This Seems Crazy, But Complaining Benefits Your MSP, with Harold Mann (MSP Titan #12)

[00:00:00] Hey, before we get into this interview, my team and I, we're going to be in person at the Grocon 2024 event in St. Petersburg, Florida. It's December 3rd through the 5th. And if growth is your rock or your strategic objective, if sales and marketing is something you care about, then make sure you join us. And it's free. So it's a crazy good deal. You're not going to want to miss out on those conversations and discussions. Make sure you come by and say hello.

[00:00:29] If you learn something really meaningful in an exit interview, you failed them. They didn't fail you. So that's the key is to have that exit interview the entire time that they are working for you so that by the time they leave, there is no surprise. You all know why. You know, you want to learn that stuff now so that it doesn't get to the point where they have to leave in order to have you truly hear it. I am no expert at this. I've had many, many people leave for the wrong reasons.

[00:00:55] So the reason I'm saying this is because I'm a big offender of this. I didn't listen. I was too busy thinking about pleasing the customer, growing the business. So I learned this the hard way.

[00:01:12] Hey guys, Damian Stevens, host of MSP Mindset. And today I continue my mission to interview 100 of the fastest growing and most interesting MSPs on the planet. I'm blessed today to be joined by Harold Mann.

[00:01:29] Harold taught me something very interesting, which is that a complaint from your team is a gift. Really powerful reframe. Helped me understand that I can turn that into an operational advantage and efficiency.

[00:01:45] And that helped him unlock some of the fastest growth. If you want to learn and understand Harold's foundation, which is his team and his people, don't miss out on our conversation.

[00:01:56] Well, Harold, I wanted to kind of start with how you got started. Why did you start this business?

[00:02:03] Well, it was certainly not with a business plan.

[00:02:08] So most of us tech people would, well, maybe admit reluctantly.

[00:02:14] I was an in-house IT guy for an ad agency. And I learned early on in that job, my first job out of college, that there was this thing called corporate politics.

[00:02:25] And who you aligned with in your company had a big impact. So if you ever watch the TV show Suits, you know what those dynamics are like.

[00:02:34] That's what it was like in this ad agency and most ad agencies back then, many, many years ago.

[00:02:41] And I found myself wanting to help people, but finding that it mattered almost more who I was aligned with rather than just doing the tech work.

[00:02:51] So I said, you know what? I just want to help people.

[00:02:53] And so somewhat impulsively, I just sort of said, I want to just become a consultant.

[00:03:00] No business plan. No. What am I going to charge?

[00:03:04] I had this one guy who said, hey, we'd like to have you help us with our ad agency.

[00:03:08] And I said, OK. And then I proceeded to say yes for the next 33 years.

[00:03:14] And that's what I've been doing ever since.

[00:03:17] So it was a pretty unscientific launch.

[00:03:20] But what I learned was if you just continue to just say yes when given the opportunity, there are a tremendous number of things that can come your way.

[00:03:29] I love that. And so who did you start your business with?

[00:03:35] Well, my brother had been doing some freelance desktop publishing consulting because that was all the rave back in 1990 ish.

[00:03:48] So he was working on a number of different projects.

[00:03:51] And I said to him, you know, I think we can help people.

[00:03:55] And we just started taking on various projects.

[00:03:59] And that was in 1991.

[00:04:01] October 1991 was when I sort of started making the business a bit more than just freelance.

[00:04:07] I started taking on projects, added an employee in 92, added more employees, went from a one bedroom apartment to a two bedroom.

[00:04:19] And then once I found that taking naps after lunch in my bedroom wasn't exactly the best leadership example, that maybe it was time to move into an office.

[00:04:33] So we moved into an office and then another office.

[00:04:35] And now we're in our third office in three decades, which is, yeah, we've gotten a, we have a nice long history to look back on fondly.

[00:04:50] Yeah, no doubt.

[00:04:51] 91 is super early.

[00:04:54] Yeah, it was very easy to be an IT person because all you had to do was just sort of tell people that they needed this.

[00:05:00] And they sort of knew they did.

[00:05:02] They were certainly not complaining about things like, why hasn't that email not reached me yet?

[00:05:09] You know, they didn't complain about those things.

[00:05:11] Not then.

[00:05:11] More education.

[00:05:13] They were price insensitive because they had no idea how much things should cost.

[00:05:16] So many, many, many, many aspects were easier back then.

[00:05:20] You were talking about, you know, you've been saying yes for 33 years.

[00:05:25] Tell me about the flip side of saying yes, perhaps too much.

[00:05:32] Well, you know, it's very easy for your business to run you, of course, if you are simply in the receiving end or the reactive end.

[00:05:44] So when our clients came to us, you know, it was very easy to say yes because it was like, oh, cool.

[00:05:50] Yeah, it'd be fun to learn that, right?

[00:05:52] Could you build us a website?

[00:05:53] Sure.

[00:05:53] Could you build us a CD-ROM?

[00:05:56] Cool.

[00:05:56] Could you build us an interactive press kit?

[00:05:58] Yeah, that sounds cool.

[00:06:00] So there was so much new back then that we were basically getting paid to learn.

[00:06:04] At a certain point of business maturity, however, you have to decide what is it that we do and what is it that we don't do?

[00:06:11] And I've told people before that I think one of the best things Apple does, we're a big Mac shop.

[00:06:17] One of the best things Apple has ever done is not what they do.

[00:06:19] It's deciding what they don't do.

[00:06:21] It's deciding what they're not going to put into something.

[00:06:24] And the discipline to say, you know what, even though we could do that, we're not going to do that.

[00:06:29] And I learned that things that only I could do, which might have been high value or exciting or maybe good for the ego, would certainly not scale.

[00:06:39] So over the years, we simplified our menu and we streamlined.

[00:06:46] And that's been very pivotal, I think, in our being able to scale the business.

[00:06:52] Hey guys, today's episode is sponsored by Servocity.

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[00:07:27] I love that.

[00:07:28] I think there's a lot to unpack there.

[00:07:30] I've been working on saying no in certain ways, and I know that it can be everything from your niche to just quit adding as many products and services or working as many hours.

[00:07:42] But what are some things you've said no to?

[00:07:45] What's your problem?

[00:07:46] Well, for years, we let clients just sort of call us when they needed to.

[00:07:50] And one of the hardest ripping off of the Band-Aids for MSPs is to get clients to force them to be on monthly support or on a regular cadence.

[00:08:02] Many people are risk-averse, commitment-averse, I should say.

[00:08:05] And therefore, they will push you and pressure you to only be in a reactive mode if possible.

[00:08:15] That doesn't work well.

[00:08:16] You can't allocate the necessary resources for them if you're in that mode.

[00:08:20] So that was a hard one.

[00:08:22] Another thing to say no to was fringe or edge case things.

[00:08:26] Maybe it was Linux support or certain types of voice over IP things that just didn't make financial sense.

[00:08:33] Or while they might have been interesting technically, there wasn't a good business case for them.

[00:08:39] This is a hard thing because if you're an MSP, you probably have engineers around you, and their engineer brains want to do cool, fun stuff.

[00:08:47] And cool, fun stuff typically lives in the margins.

[00:08:51] And the bread and butter for businesses typically lives outside the margins, meaning right in the middle, which is, if you're doing it right, kind of boring.

[00:09:00] So that is a tug of war that you have to sort of implement with your team to say, hey, you know what?

[00:09:06] Boring is actually okay, and we've got to be really selective about where we're going to stretch or where we're going to get creative.

[00:09:13] Can you give me an example of where, you know, every MSP you can relate to?

[00:09:20] Yeah, it only comes up every day.

[00:09:23] Right.

[00:09:24] Literally every day someone says, hey, would you maybe just help us set up this Linux API so that we can control this embedded device?

[00:09:33] And boy, your geek brain goes, oh, yeah, that sounds cool.

[00:09:37] Where's, you know, let me have the credentials.

[00:09:39] And so it is a continual restatement or reminding of your team.

[00:09:52] We have an acronym in our business, DWDT.

[00:09:55] Do we do this?

[00:09:58] And that is actually a really important question to ask when you are working.

[00:10:05] Because otherwise, you're basically your menu is whatever the engineers are interested in.

[00:10:11] And forcing people to conform to a short menu can come across as strict or inflexible or boring.

[00:10:22] But if you don't do that, it can be somewhat of anarchy.

