M&A Doesn't Have To Be Scary, with Neil Medwed

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER_00]: For those MSP owners that are listening, what's the biggest thing they're getting wrong?

[00:00:04] [SPEAKER_02]: To me, the people is what's important. It's not as much the brand. People buy from people. People support people.

[00:00:13] [SPEAKER_02]: Whether the invoice comes from Meriplex or Preferred Technology Solutions truly isn't that big of a deal in the long run.

[00:00:23] [SPEAKER_02]: So they get attached to their brand more so than they really should.

[00:00:28] [SPEAKER_00]: Hey guys, Damien Stevens, host of MSP Mindset. Today we have a special edition where we are at Build IT Live 2024 in Orlando, Florida.

[00:00:43] [SPEAKER_00]: Special shout out to Sonny and Cam and the entire IT by Design team for allowing us to set up shop and interview some really special MSPs.

[00:00:54] [SPEAKER_00]: Today I got the opportunity to interview Neil Medwade about M&A.

[00:01:00] [SPEAKER_00]: So Neil, let's kind of dig right in.

[00:01:03] [SPEAKER_00]: Sure.

[00:01:04] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm super curious how you came to Meriplex.

[00:01:07] [SPEAKER_02]: Sure. Well first, I'm a 40-year VAR MSP. I got into this crazy industry, this wonderful industry, you know, back in 1983 after moving down from Detroit, Michigan.

[00:01:19] [SPEAKER_02]: Graduated Michigan State, moved down to Dallas and didn't know what I was going to do at that point.

[00:01:24] [SPEAKER_02]: I had a marketing degree, got into computers and that started my journey over here.

[00:01:29] [SPEAKER_02]: I had my own company, Preferred Technology Solutions for over 26 years.

[00:01:35] [SPEAKER_02]: And I was always big in technology communities, you know, trying to give back, trying to raise the ocean level, you know, for everybody with different initiatives, things like that, and peer groups and communities.

[00:01:48] [SPEAKER_02]: And I made a lot of great friendships, you know, back then.

[00:01:52] [SPEAKER_01]: Nice.

[00:01:53] [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm an older man, you know, I'm in my 60s and I wasn't looking to sell, but it was always on my mind after 26 and a half years running the business.

[00:02:03] [SPEAKER_02]: Right.

[00:02:03] [SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, the perfect opportunity for my family, for myself, you know, came up.

[00:02:09] [SPEAKER_02]: My best technology friend, Greg Starr, was the first major acquisition of Meriplex down in Houston.

[00:02:16] [SPEAKER_02]: Okay.

[00:02:17] [SPEAKER_02]: Him and a Parker John Powell owned IT Works.

[00:02:19] [SPEAKER_02]: So I was telling you, I took a client out to the golf course who were golfing and got a phone call from my friend Greg and said, you know, hey, Neil, you know, will you talk to my CEO?

[00:02:31] [SPEAKER_02]: And because it was Greg, I did.

[00:02:33] [SPEAKER_02]: And of course, because it was Greg, I answered the phone on the golf course.

[00:02:37] [SPEAKER_02]: Normally, I probably wouldn't have done that.

[00:02:39] [SPEAKER_02]: Right.

[00:02:40] [SPEAKER_02]: But I took a call from David Henley, our CEO, who's magnificent.

[00:02:45] [SPEAKER_02]: And one thing led to another, you know, four and a half, five months later, I was part of Meriplex as their second major acquisition.

[00:02:53] [SPEAKER_02]: Wow.

[00:02:53] [SPEAKER_02]: Meriplex from a DNA standpoint, we're a 23-year-old C-Lec by DNA.

[00:03:00] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, wow.

[00:03:00] [SPEAKER_02]: And it was a father-son company.

[00:03:02] [SPEAKER_02]: David Henley, our CEO, he's 46 years old.

[00:03:05] [SPEAKER_02]: He's brilliant.

[00:03:06] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, I'm proud to call him my CEO.

[00:03:08] [SPEAKER_02]: I love the guy.

[00:03:10] [SPEAKER_02]: They say you can't, you know, teach an old dog new tricks.

[00:03:13] [SPEAKER_02]: That's not true.

[00:03:14] [SPEAKER_02]: I've learned so much from this gentleman.

[00:03:16] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, wow.

[00:03:16] [SPEAKER_02]: But, you know, I became Meriplex.

[00:03:19] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, Meriplex, again, from a DNA standpoint, was a C-Lec, a circuit provider, voice over IP, father and son company.

[00:03:28] [SPEAKER_02]: Nice.

[00:03:28] [SPEAKER_02]: And David had a bigger vision.

