time.

[00:07:13] So they say to you, some way, we're bringing it all in-house.

[00:07:17] Yep.

[00:07:18] And was...

[00:07:19] So I got six months to figure this out.

[00:07:21] Yeah. And what percentage of revenue was it?

[00:07:24] It was 90% of our revenue. 90% of our revenue.

[00:07:28] Wow.

[00:07:28] We were...

[00:07:29] So you had six months to figure out how to replace 90% of your revenue.

[00:07:32] Yep. Yep.

[00:07:33] That sounded like quite the challenge.

[00:07:35] It was. It was. It was a challenge.

[00:07:36] So as we start trying to figure out, I'm not a sales guy. I wasn't doing any sales.

[00:07:41] It was just by referrals.

[00:07:43] I landed the cash cow, the dream that everyone wants.

[00:07:48] I look back now, wish I did things different, but we didn't. We didn't focus on sales at all.

[00:07:52] You know?

[00:07:53] So met Terry from Marketopia.

[00:07:56] Mm-hmm.

[00:07:57] I need help. I don't know how to do this.

[00:08:00] So we built a plan, worked on that plan, lost T-Mobile at the end of 2019.

[00:08:08] Had to lay off family.

[00:08:11] I mean, literally family.

[00:08:12] People that worked for me that were family members.

[00:08:15] Oh, wow.

[00:08:16] You know, all the way down to, I think we had three people by the time, you know, end of 2019.

[00:08:22] Maybe four.

[00:08:23] So it was rough.

[00:08:25] Yeah.

[00:08:25] What am I going to do? How am I going to do things?

[00:08:29] So meanwhile, this was a six-month period of 2019 that we had to figure this out.

[00:08:33] During that time, Terry's plan started growing.

[00:08:36] Started getting some traction.

[00:08:39] You know, six months to get that growth machine going.

[00:08:43] So we got that going and we're getting leads.

[00:08:45] We're getting things going.

[00:08:46] 2020 comes and, okay, we can do this.

[00:08:49] We're going to start getting back on our feet.

[00:08:53] 2020 hits.

[00:08:54] I'm like, now what?

[00:08:57] What is going to happen?

[00:08:58] You know, we're all at home.

[00:09:01] Best year ever.

[00:09:03] Customers, I need help.

[00:09:05] We're just whatever we can do to get people up and running.

[00:09:09] In the growth machine, they're calling, making sure that we're available.

[00:09:14] They're calling the, and I didn't even have salespeople at the time.

[00:09:17] I had to have a text answer.

[00:09:18] Hey, go help the growth machine grow here.

[00:09:21] We need to get sales engineers to them.

[00:09:23] Go help them.

[00:09:24] Meanwhile, we're setting up people to work from home.

[00:09:27] Yeah.

[00:09:27] So I'm hiring.

[00:09:28] Now we're building.

[00:09:30] Our verticals are getting different.

[00:09:31] Different types of verticals meant different type of standards.

[00:09:36] You know, we're used to T-Mobile only.

[00:09:38] So now we've got to learn how we're going to support sonic walls, Meraki's, and all these different types of devices.

[00:09:46] So we're building this up.

[00:09:48] We're doing a great job at it.

[00:09:50] 2020 is devastating as everything was going on and all that.

[00:09:54] 2020 was probably the fastest growth year I ever had outside of the T-Mobile when we started getting into the stores.

[00:10:01] But vertical-wise, now I don't have one customer.

[00:10:04] I had, at that time, I got it up to 25 customers quickly.

[00:10:11] SMB, we're probably 500 endpoints, 600 endpoints.

[00:10:16] By the end of 2020, we're up to 1,000.

[00:10:20] By end of 2021, we're getting up to 1,500, 2,000 endpoints.

[00:10:28] So things are looking good.

[00:10:31] And then we started to...

[00:10:36] Let me interrupt you there.

[00:10:37] Yep, sorry.

[00:10:37] Yeah.

[00:10:38] So what do you attribute to that growing back?

[00:10:44] Like you lost it.

[00:10:45] You're down to three.

[00:10:46] That's got to be incredibly tough.

[00:10:48] Yeah.

[00:10:49] Yeah, it was tough.

[00:10:50] Let me start there.

[00:10:51] What was the biggest lesson learned?

[00:10:55] This episode is brought to you by Serbosity.

[00:10:57] I started Serbosity because I was an MSP that lost data because I thought backup success meant I could recover.

[00:11:06] And boy, was I wrong.

[00:11:07] If you've ever been there or anywhere close, you know how much your stomach turns over the thought of not being able to recover any version of the data for your client.