[00:10:27] And the other thing is, you know, does each technical thing that comes across your plate pass the that engineer getting hit by a car test?

[00:10:35] So if, you know, if Bob can say yes to it, but Isaac can't, well, then can we realistically and reliably deliver that service?

[00:10:45] So examples, I mean, we get them all day long.

[00:10:47] I could literally look in my inbox right now and probably find a no request that we got.

[00:10:53] Ironically, after COVID, clients said, we need to come into the office and be here for the Zoom meeting just in case anything goes wrong.

[00:11:01] Now, in the old days before COVID, we would dutifully sit there and they would literally pay us to have someone just sitting there just to make sure the meeting went well.

[00:11:08] Because there was a top tier VC firm, a venture capital firm, and they would pay for it.

[00:11:14] And our consultants would say, OK, whatever, I'll sit here.

[00:11:18] After COVID, consultants were like, wait a second, I didn't have to get on the subway just to do that.

[00:11:25] I could have done this remote.

[00:11:26] So we had to say no to on-premise requests that could otherwise be done remotely.

[00:11:33] I wanted to switch gears for a moment because we were talking about operational efficiency and how you look at your company.

[00:11:42] So tell me why that's so important.

[00:11:46] And over 33 years, when did that become something that you needed to care about?

[00:11:50] Yeah, it's interesting.

[00:11:52] I never thought about when it happened.

[00:11:53] I will tell you this, and a lot of people don't believe me.

[00:11:56] I'm a really lazy person.

[00:11:57] My wife will confirm that.

[00:12:00] I'm a really lazy person.

[00:12:02] They always say, you know, if you want something done efficiently, give it to a lazy person or something like that.

[00:12:07] What I learned, especially when adding employees, is every time there was a mistake made, I had two reactions.

[00:12:15] One, how do we fix this right now?

[00:12:18] And two, how do we prevent this from ever recurring?

[00:12:22] And preventing it from recurring was mostly because I didn't want to have to keep repeating myself.

[00:12:27] Because I had a lot of turnover during the dot-com years.

[00:12:31] Because we were based in San Francisco, a ton of heavily funded companies who had no problem wasting money.

[00:12:38] A lot of them would just poach my staff.

[00:12:41] So I would have a constant training sort of hamster wheel that we were on.

[00:12:46] And what I learned was fix the root cause so you don't have to keep repeating it.

[00:12:53] Anything you tell an employee, it's somewhat perishable in terms of data, you know, knowledge.

[00:13:00] So that caused me to look inward to the process.

[00:13:05] And once you have an eye for that, it's amazing because you'll see it all over the place.

[00:13:12] You'll see opportunities for operational efficiency.

[00:13:14] And I found that that was my passion, more so than selling, more so than meeting with customers, more so than even being super technical.

[00:13:23] I love the operational efficiency that you get to work on when you're in the services business.

[00:13:29] It just so happens if you're in the IT business, there's a lot you can do there.

[00:13:33] And you can use IT to make it even easier.

[00:13:38] What is something you started with to say, hey, I want to make this more efficient or effective or better documented?

[00:13:45] I'll give you a simple one.

[00:13:46] Well, it's not that simple.

[00:13:47] But we had our own calendaring system.

[00:13:50] And we used to go on-site all the time.

[00:13:53] And one of our account folks would book consultants at clients.

[00:13:59] Simple enough, right?

[00:14:01] So Damien is at company A from 9 to 10 a.m.

[00:14:04] And then company B from 10 to 11 a.m.

[00:14:07] Well, Damien's like, guys, that's 40 minutes across town.

[00:14:12] And I'm on a bike, right?

[00:14:14] So that complaint became an API call from our database looking at the address of company A,

[00:14:27] going out to Google Maps, distance between company A and company B, looking at how long that's going to take,

[00:14:35] and sending back a message to the account person saying, hey, wait a second.

[00:14:38] You need travel time based on those two clients.

[00:14:41] Allow Damien 30 minutes or whatever suggested.

[00:14:43] I was super proud of that innovation because it all came from an employee complaint.

[00:14:49] And what it taught us was your best innovation ideas for your business sometimes start as complaints by your staff.

[00:14:56] So we worked really hard over the years to build a culture of encouraging people to complain beyond just this sucks.

[00:15:03] But really, if you think about it, that complaint about, hey, how am I supposed to get from, you know, one place to the other?

[00:15:09] The easy thing would have been to just tell the dispatch person, hey, remember to put in travel time.

[00:15:15] But what we found, the safe word in our business or the problem word in our business was the word remember.

[00:15:21] And that wouldn't scale.

[00:15:23] So every time we found ourselves trying to remember something, we would infuse it into our process so we wouldn't have to remember it.

[00:15:30] That is where my passion is in the business.

[00:15:33] And it's paid off handsomely because, you know, if you think about the number of appointments you have every year

[00:15:39] and the number of need for travel time when you're on premise, you really use that feature a lot.

[00:15:45] Yeah, no doubt.

[00:15:46] I love that really practical example.

[00:15:48] So what's the, I'm listening as another MSP owner, how do I start to adopt this?

[00:15:57] What do I need to look for to just try to get my arms around operational efficiency?

[00:16:02] Yeah, so if you have staff, just it sounds so simplistic, but it's just asking, hey, what's bugging you throughout the day?

[00:16:11] It might be documentation.

[00:16:13] It might be that your clients don't show up for the Zoom when they're supposed to.

[00:16:20] It might be that your colleague doesn't provide you enough information when they're doing a handoff before they go on vacation.

[00:16:28] Whatever the complaint is, just the step one is creating a culture where you inventory those complaints and you really listen and you don't get defensive.

[00:16:37] I mean, as the owner, you know, it's on you.

[00:16:41] Anything that's difficult in the company at the end of the day is your responsibility.

[00:16:47] And if you're a solo practitioner, act as though you have employees.

[00:16:52] And anything that you would find yourself not liking or being annoyed by, make a list of them and think about, OK, what can we do at an engineering level or at an operational level to make that a non-issue?

[00:17:05] And over time, you just build a muscle to create processes that are not dependent upon remembering so much.

[00:17:16] You know, look, you meet a pilot.

[00:17:18] They've been flying for 40 years.

[00:17:20] They still do a meticulous checklist before every flight.

[00:17:23] And yet IT people routinely say, I know what I'm doing.

[00:17:26] You don't have to like, you know, don't treat me like a baby.

[00:17:29] Right.

[00:17:30] IT people don't have the maturity that a lot of pilots have developed.

[00:17:35] And the pilots, it's easier.

[00:17:36] Right.

[00:17:36] They got souls on board that they got to worry about.

[00:17:39] If we had the same kind of care and caution in our IT world, I think you'd see many more people using checklists.

[00:17:48] So buying a copy of the checklist manifesto for all your staff, that's a popular book.

[00:17:52] That's a starting point.

[00:17:54] Right.

[00:17:54] But really more so is creating a culture of feedback and of complaining and understanding that you're not going to bat a thousand and there's going to be a bunch of things.

[00:18:06] There's never going to be enough time to do it all.

[00:18:08] But work as a company to say, you know what, if you don't like it, don't whisper it at the water cooler or don't do it on a slot on a slack hidden slack channel where all you're doing is just whining.

[00:18:19] Talk to an owner.

[00:18:20] Talk to a person who's going to be able to make a difference and give them the opportunity to make that difference.

[00:18:26] Because believe it or not, the bosses at your companies, they do want your job to be easier, even though it may not feel like that.

[00:18:32] Yeah, I love that.

[00:18:33] Even though you may not know that.

[00:18:36] Is it what have you found a good mix?

[00:18:38] Is it mostly documentation or some automation in your PSA or RMM, some other automation you build externally?

[00:18:47] Yeah, our PSA predates PSAs.

[00:18:51] We started building our PSA literally in 1992.

[00:18:55] Wow.

[00:18:55] So we built a lot of custom stuff ourselves using FileMaker Pro and AppleScript and all the tools that we had back in the day.

[00:19:06] FileMaker Pro is still in use.

[00:19:07] It's like the cockroach of software.

[00:19:09] It will not die.

[00:19:10] Yeah.

[00:19:11] And we use it to the hilt.

[00:19:13] Your question is, what are the different ways in which you do it?

[00:19:18] Yeah, I'm curious if it's normally a process that's documented and you put it in whatever tool or if you're relying on your vendor tool to do some automation that you have to maybe set up or if you're doing your own tooling or if it's neither of those.

