The Great Debate on E-Commerce MSP Services, With Dave Sobel of MSP Radio

Hello, I'm Dan Thomas Shefsky and this is the connecting it podcast.

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Welcome to the connecting it podcast. I'm your host, Dan Thomas Chesky. And with me today, I've got Dave Sobel, the host of the business of tech podcast. Dave, welcome. I'm really excited to have you, uh, today as we're going to go into a little bit of a debate about an episode that you had out there, uh, earlier, I think it was in March talking about e-commerce I'm looking forward to it. Thanks for having me, Dan. No. So, Dave, I just want to real quick, I know you host a podcast for the channel. You're constantly bringing up a new information, uh, for our listeners that maybe have not listened to you yet or heard of you. Do you want to give us a little introduction of yourself and, you know, kind of what your podcast is doing in the channel? Sure.

I start, you know, born in a small town, love long walks on the beach, but on a serious professional side, like, you know, I was an MSP. I ran an MSP for about a decade, uh, and you know, I was describing as a moderately successful regional MSP. Uh, I sold that business after doing a bunch of time with comp Tia and Greg peer groups. And I wrote a book on virtualization was like all that kind of stuff. I really community guy. And then I worked and went, worked for vendors. I worked for level platforms and then, uh, GFI logic now. And then we got bought by this company. No one's ever heard of called solar winds. Uh, you know, they've never been in the news at all anymore. Uh, and it was there and I was there for about, uh, for six years, uh, and it was great rocket ship learned a ton. And then after my time at a vendor, what I really said I wanted to go forth and do was be an independent voice for solution providers like, like, you know, and, and focus on both news and editorial commentary. So I launched the business of tech podcast. Uh, it's a daily five minute news show focused on it, services delivery. Now with this year, I've launched a video versions. You can catch it on YouTube. I do bonus episodes. I do some interviews I'm involved in a weekly show. Like it's now like this whole, you know, kind of media bit, but it started with that core idea.

Oh, that's great. I think you've seen a lot of the industry talking and that's one of the reasons why I reached out to you. And I was like, you know what? I saw this. And I was like, I come from an MSP background. I coach MSPs, you know, me and my team do on a daily basis. And I was like, this is a great topic for you and I to kind of have a conversation. So, um, you know, let's get into this. So I'll let you kind of set the tone, but you, you made a, a comment around MSPs. I kind of summarize it and you can take it away. But you made a comment on your show about how MSPs don't have anything on their website in terms of e-commerce like, no one can come on and buy the assessment or they can't come on and buy your managed service. Um, you know, like where you're going with that,

I was really challenged to think about by Emma, about marketing as a space. And, uh, you know, I'll tell you what, I I'm supported by some Patriots who invest in my work. Uh, and I always listened to them and they say, if they asked me to do something, I totally listened. And I've been dismissive and saying like, ah, marketing, marketing, it's all solved. It's all solved. It's all solved. And he really pushed me and said, no, I want you to think about it. Now. One of the things I also work on is I do a diversity report on the, on the, on the show. And every quarter I look at, uh, the, the makeup of, of the industry. That's a whole other topic, but a byproduct of that is, is I look at 300 different websites on a regular basis to understand those, those companies, some of them are vendors. Some of them are solution providers. So if I pull out the solution providers, I track and it's like 146 that I'm watching, what really struck me about them was health sort of LAFCo how old school their websites are. It's a bunch, it's essentially a brochure with a contact us page. If I get lucky, there's an option to chat with them, but that's a minority and that's it like that's the whole bit. And I, you know, here I am, I've launched a digital media firm, right? How do I do my acquisition all digitally? Right. All digital funnel stuff, click the conversions. Like I'm tracking everything digitally. I, Dan, you were working with, with vendors, how to vendors do it, click to conversions, like, like, like watching all this stuff. And then I did all this thinking and looking at all of these other markets and my piece kind of, I did a B to C version, and then I did a followup or I picked on B2B. Cause, uh, you know, some of the objections were that it was doing too much BDC. And all I really found was you can buy so much online, just completely digitally. But in terms of it services in our space, it's like a desert we're missing the boat. And that's my, that was my core premise and what I threw out to the community.

