George Smith of Augmentt

[00:00:02] Hello, ladies and gentlemen. It is July 9th, summertime. And this is the MSP Initiative MSP talk. I'm going to get through some housekeeping like we do at the beginning of every one of these sessions, then we'll get into the good stuff. So MSP initiative.com. Once you learn how to spell initiative, it'll be easy to get there. This session is being recorded like every other session you ever done.

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[00:03:38] That is now in the books ends. I don't get to say this often but you know for the very few Georges I run into along my journey is not only do you get one George on the session, you get two Georges bring George from augment to the show today.

[00:03:55] I'm good George George squared. I think on this episode right. Yes. Yeah two Georges are better than one. I think so. So, I by the way, you know, a couple things that along my life journey here one, I could probably count on my hands number of Georges that I've run into to I could probably

[00:04:14] count on my hands number of people that for some reason have the same birthday that I do. That being said, I don't know whether that's good or bad. But I like Georges usually and this George is no exception.

[00:04:25] So George thank you thank you thank you for joining us. Happy to have you. Yeah thanks for having me to George it's great to see you again. The last time we saw each other was Dublin last month.

[00:04:36] You know for some reason I seem to keep on going back to Dublin. Dublin is a hot spot right so you know back to two events in the same week rep acts a beyond Denver and then like I didn't even get to close that event out I got on a plane and I went the other direction for data con in Dublin and yeah, maybe you can

[00:04:53] explain it to me Georgia. I guess I just haven't taken out a globe or a map recently but like why is it like 50 and 60 degrees Fahrenheit in Dublin in July. Can somebody explain that to me.

[00:05:05] Oh, it's just, it's always a little yeah I was shocked that I called it was as well. I've forgotten. I think it's a couple of things. It's an island so there's definitely the the sea cooling effect the whole time.

[00:05:17] And also people will notice just in the UK. There's a special type of cold there that kind of just gets into your bones right you know I live in Canada now and it gets really really far below zero but the sun still shining and it's blue skies and if you're you cover your

[00:05:33] face you're okay whereas back in the UK and Ireland it just seems yeah that's that cold it gets into your your bones and keeps you cold but that's why everyone drinks so much tea. Wow, I'm beer for that matter. It looks like Edward is raising his hands we usually don't do this but why not let's

[00:05:48] give it a try. You can unmute Edward what he got for us. I'll see that I caught him flat footed he probably wasn't even ready for the audio part of this.

[00:05:59] I got you. Go for it. So I was just like new to MSP. I was wondering how much, like how long the trips are and like all that kind of information based. Yeah, I mean, if I mentioned earlier, you know got that community calendar up for the year or the

[00:06:17] year there's like 300 events when we came in January, you know for 2024. So like mine is I would say a typical event in the MSP space is going to be you know could be as little as a half a day depending on what it is like a workshop kind of like type thing or go into

[00:06:34] like a day and a half two day type thing which is kind of like we mentioned with our community minds event in Denver and then full blown conference. In my experience, all the other George try to type in if you think I'm wrong usually opens up in like a half day kind of three day kind of opening reception on the first

[00:06:53] day and then like full day full day closing party at the end so that's kind of the blueprint now there is a little bit of like restacking effect where like for example, the larger events like Pax a beyond just happened that's a larger event a lot of the

[00:07:09] other events like the Seattle con events are larger it nation in November is pretty large events what happens is a whole week of things could be happening in that case right where

[00:07:19] in the beginning part of the week certain things are happening and then like you get closer closer to the formal conference time and then that closes the week out so it all depends on on what you're you know you're after but there's plenty of content and plenty of places to go for sure.

[00:07:33] Yeah. Yep, thank you guys. Thank you. Okay. Sounds good my friend thanks for asking. Yeah. So anyway, so George yeah I mean.

[00:07:44] So like, I'm hopping on playing going back to Europe next week you know back to Dublin again seems like I just need to start wearing green stuff but I guess I have a lot of Eagles Philadelphia Eagles stuff so like that fits right the green I think.

[00:07:56] And so, but I got wear jacket. This is going to be 50 and 60 again in Dublin next week and I'm gonna waterproof waterproof. Okay, I can make that happen. I got I got rain jackets. I got green green jackets but rain jackets nonetheless. Exactly.

[00:08:13] Yeah, okay. Well, it's all good. Well, nice to speak to you again. I know that you've been flying the flag you are really early days at the company right now all the men.

[00:08:27] I know this is the first time you've been on the show but for anybody hasn't heard from you before. Why don't we tell them a little bit about your background how you got into the like it industry that we all kind of live in and then like we'll get you know hear your story a little bit.

[00:08:42] Sure. Yeah, so I've been an augment now since pretty much the beginning I think I was employee number nine or 11 or something prior to that actually worked at an MSP or what I call an accidental MSP.

[00:08:58] I think that was that expression that we hear so often I kind of fell into the channel or fell into it. And at the time I got the job was actually knocking doors I was looking for a job and went old school and went knocking doors of the resume and I think these very technical guys that were you know really deep in

[00:09:16] into the it space, we're just like who the heck is knocking at our door who does that and then whenever they saw it was me with them a paper. I was going to say what were you selling door to door.

