In this episode of "Now That's IT: Stories of MSP Success," we sit down with Marco La Vecchia, the Chief Revenue Officer at Produce8, to uncover the secrets behind his remarkable success in the managed service provider (MSP) industry. From his early days at N-able to his leadership roles at AVG and Fully Managed, Marco has consistently driven growth and innovation through strategic sales initiatives.
Marco shares his journey from an aspiring professional golfer to a key player in the MSP world, providing invaluable insights into how sales can be the catalyst for scaling your business. He discusses the importance of building a strong sales culture, the traits to look for in top-performing salespeople, and the crucial role of a dedicated sales leader.
Listeners will learn about:
- The "work hard, play hard" ethos that propelled N-able to success.
- How leading with a security-first approach at AVG reshaped the MSP landscape.
- The transformative sales strategies that grew Fully Managed from a local MSP to a national powerhouse.
- The significance of aligning sales and marketing efforts to drive qualified leads and close deals.
- Marco's current venture at Produce8 and how it's set to revolutionize productivity for MSPs.
Whether you're an established MSP owner or just starting, Marco's proven growth tactics will provide you with actionable strategies to elevate your sales game and scale your business. Tune in to gain a wealth of knowledge from one of the industry's most respected leaders.
Don't miss this episode packed with expert advice and real-world examples of how effective sales tactics can lead to extraordinary growth in the MSP space.
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.
The podcast may also contain forward-looking statements regarding future product plans, functionality, or development efforts that should not be interpreted as a commitment from N-able related to any deliverables or timeframe.
All content is based on information available at the time of recording, and N-able has no obligation to update any forward-looking statements.
Speaker 1: One, two, three, four .
00:00:02
There isn't a company in the world that has ever grown
00:00:06
without salespeople.
00:00:06
But that comes with a caveat.
00:00:09
I do not think that MSPs should hire salespeople if they don't
00:00:13
have a good sales leader Teaching them what they need to
00:00:16
do, because a lot of these MSPs can't help the salesperson, and
00:00:21
that's where I think the issue happens.
00:00:22
A lot of times you hear that I hired a salesperson.
00:00:25
Six months later nothing happened and the owner decides
00:00:29
I'm going to let go of the salesperson because it's a cost.
00:00:31
A sales leader somebody that's done it before, that has the DNA
00:00:35
, that knows how to build pipeline of qualified
00:00:39
opportunities that a salesperson can work, help them with
00:00:42
marketing strategies, put a whole entire system in place
00:00:46
that allows the MSP to be successful.
00:00:48
To me that's a winning strategy and I think the good MSPs have
00:00:51
done that and they're the ones that continue to grow and excel
00:00:55
and acquire because they have the revenue streams to support
00:00:58
it.
00:00:58
The smaller ones continue to struggle.
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Speaker 2: Welcome to Now that's it stories of MSP success,
00:01:04
where we dive into the journeys of some of the trailblazers in
00:01:07
our industry to find out how they used their passion for
00:01:10
technology to help turn managed services into the thriving
00:01:13
sector.
00:01:13
It is today Marco Lovecchia, current chief revenue officer at
00:01:18
Produce8, a work analytics platform for managed service
00:01:21
providers, sales leader and one-time scratch golfer.
00:01:25
Welcome to the Now that's it podcast, marco.
00:01:27
Thanks for having me.
00:01:29
How are you today Doing so well ?
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Awesome, I'm super excited to have you on the pod.
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Talk a little bit about your story and what the MSP space was
00:01:37
like early on, and different stories about some Enable folks.
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So thanks again, marco, thanks for having me.
00:01:42
All right.
00:01:42
So you are in high school.
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Your dream was not to be a head of revenue at some IT firm down
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the line.
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Speaker 1: You had different aspirations, right, I did.
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Yeah, I started playing golf when I was 12 years old and my
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mom put me in golf to get me out of trouble while I was growing
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up.
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So I really enjoyed it, had a passion for it.
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As I was going through high school, that was my ambition.
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I wanted to be a professional golfer.
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Speaker 2: That's great.
