Meet the MSP Who Figured Out the LA Market - Jordan Alcott MSP Titan #10

[00:00:00] We have a saying in our company, is this grandma proof? And what that means is the explanation, the process, the procedure, it needs to be so easy that your grandmother can do it. And if the answer to that is no, then you got to find a better way to do it.

[00:00:16] Hey guys, Damien Stevens, host of MSP Mindset. Today I continue my mission to interview 100 of the 500 most interesting and fastest growing MSPs on the planet. And today I'm joined by Jordan Alcott of Alcott Enterprises.

[00:00:38] Now, so many of us say it's so hard to compete. There's so many MSPs in our space. They were named number two in LAX.

[00:00:46] So if you want to think about a competitive space, you just about can't think of a more competitive one.

[00:00:52] He goes into how he differentiates, how they post record growth year after year, and how he brings his background in hockey to help with his team and with revenue growth.

[00:01:05] If that's interesting, don't miss out on our conversation today.

[00:01:09] The thing that I love about being an entrepreneur is understanding the challenges that come with it, but also this sheer level of excitement you get when things go the way you want them to.

[00:01:28] Or they turn it even better, right?

[00:01:31] In our case, so building a little bit on what you said before with this really started as a side hobby for me.

[00:01:39] And yes, it was something for me to do in the Minnesota snowy winters.

[00:01:47] But at the same time, it began to kind of grow and grow.

[00:01:54] And as I transitioned, ultimately moved back to LA, which is where we're headquartered, we, I then started to get a larger deal.

[00:02:05] And then I got a larger deal.

[00:02:07] And then all of a sudden, a whole larger deals rolled in.

[00:02:09] And you get this, this like kind of high, right?

[00:02:14] I mean, I grew up as a competitive athlete.

[00:02:17] So for me, it's about adrenaline.

[00:02:18] And I don't want to say I'm an adrenaline junkie.

[00:02:20] I'm certainly not.

[00:02:22] But it's one of those where you get this euphoric feeling after you have just had an awesome meeting or you crushed a deal or the client signs or, you know, it's just, yeah.

[00:02:35] Yes, after yes, after yes.

[00:02:36] After yes.

[00:02:37] So for me, it's a little bit of that athletic mindset that I very much bring to this business, but also growing it has been exciting.

[00:02:51] Getting that rush of, hey, I just closed this massive deal, right?

[00:02:58] So for me, that's incredibly important because it's those feelings and that opportunity that keeps you going as an entrepreneur is that you have this ability to recognize opportunities.

[00:03:11] And then if you land them, you're able to capture those opportunities, you're like on cloud nine.

[00:03:19] Tell me more about that.

[00:03:21] And in this context, you know, you guys are one of the fastest growing IT providers in the US.

[00:03:28] Sure.

[00:03:30] And so, you know, there must be a feeling you can feel more than maybe most.

[00:03:39] And how does that relate to your and correlate to your success and growth so far?

[00:03:47] You know, that's an excellent question, right?

[00:03:52] Growth is very, very important as a company.

[00:03:55] If you're not growing or learning, you're dying.

[00:03:58] Right.

[00:04:00] And just like anything else in life, right?

[00:04:02] You always have to constantly be learning.

[00:04:04] You always have to constantly be understanding.

[00:04:08] And the moment you get into that mindset of, well, I'm the best at everything and I don't need to learn is the moment everybody else starts to pass you.

[00:04:15] Yeah.

[00:04:15] So, you know, from our standpoint, we have grown very, very quickly.

[00:04:21] Right.

[00:04:23] As we grew from a small side hobby into, hey, I'm going to employ a few people to all of a sudden, we've had years where we've quadrupled our revenue year over year over year.

[00:04:34] We did it for like six years straight.

[00:04:36] Wow.

[00:04:36] And a lot of that.

[00:04:39] That's a lot to keep up with.

[00:04:40] Right.

[00:04:41] So it became, if you and I were having this discussion in 2021, we were at this place where we couldn't hire fast enough to keep up with demand.

[00:04:52] Right.

[00:04:53] And, you know, a lot of that was due to COVID and what we call forced digital transformation has really accelerated things.

[00:05:07] And it's funny when you look at the word transformation and digital transformation, it's very much a marketing buzzword.

[00:05:15] But what you're talking about is change.

[00:05:18] And the closest time there was a change from what we experienced during COVID and the whole work from home and being able to take work with you at a large scale.

[00:05:28] The last time the industry had a shift, businesses had a shift like that is when somebody made the transition from typewriters to PCs.

[00:05:38] Hmm.

[00:05:39] Right.

[00:05:39] That was that change.

[00:05:42] It didn't immediately happen overnight where COVID was beyond accelerated.

[00:05:45] Right.

[00:05:47] But that change that occurred was very, very good for us as a company because for a long time we have been talking to our clients, talking to our prospects about being more mobile, allowing your employees to work from home, doing it securely.

[00:06:04] What does that look like?

[00:06:06] Right.

[00:06:06] Yeah.

[00:06:06] You have your very traditional, like, no, they need to be in their cube and they need to be in their office and they can't take it home with them.

[00:06:11] Right.

[00:06:13] And from a mental standpoint, I understand keeping the separation between the two.

[00:06:19] Right.

[00:06:19] Right.

[00:06:19] But at the same time, you weren't innovating.

[00:06:23] Right.

[00:06:23] So those companies going back to typewriters and handwritten notes.

[00:06:29] Right.

[00:06:29] Those companies that weren't adopting started dying.

[00:06:33] Right.

[00:06:34] Their competition got the leg up and then all of a sudden technology is picking up.

[00:06:39] Right.

[00:06:39] And again, that happened over several hundred years.

[00:06:44] Right.

[00:06:45] That transition.

[00:06:46] But with us, we grew so quickly because of that forced digital transformation.

[00:06:53] Right.

[00:06:54] And.

[00:06:56] We had early customers that were literally taking their entire desktop set up home with them.

[00:07:03] Hmm.

[00:07:04] A desktop.

[00:07:05] That's not a great.

[00:07:06] A desktop tower.

[00:07:07] Like, hi, Damien, like your desktop tower, take your desktop tower, your monitor and your desk phone home with you and we'll figure it out.

[00:07:14] That's crazy.

[00:07:15] Right.

[00:07:16] And we have since helped a lot of them digitally transform.

[00:07:21] But our growth as a company has really exploded during that very, very difficult time for a lot of people.

[00:07:33] And while it was good for our business, it was very hard for many individuals, including myself, dealing with all of the things that COVID brought to everybody.

[00:07:43] Right.

[00:07:44] Yeah.

[00:07:44] So our growth over time really skyrocketed during that period.

[00:07:54] So as a result from 2020 on, we, it was like gangbusters.

[00:08:01] Right.

[00:08:01] Now, a lot of people, some people, some MSP struggled.

[00:08:06] Most I talked to, you know, they just, all they could do was sell laptops instead of VPNs or whatever their, their kind of get you remote quickly strategy was.

[00:08:15] Sure.

[00:08:15] But then after a year or two, you know, people kind of went back.

[00:08:21] And so a lot of folks are sitting there going, now what?

[00:08:25] Sure.

[00:08:26] I just rely on the fact that everybody had this demand and then we filled so much, you know, we've, we've filled the basic demands of, you know, we've moved you to 365 or we've, you know, set up a VPN or whatever, you know, work from home strategy.

[00:08:42] Uh, but they're sitting there kind of flat footed cause they were kind of, uh, maybe used to just the phone ringing.

[00:08:49] And, uh, and, and so, um, how did, how do you guys continue to grow?

[00:08:54] Cause I know a lot of folks are either, they didn't, I think part of it, they're saying, Hey, I didn't, I got a little complacent.

[00:09:01] Maybe I didn't invest proactively.

[00:09:03] And then others are saying, well, we think it's actually because they accelerated their budgets for several years and now everybody's got refreshed hardware and every, you know, like we used to have it a little more equally, but we had a one or two year period that, you know, and so there's so many folks tied to hardware refreshes and tied to other things that they're sitting there going.

[00:09:22] Sure.

[00:09:23] Our, our, our, our clients are just kind of sitting there more flatline from an IT budget.

[00:09:28] What are you seeing?

[00:09:29] Well, it's very interesting, right?

[00:09:31] So when you look at the organizations, the MSPs, and I'm, I'm going to armchair quarterback it.

[00:09:40] So when, when you look at some of the MSPs that were struggling, right?

