Ryan Grimes WINs by showing his prospects how tech can help them WIN, too!

Ryan Grimes - WIN 02062023

Carrie: [00:00:00] A podcast that asks entrepreneurs three important questions. My name is Carrie Richardson and I am a partner at Richardson in Richardson Consulting and I am the co-host of the WIN podcast. With me today is Ryan Grimes, and Ryan is the c e o of My It Indy he started working in technology back in the early eighties when he got an Apple two with 64 k of.

No hard drive, no user interface and no operating system. He played games that he built himself and then he spent the next decade taking apart computers, rebuilding them, and learning all about them. He has a degree in education and he worked for several school districts and Apple. Before he started his business in 2004 Ryan built his business to help businesses use technology to increase their product.

I'm sorry, productivity while remaining secure working from home was something that they helped business, which is do long before it [00:01:00] became popular in 2020. Ryan, how are you doing today? 

Ryan: I am fantastic, Carrie. Thanks for asking. We're 

Carrie: really happy to have you here with us. Tell us a little bit about how MIT Indy was.

Ryan: Sure. So back in 2003, 2004, I was working for Apple and app. I was working in a retail store and it was a very chill environment. Like things happen, customers are coming in know, we'd handle them. I was a Mac genius at the time. And what happened was Apple came out with the iPod.

And it was a little iPod that was like half the price and it was all different colors and oh my God, everything exploded. We were, business just went through the roof and we got super busy and there's only 20 people working at our store. And I was like, wow, retail sucks, . It was so much work, it was insane.

And the hours are terrible. And a friend of mine Pam Lefkowitz came up to me and she's what are you doing working here? You should be a consultant cuz we worked with outside consultants and [00:02:00] that were in the Apple Consultants network and we'd help them out and I'm like, you know what? That sounds like a great idea.

I think I'll go do that. We were had a growing family at the time and my youngest kid was we were outgrowing our townhouse and we were looking to move in the Chicago area and as anyone will tell you, it is very expensive to move anywhere in the Chicago area. And we were looking to.

Two hours west, or we looked three hours east, which was Indianapolis. I said, okay, we're just gonna move to Indianapolis. So in 2004, we packed up our young kid and his dog, and moved to Indiana and they were not, they didn't even care. If you had a job in 2004, they would give you a mortgage.

So we took full advantage of that. What are you guys doing? I'm like I'm starting a business and she's gonna stay home. And sounds good. Here's your money. So we were able to, yeah, build a house down in Indianapolis and just started growing the business and that was the heck in 2004 and we're still here.

Carrie: And you're one of the only MA Apple certified shops in that area. Actually in the US [00:03:00] there are not a lot of Apple certifi. Apple certified shops. 

Ryan: There are not. So we are in the Apple Consultants Network, which is a network of Apple consultants. Duh. But it's officially sanctioned by Apple. So we pay our dues and we work with them on stuff.

But we are the only M S P in Indiana that's also a Microsoft Silver partner. So we are on both sides of the fence and we do not care what you bring. We will. 

Carrie: That's nice to hear. We the only reason I know anything about Apple at all is we once had a huge opportunity for a client in Las Vegas that was looking for an Apple certified partner, and there were none in Las Vegas, and the closest partner was in Wisconsin.

Oof. And it was mandatory for this organization to use an Apple certified partner, so they'd been using this remote agency for ages. Is it a very complicated process? Why are there so few businesses pursuing it? 

Ryan: Oh, apple is a multi-trillion [00:04:00] dollar company and sometimes they don't really care about small businesses because they don't have to.

So it's. And back in the day Apple was, apple had a huge chip on their shoulder cuz Ed Apple's education division saved them. And Apple always remembers, like Michael Dell coming up on stage to say, God, I'd put I, if I was running Apple, I would, go out of business and, sell all the shares back to buy all this year's back or, just put them out of business.

And Apple's always carried that around with them, , they they're that kid that grew up and still doesn't play well with others, now there's many great people at Apple. Let me clarify that. It's just sometimes, pushing a trillion dollar horse doesn't get, or an elephant doesn't get you the results that you'd love to see like a small business can do, right?