[00:03:30] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, the son, David, you know, let's take managed circuits, combine it out with managed IT and managed cybersecurity.

[00:03:37] [SPEAKER_02]: That's a wave of the future.

[00:03:39] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:03:39] [SPEAKER_02]: And he said that to his father.

[00:03:41] [SPEAKER_02]: The father said, son, if you believe that deeply, find private equity, take out the family piece of the business and live your dream.

[00:03:48] [SPEAKER_01]: Wow.

[00:03:48] [SPEAKER_02]: And that's what happened.

[00:03:50] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, so Meriplex has come a long way in those 23 years of being in business.

[00:03:56] [SPEAKER_02]: And IT works, my best, you know, technology friend, Greg and John Powell's company, they partnered with Meriplex when, you know, Meriplex being a telecom company in essence.

[00:04:08] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:04:08] [SPEAKER_02]: And when they needed higher level IT stuff, they'd pick up the phone call IT works.

[00:04:13] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, so, you know, they were first acquisition after private equity came on in, proved out the model.

[00:04:20] [SPEAKER_02]: And, and I was the second, I bought 11 companies in less than four years, really less than three years about 11 companies.

[00:04:28] [SPEAKER_02]: Wow.

[00:04:29] [SPEAKER_02]: To really build and grow.

[00:04:30] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, just for, just for a level set over here, when I was bought, even with me, we're about 80 people.

[00:04:40] [SPEAKER_02]: Today, we're about 700 people.

[00:04:42] [SPEAKER_02]: Wow.

[00:04:42] [SPEAKER_02]: Back then, we're Houston corporate in Dallas where I'm from, you know, two offices.

[00:04:48] [SPEAKER_02]: Now we're 12 offices.

[00:04:49] [SPEAKER_02]: Wow.

[00:04:49] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, with many more to come.

[00:04:51] [SPEAKER_02]: So it's been quite a journey.

[00:04:52] [SPEAKER_02]: Let me just say it that way.

[00:04:54] [SPEAKER_02]: How many was your team?

[00:04:56] [SPEAKER_02]: I was, when we were bought, we were 16 people.

[00:04:59] [SPEAKER_02]: Okay.

[00:04:59] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, I've minimized it and we're 16 people.

[00:05:02] [SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, I had a good MSP.

[00:05:05] [SPEAKER_02]: I was, I had what I call a lifestyle business.

[00:05:08] [SPEAKER_02]: Okay.

[00:05:08] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, I was making good money.

[00:05:10] [SPEAKER_02]: I was happy.

[00:05:11] [SPEAKER_02]: You get up in the morning, go to the office, you know, your shower shave, you go to the

[00:05:15] [SPEAKER_02]: office, you work, you know, work all day.

[00:05:18] [SPEAKER_02]: You have wins, you have losses, of course, and you go home and rinse and repeat.

[00:05:24] [SPEAKER_02]: What frustrated me is I've always been big in technology communities.

[00:05:30] [SPEAKER_02]: I was big in, you know, civic local communities.

[00:05:33] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:05:34] [SPEAKER_02]: And I'd go to dinners.

[00:05:35] [SPEAKER_02]: I'd go to charity events and sometimes sit at speakers tables.

[00:05:39] [SPEAKER_02]: And meet the movers and shakers of Dallas Forth Worth business.

[00:05:43] [SPEAKER_02]: Nice.

[00:05:43] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, sit right next to them just like me and you were sitting next to each other.

[00:05:47] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:05:48] [SPEAKER_02]: Have great conversations.

[00:05:49] [SPEAKER_02]: But I knew I wasn't big enough or powerful enough or talented enough from a staff standpoint

[00:05:56] [SPEAKER_02]: to truly support the larger organizations.

[00:05:58] [SPEAKER_02]: And to be blunt, they knew the same thing.

[00:06:01] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:06:01] [SPEAKER_02]: And we had great conversations, but it couldn't really go much farther than that.

[00:06:05] [SPEAKER_02]: So that frustrated me.

[00:06:06] [SPEAKER_02]: Again, I had a lifestyle business.

[00:06:07] [SPEAKER_02]: I was doing good, but I wasn't fulfilled.

[00:06:10] [SPEAKER_02]: I wasn't, you know, I want to do something much, much bigger and better than I could with

[00:06:16] [SPEAKER_02]: my own company.

[00:06:17] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:06:17] [SPEAKER_02]: So when I talked to David Henley, our CEO at Meriplex and understood his vision, what he

[00:06:23] [SPEAKER_02]: was trying to accomplish even back when, back then, it really resonated with me.