[00:09:45] MSPs by default are very verticalized.

[00:09:49] They focus on very specific industries and those MSPs that struggled during COVID their primary, uh, focus or industries happen to be hospitalization.

[00:10:01] Hospitality, restaurants, right?

[00:10:03] All of those things that immediately change or started, uh, you know, struggling.

[00:10:10] So as a result, if your clients are struggling, then they're not going to pay you and then you're, you're struggling.

[00:10:16] Right?

[00:10:16] So there was a lot of that, that occurred where we're not necessarily very verticalized as a company.

[00:10:23] Part of that is by design.

[00:10:25] Same reason why you don't have all of your 401k into two different stocks, right?

[00:10:29] You diversify.

[00:10:31] So, um, yes, during COVID, we saw a lot of budgets open up in technology and whether it was because the companies realized it or the companies went, oh crap, you're right.

[00:10:46] We need to do this.

[00:10:47] And now is the time to do that.

[00:10:48] Right?

[00:10:48] So there were a lot of companies to your point that opened budgets, but at the same time, what's happening now is you're getting, if you look at like zoom, right.

[00:11:00] The platform, the platform hockey sticked during COVID as a organization, their stock through the roof.

[00:11:09] Right.

[00:11:09] But now what you're seeing is all of these drop-offs and that's what's pretty common across the IT industry.

[00:11:17] Right.

[00:11:18] In general.

[00:11:20] And it was this race to continue going into this new life.

[00:11:24] And now everything is kind of normalizing again.

[00:11:27] So organizations, yes, are cutting budgets, right?

[00:11:31] So your yeses are becoming maybes and the, let me think about it.

[00:11:35] Let me think about it.

[00:11:35] And, you know, so those things are changing or normalizing again.

[00:11:42] Right.

[00:11:44] And what I see is actually very manic with some of our clients where it was really, really fast.

[00:11:51] And now it's really, really slow where it's not kind of that in between phase.

[00:11:56] Right.

[00:11:57] Or that normal flat.

[00:11:58] So as a business, our yes, our primary focus is being a managed service provider.

[00:12:06] That's what we are.

[00:12:07] Right.

[00:12:07] That is where the bread and butter is.

[00:12:09] We help manage, maintain those services for our customers.

[00:12:14] Hardware reselling.

[00:12:15] Yes, we do do it.

[00:12:17] Why?

[00:12:17] Because we want you as an organization to have the proper tools to be able to do your job successfully.

[00:12:25] Right.

[00:12:25] Nobody likes having the wrong tool for a job.

[00:12:29] Right.

[00:12:30] Right.

[00:12:31] And we use many different analogies when it comes to having the right tools and how we help our customers work successfully.

[00:12:41] And how do we make them see the value of IT?

[00:12:44] Because a lot of people, especially midsize and lower, just see IT as a cost center.

[00:12:50] Right.

[00:12:51] Right.

[00:12:51] Yeah, that's right.

[00:12:52] And so long-winded answer, but how have we been able to continue and sustain that growth?

[00:12:59] We do it through a lot of other services that we provide.

[00:13:04] And our largest service that we are providing is consultative services.

[00:13:08] We work with the executives.

[00:13:10] We sit down with the board members, with their CIO, CFO, president to actually build strategies and say, how do you want to apply technology?

[00:13:24] Right.

[00:13:25] Because from their standpoint, they want to drive business outcomes.

[00:13:29] They want growth in their number of shares.

[00:13:32] Right.

[00:13:33] They want to be able to scale quickly.

[00:13:35] There are technical solutions that help them do that.

[00:13:39] And so our consultative side of the business, besides just the MSP side, is very, very important to that.

[00:13:47] Because when we work with an organization where we're helping drive and produce a lot of that strategy, we've sustained this continuous revenue through what we call continuous consulting.

[00:14:03] So it becomes an infinity loop where we are consulting with them, building strategies, helping them with their projects.

[00:14:12] And then there's the implementation side.

[00:14:14] And oh, by the way, we help you manage it.

[00:14:17] Right.

[00:14:18] So it's been a track that we try to keep a lot of our customers on.

[00:14:24] Why?

[00:14:25] Because they begin to see the value of IT.

[00:14:29] If we're just a cost center, if we're just a utility, we're somebody you call when something doesn't work.

[00:14:34] We're not doing our job.

[00:14:36] Yeah.

[00:14:37] And then that's a race to the bottom.

[00:14:39] Right.

[00:14:40] Somebody will always do it cheaper.

[00:14:42] Hey, guys.

[00:14:43] Today's episode is sponsored by Servocity.

[00:14:47] I created Servocity because I was an MSP who lost data and had to face my client.

[00:14:54] I don't want you to ever be in that situation.

[00:14:56] So what's different about Servocity is that we test your backups maniacally.

[00:15:01] We do them.

[00:15:02] We test those daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly.

[00:15:05] We manage the backups for you.

[00:15:07] So 80% of your workload is gone and you can focus on your core mission.

[00:15:11] And all of the storage is both immutable and unlimited.

[00:15:15] If you'd like to learn more, take a look at servocity.com.

[00:15:20] So what is your avatar?

[00:15:22] What is the size that you serve typically?

[00:15:25] So we typically serve companies less than 1,000 employees.

[00:15:30] Okay.

[00:15:31] And they'll do the small, like 20, 30, 50?

[00:15:34] We'll do companies as small as 10 employees, right?

[00:15:38] We will do less.

[00:15:40] But the challenge is when you get to the small stuff is that we're an enterprise platform, right?

[00:15:50] We provide enterprise solutions.

[00:15:53] We're not going to Best Buy and getting you a Netgear router, right?

[00:15:56] There are certain companies that will certainly do that and use what we call the prosumer level of equipment.

[00:16:05] And we don't.

[00:16:07] We will sit there and put in Cisco Meraki equipment or Cisco networking and enterprise Microsoft, right?

[00:16:16] If you're going to Best Buy or you're going to Costco to get laptops, you're probably not the client for us.

[00:16:22] Yeah.

[00:16:24] So does your approach involve, since you're starting with the consulting, does that mean that you're typically going to try to – everybody wants to standardize.

[00:16:36] Everybody listening is an MSP, an owner, and they want to standardize.

[00:16:40] Sure.

[00:16:40] But you're already on this thing or that thing.

[00:16:43] Maybe it's prosumer.

[00:16:44] Maybe it's not bad, but it's just not Meraki.

[00:16:48] Sure.

[00:16:48] Maybe it's still a competitor of Meraki's and it's good, but it's not your stack.

[00:16:53] Yeah.

[00:16:54] So how strict are you guys on – do you say, hey, we're going to kind of put this in as part of the plan?

[00:17:00] We're going to – the only thing we can manage well is Cisco, so we're going to replace all these pieces over this 36-month plan?

[00:17:07] Or do you keep their – do you end up having to live in the real world, for lack of a better way, where you have to inherit?

[00:17:14] Right.

[00:17:14] So it's very interesting.

[00:17:17] I actually just had this discussion with one of our partners, and they do more the physical side of security, not necessarily cybersecurity.

[00:17:26] And this discussion came up.

[00:17:28] So HikeVision and Doha cameras, for example.

[00:17:36] In 2021, they were banned by the FCC.

[00:17:41] For cybersecurity reasons, because they're a Chinese company, they were – and I'm going to armchair quarterback it.

[00:17:49] They have backdoors into those systems and became a cybersecurity risk.

[00:17:55] Now, cost-wise, those are bottom-of-the-barrel bargain level security camera systems.

[00:18:03] Mm-hmm.

[00:18:04] And we definitely go into customers where they have prosumer equipment, where they have that sort of stack and setup, whether it's Netgear, whether it's Ubiquity, or some of the other ones out there, right?

[00:18:21] Arachnus is another one we see a lot.

[00:18:24] And when we do see those, there is a certain level of support for them that we can provide through our tools, through our management, through our managed NOx service.

[00:18:37] But there's about setting the correct expectations, right?

[00:18:42] When we talk to our prospective customers, we're talking about enterprise-class solutions and the value and capabilities of enterprise-class solutions.

[00:18:50] During an evaluation, which is usually what happens in the first 30 days of bringing on an MSP client, we'll do that evaluation and go, hey, those – some of those capabilities that we talked about, if you want to achieve it, we're going to need to make some upgrades.

[00:19:09] Okay?