So I get that. And I, when I, when I was listening to it, I was immediately putting objections up in my head. I was like, Oh no, that can't be done that way. I don't know. And then it's funny, you ended like, Oh, you're probably saying it can't be done this way. And uh, you know, that was me and I'm sitting there. So a couple of the questions that I heard MSP's talking about, and let's go through it for a minute. Is I agree with you. There are plenty of outdated websites in the space. There's MSPs that are missing the Mark. I mean, even if you have, don't have like a Calendly where someone could book a meeting with you and instantly at least instantly get that meeting with you that they're searching for. I a hundred percent agree. We need, there needs to be something. And if you're not doing that in today's age, you're missing the boat, you know, majorly, but having an e-commerce site, I think it brings up a whole nother thing. So there's MSPs that are saying, look, I don't sell my services. All a cart. I sell my$300 a person, you know, see, and it includes everything. But I only work with certain industries. How do I, I don't want, I want to go out and audit a network before I take them on, or I want to go out and do this. How do you, how do you, you know, come back to that question. Cause that was one of the ones I heard the most from people is like, I don't know how you do that.

So, so I'll laugh and go. So say that on your website, like in your, in your, your marketing should very clearly say, this is who we work with you. If you're signing up to look like that, you look like this, and this is the value we're going to give you. And we're experts in this industry and you're going to be really happy with working with us. And you're going to provide all of that information. And then why not just have a buy now button because most buyers in today's age have done all the research. They've done all the homework. They've done 70, 80% of the decision-making before they've even picked up the phone. So put all of that on your website, put all of that information. Our best customers look like this. They've qualified this way. They have this they're in this industry, put everything on your website because then be proud of it. You have an expert in that particular area, you've got that expertise. These are the only people you work up with. If you put up a bunch of information saying, this is the only kinds of people that we sell to you think somebody else is going to still buy from you. If they don't fit those qualifications, like really like you've provided all this information and then a buy now button and you think they're going to force you. Like, that's what you're worried about. And I kind of laugh and go. So what happens if they buy from you? You can pick up the phone and go, Hey, you know, I just want to check. I think we may not be a match. I'd rather go down that path than not have the option.

Well, what about from the standpoint of, okay, if someone goes on my website, they say they click 10 seats and they want to come in and wait. But what about that MSP? That's saying like, I haven't even looked at the network yet. I don't even know what I'm getting myself into. I've never met him. I don't know if I want the, you know, some of the MSP say like I get it, you know, dentists or dentists, but there are some people that are like, if the core values, if the leadership, if the budgets don't align, like it's one thing to say$300 a month. But what if I go and find out that they're not going to spend a penny more to fix all the other broken stuff? Like I think that that it's a challenge or a hurdle people are afraid of, because now they're going to go out and have to just turn down business.

That's what they're saying. Okay. But I never said you had to sell it that way. So sell a network assessment. The only thing you can buy is, is we're going to come out and do a complete network assessment, but you can buy and book it right on the website. Right. I can swipe with your credit card. I can be booked. I can have the date assigned on a calendar link all electronically, and now I've sold the assessment. Right? So let's tell that I, what I'm kind of laughing is going, you don't do any of that. Now you're objecting to like the full I'm going to sell everything. When, if you want to sell them on a network assessment, put it on your website, like put them, give the option to swipe their credit card, buy it, book it and done that. Isn't an, or it's an aunt because they can do that. Or they can still pick up the phone and talk to you. Like they have, they still have all of those other options. You're just saying, if somebody knows what they want, sell it to them. Right.

Oh, I agree with you. I think one of the things that you see now with MSP websites, uh, and this is a thing, a big pivot point, and I think COVID really exploited it more than ever is, you know, I've, I go on a lot of MSP sites just like yourself, you know, and looking at it and you can't find a, it's always like find out more information, contact us forms, but there's not a form that says, I want an assessment. I want it on this date. And I would like it, you know, for it to be, here's all my information I want you to,