[00:06:29] [SPEAKER_02]: It gave me, it, I like to say in a good way, it made my toes tingle.

[00:06:37] [SPEAKER_00]: Hey guys, today's episode is sponsored by Servocity.

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[00:06:46] [SPEAKER_00]: Then I had to go in front of my client and tell them I can't recover.

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[00:07:25] [SPEAKER_00]: About when was this?

[00:07:26] [SPEAKER_00]: When you were having this conversation about what, how long ago?

[00:07:29] [SPEAKER_02]: This was beginning in 2020 about what David's vision of Meriplex was, how he wanted to build

[00:07:38] [SPEAKER_02]: an organization, a national organization.

[00:07:42] [SPEAKER_02]: It just resonated.

[00:07:46] [SPEAKER_02]: He had great talent internally already.

[00:07:48] [SPEAKER_02]: Again, we're only 80 people.

[00:07:50] [SPEAKER_02]: But there's a lot of great, great talent there.

[00:07:53] [SPEAKER_02]: Again, David Henley, our CEO, he's brilliant, 46 years old now.

[00:07:57] [SPEAKER_02]: One of the smartest individuals I've ever met.

[00:07:59] [SPEAKER_02]: One of the most honest individuals I've ever met.

[00:08:02] [SPEAKER_02]: He's one of those guys that, you know, he's not going to tell you just to say something,

[00:08:09] [SPEAKER_02]: tell you this and then flip and say that to someone else.

[00:08:12] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:08:13] [SPEAKER_02]: He's extremely honest and very direct.

[00:08:15] [SPEAKER_02]: And I've always loved that about the gentleman.

[00:08:18] [SPEAKER_02]: He's a lifetime learner.

[00:08:20] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, he studies and he wants to learn.

[00:08:23] [SPEAKER_02]: And he also doesn't need to be the smartest man in the room.

[00:08:27] [SPEAKER_02]: That's awesome.

[00:08:28] [SPEAKER_02]: A lot of CEOs of organizations, you know, what do they want?

[00:08:31] [SPEAKER_02]: They want a bunch of yes men around them.

[00:08:33] [SPEAKER_02]: They're not going to challenge them.

[00:08:35] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:08:35] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, David loves to be challenged.

[00:08:37] [SPEAKER_02]: And that just, you know, again, it's invigorating to me to be in an organization that you can

[00:08:43] [SPEAKER_02]: build and grow with great talent around, with great vision, you know, of what they want

[00:08:49] [SPEAKER_02]: to build, grow and do.

[00:08:52] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:08:53] [SPEAKER_00]: Let me ask you this, if you don't mind, Neil.

[00:08:54] [SPEAKER_00]: Sure.

[00:08:56] [SPEAKER_00]: You mentioned you wanted to be part of something bigger.

[00:08:59] [SPEAKER_00]: Sure.

[00:09:01] [SPEAKER_00]: What was that feeling and calling?

[00:09:04] [SPEAKER_00]: And why was that important to you?

[00:09:05] [SPEAKER_00]: Why was that important to me?

[00:09:08] [SPEAKER_02]: There's a time, again, I'm an older gentleman.

[00:09:14] [SPEAKER_02]: Money.

[00:09:15] [SPEAKER_02]: What is money?

[00:09:16] [SPEAKER_02]: And how much money does one need?

[00:09:19] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, I was at the stage of life where I truly had all the money that I needed to

[00:09:28] [SPEAKER_02]: live the rest of my life and to take care of my, you know, kids in essence.

[00:09:33] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:09:35] [SPEAKER_02]: Being fulfilled.

[00:09:37] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, you know, was I lucky?

[00:09:41] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, for sure.

[00:09:43] [SPEAKER_02]: But was I satisfied?

[00:09:45] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, the story I told about going to these charity events and business events,

[00:09:50] [SPEAKER_02]: not being able to truly look someone in the eye and support them and them knowing I could

[00:09:55] [SPEAKER_02]: support them in that sense.

[00:09:57] [SPEAKER_02]: Right.

[00:09:57] [SPEAKER_02]: Looking at opportunities to help.

[00:09:59] [SPEAKER_02]: Our industry is such an important industry.

[00:10:01] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes.

[00:10:01] [SPEAKER_02]: We help protect companies.

[00:10:04] [SPEAKER_02]: We help, you know, improve them with the technology, advance their causes, things like that.

[00:10:10] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:10:11] [SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, there's two components.

[00:10:16] [SPEAKER_02]: You have yourself, you know, you wake up in the morning, you look in the mirror and you see

[00:10:21] [SPEAKER_02]: this person.

[00:10:23] [SPEAKER_02]: And that's obviously very important.