[00:19:09] If you don't want to, that's okay, but understand that your capabilities went from 100% to 60%.

[00:19:18] Mm-hmm.

[00:19:19] So it's about communication and setting the correct expectations and what is manageable and what is not, right?

[00:19:26] And in the case of those security cameras, because like I said, I had this discussion with a partner of ours.

[00:19:35] Those cameras, if we saw them today, we would say, hey, Mr. Customer, understand here's this risk.

[00:19:41] Here's the FCC order.

[00:19:45] However, if you would – you want to take them out, we certainly would advise that.

[00:19:51] We can certainly recommend other ones.

[00:19:52] We'd help bring in our partner to do some of that work.

[00:19:56] But if you want to live with that risk, that's okay.

[00:19:59] We'll still manage it.

[00:20:01] So there are controls to that.

[00:20:07] We don't always want to rip into a place.

[00:20:09] We have, yes, the perfect solution that we would love every customer of ours to be on.

[00:20:13] But that's – just like in life, you have to be flexible, right?

[00:20:18] There's compromises, right?

[00:20:20] If you're going to do this, you're going to give up that.

[00:20:23] But you want to be able to balance both and set the correct expectations to customers.

[00:20:30] Yeah.

[00:20:31] Yeah, that makes a ton of sense.

[00:20:34] You guys have a – it seems like a dedicated practice in consulting.

[00:20:38] And a lot of folks are maybe more of a pure play MSP only.

[00:20:42] So how does that influence your ability to have the conversations to understand where they want to go?

[00:20:53] Excellent question.

[00:20:54] So our strategic advisors and our board of directors, they are all from the Fortune 500.

[00:21:02] They're all senior-level executives throughout IT, finance, marketing, right?

[00:21:08] Folks that have managed an IT department of 16,000 people or an IT operating budget of 2.5 billion, right?

[00:21:19] So as a practice, we help bring our strategic advisors into those opportunities that we have from a consulting perspective.

[00:21:31] So you're going to get a kind of unmatched level of experience and guidance through those roadmapping, strategic planning, architecture design sessions, whatever the engagement actually is.

[00:21:49] And for a company that's 1,000 employees, right?

[00:21:53] I'm not saying that we can't do anything larger, but let's just put it into perspective.

[00:21:57] You're 1,000 employees or maybe you're 500 employees.

[00:22:00] To bring in somebody like an Accenture or a Deloitte to do this, you're in mid-six-figure numbers to do that, right?

[00:22:09] Yeah.

[00:22:09] And what we help provide to those customers is a lot of those same advantages that you're going to get through an Accenture or Deloitte and bring that to really that SMB market.

[00:22:23] And everybody has their own different definition of SMB, but that brings a level of discussion that maybe a president has never heard when it comes to technology, right?

[00:22:41] You'll have organizations that may have a CIO.

[00:22:44] You may have organizations that have an IT director that's very tactical, right?

[00:22:49] And the IT director is looking for help to be able to talk to the business, to level up, to help say, hey, we need this firewall because of these business reasons instead of we just needed to protect ours, right?

[00:23:03] So naming off capabilities and acronyms that a CFO is not going to understand why, right?

[00:23:09] Yeah.

[00:23:10] Yeah.

[00:23:10] Yeah.

[00:23:11] That makes sense.

[00:23:12] I want to go a little bit back to kind of your kind of origin story while you're doing this, Jordan.

[00:23:19] Tell me about the kind of growing up being a competitive athlete.

[00:23:24] Sure.

[00:23:25] So I grew up in California playing high levels of ice hockey in the country.

[00:23:31] So my family is originally from the East Coast, New York City, Long Island.

[00:23:36] We moved out here to the West Coast.

[00:23:38] I'm very much what they call a Gretzky kid.

[00:23:42] So when Wayne Gretzky came to LA, you know, my family was ecstatic.

[00:23:47] I was ecstatic.

[00:23:48] I remember sitting in front of the TV at my uncle's who played college Division I hockey just watching Wayne Gretzky in awe of, right?

[00:23:56] And then the Mighty Ducks movies came out.

[00:23:59] And, you know, by that point, I'm playing street hockey turned roller hockey because here in LA, we don't have pawns to skate on.

[00:24:06] We play roller hockey.

[00:24:07] That's right.

[00:24:08] When you hit LA and ice hockey, I was like, those don't go together.

[00:24:11] It's very, yes, odd.

[00:24:14] And still to this day, it's growing dramatically, right?

[00:24:18] But I grew up playing in what's called a Tier 1 Elite League youth hockey.

[00:24:25] And that's actually based in Chicago.

[00:24:27] And at the time, it was 20 people or 20 teams.

[00:24:32] I'm sure it's grown substantially now.

[00:24:34] But, you know, there were four teams west of the Mississippi when we played.

[00:24:40] Those are our four regional teams.

[00:24:44] And we had to play them a certain number of times plus all these showcases, which the showcases are all Chicago, you know, Michigan.

[00:24:54] We played some of the top – basically, it's club hockey.

[00:24:58] So I spent anywhere from 60% to 70% of high school traveling and playing high levels of hockey.

[00:25:08] And, you know, after high school, I played some minor pro and then played some college hockey.

[00:25:13] And realized that I was never going to make the show as much as it crushes a kid.

[00:25:23] That they're never, never, ever going to make the NHL or high levels of hockey where you're – you can make a living, right?

[00:25:32] Doing it.

[00:25:33] So for me, I've always been interested in computers.

[00:25:38] I started – my father got me into computers very, very young.

[00:25:44] And I always like to say I was a closet nerd because I was very much known for being an athlete.

[00:25:52] And I was always interested in computers, networking, building computers.

[00:25:56] What was that like?

[00:25:57] And then it became helping people in our neighborhood fix their computers, get their QuickBooks running back up, get their computer fix, removing viruses, things like that, right?

[00:26:11] And it became this almost like neighborhood systems admin work that I would do in my spare time.

[00:26:19] And, you know, during college, I – as I started to focus more on my career and just truthfully getting through school, I wasn't a good student by any means.

[00:26:32] I focused more on the social side of school than the academic side.

[00:26:38] And I was helping people with their computers.

[00:26:42] I did the same thing.

[00:26:43] Friends would come to me and say, hey, the student IT department is going to take three weeks to fix my computer.

[00:26:52] Can you help me?

[00:26:53] Yeah, sure.

[00:26:55] I'd fix it.

[00:26:57] They'd be like, what do you want?

[00:26:58] Just buy me a case of beer.

[00:27:00] Yeah.

[00:27:01] Right?

[00:27:01] Like, buy me drinks next Saturday when we're all out.

[00:27:04] Like, no problem.

[00:27:05] So I was fixing those types of solutions for, you know, friends.

[00:27:11] And it got to the point of where the IT department actually asked me to come work with them.

[00:27:17] And I was like, no, I think I'm okay.

[00:27:21] I like doing this.

[00:27:23] I don't want to sit behind a help desk.

[00:27:24] I'm kind of just doing that.

[00:27:25] Ultimately, my ex-girlfriend got me an internship at DirecTV.

[00:27:35] Their corporate headquarters in El Segundo, which is really where I started.

[00:27:40] She was a couple years ahead of me because of the time I took off to play for hockey.

[00:27:45] So she kept calling me with Excel questions.

[00:27:48] And her manager finally was like, who are you calling?

[00:27:53] Right?

[00:27:54] And she was just finishing her internship role there.

[00:27:58] And, you know, she made the introduction and he basically said, he goes, you need to find your replacement for the intern program for next summer.

[00:28:08] So ultimately, she's like, you should come work here.

[00:28:12] Yeah.

[00:28:12] And that was my first taste into corporate.

[00:28:18] Okay.

[00:28:19] Now, being an intern, not really understanding corporate structure or anything else, I didn't really realize who I was interning with.

[00:28:31] And DirecTV's IT department was so large that they had their own financial group that just managed their entire IT.

[00:28:42] So think of a finance department within IT that is IT focused, right?

[00:28:47] Wow.

[00:28:48] Interesting.

[00:28:49] So ultimately, that's who I ended up interning with was the head of that organization who reported to the CIO.

[00:28:58] And I'm still very close with Chris Bowden.

[00:29:01] He's on my board today.

[00:29:02] He's one of those strategic advisors.

[00:29:05] And I ended up working with him all the way through, oh gosh, 2011.

[00:29:12] So four or five years.

