In this episode of Now That’s IT: Stories of MSP Success, we sit down with Benji Sawyer, the high-tech guru behind Sawyer Solutions, to explore his journey from the brink of burnout to building a thriving MSP grounded in balance, compassion, and purpose. Benji opens up about the challenges of working 100-hour weeks, the pivotal moment that forced him to reassess his approach, and the strategies he used to create a sustainable, people-first business.
Discover how Benji transitioned from technician to CEO, the lessons he learned about scaling without sacrificing culture, and the steps he took to foster empathy and care at the core of his MSP. Whether you're striving for growth, searching for work-life harmony, or looking to inspire a values-driven team, Benji’s story offers actionable insights and a fresh perspective on what it means to lead in today’s MSP industry.
Tune in to learn how you can balance ambition with well-being and build a business that thrives without burning out.
Hosted by industry veterans, this podcast delves deep into the findings of the MSP Horizons Report, providing actionable insights to transform your IT business. Each episode features in-depth discussions with experts, thought leaders, and successful MSPs who share their experiences and strategies for navigating the ever-evolving landscape of managed services. Listen & Subscribe Wherever You Get Your Podcasts.
'Now that's it: Stories of MSP Success,' dives into the journeys of some of the trailblazers in our industry to find out how they used their passion for technology to help turn Managed Services into the thriving sector it is today.
Every episode is packed with the valuable insights, practical strategies, and inspiring anecdotes that lead our guests to the transformative moment when they knew….. Now, that's it.
This podcast provides educational information about issues that may be relevant to information technology service providers.
Nothing in the podcast should be construed as any recommendation or endorsement by N-able, or as legal or any other advice.
The views expressed by guests are their own and their appearance on the podcast does not imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent.
Views and opinions expressed by N-able employees are those of the employees and do not necessarily reflect the view of N-able or its officers and directors.
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Speaker 1: One, two, three go.
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We did a SWOT analysis of the company and the greatest threat
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everyone in the company identified at the time was me
00:00:07
killing myself by working too much.
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And so I was working 100-hour weeks for months straight and
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they're like you've got to stop, you've got to stop.
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And when I realized they're right, I've got to stop, I've
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got to slow down, then it's a matter of affording the people
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to hand it off to.
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Speaker 2: How did you do that?
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I mean, how do you approach this new work-life balance?
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I love work, I love hard work.
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Speaker 1: Physical, I don't know.
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It's part of who I am.
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I have a drive to do things, and so it's been difficult in a
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lot of ways.
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Welcome to Now.
00:00:35
Speaker 2: That's it stories of MSP success, where we dive into
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the journeys of some of the trailblazers in our industry to
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find out how they used their passion for technology to help
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turn managed services into the thriving sector it is today.
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Benji Sawyer, welcome to the Now that's it podcast.
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Thanks for having me.
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So you label yourself as the high-tech guru guy at Sawyer
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Systems?
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Is that like Superman's Clark Kent identity?
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Speaker 1: No, I'm pretty irreverent just in my own, like
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everyday life, and we don't do fancy titles, we don't do stuffy
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stuff.
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Uh, you know, in fact, in our job postings we're talking about
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, like, how we're not stuffed shirts.
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Uh, it got me in trouble when I was in corporate America a lot.
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Um, they didn't always appreciate my sense of humor and
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how I approach things, and so now that I have a free hand to
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do whatever I want, that's something I came up with right
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after we started the company and really started doing it almost
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11 years ago.
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Speaker 2: Co-founder and CEO at Sawyer Solutions.
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You're a youth volunteer, skier , jogger, gamer when you have
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free time right when I had free time, I used to do those things.
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Speaker 1: Now I have a business and six kids.
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That's pretty much all I do.
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Speaker 2: You grew up in a family of serial entrepreneurs,
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you told me.
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Grew up in a family of serial entrepreneurs.
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You told me the mutual friend Boyd Smith, who had an episode
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just recently.
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He talks about how rare it is and hard for first-generation
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entrepreneurs.
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What was it like growing up around entrepreneurs and how did
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you think it shaped your future ?
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Speaker 1: So I never wanted to be an entrepreneur, just flat.
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So my parents, they started their first business after they
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got married back in the 70s.
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They did radio repair on airplanes and then the Arab Olin
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Buggers shut all that down because no one flew anymore.
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They started a business.
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Painting towers eventually turned into erecting towers, big
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giant steel towers that don't really get made much anymore.
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Both sets of grandparents were entrepreneurs.
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One owned a tire store and were farmers.
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The other one had owned a gas station at one point in time and
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did a bunch of other things.
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And so we've always, I guess, had an entrepreneurial spirit in
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ways.
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And I very, very strongly remember you know it's a rite of
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passage I tell my kids, as a Sawyer, you have to paint your
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parents' office, and so I remember doing that for them.
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My kids paint, the older kids paint paint the office.
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We moved into it and stuff and so.
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But I never wanted to do it there.
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While they've done a lot of business types of things,
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they've never been really focused on success.