[00:09:27] That just by itself I was just like I need a job and I can work for you guys and they were just like you don't really have a lot of technical experience and I said well you got a whole office full of technical people maybe you want, you know to roll the dice on someone a little different so they like that I was hired on to do their business

[00:09:43] development so a lot of the sales and marketing. And it was really fun kind of getting into this niche corner that we all work in and the channel.

[00:09:51] Their their story there was that, you know they had kind of come out of out of university wanted to run their own business, and we're really interested in website design custom west website design and software development and so I was kind of like why are you guys not charging maintenance

[00:10:06] and manage service fees for all these wonderful things that you build. And so we kind of unlocked that started getting the the recurring revenue from those maintenance agreements or managed services agreements and took off so it was really a lot of fun working working there great people.

[00:10:23] And then yeah I had a friend who was one of the first developers at augment that kind of put a bug in my ear saying you know he was working in the MSP space now at this startup and that I want to come and work at a startup which is something I always wanted to do huge opportunity for for learning.

[00:10:38] And so about the pleasure of working under Derek Blair and Gavin Garba over at augment to have been in the channel, much longer than me so lots of great great stories to hear from them and lots of learning.

[00:10:50] They were they were original enable guys. That's right yeah Gavin is kind of known as the I guess some people refer to him as but the godfather of the channel he was kind of the guy that started manage services, you know and kind of created the idea wouldn't it be nice if you had a bit of

[00:11:06] software that you can use to remotely monitor and manage things instead of having to get the toolbox in the van and go site by site by site. So, yeah that's going all the way back to 2000.

[00:11:18] You know there, there's still a bunch of people doing the toolbox in the van trust me. Trust me, trust me hold on let's see. A lot of questions today. Go ahead Joe. What do you got for us.

[00:11:33] I'm kind of new here and can you guys hear me. Yeah. And I was just wondering what all this meetings about.

[00:11:41] So we do MS, you know it industry kind of, you know, educational type, you know podcast so that's what these are about right we bring people in from around the industry and we just talk shop. That's it. Okay. Thanks for coming. Yeah.

[00:11:59] How this is affect LeBron's legacy doesn't because LeBron, you know, you know, not that we want to go, you know, NBA basketball I'd rather talk NFL but anyway, LeBron's legacy.

[00:12:10] I think I think he should just call it a day and preserve his legacy, be honest, but you know since we once play with the sun and the sun got drafted by the Lakers and then all of a sudden I'm like well, you're at the team that you're with, you get drafted by that

[00:12:23] team and then you opt out of your contract. I mean, okay, the business of professional sports moving back on so George.

[00:12:30] I still I think that I had never realized at all the times that we've talked that you got your job by going door to door looking for a job. Yeah.

[00:12:38] Yeah, we've all been there I think at some stage right I think it's just funny that out of all the sectors that it worked out for was with it right where it was the first sector that you were.

[00:12:48] I wonder if that would work today George like if I wanted to go look for a job just you know why don't I just go online and look for like you know they got all the job boards and LinkedIn and whatever.

[00:12:58] But I guess walking in is different. It definitely separates you from the crowd. I think I think in today's age where let's face it what's what's if you think about a job application in 2024. I feel like it's just a battle of ai's it's the app.

[00:13:11] It's what I ai can use an applicant use is going to help you get through the ai that the recruitment agency or the employer is using right and so that's that's why sometimes you know if you've got got the time and the confidence yeah go knock on a door instead I

[00:13:27] mean you're a business owner George right you've been in this game a long time someone came and knocked on your door said hey can I can I come work for MSP initiative or be able to certainly give them five minutes of your time right instead of just a random email or LinkedIn message maybe.

[00:13:41] I mean, I definitely at least hear him out. I'd be like okay. Why do you want this. Yeah, do you even know what we do. What are you looking for. I at least have that way at that conversation.

[00:13:53] So that's all you need. So, Joe pipes in how did George find the opportunity to be able to become so successful well I mean sounds like he just went door to door until he found the job in MSP or it company was in and then

[00:14:10] at some point you shifted off to this to the vendor side now I mean how did that happen when did you make that decision.

[00:14:16] Like I said I had a friend who was the one of the first developers working on the old man platform way back when it was kind of still in you know in shadow mode really and just said look I you know I know you you're in this this really weird corner of it called the channel

[00:14:33] working with MSPs I know I work for a vendor that is building a product specifically for MSPs. Do you want to come check it out and I was like yeah for sure and then so yeah go to go to an interview Matt with Derek and Gavin.

[00:14:48] I think I've made some good impressions and kind of things went from there. So the door to door didn't didn't didn't get I didn't go knock on Gavin's door certainly not know it was again it was just through I guess through a friend through through networking connections so I think that's the

[00:15:07] I think that's the question you know that's that's always a big part of your your career journey is is and George you understand this yourself like again coming back to the job market currently there's that classic phrase it's not what you know it's who you know right so

[00:15:21] 100% and like, even though the technology industry is fairly big industry. It is also very small in a lot of cases right I mean so.