[00:11:18] Now, naively, I set off to build a better mousetrap and build a better backup product until finally I realized it's all about the people and the process.

[00:11:28] So you have a choice to make.

[00:11:30] Do nothing and bury your head in the sand or level up your processes.

[00:11:34] Now, you can do that by either hiring Serbosity or we'll take all the workload of managing backups off of your plate and test your backups daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly.

[00:11:42] Or you can keep the tech stack you have in place, your existing backup into your provider and steal my 18 years of knowledge and download that process and add that to your operational maturity today.

[00:11:58] Never have any one customer take more than 6% of your business.

[00:12:06] I use 6% just because, you know, I can lose 6%.

[00:12:10] I'm okay with that.

[00:12:12] Yeah.

[00:12:12] You know, 10% you're starting to impede on my profit margins, maybe have to lay someone off, things like that.

[00:12:20] So, yeah, never leave yourself where you're going to lose everything.

[00:12:26] Yeah.

[00:12:27] So that was lesson learned.

[00:12:29] And the other lesson learned is don't discount sales.

[00:12:33] Yeah.

[00:12:33] Sales is very important when you're growing a business.

[00:12:36] It doesn't matter what you're doing.

[00:12:37] Sales, sales, sales.

[00:12:39] So it was you and your partner at that time, right?

[00:12:42] How did you get through that?

[00:12:44] Right?

[00:12:44] So many emotions I had to imagine.

[00:12:46] Like how did you not just want to throw in the towel?

[00:12:52] Had a strong support system.

[00:12:56] My wife, family just pushed us through it.

[00:13:00] Said, hey, you guys can do this.

[00:13:01] Keep going.

[00:13:02] Stay in the room.

[00:13:03] Don't change what your dream is.

[00:13:05] That was my dream.

[00:13:06] So without that, I probably would have threw in the towel and said, you know what?

[00:13:10] I'm just going to go back to HP, make some great money, and be that number again.

[00:13:14] Yeah.

[00:13:14] You know, so really it's a support system that I had.

[00:13:18] And then I had met Terry.

[00:13:20] I'll be honest, Terry pushed me.

[00:13:22] You know, he gave me the hope that, yeah, we can do something here.

[00:13:26] So, you know, the support system.

[00:13:29] Yeah.

[00:13:30] What a blessing.

[00:13:31] So you got your wife and friends standing behind you.

[00:13:35] And then I guess from what you're saying, that hope.

[00:13:38] Because I know I need to grow, but if I don't know how, if I don't have any examples, it's hard to have the hope.

[00:13:45] Yeah.

[00:13:45] So then is that what drove the growth over the next couple of years that you were talking about so far?

[00:13:53] Yeah.

[00:13:54] So the hope, the dream, the get back to the structure I had.

[00:13:59] Because life was good.

[00:14:01] I'm not going to lie.

[00:14:02] It was fantastic, you know.

[00:14:04] It was the dream I always wanted to have, that business that everyone came to work and they enjoyed coming to work.

[00:14:12] It was.

[00:14:12] We were family.

[00:14:13] We worked hard.

[00:14:15] We played hard.

[00:14:15] We all enjoyed time off together a lot.

[00:14:19] You know, we'd go fishing.

[00:14:20] We'd go to, you know, just parties together.

[00:14:23] So it was a family.

[00:14:24] So we built that culture like Bill Pulte did.

[00:14:26] And that's what I liked about it.

[00:14:28] So that hope.

[00:14:30] Get back to that again and be able to see there is reality of, yes, you can do it without T-Mobile.

[00:14:36] Because I didn't know anything better.

[00:14:38] I didn't know that there was life outside of T-Mobile.

[00:14:42] What happened next?

[00:14:45] So we grew.

[00:14:46] We got there.

[00:14:47] We decided to bring in more seasoned sales.

[00:14:52] Brought in another business partner that was doing some sales for us outside as an agent.

[00:14:58] That brought in additional business of a different type of business.

[00:15:05] So it wasn't MSP.

[00:15:06] It was low voltage cabling, door access security cameras, things like that.

[00:15:13] So we brought him in and brought, unfortunately, what happened with that one is the owner of the low voltage business passed away due to COVID.

[00:15:23] Oh, no.

[00:15:24] We were very good friends with them.

[00:15:26] We knew the employee.

[00:15:27] So we said, you know what?

[00:15:28] We're just going to take this on.

[00:15:30] So we're going to bring in a new sales guy.

[00:15:32] We're going to take on the cabling company that he was using.

[00:15:35] So we took them on, put ourselves in $400,000 in debt.

[00:15:42] But thinking we could grow faster to make up all the stuff that we brought in.

