November 11, 2025 • 47 mins
What does it really take to build an MSP from scratch in the middle of a recession — with no technical background, two kids watching, and absolutely no Plan B?
In this candid and energizing episode of My First Million, Doug Bates shares the unlikely origin story behind CMIT Solutions of the Atlanta Southern Crescent. Doug didn’t come up through the help desk. He didn’t code. He didn’t “start fixing computers for friends and realize it could be a business.” In fact, his degree was in business and speech communication, and he once worked for LEGO. Yes — actual LEGO.
But when corporate life demanded another move and his daughter tearfully reminded him of a promise he’d made — that the family was done uprooting — Doug decided to bet on himself. He launched his MSP on April Fool’s Day 2009, during the economic collapse… and committed to one core principle:
“We will fail doing this business right before I succeed doing it wrong.”
What follows is a story of discipline, humility, extreme ownership, and the deeply human side of entrepreneurship — including:
- The family sacrifices required to build a business that lasts.
- Why being the non-technical owner was actually a strategic advantage.
- The customer experience move that completely transformed their retention.
- How slow, steady, relationship-driven growth took them from break/fix projects to multi-location MSP stability.
- The simple mindset shift that separates those who cross $1M from those who stall out.
Doug doesn’t romanticize the grind — he tells the truth about it. The pressure. The doubt. The beans-and-weenies years. The moments where you either lean forward or quit.
And he offers one final piece of advice for any MSP stuck under $1M:
If you’re not all in, don’t expect all out results.
This episode is sharp, honest, occasionally funny, and deeply motivating — especially if you’re in the thick of building something that matters.
Watch it. You’ll walk away thinking differently — about your business and yourself.
Get a free 60-minute marketing strategy session and discover proven IT marketing strategies that deliver results. We’ll walk you through a tested roadmap and actionable strategies to grow your business. Head to www.ITmarketingplan.com and book your free session today!
Join the thousands of MSPs who already rely on MSP Success to fuel their business growth. Go to www.MSPSuccess.com and subscribe now—it’s free, and you can unsubscribe anytime.
To get more business building hacks and growth tips, subscribe for FREE at www.MSPSuccess.com.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_02 (00:00):
But just the energy and just the the drive of I am
not going to fail.
You know, I was not going tofail starting this business in
the middle of recession with mykids watching me.
I just wasn't.
My mantra when we started thisbusiness is we will fail doing
this business right before Isucceed doing it wrong.
When you're doing the tech work,then you become a technician to
your client and not theirstrategic partner.
(00:22):
You are responsible foreverything in your life.
If you're successful, it's yourfault.
If you're not successful, it'syour fault.
When you are the owner of asmall business, you are
responsible.
SPEAKER_00 (00:39):
Hello everyone.
Welcome to the MSP SuccessPodcast, My First Million, where
we pull back the curtain andhave some candid conversations
with MSP CEOs who did just that.
My name is Allison Felber.
I'm the editor-in-chief at MSPSuccess.
And I have the honor of speakingtoday with Doug Bates.
And Doug Bates, Doug's thepresident of CMI, uh CMIT
(01:02):
Solutions, the Atlanta SouthernCrescent area.
Did I get that right, Doug?
SPEAKER_02 (01:08):
Yes, ma'am.
Yeah, we have two locationsactually.
We opened a second locationthree years ago, and that's
Atlanta Northwest.
SPEAKER_00 (01:14):
All right, taking over Atlanta region by region.
SPEAKER_02 (01:17):
One step at a time.
SPEAKER_00 (01:19):
Yeah, uh, you know, Doug's got a little bit
different of a start.
You know, we we do theseinterviews a lot, you know, and
sometimes you start to see kindof some patterns and trends.
And I was very interested, youknow, in Doug's start.
Um, you know, a lot of it is,you know, coming from, you know,
a tech background and andgetting a degree in IT or
telecommunications and workingin-house.
(01:39):
Well, Doug actually has, andcorrect me if I'm wrong, but
from my research, your BA or noBS degree, you have a bachelor
of science degree in businessadministration and speech
communication.
Is that right?
SPEAKER_02 (01:52):
That's that's correct.
SPEAKER_00 (01:54):
Okay.
Uh, and I also saw in there,see, I creaked on you
beforehand.
I found out all these differentthings.
You actually worked at Legoearly on in your career as well.
Am I right?
SPEAKER_02 (02:04):
Yes, yes.
As a matter of fact, if I showedyou, if I turned my camera, you
would see my um X-Wing Fighter,my Darth Vader, I've got a um a
Mandalorian helmet, I've gotanother uh Grogu statue here I
got to put together.
Um yeah.
So it's still a big part.
I grew up, my dad worked for umMonsanto and sold plastic, uh
(02:28):
petrochemic or uh petrochemicalsand uh plastics, and so he
actually sold resins to Legoback before they started um
manufacturing in the UnitedStates.
So when he would go over toEurope, he would bring Lego back
to us kids when we were small.
So I grew up playing with Lego,and then it was a dream job to
work for him for a little bit.
I actually have um the piratesets came out in 1989.
(02:52):
I have an original Black SeasBarracuda pirate ship uh mint in
package that's worth about fiveor six thousand dollars.
SPEAKER_00 (03:00):
I love that's so fun.
I love that.
Well, we we will talk about Legoa little bit here in a minute
with kind of how you got yourstart.
But you know, we're here to talkabout you know your first
million.
So um, you know, I you startedin in 2009, am I right?
SPEAKER_02 (03:16):
April Fool's Day 2009.
SPEAKER_00 (03:18):
April Fool's Day 2009.
Uh, also right in the middle ofa recession.
So talk about the perfect day tostart, you know, a brand new
company.
SPEAKER_02 (03:27):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (03:27):
Uh what was going through your head at that
moment?
SPEAKER_02 (03:31):
Well, I just um I really felt called to do my own
thing.
I'd been in corporate for 20plus years.
I had run a$750 million globalPL as a part of the tyco
business.
Um when they sold our thatplastic, I sold plastic garment
hangers.
When they sold that plasticsbusiness off, I was a global
vice president, um, took a jobto kind of stabilize the family
(03:54):
and not move because we hadmoved like every two or three
years during my corporate salescareer.
And I just was like, we're notgonna move again.
Well, then the recession hit.
I was last in, highest paid.
And of course, you know, theycame in and had the
conversation.
I'm like, yeah, I get it.
So I had a chance to move toHouston and move my family
again.
And I came in, and or mydaughter came in from school,
(04:16):
she was in middle school, and mywife said, Yeah, we're, you
know, your dad, you know, isgonna change jobs, and it looks
like we're maybe moving toHouston.
She started crying, and she'slike, You said we wouldn't have
to move again.
And it just broke my heart.
Um, it just, I'm like, I can, Iam not gonna go back on my word.
So um the executive, you know,part of the executive buyout
(04:37):
package was I got a recruitingfirm.
And so he said, you know,franchises would love your sales
background.
So I started, I went through afranchise broker and we talked
to a bunch of franchises and umevaluated probably 30, and we
narrowed it down to three orfour.
And, you know, the thing aboutIT that I that really resonated
for me is I've always been inthe business-to-business model.
(04:58):
So I love the B2B model.
Um, I love the annuity-basedmodel of the MSP, as opposed to
having to fill the transactionalbased of some of the other
franchises we were looking at.
So to me, it was kind ofresonated with my national
account and my global accountbackground.
Well, if you if you get anaccount and you take care of it,
it's much easier to scale andgrow and build those
(05:19):
relationships that I was so usedto doing.
And then the other thing thatresonated for me about IT is
having been in a globalposition, when we when our IT
went down, we couldn'tcommunicate.
We sold plastic garment hangers.
And if I couldn't get orders,and if I couldn't get specs, and
if I couldn't get drawings, wecouldn't do business.
(05:41):
So when it didn't work, it costmoney.
So I understood the pain side ofit.
SPEAKER_01 (05:45):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (05:45):
Um, and then when you throw in the fact when I I
worked for GE Lighting for 10years, and one of the great
things that lessons I learnedthere was I never had to
convince anybody they needed mylighting or lighting in general.
I just need to convince themthey needed mine because
everybody needs lighting.
So when you come to smallbusinesses, everybody needs it.
I just need to convince themthey need mine, my support.
(06:08):
So I don't have to generate theneed for the product.
I just need to generate the uhcreate the value proposition
that makes sense to them andthen provide the customer
support behind it.
And I tell my technicians allthe time, because like you said,
I'm I'm not a technician.
I I mean I go home and take anap if I change out a UPS.
(06:30):
You know, I just swap out amonitor, I tell the guys, this
is on you.
Um so my focus is on you guys dothe tech stuff, I'll take care
of everything else.
You just be great technicians,and I'll take care of the
billing, I'll take care of theproducts, I'll take care of the
purchasing, I'll take care ofeverything else.
You just go be great techs.
(06:50):
But when I tell you how tocommunicate with a client,
that's my area of expertise.
So the way we communicate ourpatterns for follow-up, our the
way we phrase and talk to ourclients is is based on my third
25 plus years of sales andmarketing experience for the
great companies I have on how tointeract and build customer
(07:13):
relationships.
So those are the type techs thatwe look for to come work for us
from a culture perspective.
And then I've got a my VP of IThas been with me almost since
the beginning, and his job is tomake them be great techs.
SPEAKER_00 (07:29):
I love that.
Uh curious, what were some ofthe other franchises you were
looking at?
SPEAKER_02 (07:34):
Uh we looked at Bright Star Healthcare, um, but
my wife had just lost her mom tocancer, and she said, I can't be
in a business where we lose ourpatients.
I just can't deal with that.
We actually looked atcertipropainters, they really
were putting a full court presson me.
Um we looked at a company calledERA, which is expense reduction
analysts.
Um, there was a uh uh actioncoach, um, were the probably the
(07:58):
top ones that we were werelooking at.
But the technology one justreally resonated because it's
it's it's important.
If we I knew if I did it right,that our customers would
benefit.