[00:19:34] It's either master the tools that you've invested in or build your own.

[00:19:40] But usually the tools are out there and it's really about utilizing them.

[00:19:44] Most people just buy these products somewhat aspirationally and don't fully implement them.

[00:19:51] It's really getting in there and figuring out, OK, how are we going to fully implement this so that we don't have to do a lot of workarounds, etc.

[00:19:57] So for us, we custom build a bunch of things ourselves.

[00:20:01] In other cases, we'll just rigorously adhere to checklists.

[00:20:06] We actually have a real skeptical eye towards adding process because what a lot of people do is the first thing they do is, oh, let's make a SharePoint thing for that.

[00:20:15] Let's make a Google Sheet for that.

[00:20:17] Adding new documents is not a panacea.

[00:20:20] It's just one more place to go for information.

[00:20:23] So it requires a leader that is going to say, no, we're not going to do that and potentially upset a few folks if it means corralling everything so that it's the fewest number of places to go for information.

[00:20:37] If one of your clients gets married and changes their last name, how many places do you have to type in that new last name?

[00:20:45] Every spot you have to type it in indicates a design flaw in your system because that means those systems are not interconnected.

[00:20:53] And that's the beginning of having a bunch of data just not be consistently measured.

[00:20:59] You experience this when you call a credit card company and you put in your credit card and then they get transferred and they go, OK, please give me your credit card company.

[00:21:06] Right. So those handoffs would indicate these islands of productivity.

[00:21:11] So when you're building in these optimizations in your business, you want to make sure these are not islands, but they are more centrally reachable by your entire team.

[00:21:21] It's very hard, very hard to do.

[00:21:24] So to make it simple is very complex and to make it complex is very simple.

[00:21:32] So I would literally say as you're doing this, don't just go out and start to tell everybody, hey, let's make some checklists.

[00:21:37] Let's make some systems. You'll have a mess.

[00:21:40] So we will literally encourage people to get together and go, hey, what can we remove from our process this week?

[00:21:45] What is if I'm not as operation mature and efficient and effective as you?

[00:21:51] Where would you recommend I start?

[00:21:54] Well, you should sort of act as if, as they say.

[00:21:57] So act as if you are five times as big.

[00:22:00] Will that work?

[00:22:02] So if you're letting your client call your cell phone, that's not going to scale.

[00:22:06] Right. It's not going to scale when you're on vacation or when you need to be with another customer.

[00:22:11] So act as if you are a larger firm than you are so that when you grow, it is not painful.

[00:22:18] And that means the restraint to not leap for the easy or the personal or the highly responsive thing that your customer wants and ask yourself, be a little more selfish and say, is this going to scale?

[00:22:35] And if you're not sure, you can literally just put in some of your pain points into ChatGPT and see what it suggests back.

[00:22:42] I mean, it's remarkable, you know, the ideation you can get just from doing that process starts with what you don't like.

[00:22:50] But if you are currently a, you know, on the smaller side and wanting to grow your business, ask yourself what percentage of the service delivery is completely reliant on me?

[00:23:02] And if it's highly reliant on you, well, how are you going to scale that?

[00:23:07] Because customers are not dumb.

[00:23:10] They will say, hey, could you please have Damien call us back?

[00:23:14] Right. That doesn't scale.

[00:23:16] I know you've been doing this for a long time, Harold, but I'm curious, do you do this to make your team happier, your clients happier, improve your margins, improve consistency, something else?

[00:23:27] Yeah.

[00:23:28] So I got decades of mistakes under my belt.

[00:23:31] And certainly during the chaotic years, I was prioritizing clients over employees and I lost a ton of great people.

[00:23:39] Because I was just trying to get everybody to help everyone and not putting the employees first.

[00:23:47] So start with yourself, then your staff, then your customer.

[00:23:53] That kind of inverted pyramid of priorities has been an important strategic approach for us.

[00:24:06] And creating an atmosphere where it's okay to say, I don't like this client or I don't like what I'm about to do.

[00:24:12] And then having a conversation.

[00:24:13] What is it about it that you don't like?

[00:24:15] Well, I hate working on Microsoft.

[00:24:18] Okay, well, let's talk about it.

[00:24:20] What about that Microsoft product is frustrating for you?

[00:24:22] I mean, that sounds a little therapy-like, but frankly, there's a lot of unhappy IT people out there, right?

[00:24:28] Yeah.

[00:24:28] You've met them.

[00:24:29] If you've been on any of the discussion boards or the Reddit forums, I mean, it can be a cesspool of cynicism.

[00:24:36] And they didn't wake up that way.

[00:24:38] Some of them did.

[00:24:38] But they didn't all wake up that way, right?

[00:24:40] It feeds on itself because there's this belief that all their employer cares about is margins and helping customers.

[00:24:48] So if you really take a holistic view, then you'll prioritize the employees first and then the client.

[00:24:58] So if one of your colleagues says, I worked through lunch today, that's not a badge of honor.

[00:25:03] Right.

[00:25:04] That's not something to brag about.

[00:25:06] That means you're just getting the short end of the stick.

[00:25:09] You know, you're not putting yourself first.

[00:25:11] I mean, you don't hear about your neurosurgeon missing lunch.

[00:25:15] Right.

[00:25:16] Right?

[00:25:16] They'll happily delay your surgery if anything is going longer.

[00:25:21] You don't hear about a pediatrician rushing to make sure that they start your appointment on time.

[00:25:27] Right.

[00:25:28] They'll happily have you wait 30 minutes in the waiting room with everybody else.

[00:25:32] IT people don't do that as well because they're not as good at self-care.

[00:25:35] So I put a lot of work into helping our staff with self-care.

[00:25:40] And it's been wonderful to see because, like, they feel great when they put themselves first.

[00:25:45] And they feel really appreciative that their employer is doing that.

[00:25:48] Let's talk about that.

[00:25:50] How do you create that culture of self-care?

[00:25:54] And I'm really interested.

[00:25:55] Like, you even said complaining.

[00:25:57] It sounded like complaining with an intent, not just whining.

[00:26:01] But that's a very interesting word to encourage from your team.

[00:26:07] Yeah.

[00:26:07] I'll never forget.

[00:26:08] The first time I heard someone say the term, same shit, different day.

[00:26:11] You know?

[00:26:12] Yeah.

[00:26:12] I'm like, oh, man.

[00:26:13] Man, that is so cynical.

[00:26:15] Like, that is just laced with resignation.

[00:26:18] You know?

[00:26:19] Yeah.

[00:26:19] Like, it's hopeless.

[00:26:21] And when I heard it, I realized, wow, I hope no one in my shop ever feels that way.

[00:26:27] But the reality is, it's easy to feel that way in IT because it's not like your clients

[00:26:33] are going, oh, my God, thank you so much.

[00:26:35] I really appreciate the work you did.

[00:26:36] They say, like, no one called me back for 20 minutes and this is urgent.

[00:26:40] I can't work.

[00:26:40] You know?

[00:26:41] So we're constantly getting slammed by folks.

[00:26:43] So I think it's all about creating a culture where if you don't like something or you find

[00:26:50] yourself grumbling or you're a manager and you find one of your team grumbling, that you

[00:26:54] normalize it.

[00:26:55] That you say, hey, let's, I want to hear what's bugging you.

[00:26:59] If you don't like something, I want to know about it.

[00:27:02] Because usually you can get to the root cause by just spending a little bit of time sitting

[00:27:07] with it.

[00:27:08] Why don't I like that these clients never show up for my appointments?

[00:27:13] It's just rude.

[00:27:14] I'm there punctually and they don't.

[00:27:17] So what's the fix?

[00:27:18] Well, we have a late fee, right?

[00:27:21] So if you cancel or, you know, we're going to charge you.

[00:27:23] Now, that may not be a quick, that may fix everything.

[00:27:27] You know, people will still bail, but we create a disincentive for them.

[00:27:31] It's got to have some sort of consequence.

[00:27:33] If there's no consequence, why should they show up?

[00:27:36] Right?

[00:27:37] And so if that's going to reduce frustration on the employee's side, it's worth doing.

[00:27:43] I don't do it for the revenue.

[00:27:44] I do it to reduce the frustration for the employees.

[00:27:48] What have you learned?

[00:27:49] Like, it's interesting.

[00:27:51] You hit the nail on the head.

[00:27:53] IT is not, we're not known for self-care.