00:02:08
That is not an easy profession to be successful at or even to
00:02:13
get into, and it's great when you're in high school.
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You might be at the top two or 3% of your high school.
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To get an opportunity in college, which you did have
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until you got injured, right.
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That's rare.
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But then from there it's a crapshoot, right.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's tough, like, probably the best thing
00:02:30
happened to me was probably getting injured.
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You know, you and I had talked about how I tore my ACL and I
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had a scholarship, a full ride at a school in the US and
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Ashland University in Ohio and, being a Canadian, that was a big
00:02:41
thing.
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I kept on playing soccer and tore my ACL and so that dream
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and those aspirations quickly went out the window, kept on
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playing golf for a number of years and went to university and
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college in Canada and then got into the workforce and worked at
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one startup and then I joined Frank Coletti and Mike Cullen at
00:03:00
Enable.
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Speaker 2: Well, you were a poli-sci major right, but you
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didn't want to go into government.
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Speaker 1: No, like I live in Ottawa, canada, so capital of
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the country, and especially if you're studying political
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science, probably your next job is going to be some job in the
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government, and that really wasn't what I wanted to do.
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So I studied marketing, after business marketing, and started
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working with high-tech companies in the Ottawa area.
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Through the 90s and early 2000s , ottawa was known as Silicon
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Valley North, and there's still a lot of high-tech companies and
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software companies that are being developed.
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Speaker 2: Let's talk about how you got introduced to Enable.
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So you mentioned Frank and Mike .
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How did you know those guys?
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What was the circle like?
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Speaker 1: Yeah, so I didn't know Mike and Frank at the time.
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Actually, it was a friend of mine that was working there and
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she had mentioned to me that you got to come and join this great
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company, great staff, amazing culture, and so I went in and
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had an interview with Mike and Frank and we hit it off right
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away.
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Speaker 2: What was that first conversation like with Mike?
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I know we talked a little bit about it.
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Speaker 1: So I had a really long interview with Frank.
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We talked about a number of different things.
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And Frank says to me he goes, I'm going to let you have a
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meeting with Mike.
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And so Mike called me in his office, we sat down and within
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15 or 20 minutes Mike's like okay, you got the job.
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So that's how we started.
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What was the culture like at Enable back then?
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It was work hard, play hard.
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You know we had a lot of fun.
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I don't think the company would be where it is today with the
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focus in terms of really kind of what we brought to the sales
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team at that point in time.
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And you know, early on, when you were kind of talking about
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enabled technologies and stuff like that, it was all brand new.
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Right, like you know, I was telling one of the MSPs at the
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event today is that you know, in the early days when we were
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selling remote monitoring and management, we were doing off a
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powerpoint presentation.
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We couldn't even do demos, we just had to get them to believe
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in what we were doing.
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And you know we joked around internally that we were trying
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to sell msps the dream and teaching them about recurring
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revenue.
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Speaker 2: And it worked, obviously for sure talk about
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what it was like working with mike colin in those early days
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oh, mike, mike was something right like he, I think over the
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years.
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Speaker 1: Mike definitely softened up Early on.
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Mike was, you know, he really drove people and drove the team,
00:05:10
but was very fair in terms of how you work with him and all
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that kind of stuff.
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I mentioned to you before that.
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A lot of the principles that I use today in my work and in my
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career, a lot of stuff have been things that I learned from Mike
00:05:23
and conversations with him.
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A funny story that Mike and I had one day was he calls me in
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his office one day and says to me he goes, how's the golf game?
00:05:31
And I said to him you know, Mike, it's not bad.
00:05:34
I said you know, we're still shooting one or two over par
00:05:37
these days, but you know, I'll try and see if I can get back to
00:05:40
being, you know, scratch.
00:05:41
And he looks at me and he goes.
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Look, he goes.
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If you're still a scratch golfer in a year from now, he
00:05:46
goes, I'm gonna fire you.