[00:15:30] Yeah, I think within the channel as well specifically on the vendor and the MSP side. The minute you're looking for for a particular rule and you just put that out there to your network and someone says so whether it's an account manager or a service desk

[00:15:46] or an L3 technician, you know, you might put that on a job board but the minute someone you know says hey I worked with this guy Jimmy he did this he's looking for a job can I put you in touch to immediately bump Jimmy to the top of the

[00:15:56] cube because you know he's been there done that and he's got some type of verbal endorsement from someone who you know, and maybe respect or like as well so I think it's something you always want to be aware of just moving through life is is look after and grow your network as much as you

[00:16:11] can. Yeah, 100% 100% alright well let's you know that you know the industry is always ebbing and flowing right so I mean that that's for sure. I'm curious.

[00:16:25] Did you know I'm gonna throw a curveball at you have you noticed that from about two years ago until now because Microsoft just announced another round the layoffs.

[00:16:34] Have you noticed that, you know there's been more people laid off from technology industry in that time that have been hired.

[00:16:43] Yeah, I think I think it's hard not to notice right I mean and it's not just Microsoft you know we've seen big layoffs that you know Shopify and Google and and and other vendors you know even within the channel as well.

[00:16:57] And I think everyone has their own reasons but certainly for those larger companies you're talking about Microsoft they're obviously looking at their overhead and ways that they can reduce that and again you know we AI is the big buzzword of this year right you know I think.

[00:17:13] Last year was cybersecurity seem to be that the buzzword everyone was was talking about and now it's it's AI so I think larger companies are definitely looking at ways that they can create efficiencies and optimize productivity with that and unfortunately that's coming at the expense of some people's jobs I mean I think particularly of you know copywriters you know you could be a really experienced and very good copywriter but it's really hard maybe unless you're very very educated on a specific

[00:17:43] niche subject it's kind of quite hard I think now I just say I'm a copywriter and I want this amount of money per projector per year when someone can use chat GBT you know that's it's a bit of a can be a bit of a hard sell you just agree.

[00:17:56] The whole AI thing is still like. I'm trying to understand the business of it I think it's still very much obtuse to a certain degree right like I can't exactly quite understand based on where it's at today where we're going.

[00:18:12] But at the end of the day I'm also worried about what we're sending into it meaning like.

[00:18:18] You know I'm on a lot of feeds for many reasons and I'm seeing like legal things pop up because your data was pushed into the AI system unbeknownst to you and then all of a sudden like there's all the things that you would hear about everywhere else privacy this that any other now like.

[00:18:38] Where did that information go right so like even if you're like in my realm right like let's say I took a call recording. And I transferred it to chat GPT for summarization right.

[00:18:52] And now it's in chat GPT that's not they have it send their system their database whatever. Who knows what was in that call could have been good could have been bad could have been proprietary could have been protected information whatever.

[00:19:04] But at least I got my summary so I exchanged all of my concerns for the summary like just. There's got to be I mean it just is not a lot of bumpers around the whole topic.

[00:19:16] Yeah and I think there's a lot of naivety around as well frankly like people aren't doing it to be malicious like your examples keep people just doing it because they want to be better at their job or make their lives easier.

[00:19:28] But I think you know that there's probably going to be a few horror stories that come out in the near future that will be a bit of a catalyst for for change maybe particularly with with compliance or to your point actual bumpers quote unquote around certain products.

[00:19:43] I mean the example I use this with coming back to Microsoft Copilot being released everyone was very excited around what it could do and the capabilities that had the story the kind of fictional story I like to point out is yeah it's great until you have you know an intern that says hey Copilot can you go generate a spreadsheet for me everybody salary information in the company and AI goes and does this thing and Copilot is being very helpful and doing exactly what you tell it because you know maybe the the rules or the governance aren't in place there to outline the

[00:20:13] exactly what it can and cannot access and who should and should not give information to so I think that's a big part that's like I think that's a big thing George it's coming down that the pipe actually is more on governance and compliance and I think that's an emerging gap that can be filled by consultants experts or maybe even some platforms in the future that are actually going to help companies.

[00:20:38] Kind of map that content governance that they need in order to sort of help assist with with the emerging AI problem. I'll be honest with you.

[00:20:50] Yeah especially like the computers that they're advertising now it's like oh buy the computer with AI co with Copilot with that I'm like what is that what does that mean like what am I buying and understand why should I drop everything now and go buy a computer with Copilot like.

[00:21:04] Yeah and that's being that's that's not a commercial marketing that's being marketed to the everyday consumer right you know when it comes to you know you know electronics so.

[00:21:15] Just as a very I don't know if it's just not been marketed well enough it just seems like it's a little bit hard to understand the value.

[00:21:22] Yeah and it was everywhere as well you look at MADD and X even LinkedIn if you're doing a post and there's AI prompts everywhere and you're kind of everyone is just simmer down a little bit you know.