[00:27:57] What brought you to that conclusion?

[00:27:59] And then what have you done to help encourage that in your team?

[00:28:03] Well, I mean, obviously, you get, you know, a few hundred employees of, a few hundred ex-employees

[00:28:09] over time.

[00:28:10] You're going to see some common patterns.

[00:28:12] And, you know, we've seen people who just don't take care of themselves.

[00:28:17] So creating wellness plans, creating incentives, reimbursements for fitness memberships, or anything

[00:28:23] that you can do to sort of help encourage that they are being healthy or treating themselves

[00:28:30] well.

[00:28:31] Having strong HR effort to make sure that if someone looks like they are struggling, to

[00:28:37] give them support, give them accommodations if there are issues.

[00:28:43] Encouraging managers to have really regular one-on-one and not just a one-on-one meeting

[00:28:48] where it's, you know, I'm here if you need me.

[00:28:51] Sometimes you need to just sit with them for a bit in order to sort of coax out some of the

[00:28:59] things that are lurking that they may not be feeling comfortable sharing.

[00:29:05] And then just trying to make sure you have a balance of, you know, are they getting enough

[00:29:11] challenge?

[00:29:12] Are they getting too much repetition in what they're doing?

[00:29:15] Are they getting good exposure to things?

[00:29:17] Are they getting the certifications they want?

[00:29:19] It all takes work.

[00:29:20] And if you rely on the employee to sort of advocate for themselves, some of them may not.

[00:29:26] And that's not really a great way to help them if you're relying on them advocating for

[00:29:34] themselves all the time.

[00:29:35] So just keeping an eye on them and helping them move things forward.

[00:29:39] But the whole time is really looking and saying, are they doing okay?

[00:29:44] For example, camera on is really important.

[00:29:47] If your employees are on a team meeting and their camera's off, you really don't know how

[00:29:52] they're doing.

[00:29:52] Yeah.

[00:29:53] But you can sure tell just when the couple of way they're responding or maybe just that

[00:29:59] little look or that eye roll, those, that's all the feedback, right?

[00:30:03] That's all the stuff.

[00:30:04] You don't want to learn anything earth shattering or revelatory in an exit interview.

[00:30:12] No.

[00:30:13] If you learn something really meaningful in an exit interview, you failed them.

[00:30:17] They didn't fail you.

[00:30:18] So that's the key is to have that exit interview the entire time that they are working for you.

[00:30:24] So that by the time they leave, there is no surprise.

[00:30:27] You all know why.

[00:30:28] And it should be, there should be no surprises at the exit interview.

[00:30:31] So if you conduct yourself as an employer, like you're having an exit interview, you're

[00:30:36] going to, you know, you want to learn that stuff now so that it doesn't get to the point

[00:30:40] where they have to leave in order to have you truly hear it.

[00:30:42] I am no expert at this.

[00:30:45] I've had many, many people leave for the wrong reasons.

[00:30:48] So the reason I'm saying this is because I'm a big offender of this.

[00:30:52] I didn't listen.

[00:30:54] I was too busy thinking about pleasing the customer, growing the business.

[00:30:58] So I learned this the hard way.

[00:31:01] I love that.

[00:31:03] I don't love that you learned the hard way, but I love that you're willing to share the

[00:31:06] hard fought lessons.

[00:31:07] And tell me about your speaking of customers.

[00:31:13] Tell me about your niche and what niches you feel like you serve.

[00:31:18] Yeah.

[00:31:18] So since we started in San Francisco and since I was in advertising, Mac was big in the

[00:31:25] average.

[00:31:25] I actually worked for the ad agency that launched the Macintosh called Shia Day Advertising.

[00:31:29] So we got to be around Apple and it was a very exciting time.

[00:31:35] Ironically enough, the same ad agency ended up doing a ton of work for Dell Computer.

[00:31:41] And so I learned a ton there.

[00:31:43] But we became a very strong Mac shop early on because our niche originally was ad agencies

[00:31:48] and public relations firms.

[00:31:50] That was the majority of our business in the 90s.

[00:31:53] We did a lot of work in Hollywood.

[00:31:56] Cool stuff, just Macs and creatives, a lot of publishing, et cetera.

[00:32:02] And then we broadened right around the dot-com years to then build a lot of websites, et cetera.

[00:32:09] So our niche has become device management for small businesses, small business being anywhere

[00:32:18] from 20 people to 1,500.

[00:32:20] It's a pretty wide range.

[00:32:22] A lot of device management for Macs.

[00:32:24] We are one of the largest Jamf partners on the West Coast, if not the largest.

[00:32:29] I'm not sure.

[00:32:30] So we manage many thousands of Macs for our clients, in some cases co-managed IT.

[00:32:38] So they have their own IT departments, but they just don't want to deal with all the

[00:32:40] patching and everything that needs to be done.

[00:32:43] So what we do is we have a workflow automation solution that patches those devices for all

[00:32:51] of those companies.

[00:32:52] Just putting device management doesn't actually do it all automatically.

[00:32:55] You have to actually get in there and update Chrome and update Photoshop.

[00:33:00] Well, Photoshop might update itself.

[00:33:02] But you have to update a lot of apps yourself when you are doing device management.

[00:33:08] So we do that at scale for many, many businesses.

[00:33:11] And we built a bunch of cool tools to do that very efficiently and automatically.

[00:33:15] And how does understanding your customer or your niche create better alignment and empathy

[00:33:22] with your team?

[00:33:25] Well, it's a bit of a tug of war, right?

[00:33:28] Because some of them might want you to do things that you don't consider to be strategic.

[00:33:33] But definitely listen to what they want and then saying, will this help just that one

[00:33:37] customer?

[00:33:38] Will I help all of our customers?

[00:33:40] Doing the things that are going to help the most number of people is usually the low-hanging

[00:33:44] fruit.

[00:33:45] And then deciding when you're going to stop and say, you know what, even though we probably

[00:33:48] could do that, that may have a questionable return on investment.

[00:33:53] So it's just listening to the clients.

[00:33:55] They typically know what they want, especially since we have a lot of very technical companies

[00:34:00] in our market.

[00:34:01] So they're very savvy companies.

[00:34:04] They tell us what they need.

[00:34:07] So I'm curious, you know, you're one of the fastest growing MSPs on the planet.

[00:34:13] And then there's so many people that think, well, I couldn't niche or I couldn't, for example,

[00:34:17] Apple is still a lot smaller than the PC world.

[00:34:20] I couldn't focus on only Apple.

[00:34:23] And, or the Bay Area and Bay Area and Apple and all this sort of thing.

[00:34:26] So now you've got this really nice alignment for what you do and still have managed to

[00:34:32] create, you know, one of the fastest growing MSPs there is.

[00:34:36] So what's the, what's the takeaway?

[00:34:39] Like how to, how did, how do you create that alignment to create such a fast growing company,

[00:34:45] even though some people would say that is harder in a smaller niche, for example?

[00:34:51] Yeah.

[00:34:52] Thank you for that.

[00:34:54] Um, I think, uh, I think people are, will, will generally be attracted to excellence.

[00:35:06] So if you can focus just on having a product that is so good, um, that people will gravitate

[00:35:16] towards it, it makes other things a lot easier.

[00:35:19] So Krispy Kreme, for example, was famous for getting some pretty inexpensive locations for

[00:35:25] their stores, which from an operating standpoint saves you money.

[00:35:30] They were able to do this because they had an extraordinary product that people would literally

[00:35:35] drive and line up for just to get a donut.

[00:35:38] Same thing for In-N-Out Burger and some other brands, which are just revered by their, uh,

[00:35:43] customers.

[00:35:43] I, I'm not saying we are in that category, but if you work to make your product that good,

[00:35:49] then customers will be a little bit more price insensitive and they will be a little bit

[00:35:53] more accommodating of how you work.

[00:35:55] Um, so if you have a customer that sort of annoyed with how much you cost and still pays

[00:36:00] you, you're doing something right and, uh, not succumbing to, you know, spiffs or promotions

[00:36:07] or sales or any incentives to try and break through the commodity of, of the industry.

[00:36:14] I would say that the, the key thing is just doing what you do very well and sweating every

[00:36:21] little detail.

[00:36:23] I read every email that comes into our support queue and it's, it's thousands of emails,

[00:36:29] as you can imagine.

[00:36:30] Yeah.

[00:36:31] Um, because those complaints are gifts depending on what you do with them.