[00:29:15] And my technology background, and this is where that consultative side comes in, is that I was managing budgets, IT budgets,

[00:29:22] and understanding the technology and the contract side, and having these types of meetings with pretty high-level individuals at a Fortune 500 company.

[00:29:35] So that type of background has allowed me to have that consultative approach to the business.

[00:29:43] And if you want, I can get into it really – it's a really great story of how I helped shape a lot of DirecTV,

[00:29:52] if that's something you want to get into, and how it's changed.

[00:29:57] Yeah, that's an unlikely thing for an intern to do.

[00:30:01] Okay.

[00:30:02] So here's – so I was given this task.

[00:30:08] I'm about two weeks into my summer internship.

[00:30:11] And at the end of the internship, each intern has to give a one-slide presentation to executives.

[00:30:18] And they pull executives from all over the company to come in and listen to three hours of interns.

[00:30:26] Right?

[00:30:26] It's a thankless job, I'm sure.

[00:30:30] So I get this task.

[00:30:33] They come to me and say, hey, Jordan, you're good with Excel.

[00:30:35] I was like, yeah, I'm pretty good.

[00:30:37] They're like, you also grew up with cell phones.

[00:30:39] We want you to look at the cell phone bills that we're getting from AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint.

[00:30:49] Okay.

[00:30:50] Sure.

[00:30:51] No problem.

[00:30:52] Mind you, these bills are $75,000, $150,000 each.

[00:30:58] They're substantial bills.

[00:31:01] And they're like, they've continued to grow and we don't know why.

[00:31:04] Mm-hmm.

[00:31:05] Okay.

[00:31:06] So I'm looking at the bills, pulling them down into Excel, looking at the different usage.

[00:31:14] And I'm noticing usage.

[00:31:15] And I'm sitting here going, okay, this is odd.

[00:31:18] And I go back to the contracts, the director of contracts within that same group.

[00:31:25] I'm like, do you have the AT&T contract?

[00:31:29] And she kind of looks at me.

[00:31:30] She's like, yeah.

[00:31:32] I was like, can I read it?

[00:31:34] Am I allowed to?

[00:31:36] She's like, are you sure?

[00:31:39] Right.

[00:31:40] I'm like, yeah, let me see it.

[00:31:42] Okay.

[00:31:42] She comes out with a three-ring binder about that thick.

[00:31:45] Here you go.

[00:31:46] Wow.

[00:31:47] Okay.

[00:31:47] So I kind of go through it.

[00:31:49] Well, what people were missing, do you remember family plans where you used to all have pooled minutes?

[00:31:55] Yeah.

[00:31:56] The company was pooled together.

[00:31:59] Everybody.

[00:31:59] Wow.

[00:32:00] These thousands and thousands of users were pooled together.

[00:32:04] But nobody did that analysis of how many they were using.

[00:32:08] How many minutes?

[00:32:09] So at the time, they were using about 30% of their minutes.

[00:32:15] And I'm doing this with just AT&T.

[00:32:17] Yeah.

[00:32:18] And I'm sitting here going, do we have lower plans?

[00:32:20] And I went back to the contract.

[00:32:21] And I basically went, guys, I can, if we make this change, we go to the lower plan, say from 900 minutes to 450.

[00:32:34] We cut the number of minutes in half.

[00:32:36] We're still on average over six months only using 60% of our minutes.

[00:32:43] And they went, okay, well, what would that save us?

[00:32:49] 100,000 a month?

[00:32:50] Something along the way.

[00:32:54] And Chris looks at me and goes, okay, do those numbers again.

[00:32:58] Do the numbers again and came back.

[00:32:59] He goes, give me the data.

[00:33:00] I want to do the numbers.

[00:33:03] He did the numbers again.

[00:33:04] Right.

[00:33:04] And he's like, come with me.

[00:33:06] I was like, okay.

[00:33:07] He goes, you have a tie?

[00:33:08] I was like, nope.

[00:33:09] And this is like straight out of a movie.

[00:33:11] You know, he's walking.

[00:33:12] He's like, hey, I need your tie.

[00:33:13] We're going.

[00:33:14] Like, we're going to borrow this tie.

[00:33:16] You borrowed somebody's tie.

[00:33:18] Right.

[00:33:18] And I'm sitting here going, okay.

[00:33:21] Where are we going?

[00:33:22] He's like, we're going to do my one-on-one.

[00:33:25] Oh, okay.

[00:33:26] Sure.

[00:33:26] I'm like, cool.

[00:33:27] I'm going to go meet his boss.

[00:33:28] Like, not knowing this is the CIO of a Fortune 500 company.

[00:33:33] Yeah.

[00:33:33] Yeah.

[00:33:34] And he's got my report.

[00:33:37] And he's like, sit in the back.

[00:33:38] Don't say anything until you're asked.

[00:33:40] So he goes through his one-on-one and then goes, hey, I want to bring this, you know,

[00:33:43] to your attention.

[00:33:45] We found this.

[00:33:46] We see it's an opportunity for cost savings.

[00:33:48] You know, we kind of need your blessing operationally in order to do this.

[00:33:51] And he's looking at the numbers and he's like, did you do this?

[00:33:54] And Chris being a wonderful human goes, no, no, no, no.

[00:33:57] Jordan back here, our intern found this.

[00:34:01] Looks at the numbers.

[00:34:02] He goes, did you check the numbers?

[00:34:03] Yes.

[00:34:04] Those numbers are right.

[00:34:06] Looks at me.

[00:34:07] Looks at the numbers.

[00:34:07] Looks at Chris.

[00:34:08] Kind of turns and does this.

[00:34:09] He goes, what are you doing after school?

[00:34:14] That's awesome.

[00:34:16] Working here.

[00:34:17] Yeah.

[00:34:18] Right.

[00:34:18] And so that was kind of my first, you know, month as an intern doing this.

[00:34:25] Then it became do that with the others and do that with the others.

[00:34:27] And I did.

[00:34:29] And finishing school, I then all of a sudden was now in charge of everything mobile from

[00:34:37] a contract perspective, from a finance perspective.

[00:34:40] And then they went, can you do that with our wire line?

[00:34:43] So thinking at the time it's, you know, T1 lines, infrastructure.

[00:34:49] Now I'm doing those contracts, doing all that stuff.

[00:34:51] And, you know, by the time I was 24 with Chris's blessing, I was overseeing a $26 million

[00:34:58] telco operation budget.

[00:35:00] That's crazy.

[00:35:01] And I had a psych degree.

[00:35:05] Right?

[00:35:06] Maybe that helps you work with people.

[00:35:07] True.

[00:35:08] True.

[00:35:09] So then it became learn the operation side.

[00:35:12] So then I moved to the operation side and grew a team out.

[00:35:15] And ultimately I ended up transitioning out of AT&T during that merger between AT&T or out

[00:35:22] of DirecTV because of the AT&T merger.

[00:35:26] It moved on to an MSP.

[00:35:28] But it's one of those things where I look at the way that DirecTV handles mobile technology.

[00:35:35] And I helped structure along with a lot of their technical team, the importance of what

[00:35:42] everybody now streams and where that started.

[00:35:45] Because this, when I started, it was flip phones and blackberries.

[00:35:49] And that helped lay that architectural foundation for the focus on mobile technology.

[00:35:55] So coming full circle to COVID, I'm sitting here preaching to our customers.

[00:36:01] We need to be mobile.

[00:36:03] Why?

[00:36:03] Yeah.

[00:36:05] This is one.

[00:36:06] Yeah.

[00:36:08] So that's really my start in IT.

[00:36:11] Interesting.

[00:36:13] Very different than most, for sure, to end up talking to the CEO of Fortune 500 as an intern.

[00:36:21] And I love the give me your tie.

[00:36:25] Like that's just straight out of a movie.

[00:36:27] If you ended up interviewing some of the AT&T, it's funny because we are a reseller.

[00:36:34] Some AT&T services as an MSP.

[00:36:37] And we partner with them on deals.

[00:36:39] And I started by going to the account team that I used to work with to start that relationship

[00:36:47] back up.

[00:36:48] And for years, I was known as Jordan the intern, even though I was not an intern anymore.

[00:36:54] That's funny.

[00:36:55] I had people underneath me and they still called me Jordan the intern.

[00:36:59] Yeah.

[00:37:00] And that's how they introduced me to create this relationship with Jordan the intern and

[00:37:05] here's what he did.

[00:37:06] Right?