[00:21:34] 100% yeah I'm in a wait and see I know there's other people that are like doing all sorts of stuff with it trying to figure out where it goes it's like okay let me know what you figure out and come back and see me I think before I get too deep down this road.

[00:21:47] Especially if I don't can't control where the data goes that's definitely concern for sure for sure. But let's talk about Microsoft which seems to be changing every day I just noticed in my teams are like oh Microsoft connectors is going away 90 days I was like.

[00:22:04] A lot of people use Microsoft connectors you got to rebuild it in the Microsoft power automate things and I'm talking about like doesn't seem like they're giving us a lot of time in Microsoft land every time they make changes.

[00:22:14] Yeah and these are the things also as well maybe that just come through on the sort of consumer side of things I mean it all meant because we specialize in simplifying and 365 specifically for MSPs helping them just make it easier to manage and secure by bringing multi tendency to it.

[00:22:32] We're very aware of some of the changes almost feels like a bit of a rug pull sometimes with different technical aspects so again that's why I think a lot of MSPs value our partnership is because.

[00:22:44] We also give them peace of mind like that that that transaction isn't just giving you access to a sophisticated platform that's going to enhance your efficiency and productivity within 365 security.

[00:22:57] You're also partnering with a vendor that's like by the way this is happening or this is coming so here's a heads up or we'll actually update or fix this in advance.

[00:23:05] It's funny you say that so we know there was a comment I got even dig into it far enough it was like oh well they're going to start to and finally enforce MFA on Azure accounts I'm like what does that mean like.

[00:23:17] Does Azure mean 365 do I have to have like an Azure virtual server virtual desktop is it just an Azure portal like not even exactly sure what that means but like sounds like we should be doing this right enforcing MFA across every like yeah I don't know how far it's going.

[00:23:31] What does that mean you know what that announcement is about.

[00:23:35] I think it's a step in the right direction George I don't know the specifics of it at attack level all I know is I can I can kind of give a few supporting facts that may help people understand why they're moving in that direction so we just released an ebook earlier this year about how MSPs can.

[00:23:53] Prevent 99.9% of attacks within Microsoft and it's actually taken from a lot of Microsoft documentation we just simplified it it's just because we know MSPs don't have time to read the 100 page white paper that Microsoft is released so we kind of distilled that with some alternative research and some of our own findings into a 12 page colorful document that folks can read and the the 99% it's not rocket science it's nothing surprising and a big part of it is doing this

[00:24:23] thing is like having MFA turned on because Microsoft claimed that you know 97% of breaches that happen could be prevented if MFA was turned on.

[00:24:34] So, you know, it's a big thing that they want to do and they keep releasing this information saying guys like we're getting touted as being breached and this happening and we're saying here's how you fix it and nobody's doing it.

[00:24:44] And another example from a Cornell University study that came out at the end of 2023 was they had found out that MFA as a, I guess a product within the Microsoft suite used to be behind a paywall so it wasn't free you have to pay for it and I only had 1% adoption.

[00:25:03] So Microsoft then made the move to make it free make it available for everyone. Do you know what the adoption, you want to have a guess at what the adoption went up to so it was a 1% because it was kind of paywall they made it free rolled out everyone so it was available for free what do you think I went up to 30%

[00:25:21] It had 100% increase George to get to 2%. Wow, 2%. So 98% didn't do anything.

[00:25:30] Yeah, exactly. So I think Microsoft are kind of maybe pulling their hair out a little bit because they know they're not secure out of the box. They know there's lots of things that need to be configured and turned on MFA is one of them.

[00:25:43] They know these are actions that have taken will prevent you know a huge amount of the cyber crime attacks that are happening.

[00:25:48] Timeout, timeout. Everybody's put all this you know I've even seen cyber insurance providers are like what's your show us your Microsoft security score and I'm like the Microsoft security score like when you create a new account out of the gate is like less than 20%.

[00:26:06] Yeah, exactly. I will so we're getting into sort of different we can I could watch the article about this all day there's a couple of things like first of all cyber cybersecurity insurance that's own kind of worms.

[00:26:16] I mean, I get will use the MFA example I've seen from large brokers their application and a question for the technical service provider or MSP in this case on behalf of the client is do use MFA. That's all it is.

[00:26:31] It's not for who on what platform. Hi, it's just a simple do so you know what I mean so like how do you even begin to answer that effectively and if something does happen.

[00:26:40] You know, the it can really unravel fast there so that's part of the problem because we have insurance folks who aren't technical experts beginning to write and create these applications or policies without being informed.

[00:26:54] You know maybe back to the key. So okay Microsoft realize they have a problem. They have a really complex big system that has a lot of checkboxes and moving parts and so like the problem is my opinion.

[00:27:08] Why is it that you know you felt the need to create a security score. Okay, to entice people to start turning things on fine.

[00:27:19] Or I'm sure there's more to it but let me just narrow it to that. But like why isn't the score higher out of the gate. You already know the areas that you want people to concentrate on why is it so low.

[00:27:31] I think it's probably to show I think like and this is just purely conjecture but I think it's because there's so many different policies and policies that impact the security score.