[00:36:37] This is why the TV show undercover boss is so popular because it underscores how detached

[00:36:42] leadership can get from the customer.

[00:36:45] If they are too busy growing or stuck with middle management structure and all the other things

[00:36:51] that keep you away from just hearing the customer.

[00:36:54] So if you have a customer that says, man, I'm really bummed that you guys didn't blank.

[00:36:59] That's gold.

[00:37:00] And they're complaining and they're giving you a chance to make it better depending on what

[00:37:04] you do with it.

[00:37:05] And so paying attention to that as you're growing, I think is a essential ingredient.

[00:37:11] It's a little tiring, but man, there's nothing like a customer complaint that you can turn

[00:37:17] around.

[00:37:17] I mean, that customer is a customer for life if you, if you handle it well.

[00:37:22] I love that.

[00:37:24] Reframing.

[00:37:25] Support and especially a complaint as a gift is something I think we could all do a better

[00:37:31] job of.

[00:37:32] There are books, literally.

[00:37:34] I think there's a book called a complaint is a gift.

[00:37:35] Like it's, it's a real thing.

[00:37:37] And, um, complaints are super.

[00:37:39] And as a matter of fact, complaints by employees are also extremely important.

[00:37:44] So either they complain to you or they complain on glass door to a whole bunch more people.

[00:37:48] So I'd rather, I'd rather hear it from the employee myself rather than read about it.

[00:37:52] What do you attribute to your success and your growth?

[00:37:57] It's, you've got this operational power.

[00:37:59] You've built this amazing culture where they can be open.

[00:38:01] You've got a great client base and a niche and probably a whole bunch of other things.

[00:38:06] Thanks.

[00:38:07] Uh, I, well, a whole bunch of luck, some amazing hires.

[00:38:12] I mean, we've got just incredible people.

[00:38:14] We, oh, by the way, we hire kind people, which, uh, definitely limited the, uh, talent pool.

[00:38:22] So going for kindness, putting kindness ahead of, you know, profit.

[00:38:26] Um, and, uh, not, and, and not just doing lip service.

[00:38:33] You've got to actually deliver on it.

[00:38:35] So I've said a lot of sort of, you know, expressions with you like, you know, complaining

[00:38:40] or do we do this, but living that day to day and making sure it's part of your culture and

[00:38:48] not just putting it up on a slide at a quarterly meeting, but really practicing it daily.

[00:38:54] I think that is the key thing.

[00:38:56] My, I think my employees know, I really care about this stuff.

[00:38:59] They know how I sneak away on vacation to send messages back to the office at unusual

[00:39:04] hours of the day.

[00:39:05] I care about this stuff because I care how they're working so hard and I'm deeply flattered

[00:39:11] that customers will pay us to do this still.

[00:39:13] It's just amazing to me.

[00:39:15] It's like, you're paying me to do something that I probably would have done anyway, because

[00:39:18] I just love technology.

[00:39:20] So just staying close to that simple approach.

[00:39:24] And, uh, but I would say honestly, the, the, the key secret, if you will, is just

[00:39:32] constantly asking yourself, why don't I like this?

[00:39:34] What about this?

[00:39:35] Do I not like?

[00:39:37] Because if you can get past that dread, it's a wonderful career, but you rarely hear people

[00:39:43] talk about what a wonderful career IT is.

[00:39:46] Yes.

[00:39:48] Yes.

[00:39:48] And I think, I think in, um, technical support or support of any type, you're the frontline.

[00:39:58] So you're being the frontline, you're going to get all the angry people and upset people.

[00:40:03] Um, because you said IT and that hit me because developers are generally, you know, their satisfaction

[00:40:10] are generally higher, but they're generally not frontline dealing with those.

[00:40:15] So I love that if you're using your words, reframe the complaints as a gift and then use

[00:40:24] not exactly, but use a little bit more of a developer mindset, use a mindset of how can

[00:40:28] we, how can we innovate on that?

[00:40:30] How can we make sure that doesn't happen again?

[00:40:32] How can we create something to deal with that?

[00:40:35] Yeah.

[00:40:35] I think it's a great analogy you use because in a way developers get to do one thing a

[00:40:39] lot.

[00:40:39] They get to debug, right?

[00:40:41] Yes.

[00:40:41] But do, do IT companies debug their process?

[00:40:45] Not too often.

[00:40:45] Or do they just say, you know, that, that client's sort of a jerk, right?

[00:40:49] So debugging your process should not be limited just to developers because debugging is, is

[00:40:55] a natural part of, of building anything, right?

[00:40:59] So taking more time to debug.

[00:41:00] I know the cliches work on your business, not in your business, but, um, the way you, the

[00:41:08] way you do that is figuring out what's wrong.

[00:41:10] And the two entities that know that better than you as the owner are your employees and

[00:41:15] your customers.

[00:41:17] Yeah.

[00:41:18] I love that debugging analogy for getting to really work on it because you, you can work

[00:41:26] on it all the time.

[00:41:27] You could always make it better.

[00:41:28] You don't have to implement some new book or some new fancy strategy to regularly work on

[00:41:35] your business and not, not just be in the trenches.

[00:41:37] And there's a lot of pressure, right?

[00:41:39] So the, you know, EOSs and there's a lot of tools and first call resolution and metrics

[00:41:45] and the MBAs come in and say, Hey, what if we, you know, shave this down?

[00:41:49] Look, there's two ways to do customer support.

[00:41:51] Do it as quickly as you can, as inexpensively as you can, which is viable.

[00:41:56] Or like Zappos or other companies do, or JetBlue stay on the phone with them as long as they

[00:42:01] want, because they will be customers for life if you make them feel important.

[00:42:06] And that worked for Zappos and that works for another, you know, a bunch of brands, Nordstrom,

[00:42:10] for example.

[00:42:10] So it depends.

[00:42:12] There's no one way to do it, but it is a highly iterative process and one that I wouldn't listen

[00:42:19] to your own voice because your own voice and perspective is probably very idealistic and

[00:42:25] is not the best measurement of it.

[00:42:28] The other thing is IT people generally don't spend the kind of money that IT customers do

[00:42:34] on service.

[00:42:35] So if you've, you know, if you pay anybody more than a couple hundred bucks an hour,

[00:42:41] you know how that feels, right?

[00:42:43] And yet we expect our customers to pay that and somehow put up with whatever is bugging them.

[00:42:50] So I'd say practice spending money on things and see how you feel.

[00:42:56] That's how your customers feel.

[00:42:57] Practice spending money on things and you'll know how they feel.

[00:43:01] Super practical.

[00:43:02] Cool.

[00:43:03] I, I'd like to talk about this interesting book that you're working on.

[00:43:08] Can you tell us something about that?

[00:43:10] Sure.

[00:43:10] Sure.

[00:43:11] I've been working on a book for, I have no many, I have no idea how many years.

[00:43:14] It is very likely to be published posthumously at this point because I am high functioning

[00:43:22] ADD and still trying to run a business.

[00:43:24] So I work on it on the side.

[00:43:26] It's basically a book about what I'm describing, which is helping IT people not burn out and

[00:43:32] enjoy what they do.

[00:43:34] And it has all the tools and lessons that I've been learning over the years.

[00:43:40] It, I don't know where I am in the process.

[00:43:45] I think I'm almost done, but it's like on those hikes where you, you see the hill and then

[00:43:49] you get to the hill and you realize there's three more hills after it.

[00:43:52] I have a feeling that's what the editing process is going to be like.

[00:43:56] So I couldn't tell you when it's going to come out, but the book is basically, um, yeah,

[00:44:04] it's, it's really just sort of validating that the IT world is a hard job and, um, doctors

[00:44:14] and lawyers get, I got a ton of analogies in the book, but doctors and lawyers, you know,

[00:44:19] get a lot of respect and they get paid really well and people behave really nicely around

[00:44:27] them.

[00:44:28] IT people were closer to more like the facilities type, you know, we're not treated with a tremendous

[00:44:34] amount of respect and we're called the tech is, you know, the tech is here, right?

[00:44:40] Uh, we're not even given first names in some cases.

[00:44:43] So just teaching people that don't, yeah.

[00:44:47] Sorry.

[00:44:47] I was just going to say to people that don't know the industry or what MSPs are, you know,

[00:44:51] the, you know, I'll say, oh, I serve MSPs and they'll say, oh, so that's like Silicon tech

[00:44:58] people.