I'm ready to go. And, and so, by the way, this is, this is an important point that I made in, in both, in both of my, my videos on this, that I really, and you just said it, right? The pandemic changed everything. Let's look at what happened. There's there was eight years of e-commerce growth in four months last year, like this is transformative in terms of the way people buy the way they're interacting. You think restaurants are going to give up, pick up and delivery business. You think they're just going to go back and give that business up. No, it's a whole new diversified revenue stream for them. They're additive to this. I heard one of the big, big pieces. And this is where I really want to push hard on the community is the biggest objection that got me all riled up was the well I've been doing it this way for 10 years. And Dave's just gotta be wrong because it's worked for me. What are you not paying attention to the changing market? Like our market we're in technology. This is a market that changes. And by the way, we just had a very transformative societal event that has data telling me that the way buyers buy just changed and just changed massively. You've got to move to catch up with this. Like, there's all kinds of things that are happening now, electronically. That didn't happen before. You know, like the surgeon, the way people buy groceries, the way they buy food, the way things get delivered, the way they're now working online. If you think all of it's just going to go away, you're kind of not paying attention. Right. And we, and we, as an industry are actually kind of badly prepared for this. We're looking at, I'm looking around saying there's all kinds of other portions that have now really that we're doing e-commerce that's now accelerated. We weren't really doing e-commerce and now there's a big gap,

Right? No, I never bought groceries online before. COVID like, I went to the grocery store, I picked up what I needed to do now. It's like my wife and I, we talk, we look at our app on our phone and we go, okay, so, you know, what do you want? And then we go pick it up. We pull into a parking spot and we say, we're here. And the bags come out. And then it's like, the whole industry changed. And I said, that's not going to go anywhere

And that's not going anywhere. And you're probably still gonna have that behavior. Right? Like you're still because you like, it's convenient. It's nice. It's nice. I like buying these things. Does that mean I'm going to like, you know, never go in a grocery store, no occasion. I'm going to go to the grocery store. And by the way, you're the grocery store example while I'll see. Yes, this is a B to C conversation. People don't get too hung up on that. We're not saying it's an, or I'm saying it's an ant, right? Adding new ways for people to purchase from me. And that's really the piece where I think we want to make sure that it's an aunt,

Let's go into it from the B2B side of it. You know? So a lot of MSPs, one of the objections you hear is with Dave. I don't want to put my pricing on my website. I don't want my competitors a mile away, five miles away knowing what my package is, uh, knowing everything that I'm doing inside of there. Um, you know, what's your response to that because I know that's one of the big thing is that we all want to keep our secrets and, uh, my package is going to be different and you know, we're gonna, we're gonna,

We have cracked the nut on the super secret way to sell managed services.

Yeah. Like I've got, I got stuff you don't have.

So let me, let me put it, let me push a community, go do me a thing, right? Go to, go to Google or Bing, just so that I'm, you know, not exclude, go to your favorite search engine and go search MSP pricing, or how much does it cost to maintain a computer or how much does it services cost and go look at all of the answers that pop right up, including like articles by, I don't know, every vendor in the space, right? As published articles on MSP pricing. If you think your pricing is some super secret IP, uh, um, it just isn't like, again, buyers are informed. You think they haven't done some research before coming to look and talk to you a quick Google search gives me all kinds of ranges of prices. I can know it's a low end. I can know it's a high end. The same way that I know houses have prices. Commercial office space has prices. I can get price ranges on insurance. I can get rates on bank information. You're not doing anything. That's some super secret piece. That's not your secret sauce. Like the reason you hide your price often. And I'll just say it is, you're not confident enough in your sales ability. You want to prove all your value and stuff before you tell them how much it costs. And I get it. Like I do get that objection, but you've got to put yourself in the buyer's shoes so much more. The buyer knows how much this thing costs. They've been buying it services at some level for a while. Now, pushed on that. That's not the objection.

Do you feel like if I put my pricing out there and let's say I put out there that I'm$300 a month and you've got someone that's got an MSP right now inside their office. You know, that's working for them. They're at$150 a month and they're not happy and they want it. They're looking out there. Do you feel like I lose the chance to even come in and have the conversation? Because they're like no way in heck I'm going to spend another$150 a user to come in there. Um, like, do you feel like I miss that value prop? I know you can put it on your website. There's lots of ways to do it, but do you feel we, we miss that ability to come in and do that audit. And I know we can go back to book the audit on your website thing, but do you miss that?