[00:10:25] [SPEAKER_02]: Then you have your inner circle, which is your wife, your husband, your kids, your partner, the inner circle of the family.

[00:10:33] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:10:33] [SPEAKER_02]: But also you have this group of teammates, this group of employees that got you to where you are.

[00:10:42] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:10:43] [SPEAKER_02]: And you look at them and you have to say, okay, what's best for you?

[00:10:47] [SPEAKER_02]: But also what's best for them.

[00:10:51] [SPEAKER_02]: Right.

[00:10:51] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, where are you going to leave them?

[00:10:54] [SPEAKER_02]: Are you going to leave them in a better place?

[00:10:56] [SPEAKER_02]: The same place or a worse place?

[00:11:00] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:11:00] [SPEAKER_02]: And I knew my teammates, they had the talent to do much, much better.

[00:11:06] [SPEAKER_02]: But they had these glass ceilings.

[00:11:09] [SPEAKER_02]: They didn't have the opportunities truly to do much better than what things were at that point in time.

[00:11:17] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:11:17] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, so, you know, for me, the fulfillment was two things.

[00:11:22] [SPEAKER_02]: I was just a, to cement my financial future.

[00:11:27] [SPEAKER_02]: B, to give me something personally that was going to make my toes tingle again, invigorate me.

[00:11:37] [SPEAKER_02]: But as importantly, to give my employees upward mobility to better serve their families, their inner circles, to give them a better career, a better path in life.

[00:11:51] [SPEAKER_02]: And they got me from where I was to where I was until where I was at that time of transactions.

[00:11:59] [SPEAKER_02]: Sure.

[00:12:00] [SPEAKER_02]: But I wanted to make sure to put them in a wonderful place to really be able to expand their growth.

[00:12:08] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:12:09] [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm blessed to say, you know, a good majority of the preferred people are still with Meriplex, you know, today in much better roles.

[00:12:19] [SPEAKER_02]: That's amazing.

[00:12:19] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:12:20] [SPEAKER_02]: The glass ceiling is no longer there.

[00:12:21] [SPEAKER_02]: They can build and grow with our organization.

[00:12:24] [SPEAKER_00]: I love that.

[00:12:26] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:12:26] [SPEAKER_00]: And if I understand, I mean, your team is about 16 and you're currently somewhere in the neighborhood of 700.

[00:12:33] [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, sir.

[00:12:34] [SPEAKER_00]: That's got to open up a lot of opportunity.

[00:12:37] [SPEAKER_02]: It's been, obviously, hyper growth.

[00:12:40] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:12:40] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, an organization grows, obviously you hope it grows organically and we had very, very strong organic growth.

[00:12:49] [SPEAKER_02]: But to build and grow, it's a strategy that encompasses both the organic growth as well as inorganic growth.

[00:13:00] [SPEAKER_02]: When I came into Meriplex, I wasn't supposed to be the M&A guy.

[00:13:05] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, really?

[00:13:05] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:13:05] [SPEAKER_02]: We really didn't have an M&A guy except for, you know, the owner, Dave Henley, our CEO, not the owner, but our CEO and shareholder, you know, David Henley, you know, did M&A.

[00:13:15] [SPEAKER_02]: And I was supposed to say, hey, Neil, will you talk to my CEO, Dave Henley?

[00:13:20] [SPEAKER_02]: I was supposed to come in on transaction day and after.

[00:13:25] [SPEAKER_02]: And I was supposed to do what I'd go to business meetings and networking events and charity events, you know, shake hands, and then turn these contacts over to my sales force to work and go shake more hands.

[00:13:39] [SPEAKER_02]: Mm-hmm.

[00:13:39] [SPEAKER_02]: And what happened was, you know, because I was big in technology communities and I built a very, very good reputation of being brutally honest and advancing the causes of our industry as a whole, you know, I had a trust built in, you know, with a lot of people.

[00:13:57] [SPEAKER_02]: I knew a lot of technology owners, you know, so I picked up the phone because I believed so much in what Meriplex was building, growing, doing.

[00:14:05] [SPEAKER_02]: I called a technology friend of mine in the Dallas area and said, hey, let's go to dinner.

[00:14:10] [SPEAKER_02]: And I shared Meriplex's story and the whys of me becoming Meriplex and all of a sudden he became Meriplex.

[00:14:19] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, then I got a call from a company I know out of Southern California.

[00:14:23] [SPEAKER_02]: They needed some work in Dallas and I shifted the conversation, you know, to, you know, Meriplex's story.

[00:14:32] [SPEAKER_02]: And all of a sudden they became Meriplex.