And that's what I get out ofdoing sales, is I love helping
other people be successful.
Because I played team sports,and so I do it, did a lot of
(08:20):
coaching on the side.
And so I really love the aspectof providing something that
matters.
And, you know, when it comes tosmall businesses, it's now the
fourth leg of the the oldthree-legged stool was, you
know, your attorney, your yourCPA, and your insurance agent.
Well, now you got to havetechnology.
So it's just been um it's been areal blessing.
And April Fool's Day, I'm I'm abig time smart alec.
(08:42):
Um, and so that was just my wayof giving the big fat finger of
fate to the recession and sayingI choose not to participate.
And actually, yeah, actually,Jeff Johnson, who's the
president of TMT, I've he was aCMIT franchise um owner when I
joined, when I was validating,and I talked to Jeff on a
(09:03):
validation call.
And he at the time was the onlyCMIT that was doing a million in
revenue.
He and his partner Thor in SanFrancisco.
And I hung up the phone, Iturned to my wife, and I said,
This is the one we're gonna do.
She says, Why?
I said, Because if he can do amillion dollars, I can do a
million dollars.
So just because I, you know, I'ma competitor, so I said, if
somebody else can do it, I cando it.
(09:24):
And so, you know, Jeff bailed,you know, on me eight months
later and went to TLT, and hereI am, uh, still in the franchise
system.
But uh, but it can't, you know,it's the old thing, you know,
when you when you use the phraseI am or I will, um, you know,
you have a better chance ofbeing successful.
And I was like, I I will dothat.
I can do that.
I am gonna do that.
SPEAKER_00 (09:45):
I love that.
So what were what were some ofthe hardest parts, you know, of
those first couple years uh andkind of getting through the
recession and and building abusiness?
SPEAKER_02 (09:56):
Well, there's just, you know, we literally, um,
fortunately our kids were werevery good athletes and they both
got scholarships, but they werein, you know, high school at the
time.
So knowing that they were gonnaprobably get a free education,
we took their money as what webought the franchise with.
So we said, hey, stay healthy.
You know, uh, if there's no morecollege money, yeah, it's right.
(10:19):
Um, yeah, yeah.
And so the really the hard thingwas more on the personal side.
Literally, you know, when youstart a small business, you have
to invest totally.
And I was on an you know, uh uhuh unemployment, if you will,
you know, the compensation, thebuyout from the from the sale or
the you know, getting laid offthe the um severance package.
And so having to look at my kidsand say, yeah, you can go to
(10:43):
Chick-fil-A, but yeah, I don'thave five bucks for a sandwich
for you.
You know, um, we just had toreally, really tight.
My wife stayed at home, she wasa stay-at-home mom.
She was an uh executive adminearly in her career before she
became a stay-at-home mom, andso she was doing back office
stuff.
Um, so we just sat him down andsaid, listen, this is what I you
know feel called to do, but it'sgonna be really, really tight
(11:07):
while we do this.
And so we're gonna have to makesacrifices.
And I need you guys tounderstand that.
And they were phenomenal.
I have um little post-it noteson the bottom of my monitors
from uh, you know, here's onefrom my daughter.
This was like at year two.
It's like, love you, daddy, youare my hero.
You know, um, so I'm so proud ofyou, love you, keep on keeping
(11:28):
on.
So um one from my son.
Uh, it just so those are thethings that I got from them.
And my they would run, mydaughter especially, when the
phone rang, if I couldn't get toit because we started out of our
home, she would run back intothe office if I was out and she
would answer the phone, CMITsolutions.
This is Kristen, how can I helpyou?
You know, so it just was, youknow, they really, I was really
(11:50):
blessed that they understood andbought in.
But that's really tough as a dadwhen you got to tell your kids
no for basic stuff.
Um, but I just felt reallycalled and motivated that this
was long-term the best thing forour family to get me off the
road, you know, be home with thekids while they were starting
to, you know, going through highschool, which is a really, I
think, an important time for foryoung adults to have their
(12:12):
parents there, both parents.
And so um, that was probably thetoughest thing on the personal
side.
And on the professional side,you know, the sales part, I've
I've been a sales guy my wholecareer.
That was really easy going out,kissing babies and shaking
hands, but I didn't understandthe technology.
So really, you know, I wasfortunate to um, I think it's a
a God thing that Brian and I gotconnected.
(12:34):
Um, and he became my, you know,he started with me as a
part-time tech and now he's myVP of IT services and been with
me, it'll be 16 years uh nextmonth, um, that he was that
good.
But I just would wear him outstanding over his shoulder, you
know, when we had four clients,you know, with nothing else to
do.
What are you doing?
What are you doing?
What are you doing?
Because I wanted to understand,right?
(12:55):
And so he would literally lookat me and it's like, yeah, I'm
gonna make this work, okay?
So can you just go stand in thecorner and you know, get a and
I'll tell I'll walk you throughit at the end.
So just the patience of, youknow, letting that the customer
experience and letting him solvethe problems.
I was really good in front ofthe customers and the
networking, but didn't have awhole lot of patience on the
(13:17):
tech side because I didn'tunderstand it.
So um, and uh, he was really,really patient with me, does a
great job, still does a greatjob of communicating, um,
speaking human to our clientsand being able to dumb down the
technology enough that us, youknow, laymen can understand it.
So that was probably thebiggest, the biggest challenge
for me.
Because we grew, you know,fairly quickly.
(13:39):
We did, you know, 70 grand inour first year, we did 300 in
our second year, we did 600 inour third year, 700 in our
fourth, and a million in ourabout halfway through our fifth
year.
So we were we were growingpretty good.
So um, but when you're nottaking a salary for 18 months
and you're eating beans andweenies, um, you know, it uh
it's tough.
(14:00):
It's tough.
SPEAKER_00 (14:01):
Yeah, yeah.
I I think that there's probablya a lot of listeners who either
relate because they're thereright now, or maybe they've just
gotten on the other side and areyou know now faced with
different problems, but it'sit's rough, you know, and
especially at the time being inthe recession as well.
Um, you know, speaking of otherMSPs, you know, before before
hitting that million dollar markat around year five, you know,
(14:24):
you said, what are what are oneor two things that really
enabled you to to jump that thathurdle to get over the
million-dollar mark?
SPEAKER_02 (15:46):
Um, well, having because since I'm not a tech
technical guy, having thatstrong technical resource um to
solve the problems and deliverthe the product stack and the
service.
You know, back then it was alsoa lot easier.
It was just an antivirus and amonitoring agent.
You know, it's a lot morecomplex now.
SPEAKER_00 (16:05):
Um it's that fourth leg.
SPEAKER_02 (16:07):
Yeah, that's right.
That's right.
Um the uh, you know, havingthat, um, you know, I joked with
him.
I said, listen, Brian, I said,you got a 24-hour contract that
renews at seven o'clock everymorning.
And as long as stuff's workingand I don't get a UMF call from
a client, you can come back towork.
Otherwise, I got to findsomebody smarter because I
couldn't, I couldn't do any ofthe technical stuff.
(16:29):
So, you know, having thatresource was huge for me, you
know, also understanding, youknow, Paul Dipple got connected
with him and listening to himearly on because I'm a data guy.
And so listening and doingresearch, you know, back then it
was, you know, I think it'sstill 70%, but back then it was
(16:49):
almost 80% of leads come fromnetworking and client referrals.
So the only thing I could do togenerate sales back then was to
network.
We actually used Robin Robbins,CMIT, as a system back in 2009
when I started my very first, Idid the aspirin campaign in
2009.
Um, and then after I did that, Ithink the relationship uh they
(17:13):
separated, they stopped usingthem.
But so we started doing that,and at least the broadcast
marketing and the importance ofgrassroots marketing, um, we
continued to do.
Um, but it was literally joiningthe chambers, showing up, being
consistent and understanding,you know, the old other phrase I
tell a lot of people, you know,act like you've been there
(17:34):
before.
You know, fortunately for me,I'd been in sales before, so I,
you know, I called on Walmartand you know.
So calling on a somebody who'sonly gonna spend$500 with a
month with you is not was notintimidating, but you still have
to treat them the same,especially when you're starting
out to get that that grassrootsmoment.
I mean, I would sell anythingthat I can make a profit on.
(17:55):
And that's I think one of thefault faults that I see in a lot
of new MSPs and um is thatthey're like, oh, I only want
to, I'm only gonna sell managedservices.
Okay.
Well, then you better slow yourcurve down because not every,
you know, you gotta, especiallythe economy now, it's much
harder to to shift somebody fromanother MSP to you.
(18:19):
So you may have to start withsome break fix work, you may
have to start selling hardware,you may have to start other
stuff to make profit, to payyour bills, to generate revenue,
to spend on marketing, to getthe clients that you want.
And um, so you have to be ableto mature.
And this is the other thingabout Paul Dipple that I liked
(18:40):
is the five stages or sevenstages of maturity, or the in
the different models that can besuccessful.
Um, and so knowing where youare, knowing where you want to
go and having a plan to getthere.
And that was always my goal.
I mean, when I first startedout, 50% of my revenue was
hardware software, 60%, youknow.
Um, and my goal was always to,okay, I'll shift that mix over
(19:03):
time as I grow my managedservice, you know, get rid of
some of the break fix.
And it, you know, it takes time.
And so we uh did that slowmigration to now where I think
I've got a really we've got areally healthy mix and have a
very distinct vision for what wewant to be.
And I'm not uh I'm not lookingto be a$20 million MSP.
That's really not my goal.
(19:24):
My son's now in the businesswith me.
My daughters do our marketing,so it's truly a family business
with two locations.
I just want to help my son umbuild it to where he wants it to
be so that he can support hisfamily and then he can do with
it what he wants, you know, in10 years when I'm out of the
business.
But I'm having a ball nowworking with them all and
growing the business.
SPEAKER_00 (19:43):
Yeah, I love that that they're all that they're
all working there now.