[00:44:58] They got Silicon Valley money and there's no issues and just this sort of thing.

[00:45:01] And my analogy is like, it's like the blue collar of the IT industry.

[00:45:05] And I don't mean that in any negative way, but just kind of like you're saying, it's more

[00:45:09] like the, the tech and it's not in the same, um, respect that maybe that.

[00:45:16] It's right.

[00:45:17] It's a young industry.

[00:45:18] The industry is about as old as you are.

[00:45:21] Right.

[00:45:22] So because of that, customers don't exactly know how to treat us.

[00:45:26] And then all it takes is a, an IT person with a bad attitude and that's just going to

[00:45:31] solidify that they're not going to treat us very well.

[00:45:34] So, you know, there's stereotypes for a reason in our industry and it's, um, perpetuated by

[00:45:42] a lack of self care.

[00:45:43] So my reason in writing a book is to really make people feel good about the fact that they

[00:45:50] are trying to help people.

[00:45:51] I had an epiphany at one point.

[00:45:54] I don't remember when it was, but I just realized, why am I so bothered by this?

[00:45:57] I'm just trying to help people.

[00:45:59] Yeah.

[00:46:00] And then once I realized I'm only here to help.

[00:46:01] And that phrase, I'm only here to help was able to get me out of all of this stuff that

[00:46:07] people want to do.

[00:46:08] They want to blame me for this or bring me into this thing, this argument.

[00:46:12] I'm just here to help.

[00:46:14] Yeah.

[00:46:14] I'm not here to fix your dysfunctional company.

[00:46:17] Right.

[00:46:18] And, uh, learning that was very helpful.

[00:46:20] So again, it's setting boundaries.

[00:46:22] Boundary setting is super important in any relationship.

[00:46:24] And yet it people are terrible at boundary setting.

[00:46:28] Yes.

[00:46:29] Yeah.

[00:46:30] I think that's why I wrote it.

[00:46:31] Yeah.

[00:46:32] No, no.

[00:46:33] I think it's, it's definitely needed.

[00:46:34] And every conversation we had up to that was, I feel like had this underlying theme

[00:46:40] of empathy, empathy for the team, empathy for having to learn new things, deal with difficult

[00:46:47] people, not always taking the best care of yourself.

[00:46:50] There's so many different levels to that.

[00:46:53] Um, and I think it's something that personally, at least we all need to talk about more openly,

[00:46:59] uh, that your job isn't, for example, if you get 150 emails that day and you got six

[00:47:08] hours of tickets or seven hours of tickets, it's probably not practical to get everything

[00:47:13] done that day.

[00:47:14] And we need to talk about those kinds of things much more openly instead of saying you work

[00:47:19] through lunch, you worked all night, you worked in late into the evening.

[00:47:22] Um, you know, be that, you know, when I was much younger, it was like, that was the, the

[00:47:28] thing to do is to grind and be the hero to, uh, to try to do that.

[00:47:33] And, and look, if they have an emergency and they need you in some hour, that's one thing.

[00:47:37] But when you're just grinding day to day, it's, uh, all you're doing is devaluing yourself.

[00:47:44] Yes.

[00:47:45] And empathy of course is, uh, needs regulation, right?

[00:47:49] So too much of it, you go home feeling terrible because the customer lost all that data, too

[00:47:54] little of it.

[00:47:55] And you're callous and you get that sort of bad bedside manner, which they refer to in

[00:48:00] the medical world.

[00:48:01] So, uh, you know, many people in the IT world are in various sort of aspects of whether it's

[00:48:08] autism spectrum or Asperger or, you know, different things that make it harder for sometimes for them

[00:48:13] to summon some of that empathy.

[00:48:15] Some of that's just their, their natural, just chemical wiring.

[00:48:19] Other, uh, other of it is learned behavior from just interactions.

[00:48:24] And it's reinforced by people who are not kind to them, whether it be coworkers or customers.

[00:48:31] So empathy for your, your customer.

[00:48:34] Uh, I mean, I can only imagine, you know, the surgeons who have to come home having lost

[00:48:38] a patient, right?

[00:48:39] But we have similar empathy challenges, whether it's, we feel terrible about the backup that

[00:48:45] failed or it couldn't be restored or the, we, or yes, you would know better.

[00:48:51] Or the, or, or we feel nothing because the customer was just a jerk and we don't care.

[00:48:57] Both of those are perilous.

[00:48:59] Both of those are existential risks, not only for your business, but for your career.

[00:49:03] In terms of burnout.

[00:49:05] So learning to say, Oh, that hurts.

[00:49:08] Why does that hurt?

[00:49:09] What do I, why do I feel bad?

[00:49:11] I had a client who lost five terabytes of data because I think I may have told you this

[00:49:15] because of, uh, um, platters that crashed, that collapsed on his hard drive and he hadn't

[00:49:21] run a backup.

[00:49:22] And I told him this is a bad idea.

[00:49:24] Yeah.

[00:49:25] And I was okay that night.

[00:49:28] I had some empathy.

[00:49:30] I felt bad for him, but I also told him, you got to do this, dude.

[00:49:33] You got to back this up.

[00:49:34] This is critical.

[00:49:35] You could lose everything.

[00:49:36] And because I took care of me in that moment, I was able to feel okay about it.

[00:49:43] Had I not done that, not only would have been awful for a business for me, but I would have

[00:49:48] felt terrible.

[00:49:50] And that's, that kind of regret can haunt you in your career, rather, whether it's losing

[00:49:56] a customer or your business or getting sued or any of that stuff.

[00:49:59] So it's really taking care of yourself in those moments that gives you the ability to manage

[00:50:04] your empathy better.

[00:50:05] That's part of the reason I'm working on this book.

[00:50:07] I hope if I, if I perish before the book is published, please, will you, will you please

[00:50:13] recommend it to your friends?

[00:50:14] I hope someone will publish it.

[00:50:16] Absolutely.

[00:50:18] Maybe we can get some folks to encourage you along the way.

[00:50:20] I will be one of them.

[00:50:22] I love what you just said there.

[00:50:24] And it actually connected me to something that, so at Servosity, we, you know, I was an

[00:50:30] MSP and then I lost data and without going to all of it, then I was like, I want to make

[00:50:34] sure this doesn't happen for another MSP.

[00:50:36] So I went in, I said, I'll create a better mousetrap.

[00:50:39] Here's a better backup tool.

[00:50:41] And it really wasn't.

[00:50:43] It was different, but it wasn't really better.

[00:50:45] It wasn't solving enough of the issues.

[00:50:46] And my team, which actually had probably maybe too much empathy using your words, even though

[00:50:53] we're supporting MSPs, not all MSPs are good at making sure backups work.

[00:50:59] You'd think so, but no.

[00:51:01] And so the time that my team was the most frustrated, saddest, and even kind of down on themselves

[00:51:09] is when somebody would lose data, not because the software didn't work, but because maybe

[00:51:14] the, the, even though they've been emailing them or calling them and saying, you know,

[00:51:18] Hey, you know, the backups aren't working.

[00:51:19] They just, they were also being IT people stretched too thin, you know, trying to balance too

[00:51:24] many things.

[00:51:25] And so it just helped me.

[00:51:27] Thank you for that.

[00:51:28] It helped me connect that, that the reason that we pivoted entirely away from the reactive,

[00:51:34] you do it and call us if you have help to, we do it.

[00:51:36] And we do it proactively for you as an MSP is, wasn't about making a few more dollars.

[00:51:43] It was really by empowering my team because now they can just go fix it for you, which

[00:51:48] is a better win for you as an MSP.

[00:51:50] But then they can have, um, you know, a say in it because there is some frustration when

[00:51:57] you're like, please back up what you're saying to your customer and you know, it's absolutely

[00:52:03] what they need to do.

[00:52:04] And if you are powerless to do anything, you just watch them make a horrible mistake.

[00:52:09] You may recall earlier in our conversation, I talked about the word remember, right?

[00:52:14] If I had to tell employee to remember to do something, if you think about it, remembering

[00:52:17] to periodically back up or check your backups is exactly that problem.

[00:52:24] You are, you are relying on MSPs to remember to do that very, very important step.

[00:52:31] And when you're busy, you're not going to remember to do everything you're supposed to do.

[00:52:35] So putting that one aspect of your business on autopilot removes risk.