[00:37:07] So it's those types of relationships and building the story and keeping relationships with people

[00:37:16] because everything is a people business.

[00:37:18] Everything's a negotiation the moment you talk to somebody.

[00:37:21] Yeah.

[00:37:22] Yeah.

[00:37:23] So how does that affect?

[00:37:25] I mean, you understand a very different background.

[00:37:27] So how does that affect how you do business?

[00:37:30] It seems like you approach it a little less about the bits and the bytes and more about

[00:37:37] the people.

[00:37:38] And then you also have kind of this enterprise flair that most people have never done as well.

[00:37:43] Sure.

[00:37:44] Um, how does that, how does that shape how you guys approach business today?

[00:37:48] Yeah, we, we approach it from an enterprise perspective and, you know, this comes back

[00:37:56] to, you asked me about size of companies we go after and why sometimes those small guys

[00:38:01] aren't the best fit.

[00:38:03] You know, the challenge we see is because the, the small guys want to be big guys, but don't

[00:38:12] want to pay for the big guy price.

[00:38:15] Yes.

[00:38:16] The medium guys are like, Hey, I'm doing really well.

[00:38:18] I'm kind of growing, but I don't know if I need it yet.

[00:38:21] Yep.

[00:38:22] Right.

[00:38:23] Then you get those people that are 300, 400 plus employee counts that are pushing that

[00:38:31] I'm a small enterprise and I want to take this to the next level.

[00:38:34] And it's usually those ones that start talking about IPOs and stock compliance and all of those

[00:38:40] things that, that then do they look for services like ours that yes, we can manage your infrastructure.

[00:38:47] And yes, we have a help desk and you know, all of the things that we call table stakes

[00:38:53] that come with being an MSP.

[00:38:55] Right.

[00:38:55] What differentiates us is the fact that we can have those very, very educated conversations

[00:39:02] about strategic planning about, okay, you want to be stock compliant.

[00:39:07] Let's help you get there.

[00:39:09] Right.

[00:39:12] And from a mindset perspective, it's a very different way of thinking compared to we use

[00:39:21] this technology.

[00:39:22] We manage, we patch your systems.

[00:39:24] Right.

[00:39:24] And I, I'm not trying to mock my industry at all.

[00:39:26] It's a very, very important skill to have.

[00:39:30] No, but there's a lot of truth there.

[00:39:32] I work with enough MSPs to know that, that it's, it's too easy to get caught in the trap

[00:39:39] of, you know, and most people start with the SMB because that's all they know how to

[00:39:42] win.

[00:39:43] And some people, the under 20, and then some people, they get to the 20 to 50 or 20 to

[00:39:48] a hundred.

[00:39:48] But then, so, you know, I think part of it is you never had the enterprise part.

[00:39:53] Part of it is, you know, I think most of us, including me, was the tech guy.

[00:39:59] Sure.

[00:39:59] And then later had to figure out business speak.

[00:40:04] And that is the challenge.

[00:40:07] So I, I always say there's different level of nerds, right?

[00:40:12] Mm-hmm.

[00:40:12] Mm-hmm.

[00:40:13] And there are nerds that are very, very, very good.

[00:40:21] They are so tactical.

[00:40:23] They are wicked smart.

[00:40:24] But if you put them in front of a camera like this, they would have stage fright.

[00:40:27] They wouldn't know how to handle a situation.

[00:40:31] Right?

[00:40:31] Sure.

[00:40:32] And that's just because their skills are in a very, very focused area and they're very

[00:40:37] good at it.

[00:40:37] Right?

[00:40:38] Some great people on my team just like that.

[00:40:40] That's a level of where I know how to get along with people, but I don't really know

[00:40:43] the technology on the complete other side.

[00:40:46] Right?

[00:40:46] Mm-hmm.

[00:40:48] And it's funny.

[00:40:49] I get asked, what do you think the difference is between an IT director that runs an IT

[00:40:54] department and a CIO?

[00:40:56] Mm-hmm.

[00:40:57] The, the difference is that a CIO understands how to take business requirements and translate

[00:41:05] them into technical solutions.

[00:41:07] An IT director usually is very technical and has trouble going the other way.

[00:41:14] So when you get into high levels of IT management and consulting particularly, you have to match

[00:41:22] business requirements with technical capabilities.

[00:41:25] And if you don't, and if you don't marry those two together, you're very much going to get

[00:41:30] square peg round hole.

[00:41:32] Mm-hmm.

[00:41:33] Right?

[00:41:33] Yeah.

[00:41:34] So having the ability to sit down and say, okay, Mr. President, here is what your goals

[00:41:42] are for the next year.

[00:41:44] You want to expand, you want to add these sites.

[00:41:46] Let's talk about your technical foundation and how you're handling that.

[00:41:51] Mm-hmm.

[00:41:52] Let's talk about capacity planning.

[00:41:54] Right?

[00:41:54] Let's talk about the processes.

[00:41:56] Most people don't like talking about processes because they think it works great.

[00:42:00] Yeah.

[00:42:00] They have it.

[00:42:01] Okay.

[00:42:02] But if there are small kinks and then you become a hundred times that in six months,

[00:42:08] now your small kinks are very large kinks.

[00:42:11] Mm-hmm.

[00:42:12] Right?

[00:42:12] Yeah.

[00:42:14] Let me switch gears.

[00:42:16] I want to put you in the hot seat for a minute.

[00:42:19] Okay.

[00:42:20] So you guys were like number 61 IT provider in the nation.

[00:42:25] Sure.

[00:42:25] That's number two in LAX area, LAX area.

[00:42:29] So you guys have clearly figured something out there.

[00:42:32] So what's the differentiator?

[00:42:36] How do you compete?

[00:42:38] Because I talked to so many USPs.

[00:42:39] They could be in a, never mind an LAX, you know, size city, but in a mid-size city.

[00:42:45] And they're like, there's 150 of us and we all sound the same and I don't know how to compete.

[00:42:49] So for folks that are listening, like what, what is it that helps you guys differentiate?

[00:42:55] Because you're clearly growing at a rate that most just never see.

[00:43:00] You know, we're, we're very lucky.

[00:43:03] Right?

[00:43:03] We have had some clients that have experienced very similar growth.

[00:43:12] Right?

[00:43:12] So we, what we do is not new.

[00:43:16] It's funny.

[00:43:16] I've had this conversations with venture capitalists investors because they, oh, we want to patent this.

[00:43:22] And we want to, you know, what intellectual property you have.

[00:43:24] We're a service-based company.

[00:43:26] Right?

[00:43:27] We, so from our standpoint, what differentiates us is understanding the business.

[00:43:35] When we understand the business of our customer, we can turn around and say, yeah, I know you're looking at that solution, but later you're going to run into these challenges.

[00:43:46] And spending time and understanding the industry that they're in, the industry pain points, the challenges, that is what begins to separate you.

[00:43:59] If you go to our website, we don't really talk about what industries we work with, even though our marketing team definitely wants pages on that.

[00:44:06] And each industry is different.

[00:44:10] But when you look at most industries, 90% of the systems, the architecture, it's all the same.

[00:44:20] There's about four or five different things in each industry.

[00:44:24] And understanding the importance and the value of those five things will not only set you apart from others, but being able to effectively communicate.

[00:44:37] Why?

[00:44:38] It's about storytelling, not saying the capabilities.

[00:44:43] If I sit here and I talked with you about the capabilities of this firewall and why we chose Cisco over Fortinet over SonicWall and start talking about, you know, packet inspection and all that.

[00:44:56] Right?

[00:44:57] Somebody in a business really isn't going to care.

[00:44:59] That's right.

[00:45:01] Right?

[00:45:02] They don't want to know that you're selling them a firewall.

[00:45:04] They want to know that they're protected.

[00:45:06] That's right.

[00:45:08] And then you say, well, okay, you want to be protected, but let's have a different type of discussion about protection.

[00:45:16] How protected do you want to be?

[00:45:18] One of my favorite debates is why do I need to put on a firewall when I have a router?

[00:45:25] Mm-hmm.

[00:45:27] Right?

[00:45:28] Yeah.

[00:45:30] Now, we have a saying in our company.

[00:45:33] And our saying is a question.

[00:45:36] This question is, is this grandma-proofed?

[00:45:40] Okay?

[00:45:40] And what that means is the explanation, the process, the procedure, it needs to be so easy that your grandmother can do it.

[00:45:50] And if the answer to that is no, then you've got to find a better way to do it.