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It's never been about making a lot of money, it's more
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lifestyle for them.
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So I've made more money than others and I mean there there
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are times we didn't really have much, and it was a lot of work.
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I saw how much work they put into it.
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My friend's parents didn't work nearly as much, and so I never
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wanted to do it.
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Growing up it was always I was going to be a physicist or a
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scientist of some type, not going to be an entrepreneur here
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I am.
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Speaker 2: So you went to school for physics and then you ended
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up studying programming and becoming a web developer in
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corporate world.
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Speaker 1: Yes, Turns out I hate physics.
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Not completely accurate.
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I'm a high-level idea guy and when you get into physics, if
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you don't know, I like the ideas behind the physics.
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The actual math I despise.
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And so, yeah, I did it until my senior year in college Realized
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this was not for me.
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I'd done programming, a lot of programming.
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I was actually programming professionally for a company.
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My dad worked for good money at it as a college student, really
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enjoyed it and decided that's what I want to do the rest of my
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my life and so started that so you actually wanted to be a
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physicist growing up.
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I want to be, so everyone's like .
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You should be a scientist.
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You should be a scientist right and you get told something often
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enough, you, you do, and so, like, I'm like I like a
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challenge and so what's the most challenging part of science?
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Physics, and so so, yeah, I'd always had in my mind to be a
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physicist, even though I was really, really good at chemistry
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.
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I'm going to be a great chemist because I like experiments and
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there's a lot less math and chemistry and so.
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But I got stuck in my mind I was going to be a physicist and
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just stuck there until I realized senior year, I don't
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have to do this thing.
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Speaker 2: I can be something different.
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I did the same thing.
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I went to school for physics.
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But I went to school for physics because I don't want to
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be a physicist.
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I wanted to get into computers, and I thought you kind of had
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to know physics to work at IBM, only to realize there's plenty
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of other paths to be able to get there.
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Speaker 1: Yes, that is not generally the primary career
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path.
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Speaker 2: That's right.
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So then on the side, you started Sawyer Solutions with
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your dad and two other men, but you had something different in
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mind, yeah.
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Speaker 1: It was actually a joint venture.
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We started the company right.
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Software is back to tower.
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The two people we were in business with were both
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structural engineers and my dad had hired them to help back when
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they worked at a tower company together 30 some years before we
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started the business and they're fast friends, know each
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other a long time and they needed inspection software to
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inspect towers.
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At the time the only inspection software was out there were all
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web-based and the kind of inspections they were doing
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there was no cell signal or you're putting up a tower that
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had the cell signal and so we had to write a completely
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offline method.
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We were going to write the software they're going to market
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and sell for us.
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We wrote the software didn't really get much selling done, so
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it's learned a valuable lesson there, a lot of valuable lessons
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on that one.
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Speaker 2: So the power structure thing doesn't work out
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, but you have an opportunity that comes up that lets you and
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your wife leave Memphis.
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Speaker 1: Yes, at the time I was working for Brother
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International, we lived in Memphis.
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I didn't want to work there anymore.
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I didn't want to live there anymore.
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Let me phrase it like that I would have been happy if they
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had a place in Golden, colorado, and I'm more than happy they
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let me work there.
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They did not.
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So opportunity came up to basically step into the MSP role
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with a client where my mom worked, and yeah, so we took it
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on and started being full-time MSP and transitions out of
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corporate America into entrepreneur life.
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Speaker 2: What was that first stop?
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What would that look like?
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Was it more of a break-fix?
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Speaker 1: type of no, it was actually full-up MSP, was it,
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yeah?
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And so it was a really good we didn't start with break-fix.
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They actually were coming from a fully managed kind of style.
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It wasn't as much money as it needed to be, as we discovered
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later on, but it was a good starting point for us to start
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out as this kind of stuff.
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Speaker 2: Now, most of the clients we acquired after that
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were break fixer a la carte, but that one started out as a
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full-time.
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How did you know how to structure that first one?
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I mean, you had never, had you done, had you seen him, hadn't
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yeah we just kind of took what they had, yeah, and ran with it
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yeah so what are they paying?
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You just pay us the same thing.
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It was a little more yeah, we were better.
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Speaker 1: We're doing a couple more things he wasn't doing.
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Right, that's essentially yes, correct.
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Speaker 2: Wow.
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So that's first of all.
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That's got to be a pretty unique opportunity, because I
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feel like most starting MSPs have to go to some manual book,
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talk to somebody in the community and go, oh, this is
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what a contract should look like and what should be included in
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the package.
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And you actually had a customer that said I need X, y and Z and
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you said we can deliver that.
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Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, so it's a benefit of personal
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relationships, but we're in Birmingham, alabama, where
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relationships are key, and they'd known us for a long time.
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They trusted us and you know, so we were a known quantity.
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They were willing to take a risk on.
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Speaker 2: So what did the organization look your
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organization at that time?
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What was your role?
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Speaker 1: What was your dad's role?
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The way we structure the business is my mom and my wife
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each own a quarter.