[00:15:48] You know, the new business partner, a sales team, all the employees for the low voltage side of the house.

[00:15:56] And it caused a lot of contention between the business partners, who we laying off because we can't sustain this.

[00:16:07] What are we doing?

[00:16:09] How are we doing?

[00:16:10] And we started refocusing on what our niche was, MSP.

[00:16:16] Worked with Terry some more.

[00:16:18] Met the 20.

[00:16:21] Realized they built an operations support desk tier one, tier two tech team and visit their corporate office.

[00:16:32] They built pods.

[00:16:33] So everyone has a pod.

[00:16:35] So it's not outsourcing to like a help desk that has all these engineers and that engineer really doesn't know your customer.

[00:16:42] And they're getting 10 different engineers in one day.

[00:16:46] Could be never talked to the same engineer again.

[00:16:49] It was these guys work on your customers only.

[00:16:54] This pod works on it.

[00:16:55] They get to know your customers.

[00:16:56] So when Sally calls up, they can say, hey, James, nice to hear from you again.

[00:17:00] How's things going?

[00:17:01] And now they're having a conversation and they feel like they know them personally.

[00:17:05] So that's how I built the T-Mobile system is I built pods.

[00:17:09] Very similar.

[00:17:10] East coast, west coast.

[00:17:11] We had different areas.

[00:17:12] And they got to know our guys and they enjoyed that.

[00:17:15] So that's the vertical that I started off doing that.

[00:17:20] And then I started expanding that to the rest of the customer base that we had by that time.

[00:17:24] Where did you get the idea to build pods?

[00:17:28] I'll be honest.

[00:17:29] It was trial and error.

[00:17:31] It didn't even, it wasn't like we called it pods.

[00:17:34] We just sectioned it off and said, and maybe the Bill Pulte era when I worked for them, we had regions.

[00:17:41] And maybe that's where it came from because we focused on field support, had certain areas.

[00:17:47] And those five guys took care of those areas.

[00:17:49] And then another five guys, another area.

[00:17:51] So maybe I learned from my Bill Pulte era that building that out was successful.

[00:17:59] But, you know, trial and error.

[00:18:01] We had to try something.

[00:18:02] We couldn't sustain T-Mobile's call volume.

[00:18:05] So we had to figure it out quickly.

[00:18:09] Supporting east coast to west coast was tough.

[00:18:10] Once I met the 20, though, this is 2021.

[00:18:15] We're struggling.

[00:18:20] 2022, we started talking, figuring out what we're going to do.

[00:18:25] I think it was by 2023, we joined the 20.

[00:18:30] And I was able to bring them in.

[00:18:36] I focused on bringing our largest customer was a nonprofit.

[00:18:42] I had 300, 400 users.

[00:18:45] They were just time suck.

[00:18:47] We're answering the phone constantly.

[00:18:49] And I'm paying these guys top dollars.

[00:18:51] These are highly seasoned engineers.

[00:18:53] They don't want to answer the phone.

[00:18:55] 20 took 80% of the calls, at least.

[00:18:58] Probably 90% of the calls.

[00:19:00] Wow.

[00:19:00] So now my engineers are now actually focused on projects.

[00:19:04] We're just enjoying life again.

[00:19:06] Instead of just being that dreadful, pick up the phone.

[00:19:09] Why?

[00:19:10] Stop calling me Sally.

[00:19:12] Yes, I know.

[00:19:12] Yeah.

[00:19:13] Your password is this.

[00:19:14] Go ahead.

[00:19:15] We're changing it again.

[00:19:16] Yeah.

[00:19:17] So you hired the 20.

[00:19:18] You hired them to, I'm curious, take help desk calls, all of them, certain ones.

[00:19:25] Yeah.

[00:19:25] So we went down.

[00:19:27] We visited them.

[00:19:27] We seen the pod structure.

[00:19:28] I fell in love immediately.

[00:19:29] I said, hey, this is what I built.

[00:19:31] I love it.

[00:19:32] I love the culture.

[00:19:32] I love what you're building.

[00:19:33] Let's try it out.

[00:19:35] We needed someone to take the calls to get our techs to actually be proactive.

[00:19:40] Because that's what we sold is proactive.

[00:19:41] But we weren't.

[00:19:42] We were reactive.

[00:19:43] All we're doing is firefighting constantly every single day.

[00:19:46] So we needed to be proactive.

[00:19:48] After we hired the 20, now our techs could focus on proactive.

[00:19:51] We could actually do that.

[00:19:52] I was working so hard in the business, I was taking calls.

[00:19:55] I was running on site doing things.

[00:19:56] After the 20, I was able to now focus on the business.

[00:19:59] And that's where the growth came.