[00:45:56] Can you give me an example?

[00:45:58] Sure.

[00:45:58] Sure.

[00:45:59] So, in that same debate of a firewall versus a router, we say understand that a firewall and a router are your first line of protection on your network.

[00:46:10] Right?

[00:46:11] A router is like having a screen door on your front door.

[00:46:16] Is it a door?

[00:46:17] Yeah.

[00:46:18] Will it stop certain things?

[00:46:20] Absolutely.

[00:46:21] But would you only have a screen door on your front door?

[00:46:25] Or would you maybe want an oak door or a metal door or something behind it that locks?

[00:46:32] Oh, yeah.

[00:46:34] Okay.

[00:46:35] So, what you currently have right now is only a screen door.

[00:46:40] Right?

[00:46:41] So, we took something that's very, very technical and made it very, very easy.

[00:46:48] Right?

[00:46:49] We do this a lot with plumber analogies, road analogies.

[00:46:54] We use hammer analogies.

[00:46:56] That's another good one.

[00:46:57] Well, I'm trying to do this.

[00:46:58] Okay.

[00:46:59] Well, the tool that you're using technically is a hammer.

[00:47:02] But if you're trying to nail in some nails, are you going to go to Home Depot or Lowe's and get a hammer?

[00:47:08] Spend 15, 20 bucks?

[00:47:09] Or are you going to go to Target and get a Fisher-Price hammer?

[00:47:13] Technically, they're both hammers.

[00:47:14] Mm-hmm.

[00:47:16] Yeah.

[00:47:17] Right?

[00:47:17] So, the key for us is taking something technical and making it easy to understand.

[00:47:25] Because the higher up you go in management, the less technical you're going to become.

[00:47:30] Mm-hmm.

[00:47:31] Right?

[00:47:32] And to a certain extent, I'm at that place where there are things where my engineering guys go,

[00:47:37] Stop.

[00:47:38] Get out of the system.

[00:47:38] We'll do it.

[00:47:40] Yeah.

[00:47:41] Right?

[00:47:42] And it's very easy to say that Joe down the street will do it for cheaper.

[00:47:50] Yes.

[00:47:51] There's always somebody that will do it cheaper.

[00:47:53] There are 1,000 MSPs.

[00:47:54] You could literally throw a coin, especially in L.A., and hit five MSPs before you even get out of your neighborhood.

[00:48:00] Yeah.

[00:48:01] And they'll do it cheaper.

[00:48:03] Absolutely.

[00:48:03] Absolutely.

[00:48:03] They'll always do it cheaper.

[00:48:04] They'll do it for an hourly rate.

[00:48:06] Yeah.

[00:48:07] Okay.

[00:48:08] That's great.

[00:48:09] They're a break-fix shop.

[00:48:10] We're not a break-fix shop.

[00:48:11] Yeah.

[00:48:12] So for us, it comes down to qualifying our customers, right?

[00:48:17] Our prospects.

[00:48:17] We want to make sure they're correct.

[00:48:19] There are customers that seem good, and then as we begin to go down this path with them,

[00:48:24] we actually say, hey, thank you, but we don't think we're the right fit for you.

[00:48:27] Mm-hmm.

[00:48:29] Right?

[00:48:31] That makes a ton of sense.

[00:48:32] It's about mindset.

[00:48:33] It's also about who's on their executive team.

[00:48:37] Does their executive team come from large business?

[00:48:42] Is their CFO have, did he come from E&Y?

[00:48:46] Or where was he before, right?

[00:48:48] Those sorts of things that help differentiate us in a very, very crowded market.

[00:48:54] Yeah.

[00:48:54] It just goes to show you, you don't have to, you still can compete.

[00:48:58] Obviously, you have more MSPs.

[00:49:00] Absolutely.

[00:49:01] An area that size than most people are dealing with.

[00:49:04] You talked about quadrupling for years.

[00:49:07] Yeah.

[00:49:07] Which is, you know, something most people would hope to have.

[00:49:12] How did, it gets hard to scale service business because it is about the people.

[00:49:17] Yeah.

[00:49:18] So maybe you'll correct me.

[00:49:20] Maybe you'll tell me I'm wrong.

[00:49:21] But how did you guys keep up with quadruple, quadruple for a few years?

[00:49:26] And on the people side, like how do you, how do you actually have anybody that knows what

[00:49:30] you do, understands your culture?

[00:49:34] It's, that was a very exciting time in, in the company.

[00:49:41] Right.

[00:49:43] And going back to an athlete, being an athlete.

[00:49:47] Right.

[00:49:48] So we spent a lot of time with a sports psychologist.

[00:49:53] And a lot of what we do in the way that I lead is really about, I take an athletic mindset.

[00:50:01] And one of those things that they teach you as an athlete.

[00:50:05] And next time you watch a pre-Super Bowl interview or a big game where they're interviewing athletes,

[00:50:11] you're going to hear the word excited.

[00:50:13] I'm excited to be here.

[00:50:14] This is really exciting.

[00:50:15] This is an exciting time.

[00:50:16] Right.

[00:50:17] And it's actually a psychological trick.

[00:50:20] It's a change from, I'm really stressed out.

[00:50:23] I don't know what I'm doing.

[00:50:24] This is crazy.

[00:50:26] To reframing it to, I'm excited to be here.

[00:50:30] This is an exciting time.

[00:50:32] So as we were quadrupling revenue and trying to keep up, we sat there going, this is exciting.

[00:50:39] This is what we want.

[00:50:40] This, this is what we're trying to achieve.

[00:50:41] This is amazing.

[00:50:42] We're getting it.

[00:50:43] Right.

[00:50:43] And certainly there were those times where we went, oh my gosh, we, how do we keep up with

[00:50:49] what we just sold?

[00:50:50] Right.

[00:50:52] And tactically we did it through having partners, having incredible mentors, my board of directors

[00:51:01] and strategic advisors were critical in that growth and still are today.

[00:51:07] Right.

[00:51:09] And being able to have resources very quickly, we, when we talk with CIOs and IT directors,

[00:51:19] we tell them, especially operations, COOs too, we're like the cloud.

[00:51:24] We can expand and we can shrink.

[00:51:28] We expand and we shrink.

[00:51:29] And we do that.

[00:51:30] Right.

[00:51:30] And just like you would any cloud resource, you can click on AWS or Azure up my VM.

[00:51:39] No problem.

[00:51:40] What happens?

[00:51:40] A couple hours later, you're at a higher tier.

[00:51:44] And we have been able to successfully do that by having unbelievable partners and our strategic

[00:51:54] advisors who have built large IT organizations.

[00:52:00] So having, finding the right key people in the beginning allowed us to do that very quickly.

[00:52:06] Interesting.

[00:52:07] So how that helped you, if I understand what you're saying, helped you to find people.

[00:52:12] How did it help you to actually onboard culture?

[00:52:16] I mean, that's a rapid pace of growth.

[00:52:19] So we're 100% remote.

[00:52:22] So we're 100% remote.

[00:52:22] We've never had a physical office.

[00:52:25] We've never had that brick and mortar.

[00:52:27] Okay.

[00:52:27] We may never.

[00:52:28] You've never had a physical office?

[00:52:30] Nope.

[00:52:31] That's awesome.

[00:52:32] We've never had one.

[00:52:33] We have a physical mailing address.

[00:52:35] Yes.

[00:52:35] That's, you know, by law, we need to have one, which we do.

[00:52:39] Right.

[00:52:39] But we don't have, you know, all of our help desk is remote.

[00:52:46] But the difference is when people see a help desk that's remote, they think overseas.

[00:52:52] No.

[00:52:53] Everybody's local in that sense.

[00:52:56] We are remote, but local.

[00:52:59] And what does that mean?

[00:53:00] Yeah.

[00:53:00] What is, that's interesting.

[00:53:01] What that means is all of our technicians live within the areas of our customers.

[00:53:10] Part of our SLA, which isn't new in our industry, everybody has SLAs with guaranteed response times, guaranteed uptimes.

[00:53:19] That's nothing new.

[00:53:20] We guarantee our time on site.

[00:53:23] Interesting.

[00:53:24] So, if we can't fix something remotely, we guarantee somebody will be there in a certain period of time, depending on the service level that you select with us.

[00:53:34] And that's really one of the biggest differentiators between our levels of service.