Do you know what you actually miss all the wasted time, because you're not going to lower your price, right? You're going to charge$300 a unit and you're going to go forth and you're going to do this audit, and you're going to do all of this work and you do all this bit and they're going to put forth a$300 price and they're going to go, well, I'm not paying$300. I would just rather, you be filtered way early. This is what it costs to do business with me. If you're self-selecting out cool. I don't have to waste my time chasing you on business. I'm never going to get right. And by the way, I'm not necessarily saying the only solution to this, as you must put your managed services, pricing on your website. That isn't what I'm saying. What I'm saying is the objections I'm hearing are not good ones, right? Like, like it's just not a good one. If your price is$300 to be profitable and deliver that service and do it right. Be proud show on your website, why it's worth it, your expertise provide the insights and make it worth it. They'll sign up for that. Like, you know, but if you're hiding it away and you're going to do all of this work to try and prove it, I guess my argument is, is your marketing. Isn't very good. Go fix your messaging.

Oh, totally. I mean, I get that. And I think the industry is changing and I'll be curious to see, I'll be curious to see if this model takes off. I mean, do you, are you seeing anybody that's doing this in the space? I mean, are there MSPs that are doing this already?

I'm aware of, I wear of a bunch of people that have bee look ton of people objecting very strenuously to my position, right? And a bunch telling me quietly, I am totally building an e-commerce site watch for a David's coming. And I'll just sort of smile and go only five to 10% of anybody that listens has to take my advice. And if they go forth and make a killing on it, I don't have any stake in this, right? It's not up to me to force the market to go a direction. It's just the huh. Data tells me all this. If only five to 10% of you want to move and take advantage of it, that's what it's telling me. Five, 10% of you have just made a killing and pulled ahead of everybody else. That's all I got to do. No, I agree. I think there's a lot of

Different things that MSPs could be doing to differentiate themselves. And I mean, look, it's the same thing. I go back into the, you know, when I was at the days of being an MSP, you go in, there's normally two or three other MSPs there. They're calling around and they've got the stack of papers sitting on their desk. You know, they're running the same reports and they're dropping it on there and it's like, you're going in? And what are you trying to do? I have to go in and explain how we're different. And I think you can do that on our website very easily. You can have custom videos. You can have, you know, your service SLA response time, your ticket response. I mean, I was on an MSP site yesterday. I was like, I buy from this MSP because it said like 98% of our tickets are closed within two hours. Our customer, like it read all the stats. That meant something to me. If I was a business owner, I'm going, they're quick, they're responsive. They have got a good C stat score. Their security's top of like, they're going to check all those boxes I want to buy. So that guess that's what you're saying is, is I get on your website. I look at that and I'm that guy that's getting excited. You've got the right stuff, but I've got nowhere to buy or to at least get you to like, be able to book a meeting with you at that second and say, I'm ready to buy. Let's have a conversation. That's really what you're starting.

It's totally what I'm saying, but I'm also a coupling it by the way. Like if we want to get into the 200 level two, it's the, like, by the way, this is how you build a digital funnel that matters. Like you can run Google ads and you can run, uh, you know, Facebook ads and you can target customers. You can drive them to your website and then you can convert them because they can take an action more than just fill out more than just by the way, fill out information on your website. Again, I'm not saying take away your contact form. What I'm saying is make it additive, right? Give them different ways for them to engage with you. You can have a website that sells to them or allows them to book a meeting or allows them to call you or allows them to say, you know, video chat you, or like you can have all of the options to empower the buyer. It's all about empowering the buyer, right? Them do what they want to do to engage with you and your real value as a, as an MSP solution, right? Our it guy is the curation. I'll tell you that. I don't envision people launching e-commerce sites with like thousands and thousands of items. I actually think it's going to be a very small limited number of things that they book that are specialized to them. That they've curated. Now, let me give you my example. I said this in my video, and I'm going to give it to you as a great example here. Most of yous delusion brighters have your soul. I will fix anything laptop, right? Like the laptop that you know is going to solve the problem. Most business owners just want to buy a really good laptop and you know what? They want the assurance of that. It's going to run all their stuff. They don't care how much Ram it has. They don't care how much storage it has. They just want to know somebody promises. It will be good. And I can go to your MSB website and I can buy your, I promise this will solve your business problem, laptop. And it comes with my customized concierge installation services and all that. There are customers that will totally buy that and they'll pay a premium price for that. And the other ones will go, well, you know, I want to have a conversation with you. I saw what's on your website. So I'm going to reach out. Those are all sales leads. It's all sales leads. That's what we want. Right, right.