[00:20:01] That's where I was able to pick up the revenue.

[00:20:03] Now, I did use that opportunity to up-level my techs and shrink some of that.

[00:20:10] Because now we don't need those people answering the phones as much.

[00:20:14] So that's where we were able to take that, grow the profit back into the business, getting project work, getting the fun stuff.

[00:20:21] I call it the fun stuff.

[00:20:22] Because you're not answering your phone because Sally doesn't know her password today.

[00:20:26] Yeah.

[00:20:27] So it helped us grow.

[00:20:29] They had processes.

[00:20:30] They had membership was huge.

[00:20:33] Oh, be able to reach out to people across the nation of the membership that they had and get the knowledge of a SharePoint project that maybe we never did.

[00:20:41] Amazing.

[00:20:42] You know, now I have two techs that somewhat know it.

[00:20:46] But now I have a dozen techs that can jump in and help out.

[00:20:49] So is this a discussion forum or a peer group or something else?

[00:20:54] A little bit of both.

[00:20:55] A peer group.

[00:20:55] There's a discussion forum.

[00:20:57] You can throw it in a chat.

[00:20:58] People answer it.

[00:21:00] Pick up the phone.

[00:21:01] Call.

[00:21:02] Help you out.

[00:21:03] If I need a tech just to get on a call with us with a customer to explain something, we had a high-end tech that would be able to have that confidence when you're talking to the customer.

[00:21:13] Compared to our guys, yeah, they knew it, but they couldn't talk the talk, right?

[00:21:17] They were struggling through it.

[00:21:19] We could get it done, but these guys could talk the talk and they felt confident with us when we're doing these projects now.

[00:21:25] So we could focus on the high-value items and allow the help desks, the 20 takeover, all that just noise.

[00:21:36] And that's what they did for us.

[00:21:37] They took over the noise.

[00:21:38] They built it up.

[00:21:39] So we became MSP of the year for the 20 in 2023.

[00:21:44] And what does that mean?

[00:21:45] So we were leaders of following the platform.

[00:21:52] So it is truly a platform.

[00:21:54] They give you all the tools you need, your processes.

[00:21:56] They build out the operations for you, and it's there.

[00:22:00] They have the support desk.

[00:22:02] They have the 24-7 picking up phone.

[00:22:04] And that was the other thing.

[00:22:05] My techs are on call all the time, and they dreaded it because there's only a handful of them.

[00:22:10] Now, 24-7 help desk, they're answering the call.

[00:22:14] 90% of the calls being answered by them, they're fixed in the first call.

[00:22:18] So at night, something comes through, they're calling the ISP.

[00:22:21] They're calling the customer up saying, hey, you have an outage.

[00:22:25] ISP says it's going to be ready for you in the morning.

[00:22:26] Or they're letting us know right away saying, hey, you've got to be out there first thing in the morning.

[00:22:31] So now we can be proactive.

[00:22:32] So that was huge to our techs.

[00:22:35] They're like, oh, my God, I don't have to be on call.

[00:22:37] I don't have to answer the phone 24-7.

[00:22:39] So those things were great value added to our techs.

[00:22:42] So all in all, we were able to now do the fun projects, the value-added projects, and increase our profit tremendously.

[00:22:51] We went from negative $400,000, and by 2023, we're a profit of $600,000.

[00:23:00] Wow.

[00:23:00] Wow.

[00:23:01] So maybe a little bit more than that.

[00:23:04] A million-dollar swing in profit in a year?

[00:23:07] That's huge.

[00:23:08] That's crazy.

[00:23:09] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:23:10] And about how many employees did you have at the time?

[00:23:14] So at the time of hiring the 20?

[00:23:18] I guess you're talking about by the end of 22, 23?

[00:23:21] Yeah.

[00:23:22] So we had, I want to say, 10, 12 employees.

[00:23:25] And then...

[00:23:26] That's the time of that negative $400,000 deposit.

[00:23:29] Yeah, yeah.

[00:23:29] I mean, a million-dollar swing and 10, 12 employees?

[00:23:33] Yeah.

[00:23:33] That's big if you're at 50 or 100.

[00:23:36] Yeah.

[00:23:36] But that's...

[00:23:37] I don't know.

[00:23:38] How did that feel?

[00:23:39] It felt good, right?

[00:23:41] Right?

[00:23:41] It felt good.

[00:23:42] It actually proved that we could do it.

[00:23:45] You know?

[00:23:45] It was like, wow, we did it.

[00:23:47] You know?

[00:23:47] And just my family pushing us through this, we were able to take that swing and push revenue

[00:23:52] up that high and back to, we'll call it T-Mobile era.

[00:23:56] Yeah.

