August 12, 2025 • 50 mins
In this episode of IAMCP Profiles in Partnership, hosts Anthony Carrano and Rudy Rodriguez have an in-depth conversation with Paymon Jelvani and Dominick Zappia, managing partners at Admiral Consulting Group—a Microsoft Tier 1 Cloud Solution Provider with deep roots in ERP, CRM, and customer-focused delivery.
They discuss their backgrounds, the philosophy behind founding Admiral, and the company’s customer-centric approach. They explore the unique dynamics of international partnerships, especially those bridging European and US markets, and emphasize the importance of agility, open communication, and mutual respect.
The discussion delves into the practicalities of selecting partners, overcoming cultural and language barriers, and the value of customer advocacy. The Admiral team shares real-life examples of successful collaborations and their strategies for building long-term, trust-based relationships. The conversation concludes with actionable advice for companies aspiring to excel in international collaborations and partnership-driven growth.
- Partnerships That Feel Like Teamwork: At Admiral, partnerships aren’t transactional—they’re fully integrated into how the company delivers value. By embedding partners into internal processes, they ensure seamless collaboration and a unified front for the client. This mindset removes friction, improves outcomes, and scales trust across teams.
- Built for Global Business: With many clients operating across Europe and the U.S., Admiral has refined its ability to manage cross-border dynamics. From timezone alignment to cultural sensitivity, they stay flexible and communicative—offering global clients a consistent, high-touch experience no matter where they are.
- Advocacy Drives Retention: Customer advocacy is central to Admiral’s business. Their team is trained to be proactive, honest, and responsive—even when that means admitting they don’t have all the answers. This transparency builds trust with both clients and partners, leading to longer, stronger relationships.
- Focused Growth Through Collaboration: Admiral doesn’t try to do everything. Instead, they strategically partner with specialists to expand their capabilities while staying focused on what they do best. Clients get deeper expertise, and partners gain a reliable, collaborative ally.
Whether you’re navigating global expansion, strengthening your Microsoft partner network, or building a collaboration-first strategy, this episode offers real-world insights, proven approaches, and practical inspiration from leaders who’ve scaled through partnership.
Listener Links / Resources
Admiral Consulting Group
Company website: Admiral USA | Website
Company LinkedIn: Admiral Consulting | LinkedIn|
Dominick Zappia: Dominick Zappia | LinkedIn
IAMCP: IAMCP | Website
Dunamis Marketing: Dunamis Marketing | Website
Dunamias Marketing LinkedIn: Dunamis Marketing | LinkedIn
Anthony Carrano: Anthony Carrano | LinkedIn
Rudy Rodriquez: Rudy Rodriguez | LinkedIn
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Anthony Carrano (00:06):
Welcome to the IAMCP Profiles and Partnership,
the podcast that showcases howMicrosoft partners and IAMCP
members boost their business bycollaborating with other members
and partners. I'm your co-hostAnthony Carrano, and in each
episode I'll be talking to someof the most innovative and
successful partners in theMicrosoft ecosystem. The
(00:26):
International Association ofMicrosoft Channel Partners,
otherwise known as IAMCP, is acommunity of Microsoft partners
who help each other grow andthrive. Members can find and
connect with other partnerslocally and globally and access
exclusive resources andopportunities. Whether you're
looking for new customers, newmarkets, or new solutions, IAMCP
can help you achieve your goals.
(00:48):
We'll hear their stories, learnfrom their experiences, and
discover the best practices andstrategies they use to increase
customer loyalty and growrevenues. Whether you're a new
partner or an established one,you'll find valuable insights
and inspiration in this podcast.We hope you enjoy this podcast
and find it useful andinspiring. If you do, please
subscribe, rate, and review uson your favorite podcast
(01:10):
platform. And don't forget tofollow us on social media and
connect with us on our website,www.profilesandpartnership.com,
where you can find moreinformation, resources, and
opportunities to partner forsuccess. Thank you for
listening. Now let's get startedwith today's episode.
But before we dive into ourinterview, let me ask you. How
(01:31):
do you deal with cultural andlanguage differences in managing
your international partnerships?And how are you investing in not
only the relationship, but theskills and resources your
partners and employees need tobe successful?
And what role does customeradvocacy play in your business
model and growth strategy? Wedive into these questions and
(01:51):
more as our guests discuss howbeing a Microsoft partner has
contributed to building a robustpartner relationships
internationally and shareexamples of successful
collaborations that have drivensignificant achievements. Are
you ready to join us on thisjourney? Then stay tuned because
we have a great show for youtoday. Our guests are Paymon Je
and Dominick Zappia, themanaging partners at Admiral
(02:15):
Consulting Group, a tier one CSPspecializing in Dynamics 365,
Business Central, and the PowerPlatform. Let's hear what they
have to say.
Well, welcome Dominick andPaymon to the podcast today.
Really appreciate you joiningus.
Dominick Zappia (02:30):
Oh, thanks for having us, Anthony.
Paymon Jelvani (02:32):
Thank you. Thank you, Anthony.
Anthony Carrano (02:34):
Excellent. Why don't we start off and one of
you can go like, just tell us alittle bit about yourself and
your role in the company.
Paymon Jelvani (02:41):
If you don't mind, Dominick, I'll jump in.
Dominick Zappia (02:43):
Sure.
Paymon Jelvani (02:44):
So, I'm a co founder of Admiral, Started the
company in 2002, and I'm comingfrom the accounting background.
I'm a retired CPA. I was acontroller before I started the
consulting and has been inconsulting world, for about,
twenty six years now.
And, the the part that isreally, you know and and I'm
(03:07):
leading the operating,operational side of the company.
And, what really, drives mypassion, is a human impact of
our work. And I truly believethat, whatever that we do for
our clients, ultimately has toenable them and improves their
(03:29):
efficiencies and help the staffand teams that they have, so
they can do their job better ina smarter and faster. That's
really the human factor is verycore to me regardless of the
technology.
Anthony Carrano (03:44):
Now I know, know, in addition to cofounding
the company, I hear you you runNew Jersey. Is that right?
Paymon Jelvani (03:54):
Yeah. No. No. No. That's no. I am I'm involved
with the local municipality. I'mcurrently deputy mayor in the
town that I live, and, I've beenin you know, doing a lot of
community services. You know, Iwas on the board of it for ten
years, board president, been alot of on local boards, and, I
(04:16):
like I like serving. To me, it'sa it's it's a passion that I
have regardless of what it is. Ilike to serve people. And that's
I think that's in my DNA, and Ienjoy it. And but some days, no.
Some days, I said, what what theheck am I doing? But for the
most part, it's very enjoyable.
Anthony Carrano (04:37):
Oh, that's fantastic. That's fantastic.
Dominick, how about yourself?
Dominick Zappia (04:41):
Yeah. So I've been with Admiral for, gosh,
about twenty five years. Twentyyears now. I'm one of the
partners here with Paymon. I'mresponsible for sales and
marketing in the organization.
I've been in sales literallysince the day I walked out of
college over forty years ago,but I got into the technology
(05:03):
space in the late nineties. AndI've actually known Paymon for
probably close to twenty five,thirty years now. And, know, as
I said, I'm handling the salesand marketing on the team here
and really love working withclients, helping them find
improvement to their existingprocesses and making them more
(05:24):
efficient as Peyman had said. Sothat's a little bit about about
me.
Anthony Carrano (05:29):
Now, I know we were talking here before the
start of the interview. I guessyou were a big radio guy there
in New York,
Dominick Zappia (05:36):
Well, wouldn't say I was a big radio guy. I did
have an internship at a rockstation in
Anthony Carrano (05:42):
Okay.
Dominick Zappia (05:43):
Manhattan, WPLJ. Got to meet some know,
song folks who would come intothe studio for interviews and
things like that. But I was onmy local college radio station,
but nothing too exciting. It wasbasically announcing events
happening around the campus and,sports and discourse and things
(06:05):
of that nature. But I did have adream of being a disc jockey,
but it never really panned out.
Anthony Carrano (06:09):
Okay. Okay. Well, maybe we'll have to
explore that a little bitafterward.
Dominick Zappia (06:13):
Yeah. I can start looking into that.
Anthony Carrano (06:18):
That's great. Now, Paymon, you mentioned as
being as a, you know, help foundAdmiral. What why did you start
the company?
Paymon Jelvani (06:26):
It was the the birth of that was the
philosophy. I mean, I think thatwas if I sit back and look why
we did it, there is a way of,back in the days when we were
calling ourselves consultant.You know? I I didn't like that
the company that I was in witheverything was about clients
(06:50):
were always about numbers, youknow, who build more, who who
generated more, and they didn'treally care about what we do for
the clients. And that was afundamental philosophy change
that I had, and and I I had tosegregate myself.
So I I left and we started thisand from the foundation because
(07:13):
and the reason for that,actually, I was a client. I was
when I was a controller, I wasusing the company that end up
working for as a consultant, andI remember that we were just you
know, it was a number, notnecessarily. We're getting in
build, and that philosophy kindalike that mindset settled with
(07:33):
me that when we why do we dowhat we do and what is the
bottom line? I mean, obviously,we are in the business of making
money like anybody else. But isthat it?
Or there's there's somethingelse? And I I truly believe that
at Admiral, every individualthat, we have, all the team
(07:55):
players and members, they have acommon theme, and that is
serving the client. Clientalways is a first. It's we we
see us like a in a health care,it's like a nurse, you know,
that the all they do with, youknow, we deal with a lot of
things that we don't like it. Wedon't, you know, agree with it,
(08:15):
but ultimately comes down to isthat going to benefit the
client?
Is that going to is that goingto serve them? What do we do to
help them become better? Whattools we're gonna provide to
them? And regardless of thetechnology, I mean, technology
moves. You know, what we talkabout technology today, next
year is gonna be obsolete.
But the human relationshipdoesn't get obsolete. When you
(08:38):
build a partnership with theclient and they become their
adviser, it is a long, longrelationship. Doesn't matter
what happens. And we haveclients that when my wife was
pregnant twenty two years ago,they were my clients back then.
(08:59):
We did it and we became kind oflike a family. And they're still
they're still our client. And sothat's really what why we
started Admiral.