[00:14:36] [SPEAKER_02]: And obviously, you know, our CEO and our private equity partner looked at and said, Neil, well, how are you doing this?

[00:14:45] [SPEAKER_02]: And he said, well, because I believe in what you're building, growing, doing, and I know a lot of people and, you know, people trust me.

[00:14:52] [SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, it's easy for me to share my feelings and my passion for Meriplex.

[00:14:58] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:14:58] [SPEAKER_02]: So they said, Neil, guess what?

[00:15:00] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, I'm anointing you, you know, you're an M&A guy.

[00:15:04] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:15:05] [SPEAKER_02]: And been doing it ever since.

[00:15:08] [SPEAKER_02]: I like to say, you know, we're 700 people today-ish.

[00:15:11] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:15:12] [SPEAKER_02]: I have the best job in the company.

[00:15:13] [SPEAKER_02]: That's awesome.

[00:15:14] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, my job is to meet with people, you know, to talk to them about the story of Meriplex.

[00:15:20] [SPEAKER_02]: But as importantly, you know, there's a lot of organizations that aren't big enough to be a Meriplex acquisition.

[00:15:28] [SPEAKER_02]: I like to mentor those people.

[00:15:30] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, as I'm an older person, I truly believe that I don't care what religion you are, how you're going to be judged ultimately is by the number of people that you positively influence and impact in this world.

[00:15:44] [SPEAKER_01]: Yes.

[00:15:45] [SPEAKER_02]: And doing what I do, if you really think about it, you know, the force multiplier effect, I make the shareholders wealthy.

[00:15:53] [SPEAKER_02]: I give the employees great upside.

[00:15:56] [SPEAKER_02]: I give the customers great upside because the services and solutions we can bring to their table are so much better.

[00:16:04] [SPEAKER_02]: And all the families of the shareholders, the families of the employees, the families, you know, of the customers, when you look at the force multiplier effect, you know, what I do touches so many people in a positive way.

[00:16:18] [SPEAKER_02]: But again, even if they're not, even if an organization isn't a Meriplex target.

[00:16:24] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:16:24] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, being an older man, you know, with wanting to continue that legacy of helping people.

[00:16:31] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't care if you're a five person firm or 20 person firm or whatever.

[00:16:36] [SPEAKER_02]: If I can help them avoid mistakes and enhance successes and do things the right way, guess what?

[00:16:43] [SPEAKER_02]: I am helping them in so many ways.

[00:16:47] [SPEAKER_02]: I am doing what my mission is to make a positive impact in this world.

[00:16:53] [SPEAKER_02]: And whenever that time comes, I know that I've done my time on this world has done good for people.

[00:17:01] [SPEAKER_00]: I love the word impact and especially to impact so many people.

[00:17:05] [SPEAKER_00]: And I think a lot of when I think M&A and somebody whose title is M&A, I think due diligence.

[00:17:14] [SPEAKER_00]: I think transactions, I don't think impact.

[00:17:18] [SPEAKER_00]: And I love that you're changing that for me, at least.

[00:17:21] [SPEAKER_00]: And so I love that you're interested and happy and delighted to mentor folks that are not a fit.

[00:17:29] [SPEAKER_00]: You're happy to talk to the folks that are a fit for the Meriplex model.

[00:17:32] [SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's just, it redefines or reframes the way we probably should work with each other.

[00:17:39] [SPEAKER_02]: For sure.

[00:17:40] [SPEAKER_02]: If you look at me, my career in a 40-year VAR MSP, there was no MSPs back when.

[00:17:46] [SPEAKER_02]: That's right.

[00:17:47] [SPEAKER_02]: It was VARs, value-added resellers back then.

[00:17:50] [SPEAKER_02]: And again, owning my own company, 26 and a half years, being big in technology communities and leadership and things like that,

[00:17:59] [SPEAKER_02]: selling my business and then buying 11 companies on behalf of Meriplex.

[00:18:05] [SPEAKER_02]: When I'm speaking at conferences, I'm one of them.

[00:18:10] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm not a Harvard MBA finance guy that said, hey, let me get into the managed service business and start buying up companies and things like that.

[00:18:20] [SPEAKER_02]: I am the audience.

[00:18:21] [SPEAKER_02]: And I know the emotions.

[00:18:23] [SPEAKER_02]: I know you talked about when you think about M&A and being a transactional thing.

[00:18:31] [SPEAKER_02]: It is certainly a transactional thing.

[00:18:33] [SPEAKER_02]: But think for a moment the emotions that go into a transaction.

[00:18:39] [SPEAKER_02]: Think of you wake up one morning or whichever and all of a sudden you open up your own company.