And it's uh when you weretalking about, you know, new
people starting out in MSP andwanting to go right into only
managed services, you know, itreminds me, you know, back when,
you know, I worked um at TMT andI ran their digital marketing
program, you know, the agency.
And I would, I would listenmyself, I would listen to all
(20:04):
these calls that would come infor uh people that we're doing
digital marketing for.
And it's the people that wouldthey would call in, they'd say,
you know, my computer's notworking or my network's down.
And I would literally hear someof these people say, like, oh,
well, we only do managedservices or we only do
contracts, or when I'm like,you're burning that lead.
It was so painful.
(20:24):
But you're right, that's how itcomes in.
SPEAKER_02 (20:27):
Yep.
And even now, I mean, even atfour million now, we we had a
call the other day that came inand like, yeah, we're really
looking for just, you know, it'sa residential call.
So I, you know, helped her find.
We have a local guy that doesresidential that we refer to.
Um, but I still take every callthat calls in to make sure that
we're not not missing anopportunity because our largest
(20:48):
account started at 15 seats, onelocation, break fix.
And now they're 250 seats andyou know, spend a lot of money
with us and allowed us to takecare of them.
But when we've been able to growwith them, but had I been in
that managed service-only modelback when they were just
starting and family-owned, theyyou know, chances are they
(21:10):
wouldn't be a client.
I've waited, you know, two yearsfor clients to come around and
come on board.
So um that's the one thing Ithink that I really love about
being the sales guy in thebusiness and not the tech, is
that when new employees come onand we talk about accounts in
the office, I know the story forevery client.
(21:32):
I know how they, I know how theleague came in, I know how we
started.
I remember how we built therelationship and all the
different iterations as we'vegrown with them.
And so I really, you know,sometimes it's like grandpa
telling stories in the office,you know, if we've got a slow
afternoon and they get mestarted and I start telling
stories about uh about clientsand past employees.
(21:55):
You know, we've got, you know,every anybody who's had
employees has stories, and soI've got a whole handful of
stories about, oh my gosh, youwouldn't believe the time that,
you know.
SPEAKER_00 (22:04):
Fill in the blank.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (22:05):
Yeah, fill in the blank.
That's right.
SPEAKER_00 (22:08):
All right.
Well, we talked, you know, acouple different times about,
you know, you entering in, youknow, to the IT space
differently, you know, not withan IT background, more with the
sales, you know, business focus.
Um, you know, a lot of ourlisteners are, you know, the
opposite.
So, you know, coming from acareer with, you know, at places
like Lego, you know, and GE, youknow, what are some lessons from
(22:29):
the corporate world and youknow, kind of the sales side of
things that you can give tosomeone who has only an IT
focus?
SPEAKER_02 (22:38):
Well, I think there's some pretty standard
ones out there that a lot ofpeople have heard before, you
know, don't work in thebusiness, work on the business,
for example.
Um, you know, it's easy for mebecause I'm not conflicted,
right?
Because I can't do that.
Now, there are days it's really,really frustrating when we're
swamped and because I'm aproblem solver and I always want
to help, right?
So when somebody's got a problemand we're trying to figure out
(23:00):
how to staff it or how toovercome the problem, and I
can't roll up my sleeves and goin and start fixing a server
problem or you know,reconfiguring something.
I just can't, I just have tostand back.
Um, so that that frustration isreal.
But as far as keeping us andkeeping the business on the
strategic path that we want, youhave to stay out of the weeds.
(23:25):
The other reason for that iswhen you start doing the when
you're doing the tech work, thenyou become a technician to your
client and not their strategicpartner.
And it's very, very hard to undothat when they they have you on
the phone and they're like, hey,while I've got you on the phone,
you know, my um my rightscreen's not working.
(23:45):
Can you help me?
Hey, for me, hey, let me get it,let me get a ticket create and I
have a tech call you.
Yeah, I because I can't do it.
Um, and so it keeps me very,very segregated and keeps me
focused on, you know, what whyare you doing this project?
What software's down the road,what do you, what's your vision
for your business, what youknow, acquisitions do you have
(24:07):
coming up, and focusing on thePL side and what our model
continues to look with them.
So I'm constantly evaluating thevalue that we provide to clients
to make sure that, because I dothings, you know, Allison, I do
things a lot differently thanthan a number of MSPs do
regarding how we treat ourclients.
(24:28):
For example, I don't haveautomatic escalators built into
my contracts.
Some people say that's crazy.
We should have automaticescalators because it increases
the value of your business.
Yeah, but I'm a franchise, andthe chances of me selling
outside the system are slim ornone.
So I'm gonna run this business,I'm not gonna sell it.
So um I wanted I do priceincreases based on merit, based
(24:50):
on changing the stack, or basedon economic conditions.
I just don't do automatic, Idon't like them for my landlord.
I don't want to do them to myclients.
Um so that's one thing we do.
We have agreements, we don'thave contracts.
We have three-year agreementthat has an evergreen.
But after you're in it, um,depending on the level you're
on, but most of them, for mostof my clients now, they're on a
30-day out.
(25:12):
There is there is no buyout.
I've got clients who've beenwith me 10 years, pay me$10,000
a month, and if they want toleave tomorrow, they could leave
tomorrow.
They give me a 30-day out andthey're gone.
So that forces me and my team tostay frosty.
We have to make sure we're doingcustomer service.
We have to make sure we're doingbecause everybody's only 30 days
away from leaving.
(25:32):
So there is no security blanketfor us in our customers saying,
oh, well, you know, if theyleave, they got to, you know,
pay us, you know,$100,000.
We don't have any of that.
Matter, and so um that again,that doesn't help the value of
my business to a potentialbuyer, but it makes my customer
(25:53):
experience for the clientsignificantly different and less
um rigid than a number of otherMSPs, right?
So, and I'm not saying it'sbetter, I'm just saying it's
different.
And so because we're focused onthe customer first and working
back to us, and I'm not in itfor a 10x buyout at some point,
(26:16):
um, it's allowed us to grow andscale and keep our clients, you
know, our turnover.
I think I've lost nine clientsin 16 years.
SPEAKER_01 (26:26):
Wow.
SPEAKER_02 (26:28):
So, you know, some right?
So, I mean, some people say, Oh,10% a year is fine.
I can't afford 10% turnoverevery year.
Um, so therefore, our salesengine doesn't have to be as
aggressive, our marketing enginedoesn't have to be as
aggressive, our messagingdoesn't have to be as
aggressive.
We can be more patient becausewe're stable financially and our
(26:49):
relationships are solid, andthat's our focus first.
And then so our client referralsare are really good ones when we
get them.
SPEAKER_01 (26:58):
Yeah.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (27:00):
So and we tend to close a lot of those, and that
helps us grow slow and steadywins the race.
SPEAKER_00 (27:05):
Yeah.
So you're doing you're doing alot of things right, obviously.
You know, we've talked about alot of them, but is there one
thing you did that that didn'twork?
Um, and maybe what you learnedfrom it.
SPEAKER_01 (27:19):
Oh, geez.
SPEAKER_00 (27:20):
And I I made the joke with uh with a colleague
today.
I was like, hey, in marketing,there's there's just you know,
there's they're just trial anderror, there's no mistakes, it's
just you try different.
SPEAKER_02 (27:30):
Yeah.
Um most of this mistakes, Ithink it would have been uh on
the our table of organization.
You know, when we first we havewhat's called a director of
first impressions that answersthe phone.
Um, because we do live answer,we don't use third party, it's a
W-2 employee.
And we first started thatposition, we started it with a
(27:52):
level one technician, and itjust failed miserably because
they kept trying to solve theproblem they wanted to learn
instead of actually doing thecustomer service side.
So for what what my goal was forhow we interacted with our
clients, it just was really bad.
So we did two, both of themfailed miserably.
And I'm like, you know, my mybaseball background said I'm not
striking out, so we're not doingthe third time.
(28:14):
So we went for somebody that hadno tech background and came from
the hotel industry and had acustomer service background, and
all of a sudden the customerresponses was, oh, we love
Valerie, she's awesome, she'sawesome.
Oh, this is great.
You know, finally somebody thatwe can talk to that didn't, you
know, try and tell me how stupidI am or that you know make me
feel stupid because they starttelling me what what I did
wrong.
(28:34):
Yeah, right.
Um so it just changed the wholeclient experience.
And I'm like, okay, so that'sone.
Um we actually did an outsourcedhelp desk.
Um, and our clients called itthe escalation desk.
Um, and so we stopped that.
Well, as soon as I heard thatfrom a client joking, oh, you
say, Oh, you I said, Yeah, haveyou opened a ticket?
And they said, Oh, you mean withthe escalation desk?
(28:56):
And I said, Excuse me.
And so that's when we broughtall of our guys in house.
And again, it cost me a littlemore money and our model's a
little different, but it worksfor us.
Um so most of them is you know,making a bad hire, hiring
somebody too quickly, you know,working for GE for 10 years back
in the Jack Welch era, hismantra was always hire slow,
fire fast.
(29:17):
And there was a couple of timeswhere I hired fast and fired
slow.
Um, and so caused us some somepain and suffering um and had a
lot of um butt kissing to getout of those holes with clients.
But um, but yeah, I would saymost of the mistakes have been
on um on the HR side of it.
Because this is absolutely thegreatest job in the world if you
(29:38):
didn't have to deal withemployees.
Absolutely.
I love dealing with the clients.
SPEAKER_00 (29:45):
So there's employees.
SPEAKER_02 (29:46):
Oh my gosh, the employees.
And I've got really good onesnow, but you know, I've got
seven uh technicians now, and Ithink I've probably gone through
40 in 16 years, so I got a lotof stories.
SPEAKER_00 (29:59):
Speaking of, you know, employees and you know,
managing employees, I waslistening to another interview,
you know, with you, and you weretalking about some automation,
you know, that you guys havereally put into place that have
freed up your team from a lot ofadmin work.
And, you know, I knoweverybody's always interested,
like, oh, what are youautomating?
How are you automating this?