Anthony Carrano (09:09):
That's fantastic. Now tell us a little
bit about Admiral's areas ofspecialization despite as it
pertains especially to like theMicrosoft technologies.
Dominick Zappia (09:20):
Yeah. So, we're a Microsoft cloud tier one
solution provider. I mean, wespecialize in everything
Microsoft. Our mainstay reallyis the business applications,
which would include the Dynamics365 Business Central. We also
have legacy clients using olderversions of Microsoft ERP
(09:40):
products such as Dynamics SL andDynamics GP, which those
products are slowly retiring andpeople are beginning to migrate
to Dynamics 365 BusinessCentral.
We also support the MicrosoftDynamics customer service and
sales, which was formerly theirCRM product, which is now have
morphed into field service,professional services,
(10:03):
marketing. So we have a prettygood stay with with that
solution. We also do providecloud hosting for our clients on
the Azure platform. We also arevery do a lot of work on the
power on the power platform fromfrom the workflow and power
apps. And as well as have an MSPpractice as well, providing
(10:24):
managed services to many of ourexisting clients, as well as
some clients who might not beusing one of the Microsoft ERP
products, but still use ourmanaged services.
Anthony Carrano (10:35):
That's excellent. Thank you.
Rudy Rodriguez (10:37):
Okay. So gentlemen, interesting start to
the company. Let's get into theshowcase we're gonna talk about
today. Can you tell us a littlebit about the client? You don't
have to give us a name. But canyou share the size, the
industry, the technology thatwas implemented and what
challenges they were facing?
Dominick Zappia (10:57):
Yeah, so we're working with a partner that was
based in Milan, Italy. What howthis all came about is we
there's a lot of internationaldeals that we work with partners
in in Europe. And our mostrecent one was a client here in
(11:18):
in New York City, an apparelcompany who sold sportswear,
sports equipment, very focusedon the boxing industry and I
guess it's like MMA fighting, Ithink is what it's called. And,
they were looking to get intothe US market. And they're a
(11:39):
very large company in Italy andthroughout Europe.
And, there was a partner that wehave worked with in the past,
again, based in Milan, Italy,who reached out to us and said,
hey, we have a company here inItaly who's looking to expand
into The US market and they'redeploying Business Central here
in Italy and we'd like to deployit there in The US but need a
local partner to help with thatimplementation. And that's
(12:06):
really where it started. We hadworked with this company on
numerous occasions, many otherdeals. The first one being
Maserati back, gosh, had to be,I I don't know, years ago. But
we've built a relationship withthis company and anytime they
have a company Italy or inEurope that is looking to expand
into The US market, they reachout to us and we work with them
(12:28):
in conjunction to implementBusiness Central.
Rudy Rodriguez (12:31):
Very cool. Any specific functions that that
company does? I mean, besidesBusiness Central?
Dominick Zappia (12:38):
Yeah, they are mainly selling via e commerce
today in The US. But as theycontinue to grow in The US,
they're going to begin todistribute into retail stores,
sports stores, I guess specialtystores that you know, serve that
(13:00):
industry, if you will, the thesports, you know, sportswear,
things like that. And, you know,so we're we're really just
starting it up here in in TheUS. We really just finished up
localizing everything for themhere from a financial
perspective because financialsare much different here in The
US than they are in Europe withregard to localization, things
of that nature, which paymentcould expand on. But eventually,
(13:24):
as they continue to grow, we'regoing to have you know, set up
their operations with regards towarehouse management and, know,
the whole supply chain.
Rudy Rodriguez (13:32):
Since you work with business applications, you
know, I know that there's aBusiness Central has very
specific functions, there's alot of ISVs that provide
products that integrate withBusiness Central. What's your
criteria for selecting a partneras a participant in any of the
solutions that you're trying toprovide to your customers?
Paymon Jelvani (13:54):
So that's a very good question. And I think the
main criteria for us is havingan alignment with our philosophy
of the way that we treat andserving our clients. And we find
some ISVs are very they havevery similar mindset, and it
(14:16):
becomes a natural fit. Besidesthe tools that they have,
obviously, the first the firstinitiation of reaching out to
ISVs is a need for a particulargap filling for lack of the
functionalities in BusinessCentral. That's a beginning of
it.
But then as we know that in themarket, there are few few ISVs
(14:40):
doing pretty much the samefunctionality. And but the
criteria is really, you know,after the implementation is
done, if anything happens, arethey gonna pick up and answer
the call that we have or theclients have? And are they gonna
be there for for when the thingsare not going smoothly? And we
(15:01):
cherry pick those ISVs andpartners. And any of them that
we have established arelationship, it's, as Dominick
mentioned, that these areusually go for decade, you know,
decades, and it it becomes anatural relationship among us.
Anthony Carrano (15:21):
Yes. So, I would say there's- I really
find it fascinating that you'reworking with an international
company. Do you guys do a lot ofbusiness with international
partners?
Dominick Zappia (15:31):
We do actually. Actually, we do quite a bit with
partners throughout Europe. Youknow, right now we're working on
three deals. Want one of with aItalian partner, as I mentioned,
and also
Anthony Carrano (15:47):
Those are the best, right, Dominick?
Yeah, fellow Paisano
Dominick Zappia (15:49):
Of course. Of course.
Anthony Carrano (15:50):
I mean, come on, you know.
Dominick Zappia (15:54):
And we actually just finished up a deal with a
Danish company that is thepartners is a Danish based
company and the client is herein New York City and in the
logistics industry. And then wealso were doing another one with
the Denmark company that is alsoapparel that we finished up
about a year ago. So it's yeah,we've done a number of them and
(16:17):
I think the reason is we'repretty easy to work with. You
know, here at Admiral, you know,we're not layers and layers of
bureaucracy. So when people callus, we can be pretty agile and
make a decision pretty quickly.
You know, it's not 48 layers ofI have to check with so and so.
So, you know, I think, I thinkthey like that. You know, you
(16:38):
could, you could still call ushere and, know, the chances of
me picking up the phone arepretty good. Whether that's
good, bad or indifferent, I justfeel it's important to give the
client, you know, to work with apartner who really has your
same, it's the word I'm lookingfor, want to be, you know, their
main focus is making sure theclient is satisfied and make
(17:00):
sure the client is properlytreated. And that's really what
we want to do.
So we need to align on that end.Sometimes some of these
partners, you know, may think alittle differently than us and
it's not a good fit.
Anthony Carrano (17:11):
So how did you because it sounds like you guys
do a lot of business withinternational partners who are
looking for, you know, an experthere in The States, right, to
work with, their US operations.How did you get into that? Was
it strategic or was it byaccident?
Dominick Zappia (17:29):
No, it wasn't at all actually. Typically they
find us, and I think once theyfind us, they realize that we
are again, easy to work with andable to pretty quickly move and
assist them again without havingto go through a lot of
(17:52):
bureaucracy. And then whathappens is, one turns into two
and turns into three. Most ofthese European companies, they
have some US presence of somesort and they find us and then
it just becomes repeat business.I think with this Italian
company, it's probably like ourfourth or fifth deal. Sometimes
(18:13):
one partner will refer anotherpartner as well, but they just
reach out to us and you know,don't take four days to get back
to them and things work.
Anthony Carrano (18:23):
Now, what about, I think this, I don't
know why I find that reallyjust, you know, fascinating. I
think maybe part of it's justbecause, you know, a lot of,
like, the folks we talk with,they, you know, mainly are doing
a lot of, you know, partner topartner, like, collaborations,
you know, with fellow, like, USbased companies. We might get
we've done some interviews wheremaybe they've, like, know,
(18:44):
fellow even European, you know,companies kinda working
together. But this is this isunique in that it's, you know,
European partner here with TheUS for, you know, a lot of
business. What are what are someof the cultural challenges that
you faced in in kind of or haveyou faced in working with your
(19:05):
international partners?
Paymon Jelvani (19:07):
Yeah, I think the I would say that the most
challenging part is the languagebarrier because certain things,
like in this particular examplethat Dominick was, sharing that,
you know, when we talk aboutsales tax, for example, in US or
1099 and for them, besides thetechnical side of it, there were
(19:32):
a lot of language barriers tolike when we were talking about
it, they couldn't understand thewhat I'm saying or what the
client is saying, The U.S.-based client users were
saying because of theirlanguage. But then that was the
initial port. After that, thenit pretty much became smooth. So
(19:54):
I think that's one of thechallenges.
The other challenge is could bepotentially time difference,
because by the time that, wekind of like get, you know, we
are in East Coast. So by thetime that we get into, doing
work is kind of like toward theend of their day and something
(20:14):
might happen at 03:00 our timethat then we're not going to get
any response back until if weneed something until the next
day. But that's I would say inthe grand scheme of those are
very minor aspect. And justgoing back, it's not always
partners in Europe coming to us.We also have clients that they
(20:40):
their headquarters in US andthey have subsidiaries in
Europe. And they thosesubsidiaries want to have local
presence, put on the groundlocal. And we do partnership
with it's a reciprocal of whatwe receive from partners. We
also give those partners thoseopportunities to get involved
(21:02):
and being our trusted advisor,if you will, for those
subsidiaries and staff in thoseareas.
Dominick Zappia (21:11):
That's a good point because right now to
Paymon's point, we're working adeal. We have a client here in
Connecticut that has anoperation in Ireland. And we
actually engage with a Dynamicspartner in Ireland to assist
them locally because sometimes,you know, they need local
support. They need someoneon-site. So, it does go, you
(21:34):
know, it does go back and forth.
Anthony Carrano (21:36):
So with doing a lot of, like, looking at those
type of situations, so you havea, you know, what are some
things that you look for infinding a partner that can
provide maybe some of that localsupport for some of your
contacts?
Dominick Zappia (21:50):
I think, you know, again, think it's about
the service, the quality ofservice, the responsiveness, and
the fact that they always havethe client's best interest in
mind. I mean, listen, we're allin this to make a few bucks, but
at the end of the day, if theclient's not happy, then it's
going be an issue and you're notgoing to get paid, you're not
going to make any money. So, youknow, it's being in alignment
(22:13):
with that partner, you'reknowing that they're open
minded, flexible, and they'reagile. So, you know, you kind of
hit it off on the first call,you know, know whether or not
it's going to work really withinfive minutes of the first call,
in my opinion anyway.