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My dad and I each own a quarter , just because that's the way we
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structure the business.
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At the time my dad was running the CEO.
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It was always designed for me to take over and run it.
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He's turning 74 this year.
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That was almost 11 years ago.
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They knew there's a ticking clock here, right, and so it was
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always going to be one of the things where they were going to
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turn it over to us or me and let me run it.
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So he had a lot more experience running the business than I had
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.
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I took one business class in college.
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It was macroeconomics, which is only loosely business related.
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So I came from corporate America.
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I was a senior web developer and I was in charge of mentoring
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and all this kind of stuff, but it wasn't a business role and
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so since they had more experience in it, they basically
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kind, kind of ran the business at first, but it was still run
00:08:07
as kind of my business, right.
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I had the final say so were you ?
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Speaker 2: what kind of a visionary were you in those
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early days?
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Obviously you weren't the ceo yet, but did you have directions
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that could you see the possibility and the
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opportunities with the company and like, what did the, what did
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the business model, the plan, what did it look like in those
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early days?
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Speaker 1: so that's a great question and I came to realizing
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I was a visionary late in life, because I always imagine
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visionaries walt disney, he's super, super creative, right,
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because he's held up as a quintessential visionary, right,
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super creative, all this kind of stuff and I just didn't feel
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like I was that creative.
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But I am just in a different way, right, and it's one things
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where, like you know, you don't think things you know about
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yourself.
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You think everyone else has those too, but they don't
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necessarily.
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Like.
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I have a friend who can't see things in his head.
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That's a thing, right.
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When everyone's pictured this, he thought it was metaphorical,
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not actual, literal, and so I didn't really understand that.
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And so, over the years, I kind of grew into it and it really
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was about 2018, when I went to the Goldman Sachs program, that
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I really started understanding that this is actually what I'm
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for, this is what I'm good at, I can see long term, I can see in
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the future, get an actual visual picture in my head of
00:09:13
what I want the future to look like and direct things towards
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that.
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But early on no, early on we were scrambling to make it work,
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batten down the hatches, figure out this whole new business
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we've never been in before.
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Like I mean, we've done msp work for businesses we've worked
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with, but never done it as an msp, and so trying to make all
00:09:31
that work and everything like that, that, that was really what
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kind of consumed me for the first couple of years what were
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some of those, like some of those early challenges,
00:09:40
entrepreneurial challenges, business owner challenges that
00:09:44
you experienced and were they surprising to you?
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Speaker 2: Were they surprising to your wife?
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Speaker 1: It took a lot longer to get our second customer than
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I thought it would.
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We were just handed this gift of a first customer.
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It was a good sized customer and so, like you know, like getting
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our second customer took a lot longer than I thought and it was
00:10:01
a really small customer because it was a two computer shop,
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right, like you know, and then like so so growing that that's
00:10:06
been the most challenging part.
00:10:08
I'm not a sales guy, I don't have a sales background, I'm a
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technical person.
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Just most MSP owners you have to split, but a lot of them
00:10:15
started out as technical people.
00:10:16
I never wanted to do sales.
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I didn't have the skill set for it, I wasn't equipped for it.
00:10:22
It still is consistently the most challenging part for us is,
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you know, we do great and get referrals and all that kind of
00:10:27
stuff, but like the actual sales has been a learning experience.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I've known you for the last three or four years
00:10:33
now and I would say early on when I met you.
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First of all, you're very outgoing.
00:10:39
You have no problem striking up a conversation, asking a
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question, and so it's interesting you say you're not a
00:10:45
salesperson but you have some of the sales characteristics
00:10:48
right, Like you could go to the bar or a dinner or meet some
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stranger and start talking tech with them.
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Speaker 1: I can.
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That is a learned trait.
00:10:57
I used to and I'll censor this when I was programming.
00:11:02
I used to say that I chose my career with malicious
00:11:04
forethought so that I could dress casually and be a jerk to
00:11:08
people, and it was part of the course, right?
00:11:10
Because who thinks programmers are nice guys?
00:11:11
No one.
00:11:12
And so I was extremely introverted, a wallflower kind
00:11:16
of person.
00:11:16
So the idea of going up and talking to people is something
00:11:19
I've learned to do over the years.
00:11:20
I spent a lot of time in BNI.
00:11:22
That's why BNI is great for a lot of things, especially when
00:11:24
you're starting out.
00:11:25
The clients we got out of BNI.
00:11:26
You know they got us to where we are, but they're not actually
00:11:29
the clients we need going forward.
00:11:30
But I learned a lot of things about networking and interacting
00:11:33
with people and working on that kind of stuff, and that was
00:11:35
very beneficial to me.
00:11:37
Speaker 2: Talk about the business growing.
00:11:39
You talked a little bit about how it took you a little bit of
00:11:42
time to get that second client, but how long did it take you to
00:11:45
get the third client and the fourth client?
00:11:46
And then when did you start to realize, well, we need more
00:11:50
staff and we've got to continue to grow.
00:11:52
Just what was that evolution like?