And one of the things I took out of it, and honestly, when I, uh, even though I had objections and I was listening to some of the things that you were saying, I did take into play that one of the things we, the industry started hearing the word co-managed, or, you know, you know, working with, you know, internal it, however you want to call it. You know, it's one of the things I was thinking about when you, when you actually said that was, is like, why couldn't I have a co-manage thing that shows, Hey, we're not here to take your job. We're actually here to help you. You can give your whole story and say like the things you normally have to go by, I can do it for$25 a seat. And here's everything I can do for you. Let me help you save your time, money and budget. Like I was thinking, that's a perfect thing for a guy that's searching. He'll be able to find you buy it and go, and you're not having to go through approvals. And all of those things,

Like, they'll just put it on his credit card and he'll go, and you know what? You get the money right away. Sort of all right. These are all our favorite things, right? Like we all talk about like, you know, getting the money up front, getting the cat, like you can totally automate all of that. Right. Do it. Yeah.

I mean, it definitely came to me as like, there are things I agree with you. I still would agree that there's maybe some things I wouldn't keep out there, but maybe that's just my personality, but I do agree getting access to me. Yeah. Something is better than nothing. And a lot of websites, we just had a conversation last week. That's getting actually an episode that will be coming out here. I think tomorrow, um, where we're talking about, uh, you know, the digital, you know, digital world we're going into, it's going to turn into this cookie list world, you know, with like the retargeting and the privacy. Now that's coming and all these things, it's going to be a different world. I mean, cost per click went up with COVID. Now there's more people bidding and wanting the stuff. Now you're not gonna be able to retarget them. If they choose to turn off that privacy, a lot of things are changing. So somebody getting to your website, they got there in a very specific reason. It's going to be more valuable than ever with the new privacy laws. And I don't think that's even been taken or not even chase laws. I should say regulations, things that companies are putting into place with their privacy to protect us as consumers or businesses. However you want to look at it. And, um, I th I look at it and go that I think is going to be another major

Reason why your website needs to be, you know, as fully put together as possible, at least to be able to book a meeting and make it very simple, because you're not going to maybe be able to track that person. That's got their privacy turned off. So your normal cycle of getting them through that funnel, I think is going to change too.

Um, and again, the, the, the reason, by the way, the reason this is not a one size fits all answer, and I'm not going to sit here and say like, Oh, put everything that you do on always because I don't want it to be commoditized. Right? If it was so simple that I could give everyone the answer, then it will always be this. That means it's a commodity and you're completely competing on price. The reason there's complexity to this. And by the way, I know all the listeners and all MSPs are resistant because they want an easy answer, right? They want it to just be, well, I need to just go do this. No, you actually want it to be something that you've got to think through your system for, because that's where your value is going to come from. And your particular version of it is going to work really well for you. And it's going to be unique, and it's going to be part of your value out to your potential customers. And that's how you retain the high margin delivery of this. You know, the difference, my example, there Dan's custom created curated laptop that comes just the way it is. That's a unique and commoditized sale that I can sell on my website for any price I want to sell, because it's not just the thing. It's also my customization knowledge and experience.

Right? What other, you know, I know we've been talking a lot about doing, did you get any other objections from that podcast that you were thrown into? I know you did the after video and talked about it, but what other feedback were you getting?

We've had a lot of it. It's, it's very funny that we hit fanatically. A lot of them they're like, Oh, well, you know, Dave is saying, it's all e-commerce no, I'm not. Or, or you're saying like, you have to put everything. No, I'm not. Or, you know, Oh my God, it's going to just completely destroy my business. That's not what I'm saying. You know, the, the B and, but we, and we covered the one that I didn't get really, which was the, like, look at the data. The market has changed, you know, e-commerce as a space and the way people are making money, the way revenue streams are coming in that change really fast. I think the other one that, that I, I, there is an implicit objection that I think we want to call out that, that kind of weird pit there is this, I don't think MSPs are really spending nearly enough time actually addressing the weakness of sales and marketing. We have this conversation all the time, right? The like, Oh, you know, we're doing, we're not very good at sales and marketing. Yeah. I get that. The only way it's going to get fixed is if you actually do something about it, like you're going to have to buckle down, do some work and spend some money, but I'm just sorry, like that's the way this goes. Sure. But by the way, it really isn't as hard as you think it is. Like, like, because I think everyone wants this instant answer all the time. And the actual answer is you're going to manage this all the time. I'll give you my own personal experience. And again, by the way, I'm not an MSP anymore, but I'm in the business of getting a large group of people to pay attention to my stuff on a regular basis. Right. Sounds a lot like potential customers. Right. And I do all my acquisition digitally. I do everything that I do to live by the way I launch my, even if you do the timing, right. I went out with podcasts in late 2019, uh, on my own, there wasn't a giant runway of the machine of the channel to go do it right. But I had kind of anticipated that saying I was going to build around digital acquisition. Thousands of people now tune into the podcast, all because of digital acquisition. There's no one answer it's constantly testing and refining and tweaking and doing all of that. And by the way, I practice what I preach. I've got my own online shop. I've got one for MSPs. If you want to go buy my swag and t-shirts and all that kind of stuff. And I've got another one for the people that sponsor with me, where they can buy their placements. And it's all about driving to that. You can set up your online stores. You can do that. That's not the hard part. The hard part is driving people to your website. And that's not done with a single one hit. That's done every single day by putting a little bit of time and energy into building the momentum. And over time you will develop a system that works incredibly well for you. It's well-worn territory. So you can just get started.