So talk about maybe one or twoprocesses that you that you've
(30:21):
automated or your team'sautomated that you would you
know never go back to doingmanually.
SPEAKER_02 (30:26):
Well, I mean, a lot of it's the same stuff everybody
else is doing.
We're we're trying to automatethe ticket process, the
escalation process, um, thenote-taking process, um, time
tracking process, just anythingthat we can do to allow the
technicians.
Um, so my background when I wasin sales and marketing was for
manufacturing companies.
And one of them was an aluminumextrusion company.
(30:49):
And so we had aluminum extrusionpresses, and I look at my
technicians like an aluminumextrusion press because they're
W-2 employees and I pay them asalary.
They're not hourly.
So I pay them a salary.
So I've got a fixed amount ofcapacity in that technician that
I need to maximize every week inorder to be profitable.
(31:10):
And so we track.
The profitability or theproductivity at real-time time
entries and employeeutilization, resource
utilization on a weekly basisagainst our goals to be in the
upper quartile, to make surethat they are being productive
and I'm doing things to helpkeep the morale up and the and
(31:31):
the culture up so they stayproductive, stay want to be
there, we eliminate turnover,all those things hurt
productivity.
So anything I can do, because atthe core, really good
technicians, they want to geekout.
They want to solve problems,they want to, you know, drive
(31:52):
their, you know, stick theirflag in the ground when they're
done with a ticket and say, yep,I solved this.
Um, and so the more I can letthem be really good technicians
and get those processes inplace, um, the better off we
are.
So um we're constantly, as amatter of fact, I just had a
conversation with my V VP Brianthis morning about how do I free
(32:13):
up more time for him to digdeeper in AI on the automation
side, on the technical side,because whether you look at any
of the vendors that you look at,um Roost or PIA or any of these,
there's a lot of there's a lotof resources that you have to
apply against it to geteverything set up so that you
(32:34):
can gain the benefits of theefficiencies of the automation.
So um you gotta, you know,nothing's free, right?
So you gotta you gotta put inthe time.
So we're still working throughsome of that, but we've already
automated with a lot with autotest.
We we're a big Caseya partner,and so we've done a lot of
automation with uh with uhCooper uh the I think it's the
Cooper agent that they have,Cooper Bot, the AI agent that
(32:57):
they have, um, integratingtools, uh make sure the tools
are integrated so that theydon't have to enter data uh in
four different places or enterit in three and forget in the
last one that the most importantone, right?
You know, um so those are thethings that we've really focused
on to date, um, to date rightnow.
And so we're um starting to rampup, we're adding automation on
(33:18):
the marketing side.
Uh Kristen, my daughter, justcame back from the roadshow in
Chicago with all the AIautomation there on the
marketing side.
So we're doing a lot of uh thatwe've uh have been in the
producer's club.
We've done a lot on that sidewith uh building our gurus and
our avatars, and now we're doingit with list cleaning and you
know, um uh looking at coldcalling and just constantly,
(33:41):
constantly looking at a matterof fact.
Uh we just came back from ourCMIT convention and and uh I
have a baby Doug video, uh, babyDoug X to use for intros when I
do my AI presentations so we canshow people, you know, that
we're paying attention to AI.
And it's that's pretty funny.
My my staff got a big kick outof it, and so do my kids.
(34:01):
Um but we're just yeah, it'swe're just trying to, you know,
we're just trying to keep, youknow, I can't we can't afford
small businesses can't afford tobe on the bleeding edge, but you
got to keep, you don't, as he'stalking about with marketing,
you just don't know what's gonnawork, right?
You don't know what message isgonna resonate.
And so you've got to havemultiple messages out there in
(34:24):
multiple places so that whensomebody's in pain, they can
find you.
And then, you know, the name ofthe game on the back side is,
you know, the personal touch andefficiency.
(35:23):
So if I can the more efficient Ican have my technicians be and
getting a faster resolution forthe clients, and we have a
personalized customer serviceexperience, um, I can keep my
clients over somebody whoautomates and does AI chat bots.
And um, because a lot of thatstuff, you know, small business
owners don't like.
And that's fine for those thatdo.
Um, you know, I don't begrudgeanybody for doing what works for
(35:46):
them, but you know, one of thethings I keep having to remind
myself, um I just had thisconversation with my wife the
other day, is the percentage ofbusinesses that have been in
business over 15 years and thatare over 4 million in revenue is
less than one half of 1%.
So we're doing something right,and I'm not gonna stop looking
at new things, but I can'tchange at the core who we are
(36:09):
because then we upset everythingthat we have and put it all at
risk.
So you take small risks and youyou um you calculate the risks
as you go along through theprocess.
SPEAKER_00 (36:22):
Okay.
Now I know this is you know myfirst million podcasts, but you
know, question for you know,beyond hitting revenue numbers,
what does success look like toyou?
SPEAKER_02 (36:34):
Well, I mean, obviously you got to, you know,
one of the things like the greatthings like Paul Dipple even uh
called me out for this in frontof uh the peer group at CMIT.
He says, you know, Doug does twothings really, really well.
He looks at the top line and orhe focuses on the top line and
he focuses on the bottom line.
So, you know, it's all aboutmaking money.
Um, so at the end of the day,you got to be profitable.
So uh I don't care how big youare, if you're losing money or
(36:57):
you know, you're you're notmaking money, um, then there's
an there's an issue.
And and making money to me is arelative term.
It's making is are you makingenough for you?
Right?
Um, for you, your family, yourbusiness, your goals, whatever,
because everybody's that's allrelative.
Um, you know, success is umhaving a name in the community
(37:18):
that you can be proud of.
Um, that when you walk in um toa chamber event, when you walk
into a client's office, um, whenyou see a client in a restaurant
or a client in the movietheater, you know, they walk up
and shake your hand and give youa hug.
Um, that's success to me.
That means we're doing the theright thing.
We're not only making money andtaking care of our employees,
(37:41):
but we're also taking care ofthe clients um and building a
brand and a reputation in theindustry that we can be proud
of.
I told my my son this um when hefirst came into me.
I mean, he's heard it for years,but my mantra when we started
this business is we will faildoing this business right before
I succeed doing it wrong.
(38:01):
Um and he actually repeated thatum to a client on a uh on a um
presentation, a pr uh uh aprospect uh unsolicited by me.
And you know, it's like, oh, Ihave to turn away because that
that was a proud dad moment thatthat resonated with him.
Um but that's I I really Ireally truly mean that.
(38:24):
I mean, we you you know, all weare called to do is be is to be
the best that we can be everyday and have faith that God will
do the rest.
And so I'm constantly evaluatingwhat we do and how we treat our
our friends, families, andclients today on how we did
yesterday and are we bettertoday than we were yesterday?
And when we stop that pursuit ofexcellence, um then I I need to
(38:49):
get out.
Because then you get complacent,then you burn goodwill, then you
lose friends, then you loseclients, um, and none of that's
any fun.
I don't ever want to be thatguy.
And I've and I won't let ourbusiness be that business.
SPEAKER_00 (39:03):
Yeah, 100%, 100%.
Um, okay, two two kind ofquicker quiet, well, I guess it
doesn't have to be quick, butone of them may want to not,
you've referenced, you know,Paul Dipple a little bit here in
their service leadership.
Is there uh is there one, youknow, maybe business book or you
know, business coaching programthat has really that stands out
to as just really being a gamechanger for you?
SPEAKER_02 (39:27):
Well, there so this is really funny.
Um, I have a um bookshelf fullof business books.
Um, I have not read any of them.
I have people given me a lot ofbooks over the years, um, but I
gain information throughconversation because it's like
(39:50):
golf digest and golf world andgolf this and golf that.
They all say the same thing,they just verbalize it
differently.
It's different styles.
So I'd rather talk to, you know,that's one thing I love about
the TMT platform, having theauthors there and listening to
them talk, um, and you know,getting information directly.
So there's really not anybusiness book.
(40:12):
You know, one of my early regionmanagers was very, very
influential on me, is a guy bythe name of Paul Brown in Texas.
And he was just a very solid,balanced, calm um manager that,
you know, like taught me, hey,you know, kid employees are like
kids.
When somebody asks a question,the first you always try and
(40:33):
find a way to say yes.
And you go through the data andyou go through, then you know,
if you have to say no, you haveto say no, but you have a reason
for it.
You don't just assume, you know,Six Sigma methodology actually
has been one of the greatestthings for me because being a
data guy, it teaches you to makedata-driven decisions and not
make assumptions.
So that it that that applies toeverything that we do, life and
(40:56):
everything.
You know, my dad taught meeverything is relative.
So somebody said, Oh, that's toomuch money, that's too much
this.
Well, that could be for thembecause everything is relative.
So it just kind of keeps me umgrounded, obviously, my faith.
Um, and then, you know, I tellyou, most recently it's been
Robin.
(41:16):
Um, you know, she and I are bothAries.
Um, where I've come to find outsince we've signed up 15, 16
months ago.
Um, I love her energy.
I love her direct style.
Um, that's very much a mirror ofwho I am.
And so um, you know, when I haveI can have a five-minute
conversation with her, listen toher talk for five minutes, and I
(41:38):
I draw off that energy as a teamplayer.
So even though I don'tnecessarily agree with
everything that she says, andshe'll probably be devastated to
hear that, um, but um, but justthe energy and just the the
drive of I am not going to fail.
You know, I was not going tofail starting this business in
the middle of recession with mykids watching me.
(42:00):
I just wasn't.
And so that was never a therewas never a doubt in my mind.
My wife, panic, abject panic.
You're gonna do what?
SPEAKER_00 (42:10):
She's gotten your panic.
You don't even know.
SPEAKER_02 (42:12):
Yeah, oh, she she absolutely did.
She said, Are you crazy?
And I'm like, honey, you know,trust me.
You just gotta trust me on this.
We're gonna be okay.
Um, so um, so yeah, so I wish Icould give uh, you know, again,
the I guess the best businessbook would be the Bible.