Carrie: , 

they're not as nimble. Yes. Instead of picking apart Apple's business, let's pick apart yours. All 

Ryan: Let's do 

Carrie: it. So on win, we ask entrepreneurs three questions and we talked about those questions before we started recording today, and I'm just [00:05:00] gonna list them out for the people that might be listening to win for the first time today.

One, let's talk about a current business challenge that you and your team are working on solving. Two, let's talk about a recent achievement or milestone that you'd like to share. And three, let's talk about the opportunity you're planning to pursue next. So when we spoke before, The show. You mentioned that the biggest challenge that you and your team were working on solving right now was how do we grow gracefully?

And I thought that was a really interesting word to choose. So tell us why you chose gracefully as a way to describe your business growth or your aspiring business growth. 

Ryan: Absolutely. So we pride ourselves on providing excellent customer service. We really go above and beyond with our clients, and I know a lot of MSPs can say that, but we, we white glove onboardings.

We make sure that we talk to employees and make sure things are working right. We don't just listen to the boss and we actively participate in our clients' [00:06:00] businesses. So we really wanna make sure that level of service isn't going to suffer. Now, I should let you know there. Three of us. So adding a fourth person is clearly a large amount of growth.

But we've, we have great re great need of an extra Pearson right now. We've had a pretty successful quarter four and quarter one quarter 4, 20, 20, and quarter one of 2023 is equally great and it's time to grow, it's hard to describe small business growth to people that work at large businesses because they don't know, like the steps and the the ramps and the steps in the ramps and, when does it, when do you have enough revenue to hire another person or when do you have needs to hire another person?

And it's it's something that small business owners wrestle with because our employees we have to hire are not cheap. There's no minimum wage people here. Like we provide an excellent. And we employ excellent people and excellent people cost money, then we have to train them and keep them in training and make sure that they have the tools that they need.

So it's not just a person, it's a process and it's their education and it's all the stuff that they [00:07:00] need to provide our customers excellent customer service. So that's what we're working on right now. 

Carrie: You mentioned that you. Some new challenges or some things that you were looking for in this fourth hire that you hadn't looked for in previous hires?

. And one of those things was you were hoping that your next hire would have a a higher degree of certification focusing on things like cloud. And you also mentioned that you would like to extract yourself from technical support in the next little while. So what will that look like for your new hire and how does that change your interview process?

Ryan: Yeah, great question. So the new hire is going to have to come in knowing, some knowing like Microsoft 365, we are a Microsoft shop as well as an Apple shop. So they have to know Microsoft 365. They have to be able to keep up with the changes in Microsoft 365 because those are on a daily basis. And they have to have a higher.

technical knowledge than I have because I'm the fo, I'm like the overflow [00:08:00] tech person. And I'm also doing sales doing some marketing, networking, running a business, making sure people pay their bills. They're business owners and small businesses juggle a lot of chainsaws. And I wanna give a chainsaw to somebody else to juggle.

I'm tired of juggling this one. . Case in point, like I was working on something and the, it was a fairly integrated, a fairly complicated task technologically, and I was just not getting it. Of course, I'm, juggling everything else, trying to get it, make sure customers are happy.

Make sure, email correspondence have gone on. I'm trying to do this ta complicated task, and I was like, why am I doing this? This doesn't make any sense. And so I contacted a guy, who does some project work for us. I'm like, can you take a look at this? I've spent six hours on it and I don't know what I'm doing.

It's not working. And he is yeah, sure, no problem. So he takes a look at it. He is like, okay, I'm done . I'm like, what? ? Yeah. He is yeah, it took me like an hour and 45 minutes to figure it out. He's, by the way, their documentation was wrong. Here's the proper documentation. Sends me back the form with, with screenshots and everything and what to do.