[00:27:40] And also you can do a ton of work and this is this is an area this is why I kind of say tread cut you know tread cautiously if you try and hang your hat on the Microsoft security score because

[00:27:50] it's very unlikely that you're ever going to get a higher than kind of 80 to 85% without them beginning to severely negatively impact the productivity or the capability of the sweet that you're using hold on hold on hold on.

[00:28:04] Did you just tell me that 100 is not realistic. I don't think so. I don't think so I've never seen 100% Microsoft security score of you know. No. Yeah.

[00:28:15] So I think I think there's something there where it's like you can like realistically, you know, there's there's big improvements that can be made that's certainly something that we help identify within the old man platform that if hey if you're at a 17%.

[00:28:29] Well listen we're going to look at this dashboard here's you know dozens of checks that aren't implemented or maybe only half baked.

[00:28:35] If you turn this on if you get everyone on MFA it's going to increase by 5% here and then another 3% here and then 10% of you do this thing. So, unfortunately George I think we're still within the MSP community really having to still argue with end users about, you know, about security MFA is a great example I still I still hear MSP say that oh well MFA you know my client

[00:29:00] still want to they say it's annoying and I think that's that's where you got to draw the line is like stop letting your stop letting your clients dictate the path of it like you're the it expert.

[00:29:12] You know if someone says no I don't want MFA you can just say that's fine I don't think it's going to work. It's been a pleasure but you can go to somebody else because we're talking about one thing in a stack of probably 1000 checkboxes but like I just happened to pop into a Microsoft admin center while we were talking.

[00:29:30] And this just shows you I don't have enough time to go and read all of the bulletins they put out on all of the product changes but like there's a page inside the Microsoft admin center that shows you like here's every announcement right depreciate you know deprecation of products changes updates what's coming roadmap.

[00:29:47] There's thousands, thousands across the entire just think of like thinking the base Microsoft skews right.

[00:29:56] Think they're still business basic out there but business standard business premium e1 e3 e5 or maybe m1 m3 and five is like 56 skews. So let's just say like business standard business premium there's thousands of change of things that are posted on just that product skew.

[00:30:11] Who in the hell has time to read all these. No one. That's the thing that's part of the problem and so you can understand why it gets very very frustrating for

[00:30:21] MSPs that are trying to be sophisticated and smart by not having to do things in a manual way maybe begin to develop their own partial scripts to say you know to create their own processes.

[00:30:31] But the problem with that is the point you just made Microsoft will change something whether it's deprecating it whether it's changing where it lives in the portal so where it's being pulled from or even just what it's called I mean I think we will be able to do that.

[00:30:43] We could again have a whole Microsoft naming conventions and why they kind of make it more complicated or absurd than it needs to be but for MSPs to go and try and build a partial script to say if ABC happens to XYZ and then everything turns into an alphabet suit in the Microsoft portal.

[00:30:59] You know how many times you want to rewrite the same partial script or how much time do you have to identify where and why it's broken before how valuable is your time really is the question before you say I'm going to spend a few you know a bucket user to buy augment and you know have a lot of that

[00:31:18] manual time lifted and give me peace of mind knowing that the security scores.

[00:31:23] I would say most MSPs have not enough time that's for sure they're managing. It's one to many right that's for sure but here's the other reality. Here's one back around naming convention. Remember when it's called SkyDrive.

[00:31:36] Where is SkyDrive? Yeah, remember they call this SkyDrive and then somebody was like oh I have the trademark for SkyDrive and they had to switch it to OneDrive.

[00:31:44] They did that like right away it was like it took like less than a quarter for it to switch. Like oh we're changing the name. I just find it interesting that the threshold that people hold Microsoft to is completely different for every other vendor.

[00:31:58] It's like oh well Microsoft had an issue well it's Microsoft but if you apply that to anyone else like it's the end of the world we need to find another solution.

[00:32:05] Oh yeah there was I think I can't remember I saw a video recently that another vendor on our space did but it was interviewing a bunch of folks at a conference and they were asking you know in 2023 what was like the number one.

[00:32:18] I can't remember the terminology they used but like who was the biggest perpetrator of you know leaked information from a file sharing product and everyone was like oh probably drop box drop out of the box or this and the answer was no it was Microsoft it was OneDrive.

[00:32:35] So you know bad and people weren't just like oh my goodness that's crazy like oh okay. There's there's kind of Microsoft.

[00:32:44] It's like when Amazon has an outage or Microsoft has an outage well oh well we just have to wait but if anybody else is out of the problem they're the bad guy right it's like.

[00:32:55] Yeah guys hate to tell you right like a lot of people tie back to the source let me go down this road real quick and then we'll talk a little bit about how to solve some of these pains.

[00:33:05] I've talked to a few people about this and everybody has different position Microsoft's had some pretty even in the last 12 months as that has had some pretty big security problems like even in their own infrastructure for their own accounts internal Microsoft employees so they can't protect their stuff.

[00:33:23] How do they get to protect our. Good question.