Yeah. I mean, sales and marketing isn't I mean, every report, every industry report ever since I've been an MSP as well, the number one thing MSPs struggle with is sales and marketing. It is like almost top on every global report that comes out. And, uh, I mean, look it, I do the sales and marketing side. That's the part we work on and coach on. So I have a different view on it. And I think so many times people are so technical minded and they don't realize that. And that's how their program. And then they're the owner of an MSP and they're maybe there's only two of them or three of them. And they're all technical minded, but you have to get out of that comfort zone. You have to get into how do you get new customers? How what's your, my website look like? What's your LinkedIn presence? What's your face like yeah. Doing their research. They want to know if the company is legit or not,

But Dennis has actually like, I'll turn around and go. This should be right in your comfort zone. Everything we talk about from a digital acquisition perspective, this is all just numbers. This is all just a system. You're not talking to a customer. Right. And in digital, this is like amazingly straightforward to do. You know, like I can set up my funnels. I can drive people to various landing pages. I can put out content. I can drive them to take action. Like this is all just building technical systems. It's actually not all that tough. Uh, it takes time, energy and devotion, but the, but the barriers to entry are super low. All of the tools are there. You've just got to get over yourself and actually do it.

And it probably comforts those people that are technical and not having to go out and talk to customers is not what they want to do. If you build a really smart funnel in the backend and have a really good drip process and all of that, you're really not having to talk to that customer very much until either they've bought or they're ready to buy. And they're there at knocking at your door saying, I want to be a customer.

Exactly. I quit all the time. By the way, like part of the reason people don't like to sell by the way they also don't like to be sold to, but you know what they do like to do. They like to buy people really like to buy. It's fun to buy. It's fun to like engage and make a decision and spend some money and get something back. Like buying is fun. Um, and if you make it easy to buy, that's way different than thinking about selling and digital, by the way, making it easy to buy is awesome. And, and all of you, people that are like, kind of thinking and objecting to my idea, wouldn't you really like it. If your website was just like sending you people that have literally said, you know what I want from you? Like laptops and services, right? That's what I want for instead of spending so much time objecting. Why do you think about the upside of this? And I think that it might almost be my answer, Dan too. Like, what's the biggest thing is they're, I'm thinking about it the other side. Why don't you want your website bringing you eager people with credit cards that want to give you their money in exchange for your goods and services? Like, like I like that. I like it when my website does that for me.

So not going to complain here, someone's knocking on the doors and I want to buy my service and it's already sold. So that part I agree with. I think, look, I think your perspective, when it first came off, we all looked at it from the normal mindset of what an MSP has been like for years, every time you go to a conference, every time you go listen to a channel, you know, speakers speak, you're the same thing. And, uh, I think a lot of us in that episode, we kind of were like, Oh man, like, come on. This is no way possible. I think there's definitely possibilities. I think you, I think explaining it, having this conversation kind of helps out though, you got to do it. What fits your business and do something versus nothing. And not saying you have to get rid of the contact us form, like you said, just having or have another way for that buyer that maybe buys a different way. Yeah, exactly. Know your customer know who you're trying to get and do what's appealing to them. Uh, and you're getting them in. If it's only an assessment, put an assessment. If it's booking a meeting, I mean, that should be the number one everybody has.