[00:23:56] You know?

[00:23:56] Those are the things that excited me.

[00:24:00] And we were actually helping people more than just T-Mobile.

[00:24:04] We were helping several customers.

[00:24:06] You know?

[00:24:07] You're talking 25 to 52 customers.

[00:24:10] You know?

[00:24:10] Overnight, we're helping everyone grow their business.

[00:24:14] So the time of 2020 to 2024, people were trying to figure out how to get back on their feet.

[00:24:19] Yeah.

[00:24:20] And we helped them do that.

[00:24:21] We were able to quickly help them do that.

[00:24:23] So that helped.

[00:24:24] You know?

[00:24:25] The growth machine helped push those people to us.

[00:24:28] The 20 helped us be able to support those people and take them on and not have to hire.

[00:24:32] Hiring was tough.

[00:24:33] It was really tough.

[00:24:34] It was...

[00:24:35] You know?

[00:24:35] We were going through techs constantly.

[00:24:37] You know?

[00:24:38] The Detroit area grew in tech.

[00:24:42] Salaries went up.

[00:24:44] Now I got to pay more money.

[00:24:45] I still have contracts that are still only collecting X amount of dollars from back in 2016.

[00:24:51] You know?

[00:24:51] We never upped our pricing.

[00:24:53] We should have.

[00:24:54] We didn't.

[00:24:55] And then I met Terry and we started upping our price.

[00:24:57] But still, your techs now are asking for a higher dollar and you couldn't survive if you didn't grow.

[00:25:05] Yeah.

[00:25:05] So we were able to grow that way.

[00:25:07] It was fun.

[00:25:09] And I didn't know what I wanted to do.

[00:25:11] You know?

[00:25:12] I...

[00:25:13] You know?

[00:25:13] The 20 membership.

[00:25:14] They...

[00:25:15] Everyone talks about...

[00:25:16] There's a roll up.

[00:25:18] The 20 is going to buy your MSP from you or...

[00:25:21] And I thought that was...

[00:25:23] When I first got into it, I thought that was it.

[00:25:25] That's what you had to do.

[00:25:26] You became a member and you're going to be part of the 20 shortly after.

[00:25:31] No, that's just an opportunity you have.

[00:25:33] You can be a member as long as you want.

[00:25:35] You know?

[00:25:36] It's not anything that...

[00:25:38] And it's only opportunity that it's right for you and right for the 20.

[00:25:42] It's not something that the 20 says you have to do this because you're a member.

[00:25:46] You're not committed to that.

[00:25:47] So we got approached by Tim, the owner, the CEO.

[00:25:54] And early 2024, late 2023, said you guys are doing phenomenal things.

[00:26:01] So I became very well known through the 20 community.

[00:26:04] Like I said, 2023, we just MSPed a year.

[00:26:09] Learned every member who they were networked.

[00:26:12] And I treated everyone like they were my employees down at the help desk level.

[00:26:17] So it's really our teams integrated.

[00:26:19] And he liked what he's seen.

[00:26:20] And he liked how fast we were able to turn around and build a profitable MSP.

[00:26:27] So talked to him.

[00:26:30] 2024 came around.

[00:26:32] Things looked great.

[00:26:33] We were doing good.

[00:26:35] We're like, is it something we want to do or not?

[00:26:38] And, you know, I started meeting more and more of the 20 executive team, the leadership team.

[00:26:45] I'm like, wow, I really like this.

[00:26:46] You know, this sounds like something I want to be part of.

[00:26:51] You know, I'm only going to grow 5 million, 10 million.

[00:26:54] These guys are growing 100 million, 200 million, you know.

[00:26:57] So that fast pace, that ability to see something like that grow, that's how it was at Pulte.

[00:27:03] Pulte started local.

[00:27:05] Then we grew national.

[00:27:06] We're acquiring all these people.

[00:27:08] That fast pace excites me.

[00:27:09] That's what I really enjoy.

[00:27:11] So it made sense.

[00:27:12] We talked.

[00:27:13] Things worked out.

[00:27:15] 2024 of February, we rolled up.

[00:27:18] And now it's been 9, 10, end of the year now.

[00:27:24] Time flies.

[00:27:27] It's been exciting.

[00:27:28] It's been a great transition.

[00:27:30] Customers love it.

[00:27:31] Our employees love it.

[00:27:33] You know, we get things done.

[00:27:35] Now I have a regional team, things like that.

[00:27:38] So I'm doing, I think I'm giving value back to the 20, helping them grow, helping their customers grow.

[00:27:47] So it's exciting for me.

[00:27:49] It is really something that I think if I knew about the 20 early on, I probably would have started that with the T-Mobile days if they were around.