Um, and then uh, like I said,just some really good mentors
along the way.
SPEAKER_00 (42:33):
Yeah.
Okay.
You've been dropping some greatlittle tidbits of advice and and
dropping little, you know,cookie crumbs for for our
listeners here and there forthose wanting to kind of cross
that million dollar mark.
But if you could you could leaveour our friends, our audience,
you know, our MSP community withmaybe one piece of advice, uh,
if they're looking to make itover that hurdle, what would it
(42:56):
be?
SPEAKER_02 (42:57):
Um, I watched a podcast not too long ago that
said that you are responsiblefor everything in your life.
So it's your fault, basically.
If you're successful, it's yourfault.
If you're not successful, it'syour fault.
If you have enough leads, that'syour fault.
If you don't have enough leads,that's your fault.
So um, when you are the owner ofa small business, you you are
(43:20):
responsible.
And there are so many people whodo this that want to try and
blame factors, economy, otherthings for their success or
failure when at the end of theday, ultimately it's you.
Um, so if you are responsiblefor everything in your life, so
(43:41):
it's your fault, basically.
If you're successful, it's yourfault.
If you're not successful, it'syour fault.
If you have enough leads, that'syour fault.
If you don't have enough leads,that's your fault.
So um, when you are the owner ofa small business, you it you are
responsible.
And there are so many people whodo this that want to try and
(44:04):
blame factors, economy, otherthings for their success or
failure when at the end of theday, ultimately it's you to do.
Um, but if you can do it, that'swhen um growing, uh I find
happens exponentially whenpeople just stop looking behind
(44:24):
them and blaming everybody elseand taking responsibility and
and looking forward.
SPEAKER_00 (44:28):
So that would be my advice is yeah, extreme
ownership, right?
SPEAKER_02 (44:33):
Yep.
Yeah, I mean, who go back toRandy Jackson from American Idol
back in the day, you have to bein it to win it.
unknown (44:40):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (44:40):
And if you because I and I was the same way with my
wife.
Uh, sorry, one last thing is youknow, when we were dating, I
said, Hey, listen, my parentswere divorced, divorce is not an
option for me.
If if you think divorce is anoption, you're not the right
girl for me.
And she just looked at me andshe says, What do you mean?
I said, I mean, I don't care ifit's counseling, whatever.
The only way out of ourmarriage, if we get married, the
only way out's in a body bag.
(45:01):
You or me.
And she kind of looked at me, Isaid, I'm serious, because if
you go in thinking that divorceis an option, then divorce will
be the result.
If you go in thinking we'regonna fight through everything
together through this, andthat's the mindset going in.
I mean, so now we're 37 yearsin, and it's you know, there
have been times, you know, withthe kids, with all the moves,
(45:22):
you know, she was by herself alot.
I traveled, I lived in Hong Kongfor six months.
We started this business fromscratch in the recession, right?
I mean, there's a lot ofadversity to overcome, but we're
still together because that wasthe mindset going in.
So I've talked to businessowners that are looking at
opening a small opening an MSP,and they're like, Yeah, I said
I'll give it two or three years,and if that doesn't work, I'll
(45:43):
go do something else.
I'm like, well, then don't doit.
unknown (45:45):
Yeah.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (45:47):
Just don't why why?
Why put yourself through that?
Because if you're not fullycommitted, where you're not
willing to eat beans and weeniesto get over that hump that you
need to get over, if you're notwilling to tell your kid no to
the free pony or whatever theywant when you have to put it in
the business, if you're notwilling to make those
sacrifices, then you're not init to win it.
So but that's why small businessownership is hard because a lot
(46:12):
of people aren't willing to makethose sacrifices and those hard
decisions.
SPEAKER_00 (46:15):
Yeah.
I mean, great piece of advice,you know, leave our listeners
with.
If if you're set, if you're, youknow, saying that to yourself,
oh, I'll give it a couple yearsand see if I can make it work,
cut it out.
Don't say that ever again.
SPEAKER_01 (46:29):
Ever again.
SPEAKER_00 (46:30):
Yeah.
Switch it to the I am and Iwill.
unknown (46:33):
Yep.
Yep.
SPEAKER_00 (46:35):
Awesome.
Well, Doug, this has beenamazing.
I loved hearing about kind ofthe different story of how you
got into IT and some greatadvice, not only just for people
who are under that milliondollar mark, you know, for MSPs
of all sizes.
Um, I really appreciate youbeing here.
Um, I'm sure I'll see you at anevent soon.
Um maybe upcoming DatoCon,perhaps.
SPEAKER_02 (46:55):
I will be at DadoCon over 10 days.
SPEAKER_00 (46:58):
Yes, that's it.
I'll see you in a week and ahalf at DadoCon.
And anybody else who'slistening, come and find me.
I'm trying to come and findDoug.
I'm sure he'd love to chat withyou too.
Um, but until next time, uh, youknow, hang tight for the next My
First Million podcast episodewhere we're, you know, pulling
back the curtains and gettingall the juicy tidbits on how to
make it past that first million.
(47:19):
Doug, thank you so much again,and I'll see you soon.
SPEAKER_02 (47:22):
Thanks, Allison.
I appreciate it.
See you at Better Your BestFinals.
But just the energy and just the the drive of I am
not going to fail.
You know, I was not going tofail starting this business in
the middle of recession with mykids watching me.
I just wasn't.
My mantra when we started thisbusiness is we will fail doing
this business right before Isucceed doing it wrong.
When you're doing the tech work,then you become a technician to
your client and not theirstrategic partner.
(00:22):
You are responsible foreverything in your life.
If you're successful, it's yourfault.
If you're not successful, it'syour fault.
When you are the owner of asmall business, you are
responsible.
SPEAKER_00 (00:39):
Hello everyone.
Welcome to the MSP SuccessPodcast, My First Million, where
we pull back the curtain andhave some candid conversations
with MSP CEOs who did just that.
My name is Allison Felber.
I'm the editor-in-chief at MSPSuccess.
And I have the honor of speakingtoday with Doug Bates.
And Doug Bates, Doug's thepresident of CMI, uh CMIT
(01:02):
Solutions, the Atlanta SouthernCrescent area.
Did I get that right, Doug?
SPEAKER_02 (01:08):
Yes, ma'am.
Yeah, we have two locationsactually.
We opened a second locationthree years ago, and that's
Atlanta Northwest.
SPEAKER_00 (01:14):
All right, taking over Atlanta region by region.
SPEAKER_02 (01:17):
One step at a time.
SPEAKER_00 (01:19):
Yeah, uh, you know, Doug's got a little bit
different of a start.
You know, we we do theseinterviews a lot, you know, and
sometimes you start to see kindof some patterns and trends.
And I was very interested, youknow, in Doug's start.
Um, you know, a lot of it is,you know, coming from, you know,
a tech background and andgetting a degree in IT or
telecommunications and workingin-house.
(01:39):
Well, Doug actually has, andcorrect me if I'm wrong, but
from my research, your BA or noBS degree, you have a bachelor
of science degree in businessadministration and speech
communication.
Is that right?
SPEAKER_02 (01:52):
That's that's correct.
SPEAKER_00 (01:54):
Okay.
Uh, and I also saw in there,see, I creaked on you
beforehand.
I found out all these differentthings.
You actually worked at Legoearly on in your career as well.
Am I right?
SPEAKER_02 (02:04):
Yes, yes.
As a matter of fact, if I showedyou, if I turned my camera, you
would see my um X-Wing Fighter,my Darth Vader, I've got a um a
Mandalorian helmet, I've gotanother uh Grogu statue here I
got to put together.
Um yeah.
So it's still a big part.
I grew up, my dad worked for umMonsanto and sold plastic, uh
(02:28):
petrochemic or uh petrochemicalsand uh plastics, and so he
actually sold resins to Legoback before they started um
manufacturing in the UnitedStates.
So when he would go over toEurope, he would bring Lego back
to us kids when we were small.
So I grew up playing with Lego,and then it was a dream job to
work for him for a little bit.
I actually have um the piratesets came out in 1989.
(02:52):
I have an original Black SeasBarracuda pirate ship uh mint in
package that's worth about fiveor six thousand dollars.
SPEAKER_00 (03:00):
I love that's so fun.
I love that.
Well, we we will talk about Legoa little bit here in a minute
with kind of how you got yourstart.
But you know, we're here to talkabout you know your first
million.
So um, you know, I you startedin in 2009, am I right?
SPEAKER_02 (03:16):
April Fool's Day 2009.
SPEAKER_00 (03:18):
April Fool's Day 2009.
Uh, also right in the middle ofa recession.
So talk about the perfect day tostart, you know, a brand new
company.
SPEAKER_02 (03:27):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (03:27):
Uh what was going through your head at that
moment?
SPEAKER_02 (03:31):
Well, I just um I really felt called to do my own
thing.
I'd been in corporate for 20plus years.
I had run a$750 million globalPL as a part of the tyco
business.
Um when they sold our thatplastic, I sold plastic garment
hangers.
When they sold that plasticsbusiness off, I was a global
vice president, um, took a jobto kind of stabilize the family
(03:54):
and not move because we hadmoved like every two or three
years during my corporate salescareer.
And I just was like, we're notgonna move again.
Well, then the recession hit.
I was last in, highest paid.
And of course, you know, theycame in and had the
conversation.
I'm like, yeah, I get it.
So I had a chance to move toHouston and move my family
again.
And I came in, and or mydaughter came in from school,
(04:16):
she was in middle school, and mywife said, Yeah, we're, you
know, your dad, you know, isgonna change jobs, and it looks
like we're maybe moving toHouston.
She started crying, and she'slike, You said we wouldn't have
to move again.
And it just broke my heart.
Um, it just, I'm like, I can, Iam not gonna go back on my word.
So um the executive, you know,part of the executive buyout
(04:37):
package was I got a recruitingfirm.
And so he said, you know,franchises would love your sales
background.
So I started, I went through afranchise broker and we talked
to a bunch of franchises and umevaluated probably 30, and we
narrowed it down to three orfour.