Everyone should be doing that you should be able to be booking. I mean, and if you want to go, like, I mean, you can go and you can see where this is going. And there's really interesting things. I mean, like, you know, we're doing this on zoom right now, right? Zoom is extending their platform to allow you to embed video right into, into websites. So like you literally could like fire it up and be on a zoom call with customers. Are you like, I can see all kinds of different or by the way, pay to be on a zoom call with customers. Like they get, it could be a paid engagement. There's all different ways of doing it. It's all up to you to design the ways that work I would sort of just, again, continue push back because I get it. I understand everyone's kept being skeptical here. I'm just looking for the people that are looking going. I got an idea. They're the ones that are going to run with it and stout start out performing. That's what I'm looking at, excited about what we're going to see.

No. So we've covered a lot and I really appreciate you taking the time in coming and having this conversation because I think it was fun for me just to, you know, I had a lot of people bring it to my attention. I was like, I'm going to call Dave and see if we can just have this conversation, because I think a lot of people are still processing it. And if they haven't heard that episode, they kind of got to get a taste of it here. And some of the things to kind of think about, I always let the guests kind of end with like their final thought or, you know, something that they want to leave us with. What would be the final thought? I mean, basically of what we've just talked about in your experience in the channel that you want to leave with our listeners today.

So for me, it really is the like, I mean, you, we sort of summed that up with this example is, is like, I'm really fixated on the idea. If the markets are changing, there's new buyer behavior and the pandemic really accelerated a lot of trends. And I want to push back on people that are going, Oh, well, this is the way we've always done it. Yeah. That doesn't mean that's the way it's going to work tomorrow. And by the way, tomorrow looks a lot different than tomorrow did say 24 months ago, if you're doing something just because it's the way it's always been done, or those are the ideas that are actually are the most worrisome for me. It's why I'm doing what I'm doing now is to try to take a look and, and challenge these old ideas because I look at the market and I see a lot of all of these trends that have come to maturity. If you look at cloud, you look at the changes in security. You look at the, like the market is going to look an awful lot different. And the pressure on the typical it services company, MSP solution provider or whatever we're calling them is really going to change. As we move from that technical skillset, into the business skill set, that's required, I'm in the business of keeping people in business and helping them with that conversion. I want them to think a lot about the different questions. So my last thought is, is like, look, if your, if your answer back is, well, that's not the way we've done it before. This is the time you've gotta be re-looking at all of those old ideas.

Nope. I agree. This is something that the pandemic has changed. A lot of businesses it's accelerated the growth of the industry in so many different industries. I shouldn't say just the world in general has accelerated, uh, in so many different ways. I think, uh, you know, it was good having this conversation with you, even though I don't necessarily see on every side, it definitely opened me up to start thinking of different ideas, which is, I know you're trying to do, you're trying to bring that knowledge to the channel and you know, I really appreciate you coming on. I think this was a fun conversation to have, obviously you're listening and you know, out there with, if you have questions or, or things like that, uh, reach out to Dave, or I know we're on LinkedIn and different things like that. I know we're both pretty active in the community. So

Hard to find, I guess like my, where else I always ended just to give her one of my perspective is, look, look, I'm invested in solution providers being successful. Legitimately is the only thing I am. The only reason I have to, I make my living based on giving ideas, giving perspectives and the community, finding them valuable. But it doesn't mean I have to be right all the time. It means I have to be valuable. If you take your, take an idea that I said, and you say I'm completely wrong, a hundred percent wrong, and you do the exact opposite of me and you are completely successful. That's still a win because informed and I use formed an opinion and informed opinion and you went off and did something and I will celebrate that every day. So the conversation's worthwhile Dan you're exactly right. Reach out. We've got questions. Hit me up, looking forward to continuing this.

Yeah. So everyone, that's our episode. Uh, thank you for joining the connecting it podcast. Uh, we're on the iTunes store where we actually encourage you to go out there and give us a five-star rating and, uh, you know, appreciate you being a listener. This is all built around helping you in the channel as well. I mean, it's one of the things that we do is try to bring people on, get different perspectives and let you hear some different things. Hopefully it took something new out of today that you can take and implement in your business. Uh, but we're definitely here to bring you different perspectives of what's going on in the channel. So, Dave, again, thanks for being here. And until next time everyone have a great day.