[00:27:58] That probably would have made me even more successful than I am today.

[00:28:03] I'm curious.

[00:28:04] How does it feel as an owner?

[00:28:06] And sometimes we get wrapped up in our ego.

[00:28:09] How's it go from I'm the owner to I'm not the owner?

[00:28:11] And you're playing a really big role.

[00:28:13] But I'm just curious.

[00:28:14] How's that transition for you?

[00:28:16] Tough.

[00:28:16] It was tough.

[00:28:17] Yeah.

[00:28:18] It was tough.

[00:28:19] I got to report to someone.

[00:28:20] I got to let someone know where I'm at.

[00:28:22] Besides my wife.

[00:28:23] Right.

[00:28:24] Right.

[00:28:24] Yeah.

[00:28:24] Yeah.

[00:28:25] It was tough.

[00:28:26] But the transition was great.

[00:28:28] The leadership that I work for really is hands off.

[00:28:32] Great mentors.

[00:28:33] They're there for us.

[00:28:34] I feel like I am still an owner because I'm running the regions.

[00:28:38] So I still have I'm held responsible just like I was as my own owner.

[00:28:43] So ownership.

[00:28:44] I just don't have the flexibility, I guess, to make this is the way we're going.

[00:28:50] Now it's OK.

[00:28:52] We have to follow standards.

[00:28:53] We have to work as a group.

[00:28:54] We have collaborative, which I enjoy.

[00:28:56] I didn't have that as an owner.

[00:28:58] You're really just you and maybe your business partner if they're technical.

[00:29:02] Yeah.

[00:29:03] You know, and you're making decisions kind of by yourself.

[00:29:07] Yeah.

[00:29:07] Now we have a team.

[00:29:09] I have peers.

[00:29:10] We sit down.

[00:29:11] We talk about it.

[00:29:12] Is this the right thing to do?

[00:29:13] Should we?

[00:29:13] You know, so it gave me a little relief.

[00:29:17] Yeah.

[00:29:18] I don't have the shoulder stress anymore.

[00:29:20] I don't have to make sure my employees get paid.

[00:29:22] I don't have to make sure everyone has a job tomorrow.

[00:29:27] You know, I don't have to customers calling in.

[00:29:30] I can't take a vacation because literally I have to be there now.

[00:29:34] I can take a vacation because I have peers.

[00:29:35] I have people that can help me out.

[00:29:37] You know, I can go on vacation, turn my phone off and not worry about everything works great.

[00:29:42] I recently had a death in the family.

[00:29:47] Sorry to hear that.

[00:29:48] Yeah.

[00:29:48] It was something close to us.

[00:29:53] Our family had to take time off for last, I'd say from last week in October to about two weeks into November.

[00:30:04] If I had my own business, I don't know how I could have done it.

[00:30:08] Having the 20, I didn't have to worry about it.

[00:30:11] Being there with the 20.

[00:30:13] I just shut my phone off, dealt with what I had to deal with.

[00:30:17] Family members, getting everyone where we needed to be.

[00:30:20] Today I'm here.

[00:30:21] Sorry.

[00:30:22] A little teary-eyed.

[00:30:24] I think people miss that.

[00:30:27] What struck me earlier on is you took on the low-voltage company.

[00:30:33] $400,000 in debt.

[00:30:34] Yeah.

[00:30:35] Because so many people like you in this industry are trying to care for others.

[00:30:39] And then it's so hard to care for ourselves.

[00:30:42] 100%.

[00:30:43] Take care of ourselves, right?

[00:30:44] Because we're always doing for others.

[00:30:46] And I think that's the part that I missed and most of us are still missing is there's a financial component, hopefully a good one, to an exit, right?

[00:30:55] Yeah.

[00:30:56] But what if you need that time off?

[00:31:00] What if something happens with somebody close to you and you need that time or your health declines or just other things?

[00:31:09] Like I think we often sit back and go, I'm going to wait until everything's in a perfect state before I even consider looking at what an exit looks like.

[00:31:19] Instead of saying, why don't I run this in a way that I'm prepared and so that I could, you know, if something, you know, God forbid happens, maybe I could be in a spot where I could take that time off.

[00:31:29] Yep.

[00:31:30] Yep, for sure.

[00:31:31] And you talk about, I look at, you're never prepared to have a child.

[00:31:37] People say, I'm going to just wait.

[00:31:39] I'm going to build my pocketbook, make sure I have money in the bank, make sure I have the house, make sure we're married, make sure we have everything.

[00:31:46] I was going to wait until I grew up.

[00:31:48] Yeah.

[00:31:49] You know, and same with me.