And, you know, the thing aboutIT that I that really resonated
for me is I've always been inthe business-to-business model.
(04:58):
So I love the B2B model.
Um, I love the annuity-basedmodel of the MSP, as opposed to
having to fill the transactionalbased of some of the other
franchises we were looking at.
So to me, it was kind ofresonated with my national
account and my global accountbackground.
Well, if you if you get anaccount and you take care of it,
it's much easier to scale andgrow and build those
(05:19):
relationships that I was so usedto doing.
And then the other thing thatresonated for me about IT is
having been in a globalposition, when we when our IT
went down, we couldn'tcommunicate.
We sold plastic garment hangers.
And if I couldn't get orders,and if I couldn't get specs, and
if I couldn't get drawings, wecouldn't do business.
(05:41):
So when it didn't work, it costmoney.
So I understood the pain side ofit.
SPEAKER_01 (05:45):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (05:45):
Um, and then when you throw in the fact when I I
worked for GE Lighting for 10years, and one of the great
things that lessons I learnedthere was I never had to
convince anybody they needed mylighting or lighting in general.
I just need to convince themthey needed mine because
everybody needs lighting.
So when you come to smallbusinesses, everybody needs it.
I just need to convince themthey need mine, my support.
(06:08):
So I don't have to generate theneed for the product.
I just need to generate the uhcreate the value proposition
that makes sense to them andthen provide the customer
support behind it.
And I tell my technicians allthe time, because like you said,
I'm I'm not a technician.
I I mean I go home and take anap if I change out a UPS.
(06:30):
You know, I just swap out amonitor, I tell the guys, this
is on you.
Um so my focus is on you guys dothe tech stuff, I'll take care
of everything else.
You just be great technicians,and I'll take care of the
billing, I'll take care of theproducts, I'll take care of the
purchasing, I'll take care ofeverything else.
You just go be great techs.
(06:50):
But when I tell you how tocommunicate with a client,
that's my area of expertise.
So the way we communicate ourpatterns for follow-up, our the
way we phrase and talk to ourclients is is based on my third
25 plus years of sales andmarketing experience for the
great companies I have on how tointeract and build customer
(07:13):
relationships.
So those are the type techs thatwe look for to come work for us
from a culture perspective.
And then I've got a my VP of IThas been with me almost since
the beginning, and his job is tomake them be great techs.
SPEAKER_00 (07:29):
I love that.
Uh curious, what were some ofthe other franchises you were
looking at?
SPEAKER_02 (07:34):
Uh we looked at Bright Star Healthcare, um, but
my wife had just lost her mom tocancer, and she said, I can't be
in a business where we lose ourpatients.
I just can't deal with that.
We actually looked atcertipropainters, they really
were putting a full court presson me.
Um we looked at a company calledERA, which is expense reduction
analysts.
Um, there was a uh uh actioncoach, um, were the probably the
(07:58):
top ones that we were werelooking at.
But the technology one justreally resonated because it's
it's it's important.
If we I knew if I did it right,that our customers would
benefit.
And that's what I get out ofdoing sales, is I love helping
other people be successful.
Because I played team sports,and so I do it, did a lot of
(08:20):
coaching on the side.
And so I really love the aspectof providing something that
matters.
And, you know, when it comes tosmall businesses, it's now the
fourth leg of the the oldthree-legged stool was, you
know, your attorney, your yourCPA, and your insurance agent.
Well, now you got to havetechnology.
So it's just been um it's been areal blessing.
And April Fool's Day, I'm I'm abig time smart alec.
(08:42):
Um, and so that was just my wayof giving the big fat finger of
fate to the recession and sayingI choose not to participate.
And actually, yeah, actually,Jeff Johnson, who's the
president of TMT, I've he was aCMIT franchise um owner when I
joined, when I was validating,and I talked to Jeff on a
(09:03):
validation call.
And he at the time was the onlyCMIT that was doing a million in
revenue.
He and his partner Thor in SanFrancisco.
And I hung up the phone, Iturned to my wife, and I said,
This is the one we're gonna do.
She says, Why?
I said, Because if he can do amillion dollars, I can do a
million dollars.
So just because I, you know, I'ma competitor, so I said, if
somebody else can do it, I cando it.
(09:24):
And so, you know, Jeff bailed,you know, on me eight months
later and went to TLT, and hereI am, uh, still in the franchise
system.
But uh, but it can't, you know,it's the old thing, you know,
when you when you use the phraseI am or I will, um, you know,
you have a better chance ofbeing successful.
And I was like, I I will dothat.
I can do that.
I am gonna do that.
SPEAKER_00 (09:45):
I love that.
So what were what were some ofthe hardest parts, you know, of
those first couple years uh andkind of getting through the
recession and and building abusiness?
SPEAKER_02 (09:56):
Well, there's just, you know, we literally, um,
fortunately our kids were werevery good athletes and they both
got scholarships, but they werein, you know, high school at the
time.
So knowing that they were gonnaprobably get a free education,
we took their money as what webought the franchise with.
So we said, hey, stay healthy.
You know, uh, if there's no morecollege money, yeah, it's right.
(10:19):
Um, yeah, yeah.
And so the really the hard thingwas more on the personal side.
Literally, you know, when youstart a small business, you have
to invest totally.
And I was on an you know, uh uhuh unemployment, if you will,
you know, the compensation, thebuyout from the from the sale or
the you know, getting laid offthe the um severance package.
And so having to look at my kidsand say, yeah, you can go to
(10:43):
Chick-fil-A, but yeah, I don'thave five bucks for a sandwich
for you.
You know, um, we just had toreally, really tight.
My wife stayed at home, she wasa stay-at-home mom.
She was an uh executive adminearly in her career before she
became a stay-at-home mom, andso she was doing back office
stuff.
Um, so we just sat him down andsaid, listen, this is what I you
know feel called to do, but it'sgonna be really, really tight
(11:07):
while we do this.
And so we're gonna have to makesacrifices.
And I need you guys tounderstand that.
And they were phenomenal.
I have um little post-it noteson the bottom of my monitors
from uh, you know, here's onefrom my daughter.
This was like at year two.
It's like, love you, daddy, youare my hero.
You know, um, so I'm so proud ofyou, love you, keep on keeping
(11:28):
on.
So um one from my son.
Uh, it just so those are thethings that I got from them.
And my they would run, mydaughter especially, when the
phone rang, if I couldn't get toit because we started out of our
home, she would run back intothe office if I was out and she
would answer the phone, CMITsolutions.
This is Kristen, how can I helpyou?
You know, so it just was, youknow, they really, I was really
(11:50):
blessed that they understood andbought in.
But that's really tough as a dadwhen you got to tell your kids
no for basic stuff.
Um, but I just felt reallycalled and motivated that this
was long-term the best thing forour family to get me off the
road, you know, be home with thekids while they were starting
to, you know, going through highschool, which is a really, I
think, an important time for foryoung adults to have their
(12:12):
parents there, both parents.
And so um, that was probably thetoughest thing on the personal
side.
And on the professional side,you know, the sales part, I've
I've been a sales guy my wholecareer.
That was really easy going out,kissing babies and shaking
hands, but I didn't understandthe technology.
So really, you know, I wasfortunate to um, I think it's a
a God thing that Brian and I gotconnected.
(12:34):
Um, and he became my, you know,he started with me as a
part-time tech and now he's myVP of IT services and been with
me, it'll be 16 years uh nextmonth, um, that he was that
good.
But I just would wear him outstanding over his shoulder, you
know, when we had four clients,you know, with nothing else to
do.
What are you doing?
What are you doing?
What are you doing?
Because I wanted to understand,right?
(12:55):
And so he would literally lookat me and it's like, yeah, I'm
gonna make this work, okay?
So can you just go stand in thecorner and you know, get a and
I'll tell I'll walk you throughit at the end.
So just the patience of, youknow, letting that the customer
experience and letting him solvethe problems.
I was really good in front ofthe customers and the
networking, but didn't have awhole lot of patience on the
(13:17):
tech side because I didn'tunderstand it.
So um, and uh, he was really,really patient with me, does a
great job, still does a greatjob of communicating, um,
speaking human to our clientsand being able to dumb down the
technology enough that us, youknow, laymen can understand it.
So that was probably thebiggest, the biggest challenge
for me.
Because we grew, you know,fairly quickly.
(13:39):
We did, you know, 70 grand inour first year, we did 300 in
our second year, we did 600 inour third year, 700 in our
fourth, and a million in ourabout halfway through our fifth
year.
So we were we were growingpretty good.
So um, but when you're nottaking a salary for 18 months
and you're eating beans andweenies, um, you know, it uh
it's tough.
(14:00):
It's tough.
SPEAKER_00 (14:01):
Yeah, yeah.
I I think that there's probablya a lot of listeners who either
relate because they're thereright now, or maybe they've just
gotten on the other side and areyou know now faced with
different problems, but it'sit's rough, you know, and
especially at the time being inthe recession as well.
Um, you know, speaking of otherMSPs, you know, before before
hitting that million dollar markat around year five, you know,
(14:24):
you said, what are what are oneor two things that really
enabled you to to jump that thathurdle to get over the
million-dollar mark?
SPEAKER_02 (15:46):
Um, well, having because since I'm not a tech
technical guy, having thatstrong technical resource um to
solve the problems and deliverthe the product stack and the
service.
You know, back then it was alsoa lot easier.
It was just an antivirus and amonitoring agent.
You know, it's a lot morecomplex now.
SPEAKER_00 (16:05):
Um it's that fourth leg.
SPEAKER_02 (16:07):
Yeah, that's right.
That's right.
Um the uh, you know, havingthat, um, you know, I joked with
him.
I said, listen, Brian, I said,you got a 24-hour contract that
renews at seven o'clock everymorning.
And as long as stuff's workingand I don't get a UMF call from
a client, you can come back towork.
Otherwise, I got to findsomebody smarter because I
couldn't, I couldn't do any ofthe technical stuff.