Paymon Jelvani (22:33):
It becomes a mutual relationship and
understanding that if andknowing that if if the if the
partner that we're going to dopartnership with, if they're
going to be successful, we're tobe successful. Their their
success is going to reflect us.And if we fail, our failure
(22:55):
would reflect them. So it's ait's a very mutual relationship
that we we both, you know, aspartners, we both have same
goal. And if if the goal getsaligned, as Dominick mentioned,
you know, having the the respectfor the clients need and having
(23:17):
the quality, we are very intothe quality.
If we can achieve that goalamong the partners, the client
is gonna be successful andeverybody's gonna be happy at
the end. And that doesn't meanthat things are always gonna be
perfect. Issues happen. Everyimplementation has its own
(23:40):
challenges and ups and downs,but it's a end result that we
need to achieve.
Anthony Carrano (23:47):
Mhmm. I do have I I would like to ask, a
piggyback question off a astatement that was made about
you could usually tell withinthe first five minutes. What are
some things and I'm askingespecially for, like, our
listeners, you know, to the youknow, to this podcast, like, to
help them if the you know, ifit's something that they wanna
embark on. What are some of thethings that you're listening for
(24:07):
in that first five minutes thatsays, okay, yeah, yay or nay?
Dominick Zappia (24:11):
Yeah. I think if the conversation is more
dictatorial where they'retelling you exactly what they're
going to do and we as a companydon't really have any say in the
matter, then you're probably notgoing to want to work with them.
I mean, at the end of the day,they own the project, but if
they're not willing to listen toour recommendations or our
(24:35):
suggestions or what we thinkcould benefit the client because
we are based here in The US andknow things they might not be
aware of. If they're veryadamant about not working
together and basically we'rejust hired help, then, you know,
we know it's not going to work.Goes back and forth.
So they have to value ouropinion. They have to value our
(24:57):
recommendations. Now whetherthey take them or not is a
different story, but knowingthat they're listening and open
minded to it to me is important.Sometimes clients also, I'm of
the opinion if you bluntly screwwith me once, then it's done. So
there's not going be anotherdeal.
So you need to have the firstdeal to go successfully because
(25:20):
if it doesn't, just too manytimes you try to dot every I and
make sure it's just perfect,perfect. But sometimes, you're
not going to know until youstart working with a partner.
But typically, like I saidearlier, not to be
contradictory, in that firstfive minutes, just tell if a
person is open minded and theylisten to you and aren't just
(25:43):
talking over you, then then, youknow, either they're workable.
It's workable.
Anthony Carrano (25:48):
Mhmm.
Paymon Jelvani (25:48):
Yeah. The other thing is that, like, you could
tell that is some some companiesare very good good at, as we
call it, good daters. You know,they're very flashy. They come
very strong, you know, day one,hour one. But then you could
tell that, are they really intojust having a good presentation
(26:09):
and show, but there's no depthand quality behind that show.
And that it's I mean, we've beendoing this for, you know, too
long and just talking tosomeone, we can easily catch
that that, yes, the person thatis saying this, is that is that
an honest statement or it's justreading off of the PowerPoint
(26:34):
script.
Anthony Carrano (26:36):
That's excellent.
Dominick Zappia (26:37):
Yeah, because today you find it's more, it
might be a generational thingtoo, but it's more today,
sometimes when you're talking topeople, they can't give you an
answer. They have to go tosomebody else to go to somebody
else to go to somebody else.Sometimes and a client just
likes to talk to somebody whojust can give them the answer
when they're on the phone withthem. You're not going to know
(26:58):
everything, but it's again,being repetitive, it's being
redundant. It's not the type ofthing where I got to check with
48 people to give you an answer.
I can tell you within fiveseconds, yes or no. Maybe
because I'm one of the partnersin the company, but on the other
hand, we allow our consultants,Paymon could speak to it, to
make decisions as well. I mean,not necessarily monetary
(27:21):
decisions about the company, butclient based decisions based on
what they think is best for theclient.
Anthony Carrano: Rudy, if I may,I wanna, I know (27:30):
undefined
you've got a couple of questionshere, but I'd like to ask a
follow-up then on that isbecause so it's not so you've
decentralized. So the decisionmaking, you basically sense you
give your consultants a lot oflatitude with the decision
making. How have you guys soit's gonna kinda be a multipart
words like is, like, put in,like, but also culture that
(27:56):
enables that to where you can bea relatively flat org that
allows so in the name ofproviding speed and quality and
responsiveness to people'sneeds. Maybe unpack that a
little bit.
Paymon Jelvani (28:09):
Yeah. I mean, if I may jump in. So we we are
considered a flat organizationfor good and bad, and it is part
of the culture. It's not ascript of methodology per se,
but it is it is part of theculture that, first of all, the
team that we have are very, verysolid and expert in the not only
(28:34):
from the technology standpoint,but also from industry
standpoint. So when they areinteracting with the client and
end user, for example, there's adecision about or or
conversation about warehousemanagement, and we we have a
consultant that, which I don'tlike the word of consultant, but
let's just say for the lack of,you know, one of our,
(28:56):
consultants is interacting withthat end end user.
They can actually share a adepth of experience and
expertise. So we allow them todo that because they are expert.
If they are interacting with aclient, they don't need to get
permission from Dominick orPaymon, should they say this,
(29:19):
should they say that. I mean,obviously, from the contractual
agreements or monetary things,they know their level of
boundaries, but they know that.I mean, we have first of all,
majority of our employees arevery seasoned senior.
They've been with the companysome from the beginning of the
inception of the company. Sothey know our mindset, and we
(29:44):
hire those that actually followthe same, what I call it, our
DNA. They are in the same DNAthat we believe and we trust. We
trust them. And and everybodymakes mistake, truly believe
that, but we help them.
I mentor our staff a lot, one onone mentorship with them. And
(30:07):
they learned that, when they sitin the meeting and we conduct a
meeting and I'm on it, theylearned that how I present the
company or the situation or howyou're going to handle the
situation. So it is being partof the culture of the company.
There's no there's no SOP orinstruction that you're going to
(30:27):
do this, you're going to dothat. And that's that that's
what made us being successful.
I just disclose the key to oursuccess, I guess. But so that
that is really the key.
Anthony Carrano (30:41):
Well, Paymon, don't worry about that because
there's a lot of recipes outthere, but it still takes a chef
to put the meal together. Soyou'll be okay. You'll be
alright. Rudy, I know you'vegot, some, some questions.
Rudy Rodriguez (30:55):
Yeah, I've been I've been listening carefully.
And so one of the things thatthat I noticed in this
conversation was, you know, inbuilding partnerships, those can
be challenging at time andespecially working with,
international organizations. Butit sounds like whether you've
directly or indirectly havethought of rules of engagement,
(31:17):
as to how you engage partnersand how you work with them. So
Dominick, you said, you canusually tell in five minutes. Do
you coach your team along thoserules of engagement, you know,
as to how to work with not onlywork with customers as well as
as partners? Becauseoperationally, those can, you
know, you deal with a productthat is an integral part of a
(31:40):
company's success in ERP. And sothose rules of engagement become
very important. Can you talk alittle bit about, you know, how
you deal with some of thoseissues?
Dominick Zappia (31:48):
With so, Rudy, just so I'm understanding your
question. So so with regards howwe work with our client
themselves?
Rudy Rodriguez (31:55):
Yeah with your clients, as well as your
partners, because there's,there's, you're engaging at two
different levels at the customerlevel, as well as the partner
level. And operationally, thosebecome very important as to, you
know, as how do you bring thattogether? So how do you, you
know, do you coach your teamalong that as to how to deal
with the partner as well as yourclients and what what those
(32:17):
engagement principles are?
Paymon Jelvani (32:20):
Yeah. I think the one of one of the things
that we do, we take the advocacyfor our clients. So when you
when you have that mindset thatyou're advocating for a client
and you're dealing with the ISVthat we built a partnership
with, it's we we kind of likeshortcut the relationship.
(32:42):
Instead of having clientsworking with us and working with
ISV, we work with ISV partnerfor the client. And the that
relationship, it becomes verysmooth right at the beginning.
We get tend to get them engagedin the early stage of the
(33:03):
process. So our staff know that.They don't assume or guess that
such such processes would bewould be part of that solution.
For example, we it's part of thepartnership. When we when we
(33:24):
build the partnership with ISVs,if they need help, they reach
out to you to to us immediately.
If we need help, we reach out tothem immediately and we get them
engaged in that process. And Ithink the since we've doing
that, we've done this so manytimes and we have a lot of
partners that we do partnershipwith. You know, our staff are
are they kind of likeautomatically they they learn
(33:47):
that. Now, if you hire a newstaff, that's a different
conversation. We let them toshadow that and, you know, just
kind of like walk with them,hand hold their hands and teach
them how to interact with thepartner because as you said,
it's different.
You're dealing with someone whois paying your bill as a
(34:08):
customer, as a client, and thenyou have someone that is
actually interacting with you toserve that client. So it's a
different relationship, and wedon't see them as a outsider. I
think the best way to say thatthe partners to us are not
outsiders. Now there aredifferent level of partners that
we do have, you know, largerorganizations might be
(34:29):
different, but, you know, mostof the partners that we deal
with, they become kind of likepart of the same. They get
infused into our processes aswell and work very nicely.
And we do actually have aparticular one of our team
members is dedicated to doadvocacy for clients, which that
(34:50):
kind of like allows us to bridgethat gap.
Rudy Rodriguez (34:54):
Well, you you brought up a very important term
that's dear and dear to my heartthan having run a couple of
companies before. Customeradvocacy. That's a hard thing to
teach sometimes, because whenyou're a customer advocate, that
leads to more customersatisfaction, and that helps you
grow your business. So let'stalk a little bit about, you
(35:16):
know, in your partneringexperience, you know, in all
your engagements that you'vedone, how you've worked to to
grow that customer satisfaction,which can ultimately lead to
increasing your revenue as well.Because customers come back and
you talked about customersstaying with you and employees
staying with you for the lengthof your company, and that's
(35:37):
that's, very important.
Can you talk a little bit about,you know, what you've done in
that, in that realm, you know,in dealing with partners to help
you grow your engagements?