00:05:47
So that way that was kind of his way to say you know, let's
00:05:51
stop playing as much golf as you're doing and focus on your
00:05:53
career and your job, and then we'll be good and so we did that
00:05:56
, he definitely softened up because about a year ago I think
00:05:59
, he called me up and said, hey, you're a pretty decent golfer,
00:06:02
aren't you, chris?
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Speaker 2: And they said, yeah, and he goes.
00:06:03
I need you to go out to this customer and play a couple
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rounds of golf with them.
00:06:06
So he's definitely went to the MSP.
00:06:08
That's definitely a change for sure.
00:06:09
Mike had such an influence on so many people sort of in the
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channel in the MSP industry.
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So many people that did know him give him a lot of credit for
00:06:17
what became of the MSP industry .
00:06:20
It it was very much a enterprise play at the time
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until Enable came along and Mike got out there and said, guys,
00:06:27
you small guys, you can do this.
00:06:29
And so you guys, he was definitely an inspiration to
00:06:32
that sales team too, right, I mean you guys were carrying the
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torch for him.
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I mean he was out there preaching and you guys were
00:06:38
saying, look, this is the future , right, absolutely.
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Speaker 1: I think the thing about Mike and what he brought
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was people really believed in what he was talking about.
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He articulated himself in a way that he could have a great
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conversation with a big MSP of three, 400 people and he can
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bring himself down and talk to an organization as five
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employees and explain to them what they need to do with their
00:07:01
business, and not everybody can have that level of conversation
00:07:06
right.
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So he was very articulate the way he did that.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, so you've seen the MSP industry evolve over the
00:07:11
years.
00:07:12
But what was it like back when you were at Enable?
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I mean, what were folks using for monitoring and patch and
00:07:19
management?
00:07:20
Speaker 1: Oh, early on I mean it was a dog's breakfast, like
00:07:23
they had all disparaged tools and there's some, if you
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remember, like Silverback, like GFI, some of the old solutions
00:07:31
and technologies that are out there.
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But what I think it's really nice is just to see the
00:07:36
dominance that Enable has had over the last number of years in
00:07:39
the marketplace.
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It's quite satisfying.
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Speaker 2: We were definitely a major player back in those early
00:07:44
days.
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Speaker 1: Oh, like we, you know the way, the way that we
00:07:48
behaved and the way that you know that we just kind of drove
00:07:50
the activity and and you know our channel strategy, you know
00:07:54
the marketing strategy that we brought to the table and all
00:07:56
that kind of stuff.
00:07:57
It was nice to see that's great .
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Speaker 2: So enable was sold and it was time for you to sort
00:08:02
of find your next gig, and then, instead of going in a
00:08:05
completely different direction, you stayed on the Southport side
00:08:07
of the house.
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Talk about that.
00:08:09
Talk about your AVG days.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, so after Enable , I went over to AVG, obviously
00:08:15
a big security player in the marketplace.
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It was a very interesting kind of play because I could see that
00:08:20
security was going to be really something that was going to
00:08:23
impact the MSP space over the next little while and still is
00:08:26
today.
00:08:26
While we were there, we did an acquisition of Level Platforms.
00:08:29
The whole entire strategy in terms of building it out and
00:08:33
leading with security was really a little bit different, where a
00:08:37
lot of the RMM vendors were leading with remote monitoring
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and management.
00:08:39
So I think we were changing the narrative a little bit in terms
00:08:43
of what we were doing over there.
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We had dominance across South America it was a very popular
00:08:50
product and play across Europe as well.
00:08:52
Obviously, dealing in Canada and the US, you had your
00:08:55
dominant players like Enable, and we can never overtake them,
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but we had a lot of fun there.
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I learned definitely a lot of things by big companies and how
00:09:02
they did things.
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Speaker 2: Leading with security was definitely ahead of its
00:09:05
time.
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Nowadays, everyone has to or they're going to be left in the
00:09:08
four winds, but so this is what's kind of interesting is
00:09:11
Mark Scott, former founder of Enable.
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He had an MSP and you had an opportunity to join him after
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your AVG days, right?
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Speaker 1: Yeah.