(16:29):
So, you know, having thatresource was huge for me, you
know, also understanding, youknow, Paul Dipple got connected
with him and listening to himearly on because I'm a data guy.
And so listening and doingresearch, you know, back then it
was, you know, I think it'sstill 70%, but back then it was
(16:49):
almost 80% of leads come fromnetworking and client referrals.
So the only thing I could do togenerate sales back then was to
network.
We actually used Robin Robbins,CMIT, as a system back in 2009
when I started my very first, Idid the aspirin campaign in
2009.
Um, and then after I did that, Ithink the relationship uh they
(17:13):
separated, they stopped usingthem.
But so we started doing that,and at least the broadcast
marketing and the importance ofgrassroots marketing, um, we
continued to do.
Um, but it was literally joiningthe chambers, showing up, being
consistent and understanding,you know, the old other phrase I
tell a lot of people, you know,act like you've been there
(17:34):
before.
You know, fortunately for me,I'd been in sales before, so I,
you know, I called on Walmartand you know.
So calling on a somebody who'sonly gonna spend$500 with a
month with you is not was notintimidating, but you still have
to treat them the same,especially when you're starting
out to get that that grassrootsmoment.
I mean, I would sell anythingthat I can make a profit on.
(17:55):
And that's I think one of thefault faults that I see in a lot
of new MSPs and um is thatthey're like, oh, I only want
to, I'm only gonna sell managedservices.
Okay.
Well, then you better slow yourcurve down because not every,
you know, you gotta, especiallythe economy now, it's much
harder to to shift somebody fromanother MSP to you.
(18:19):
So you may have to start withsome break fix work, you may
have to start selling hardware,you may have to start other
stuff to make profit, to payyour bills, to generate revenue,
to spend on marketing, to getthe clients that you want.
And um, so you have to be ableto mature.
And this is the other thingabout Paul Dipple that I liked
(18:40):
is the five stages or sevenstages of maturity, or the in
the different models that can besuccessful.
Um, and so knowing where youare, knowing where you want to
go and having a plan to getthere.
And that was always my goal.
I mean, when I first startedout, 50% of my revenue was
hardware software, 60%, youknow.
Um, and my goal was always to,okay, I'll shift that mix over
(19:03):
time as I grow my managedservice, you know, get rid of
some of the break fix.
And it, you know, it takes time.
And so we uh did that slowmigration to now where I think
I've got a really we've got areally healthy mix and have a
very distinct vision for what wewant to be.
And I'm not uh I'm not lookingto be a$20 million MSP.
That's really not my goal.
(19:24):
My son's now in the businesswith me.
My daughters do our marketing,so it's truly a family business
with two locations.
I just want to help my son umbuild it to where he wants it to
be so that he can support hisfamily and then he can do with
it what he wants, you know, in10 years when I'm out of the
business.
But I'm having a ball nowworking with them all and
growing the business.
SPEAKER_00 (19:43):
Yeah, I love that that they're all that they're
all working there now.
And it's uh when you weretalking about, you know, new
people starting out in MSP andwanting to go right into only
managed services, you know, itreminds me, you know, back when,
you know, I worked um at TMT andI ran their digital marketing
program, you know, the agency.
And I would, I would listenmyself, I would listen to all
(20:04):
these calls that would come infor uh people that we're doing
digital marketing for.
And it's the people that wouldthey would call in, they'd say,
you know, my computer's notworking or my network's down.
And I would literally hear someof these people say, like, oh,
well, we only do managedservices or we only do
contracts, or when I'm like,you're burning that lead.
It was so painful.
(20:24):
But you're right, that's how itcomes in.
SPEAKER_02 (20:27):
Yep.
And even now, I mean, even atfour million now, we we had a
call the other day that came inand like, yeah, we're really
looking for just, you know, it'sa residential call.
So I, you know, helped her find.
We have a local guy that doesresidential that we refer to.
Um, but I still take every callthat calls in to make sure that
we're not not missing anopportunity because our largest
(20:48):
account started at 15 seats, onelocation, break fix.
And now they're 250 seats andyou know, spend a lot of money
with us and allowed us to takecare of them.
But when we've been able to growwith them, but had I been in
that managed service-only modelback when they were just
starting and family-owned, theyyou know, chances are they
(21:10):
wouldn't be a client.
I've waited, you know, two yearsfor clients to come around and
come on board.
So um that's the one thing Ithink that I really love about
being the sales guy in thebusiness and not the tech, is
that when new employees come onand we talk about accounts in
the office, I know the story forevery client.
(21:32):
I know how they, I know how theleague came in, I know how we
started.
I remember how we built therelationship and all the
different iterations as we'vegrown with them.
And so I really, you know,sometimes it's like grandpa
telling stories in the office,you know, if we've got a slow
afternoon and they get mestarted and I start telling
stories about uh about clientsand past employees.
(21:55):
You know, we've got, you know,every anybody who's had
employees has stories, and soI've got a whole handful of
stories about, oh my gosh, youwouldn't believe the time that,
you know.
SPEAKER_00 (22:04):
Fill in the blank.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (22:05):
Yeah, fill in the blank.
That's right.
SPEAKER_00 (22:08):
All right.
Well, we talked, you know, acouple different times about,
you know, you entering in, youknow, to the IT space
differently, you know, not withan IT background, more with the
sales, you know, business focus.
Um, you know, a lot of ourlisteners are, you know, the
opposite.
So, you know, coming from acareer with, you know, at places
like Lego, you know, and GE, youknow, what are some lessons from
(22:29):
the corporate world and youknow, kind of the sales side of
things that you can give tosomeone who has only an IT
focus?
SPEAKER_02 (22:38):
Well, I think there's some pretty standard
ones out there that a lot ofpeople have heard before, you
know, don't work in thebusiness, work on the business,
for example.
Um, you know, it's easy for mebecause I'm not conflicted,
right?
Because I can't do that.
Now, there are days it's really,really frustrating when we're
swamped and because I'm aproblem solver and I always want
to help, right?
So when somebody's got a problemand we're trying to figure out
(23:00):
how to staff it or how toovercome the problem, and I
can't roll up my sleeves and goin and start fixing a server
problem or you know,reconfiguring something.
I just can't, I just have tostand back.
Um, so that that frustration isreal.
But as far as keeping us andkeeping the business on the
strategic path that we want, youhave to stay out of the weeds.
(23:25):
The other reason for that iswhen you start doing the when
you're doing the tech work, thenyou become a technician to your
client and not their strategicpartner.
And it's very, very hard to undothat when they they have you on
the phone and they're like, hey,while I've got you on the phone,
you know, my um my rightscreen's not working.
(23:45):
Can you help me?
Hey, for me, hey, let me get it,let me get a ticket create and I
have a tech call you.
Yeah, I because I can't do it.
Um, and so it keeps me very,very segregated and keeps me
focused on, you know, what whyare you doing this project?
What software's down the road,what do you, what's your vision
for your business, what youknow, acquisitions do you have
(24:07):
coming up, and focusing on thePL side and what our model
continues to look with them.
So I'm constantly evaluating thevalue that we provide to clients
to make sure that, because I dothings, you know, Allison, I do
things a lot differently thanthan a number of MSPs do
regarding how we treat ourclients.
(24:28):
For example, I don't haveautomatic escalators built into
my contracts.
Some people say that's crazy.
We should have automaticescalators because it increases
the value of your business.
Yeah, but I'm a franchise, andthe chances of me selling
outside the system are slim ornone.
So I'm gonna run this business,I'm not gonna sell it.
So um I wanted I do priceincreases based on merit, based
(24:50):
on changing the stack, or basedon economic conditions.
I just don't do automatic, Idon't like them for my landlord.
I don't want to do them to myclients.
Um so that's one thing we do.
We have agreements, we don'thave contracts.
We have three-year agreementthat has an evergreen.
But after you're in it, um,depending on the level you're
on, but most of them, for mostof my clients now, they're on a
30-day out.
(25:12):
There is there is no buyout.
I've got clients who've beenwith me 10 years, pay me$10,000
a month, and if they want toleave tomorrow, they could leave
tomorrow.
They give me a 30-day out andthey're gone.
So that forces me and my team tostay frosty.
We have to make sure we're doingcustomer service.
We have to make sure we're doingbecause everybody's only 30 days
away from leaving.
(25:32):
So there is no security blanketfor us in our customers saying,
oh, well, you know, if theyleave, they got to, you know,
pay us, you know,$100,000.
We don't have any of that.
Matter, and so um that again,that doesn't help the value of
my business to a potentialbuyer, but it makes my customer
(25:53):
experience for the clientsignificantly different and less
um rigid than a number of otherMSPs, right?
So, and I'm not saying it'sbetter, I'm just saying it's
different.
And so because we're focused onthe customer first and working
back to us, and I'm not in itfor a 10x buyout at some point,
(26:16):
um, it's allowed us to grow andscale and keep our clients, you
know, our turnover.
I think I've lost nine clientsin 16 years.
SPEAKER_01 (26:26):
Wow.
SPEAKER_02 (26:28):
So, you know, some right?
So, I mean, some people say, Oh,10% a year is fine.
I can't afford 10% turnoverevery year.
Um, so therefore, our salesengine doesn't have to be as
aggressive, our marketing enginedoesn't have to be as
aggressive, our messagingdoesn't have to be as
aggressive.
We can be more patient becausewe're stable financially and our
(26:49):
relationships are solid, andthat's our focus first.
And then so our client referralsare are really good ones when we
get them.
SPEAKER_01 (26:58):
Yeah.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (27:00):
So and we tend to close a lot of those, and that
helps us grow slow and steadywins the race.
SPEAKER_00 (27:05):
Yeah.
So you're doing you're doing alot of things right, obviously.
You know, we've talked about alot of them, but is there one
thing you did that that didn'twork?
Um, and maybe what you learnedfrom it.
SPEAKER_01 (27:19):
Oh, geez.
SPEAKER_00 (27:20):
And I I made the joke with uh with a colleague
today.