[00:18:47] [SPEAKER_02]: And this company is all-consuming.

[00:18:49] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes.

[00:18:50] [SPEAKER_02]: People say that being an entrepreneur is easy and your feet are up on a desk and everybody else is working and you're sitting there.

[00:18:58] [SPEAKER_02]: No.

[00:18:58] [SPEAKER_02]: You're the one working until midnight.

[00:19:00] [SPEAKER_02]: That's right.

[00:19:01] [SPEAKER_02]: Getting up at 4 in the morning, 5 in the morning, working, things like that.

[00:19:05] [SPEAKER_02]: It's one of the hardest things one can do.

[00:19:08] [SPEAKER_02]: You build an organization.

[00:19:09] [SPEAKER_02]: You're lucky enough to build an organization that sustains other families and helps customers and things like this.

[00:19:16] [SPEAKER_02]: And all of a sudden the opportunity or the timing or both, the opportunity and the timing happen where you're in deep talks about a transaction.

[00:19:27] [SPEAKER_02]: This is your baby.

[00:19:29] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:19:30] [SPEAKER_02]: You've developed this baby.

[00:19:32] [SPEAKER_02]: Your teammates, your family.

[00:19:34] [SPEAKER_01]: Yes.

[00:19:34] [SPEAKER_02]: You've seen your kids being born and weddings and funerals even and things like this.

[00:19:41] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:19:41] [SPEAKER_02]: There's many emotions that go into a transaction.

[00:19:45] [SPEAKER_01]: Yes.

[00:19:45] [SPEAKER_02]: So me understanding that, me living that, and me being able to talk people through those emotions and help them understand why an organization is asking what they're asking for.

[00:20:01] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, obviously when you do a transaction, what's going to happen is you're going to be in the biggest organization that that company's ever been in as part of the bigger organization.

[00:20:15] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:20:15] [SPEAKER_02]: And you're no longer the grand poobah, if you will.

[00:20:22] [SPEAKER_02]: That's right.

[00:20:22] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, you have to answer other people.

[00:20:25] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:20:25] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, you might have done things this way for the longest time, but all of a sudden things aren't done that way anymore.

[00:20:34] [SPEAKER_02]: And that takes, it's a change.

[00:20:37] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, human beings naturally are adverse to change.

[00:20:41] [SPEAKER_02]: Whatever, you know, the man upstairs did, why he did that, who knows.

[00:20:46] [SPEAKER_02]: But, you know, human beings are adverse to change.

[00:20:48] [SPEAKER_02]: And so you have to prepare, you know, the individuals, the shareholders, you know, the top, you know, the people who are in the know at certain times, you know, in a M&A journey to understand that life tomorrow is going to be somewhat different than life yesterday.

[00:21:07] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:21:08] [SPEAKER_02]: And help them understand that, help them deal with the emotions of the sale.

[00:21:14] [SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, there are many companies that are trying to buy a business.

[00:21:19] [SPEAKER_02]: When I had preferred technology solutions, I'd probably get at least one call a week.

[00:21:24] [SPEAKER_02]: I'd probably get four or five emails a week.

[00:21:26] [SPEAKER_02]: Hey, I want to buy your company.

[00:21:28] [SPEAKER_02]: Hey, we're interested in your company.

[00:21:30] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:21:30] [SPEAKER_02]: There's so many, there are good stories, but there's a lot of bad stories.

[00:21:35] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, there's a lot of organizations that aren't a good fit or don't have the leadership or there's a lot of pipe dreams that are sold.

[00:21:50] [SPEAKER_02]: And the problem is, is once transaction day hits, you're stuck.

[00:21:55] [SPEAKER_02]: You sold your business for something, for equity, for cash and equity, a combination of both, whatever it might be.

[00:22:04] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:22:05] [SPEAKER_02]: And usually there's no turning back.

[00:22:08] [SPEAKER_02]: So really understanding who you're selling to, the whys of why you're doing a transaction, you know, doing the research.

[00:22:18] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, I like to say this, you know, what is the story on transaction day?

[00:22:23] [SPEAKER_02]: I call it T-day is transaction day.

[00:22:26] [SPEAKER_02]: T-minus is before transaction.

[00:22:28] [SPEAKER_02]: T-plus is after transaction.

[00:22:32] [SPEAKER_02]: On T-day, what story are you going to tell your employees?

[00:22:36] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:22:37] [SPEAKER_02]: And what story are you going to tell your customers?

[00:22:39] [SPEAKER_02]: And is it going to resonate factually, you know, to them?

[00:22:44] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes.

[00:22:45] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, what you want in the best situations is all of a sudden this earthquake hits.