[00:53:38] And what that allows our technicians and our staff to do is be able to work from home, have the environment that they want to work out of, but then also give them the ability to still have that, hey, I go into an office.

[00:53:57] Right.

[00:53:58] So, they get this very hybrid type of scenario without creating a hybrid scenario.

[00:54:06] And what happens on the customer side is that they begin to get to know our health desk technicians and our IT technicians.

[00:54:15] Right.

[00:54:15] So, they know when they call.

[00:54:18] Right.

[00:54:18] You say, hey, I'm Damien.

[00:54:20] I, you know, having this issue.

[00:54:21] Oh, hey, how are you?

[00:54:23] It's, you know, Nathan, it's great to talk with you again.

[00:54:25] How have you been?

[00:54:26] They'll literally ask you about their kids, about your kids.

[00:54:29] Right.

[00:54:30] Because they know.

[00:54:31] Yeah.

[00:54:31] And it brings this personalized sign to IT that others don't have.

[00:54:36] Why?

[00:54:37] Because maybe Nathan's the one who took your call, right?

[00:54:40] Because you've met him, everything else.

[00:54:43] But then maybe Joseph or Christian have to be the local person that goes on site to do the setups for you, right?

[00:54:51] So, you get to know those people.

[00:54:52] And the culture of our company is that very relaxed, loose, remote, but local at the same time.

[00:55:02] To where there's some holidays where we can have our clients reach out to us and go, hey, is it okay if we invite some of your technicians to our holiday parties?

[00:55:11] Yeah.

[00:55:12] Do it.

[00:55:13] That's awesome.

[00:55:14] Right?

[00:55:15] You get that personal level of service that you don't get with other MSPs, right?

[00:55:22] You call and you don't know who you're talking to.

[00:55:24] They have no idea.

[00:55:25] They have to look at their documentation, right?

[00:55:28] You could call and you can get Nathaniel who literally was working on your computer the other day.

[00:55:33] Yeah.

[00:55:34] And he knows.

[00:55:34] He goes, oh, hey, that issue didn't fix.

[00:55:36] Let me try the other things.

[00:55:37] Instead of like, hold on, let me review the notes.

[00:55:39] I like that.

[00:55:40] It's an interesting idea because, you know, remote gives you the best ability to hire people.

[00:55:45] Yeah.

[00:55:45] Clearly in big areas, you don't want people driving two hours to get to work one way.

[00:55:49] Yep.

[00:55:50] It doesn't make any sense.

[00:55:51] So, I completely get remote.

[00:55:53] But remote has challenges.

[00:55:54] Sure.

[00:55:54] You know, you don't often meet the team.

[00:55:56] You don't often meet the client if you're just fully remote and you never.

[00:56:00] Yeah.

[00:56:00] So, I love the fact that, you know, you could end up, you will meet them.

[00:56:04] And you will perhaps be invited to their holiday party because it's not only good for the client.

[00:56:10] That's, you know, great for the team, right?

[00:56:12] Right.

[00:56:13] Because now we have this belonging.

[00:56:14] And, you know, there's the saying in the industry of we want to be more than just a vendor or we're actually a partner.

[00:56:22] And we try to live up to that because we are an extension of your team.

[00:56:28] That's really what we are.

[00:56:33] And not having an office was very much a negative checkmark against us for a very long time.

[00:56:39] Yeah.

[00:56:39] Right?

[00:56:40] Because this was before school.

[00:56:43] Before COVID.

[00:56:43] Before COVID.

[00:56:44] Before COVID, it was this negative checkmark.

[00:56:47] Yep.

[00:56:47] And after COVID, when we started explaining to that, all of a sudden you get executives going, how are you doing it?

[00:56:53] Yeah.

[00:56:54] Can you tell us?

[00:56:55] What's the challenge?

[00:56:56] Right?

[00:56:56] And this model has allowed us to scale very quickly.

[00:57:02] So if we, while we're a national company, we have customers and clients and technicians on both coasts and in the south, right?

[00:57:11] If you come to us and say, hey, we have an opportunity in Alaska, right?

[00:57:16] We're not in Alaska.

[00:57:16] It's nowhere near LA.

[00:57:18] Right.

[00:57:18] What happens?

[00:57:19] Well, everybody shares the load remotely, but then we will place our technicians in the town or within a certain radius that live there.

[00:57:32] Okay.

[00:57:32] They become your personal technician that's there all the time.

[00:57:36] That's awesome.

[00:57:37] Right.

[00:57:38] And they're supported by the larger team behind.

[00:57:41] Right.

[00:57:41] But again, they always know that Nathaniel is coming to the site.

[00:57:47] Right.

[00:57:48] And there are challenges with all of that.

[00:57:50] Right.

[00:57:50] People are the hardest products to manage.

[00:57:54] Yes.

[00:57:55] At the end of the day.

[00:57:55] Right.

[00:57:56] So there are those challenges that every business will have.

[00:57:58] But to answer your question, how has it helped us scale?

[00:58:03] In order for us to get into new territory, it takes us three weeks.

[00:58:07] Wow.

[00:58:08] So for us, hey, you're in South Dakota.

[00:58:14] Okay.

[00:58:15] No problem.

[00:58:15] You have sites in South Dakota.

[00:58:17] No problem.

[00:58:17] Tell us about that site.

[00:58:20] Right.

[00:58:21] Because part of that guarantee is having somebody there on site.

[00:58:26] We're not just a company that's throwing things overseas.

[00:58:29] Hmm.

[00:58:30] So you're going to somehow find talent in that local market?

[00:58:34] So that's where our partners and our strategic advisors come in.

[00:58:40] Right.

[00:58:40] So when I look at our strategic advisors, and they've had teams of 16,000 underneath them,

[00:58:51] they can pick up a phone and call some people.

[00:58:53] Right.

[00:58:54] So we certainly leverage those relationships.

[00:58:58] We leverage a lot of recruiting firms that we work with, trusted recruiting firms.

[00:59:06] And very much like you would any software you want to try before you buy.

[00:59:10] We very much do that with our teams and our employees.

[00:59:14] We want to make sure you are the right fit.

[00:59:18] Right.

[00:59:19] For us and for the customer.

[00:59:21] Because there are times where the customer goes, hey, this person really isn't.

[00:59:26] Okay.

[00:59:27] Tell us what's wrong.

[00:59:29] Yeah.

[00:59:30] Right.

[00:59:30] And then switching out.

[00:59:34] Right.

[00:59:34] We're not a recruiting firm.

[00:59:36] Right.

[00:59:36] We're not placing people.

[00:59:38] But there's some of that flexibility that we offer to our, call it our bigger clients that

[00:59:44] really do have the ability to make those kinds of changes if they want to.

[00:59:48] Yeah.

[00:59:49] That's awesome.

[00:59:51] Let me switch gears.

[00:59:52] Jordan, tell me, in all the years you've been doing this, what's the biggest lesson you've

[00:59:58] learned?

[00:59:59] From a business standpoint, you have to CYA all the time.

[01:00:06] You have to over-communicate with customers.

[01:00:10] Right.

[01:00:13] And you have to set the right expectations.

[01:00:18] And, you know, we are, and this I think comes back from my Fortune 500 days of doing things

[01:00:29] very much by the book.

[01:00:31] Right.

[01:00:32] Are we set the right expectations with our customers?

[01:00:35] We do that in writing.

[01:00:36] We have to protect us as much as we protect them.

[01:00:40] Right.

[01:00:41] And it protects them from us too.

[01:00:42] That's one of those things that I have learned over time.

[01:00:48] Early on, we certainly have been burned by customers.

[01:00:58] And you have to pay attention to how they operate with others and what the state is of

[01:01:07] what they're doing.

[01:01:10] And there are many lessons learned from all of that.

[01:01:16] But at the end of the day, you have to decide what is best for you.

[01:01:23] And it's a tough thing to hear because we're a customer service business, right?

[01:01:28] Everybody says that the customer always comes first.

[01:01:30] They're always number one.

[01:01:31] And the answer to that is actually no, your employees come first.

[01:01:34] Yeah.

[01:01:35] Because if I don't take care of our employees well and our managers don't take care of their employees,

[01:01:43] then I can take care of our customers.

[01:01:46] So biggest lesson learned, setting the right expectations and making sure that you are protected

[01:01:57] the same way that you protect your customers.

[01:02:01] Right?

[01:02:02] So, and success doesn't come without a lot of failures, right?

[01:02:10] Yeah.

[01:02:11] Yeah.