Dominick Zappia (35:48):
Yeah. I mean, from my end, know, people wanna
work with people they like andrespect. So I think treating the
customer in a respectful way,listening to the customer, you
know, a lot of time, from myexperience, you know,
implementers don't really put alot of weight on what the
customer says. They may notvalue what they're saying, which
(36:09):
to me is not correct. Even ifthe customer is wrong or you
don't believe what they'resaying is correct, you still
want to listen to them.
You want to show them respectof, of, hey, I value what you're
what you're saying, but have youthought about looking at it in
this way or that way? So Ithink, you know, we we take a
lot of rescues over every yearbecause a lot of other we find
(36:33):
at least anyway, some of theother partners just are not
they're they're just not openminded and listening to what the
what the client has to say. Theythink they're always right. And
even if they are right, youdon't want it to come out that
way that's, you know, making thecustomer feel less that's saying
what you were saying was, youknow, not was completely
incorrect and or wrong. So, youknow, again, just getting back,
(36:55):
you know, people wanna work withpeople they like.
If if if you're working withsomeone who you just just know
is not the the right person, thethe relationship is not gonna,
you know, it's not gonna grow.
Paymon Jelvani (37:07):
Yeah. I think, Rudy, the other the other
element to that is which we areit's one of our key recipes or
core values is honesty. Ourstaff know that as well that we
are human. We make mistake. Wedon't know everything.
There's a lot of things that,you know, especially with, like,
(37:28):
you know, focusing on theapplication, particular
application, the updates happen,you know, new technology gets
introduced. We don't knoweverything of everything every
day. So but if we are honestabout it and if the client ask
and we are not trying to fake itthat we know what we're talking
about while we don't know, Ifound that so many times that in
(37:50):
the early stage of my when Istarted in consulting, I was
honest about it. I told theclient, I don't know this. And
believe it or not, I gained morerespect because they felt the
honesty.
And I found it for them. I I'llbe did a follow-up and find it.
And I think the and the honestygoes both ways between partners,
(38:12):
you know, we need to be honestwith each other. We need to
inform the partner the casesthat might be problematic during
the engagement with theparticular client. So they are
aware of that, being honestabout each other.
I think that is really anotherkey elements. And as long as we
(38:34):
believe, in fact, that we're notrobots, we are human, dealing
with human, as Dominickmentioned, and and just have
that always behind our mind thatwe are two two individuals are
interacting with each other andjust be honest and don't don't
make things up. Don't fake itbecause that doesn't last long.
Rudy Rodriguez (38:56):
No. You know, sincerity in business is in
communication is so important.And you've brought up the under
trying to understand, you know,a lot of times there's
breakdowns in communications andtrying to understand what a
customer is telling you. That'svery, very important. And
whether it's a customer or apartner, it's very important in
(39:17):
building that.
So in this has been a very goodconversation, gentlemen. In
closing, what advice would yougive companies like yours
regarding partnering and how tobe more successful in
partnering?
Dominick Zappia (39:31):
I have found that a lot of people who come to
us may have gone to some maybethey went to somebody before to
partner with and the other folkswere, Hey, listen, we don't do
that. We don't partner withother folks or it's just not
something we do. And it's notsomething we did until the first
one. And once we realized howsuccessful it was, we said, Oh,
(39:51):
let's keep doing this. So Ithink it's not being closed
minded, being open minded is keyto success.
You know, there's that justagain, just my motto is, you
know, be open minded. You know,if someone calls you out of the
blue and says, hey, you know,I'm thinking about this. Would
(40:11):
you be interested in partnering?Or I have a customer, you know,
would you be interested in doingthis? At the end, you might not
do it, but to me, five minutesof your time is always is worth
it to to listen to what someonehas to say unless it's, you
know, something ridiculous, butbut that's just my mindset on it
anyway.
Yeah.
Paymon Jelvani (40:28):
I think from my, really, very good point, it is
hard when you grow a company,especially organically like us,
you cannot be everywhere all thetime. You cannot have everything
all the time. You rely on someother avenues that you could
either expand your footprint,your service offering or whether
(40:54):
that's a geographic location ortechnology wise. And the only
way that you can do that is bypartnering and having that kind
of like a shared servicesconcept, just having that
mindset that and again, as longas you find the right partner
that fits with your ecosystem inthe organization, that is going
(41:17):
to enable and opens many doorsthat you've never had it. And if
you don't do it, to Dominick'spoint, you lose the opportunity.
And and again, it might notgonna work out. You don't know
until you try it. I mean, we arein the business as a business
entrepreneurs, you always takerisks. And you have to take a
(41:39):
risk in order to get a reward.And taking the risk of
partnering with others is notalways just, I want to make all
the money myself, and I don'twant to share that wealth is on
anybody's.
There's plenty out there foreverybody to be able to benefit
from. And I think by partnering,you would expand your footprint
(42:00):
geographically, you would expandyour relationship. And also, you
don't know what other thingsthat you can learn from other
partners. There might besomething that they do better
than we do. And by partnering,we learn about it, and we it
helps us to grow as well, too.
So it's I would say that it'sactually essential to look at
(42:23):
partnership.
Dominick Zappia (42:23):
I think that Paymon's point I mean, I think
clients have more respect foryou when you when you tell them,
hey, listen, it's not ourexpertise, but I have a partner
who who does this, and that'sall they do all day. And I think
the client has just so much morerespect for you than trying to
be a you know, for us to be thehandyman and try to do
everything. I think when youtell them, hey. Listen. I have
another partner I work withclosely who can do this other
(42:46):
piece of the project.
You know, they're very openminded to it. You know, years
ago, I don't think that was asmuch the case, but I think
today, all the the customers'most concern is that he's gonna
be taken care of and how he getsthere, he doesn't really care as
long as he gets there.
Anthony Carrano (43:04):
That's fantastic. Yeah. No. That's
great. I love it too. I justespecially, you know, we said
the customer can, you know,figure out anyway, especially
now with access to all theinformation really at their
fingertips. You know? But beingthe fact that as a human that
you can provide that definitely,I think, boost your credibility
and validity in their minds. Sothat's that's awesome. Well,
(43:26):
guys, I've really enjoyedtalking with you.
This this was a great, greatshow. So last question really
is, you know, how can peoplefind out more about you, and
what are some of the best waysto connect?
Dominick Zappia (43:38):
For myself, we do a lot of social media. We
post on LinkedIn. My contactinformation's out there.
Certainly, you can go to ourwebsite, admiralusa.com, find us
there. Other than that, I'd saylook me up in the phone book,
but I don't think there's anymore phone books.
So, you know, I think going toour website or LinkedIn would be
(43:58):
the easiest way.
Paymon Jelvani (43:59):
Yeah. I mean, I'm I'm not on LinkedIn. I used
to be very active, but afterdata breach, I end up closing my
account. And but I joined attenda lot of conferences. So whether
that is directions, build,Microsoft Ignite, you can
connect with me personally inthose conferences or just reach
(44:22):
out to us in admiral-usa.com
We welcome welcome anything. Andeven if something that we can
help you and doesn't necessarilymonetary benefit us, we we are
in this business of partneringand helping someone else that
maybe there are beginner in thismarket and they're young young,
(44:43):
not not necessarily from agestandpoint, but young from the
experience into the ecosystem,Microsoft partner ecosystem.
I've had that discussion a lot.You know, I love I love having
conversation and guide them andteach them and share with them
the the hoops that we had to gothrough, the mistakes that we
made, and, you know, if they canbe better partner, that's that's
(45:05):
fantastic, and we we love that.
Anthony Carrano (45:07):
Excellent. Excellent. And I'll be sure just
the links and things that werementioned. Those will all be in
the show notes. So once again,Dominick, Paymon, really
appreciate you.
Gentlemen, you have a great restof the day.
Dominick Zappia (45:18):
You too. Thank you so much for the opportunity.
Anthony Carrano (45:21):
Well, that was a great episode. I really
appreciate, the time that Paymonand Dominick spent with us and
just giving us a lot of theirperspective.
Rudy Rodriguez (45:30):
Absolutely. That was a very enjoyable
conversation with both thosegentlemen.
Anthony Carrano (45:34):
Yeah. I found it pretty fascinating too just
how they were talking about, youknow, a big you know, for many
years, just the amount ofbusiness that they have with
international partners who areheadquartered overseas, but who
have US operations and just thenature, you know, of the that
partnership, you know, withthose type of companies and just
(45:56):
really how the importance ofjust being accessible, but also
easy to work with and makingsure that just transcends, you
know, communications, you know,processes, you know, and
culture. And so I reallyenjoyed, you know, their
perspectives on that.
Rudy Rodriguez (46:11):
Oh, absolutely. And, you know, the the one thing
that it really picked up on itwas, you know, when we were
talking about how they partnerand Paymon brought up the term
customer advocacy, being anadvocate for your customers. And
and in this case, not only doyou have the implementation
partner that's a customer, butalso the partner that brought
(46:33):
them the business or with whomthey're partnering with with as
an ISV to implement theirproduct. They're advocates on
both sides. And one of thosethings that that you bring up is
it's also a very big culturalissue within a company or a
cultural process within theircompany.
Because when you're a customeradvocate, you have certain core
(46:53):
principles that have to cut thatcome into play in being that
customer advocate. And that'sunderstanding, honesty, and
trust. And that leads to successof your business. And I found
that very, very one, Iremembered, you know, how I used
to run my companies. And we usedto preach that all the time.
And we always used to teach ourpeople, we are all customer
(47:17):
advocates. And I was reallygrateful to hear that, that
somebody else is doing that aswell. And it's really funny
because Paymon's a formeraccountant, and being a last
accountant myself, it's a itreally brought forth because
that's one of the things that weknow when you start out as as an
accountant is that you're afiduciary for your customer. And
(47:40):
again, you're a cust you'reyou're advocating for your
customers' issues. And so Ifound that very, very helpful.
And the fact that they continueto preach that, that's how you
can run a very successfulcompany. So I did appreciate
that about them.
Anthony Carrano (47:54):
Well, that makes sense because, you know,
we're you know, we talked a lotabout where just the importance
of being both, you know, highlyresponsive, but also just, you
know, the emphasis on honesty.Right? And in order to be able
to have customer advocacy, youhave to, you know, be, you know,
very, you know, just very honestand transparent. And I think,
(48:15):
you know, to the point youbrought up about the the, you
know, the accountingbackgrounds, you know, how you
know, that you you've gotta bevery clear and and straight with
that. So I'm sure that probablyplayed into that.