[00:33:29] Now, and these are some of the things that that I've got a few slides on or some documentation on that I make available to our MSP partners George because I think you know it's something that there's work to be done basically and MSP deserves to get paid for that work but I think there's some trepidation sometimes around bringing that up with clients one I think you're absolutely right there's this like oh it's Microsoft it's perfect.

[00:33:54] Like we don't want to challenge it whenever the reality is that's not true.

[00:33:58] Second thing is that Microsoft is extremely important to a lot of small and medium businesses is what their their company often runs on their email their file storage that you know some of their security bits and pieces and if that were to get reached or have some type of cybersecurity incident.

[00:34:13] We know the stats around that around how you know 66% of businesses that do suffer something like I go out of business right so you know some MSPs are elected to have a fear based conversation but I think you need to go in and highlight Microsoft's not secure out of the box and we have it in writing like I've

[00:34:30] read the small print George I've been that guy that's gone through those hundred page white papers and found the little small paragraph that says hey basically we're Microsoft and we know that none of this stuff is actually secure out of the box but because we put it in writing here in this legal ease you were not responsible for it.

[00:34:45] So if I was back working at an MSP that's something that I would highlight to my clients and say look we need to add a line item here we need to start charging for enhanced Microsoft security.

[00:34:55] This isn't something that we just made up Microsoft themselves saying they know they're not secure. Here's a bunch of stats and case studies related to cybersecurity incidents that were focused on Microsoft.

[00:35:06] Why because it's the biggest and most used application in the world so therefore it's the most targeted and it's the thing most people care about right and then begin to tell us you can weave other elements of all cybersecurity and your cybersecurity program into that story but it kind of gets starts with educating people that Microsoft just doesn't know what to do.

[00:35:25] So there's no security in the box there's work to be done to build that wall and hard in that environment. And that's a project that's a job and guess what people like being paid to do those projects and do those jobs.

[00:35:38] No that's fair that's fair I just think you know, you know, with all the education that's out there and available right.

[00:35:46] It's a you know it sounds like buying off the shelf products, even if I was just a consumer I go to Office 365 I buy directly from Microsoft there is no consultant MSP IT department whatever.

[00:36:03] They're not going to know how to go do this conversation right like they're just going to set their password maybe they get the authenticator app because they're asking them to as part of the setup and that's it. I mean, yeah.

[00:36:13] Well again the big so a big thing that again that a little trick I would would implement is within augment we have something called our security posture report it outlines all the different checks that the Microsoft say should be enabled and configured in order to harden your environment that we've got things color coded so the non technical folks that MSPs are working with can very clearly understand green is good and our needs work red is bad.

[00:36:36] We've also got gray in there and that's a really useful one because what we're actually doing in one column is showing how that check corresponds to your license type.

[00:36:46] And the reason that's important is because I think what a lot of MSPs are trying to do is standardize their customers on business premium but their customers think well hold on number one. I don't really like the word premium number two.

[00:37:00] My PowerPoint is fine my Excel works great word is perfectly fine with me sorry why do I have to pay more and what they're not understanding or maybe what they're not being shown is that that's actually not what business premium is about at all it's not about enhancing your productivity suite it's about unlocking additional security features that your MSP can leverage to further secure your

[00:37:22] M365 environment and so that report kind of just highlights look here's all these things that we actually don't even have access to it's not a case of turning them on or off we just simply don't even have access to them but if we did and we did turn them on your security score would go up by this a minor percent or bump you up this higher so that Mr customers why we're getting you on business premium it's not about just charging you more money for a better version of Excel it's so that we can do our jobs as your trusted IT security consultant or provider.

[00:37:52] Yeah no it makes sense I mean so. I love I love the automation around that because like you said I don't have time to read through all these bulletins and 120 page document on one topic. I got other things to do I don't have time to finish that 12 pages.

[00:38:08] I think I can do 12 pages in a reasonably small period of time that being said. You did mention earlier on like the multi tendency effect I mean about gap and G DAP and. Yeah all this stuff right about trying to like partner center and this not like.

[00:38:24] Seems to be constantly changing I'm not exactly sure what the current state is versus what they're saying is coming later why that versus what your solution on.

[00:38:35] Well I think because we're our main objective is to get to simplify and 365 security or MSPs and so everything you said is true there's a. Overwhelming amount of information within the portal so much so that it becomes paralyzing it's not helpful it's not effective.

[00:38:56] The multi tendency thing is critical because if you're not using a platform like augment that is specifically helping MSPs what you're likely doing is still having to go.

[00:39:10] Tenant by tenant by tenant check by check by check and so it's just an incredibly manual cumbersome process and as a business owner you have to stop and think about that like.

[00:39:20] How is that impacting your technicians I mean what what technician wants to sit down on Monday and be like okay your job is to go through these 20 different Microsoft portals and set up everything manually right.

[00:39:32] And when you're looking at the same version of something that has a slight difference maybe 10 and number one has 12 staff you got to go in.

[00:39:38] You've got to implement these checks get everything done then you take your lunch afternoon you go to tenant to its 50 staff but maybe they're in health care so there's HIPAA compliance yeah you know it very very quickly you get your brain gets very.