I'm like, What am I doing? Like why am I doing this stuff? I need to not be [00:09:00] doing this stuff anymore because now it's not that I'm not good at it. Like I don't, it's not what I need to focus on. , that that's, that's a big thing I'm working on next is getting myself out of the technology

Carrie: I think that's a hard truth for all business owners, not just technology business owners, telemarketing business owners as well. , get to a point where, realizing that your time is better spent elsewhere. , even though you still may be the best person at something in the organization, maybe in this case, clearly not.

There are opportunities that we aren't pursuing when we get pulled back into our business to do the day-to-day. And I, I hate using this term cuz it's so overdone, but you need to work. On your business and not in your business. You actually mentioned that you had a ton of great reference materials from a group called the Tech Tribe.

Tell us a little bit about the ones that you're getting the most benefit from right now. 

Ryan: So we use the tech tribe. It's a great resource for people in our industry. If you're not using the tech tribe, go subscribe now. Just don't even look at what it costs, [00:10:00] cuz you'll be like, why did I not know about this?

This is ridiculously cheap. It's got awesome content. So we are following along with Andrew Moon and the LinkedIn sales process and. There's a little bit of a contest going on about who can get the most connections and followers on LinkedIn. But it's about having a prospecting process and providing context and content for marketing that makes your customers find you because.

Ultimately they're gonna be like, they don't know, oh, I'm gonna go call Ryan or go call my IT into you. Go look for an IT provider. They're gonna be like, they're gonna go on Google and go, how do I, what is multifactor authentication or what, what are these little things? And bam, Ryan's got a video explaining all about what multifactor authentication is.

And, oh, look, Ryan's got a hundred other YouTube videos up there. Oh, he is on LinkedIn. Oh my God. He is written content about this. He has a newsletter. He has, all these marketing. And that's what the goal is to, is saturate the internet with all of your marketing content out there. So The Tech Tribe  has been a great resource for a lot of that content.

Carrie: Great. [00:11:00] So that will be in the show notes. So anybody who wants to take a look at the tech tribe, you'll be able to find that in show notes today. Question number two. , what is a recent achievement or milestone that you'd like to share with us? And we talked about that as well. You recently trademarked something called Technology Therapy Session.

Tell us about 

Ryan: it. Yes. So we have gone to a paid discovery for new clients for prospect sessions. New clients, they end up becoming new clients. But and what it is it allows us to dive into their technology. And to really take a look at what is going on with their business. And part of that is talking to some of their employees about roadblocks or issues or problems or, Hey, this could be better by if we just did this, or, just really having a conversation with them.

About the technology that they're using, and it is anonymous. I don't rat them out to their boss so they can really use us as a sounding board for the issues they're having. And it's typically a 15 minute meeting. [00:12:00] I got a couple of questions I ask, and the last prospect we talked to who is now a new client couple of other people with 45 minutes, and they're just listing off all the things.

Some of the stuff that they are dealing with, I'm just like, oh my goodness. Like I I'm sorry, like someone. Set you up this way technologically and thought it was okay, and it's not like you've been dealt a bad hand on purpose. 

Carrie: I know that we talked a little bit about this particular prospect, this brand new client that you just onboarded.

, there was some special things about it. You wanna tell us a little bit more? 

Ryan: Sure. So this client we did find a lot of stuff going on with their business and I say stuff, but there, there's more to it than that. We found inefficiencies. We found wasted time and we're able to and they're a very they're an apple using company.

They're very creative. So a lot of the technology that they use is different than traditional Windows office clients because they're not just doing Excel documents, PDFs, word outlook, they're doing like the billboards that are on the interstate or, and gigantic signs [00:13:00] and doing some creative artwork.

So the technology solution was not appropriate for them. And we were able to come through and say, look, this is what you're wasting in payroll. By having them spend 15 to 20 to 30 minutes a day wasting, trying frustrated with their technology. And that's a legit number. That number was almost a hundred thousand dollars.

And that's huge. That's per year. So what we did was, as. Our traditional business model didn't make sense. We had to up our game because they were at a price point where the money didn't matter as much as the value of what the service we were offering was. So if we could show them how to save that money, Become more productive, have their employees be happier, have all their stuff work, have people be able to work from home without having an aneurysm because something didn't work.