00:11:53
Speaker 1: So I mean it was slow growth at first.
00:11:55
We grow consistently, but it took a while because we weren't
00:12:02
sure about a pricing scheme and all the normal stuff you start
00:12:03
out with a business.
00:12:04
We started getting some momentum and then six and a half
00:12:05
years six and a half years ago we hired our first employee.
00:12:08
Since we started, my dad and I started together.
00:12:10
There was already two of us.
00:12:11
We overcame that first hurdle of needing to add that first
00:12:15
person on, because now there's already two of us, but of course
00:12:17
we weren't really making a lot of money that time, that point
00:12:19
in time.
00:12:20
But we needed a employee there to basically be there all the
00:12:23
time as a tech, so that we could do the networking and all other
00:12:26
stuff we were doing and still have the phone manned.
00:12:28
And so we hired a guy who went to church with me.
00:12:31
It was a great fit.
00:12:33
In a lot of ways it was a great first employee.
00:12:36
But when he left he told me something that I found very
00:12:39
gratifying, which is he's like you know, before I went to work
00:12:42
for you I thought I wanted to start my own business.
00:12:44
Now I realize I do not, and that's a compliment.
00:12:49
Well, it's harder than people think, right.
00:12:50
They think oh it's going to be easy, and it is not easy.
00:12:54
Right, it is really not easy.
00:13:00
Speaker 2: I think that's what's great about you, Benji, is
00:13:01
you're a pretty transparent person.
00:13:02
So talk a little bit about the culture.
00:13:03
Right?
00:13:04
You're starting to hire employees.
00:13:05
I mean, it's you and your dad and your dad.
00:13:08
First of all, I love my dad, and we agree some days and we
00:13:12
don't agree other days, so that had to be an interesting dynamic
00:13:14
.
00:13:15
Speaker 1: It can be, and we've been told by staff several times
00:13:18
.
00:13:18
We argue too loudly a lot, yeah , but it's nice.
00:13:21
I mean I have friends that have come from families they could
00:13:25
not trust to run their business with never been a problem for me
00:13:27
.
00:13:27
You know the fact that this matter is like my parents we may
00:13:30
disagree on things, but I know they always have my best
00:13:32
interests at heart and so it makes it easy in that regard.
00:13:35
But the culture has been.
00:13:36
I've been very intentional about that.
00:13:37
In 2018, I went through goldman sachs program, which I talked
00:13:39
about a little bit, and it really drove home the importance
00:13:41
of culture, and I knew that because, you know, I'd worked at
00:13:44
some bad places that had really bad culture.
00:13:47
Yeah, and you can look them up on my LinkedIn.
00:13:49
Actually, one of the things that really drove it home was
00:13:53
and this is you know, it's a relevant tangent, so I'll bring
00:13:57
it in so I lost a child.
00:13:58
Our third child died after a few days and so, against the
00:14:03
rules, my boss said go, I don't want to see you for a month.
00:14:07
That was not what was allowed, right, right by corporate, but
00:14:11
she understood, like, the importance of people, and I came
00:14:14
back a month later she sent me home again after I cussed out
00:14:17
someone on a phone call and so I was not ready to be back at the
00:14:20
office, yeah, and so I realized that I wanted to build a place
00:14:24
fairly early on.
00:14:24
That really was about the people involved and gave them a
00:14:28
place like a refuge to be people , and so I always kind of built
00:14:33
the culture with that in mind.
00:14:35
I distinctly remember one time in tech you get a lot of men,
00:14:38
right, let's just be honest right, most of your employees
00:14:40
are going to be guys, and a lot of times, if you're not careful,
00:14:43
it can turn into bro culture.
00:14:44
And so a couple of my techs were joking around and they
00:14:47
started the that's what she says joke and it really irked me,
00:14:51
and it really irked me a lot, and I turned around and said
00:14:54
guys, you've got to stop Like, this is not acceptable here.
00:14:58
I don't know why I feel this strongly about it, but this is
00:15:01
not going to fly and I will fire you.
00:15:04
And I never, I never threatened my employees, but I, I will
00:15:07
fire you if you continue it.
00:15:08
That was flat and they didn't like they, they, oh okay, I'm
00:15:11
sorry, but I realized later on it was, you know like when I
00:15:14
really had to under reflect on it it was, it was because it
00:15:15
wasn't.
00:15:16
You know it's.
00:15:17
It's not the kind of place we want to be Like we want to.
00:15:19
You know that've always tried to build culture around people
00:15:30
and valuing people, because so often in life that's not the
00:15:33
case, especially in our world.
00:15:34
I see it so often in my MSPs in my area that just treat their
00:15:38
employees like dirt, treat them like disposable cogs, and I
00:15:41
think that's morally wrong, and so that's what I'm trying to
00:15:43
stop.
00:15:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that comes from part of your.
00:15:47
You know the way you were raised and, obviously, the
00:15:50
family.
00:15:50
You're a family man, right, and you have.