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So I was still working at AVG and Mark and I we had a coffee
00:09:23
one day and he said love for you to come and work with me again,
00:09:25
because we worked with each other early days at Enable and
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it was just really about taking a local MSP that we had in
00:09:31
Ottawa and really kind of grow it and go national across the
00:09:35
country and start doing some different things.
00:09:37
And so I thought about it for a while and then I just thought
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the opportunity was really interesting because always being
00:09:44
on the channel side and on the vendor side and then jumping
00:09:47
over to the MSP side was extremely different.
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So I took what I learned from the vendor side, what I learned
00:09:54
from Mike and Frank over the years and all that kind of stuff
00:09:57
, and implemented it in fully managed and we were really
00:10:00
successful.
00:10:01
We were early on when I joined the company about 40 employees,
00:10:05
about $15 million and we sold the company a couple of years
00:10:09
ago to TELUS and we were just over 500 employees and we sold
00:10:15
that company for about $180 million.
00:10:18
Speaker 2: Wow, that's fantastic .
00:10:18
You know, what I love about your fully managed story is I'm
00:10:21
hearing this from some of the really large MSPs, but you guys
00:10:24
weren't necessarily that large at the time.
00:10:26
But you took sort of the approach of building Fully
00:10:29
Managed like it was an enterprise company, right, and
00:10:32
really a sales-driven, like you built out a major sales side.
00:10:35
Talk a little bit about that, because I always hear MSPs say,
00:10:41
yeah, sales, it's owner-driven, we're owner-led sales.
00:10:44
But that wasn't the approach for Fully Managed.
00:10:45
Speaker 1: No owner-driven, owner-led sales, but that wasn't
00:10:46
the approach for Fully Managed no, I think.
00:10:47
Very quickly we implemented an enterprise sales structure, not
00:10:52
only in terms of number of people that we brought in, but
00:10:55
just in terms of how we went to market.
00:10:57
Aggressive focused on driving, marketing, qualified leads,
00:11:00
building pipeline closing like month-end sales, all of those
00:11:04
types of things and obviously having a lot of fun doing it,
00:11:08
but it's extremely challenging.
00:11:09
As you know, the MSP space is a difficult one, and I think it
00:11:14
wasn't only just about the fact that we were doing managed
00:11:17
services, but we brought other solutions into the mix that we
00:11:19
felt that would help grow our business as well.
00:11:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, you guys, you also did some acquisitions,
00:11:24
right, correct?
00:11:25
What was that like?
00:11:26
To bring, you know, maybe less mature or smaller MSPs into the
00:11:32
fully managed?
00:11:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think we brought companies in that we
00:11:37
felt that would fit into our business extremely well.
00:11:40
So you know, that was always one thing that Mark did really
00:11:43
well from the standpoint of like , as he's speaking with these
00:11:46
organizations and companies, you're also trying to understand
00:11:49
it Like, maybe they're a good revenue mix but like, culture
00:11:52
wise, are they going to fit in?
00:11:53
I think it's safe to say that the acquisitions we did, they
00:11:57
all went extremely well just because they really had the same
00:12:00
type of DNA that we had.
00:12:01
They would adopt our systems and processes that we had had as
00:12:05
a business, and standardizing on tools, the technologies that
00:12:09
we use, the sales processes, the marketing, all of that kind of
00:12:12
stuff were all kind of important in terms of what we brought
00:12:14
into the mix Excellent.
00:12:16
Speaker 2: Talk to us a little bit about.
00:12:17
What does an enterprise sales team actually look like?
00:12:23
Speaker 1: Oh, are you talking more about like the persona?
00:12:25
Speaker 2: of people.
00:12:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, sure, there's a bit of you know, whether female
00:12:31
or male like a bravado in terms of like how they look at
00:12:34
themselves and how they feel and just kind of how they talk
00:12:37
about solutions and how confident they are on calls and
00:12:41
reaching out to people.
00:12:42
You can put them in front of any kind of executive into a
00:12:45
large organization and they feel extremely comfortable.
00:12:47
I would say, like when you take a look at people that want to
00:12:51
learn, people that are easy to coach that's something that Mike
00:12:56
explained to me earlier on.