[00:22:51] [SPEAKER_02]: Guess what?

[00:22:52] [SPEAKER_02]: We became part of XYZ company.

[00:22:54] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:22:55] [SPEAKER_02]: You have all these teammates, employees that they're going to go home to their husbands, their wives, their partners, their kids.

[00:23:05] [SPEAKER_02]: Their parents, all these different people.

[00:23:08] [SPEAKER_02]: And what's the story they're going to tell their husbands or wives or their partners or their kids?

[00:23:16] [SPEAKER_02]: Was this good for me?

[00:23:17] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:23:18] [SPEAKER_02]: So that story better be solid.

[00:23:20] [SPEAKER_02]: With Meriplex, it is.

[00:23:22] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, the customers, the same thing.

[00:23:24] [SPEAKER_02]: What story are you going to be able to tell your customers why you did this transaction?

[00:23:32] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes.

[00:23:32] [SPEAKER_02]: Again, the story has to be good.

[00:23:35] [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, it does.

[00:23:36] [SPEAKER_02]: And that's one thing I'm blessed at.

[00:23:38] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, with Meriplex, it checks those boxes.

[00:23:41] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, the story for the employees, the upward mobility that they have.

[00:23:47] [SPEAKER_02]: We're growing strong organically as well as inorganically.

[00:23:51] [SPEAKER_01]: Nice.

[00:23:52] [SPEAKER_02]: And with the organic growth we have, we need more managers, more directors, more VPs, you know, things like that.

[00:24:00] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, because of what we do and our, you know, we'll talk about our targets, you know, our target profile customer.

[00:24:11] [SPEAKER_02]: But, you know, for the customers, the talent that we can bring to their table to support them better, the operational efficiency that we can bring to the customer's table is so much better than it was, you know, pre-transaction, T-minus.

[00:24:30] [SPEAKER_00]: For those MSP owners that are listening, what's the biggest thing they're getting wrong?

[00:24:38] [SPEAKER_00]: Is it the emotion?

[00:24:40] [SPEAKER_00]: Is it the fear?

[00:24:41] [SPEAKER_00]: Is it how their wife will take it or how their team will take it or the customers?

[00:24:46] [SPEAKER_00]: What are you seeing?

[00:24:48] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't want to say what they're getting wrong because there's many rights, you know, first of all.

[00:24:56] [SPEAKER_02]: But what I will say is, and I had the same, I had a little bit of this, your brand.

[00:25:07] [SPEAKER_02]: Again, it's your baby.

[00:25:09] [SPEAKER_02]: You built this brand for a long, long time.

[00:25:12] [SPEAKER_02]: And some people feel that their brand is so important.

[00:25:18] [SPEAKER_02]: Again, I was preferred technology solutions.

[00:25:21] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes.

[00:25:22] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, we're Meriplex now.

[00:25:25] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, to me, the people's what's important.

[00:25:29] [SPEAKER_02]: The people are what's important.

[00:25:31] [SPEAKER_02]: It's not as much the brand.

[00:25:34] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, people buy from people.

[00:25:37] [SPEAKER_01]: Yes.

[00:25:38] [SPEAKER_02]: People support people.

[00:25:40] [SPEAKER_01]: Yes.

[00:25:41] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, whether the invoice comes from Meriplex or preferred technology solutions truly isn't that big of a deal in the long run.

[00:25:51] [SPEAKER_02]: So they get attached to their brand more so than they really should.

[00:25:57] [SPEAKER_02]: Other things that they, again, I don't want to say do it wrong.

[00:26:02] [SPEAKER_02]: They flip those wrongs into a more positive thing.

[00:26:05] [SPEAKER_02]: But really understanding who they're talking to, what the model is going to be, what life after transactions is going to be.

[00:26:17] [SPEAKER_02]: Not just for them, but, you know, for their teammates and customers and everything else.

[00:26:22] [SPEAKER_02]: And not really understanding the bigger picture.

[00:26:26] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, there's all kinds of companies that have money, in essence, to buy other organizations.

[00:26:34] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes.

[00:26:34] [SPEAKER_02]: But there's few that truly have a great future that in five years, ten years are going to be strong.

[00:26:45] [SPEAKER_02]: Right.

[00:26:46] [SPEAKER_02]: Meriplex.

[00:26:48] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, what makes Meriplex different than pretty much all the others?

[00:26:51] [SPEAKER_02]: I send panels.

[00:26:52] [SPEAKER_02]: I speak at conferences.

[00:26:54] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, I love sharing my knowledge, you know, with people.

[00:26:59] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:26:59] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, and what makes Meriplex different is our target customer profile.