[00:39:50] Discombobulated you come back the next day you have to do this thing in tenant number three did I do that for 10 and one log out clear my cash open a new incognito browser go back to 10 and one make sure that I do that thing.

[00:40:01] Yep that's fine okay come back right you see around going so it becomes someone's full time job and we've had conversations George with MSPs where even it's like you know who's responsible for M365 security organization and it's fractured across their team which creates gaps in compliance or understanding or just general efficiency.

[00:40:22] And you can also use augment as well just for just for a little bit of peace of mind if you're a business owner.

[00:40:26] I was a fly in the wall for one conversation with our partner where the business owner said, okay so we have MFA rolled out across everyone for this tenant because they're our number one client has to be 100% MFA level three technician was like yep absolutely do no problem is like okay cool just show me an augment real quick because again with a click of a button you can pull up that report, pull up the report.

[00:40:46] Oh it's only at oh it's only at 84 it looks like there's like three people that don't he's like oh interesting okay so yeah let's fix that immediately please and again with a click of a button was able to turn on MFA at them to whatever conditional access policies were available or implemented and then get everything green and then have that 100% because the reason why the business owner wanted that was because he wants the ability George to go to be able to go back in time through that audit trail now that we know compliance is coming in.

[00:41:16] At a faster rate with some teeth, he wants the ability so that if someone says, can you prove that George Bardisi had MFA on, you know in June 2024 he can go and grab that all everyone say yep here's the report next question.

[00:41:30] What else do you need to know as part of this audit or insurance claim or whatever it might be instead of having to, you know run a partial script that then breaks me that most because Microsoft has changed the name of something where it lives right.

[00:41:44] That happens all the time. I mean, you know to the point where I'm going down the Yelbrook Road here but out you know seems like they're starting to charge people to get access to some of the, you know apis and graph and PowerShell scripts and like effectively there in a way to either rate limit it meaning hey,

[00:42:04] you know a lot of people are using this stuff but hey by the way we're going to start charging you for it and or we're going to start if, you know, or limiting how much you can use it.

[00:42:13] Yeah, certainly for the graph API because there's so much you can do with that that there's definitely they do impose some limitations on it. Just I guess from an infrastructure point of view maybe.

[00:42:24] But again, I think at one point like you have to ask yourself as an MSP or attack like how much is your time worth.

[00:42:31] Right and if you're someone who loves it, you know, you can go away and start your own little forum or channel and you can really get into and share that information and probably make some cash while you do it but if your job is a role where that's only part of your day today like how much time do you want to be spending it if there's an easier more efficient way to do it.

[00:42:50] Surely that's worth that you know a buck a user to help give you peace of mind and more importantly, offload some of the responsibility or maybe I'll put that in a better way empower some of the other people on your team to do things as a one key example.

[00:43:07] We have a license report. So again multi tenant shows you all your licenses.

[00:43:11] Technicians love that because it fixes their problem at the end of every month where traditionally maybe the CFO or the operations manager might say hey George I need a report for billing reconciliation that shows us shows me like all the licenses that we bought in Microsoft

[00:43:26] Microsoft is a CSP and how that's basically you know, spread out across the 50 tenants we manage. There's not there's no button that you can click in Microsoft that gives you that you have to go pull that manually or again use a partial script to kind of generate that that's there is a button on augment that does that for you and even better

[00:43:44] you can pull it by an API so you don't even have to do you can say hey Carol, here's this API from augment you just push that button and it'll give you all the information you need. I'm going to get back to clearing tickets or working on this project that that's important not having to spend half my day pulling a licensing

[00:43:59] report for you from Microsoft because it's the end of the quarter. I like that. I like it sounds like the staples easy button.

[00:44:07] Yeah exactly. Yeah, staples easy button we're trying to send thing for sales sales guys or marketing folks are always trying to simplify a lot of the technical complexities to highlight the value that an MSP provides that's what I was doing and I used to hate having to ask the tech guys

[00:44:21] be like look I need something that shows this or can you go into this vendor tool and get me this. And again, with augment you can just give your sales guys access to the things that are kind of out of the box locked and loaded right to go like the risk report or the summary report, you know, things like that that are simple and tailor made for the end user.

[00:44:38] So they're not overly technical, and they're just highlighting like here's the problem. Here's how we're fixing it. Here's how much is costing. I mean, that sounds very straightforward so you're not so it's really just a dollar user. Yeah, or less with volume discount. Yeah.

[00:44:56] I mean, we've got guys George that are going in and pay and charging, you know, making, making 10 x margin because they're charging $10 per user to their end and user clients for it for a new line item.

[00:45:09] I'm going the other way with that. I'm thinking, all right, well, let's say an MSP has 10 accounts. Let's say there's 15 users per count that's 150 users $150 in that month for this solution.

[00:45:23] But my billable rates probably 150 175 hopefully not less than that or else I should probably raise your price but whatever. So in one billable hour of time. How much time did I say

[00:45:36] Exactly. That's what comes back to you like how much how much time is like how much is your time worth to you or how much is your technicians time or even are you measuring your technicians time and efficiency. So yeah, that's it.