00:15:52
You're a churchgoer, like you absolutely have your feet on the
00:15:57
solid ground, right.
00:15:59
That this is what it should feel like to come to work.
00:16:03
It should be a safe space, right, we're going to have good
00:16:05
days, we're going to have bad days, but you just need to set
00:16:08
the ground rules, set the boundaries, because you know
00:16:16
it's okay to blow off steam and get frustrated, but not not
00:16:18
disrespect.
00:16:18
Speaker 1: Yes, it's.
00:16:18
Let's be honest, it's frustrating.
00:16:19
Right?
00:16:19
You're going to deal with customers that are upset, and
00:16:21
they're generally not upset at you.
00:16:21
Yeah, they're so sad and that's okay.
00:16:24
Speaker 2: So you mentioned this a couple of times 2018, you
00:16:26
attended the Goldman Sachs 10 small business program.
00:16:30
Yes, what impact did that have on your business?
00:16:33
Speaker 1: That's probably the single greatest impact I've ever
00:16:34
had of anything.
00:16:34
My business is like flat no holds barred.
00:16:37
It took me from being a technician to a business owner.
00:16:39
If you ever have anyone who's watching this has a chance to do
00:16:43
this program, you a hundred percent need to do it.
00:16:44
It's a great program, put put on my Goldman Sachs, a bunch of
00:16:47
other people that collaborate together, and it's designed to
00:16:49
basically take small business owners, who are generally good
00:16:51
at the thing they sell but not good at being a business owner,
00:16:55
and turn them into a business owner.
00:16:57
Think about it as a business owner instead of the profession.
00:16:59
You are right, and that was an absolutely amazing journey.
00:17:03
It was really hard, like three months of super condensed
00:17:06
learning while you're running a business.
00:17:08
That was rough, but it was really beneficial to me.
00:17:11
It made me confident that, no matter what, I may not achieve
00:17:15
mega success in the world's terms, but I can run a business.
00:17:19
I'm confident we're going to succeed.
00:17:21
It may not be as fast as I want sometimes, but we'll continue
00:17:24
to see and grow.
00:17:25
It gave me the tools to make that happen.
00:17:27
Speaker 2: About this time you took over as CEO, but your dad
00:17:30
didn't want to step out, though no, he's still there today.
00:17:33
And how did this happen and how did you manage it without sort
00:17:36
of awkwardness at that time?
00:17:40
Speaker 1: Well, it's kind of gradual.
00:17:40
After I did the Almost Tax Program I more and more took the
00:17:42
lead and stuff and it's very gradual.
00:17:44
But everyone all the employees always knew we were very clear
00:17:47
up front that like, while my dad , Ken, may have been running the
00:17:50
company at that point in time, officially, it was always gonna
00:17:52
be me stepping in right, and so everyone knew this was gonna
00:17:54
happen.
00:17:55
It's a matter of when it was gonna happen.
00:17:56
And so it was very, even though I wasn't officially the CEO, it
00:18:04
kind of ran thatFO role he likes playing with data and
00:18:07
numbers and so I just took over the official title of running
00:18:11
the business.
00:18:12
Speaker 2: So how did you?
00:18:14
I know you talked a little bit about the Goldman Sachs program
00:18:17
helping you think more like a business owners, but how did you
00:18:20
actually transition from the technical work to the business
00:18:23
management?
00:18:24
What?
00:18:24
How'd you learn those soft skills?
00:18:26
Speaker 1: So when I was working for Brother, I was in charge of
00:18:29
mentoring.
00:18:30
I was a senior developer in North and South America and so I
00:18:33
was in charge of mentoring and building the team in a lot of
00:18:35
ways as well as doing the actual technical work.
00:18:37
So it kind of started there and I'd always worked on it and
00:18:40
stuff.
00:18:40
I enjoy solving puzzles and stuff, but at the end of the day
00:18:44
you're doing the same thing over and over again because
00:18:46
computers act in the same manner .
00:18:48
It's not squirrely sometimes, but by and large the same manner
00:18:51
.
00:18:51
But people are endlessly inventive, right.
00:18:54
People are endlessly and I like new things.
00:18:56
So therefore I really started enjoying dealing with people in
00:19:00
a lot of ways.
00:19:00
They're always a new challenge, right.
00:19:03
It can be frustrating, don't get me wrong.
00:19:04
There are days when I'm like oh my gosh.
00:19:05
But dealing with people is kind of the ultimate thing and it
00:19:09
stretches me, it does wear me out.
00:19:10
It's not my natural inclination , but I understood that if I was
00:19:24
going to grow the business, the way I needed to identified at
00:19:26
the time was me killing myself by working too much, and so,
00:19:29
like I was working 100 hour weeks for months straight and
00:19:33
they're like you've got to stop, you've got to stop.
00:19:35
And when I realized they're right, I've got to stop, I got
00:19:37
to slow down.
00:19:37
Then it's a matter of affording people to hand it off to.
00:19:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, so how'd you do that?
00:19:42
I mean, how do you approach this new work-life balance?