Or having to, use Slack to send files back and forth off the server. Like these are things that were worth huge amounts of money to them and they, it was worth it for [00:14:00] them to pay it. So we realized very quickly that our, the same. We couldn't do the same level of service for this client because they were vastly bigger and the numbers were bigger.

So we upped our game and we upped our mindset and we upped our price and everybody is happy. And it actually is making us a better business because of it. Because they're like, oh my goodness, like we can do this at a higher level. Let's keep doing it. 

Carrie: So my, if I understood correctly, you are doing a paid sales discovery as opposed to a complimentary sales discovery.

Is that what I heard? 

Ryan: That is what you heard, and that was the best 

Carrie: decision. So people are paying you to sell to them, and I can't get enough of. 

Ryan: Yes. To be fair, we do give them documentation on what we find. So like even if they don't go with us, here's your stuff, Gary. Here's your documentation.

Here's all the problems we found. If you don't want to go with us, here you go. I wish you the best luck. You just created 

Carrie: a honey do nightmare for their current provider, which I like. 

Ryan: Yes. I've had one client not [00:15:00] engage with us after that. And to be fair, I'm not dis okay with that everyone else.

So 

Carrie: you're giving upstream from a Yep. From a value presentation standpoint, you're signing larger clients and those clients are paying you more. That sounds like the dream for every IT company that I have ever worked with. So Congrat. 

Ryan: Thank you. It's so much more fun because you get to do more fun stuff as you swim upstream.

Carrie: tell me a little bit about the process for getting people into paid sales discovery. What did you have to do differently to convince somebody to pay you before you had agreed to even support their environment? 

Ryan: Sure. So what we do is we have an, we actually have a sales process. So as soon as they get into they reach out in some way, shape or form, they book an initial conversation off our website.

They're automatically entered into our sales process, and we have a talk. Say, Hey Carrie, we're gonna talk for 15 minutes about your business, and we're gonna collect information about you. And okay, you know what? This sounds like we can actually, we we can really. [00:16:00] I said, here's what happens next.

He's we're gonna do a paid discovery. And it varies in price, depending upon how big or small the company is. But it's paid. And basically I just frame it like, look, you're just covering our time to do this, and here's what we're gonna do. The first thing we're gonna do is you're gonna let us into your Microsoft and your Google platforms.

We're gonna check and see what's going on there, because 99% of the time, Probably it's wasted money there. I said the other thing we're gonna do is we're gonna run a report card app on all your computer and all your technology, and it's gonna spit us back a report saying how good your technology is, what state it's in any vulnerabilities that we need to look for.

And again, it's a huge di it's a huge report. I said, and the third thing we're gonna do is we're gonna talk to your employees and find out what their issues are regarding using technology in your business and what they wish that would happen to be different in order for them to work better. I said then I'm gonna compile all that data and I'm gonna, you and I are gonna sit down and you list out all the things that we found talk about, show you where you're at, show you where you need to go and say here's what this process looks like and here's what the [00:17:00] cost is.

Carrie: Sounds  a little bit like gap selling. 

Ryan: It is not quite as formalized cuz I'm I, my a d kind of kicks in a little bit. The other thing, as we say, if you go with us, I will take that discovery fee and I'll roll it into your onboarding. 

Carrie: Oh, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah. So it's not quite gap selling, it's a Ryan improvised version of Gap selling.

That's whenever I hear future state. and current state, I think gap selling. And I know that definitely changed the way that we did our sales discoveries here. , I'm more like you. I I improvise more than I should. But Ian is by the book. Process driven. Yeah. And I don't wanna spoil the surprise for anyone, but Ian closes more deals than I do.

Yeah. So process works and the more you can stick to what you know works and the more you can improve on it, the better things will go for everyone. Exactly. And that brings us to question three. What opportunity are you planning to pursue next? That I really liked the the answer to this [00:18:00] question because I think a lot of people are afraid to talk to other people in their industry about what they're doing and how they're. doing it

And it doesn't sound like that's the case for you. So tell us a little bit about how you are getting out of your own way and "de-tech-ifying" yourself. 