Is that what you've kinda foundin your experience?
Rudy Rodriguez (48:29):
Yeah. Very much so. Very much so. I think it,
you know, when you go throughthrough that training, you know,
when you're in school and andwhen you go into business,
you've got to be you know,you're dealing with the people's
financials and or company'sfinancials, and you've got to be
very clear. You have to be youhave to understand how all that
(48:49):
gets built.
You have to be able tocommunicate it. And when people
ask you to do something you'renot supposed to, you can't do
that. You can't do that. Youhave to be very honest about it.
And that's just very, very comesthrough very clear in that
conversation.
Very, very clear. And the factthat Paymon's now a deputy
mayor, he's using those sameprinciples in in how he manages
(49:13):
his time as deputy mayor aswell. So found that very, very
helpful, very useful. So if youcould relate to it, boy, it
really rings home. It reallyrings home.
And I think they're doing bothgentlemen are doing an excellent
job in in running thatorganization.
Anthony Carrano (49:31):
Mhmm.
Rudy Rodriguez (49:32):
Everyone, I want to thank you all for joining us
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(49:53):
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Welcome to the IAMCP Profiles and Partnership,
the podcast that showcases howMicrosoft partners and IAMCP
members boost their business bycollaborating with other members
and partners. I'm your co-hostAnthony Carrano, and in each
episode I'll be talking to someof the most innovative and
successful partners in theMicrosoft ecosystem. The
(00:26):
International Association ofMicrosoft Channel Partners,
otherwise known as IAMCP, is acommunity of Microsoft partners
who help each other grow andthrive. Members can find and
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(00:48):
We'll hear their stories, learnfrom their experiences, and
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(01:10):
platform. And don't forget tofollow us on social media and
connect with us on our website,www.profilesandpartnership.com,
where you can find moreinformation, resources, and
opportunities to partner forsuccess. Thank you for
listening. Now let's get startedwith today's episode.
But before we dive into ourinterview, let me ask you. How
(01:31):
do you deal with cultural andlanguage differences in managing
your international partnerships?And how are you investing in not
only the relationship, but theskills and resources your
partners and employees need tobe successful?
And what role does customeradvocacy play in your business
model and growth strategy? Wedive into these questions and
(01:51):
more as our guests discuss howbeing a Microsoft partner has
contributed to building a robustpartner relationships
internationally and shareexamples of successful
collaborations that have drivensignificant achievements. Are
you ready to join us on thisjourney? Then stay tuned because
we have a great show for youtoday. Our guests are Paymon Je
and Dominick Zappia, themanaging partners at Admiral
(02:15):
Consulting Group, a tier one CSPspecializing in Dynamics 365,
Business Central, and the PowerPlatform. Let's hear what they
have to say.
Well, welcome Dominick andPaymon to the podcast today.
Really appreciate you joiningus.
Dominick Zappia (02:30):
Oh, thanks for having us, Anthony.
Paymon Jelvani (02:32):
Thank you. Thank you, Anthony.
Anthony Carrano (02:34):
Excellent. Why don't we start off and one of
you can go like, just tell us alittle bit about yourself and
your role in the company.
Paymon Jelvani (02:41):
If you don't mind, Dominick, I'll jump in.
Dominick Zappia (02:43):
Sure.
Paymon Jelvani (02:44):
So, I'm a co founder of Admiral, Started the
company in 2002, and I'm comingfrom the accounting background.
I'm a retired CPA. I was acontroller before I started the
consulting and has been inconsulting world, for about,
twenty six years now.
And, the the part that isreally, you know and and I'm
(03:07):
leading the operating,operational side of the company.
And, what really, drives mypassion, is a human impact of
our work. And I truly believethat, whatever that we do for
our clients, ultimately has toenable them and improves their
(03:29):
efficiencies and help the staffand teams that they have, so
they can do their job better ina smarter and faster. That's
really the human factor is verycore to me regardless of the
technology.
Anthony Carrano (03:44):
Now I know, know, in addition to cofounding
the company, I hear you you runNew Jersey. Is that right?
Paymon Jelvani (03:54):
Yeah. No. No. No. That's no. I am I'm involved
with the local municipality. I'mcurrently deputy mayor in the
town that I live, and, I've beenin you know, doing a lot of
community services. You know, Iwas on the board of it for ten
years, board president, been alot of on local boards, and, I
(04:16):
like I like serving. To me, it'sa it's it's a passion that I
have regardless of what it is. Ilike to serve people. And that's
I think that's in my DNA, and Ienjoy it. And but some days, no.
Some days, I said, what what theheck am I doing? But for the
most part, it's very enjoyable.
Anthony Carrano (04:37):
Oh, that's fantastic. That's fantastic.
Dominick, how about yourself?
Dominick Zappia (04:41):
Yeah. So I've been with Admiral for, gosh,
about twenty five years. Twentyyears now. I'm one of the
partners here with Paymon. I'mresponsible for sales and
marketing in the organization.
I've been in sales literallysince the day I walked out of
college over forty years ago,but I got into the technology
(05:03):
space in the late nineties. AndI've actually known Paymon for
probably close to twenty five,thirty years now. And, know, as
I said, I'm handling the salesand marketing on the team here
and really love working withclients, helping them find
improvement to their existingprocesses and making them more
(05:24):
efficient as Peyman had said. Sothat's a little bit about about
me.
Anthony Carrano (05:29):
Now, I know we were talking here before the
start of the interview. I guessyou were a big radio guy there
in New York,
Dominick Zappia (05:36):
Well, wouldn't say I was a big radio guy. I did
have an internship at a rockstation in
Anthony Carrano (05:42):
Okay.
Dominick Zappia (05:43):
Manhattan, WPLJ. Got to meet some know,
song folks who would come intothe studio for interviews and
things like that. But I was onmy local college radio station,
but nothing too exciting. It wasbasically announcing events
happening around the campus and,sports and discourse and things
(06:05):
of that nature. But I did have adream of being a disc jockey,
but it never really panned out.
Anthony Carrano (06:09):
Okay. Okay. Well, maybe we'll have to
explore that a little bitafterward.
Dominick Zappia (06:13):
Yeah. I can start looking into that.
Anthony Carrano (06:18):
That's great. Now, Paymon, you mentioned as
being as a, you know, help foundAdmiral. What why did you start
the company?
Paymon Jelvani (06:26):
It was the the birth of that was the
philosophy. I mean, I think thatwas if I sit back and look why
we did it, there is a way of,back in the days when we were
calling ourselves consultant.You know? I I didn't like that
the company that I was in witheverything was about clients
(06:50):
were always about numbers, youknow, who build more, who who
generated more, and they didn'treally care about what we do for
the clients. And that was afundamental philosophy change
that I had, and and I I had tosegregate myself.
So I I left and we started thisand from the foundation because
(07:13):
and the reason for that,actually, I was a client. I was
when I was a controller, I wasusing the company that end up
working for as a consultant, andI remember that we were just you
know, it was a number, notnecessarily. We're getting in
build, and that philosophy kindalike that mindset settled with
(07:33):
me that when we why do we dowhat we do and what is the
bottom line? I mean, obviously,we are in the business of making
money like anybody else. But isthat it?
Or there's there's somethingelse? And I I truly believe that
at Admiral, every individualthat, we have, all the team
(07:55):
players and members, they have acommon theme, and that is
serving the client. Clientalways is a first. It's we we
see us like a in a health care,it's like a nurse, you know,
that the all they do with, youknow, we deal with a lot of
things that we don't like it. Wedon't, you know, agree with it,
(08:15):
but ultimately comes down to isthat going to benefit the
client?
Is that going to is that goingto serve them? What do we do to
help them become better? Whattools we're gonna provide to
them? And regardless of thetechnology, I mean, technology
moves. You know, what we talkabout technology today, next
year is gonna be obsolete.
But the human relationshipdoesn't get obsolete. When you
(08:38):
build a partnership with theclient and they become their
adviser, it is a long, longrelationship. Doesn't matter
what happens. And we haveclients that when my wife was
pregnant twenty two years ago,they were my clients back then.
(08:59):
We did it and we became kind oflike a family. And they're still
they're still our client. And sothat's really what why we
started Admiral.
Anthony Carrano (09:09):
That's fantastic. Now tell us a little
bit about Admiral's areas ofspecialization despite as it
pertains especially to like theMicrosoft technologies.
Dominick Zappia (09:20):
Yeah. So, we're a Microsoft cloud tier one
solution provider. I mean, wespecialize in everything
Microsoft. Our mainstay reallyis the business applications,
which would include the Dynamics365 Business Central. We also
have legacy clients using olderversions of Microsoft ERP
(09:40):
products such as Dynamics SL andDynamics GP, which those
products are slowly retiring andpeople are beginning to migrate
to Dynamics 365 BusinessCentral.
We also support the MicrosoftDynamics customer service and
sales, which was formerly theirCRM product, which is now have
morphed into field service,professional services,
(10:03):
marketing. So we have a prettygood stay with with that
solution. We also do providecloud hosting for our clients on
the Azure platform. We also arevery do a lot of work on the
power on the power platform fromfrom the workflow and power
apps. And as well as have an MSPpractice as well, providing
(10:24):
managed services to many of ourexisting clients, as well as
some clients who might not beusing one of the Microsoft ERP
products, but still use ourmanaged services.
Anthony Carrano (10:35):
That's excellent. Thank you.
Rudy Rodriguez (10:37):
Okay. So gentlemen, interesting start to
the company. Let's get into theshowcase we're gonna talk about
today. Can you tell us a littlebit about the client? You don't
have to give us a name. But canyou share the size, the
industry, the technology thatwas implemented and what
challenges they were facing?
Dominick Zappia (10:57):
Yeah, so we're working with a partner that was
based in Milan, Italy. What howthis all came about is we
there's a lot of internationaldeals that we work with partners
in in Europe. And our mostrecent one was a client here in
(11:18):
in New York City, an apparelcompany who sold sportswear,
sports equipment, very focusedon the boxing industry and I
guess it's like MMA fighting, Ithink is what it's called. And,
they were looking to get intothe US market. And they're a
(11:39):
very large company in Italy andthroughout Europe.