[00:52:40] And so the key thing to create this innovation, whether it's starting your own SaaS business

[00:52:47] or just improving your own services business, let's figure out what do I have to remember

[00:52:51] to do in my business?

[00:52:53] That is an area that should be engineered out so that you don't have to remember to do

[00:52:59] it.

[00:52:59] I wanted to switch gears for a moment and ask you, in all this time that you've been doing

[00:53:05] this, what's the biggest lesson you've learned?

[00:53:08] Um, I would just say, you know, the lesson is, is that, uh, your anxiety is actually, uh, a

[00:53:20] gift and it's a tool.

[00:53:22] It's not a gift if it's debilitating to the point where you can't function, you know, there's

[00:53:27] obviously medical conditions, but anxiety in its regular sort of day-to-day state is a wonderful

[00:53:33] thing to utilize, uh, because it's your body knowing that there's a problem before your

[00:53:40] brain does.

[00:53:41] And, uh, once you connect those, then a lot, a lot of things just get easier.

[00:53:47] So I'd say the biggest lesson was whatever dread you have in your, in your work, uh, getting

[00:53:56] in touch with that, figuring out why you have it and then making the necessary adjustments

[00:54:04] because there's a reason why you have those anxiety, whether it be for a client or coworker

[00:54:09] or whatever supervisor.

[00:54:11] Um, but if you don't address them, they're not going to go away.

[00:54:15] They're just going to get bigger and you can't really do great work with anxiety.

[00:54:22] It's, it's like having a windshield wiper that, you know, windshield that doesn't have wipers

[00:54:27] like you, you know, you, it's hard to even function and do great work.

[00:54:30] So the biggest lesson I've learned is, uh, focus on the anxiety, whether it's yours, whether

[00:54:36] it's your customers, if, and that will lead you out of that hole where you can actually

[00:54:42] do great work.

[00:54:43] But you've got to focus on that first because that's the thing that's generally holding us

[00:54:46] back.

[00:54:48] Hmm.

[00:54:48] I love that.

[00:54:50] Yeah.

[00:54:50] The thing, I think the thing that surprised me the most was how low tech a lot of these

[00:54:55] things are.

[00:54:56] The things that I'm talking about are very non-technical.

[00:54:59] They're more touchy feely.

[00:55:01] Maybe it's a California thing, but it's like, how does that make you feel?

[00:55:04] Do I like this?

[00:55:05] You know, these kinds of expressions sound so, um, almost silly when you compare them

[00:55:10] to technical talk.

[00:55:12] But at the end of the day, those are the things that hold us back from enjoying our jobs.

[00:55:18] Those are the things that make us quit.

[00:55:20] Those are the things that make us dread customers and come home stressed or come downstairs stressed

[00:55:26] if you're working from home.

[00:55:27] You know, whatever, whatever's causing that, um, is real.

[00:55:32] And then you add a bunch of cybersecurity and risks and constant threats.

[00:55:37] You got to take care of yourself.

[00:55:38] So this is an important part of our, of our industry.

[00:55:42] Mental health is talked about a lot more now than it used to be.

[00:55:46] No one ever talked about that when I started the business.

[00:55:48] Right.

[00:55:48] And now it's, uh, table stakes.

[00:55:51] You got to be talking about mental health.

[00:55:52] What are you doing for your mental health?

[00:55:53] What are you doing for your team's mental health?

[00:55:55] So I think it's really important.

[00:55:57] COVID helped, I think, accelerate that as well, which is kind of a gift too.

[00:56:01] What is one thing you would do differently or do over?

[00:56:06] Uh, well, I would have prioritized my staff during the chaotic times for sure.

[00:56:11] I lost some great people.

[00:56:14] You know, I wasn't listening to them as much as I should have been.

[00:56:18] Um, and you know, if you're running a business, the two hardest parts are knowing when to listen

[00:56:27] to people and knowing when to not listen and just listen to yourself.

[00:56:30] Yes.

[00:56:31] And, uh, I wouldn't, I'd say, um, you know, worrying that the opportunity was lost or over,

[00:56:42] you know, the good times were over.

[00:56:43] Generally you worry about that too late.

[00:56:46] So the things you think are fleeting are actually going to be around a long time.

[00:56:50] And the things that you think are going to be around a long time might be fleeting.

[00:56:53] So it's a real, it's a real coin toss.

[00:56:56] But I would just say if you're in the people business and you're working with people,

[00:57:00] prioritize your people.

[00:57:02] So anybody who used to work for me, that's listening to this, I'm sorry.

[00:57:05] I should have done a better job.

[00:57:07] I've learned.

[00:57:08] I'm trying to do better.

[00:57:10] I love that.

[00:57:11] I love that humility, Harold.

[00:57:14] What is a myth about running an MSP that you'd like to dispel?

[00:57:20] I, you know, I don't, uh, I don't spend a lot of time selling and I'm not saying that

[00:57:26] in an arrogant way.

[00:57:27] I just, we're, we have the good fortune.

[00:57:29] A lot of people just calling us and wanting to hire us.

[00:57:32] So I'm not sure what they are comparing us to.

[00:57:36] I don't spend a ton of time thinking about the competitive set.

[00:57:40] I would say, uh, that a lot of people feel like what MSPs do is, should be supportive.

[00:57:50] Uh, you know, it's called technical support.

[00:57:52] I think having your MSP always pleasing you might be, um, um, um, strategic error.

[00:58:04] I think just like your physician or your attorney might piss you off with what they tell you

[00:58:10] to do, your IT person or vendor should potentially annoy you or irritate you if it's the right

[00:58:19] thing for your business.

[00:58:20] So obviously they'll, you know, customer is always right saying that that's not true.

[00:58:25] Yeah, that's right.

[00:58:25] The customer is not always right, but it's even goes further than that.

[00:58:29] You, you should not please the customer if it means cutting corners or compromising your

[00:58:34] ethics.

[00:58:35] So if the right thing for that customer to do is to get that password manager and they

[00:58:39] say no, then you say, you know, in so many words, that's a really bad idea.

[00:58:45] And if that upsets your customer, you're doing the right thing for your profession.

[00:58:50] So I think the mistake that people might make is thinking that your MSP is there to sort

[00:58:55] of just make you happy.

[00:58:57] Their job is to make sure you stay in business and don't have a, you know, existential risk

[00:59:04] to your business because of a bad technical decision.

[00:59:07] And we all see the headlines.

[00:59:08] You know, these, these problems are getting worse, not better.

[00:59:11] Yeah.

[00:59:12] If my doctor saw my cholesterol is high or saw that I was overweight and didn't say

[00:59:16] you need to lose some weight or you need to change your diet, you know, they would, they

[00:59:21] would feel bad about that.

[00:59:22] But, you know, they, they might, depending on how they deliver it, say, you know, something

[00:59:26] that you may not want to hear.

[00:59:27] Uh, well, it's actually easier in their industry for one reason, litigation, right?

[00:59:33] So if you, if they say you really should get the surgery and you say, no, I'm good, then

[00:59:37] they make you sign something that says this is against medical advice.

[00:59:41] It's called an AMA form for one reason and one reason only.

[00:59:44] So you can't sue their ass later, right?

[00:59:46] So the problem is there's not enough litigation in our industry to make IT people do the same

[00:59:54] kind of conservative approach.

[00:59:56] So unless you've got a really good attorney that teaches you how to do all of these sort

[01:00:00] of messages to your customers to send all those CYA letters, you know, to the customer,

[01:00:06] that is, uh, you're potentially opening yourself up to risk.

[01:00:11] So when you work, you know, in the MSP world and the customer does the wrong thing as they

[01:00:16] are apt to do, uh, what you do after they do the wrong thing is really important and

[01:00:23] making sure you have that conversation with the customer.

[01:00:27] So it's, it's actually easy for the doctors cause they're good.

[01:00:29] They got to protect themselves.

[01:00:30] They don't want to get sued.

[01:00:31] IT people don't worry about that as much and they should.

[01:00:35] Yeah.

[01:00:36] Interesting perspective on that.

[01:00:38] Need more litigation.

[01:00:39] Not something you hear often.

[01:00:41] But I love it because I feel like almost every MSP complains and talks about, well, I told

[01:00:47] them they need this in a security stack and they said no, or I told them they should have

[01:00:51] a better backup and they said no.

[01:00:52] And then, so they just kept the one that was not sufficient and then they get breached and,

[01:00:58] you know, and then of course they blame us.