Ryan: Oh my goodness. I seriously, I, if I could fire myself today, I would I want to get out of the tech side like we were talking about before. Like I want to go do the sales, the networking, run the business.

Be the face of My IT Indy, be on podcasts, be out on LinkedIn, be doing things, be out in front of public speaking, doing all the fun stuff, and, telling stories. Because I've done this for 19 years and I've been there, I've done that. I've seen it. It's just awesome stuff to get up and, talk to people about.

Why they need to use somebody like us. I'm like, you don't have to use me. I don't care. You have to use somebody. Let's, it's time for us all to grow up and let's act like adults and let's run our businesses. Like we actually want them to be there next week. I will get up and talk.

Yeah. I've gotten up and [00:19:00] talked on five minute notice Hey, you wanna talk about? Sure. I'm good. , t-shirt, jeans, like whatever. I'll come tell you, talk to you about your technology. But I really wanna get out of the technology side because I enjoy like the project management side of it, but I literally wanna sign the sale and then hand it to someone else and have them do the, all the grunt work now, because I want to grow the business and be work, work on it and not in it.

Carrie: And you mentioned that the way that you were doing that was you were looking at companies that you, that inspired you or business owners Yep. That inspired you. When you were seeking out advice from peers, how did those conversations go? Do you just call 'em up and say, Hey can you tell me how you grew your business last year?

Ryan: 

I, so our industry despite what a lot of people think, like you can be friends with your competition. Like you can actually go out to lunch with them and talk to them, because ultimately there's more than enough business for everybody to have and be successful. So we have made contact with some of the larger MSPs around Indianapolis, and I've [00:20:00] met with them at Dattocon.

I've talked to them at conferences, like we're all friendly. And I'll, I just called 'em up and say, you know what? We haven't had lunch in a long time. Can I, I'll buy you lunch if I can, pick your brain for a little bit. And because of the prior relationship I have with them, yeah, they're like, oh yeah, I'll go have lunch with you because we're friends first.

And then, they're. An 80 person Ms. P. Well, clearly a four person Ms. P can learn a lot from an 80 person Ms. P and ironically, the 80% MSP can learn a lot from a four person MSP because we're a lot more flexible and nimble on things, and sometimes bureaucracy happens. So it's a great learning experience for both sides because, I'm not afraid to talk.

So I will gladly share my knowledge with anybody who wants to sit there and listen to it. And at the same time, if you share yours with me, I'm gonna take it and go, okay, this is how they got from point A to point B. That's right about where I'm at. Let's see if we can make this happen the same way they did.

Or, I don't really like how that happened. They said, don't do that. So let's figure out a better way to do it. It's, 

Carrie: Once you're not the smartest person [00:21:00] in the room anymore, everything starts to get infinitely easier for you. 

Ryan: Yes, I am. I tell my wife, I'm like, every time you're in the room, I'm not the smartest person here.

Carrie: 

that sounds like self-preservation and a good way to navigate marriage. 
Yes. Ian, take note. 

I want to thank you for joining us today, Ryan. I know I learned a lot listening to you today, and I know that our listeners did as well. Just gonna do a quick little recap. The biggest challenge that Ryan and his team are working on solving right now is growth.

And the recent achievement that Ryan accomplished was trademarking something called the technology therapy session, which is a paid discovery process and it's leading to better clients of higher value and larger clients. And finally, what are we pursuing next? While we're working with our peers to avoid the problems that they've come into contact with and hopefully scale faster by eliminating some of the things that we can avoid when we learn from the mistakes of others.

Ryan, if someone wants to get ahold of you today, you wanna share your website address and an email address where if somebody wanted great IT support in Indianapolis, they could reach out to. 

Ryan: Sure. Our website is www.myitindy.com and also hit me up on LinkedIn. I'm on LinkedIn a lot.

I'm being social and loved communicating with people. All right 

Carrie: thank you. And I am Carrie Richardson. I am the host, one of the hosts of the WIN Podcast. Until next time, take it easy.