00:12:57
You know, when we were hiring people, he used to always say to
00:13:01
me if you feel that somebody is coachable, then you can really
00:13:04
kind of teach them anything and they can be extremely successful
00:13:07
.
00:13:07
If they're uncoachable, you're going to have a lot of problems
00:13:10
with them, and I learned that over time.
00:13:11
So anytime I'm hiring somebody, that's always one thing I
00:13:15
always have in the back of my mind Do we think that we can
00:13:17
coach this person and help them out?
00:13:19
Speaker 2: That's great, maybe a lot of our audience or maybe
00:13:22
smaller MSPs that haven't hired their first salesperson.
00:13:26
Obviously, the owner's been out there knocking on doors,
00:13:29
talking to people, but what advice would you give to a
00:13:32
smaller MSP about when the right time is to bring sales into the
00:13:36
organization and maybe the process of how to incent sales
00:13:40
right, because I think there's always that risk of well, if I
00:13:43
pay my sales person too much, that's going to hurt the
00:13:47
business, but that's not always the case.
00:13:48
I mean you want your salespeople to be paid well
00:13:51
because that means you are doing well, I think every MSP should
00:13:53
have salespeople, but that comes with a caveat.
00:13:58
Speaker 1: I do not think that MSPs should hire salespeople if
00:14:01
they don't have a good sales leader teaching them what they
00:14:05
need to do, because a lot of these MSPs can't help the
00:14:08
salesperson, and that's where I think the issue happens.
00:14:11
A lot of times you'll hear them that I hired a salesperson.
00:14:14
Six months later nothing happened and the owner decides
00:14:17
I'm going to let go of the salesperson because it's a cost.
00:14:20
A sales leader, somebody that's done it before, that has the
00:14:24
DNA, that knows how to build a pipeline of qualified
00:14:27
opportunities that a salesperson can work, help them with
00:14:31
marketing strategies, put a whole entire system in place
00:14:34
that allows the MSP to be successful.
00:14:36
To me that's a winning strategy and I think the good MSPs have
00:14:40
done that and they're the ones that continue to grow and excel
00:14:43
and acquire and because they have the revenue streams to
00:14:46
support it.
00:14:46
The smaller ones continue to struggle and I always say this
00:14:51
like there isn't a company in the world that has ever grown
00:14:54
without salespeople.
00:14:55
So it's a pretty simple equation to figure out.
00:14:59
If you want to grow your business, you need the right
00:15:01
type of team structure in place.
00:15:02
Speaker 2: And I know you didn't ever necessarily fill the
00:15:05
marketing role because you were sales, but you went to school
00:15:08
for it, and so how did marketing play in at least the fully
00:15:12
managed days?
00:15:13
I mean, was the sales team set up to be successful, because the
00:15:17
types of leads that were coming in were pretty warm?
00:15:19
Just what did that engine look like of sales and marketing
00:15:22
working together?
00:15:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think my background allowed us.
00:15:25
I always kind of look at sales a little bit different in terms
00:15:28
of assessing the market, who we're going after, what's the
00:15:31
right type of messaging that's going to resonate with them.
00:15:33
It's kind of like what we're doing over here with Produce 8
00:15:36
is speaking to MSPs to see, hey, listen, do you understand what
00:15:40
we do?
00:15:40
And so I always try and put my marketing hat on first, and then
00:15:44
I think that helps me out with the sale as well.
00:15:46
That's cool.
00:15:47
Speaker 2: Talk about what did the ideal client profile look
00:15:50
like at Fully Managed from maybe the time you started to when
00:15:53
you left?
00:15:54
I mean, did Fully Managed go upmarket?
00:15:56
What did that feel like?
00:15:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think early on if I separate our MSP
00:16:01
business into three buckets we had our SMB business for managed
00:16:04
services.
00:16:05
So think of anywhere between five and 100 employees.
00:16:09
Ideally our sweet spot I would say it was between 20 and 50
00:16:13
employees.
00:16:13
Right across Canada.