[01:02:12] You're going to get knocked down a lot.

[01:02:13] Yep.

[01:02:15] If there was one thing, speaking of that, if there was one thing you could do over or do differently,

[01:02:20] what would that be?

[01:02:22] You know, we're a private company.

[01:02:25] We don't have any plans to change that anytime soon.

[01:02:29] You know, there were times in the past where I think I got so lost in delivering for our current client base

[01:02:39] than looking at it from a CEO perspective, right?

[01:02:47] I still am very much a tech nerd at the end of the day.

[01:02:51] Yeah.

[01:02:52] Technology excites me the same way running a company does.

[01:02:56] But, you know, from one thing I would do differently is I would put more into this CEO role than the technical role.

[01:03:11] And that's part of it through that explosive growth that you were talking about.

[01:03:16] How did we do it?

[01:03:17] Yeah.

[01:03:18] Right?

[01:03:18] All of the CEO, outside selling, you know, building partnerships, building relationships, all that outside stuff

[01:03:26] kind of took a pause as we were just trying to do this.

[01:03:31] Right?

[01:03:34] So, you know, from my lessons learned, that's probably something I would have focused on a little bit more.

[01:03:45] But at the same time, we wanted to deliver on what we were selling and we want to exceed those expectations.

[01:03:52] So it was kind of a two-sided coin.

[01:03:55] Yeah.

[01:03:56] Yeah.

[01:03:56] That makes a ton of sense.

[01:03:58] Yeah.

[01:03:59] Great problem to have though.

[01:04:01] Yeah.

[01:04:02] So what's a common myth about running an MSP that you'd like to bust?

[01:04:12] That we are rolling in cash.

[01:04:16] Yeah.

[01:04:17] What do you mean by that?

[01:04:18] That we – look, this happens a lot in the smaller size companies, right, that we deal with.

[01:04:30] There's a lot of sticker shock with equipment.

[01:04:35] I'm going to use Cisco equipment, for example, right?

[01:04:38] There's a lot of sticker shock.

[01:04:39] If you're used to paying Netgear prices, there's sticker shock, right?

[01:04:43] Well, how is that possible?

[01:04:44] You can't get me down to that price.

[01:04:45] No, we can't.

[01:04:47] Because our margins are razor thin, especially on equipment.

[01:04:54] Right?

[01:04:54] We make our money on services and consulting engagements, not in supplying software.

[01:05:02] Software is even smaller.

[01:05:03] So there's this very large myth that we're adding so much margin to these – to this equipment or to these softwares in order to do anything.

[01:05:16] No, I mean, if you're making 20% on equipment, at the end of the day, you are – you're pretty gravy.

[01:05:25] Yeah.

[01:05:26] And equipment, right?

[01:05:28] Where you have to be doing it at scale, like a CDW level of scale in order to get that.

[01:05:38] And everybody assumes that MSPs are able to do it, which always gets to that, well, I can buy this off of Amazon for cheaper.

[01:05:45] Okay.

[01:05:46] Right?

[01:05:47] And if that's your response, you're not our kind.

[01:05:49] Yeah.

[01:05:50] That's right.

[01:05:51] You can also deal with warranty and returns and –

[01:05:55] Right.

[01:05:55] Everything else that comes with it.

[01:05:57] So –

[01:05:57] Yeah.

[01:05:58] Yeah.

[01:05:59] And if you actually got the equipment you needed, if you actually got an original – yeah.

[01:06:04] There's all kinds of other things that come with that, right?

[01:06:06] Yeah.

[01:06:09] You've been at this for a while, but I'm sure you have a while to go with what you're doing as a company.

[01:06:16] Where the industry is going.

[01:06:18] What are you most excited about?

[01:06:20] What are you looking forward to?

[01:06:21] You know, I'm – put politics aside.

[01:06:25] I'm looking forward to recovery, right?

[01:06:31] Going back to our earlier discussion about how everybody did this during COVID.

[01:06:35] Yeah.

[01:06:35] And now we're doing this.

[01:06:36] I'm looking forward to this again.

[01:06:40] Some normalcy.

[01:06:42] Some normalcy.

[01:06:42] When it comes to budget spending, right?

[01:06:45] The cost of money right now is absurd.

[01:06:49] Mm-hmm.

[01:06:50] And that creates its own challenges.

[01:06:52] It's challenges for our clients, challenges for us, right?

[01:06:54] There's a lot of challenges there.

[01:06:57] And what I'm looking forward to is that normalcy or whatever the new norm will be, right?

[01:07:03] Because it will never be the old way.

[01:07:06] Yeah.

[01:07:06] It will be what that new normalcy is.

[01:07:09] And what we're seeing a lot in the industries that we work with is now everybody's in this, I can't spend, I can't spend, I can't spend.

[01:07:18] And everybody's tightening their belt, right?

[01:07:22] But as the cost of money goes down, commodities, price goes down, starts to stabilize again, things are going to pick back up.

[01:07:33] And that's what we're excited about, right?

[01:07:37] And somebody asked me at least once or twice a week, why do I still do this?

[01:07:41] Why, you know?

[01:07:43] And for me, it's about recognizing that opportunity, seeing that opportunity and having the chance to take that opportunity, right?

[01:07:53] Making the most of it.

[01:07:55] That's what's really exciting.

[01:07:58] And we just need some normalcy in order to really fully capture that normalcy.

[01:08:07] What's the number one book you would recommend that's helped you the most?

[01:08:15] That's a very interesting question because I'm not, I very rarely sit down and read something for fun.

[01:08:24] So most of my reading is white papers, research, Gartner reports, Forrester reports, right?

[01:08:34] So I read a lot of that stuff.

[01:08:38] I read a lot of what McKinsey puts out because that helps with a lot of the consulting engagements that we're doing.

[01:08:45] Helps us talk with individuals.

[01:08:49] I, a long time ago, one of our, one of my mentors said, you need to read the Art of War.

[01:08:54] Hmm.

[01:08:57] And I was like, any book.

[01:09:00] Right.

[01:09:02] I'm like, really?

[01:09:04] Like, that's okay.

[01:09:06] Sure.

[01:09:07] And he's like, just read it.

[01:09:10] But then after it, think about business and how it could apply to business.

[01:09:15] He was very right.

[01:09:16] There are certain aspects of it that certainly apply to business.

[01:09:19] And it was just about changing the mindset, right?

[01:09:22] Because most of my reading is technical and research and things like that to make sure that, you know, we're the ones telling the customer, here's where the industry's going.

[01:09:31] Right.

[01:09:34] So the number one thing I would say for folks to read are those industry reports.

[01:09:40] Right.

[01:09:41] And you don't have to pay for Gartner or Forrester or anything else.

[01:09:46] Most of those providers out there that are hitting those magic quadrants, they'll give you the report for free.

[01:09:53] This has been amazing, Jordan.

[01:09:56] If folks have loved what they've heard, would love to reach out and connect with you in some way, what's the best way to find you?

[01:10:04] Yeah.

[01:10:05] So the best way to find me really is either on social or on LinkedIn.

[01:10:11] That's usually the easiest way.

[01:10:14] You can reach our company.

[01:10:15] It's just alcottenterprises.com.

[01:10:17] That's A-L-C-O-T-T-enterprises.com.

[01:10:21] We are certainly small enough to where I'm very accessible.

[01:10:27] Right.

[01:10:28] And part of that accessibility is what builds that trust with our customers, with our clients and with our partners.

[01:10:37] Right.

[01:10:37] And the value of a partner is being able to pick up a phone and get to the CEO when you need them.

[01:10:42] Right.

[01:10:44] So I'm pretty accessible.

[01:10:47] I take meetings all the time.

[01:10:50] Right.

[01:10:50] And even if it's not the right solution or the right product or what we're looking for right now, it's always good to have those discussions with people.

[01:11:00] The IT world is very, very small.

[01:11:04] And we know that we're not the best at certain things.

[01:11:07] And you may be good at those things that we're not good at.

[01:11:09] Right.

[01:11:10] And there may be that opportunity.

[01:11:12] So for me, I always welcome conversations.

[01:11:15] I love that.

[01:11:16] Make sure to take advantage of that from Jordan.

[01:11:19] Jordan, this has been an amazing gift.

[01:11:21] Thank you for being on MSP Mindset.

[01:11:24] Yeah.

[01:11:24] Thank you for having me.

[01:11:25] It's truly been a pleasure and would love to do it again.