[00:45:48] Well, if anybody's listening to this and they don't know what their labor rate is per you know their effective labor burden rate per employee.

[00:45:56] So go back and figure that out because that is an important number. That's how you can work backwards from and by this effective labor rate is our burden rate includes overhead and electricity cell phone right like what does it actually cost for that person to be functional in the company.

[00:46:14] And then you work backwards so at the end of the day like if really you're you know if you figure out what your billable rate is even though everything could be flat rated men services whatever hundred and like and again I use a very basic right 10 10

[00:46:25] companies each one is a Microsoft account 15 users per pretty small group there fine but still 10 companies it should take it'll take you way more than an hour a month across those 10 companies to go and do this work.

[00:46:39] That's for damn short because I'm going to tell you right now and we use a catchphrase here so well if you can manage an office 365 portal our product should be easy.

[00:46:49] But is it because office 365 portal gets infinitely complex the second you get past like deferred the surface level right so that being said.

[00:46:59] Even if you're a DevOps person right even if you're you know the person that has the time to play with all of the various API scripts all this whatever like. It sounds to me like I centralized all my accounts in one place.

[00:47:18] I've made it easy to get this you know security conversation have done my license management. My guess is we're just scratching the surface there's way more than those three but just on those three alone. I'm going to spend more than an hour time. Oh for sure.

[00:47:36] Yeah, make sense to me. You're still saving your time and giving me peace of mind as well.

[00:47:42] I mean we've got that's all proactive side right and again, I asked an SPP or group recently like what's the most important metric that you measure for your business right is it security is a profitability and there's there is some subtle disagreements over it but what they all kind of came to was

[00:48:00] efficiency because if you're profitable you're going to be efficient so if you can be more efficient will be more profitable and if you're proactive with things like security then you're going to be more efficient because if you're being proactive less bad things will happen or you'll catch them sooner

[00:48:16] so it makes you more efficient makes you more profitable everything kind of you know snowballs or force multiplies from there.

[00:48:22] So, yeah, I think, again with the rapid rate the technology is advancing and the new technology that seems to be almost getting uncovered or unlocked on a monthly weekly and our daily basis it's crazy right now the period that we're living in right so and again we just scratch the surface with one corner of the market that is Microsoft

[00:48:45] and the complex that is so you know I think as an MSP whenever you're responsible for managing multiple companies with different needs, you really need to focus in on getting your stack modernized up to date, cloud somewhat cloud focused.

[00:49:02] If you haven't already that's a different conversation around just SAS and users in general. But yeah really start taking a look at how you're measuring the efficiency of your team and how you can increase that. I like that where do I get more information.

[00:49:16] So our website augment with two teas calm has most of the information that you will need some more details on the product in the module specifically we have a free trial that we make available for 14 days.

[00:49:29] We operate a little bit differently from the traditional way that software trials are offered we do a 14 day free trial but you actually won't get access to that until you have your first call with us where we actually set everything up for you.

[00:49:42] What that means is that instead of doing the thing that I've been guilty of in the past which is oh this is a cool tool I'm going to sign up great 14 day tree file I did it okay look at it tomorrow.

[00:49:51] Maybe the next day okay next week and once you finally look at it you don't need three days left by having that first call with us.

[00:49:58] That's your day one we set everything up for you including rolling it out to actually some of your customers and then you actually have two full weeks with a fully configured platform to actually test and play with.

[00:50:08] And then at the end of that two weeks if you're actually interested in becoming a paid partner, we just convert that to your paid instance so everything is still there the same locked and loaded ready to go for you pricing is available on the website.

[00:50:19] If anybody wants to reach out to me directly. It's George Smith but make sure you put augment into LinkedIn or good luck trying to find me in the thousands of George Smiths there are online feel free to connect with me directly I'm happy to answer any questions or have any more conversations with folks who want to talk business strategy and development.

[00:50:39] Oh and our YouTube channel our YouTube channels kick ass we have a lot of good stuff there for one minute videos just on how to guides if you're someone who wants a 30 second video on how to add a user how to do this great place to get information.

[00:50:53] Love it to George's and two teas at the end of augment. That's it that's how you'll remember. Perfect. You got to be in Dublin next week. I will be in Dublin next week but what will I see you channel con the end of this month.

[00:51:09] No because it's channel con you'll see Alec there. Okay, great. I might drop you a line when I'm in when I'm in Dublin next week we'll have to grab some some pints. Yeah. Gotta love it. All right awesome guys this session was absolutely recorded.

[00:51:27] So we're gonna put this up on MSP initiative dot com on our YouTube page podcatchers under sessions on MSP initiative dot com.

[00:51:34] Got two smart George's on here reach out right there's a lot of good stuff with which in the right direction you want to learn more about augment member to tease at the end augment.com.

[00:51:43] We're looking forward to seeing you guys in person it's going to be a crazy second half the year and lots of good stuff and we're looking forward to you know enjoying it together as a community.

[00:51:54] Otherwise George thanks for jumping on see you next week my friend stay in touch and yeah, save travels thanks so much. You got it. See you guys.