00:16:15
We had a number of sales reps that focused on that area of
00:16:18
business.
00:16:18
We also did enterprise level service desk.
00:16:21
So that's another acquisition that we did and those were large
00:16:25
monthly recurring revenue deals where we had some contracts
00:16:29
that were 60, 70 a month where we handled level one
00:16:33
support tickets and that was an interesting business.
00:16:35
It allowed us to kind of penetrate into the mid-market
00:16:38
enterprise space.
00:16:39
And when we did that, that's where we got introduced to
00:16:42
ServiceNow and then we created a ServiceNow practice that grew
00:16:47
considerably for us, was very well received in the marketplace
00:16:50
, and so those three unique business models really kind of
00:16:54
helped us kind of drive over on average $100 a month in
00:16:57
monthly recurring revenue.
00:16:58
Speaker 2: That ServiceNow business?
00:17:00
Definitely, I mean it had to take you up market right Because
00:17:05
those are definitely the enterprise players that have an
00:17:08
ServiceNow practice.
00:17:09
So did the sales team?
00:17:11
Did you have sales team that were specialized in each of
00:17:15
those different ICPs, or was everybody sort of have the
00:17:18
ability to sell?
00:17:19
Speaker 1: No, we had different sales teams.
00:17:20
We had one sales team that handled the main services piece
00:17:22
and then we had one sales team that handled the managed
00:17:23
services piece and then we had another sales team that handled
00:17:25
ServiceNow and the enterprise service desk.
00:17:27
The DNAs of both of those the reps were different.
00:17:31
They were unique.
00:17:32
They were just different in terms of how we felt that they
00:17:35
would kind of fit into one model or the next.
00:17:38
The conversation that you'd be having on your SMB managed
00:17:43
services are very different than what you'd be having around
00:17:45
service now.
00:17:46
Speaker 2: We talked a little bit about the characteristics
00:17:48
that you were looking for when you would hire, and we
00:17:51
definitely talked about hiring a good leader.
00:17:53
How about the opportunity for folks that were already part of
00:17:57
Fully Managed to sort of jump into sales?
00:18:00
We always sort of look at internally to go, wow, that
00:18:02
personality, that characteristic , that coachable trait, that's
00:18:06
there.
00:18:06
We ought to see if they're interested to come over to the
00:18:08
sales team.
00:18:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, we would have those conversations.
00:18:11
Even when I joined fully managed, we had a sales team.
00:18:13
But where it didn't necessarily fit into the future of what the
00:18:18
business was going to look like was the transition from what I
00:18:21
call like a hardware sales rep to somebody that sold managed
00:18:25
services right and more of a solution sell versus a product
00:18:29
sell.
00:18:29
And in order to kind of change the revenue mix into the
00:18:33
business we had to kind of change the people because a lot
00:18:37
of the times the people that sold the hardware couldn't
00:18:39
necessarily sell managed services.
00:18:41
Speaker 2: What advice would you give to MSPs on how to incent
00:18:45
the sales teams so that they can be successful?
00:18:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, first off, what I would say is, if you're an
00:18:50
MSP and you can't figure out a comp plan, I know that Enable
00:18:53
has great programs on their success teams that can teach
00:18:56
them and show them different models and plans.
00:18:59
The model that we had was we would pay them out on the first
00:19:02
month of the recurring revenue on the deal.
00:19:04
That was always the easiest one , the sales reps loved them, and
00:19:07
then we would have bonus structure as well, so if they
00:19:10
overproduced, then they had some sort of guaranteed bonus they
00:19:12
would make if they overproduced on their quotas and stuff like
00:19:15
that.
00:19:15
So I was never fearful, and people that used to work for me
00:19:19
over there will always tell you.
00:19:20
I always believed that I wanted my reps to make a lot of money,
00:19:23
because if they're making a lot of money, I know that they're
00:19:26
going to sell even more, and so it creates that environment.
00:19:29
Again, something that we learned that enable is like
00:19:32
making sure that the guys are successful and they can live a
00:19:35
good quality life was important to us and it's very important to
00:19:38
me as well.