00:19:46
And again, I've gotten to know you uh, you have, you have six
00:19:50
kids.
00:19:50
Obviously you've got your hands full, but how?
00:19:53
Do you, how do you, how do you shed some of that?
00:19:55
Speaker 1: So it's actually I love work, like, like I um, you
00:19:58
know, like I love, I love work.
00:20:00
I love hard work, physical, I don't know.
00:20:04
It's part of who I am.
00:20:05
I have a drive to do things, and so it's been difficult in a
00:20:08
lot of ways.
00:20:08
I slowed it down.
00:20:09
It's kind of gradual over time.
00:20:11
Stepping back was difficult.
00:20:12
It really wasn't.
00:20:13
That's.
00:20:13
Every entrepreneur goes through this Handing things off,
00:20:16
trusting someone to do the job for you.
00:20:17
It really drove home one day when one of the guys had done
00:20:21
something and he did a better job at it than I would have.
00:20:23
I'm like, okay, that's it.
00:20:26
I don't have to be the final of all knowledge.
00:20:28
I don't have to be like I'm hiring people, hopefully, who
00:20:30
are better at doing the thing than I am, yep, you know, and my
00:20:33
job is to give them guidance as needed, and so that's what I
00:20:35
shoot for I have the same challenge that you do.
00:20:38
Speaker 2: It's like I don't know if it was the way I was
00:20:40
raised or just my aggressiveness in the situation is if you want
00:20:45
something done, right, you got to do it yourself Right.
00:20:47
But that's not the answer.
00:20:49
When you have a million things, you're responsible for Right
00:20:52
Work until you're done.
00:20:53
Speaker 1: Whatever that looks like I get it from my farming
00:20:55
grandparents.
00:20:55
Yeah, you know, when there's work to do, you work.
00:20:57
Yeah, it doesn't matter how tired you are.
00:21:04
Speaker 2: You work until the work's done.
00:21:05
What are you the most proud of over the last handful of years?
00:21:06
Obviously, I know you're not done growing, you're not done
00:21:07
transforming your MSP, but what are you the most proud of?
00:21:11
Speaker 1: The team we've assembled is amazing.
00:21:13
It really is.
00:21:14
They're a great group of people .
00:21:17
It's been fun learning over the years who's going to work in an
00:21:21
organization, who's not going to work in an organization.
00:21:22
But one of the things we really talk about is care and
00:21:24
compassion and empathy, and we have an amazing group of people
00:21:28
who are technical in nature right, they do a technical job
00:21:31
but they also understand the value of human beings and
00:21:34
showing caring and compassion and empathy to people.
00:21:36
I've always wanted to build something like you know, like
00:21:38
the Ritz-Carlton kind of thing, where people are empowered to
00:21:41
solve problems.
00:21:42
It may not be technical problems, but problems people
00:21:44
have, and so they'll do things and they'll tell me about it.
00:21:47
One of our customers was doing their annual or biannual audit
00:21:50
of the thing they've got at Plotnitz and they were having a
00:21:53
rough time getting through it, and so I think it brought them
00:21:55
pizza.
00:21:55
We had someone whose mother was in the hospital and they were
00:21:59
in Nashville, so they bought them gas cards to help pay for
00:22:02
the gas, because they're doing trips two or three times a week.
00:22:03
It's ways of caring for each other and caring for our
00:22:08
customers and, in addition to solving their technical problems
00:22:09
, being great on the technical side too, but just being good
00:22:11
with people.
00:22:13
Speaker 2: There's something neat about you that I thought
00:22:15
I'd mention on the podcast.
00:22:16
Not too many people do this, but you are a good listener.
00:22:20
You listen to people talk about oh I like this author, or I
00:22:24
like this topic, or read this book and you have a knack for
00:22:27
sending people a copy of a book that you thought they might
00:22:31
value.
00:22:33
Speaker 1: Why do you do that Knowledge?
00:22:34
And long ago, when I was young, I thought I had to come up with
00:22:38
all this stuff on my own.
00:22:39
I don't know where I got that idea, but when I realized that
00:22:42
people have tread this path before and there's wisdom to be
00:22:45
waiting, like, I want to spread that so that it makes everyone's
00:22:48
lives better.
00:22:49
Right, like, if you can shortcut me, if I can read your
00:22:51
story or read something that you've written, it's going to
00:22:53
help me shortcut something.
00:22:54
And I don't have to, like, do all the hard work myself,
00:22:56
because there's plenty of hard work to do even further down the
00:22:58
road.
00:22:58
Right, I will gladly do that.
00:23:00
And so I want people to you know, have the same benefits
00:23:05
that I can.
00:23:06
Speaker 2: Like whenever I can provide them.
00:23:07
Speaker 1: We all grow together.
00:23:08
The rising tide lifts all boats right and I want to help be
00:23:11
that kind of rising tide.
00:23:12
Help good people, you know, do good things.
00:23:14
That's great.
00:23:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what I really love about you, ben.