[01:01:01] And, uh, but you didn't have them sign anything saying this is against medical advice equivalent

[01:01:06] for your MSP.

[01:01:08] Yeah.

[01:01:09] Every employee I, I hire, the first thing I tell them is I, not the first thing, but I

[01:01:14] tell them in their first week though, I never want to hear you say these words, but I told

[01:01:18] them.

[01:01:19] Yeah.

[01:01:20] Right.

[01:01:20] That should never be something you rely on because you'd be amazed how bad customers'

[01:01:26] memories are when stuff hits the fan.

[01:01:29] Suddenly they say, oh, you didn't tell me that.

[01:01:31] So yeah, having a nice little paper trail of this is a bad idea.

[01:01:36] And, uh, and here's a little secret by the way, for your, for your listeners, not just

[01:01:41] the one person that's doing the wrong thing, but someone else in their organization as well.

[01:01:46] Not just that one guy or gal, because that won't potentially reach the key people later.

[01:01:54] And, uh, you really want to make sure that that company knows this is a bad idea and that

[01:02:00] will potentially make your customer look bad to their boss.

[01:02:06] Yeah.

[01:02:06] So you said to me like, you know, what's a mistake people or, you know, something people

[01:02:11] MSPs, they don't realize you got to risk doing that.

[01:02:15] You got to risk potentially pissing off your contact if they're doing the wrong thing so

[01:02:20] that you can later say, I told you this was a bad idea.

[01:02:25] You don't want to be the guy.

[01:02:26] You don't want to be the person that says, I told you so.

[01:02:29] No, but I'd rather be the guy that says, I told you.

[01:02:31] So rather than been served with a lawsuit.

[01:02:35] Yeah.

[01:02:35] And maybe you'll have a chance to do something when you elevate it instead of call you later

[01:02:41] and you have to say, you know, if there's no litigation, nobody, there's a really hollow

[01:02:44] victory to say, well, I told you so.

[01:02:45] And now you're, you're, uh, you're breached or you're, you can't recover or whatever this,

[01:02:50] you know, cyber attack or cause, for example.

[01:02:54] Uh, what's something to change gears a little bit.

[01:02:59] What's something you're looking forward to Harold?

[01:03:02] Uh, I'm looking forward to the, the, um, the, the friendship people are going to have with AI.

[01:03:12] I mean, it's getting so humanized, you know, you see the demos of some of the latest chat,

[01:03:17] uh, open AI stuff.

[01:03:18] Uh, there's good, there's, there's been a lot of, uh, lonely people work from home was tough.

[01:03:25] COVID was tough.

[01:03:26] A lot of isolated people, people working by themselves.

[01:03:29] Um, you're going to literally have someone who will just talk to you during the day if

[01:03:33] you want that and will encourage you.

[01:03:36] And it might create some weird, you know, by-products or side effects, but I'm encouraged by the fact

[01:03:42] that you'll just be able to, um, have that kind of companionship, not to mention the bionic

[01:03:50] exoskeleton of knowledge, which will make you so much better at what you do.

[01:03:53] So if you have an employee that is struggling with, you know, communicating things, you can

[01:03:59] say, Hey, you know, bot, I'm having trouble communicating in a way that's effective with

[01:04:05] this customer.

[01:04:06] What can I say?

[01:04:07] So suddenly you're just going to get better at things with virtually no additional cost

[01:04:12] or, or effort.

[01:04:13] That's very exciting.

[01:04:15] Very exciting.

[01:04:17] Yeah.

[01:04:17] Especially to us introverts that are maybe not natural communicators.

[01:04:22] Uh, that's cool.

[01:04:24] I love that you framed AI as something to help you not only communicate, but even for mental

[01:04:29] health, uh, when so many folks have fear of it.

[01:04:34] Um, yeah, you know, some people want, um, more praise than other people have the awareness

[01:04:41] or the time or the willingness.

[01:04:43] And, uh, so if it comes from a bot, it might not feel authentic, but it might feel close enough

[01:04:50] where you're going to feel appreciated.

[01:04:52] And, uh, not everyone dispenses it in the way they need it.

[01:04:57] And so if you're a person who doesn't, who needs more praise, tell your bot that and you'll

[01:05:02] get more praise throughout the day.

[01:05:03] And that might actually have the same, uh, you know, serotonin or dopamine effect that

[01:05:08] it would from a coworker.

[01:05:10] And it might be just enough to make you feel better about how things are going, especially

[01:05:15] since that coworker is probably not in the cubicle next to you.

[01:05:19] We've got to remember, we are still in the early stages of this post COVID world.

[01:05:23] And so this whole like return to office or am I in an office?

[01:05:28] People don't know they're, they're right now just happy to not be getting sick and, uh,

[01:05:33] you know, get out and travel again.

[01:05:34] But we really don't know the mental health effects of the isolation that especially IT people

[01:05:40] have.

[01:05:40] So we've got to pay attention to that.

[01:05:41] And if you can use AI to help mitigate that, I think that's a good thing to start with.

[01:05:47] Hmm.

[01:05:48] So good.

[01:05:49] And this may be a hard one, but what's the one book you recommend?

[01:05:54] Oh, uh, well, I really liked, um, I like process and engineering and, um, efficiency.

[01:06:01] So there was a book called the goal by Eli Goldratt.

[01:06:06] Yeah.

[01:06:07] It's been, um, translated many times.

[01:06:10] It's sort of a table stakes for a lot of, uh, business school folks.

[01:06:14] It's got some great lessons about leadership and teamwork taught in a somewhat, you know,

[01:06:22] fictitious story like way.

[01:06:25] Uh, that really stuck with me.

[01:06:27] Built to last is obviously when everyone it's on everyone's list of like favorite books,

[01:06:33] but it really is that good.

[01:06:34] If you are wanting to build a company that is built to last, I think we've done a pretty

[01:06:39] good job of building a sort of a long-term company.

[01:06:42] So I identify with a lot of things in that book.

[01:06:44] I will say does get easier when you take a long-term perspective too.

[01:06:49] So even if you're thinking about running a business for only a year or two build it as

[01:06:53] though you're going to have that business for 10 or 15 years, you might make some better

[01:06:57] decisions along the way in terms of structure and in terms of just planning.

[01:07:02] And when you take a long-term perspective, the things that annoy you in the short term

[01:07:07] sort of fall by the wayside because they're just not as important.

[01:07:11] I love the long-term thinking there.

[01:07:13] Great perspective.

[01:07:15] Uh, Harold, tell the folks that are listening, if you're, if you're open to it, how they could

[01:07:20] find you, how they could connect to you.

[01:07:22] Yeah.

[01:07:23] Uh, man.com M a N N.com is our website.

[01:07:26] Uh, I'm H man at man.com.

[01:07:29] Pretty easy to remember.

[01:07:30] And, um, that's the best way to reach me.

[01:07:33] They're welcome to Lincoln with me.

[01:07:35] We've got some nice, you know, drip content stuff that I'm happy to send people.

[01:07:40] And if any MSPs want to partner with us on Mac support, we do in tune as well, but a bunch

[01:07:47] of Mac support in our business.

[01:07:48] We have real top industry experts at our company doing Mac support for enterprise and for small

[01:07:57] business.

[01:07:58] So I'd be happy to partner with other MSPs that are wanting to deliver it.

[01:08:02] It's not just a checkbox.

[01:08:03] You don't just say, oh yeah, we do Macs do it.

[01:08:05] There's actually a lot that goes into it and my team is really good at it.

[01:08:08] So we'd like to partner with MSPs who see value in that.

[01:08:12] Yes.

[01:08:13] Do a world class.

[01:08:14] Don't just, just do it.

[01:08:16] Uh, that's a big difference.

[01:08:18] Um, uh, yeah.

[01:08:20] So whether you can work with Harold and his MSP, whether you want to reach out to him personally,

[01:08:25] or maybe I would suggest encourage him to keep sharing the kind of things that he did

[01:08:30] today or encourage him to, uh, get over that big, big milestone to finish that book.

[01:08:37] Um, I would love to see it.

[01:08:39] So maybe join in and encourage, uh, Harold is, uh, over time to, uh, to, to get that out

[01:08:45] to the world.

[01:08:47] I've enjoyed talking with you, Damon.

[01:08:48] Thank you.

[01:08:49] Absolutely.

[01:08:50] Thank you for being on MSP Mindset.

[01:08:51] Thank you.