00:19:44
Speaker 2: That's great, marco.
00:19:44
So you guys went from 40 to almost 500 employees, and then
00:19:46
you sold to Telus?
00:19:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, we did.
00:19:47
What was that like?
00:19:47
So I know trying to sell the business wasn't easy, right.
00:19:52
Like there was a lot of work.
00:19:54
Mark did a phenomenal job.
00:19:55
Joel Abramson, who's their CEO of Produce8, he was really kind
00:19:59
of like the face of putting fully managed out there in the
00:20:02
marketplace.
00:20:03
I would say, you know, mark Scott's a dealmaker, right.
00:20:07
So to kind of go out and sell to a huge brand like Telus you
00:20:12
know it's like Verizon in the US , right so for them to kind of
00:20:16
take a look at fully managed and saying this is what we need to
00:20:19
bring into our business.
00:20:20
We have thousands upon thousands of end user customers
00:20:24
that can use managed services.
00:20:25
Obviously they were leading the way in the Canadian marketplace
00:20:28
.
00:20:28
So it was really what I would say kind of putting a stamp on,
00:20:31
kind of what we did as a business but the whole entire
00:20:33
business model as a whole, that's great.
00:20:35
Speaker 2: What was next for you after the fully managed?
00:20:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, so after so we had to stay on board for two
00:20:42
years and then the last few months we were having kind of
00:20:45
discussions with them, and then I was having discussions with
00:20:48
Mark and Joel on this new produce eight venture that
00:20:51
they're kind of building out with Chris Day.
00:20:52
I think the opportunity that poses itself in front of us
00:20:56
right now was just too hard for me to say.
00:20:58
You know, let's go do this.
00:21:00
So that's kind of what I decided to do and join the
00:21:03
company february 1st of this year so you got the band back
00:21:06
together, talk, talk.
00:21:08
Speaker 2: Band of misfits.
00:21:08
I think these are the major players they are I think we had
00:21:14
luis heraldo on earlier and of course chris day comes his name
00:21:17
comes up.
00:21:18
Speaker 1: So these are all the big names, like yeah, like they
00:21:21
really are, like all of these guys, like when you take a look
00:21:24
at mark and chris and you know mike cullen and you got frank
00:21:27
out there and you got dan wensley and you got lewis and
00:21:30
and rob ray and all you know like these are the players in
00:21:33
the marketplace, these are the guys that get it so what is
00:21:36
produce eight all about?
00:21:37
Speaker 2: I want to give you a chance to tell everybody yeah,
00:21:39
so.
00:21:39
Speaker 1: So really excited about Produce8.
00:21:42
You know, as you mentioned, it's a work analytics app.
00:21:44
So we're in the market of working with businesses MSPs
00:21:48
right now to take a look at their business and help them
00:21:50
increase productivity.
00:21:51
So we're bringing a new solution in technology to the
00:21:55
marketplace that nobody's having these conversations in regards
00:21:58
right.
00:21:58
Like we talked about this a little bit earlier on it's.
00:22:01
You know, how are MSPs going to see this?
00:22:04
And so the idea of what we're trying to do is kind of help
00:22:08
businesses, with everybody either working remotely or some
00:22:11
hybrid model and all that kind of stuff is help them increase
00:22:14
productivity.
00:22:15
We noticed that productivity is dropping, especially if you take
00:22:18
a look at an MSP what's happening on the support desk,
00:22:21
how people are interacting.
00:22:22
People are being burnt out.
00:22:24
Our solution will give them insights into how they're
00:22:27
operating on a daily basis.
00:22:29
So what's really interesting is you take a look at our product.
00:22:33
It helps people from an individual level.
00:22:35
It helps you from a management level, so you can have an idea
00:22:38
in terms of what's going on and then, overall, the whole entire
00:22:41
business.
00:22:41
So, as an example, we just came out with a new feature that
00:22:44
will allow businesses to understand how much time they're
00:22:47
spending in meetings and what those meetings are costing them.
00:22:49
We're tying in calls, we're tying in calendars.