And, there was a partner that wehave worked with in the past,
again, based in Milan, Italy,who reached out to us and said,
hey, we have a company here inItaly who's looking to expand
into The US market and they'redeploying Business Central here
in Italy and we'd like to deployit there in The US but need a
local partner to help with thatimplementation. And that's
(12:06):
really where it started. We hadworked with this company on
numerous occasions, many otherdeals. The first one being
Maserati back, gosh, had to be,I I don't know, years ago. But
we've built a relationship withthis company and anytime they
have a company Italy or inEurope that is looking to expand
into The US market, they reachout to us and we work with them
(12:28):
in conjunction to implementBusiness Central.
Rudy Rodriguez (12:31):
Very cool. Any specific functions that that
company does? I mean, besidesBusiness Central?
Dominick Zappia (12:38):
Yeah, they are mainly selling via e commerce
today in The US. But as theycontinue to grow in The US,
they're going to begin todistribute into retail stores,
sports stores, I guess specialtystores that you know, serve that
(13:00):
industry, if you will, the thesports, you know, sportswear,
things like that. And, you know,so we're we're really just
starting it up here in in TheUS. We really just finished up
localizing everything for themhere from a financial
perspective because financialsare much different here in The
US than they are in Europe withregard to localization, things
of that nature, which paymentcould expand on. But eventually,
(13:24):
as they continue to grow, we'regoing to have you know, set up
their operations with regards towarehouse management and, know,
the whole supply chain.
Rudy Rodriguez (13:32):
Since you work with business applications, you
know, I know that there's aBusiness Central has very
specific functions, there's alot of ISVs that provide
products that integrate withBusiness Central. What's your
criteria for selecting a partneras a participant in any of the
solutions that you're trying toprovide to your customers?
Paymon Jelvani (13:54):
So that's a very good question. And I think the
main criteria for us is havingan alignment with our philosophy
of the way that we treat andserving our clients. And we find
some ISVs are very they havevery similar mindset, and it
(14:16):
becomes a natural fit. Besidesthe tools that they have,
obviously, the first the firstinitiation of reaching out to
ISVs is a need for a particulargap filling for lack of the
functionalities in BusinessCentral. That's a beginning of
it.
But then as we know that in themarket, there are few few ISVs
(14:40):
doing pretty much the samefunctionality. And but the
criteria is really, you know,after the implementation is
done, if anything happens, arethey gonna pick up and answer
the call that we have or theclients have? And are they gonna
be there for for when the thingsare not going smoothly? And we
(15:01):
cherry pick those ISVs andpartners. And any of them that
we have established arelationship, it's, as Dominick
mentioned, that these areusually go for decade, you know,
decades, and it it becomes anatural relationship among us.
Anthony Carrano (15:21):
Yes. So, I would say there's- I really
find it fascinating that you'reworking with an international
company. Do you guys do a lot ofbusiness with international
partners?
Dominick Zappia (15:31):
We do actually. Actually, we do quite a bit with
partners throughout Europe. Youknow, right now we're working on
three deals. Want one of with aItalian partner, as I mentioned,
and also
Anthony Carrano (15:47):
Those are the best, right, Dominick?
Yeah, fellow Paisano
Dominick Zappia (15:49):
Of course. Of course.
Anthony Carrano (15:50):
I mean, come on, you know.
Dominick Zappia (15:54):
And we actually just finished up a deal with a
Danish company that is thepartners is a Danish based
company and the client is herein New York City and in the
logistics industry. And then wealso were doing another one with
the Denmark company that is alsoapparel that we finished up
about a year ago. So it's yeah,we've done a number of them and
(16:17):
I think the reason is we'repretty easy to work with. You
know, here at Admiral, you know,we're not layers and layers of
bureaucracy. So when people callus, we can be pretty agile and
make a decision pretty quickly.
You know, it's not 48 layers ofI have to check with so and so.
So, you know, I think, I thinkthey like that. You know, you
(16:38):
could, you could still call ushere and, know, the chances of
me picking up the phone arepretty good. Whether that's
good, bad or indifferent, I justfeel it's important to give the
client, you know, to work with apartner who really has your
same, it's the word I'm lookingfor, want to be, you know, their
main focus is making sure theclient is satisfied and make
(17:00):
sure the client is properlytreated. And that's really what
we want to do.
So we need to align on that end.Sometimes some of these
partners, you know, may think alittle differently than us and
it's not a good fit.
Anthony Carrano (17:11):
So how did you because it sounds like you guys
do a lot of business withinternational partners who are
looking for, you know, an experthere in The States, right, to
work with, their US operations.How did you get into that? Was
it strategic or was it byaccident?
Dominick Zappia (17:29):
No, it wasn't at all actually. Typically they
find us, and I think once theyfind us, they realize that we
are again, easy to work with andable to pretty quickly move and
assist them again without havingto go through a lot of
(17:52):
bureaucracy. And then whathappens is, one turns into two
and turns into three. Most ofthese European companies, they
have some US presence of somesort and they find us and then
it just becomes repeat business.I think with this Italian
company, it's probably like ourfourth or fifth deal. Sometimes
(18:13):
one partner will refer anotherpartner as well, but they just
reach out to us and you know,don't take four days to get back
to them and things work.
Anthony Carrano (18:23):
Now, what about, I think this, I don't
know why I find that reallyjust, you know, fascinating. I
think maybe part of it's justbecause, you know, a lot of,
like, the folks we talk with,they, you know, mainly are doing
a lot of, you know, partner topartner, like, collaborations,
you know, with fellow, like, USbased companies. We might get
we've done some interviews wheremaybe they've, like, know,
(18:44):
fellow even European, you know,companies kinda working
together. But this is this isunique in that it's, you know,
European partner here with TheUS for, you know, a lot of
business. What are what are someof the cultural challenges that
you faced in in kind of or haveyou faced in working with your
(19:05):
international partners?
Paymon Jelvani (19:07):
Yeah, I think the I would say that the most
challenging part is the languagebarrier because certain things,
like in this particular examplethat Dominick was, sharing that,
you know, when we talk aboutsales tax, for example, in US or
1099 and for them, besides thetechnical side of it, there were
(19:32):
a lot of language barriers tolike when we were talking about
it, they couldn't understand thewhat I'm saying or what the
client is saying, The U.S.-based client users were
saying because of theirlanguage. But then that was the
initial port. After that, thenit pretty much became smooth. So
(19:54):
I think that's one of thechallenges.
The other challenge is could bepotentially time difference,
because by the time that, wekind of like get, you know, we
are in East Coast. So by thetime that we get into, doing
work is kind of like toward theend of their day and something
(20:14):
might happen at 03:00 our timethat then we're not going to get
any response back until if weneed something until the next
day. But that's I would say inthe grand scheme of those are
very minor aspect. And justgoing back, it's not always
partners in Europe coming to us.We also have clients that they
(20:40):
their headquarters in US andthey have subsidiaries in
Europe. And they thosesubsidiaries want to have local
presence, put on the groundlocal. And we do partnership
with it's a reciprocal of whatwe receive from partners. We
also give those partners thoseopportunities to get involved
(21:02):
and being our trusted advisor,if you will, for those
subsidiaries and staff in thoseareas.
Dominick Zappia (21:11):
That's a good point because right now to
Paymon's point, we're working adeal. We have a client here in
Connecticut that has anoperation in Ireland. And we
actually engage with a Dynamicspartner in Ireland to assist
them locally because sometimes,you know, they need local
support. They need someoneon-site. So, it does go, you
(21:34):
know, it does go back and forth.
Anthony Carrano (21:36):
So with doing a lot of, like, looking at those
type of situations, so you havea, you know, what are some
things that you look for infinding a partner that can
provide maybe some of that localsupport for some of your
contacts?
Dominick Zappia (21:50):
I think, you know, again, think it's about
the service, the quality ofservice, the responsiveness, and
the fact that they always havethe client's best interest in
mind. I mean, listen, we're allin this to make a few bucks, but
at the end of the day, if theclient's not happy, then it's
going be an issue and you're notgoing to get paid, you're not
going to make any money. So, youknow, it's being in alignment
(22:13):
with that partner, you'reknowing that they're open
minded, flexible, and they'reagile. So, you know, you kind of
hit it off on the first call,you know, know whether or not
it's going to work really withinfive minutes of the first call,
in my opinion anyway.
Paymon Jelvani (22:33):
It becomes a mutual relationship and
understanding that if andknowing that if if the if the
partner that we're going to dopartnership with, if they're
going to be successful, we're tobe successful. Their their
success is going to reflect us.And if we fail, our failure
(22:55):
would reflect them. So it's ait's a very mutual relationship
that we we both, you know, aspartners, we both have same
goal. And if if the goal getsaligned, as Dominick mentioned,
you know, having the the respectfor the clients need and having
(23:17):
the quality, we are very intothe quality.
If we can achieve that goalamong the partners, the client
is gonna be successful andeverybody's gonna be happy at
the end. And that doesn't meanthat things are always gonna be
perfect. Issues happen. Everyimplementation has its own
(23:40):
challenges and ups and downs,but it's a end result that we
need to achieve.
Anthony Carrano (23:47):
Mhmm. I do have I I would like to ask, a
piggyback question off a astatement that was made about
you could usually tell withinthe first five minutes. What are
some things and I'm askingespecially for, like, our
listeners, you know, to the youknow, to this podcast, like, to
help them if the you know, ifit's something that they wanna
embark on. What are some of thethings that you're listening for
(24:07):
in that first five minutes thatsays, okay, yeah, yay or nay?
Dominick Zappia (24:11):
Yeah. I think if the conversation is more
dictatorial where they'retelling you exactly what they're
going to do and we as a companydon't really have any say in the
matter, then you're probably notgoing to want to work with them.
I mean, at the end of the day,they own the project, but if
they're not willing to listen toour recommendations or our
(24:35):
suggestions or what we thinkcould benefit the client because
we are based here in The US andknow things they might not be
aware of. If they're veryadamant about not working
together and basically we'rejust hired help, then, you know,
we know it's not going to work.Goes back and forth.