[00:27:06] [SPEAKER_02]: Again, back to doing something much, much bigger and better than you can otherwise.

[00:27:10] [SPEAKER_02]: When you look at our industry, there's 40,000, 50,000 SMB MSPs.

[00:27:16] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, there's almost an MSP in any corner, you know, if you will.

[00:27:21] [SPEAKER_02]: When you look at the enterprise, okay, when you look at the enterprise, think of the old IBM global services in the world that are doing a, you know, multi-thousand end user and up.

[00:27:35] [SPEAKER_02]: With Meriplex as sweet spot, we do a great job in MS and SMB.

[00:27:40] [SPEAKER_02]: Nice.

[00:27:40] [SPEAKER_02]: I call SMB, let's say 100 user and less.

[00:27:43] [SPEAKER_02]: We do a great job there.

[00:27:44] [SPEAKER_02]: But we shine in that 200 to 2,500 user and user realm because we have the sophistication to work with sophisticated IT departments.

[00:27:57] [SPEAKER_02]: We have the talent to be able to work with sophisticated IT departments.

[00:28:02] [SPEAKER_02]: So that's really where we go after.

[00:28:05] [SPEAKER_02]: We go into a territory and we're going to go up market.

[00:28:10] [SPEAKER_02]: Again, do something much bigger, better than you could otherwise.

[00:28:12] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes.

[00:28:13] [SPEAKER_02]: We're going to go up market.

[00:28:15] [SPEAKER_02]: Those customers I talked about when we started off about going to charity events and business events, the movers and shakers of Dallas-Fort Worth business.

[00:28:24] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, that's where we can really attack and attack well and provide great, great value to those types of organizations.

[00:28:32] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:28:32] [SPEAKER_02]: So that's the bigger and better thing.

[00:28:34] [SPEAKER_02]: That's the toes-tingling thing.

[00:28:36] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, we give the organizations to become part of the Meriplex nation the ability to do things they couldn't before, do things much bigger and better than they could before.

[00:28:47] [SPEAKER_02]: With a team.

[00:28:49] [SPEAKER_02]: With a team.

[00:28:50] [SPEAKER_02]: It's kind of like the dream team of the Olympics with Michael Jordan and, you know, the original dream teams.

[00:28:56] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:28:56] [SPEAKER_02]: This magnificent town.

[00:28:57] [SPEAKER_02]: That's how I feel it is at Meriplex.

[00:29:00] [SPEAKER_02]: You look to your left, you look to your right, and there's these industry professionals, people I couldn't even come close to hiring.

[00:29:07] [SPEAKER_02]: That I can pick and choose and grab and bring to a customer site, a customer conversation.

[00:29:14] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:29:14] [SPEAKER_00]: To help lead and guide them.

[00:29:16] [SPEAKER_00]: That's where it's fun.

[00:29:17] [SPEAKER_00]: I can tell it's natural to help people, and it just comes right out of you.

[00:29:22] [SPEAKER_00]: It's so amazing your zest for impact, Neil.

[00:29:26] [SPEAKER_00]: How can folks listening, if they would like to, reach out and get a hold of you?

[00:29:30] [SPEAKER_02]: To reach out to me, first, easiest way is N, first initial last name, N Medwood of Meriplex.com.

[00:29:37] [SPEAKER_02]: You can jump on LinkedIn, look up Neil Medwood.

[00:29:41] [SPEAKER_02]: Or at these great conferences like the Build It Conference we're at today.

[00:29:46] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, I'm the conference guy.

[00:29:48] [SPEAKER_02]: I love sharing my knowledge on stage or in person, you know, walking around.

[00:29:53] [SPEAKER_02]: If you see me any place, hey, Neil, love to talk to you.

[00:29:58] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, I'm a 24-7 guy.

[00:30:00] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, again, my goal is to help people avoid mistakes, enhance successes, and, you know, just help people all around.

[00:30:09] [SPEAKER_02]: So, nmedwood at meriplex.com.

[00:30:11] [SPEAKER_02]: Neil Medwood on LinkedIn.

[00:30:13] [SPEAKER_02]: And please, please take the time to reach out to me.

[00:30:16] [SPEAKER_00]: I love that.

[00:30:17] [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much for making time in this busy show schedule at Build IT Live.

[00:30:21] [SPEAKER_00]: And thank you for being on MSP Mindset, Neil.

[00:30:24] [SPEAKER_00]: My pleasure.

[00:30:25] [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.

[00:30:25] [SPEAKER_02]: Have a great day.

[00:30:26] [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you so much.

[00:30:26] [SPEAKER_02]: This was really fun.