00:23:17
You definitely are a unique soul and it's interesting, the
00:23:24
people that you do interact with , guys like Jimmy, guys like
00:23:25
Boyd I always hear them bring your name up and it's always
00:23:28
positive, right?
00:23:28
Oh, I had this conversation, man.
00:23:30
What Benji said was really interesting, so you definitely
00:23:34
have an impact on folks, for sure.
00:23:35
So what's next for you, benji?
00:23:38
Speaker 1: Oh, what's next for me?
00:23:40
I mean, this month I plan on taking a lot of time off.
00:23:44
Actually, good for you, spend time with the family, although
00:23:46
you know, life always intrudes, you know.
00:23:47
But for me, you know, it's really about being more
00:23:52
comfortable with who I am.
00:23:53
Earlier this year I did something that may sound
00:23:55
horrible to people.
00:23:55
It may sound great, but I took a think week, modeled after Bill
00:24:00
Gates' think weeks, and I went to a cabin in the woods and it
00:24:04
was the most refreshing time I've had in my life and I was
00:24:08
there by myself, which I'm an introvert, so it was great.
00:24:10
I did miss the kids, especially at the first couple days,
00:24:13
because I live in a house of six kids and it's insane all the
00:24:15
time.
00:24:15
It was a little weird.
00:24:16
Having quiet time, yeah, but I would get up in the morning, eat
00:24:19
some breakfast, go for a hike.
00:24:20
I love hiking, hiking and then, since it's Alabama and it's
00:24:24
January, it could be 30 degrees, it could be 80 degrees.
00:24:27
Luckily it was more like the 70 , 80 range.
00:24:28
It was beautiful weather on the trails by myself, because it's
00:24:31
the middle of January and the week I wouldn't see another soul
00:24:34
and I'd hike for three, four hours, go back, eat some lunch
00:24:39
and crack open a business book and read until I went to bed
00:24:41
that night and just think and ponder and pray and do things
00:24:46
that just really replenish my soul.
00:24:48
And that was amazing and it really helped me understand that
00:24:50
I've got to take better care of myself.
00:24:52
I'm the kind of person who traditionally would not do a
00:24:55
good job of that, but that if I want to be the man I need to be
00:24:58
for my family and for my employees, that I've got to take
00:25:01
a better care of myself, and so that's kind of what I'm working
00:25:04
on now.
00:25:06
Speaker 2: I'm glad to hear that I want that as well.
00:25:08
So what's next for Sawyer Solutions?
00:25:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, I had this really crazy idea that I'm
00:25:12
rethinking.
00:25:13
I was working with a sales coach and she was great.
00:25:14
Last year we had completed our first 10X.
00:25:17
So we started the company.
00:25:18
We made $160 the first year .
00:25:20
Last year we made $1.8 million and so that was 10x bigger than
00:25:26
we were when we started.
00:25:26
It took us 10 years to get there.
00:25:27
I'm like great.
00:25:27
So I just finished reading Dan Sullivan's 10x is Easier Than 2x
00:25:30
.
00:25:30
It's a great book.
00:25:31
All of Dan Sullivan's books are great.
00:25:33
And I was like what's our next 10x going to be?
00:25:35
What are we going to do here?
00:25:36
And I was talking to her about it and I was like, yeah, we can
00:25:41
do it eight years.
00:25:41
And it's like you're really comfortable with eight years.
00:25:43
Why don't you push it further?
00:25:44
I'm like I'm comfortable eight years.
00:25:45
The math adds up, I can do it pretty easily in eight years, I
00:25:48
think.
00:25:48
So I decided I would try to push it to six years.
00:25:50
So that was this year's goal, was like kind of launch that off
00:25:53
.
00:25:54
And after doing that, I'm not sure I want to do that Like I
00:26:00
want to be Right.
00:26:00
And then how fast, how much effort I want to put into
00:26:02
getting there Right.
00:26:03
How much sacrifice is worth it.
00:26:05
Right, I have six kids.
00:26:06
My oldest is now 17.
00:26:07
She turns 18 in January.
00:26:09
Our youngest two are turning five in a month.
00:26:11
There's only so much time with them, right, I can.
00:26:13
I can build a bigger business later.
00:26:15
Right, and I've missed a lot of their times.
00:26:17
Sure, I sacrificed a lot to, to to get the business to where it
00:26:20
is, and so I'm really taking time to think like, what is it I
00:26:23
really want to do?
00:26:24
Yeah, and rethink my plans, and I'm probably right now, which I
00:26:29
may change, but right now I'm leaning towards you know what?
00:26:31
It's okay to be smaller.
00:26:32
I can be a small big.
00:26:33
You know, a small giant if you will have an outsized impact,
00:26:40
one of the things that IT has delivered Oftentimes you know
00:26:43
this because I'm not wearing it, but I have the no-jerk shirt,
00:26:46
which is infamous around Enable.
00:26:48
One of our core values is if you're a jerk, it ain't going to
00:26:50
work, and we mean that for our customers.