So they have to value ouropinion. They have to value our
(24:57):
recommendations. Now whetherthey take them or not is a
different story, but knowingthat they're listening and open
minded to it to me is important.Sometimes clients also, I'm of
the opinion if you bluntly screwwith me once, then it's done. So
there's not going be anotherdeal.
So you need to have the firstdeal to go successfully because
(25:20):
if it doesn't, just too manytimes you try to dot every I and
make sure it's just perfect,perfect. But sometimes, you're
not going to know until youstart working with a partner.
But typically, like I saidearlier, not to be
contradictory, in that firstfive minutes, just tell if a
person is open minded and theylisten to you and aren't just
(25:43):
talking over you, then then, youknow, either they're workable.
It's workable.
Anthony Carrano (25:48):
Mhmm.
Paymon Jelvani (25:48):
Yeah. The other thing is that, like, you could
tell that is some some companiesare very good good at, as we
call it, good daters. You know,they're very flashy. They come
very strong, you know, day one,hour one. But then you could
tell that, are they really intojust having a good presentation
(26:09):
and show, but there's no depthand quality behind that show.
And that it's I mean, we've beendoing this for, you know, too
long and just talking tosomeone, we can easily catch
that that, yes, the person thatis saying this, is that is that
an honest statement or it's justreading off of the PowerPoint
(26:34):
script.
Anthony Carrano (26:36):
That's excellent.
Dominick Zappia (26:37):
Yeah, because today you find it's more, it
might be a generational thingtoo, but it's more today,
sometimes when you're talking topeople, they can't give you an
answer. They have to go tosomebody else to go to somebody
else to go to somebody else.Sometimes and a client just
likes to talk to somebody whojust can give them the answer
when they're on the phone withthem. You're not going to know
(26:58):
everything, but it's again,being repetitive, it's being
redundant. It's not the type ofthing where I got to check with
48 people to give you an answer.
I can tell you within fiveseconds, yes or no. Maybe
because I'm one of the partnersin the company, but on the other
hand, we allow our consultants,Paymon could speak to it, to
make decisions as well. I mean,not necessarily monetary
(27:21):
decisions about the company, butclient based decisions based on
what they think is best for theclient.
Anthony Carrano: Rudy, if I may,I wanna, I know (27:30):
undefined
you've got a couple of questionshere, but I'd like to ask a
follow-up then on that isbecause so it's not so you've
decentralized. So the decisionmaking, you basically sense you
give your consultants a lot oflatitude with the decision
making. How have you guys soit's gonna kinda be a multipart
words like is, like, put in,like, but also culture that
(27:56):
enables that to where you can bea relatively flat org that
allows so in the name ofproviding speed and quality and
responsiveness to people'sneeds. Maybe unpack that a
little bit.
Paymon Jelvani (28:09):
Yeah. I mean, if I may jump in. So we we are
considered a flat organizationfor good and bad, and it is part
of the culture. It's not ascript of methodology per se,
but it is it is part of theculture that, first of all, the
team that we have are very, verysolid and expert in the not only
(28:34):
from the technology standpoint,but also from industry
standpoint. So when they areinteracting with the client and
end user, for example, there's adecision about or or
conversation about warehousemanagement, and we we have a
consultant that, which I don'tlike the word of consultant, but
let's just say for the lack of,you know, one of our,
(28:56):
consultants is interacting withthat end end user.
They can actually share a adepth of experience and
expertise. So we allow them todo that because they are expert.
If they are interacting with aclient, they don't need to get
permission from Dominick orPaymon, should they say this,
(29:19):
should they say that. I mean,obviously, from the contractual
agreements or monetary things,they know their level of
boundaries, but they know that.I mean, we have first of all,
majority of our employees arevery seasoned senior.
They've been with the companysome from the beginning of the
inception of the company. Sothey know our mindset, and we
(29:44):
hire those that actually followthe same, what I call it, our
DNA. They are in the same DNAthat we believe and we trust. We
trust them. And and everybodymakes mistake, truly believe
that, but we help them.
I mentor our staff a lot, one onone mentorship with them. And
(30:07):
they learned that, when they sitin the meeting and we conduct a
meeting and I'm on it, theylearned that how I present the
company or the situation or howyou're going to handle the
situation. So it is being partof the culture of the company.
There's no there's no SOP orinstruction that you're going to
(30:27):
do this, you're going to dothat. And that's that that's
what made us being successful.
I just disclose the key to oursuccess, I guess. But so that
that is really the key.
Anthony Carrano (30:41):
Well, Paymon, don't worry about that because
there's a lot of recipes outthere, but it still takes a chef
to put the meal together. Soyou'll be okay. You'll be
alright. Rudy, I know you'vegot, some, some questions.
Rudy Rodriguez (30:55):
Yeah, I've been I've been listening carefully.
And so one of the things thatthat I noticed in this
conversation was, you know, inbuilding partnerships, those can
be challenging at time andespecially working with,
international organizations. Butit sounds like whether you've
directly or indirectly havethought of rules of engagement,
(31:17):
as to how you engage partnersand how you work with them. So
Dominick, you said, you canusually tell in five minutes. Do
you coach your team along thoserules of engagement, you know,
as to how to work with not onlywork with customers as well as
as partners? Becauseoperationally, those can, you
know, you deal with a productthat is an integral part of a
(31:40):
company's success in ERP. And sothose rules of engagement become
very important. Can you talk alittle bit about, you know, how
you deal with some of thoseissues?
Dominick Zappia (31:48):
With so, Rudy, just so I'm understanding your
question. So so with regards howwe work with our client
themselves?
Rudy Rodriguez (31:55):
Yeah with your clients, as well as your
partners, because there's,there's, you're engaging at two
different levels at the customerlevel, as well as the partner
level. And operationally, thosebecome very important as to, you
know, as how do you bring thattogether? So how do you, you
know, do you coach your teamalong that as to how to deal
with the partner as well as yourclients and what what those
(32:17):
engagement principles are?
Paymon Jelvani (32:20):
Yeah. I think the one of one of the things
that we do, we take the advocacyfor our clients. So when you
when you have that mindset thatyou're advocating for a client
and you're dealing with the ISVthat we built a partnership
with, it's we we kind of likeshortcut the relationship.
(32:42):
Instead of having clientsworking with us and working with
ISV, we work with ISV partnerfor the client. And the that
relationship, it becomes verysmooth right at the beginning.
We get tend to get them engagedin the early stage of the
(33:03):
process. So our staff know that.They don't assume or guess that
such such processes would bewould be part of that solution.
For example, we it's part of thepartnership. When we when we
(33:24):
build the partnership with ISVs,if they need help, they reach
out to you to to us immediately.
If we need help, we reach out tothem immediately and we get them
engaged in that process. And Ithink the since we've doing
that, we've done this so manytimes and we have a lot of
partners that we do partnershipwith. You know, our staff are
are they kind of likeautomatically they they learn
(33:47):
that. Now, if you hire a newstaff, that's a different
conversation. We let them toshadow that and, you know, just
kind of like walk with them,hand hold their hands and teach
them how to interact with thepartner because as you said,
it's different.
You're dealing with someone whois paying your bill as a
(34:08):
customer, as a client, and thenyou have someone that is
actually interacting with you toserve that client. So it's a
different relationship, and wedon't see them as a outsider. I
think the best way to say thatthe partners to us are not
outsiders. Now there aredifferent level of partners that
we do have, you know, largerorganizations might be
(34:29):
different, but, you know, mostof the partners that we deal
with, they become kind of likepart of the same. They get
infused into our processes aswell and work very nicely.
And we do actually have aparticular one of our team
members is dedicated to doadvocacy for clients, which that
(34:50):
kind of like allows us to bridgethat gap.
Rudy Rodriguez (34:54):
Well, you you brought up a very important term
that's dear and dear to my heartthan having run a couple of
companies before. Customeradvocacy. That's a hard thing to
teach sometimes, because whenyou're a customer advocate, that
leads to more customersatisfaction, and that helps you
grow your business. So let'stalk a little bit about, you
(35:16):
know, in your partneringexperience, you know, in all
your engagements that you'vedone, how you've worked to to
grow that customer satisfaction,which can ultimately lead to
increasing your revenue as well.Because customers come back and
you talked about customersstaying with you and employees
staying with you for the lengthof your company, and that's
(35:37):
that's, very important.
Can you talk a little bit about,you know, what you've done in
that, in that realm, you know,in dealing with partners to help
you grow your engagements?
Dominick Zappia (35:48):
Yeah. I mean, from my end, know, people wanna
work with people they like andrespect. So I think treating the
customer in a respectful way,listening to the customer, you
know, a lot of time, from myexperience, you know,
implementers don't really put alot of weight on what the
customer says. They may notvalue what they're saying, which
(36:09):
to me is not correct. Even ifthe customer is wrong or you
don't believe what they'resaying is correct, you still
want to listen to them.
You want to show them respectof, of, hey, I value what you're
what you're saying, but have youthought about looking at it in
this way or that way? So Ithink, you know, we we take a
lot of rescues over every yearbecause a lot of other we find
(36:33):
at least anyway, some of theother partners just are not
they're they're just not openminded and listening to what the
what the client has to say. Theythink they're always right. And
even if they are right, youdon't want it to come out that
way that's, you know, making thecustomer feel less that's saying
what you were saying was, youknow, not was completely
incorrect and or wrong. So, youknow, again, just getting back,
(36:55):
you know, people wanna work withpeople they like.
If if if you're working withsomeone who you just just know
is not the the right person, thethe relationship is not gonna,
you know, it's not gonna grow.
Paymon Jelvani (37:07):
Yeah. I think, Rudy, the other the other
element to that is which we areit's one of our key recipes or
core values is honesty. Ourstaff know that as well that we
are human. We make mistake. Wedon't know everything.
There's a lot of things that,you know, especially with, like,
(37:28):
you know, focusing on theapplication, particular
application, the updates happen,you know, new technology gets
introduced. We don't knoweverything of everything every
day. So but if we are honestabout it and if the client ask
and we are not trying to fake itthat we know what we're talking
about while we don't know, Ifound that so many times that in
(37:50):
the early stage of my when Istarted in consulting, I was
honest about it. I told theclient, I don't know this. And
believe it or not, I gained morerespect because they felt the
honesty.
And I found it for them. I I'llbe did a follow-up and find it.