00:22:52
It's a collaboration tool that will help everybody streamline
00:22:56
how they operate on a daily basis.
00:22:58
Speaker 2: So really, excited about it.
00:22:59
That's exciting.
00:23:00
So you're here at Enable Empower.
00:23:01
You daily basis.
00:23:01
So really excited about it, that's exciting.
00:23:02
So you're here at Enable Empower.
00:23:03
You've been talking to a lot of MSPs about this, about the
00:23:05
product.
00:23:06
Speaker 1: What's the feedback?
00:23:06
Feedback has actually been extremely positive.
00:23:13
Good to see it's.
00:23:13
You know, as I was coming here to the event and we are speaking
00:23:15
to a lot of MSPs, you know we're doing probably 30, 40
00:23:16
meetings a month where a new startup that just started up
00:23:19
really kind of selling this three, four months ago.
00:23:20
Coming to this event was really about having those
00:23:23
conversations, seeing what messaging is resonating and what
00:23:26
makes sense.
00:23:27
The feedback that I'm getting is this is perfect for what we
00:23:31
need.
00:23:31
In the next 45 to 60 days, we're going to be launching a
00:23:35
partner program.
00:23:36
Ask what the MSPs want.
00:23:37
They want to consume the product themselves so that they
00:23:40
can try and help their business and increase productivity.
00:23:42
It's something that they know their customers are asking for.
00:23:45
We're going to be launching a new partner program in May and
00:23:48
the idea around this is that our partners are going to be able
00:23:50
to go and resell this to their end user customers.
00:23:54
Speaker 2: That's great.
00:23:54
So it sounds to me like, if I ask you, what's next?
00:23:57
It's to grow this right to, to help build, produce its offering
00:24:03
and and can continue to expand it.
00:24:05
But how about for you personally, I mean you.
00:24:07
You've been in in the channel for a long time.
00:24:09
You played in the msp space for a long time.
00:24:12
What are some of the personal goals that you have?
00:24:14
Speaker 1: you know, maybe, maybe in the future I would say
00:24:17
personal goals, like if it pertains to produce aid, is to
00:24:21
really kind of create the next unit corner in the marketplace.
00:24:24
I think it's positioned extremely well for it's a
00:24:28
different type of solution that MSPs would be utilizing and
00:24:31
selling right, so majority of them are.
00:24:33
You know, they're all tied into RMM and security and backup and
00:24:37
security and backup, data, data recovery and stuff like that.
00:24:41
But bringing in produce aid into the mix and helping them
00:24:45
kind of like drive those new recurring revenue streams, I
00:24:47
think that's kind of what excites me in terms of what I
00:24:49
think we can be in the marketplace.
00:24:51
Speaker 2: I warned you I was going to ask you this.
00:24:53
This is the Now that's it podcast, so I want to ask you,
00:24:56
marco, when did you know?
00:24:58
Now that's it?
00:25:00
Speaker 1: Oh boy, I thought about this one for a while.
00:25:03
I think really it's the people, right, it's the people that I
00:25:08
work with.
00:25:08
When you're working with teams and and new people that are
00:25:11
coming into the industry in the space and all that kind of stuff
00:25:13
, and you see that you can help them.
00:25:15
They can go out and buy their first home you know their cars
00:25:19
and all that kind of stuff and start living good lives and
00:25:21
people thanking you for their careers and what they have in
00:25:24
life.
00:25:24
That's kind of when I know that you know what, like, we've done
00:25:28
well so far.
00:25:29
So it's always been about the people.
00:25:31
Speaker 2: That's great, marco I thank you so much for being
00:25:33
here.
00:25:33
Um, you're as genuine as everybody said you are and, like
00:25:37
I said, in in an easy clone, an easy uh doppelganger, for I
00:25:42
think you're very close.
00:25:43
You guys have that Italian-Canadian vibe going.
00:25:47
So keep up the good work.
00:25:48
I wish you the best of luck in the future.
00:25:50
Speaker 1: Thanks, man, I appreciate it.
00:25:51
Thanks for having me, it's great.
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