00:26:51
We mean that for our employees, because often, too often, in
00:26:55
our industry, people are just talked down to, they're
00:26:57
belittled, they are made to feel small because they don't know
00:27:01
something that the technician does, and that's wrong, morally
00:27:04
and ethically wrong, and so I want a mission to change that
00:27:07
about our industry, to make it so.
00:27:08
The industry is one of actual service.
00:27:10
Right, we are providing a service to people.
00:27:12
Technology is how we're delivering this, like it's
00:27:15
around that, but it's to a people.
00:27:17
Right, we were doing this to people, for people, and we need
00:27:20
to take that into account.
00:27:20
And so, you know, our actual mission is to change the way
00:27:28
that technology is delivered so that it's one done with caring
00:27:29
and compassion, and so that's a big, lofty mission.
00:27:31
And I just I'm just still getting like that's not the
00:27:31
finished, polished version of the mission statement.
00:27:34
I'm still working on that, but like, but it's okay if it takes
00:27:37
a while to get there.
00:27:38
We're not the only ones Like I'm not saying that we're the only
00:27:40
ones who had this idea.
00:27:40
Cause I know we're not like most, most of my, like my
00:27:42
friends that I've met through these enable events.
00:27:44
We all share the same idea in this regard.
00:27:46
I'm just the one who's most openly talking about it and so
00:27:49
you know it'd be easier to make that impact if I was a hundred
00:27:52
million dollar company.
00:27:52
But I've also got to balance that against the actual personal
00:27:56
weight and measurements, what it's going to do my personal
00:27:58
life.
00:27:59
So I don't really know what's exactly next, except for I want
00:28:02
to keep pushing down the road of trying to show people that this
00:28:04
is how it should be done.
00:28:06
Speaker 2: Have you started to think at all about the long,
00:28:09
long-term plan, like where you want this to go?
00:28:11
I mean, there was a succession plan for you.
00:28:14
Is that what you think might be ?
00:28:20
Speaker 1: there for I mean, your kids are young, right?
00:28:21
Yeah, well, I mean, they have an age range.
00:28:22
The plan's always been, in this case it's to make it a
00:28:25
lifestyle business.
00:28:25
I don't really plan on selling it anytime soon, yeah, but to
00:28:29
potentially, you know, have it where the kids can take over if
00:28:32
they want to I?
00:28:33
There are other businesses out there that I really admire.
00:28:35
There's one who's turned his business recently into an esop
00:28:38
and so the employees can can take ownership of it.
00:28:40
There's another business it's actually a crane business out of
00:28:42
out of memphis.
00:28:43
They turned themselves into a non-profit.
00:28:45
Half their profit every year is reserved for growth of the
00:28:48
company and half their profit is donated to charities.
00:28:51
Wow, and the owners, like when they started what the owners
00:28:54
bought it out from their dad and when they took over they set
00:28:56
their how much money they'd ever make and like that's been it
00:29:00
and so like they're they're not cashing in, like they're in,
00:29:03
they're very free how much money they have and stuff.
00:29:04
There's lots of options and that kind of thing for me to
00:29:07
figure out.
00:29:07
I don't really have a driving urge to work on that right now,
00:29:10
but I do think about it from time to time.
00:29:11
Awesome.
00:29:13
Speaker 2: So the last question I want to ask you is when did
00:29:17
you know?
00:29:17
Now that's it.
00:29:19
Speaker 1: So I was driving from Memphis when we first started
00:29:21
doing this.
00:29:22
I was still working for Brother , and so I'd drive from Memphis
00:29:25
to Birmingham to do things.
00:29:26
I had a lot of time banked and stuff.
00:29:28
And so I remember driving down the road and, as you mentioned,
00:29:30
I'm a man of faith and I was like is this really it?
00:29:34
I have this long prayer because it's four hours in the car by
00:29:36
myself and a guy would answer this is it?
00:29:38
I'm like are you really sure?
00:29:39
And the guy answered yes.
00:29:41
I'm like, okay, then I will do this until you tell me otherwise
00:29:44
.
00:29:44
And so that's when I realized that's it.
00:29:46
I'm doing this until I'm told otherwise.
00:29:49
Speaker 2: So great, benji, it was a real pleasure having you
00:29:52
this week.
00:29:52
I am so honored to have met you in the last couple of years and
00:29:58
gotten to know you well.
00:29:59
Thank you so much for being with us.
00:30:01
Thank you very much.
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Send us a textIn this episode of What's Important Now, host Carrie Richardson sits down with Andrew Moore, founder of Ridgeview Advisors, to dive deep into the concept of "Operationalizing Trust" in the managed services provider (MSP) industry. Andrew shares insights on how scaling trust is critical...
MSPs and Cybersecurity: Avoiding Costly Mistakes with Expert Help | EP86
In this episode of All Things MSP , hosts Justin Esgar and Eric Anthony dive deep into the cybersecurity challenges MSPs face and reveal how teaming up with specialized cybersecurity experts can bolster security for clients and the MSP itself. With guests Adam Bennett, CEO of Crosshair Cyber, and E...