And I think the and the honestygoes both ways between partners,
(38:12):
you know, we need to be honestwith each other. We need to
inform the partner the casesthat might be problematic during
the engagement with theparticular client. So they are
aware of that, being honestabout each other.
I think that is really anotherkey elements. And as long as we
(38:34):
believe, in fact, that we're notrobots, we are human, dealing
with human, as Dominickmentioned, and and just have
that always behind our mind thatwe are two two individuals are
interacting with each other andjust be honest and don't don't
make things up. Don't fake itbecause that doesn't last long.
Rudy Rodriguez (38:56):
No. You know, sincerity in business is in
communication is so important.And you've brought up the under
trying to understand, you know,a lot of times there's
breakdowns in communications andtrying to understand what a
customer is telling you. That'svery, very important. And
whether it's a customer or apartner, it's very important in
(39:17):
building that.
So in this has been a very goodconversation, gentlemen. In
closing, what advice would yougive companies like yours
regarding partnering and how tobe more successful in
partnering?
Dominick Zappia (39:31):
I have found that a lot of people who come to
us may have gone to some maybethey went to somebody before to
partner with and the other folkswere, Hey, listen, we don't do
that. We don't partner withother folks or it's just not
something we do. And it's notsomething we did until the first
one. And once we realized howsuccessful it was, we said, Oh,
(39:51):
let's keep doing this. So Ithink it's not being closed
minded, being open minded is keyto success.
You know, there's that justagain, just my motto is, you
know, be open minded. You know,if someone calls you out of the
blue and says, hey, you know,I'm thinking about this. Would
(40:11):
you be interested in partnering?Or I have a customer, you know,
would you be interested in doingthis? At the end, you might not
do it, but to me, five minutesof your time is always is worth
it to to listen to what someonehas to say unless it's, you
know, something ridiculous, butbut that's just my mindset on it
anyway.
Yeah.
Paymon Jelvani (40:28):
I think from my, really, very good point, it is
hard when you grow a company,especially organically like us,
you cannot be everywhere all thetime. You cannot have everything
all the time. You rely on someother avenues that you could
either expand your footprint,your service offering or whether
(40:54):
that's a geographic location ortechnology wise. And the only
way that you can do that is bypartnering and having that kind
of like a shared servicesconcept, just having that
mindset that and again, as longas you find the right partner
that fits with your ecosystem inthe organization, that is going
(41:17):
to enable and opens many doorsthat you've never had it. And if
you don't do it, to Dominick'spoint, you lose the opportunity.
And and again, it might notgonna work out. You don't know
until you try it. I mean, we arein the business as a business
entrepreneurs, you always takerisks. And you have to take a
(41:39):
risk in order to get a reward.And taking the risk of
partnering with others is notalways just, I want to make all
the money myself, and I don'twant to share that wealth is on
anybody's.
There's plenty out there foreverybody to be able to benefit
from. And I think by partnering,you would expand your footprint
(42:00):
geographically, you would expandyour relationship. And also, you
don't know what other thingsthat you can learn from other
partners. There might besomething that they do better
than we do. And by partnering,we learn about it, and we it
helps us to grow as well, too.
So it's I would say that it'sactually essential to look at
(42:23):
partnership.
Dominick Zappia (42:23):
I think that Paymon's point I mean, I think
clients have more respect foryou when you when you tell them,
hey, listen, it's not ourexpertise, but I have a partner
who who does this, and that'sall they do all day. And I think
the client has just so much morerespect for you than trying to
be a you know, for us to be thehandyman and try to do
everything. I think when youtell them, hey. Listen. I have
another partner I work withclosely who can do this other
(42:46):
piece of the project.
You know, they're very openminded to it. You know, years
ago, I don't think that was asmuch the case, but I think
today, all the the customers'most concern is that he's gonna
be taken care of and how he getsthere, he doesn't really care as
long as he gets there.
Anthony Carrano (43:04):
That's fantastic. Yeah. No. That's
great. I love it too. I justespecially, you know, we said
the customer can, you know,figure out anyway, especially
now with access to all theinformation really at their
fingertips. You know? But beingthe fact that as a human that
you can provide that definitely,I think, boost your credibility
and validity in their minds. Sothat's that's awesome. Well,
(43:26):
guys, I've really enjoyedtalking with you.
This this was a great, greatshow. So last question really
is, you know, how can peoplefind out more about you, and
what are some of the best waysto connect?
Dominick Zappia (43:38):
For myself, we do a lot of social media. We
post on LinkedIn. My contactinformation's out there.
Certainly, you can go to ourwebsite, admiralusa.com, find us
there. Other than that, I'd saylook me up in the phone book,
but I don't think there's anymore phone books.
So, you know, I think going toour website or LinkedIn would be
(43:58):
the easiest way.
Paymon Jelvani (43:59):
Yeah. I mean, I'm I'm not on LinkedIn. I used
to be very active, but afterdata breach, I end up closing my
account. And but I joined attenda lot of conferences. So whether
that is directions, build,Microsoft Ignite, you can
connect with me personally inthose conferences or just reach
(44:22):
out to us in admiral-usa.com
We welcome welcome anything. Andeven if something that we can
help you and doesn't necessarilymonetary benefit us, we we are
in this business of partneringand helping someone else that
maybe there are beginner in thismarket and they're young young,
(44:43):
not not necessarily from agestandpoint, but young from the
experience into the ecosystem,Microsoft partner ecosystem.
I've had that discussion a lot.You know, I love I love having
conversation and guide them andteach them and share with them
the the hoops that we had to gothrough, the mistakes that we
made, and, you know, if they canbe better partner, that's that's
(45:05):
fantastic, and we we love that.
Anthony Carrano (45:07):
Excellent. Excellent. And I'll be sure just
the links and things that werementioned. Those will all be in
the show notes. So once again,Dominick, Paymon, really
appreciate you.
Gentlemen, you have a great restof the day.
Dominick Zappia (45:18):
You too. Thank you so much for the opportunity.
Anthony Carrano (45:21):
Well, that was a great episode. I really
appreciate, the time that Paymonand Dominick spent with us and
just giving us a lot of theirperspective.
Rudy Rodriguez (45:30):
Absolutely. That was a very enjoyable
conversation with both thosegentlemen.
Anthony Carrano (45:34):
Yeah. I found it pretty fascinating too just
how they were talking about, youknow, a big you know, for many
years, just the amount ofbusiness that they have with
international partners who areheadquartered overseas, but who
have US operations and just thenature, you know, of the that
partnership, you know, withthose type of companies and just
(45:56):
really how the importance ofjust being accessible, but also
easy to work with and makingsure that just transcends, you
know, communications, you know,processes, you know, and
culture. And so I reallyenjoyed, you know, their
perspectives on that.
Rudy Rodriguez (46:11):
Oh, absolutely. And, you know, the the one thing
that it really picked up on itwas, you know, when we were
talking about how they partnerand Paymon brought up the term
customer advocacy, being anadvocate for your customers. And
and in this case, not only doyou have the implementation
partner that's a customer, butalso the partner that brought
(46:33):
them the business or with whomthey're partnering with with as
an ISV to implement theirproduct. They're advocates on
both sides. And one of thosethings that that you bring up is
it's also a very big culturalissue within a company or a
cultural process within theircompany.
Because when you're a customeradvocate, you have certain core
(46:53):
principles that have to cut thatcome into play in being that
customer advocate. And that'sunderstanding, honesty, and
trust. And that leads to successof your business. And I found
that very, very one, Iremembered, you know, how I used
to run my companies. And we usedto preach that all the time.
And we always used to teach ourpeople, we are all customer
(47:17):
advocates. And I was reallygrateful to hear that, that
somebody else is doing that aswell. And it's really funny
because Paymon's a formeraccountant, and being a last
accountant myself, it's a itreally brought forth because
that's one of the things that weknow when you start out as as an
accountant is that you're afiduciary for your customer. And
(47:40):
again, you're a cust you'reyou're advocating for your
customers' issues. And so Ifound that very, very helpful.
And the fact that they continueto preach that, that's how you
can run a very successfulcompany. So I did appreciate
that about them.
Anthony Carrano (47:54):
Well, that makes sense because, you know,
we're you know, we talked a lotabout where just the importance
of being both, you know, highlyresponsive, but also just, you
know, the emphasis on honesty.Right? And in order to be able
to have customer advocacy, youhave to, you know, be, you know,
very, you know, just very honestand transparent. And I think,
(48:15):
you know, to the point youbrought up about the the, you
know, the accountingbackgrounds, you know, how you
know, that you you've gotta bevery clear and and straight with
that. So I'm sure that probablyplayed into that.
Is that what you've kinda foundin your experience?
Rudy Rodriguez (48:29):
Yeah. Very much so. Very much so. I think it,
you know, when you go throughthrough that training, you know,
when you're in school and andwhen you go into business,
you've got to be you know,you're dealing with the people's
financials and or company'sfinancials, and you've got to be
very clear. You have to be youhave to understand how all that
(48:49):
gets built.
You have to be able tocommunicate it. And when people
ask you to do something you'renot supposed to, you can't do
that. You can't do that. Youhave to be very honest about it.
And that's just very, very comesthrough very clear in that
conversation.
Very, very clear. And the factthat Paymon's now a deputy
mayor, he's using those sameprinciples in in how he manages
(49:13):
his time as deputy mayor aswell. So found that very, very
helpful, very useful. So if youcould relate to it, boy, it
really rings home. It reallyrings home.
And I think they're doing bothgentlemen are doing an excellent
job in in running thatorganization.
Anthony Carrano (49:31):
Mhmm.
Rudy Rodriguez (49:32):
Everyone, I want to thank you all for joining us
on this episode of IAMCPProfiles in Partnership powered
by Dunamis Marketing. We hopeyou enjoyed this podcast and
find it useful and inspiring. Ifyou did, please subscribe, rate,
and review us on your favoritepodcast platform. One of the
best ways to partner for successis to join IAMCP, a community of
(49:53):
Microsoft partners who help eachother grow and thrive. IAMCP
members can find and connectwith other partners locally and
globally and access exclusiveresources and opportunities.
Whether you're looking for newcustomers, new markets or new
solutions, IAMCP can help youachieve your goals. To learn
more, the website atwww.iamcp.org.
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