[00:31:50] At 23 years old, here I am.

[00:31:52] I'm a parent now.

[00:31:54] Yeah.

[00:31:54] You know, you're not prepared for that.

[00:31:56] Right.

[00:31:56] You know, so, and even there you have your.

[00:31:59] What are you doing?

[00:32:00] Let's try this out.

[00:32:01] Yep.

[00:32:02] All right.

[00:32:03] I'm changing diapers now.

[00:32:04] Yeah.

[00:32:04] Let's figure this out.

[00:32:05] You know, you know, now they're going to college and now they have a family.

[00:32:10] Now you have grandbabies.

[00:32:11] You know, it's just, that's the same way in the business.

[00:32:14] It was the same way when I started the business.

[00:32:16] It's, it's, Hey, I want to try this.

[00:32:20] Not sure I'm prepared.

[00:32:21] You know, I was fortunate to have a wife that backed me and said, yeah, quit HP.

[00:32:26] You're making tons of money, but yeah, go ahead.

[00:32:28] Yeah.

[00:32:29] Go try this.

[00:32:30] Yeah.

[00:32:30] You know?

[00:32:31] So, you know, I, I relate to it is really starting a family and, and that's what I did.

[00:32:36] I started a family.

[00:32:37] I'd be, you know, all those employees are my family.

[00:32:40] All my employees here at the 20, we're family.

[00:32:42] My peers are our family.

[00:32:43] We, we really support each other and help each other out.

[00:32:47] So, you know, it's tough ups and downs of life.

[00:32:50] Yeah.

[00:32:51] I'd like to tie something in together.

[00:32:53] Let, let's imagine that if you're like me, you'd have made more at HP than you ever paid

[00:33:01] yourself.

[00:33:02] A hundred percent.

[00:33:03] But let's imagine that somehow the last decade you could have worked at HP versus doing this

[00:33:08] and maybe what you exited for, maybe they, maybe they wash, maybe they're the same or maybe

[00:33:13] I'm hoping to get better, but let's imagine the same.

[00:33:15] So we're kind of taking money out of it.

[00:33:17] Can you imagine if you'd stayed there and done that, like what your life would have been

[00:33:21] differently?

[00:33:22] What you would have missed?

[00:33:25] I'm not sure I can imagine that, but I can speculate that I would be just doing a job.

[00:33:36] Yeah.

[00:33:37] I'm not passionate.

[00:33:38] Don't have the passion.

[00:33:41] Come in, do my eight hours and leaving.

[00:33:44] Yeah.

[00:33:44] You know, and that's where it was when I left.

[00:33:46] It was just, I had a boss in California that didn't even, I don't even know, I don't even

[00:33:51] know his name anymore.

[00:33:52] You know, he didn't put anything on me.

[00:33:55] I wanted to be able to, to give back to people.

[00:33:58] And someone remembers Sean Marino.

[00:34:00] Yeah.

[00:34:00] And at that time, Data Tech Cafe.

[00:34:02] Even to this day, I mean, people come up to me.

[00:34:05] I had a customer of mine was on a plane and one of my old employees was on the plane and

[00:34:13] sitting next to him and he's asking him what he does.

[00:34:16] And the guy says, oh, I work in IT.

[00:34:18] And my customer goes, oh, do you know Sean Marino from Data Tech Cafe?

[00:34:23] Why would this guy even ask that question?

[00:34:25] It was thousands of people.

[00:34:26] Yeah.

[00:34:26] He goes, oh my God, I used to work for Data Tech Cafe.

[00:34:29] He helped me grow here.

[00:34:30] I'm now a cyber security analyst and all this stuff.

[00:34:33] And just to be able to know that happened and he texted me that day, that's what made

[00:34:37] me feel good.

[00:34:38] HP, never would have happened.

[00:34:40] Yeah.

[00:34:40] I maybe mentored a couple employees, but he wouldn't have had that experience.

[00:34:44] Yeah.

[00:34:45] The level of impact.

[00:34:46] Yes.

[00:34:46] That you've had since then.

[00:34:48] 100%.

[00:34:48] You can't imagine the difference.

[00:34:50] 100%.

[00:34:50] The impact I have here, you know, at Marketopia, I grew with Marketopia.

[00:34:55] I was with them since 2019 or 18, I can't remember now.

[00:35:01] 19.

[00:35:01] And we, the family that I grew through Marketopia, the network I grew through Marketopia, I've

[00:35:10] impacted a lot of MSPs, helping them out.

[00:35:14] Jeff Newton from Red Eye Tech at the time, he's now with SIF.

[00:35:17] He, him and I, I helped him grow.

[00:35:21] I watched this guy who was trying to find himself to now, he's an entrepreneur.

[00:35:27] Things like that.

[00:35:28] That's huge.

[00:35:29] That's, that's what this is about.

[00:35:32] Or that's what my life's about.

[00:35:34] Impacting people.

[00:35:35] Yeah.

[00:35:36] If you could go back and talk to Sean from 10 years ago, what would you say?

[00:35:44] Knowing what you know now.

[00:35:45] I would, I would tell Sean to not get yourself stuck with one customer.

[00:35:52] Right?

[00:35:53] Let's not go through that again.

[00:35:54] Yeah.

[00:35:55] And I would change my mindset about sales.

[00:36:22] Mm-hmm.

[00:36:24] And, and reaching out and learning from people like Terry and others.

[00:36:29] Sales, sales, sales, sales.

[00:36:31] Yeah.

[00:36:32] That's, that's the way you keep a business growing.

[00:36:36] It strikes me that you have so much knowledge from what you've done and all the, all the

[00:36:41] challenges you face, Sean.

[00:36:42] For all the folks that are watching and listening, is there anything that you would be willing

[00:36:46] to give in terms of they're struggling with this?

[00:36:49] Should they reach out to you in any way that you'd be able to help?

[00:36:52] Absolutely.

[00:36:53] Uh, everyone knows in, in the peer groups and marketopia, uh, I'm just a phone call away.

[00:37:00] Give me a call.

[00:37:01] I'll sit down.

[00:37:02] I just told someone, Hey, you're struggling with a sale.

[00:37:06] You know, you got a, a, a contract you want to get signed.

[00:37:09] You want extra hands.

[00:37:10] Let me know.

[00:37:11] I'm here for you.

[00:37:12] Uh, I'll make time.

[00:37:14] And that's, you know, same with, uh, new MSPs and they don't know.

[00:37:20] Yeah.

[00:37:20] Let me give you what I did and why I did it.

[00:37:22] Yeah.

[00:37:23] You know, let me help you out.

[00:37:24] Uh, there's a lot of MSPs out there that are, they've been doing MSP work for 20 years

[00:37:30] and they're still trying to figure it out, but they're the one man show.

[00:37:33] They don't know how to grow.

[00:37:35] They're stuck in the business.

[00:37:36] I'm willing to help you figure it out.

[00:37:38] What's how, how can we grow in sales?

[00:37:40] Let's, let's figure out sales.

[00:37:42] How are we going to get that close?

[00:37:43] How are we going to get you there?

[00:37:44] What does it take to get you there?

[00:37:45] And then building the operations behind it.

[00:37:49] So yeah, definitely.

[00:37:50] I'm, I'm available.

[00:37:51] Uh, I have a, uh, MSP on tap, uh, kind of podcast like we're doing here that I'm trying

[00:37:59] to start up so people can call in and we can do some things, good things for people.

[00:38:04] Nice.

[00:38:04] Level them out and share the knowledge.

[00:38:06] I want people to grow.

[00:38:07] I don't want to be the only one that has a success story.

[00:38:10] Yeah.

[00:38:10] Yeah.

[00:38:11] That's awesome.

[00:38:12] Let me flip that around on you, Sean.

[00:38:13] What's one thing you'd ask for all the folks that are listening?

[00:38:16] Is there something you're struggling with?

[00:38:17] Something you'd love to have help with?

[00:38:20] My ask is for everyone that is out there in the MSP industry, IT industry, consultant industry,

[00:38:29] treat people the way you want to be treated.

[00:38:32] Hmm.

[00:38:34] That, that will get you further.

[00:38:36] And so my ask is as long as you're treating that, giving me that, that same respect, you

[00:38:43] know, I'll help you.

[00:38:45] You help me.

[00:38:46] We'll get things done.

[00:38:47] So that's what my ask is just help people.

[00:38:50] You know, it's, this world is, it's, it's different than when we were young.

[00:38:55] Yeah.

[00:38:57] And, you know, seeing a good deed, help someone, someone's in line and they need an extra penny,

[00:39:03] give it to them.

[00:39:03] That's what I ask.

[00:39:04] Yeah.

[00:39:05] Help people.

[00:39:06] I love that.

[00:39:07] Excuse me.

[00:39:08] Yeah.

[00:39:09] Well, I feel like I could talk to you all day.

[00:39:11] Oh yeah.

[00:39:12] Uh, but, uh, I know that you get a busy schedule.

[00:39:15] Um, I just want to say thank you for the gift of giving and making the offer to folks

[00:39:20] and asking and the gift of your time here at Brocon.

[00:39:23] And thank you for being on MSP Mindset.

[00:39:25] Thank you.