I was like, hey, in marketing,there's there's just you know,
there's they're just trial anderror, there's no mistakes, it's
just you try different.
SPEAKER_02 (27:30):
Yeah.
Um most of this mistakes, Ithink it would have been uh on
the our table of organization.
You know, when we first we havewhat's called a director of
first impressions that answersthe phone.
Um, because we do live answer,we don't use third party, it's a
W-2 employee.
And we first started thatposition, we started it with a
(27:52):
level one technician, and itjust failed miserably because
they kept trying to solve theproblem they wanted to learn
instead of actually doing thecustomer service side.
So for what what my goal was forhow we interacted with our
clients, it just was really bad.
So we did two, both of themfailed miserably.
And I'm like, you know, my mybaseball background said I'm not
striking out, so we're not doingthe third time.
(28:14):
So we went for somebody that hadno tech background and came from
the hotel industry and had acustomer service background, and
all of a sudden the customerresponses was, oh, we love
Valerie, she's awesome, she'sawesome.
Oh, this is great.
You know, finally somebody thatwe can talk to that didn't, you
know, try and tell me how stupidI am or that you know make me
feel stupid because they starttelling me what what I did
wrong.
(28:34):
Yeah, right.
Um so it just changed the wholeclient experience.
And I'm like, okay, so that'sone.
Um we actually did an outsourcedhelp desk.
Um, and our clients called itthe escalation desk.
Um, and so we stopped that.
Well, as soon as I heard thatfrom a client joking, oh, you
say, Oh, you I said, Yeah, haveyou opened a ticket?
And they said, Oh, you mean withthe escalation desk?
(28:56):
And I said, Excuse me.
And so that's when we broughtall of our guys in house.
And again, it cost me a littlemore money and our model's a
little different, but it worksfor us.
Um so most of them is you know,making a bad hire, hiring
somebody too quickly, you know,working for GE for 10 years back
in the Jack Welch era, hismantra was always hire slow,
fire fast.
(29:17):
And there was a couple of timeswhere I hired fast and fired
slow.
Um, and so caused us some somepain and suffering um and had a
lot of um butt kissing to getout of those holes with clients.
But um, but yeah, I would saymost of the mistakes have been
on um on the HR side of it.
Because this is absolutely thegreatest job in the world if you
(29:38):
didn't have to deal withemployees.
Absolutely.
I love dealing with the clients.
SPEAKER_00 (29:45):
So there's employees.
SPEAKER_02 (29:46):
Oh my gosh, the employees.
And I've got really good onesnow, but you know, I've got
seven uh technicians now, and Ithink I've probably gone through
40 in 16 years, so I got a lotof stories.
SPEAKER_00 (29:59):
Speaking of, you know, employees and you know,
managing employees, I waslistening to another interview,
you know, with you, and you weretalking about some automation,
you know, that you guys havereally put into place that have
freed up your team from a lot ofadmin work.
And, you know, I knoweverybody's always interested,
like, oh, what are youautomating?
How are you automating this?
So talk about maybe one or twoprocesses that you that you've
(30:21):
automated or your team'sautomated that you would you
know never go back to doingmanually.
SPEAKER_02 (30:26):
Well, I mean, a lot of it's the same stuff everybody
else is doing.
We're we're trying to automatethe ticket process, the
escalation process, um, thenote-taking process, um, time
tracking process, just anythingthat we can do to allow the
technicians.
Um, so my background when I wasin sales and marketing was for
manufacturing companies.
And one of them was an aluminumextrusion company.
(30:49):
And so we had aluminum extrusionpresses, and I look at my
technicians like an aluminumextrusion press because they're
W-2 employees and I pay them asalary.
They're not hourly.
So I pay them a salary.
So I've got a fixed amount ofcapacity in that technician that
I need to maximize every week inorder to be profitable.
(31:10):
And so we track.
The profitability or theproductivity at real-time time
entries and employeeutilization, resource
utilization on a weekly basisagainst our goals to be in the
upper quartile, to make surethat they are being productive
and I'm doing things to helpkeep the morale up and the and
(31:31):
the culture up so they stayproductive, stay want to be
there, we eliminate turnover,all those things hurt
productivity.
So anything I can do, because atthe core, really good
technicians, they want to geekout.
They want to solve problems,they want to, you know, drive
(31:52):
their, you know, stick theirflag in the ground when they're
done with a ticket and say, yep,I solved this.
Um, and so the more I can letthem be really good technicians
and get those processes inplace, um, the better off we
are.
So um we're constantly, as amatter of fact, I just had a
conversation with my V VP Brianthis morning about how do I free
(32:13):
up more time for him to digdeeper in AI on the automation
side, on the technical side,because whether you look at any
of the vendors that you look at,um Roost or PIA or any of these,
there's a lot of there's a lotof resources that you have to
apply against it to geteverything set up so that you
(32:34):
can gain the benefits of theefficiencies of the automation.
So um you gotta, you know,nothing's free, right?
So you gotta you gotta put inthe time.
So we're still working throughsome of that, but we've already
automated with a lot with autotest.
We we're a big Caseya partner,and so we've done a lot of
automation with uh with uhCooper uh the I think it's the
Cooper agent that they have,Cooper Bot, the AI agent that
(32:57):
they have, um, integratingtools, uh make sure the tools
are integrated so that theydon't have to enter data uh in
four different places or enterit in three and forget in the
last one that the most importantone, right?
You know, um so those are thethings that we've really focused
on to date, um, to date rightnow.
And so we're um starting to rampup, we're adding automation on
(33:18):
the marketing side.
Uh Kristen, my daughter, justcame back from the roadshow in
Chicago with all the AIautomation there on the
marketing side.
So we're doing a lot of uh thatwe've uh have been in the
producer's club.
We've done a lot on that sidewith uh building our gurus and
our avatars, and now we're doingit with list cleaning and you
know, um uh looking at coldcalling and just constantly,
(33:41):
constantly looking at a matterof fact.
Uh we just came back from ourCMIT convention and and uh I
have a baby Doug video, uh, babyDoug X to use for intros when I
do my AI presentations so we canshow people, you know, that
we're paying attention to AI.
And it's that's pretty funny.
My my staff got a big kick outof it, and so do my kids.
(34:01):
Um but we're just yeah, it'swe're just trying to, you know,
we're just trying to keep, youknow, I can't we can't afford
small businesses can't afford tobe on the bleeding edge, but you
got to keep, you don't, as he'stalking about with marketing,
you just don't know what's gonnawork, right?
You don't know what message isgonna resonate.
And so you've got to havemultiple messages out there in
(34:24):
multiple places so that whensomebody's in pain, they can
find you.
And then, you know, the name ofthe game on the back side is,
you know, the personal touch andefficiency.
(35:23):
So if I can the more efficient Ican have my technicians be and
getting a faster resolution forthe clients, and we have a
personalized customer serviceexperience, um, I can keep my
clients over somebody whoautomates and does AI chat bots.
And um, because a lot of thatstuff, you know, small business
owners don't like.
And that's fine for those thatdo.
Um, you know, I don't begrudgeanybody for doing what works for
(35:46):
them, but you know, one of thethings I keep having to remind
myself, um I just had thisconversation with my wife the
other day, is the percentage ofbusinesses that have been in
business over 15 years and thatare over 4 million in revenue is
less than one half of 1%.
So we're doing something right,and I'm not gonna stop looking
at new things, but I can'tchange at the core who we are
(36:09):
because then we upset everythingthat we have and put it all at
risk.
So you take small risks and youyou um you calculate the risks
as you go along through theprocess.
SPEAKER_00 (36:22):
Okay.
Now I know this is you know myfirst million podcasts, but you
know, question for you know,beyond hitting revenue numbers,
what does success look like toyou?
SPEAKER_02 (36:34):
Well, I mean, obviously you got to, you know,
one of the things like the greatthings like Paul Dipple even uh
called me out for this in frontof uh the peer group at CMIT.
He says, you know, Doug does twothings really, really well.
He looks at the top line and orhe focuses on the top line and
he focuses on the bottom line.
So, you know, it's all aboutmaking money.
Um, so at the end of the day,you got to be profitable.
So uh I don't care how big youare, if you're losing money or
(36:57):
you know, you're you're notmaking money, um, then there's
an there's an issue.
And and making money to me is arelative term.
It's making is are you makingenough for you?
Right?
Um, for you, your family, yourbusiness, your goals, whatever,
because everybody's that's allrelative.
Um, you know, success is umhaving a name in the community
(37:18):
that you can be proud of.
Um, that when you walk in um toa chamber event, when you walk
into a client's office, um, whenyou see a client in a restaurant
or a client in the movietheater, you know, they walk up
and shake your hand and give youa hug.
Um, that's success to me.
That means we're doing the theright thing.
We're not only making money andtaking care of our employees,
(37:41):
but we're also taking care ofthe clients um and building a
brand and a reputation in theindustry that we can be proud
of.
I told my my son this um when hefirst came into me.
I mean, he's heard it for years,but my mantra when we started
this business is we will faildoing this business right before
I succeed doing it wrong.
(38:01):
Um and he actually repeated thatum to a client on a uh on a um
presentation, a pr uh uh aprospect uh unsolicited by me.
And you know, it's like, oh, Ihave to turn away because that
that was a proud dad moment thatthat resonated with him.
Um but that's I I really Ireally truly mean that.
(38:24):
I mean, we you you know, all weare called to do is be is to be
the best that we can be everyday and have faith that God will
do the rest.
And so I'm constantly evaluatingwhat we do and how we treat our
our friends, families, andclients today on how we did
yesterday and are we bettertoday than we were yesterday?
And when we stop that pursuit ofexcellence, um then I I need to
(38:49):
get out.
Because then you get complacent,then you burn goodwill, then you
lose friends, then you loseclients, um, and none of that's
any fun.
I don't ever want to be thatguy.
And I've and I won't let ourbusiness be that business.
SPEAKER_00 (39:03):
Yeah, 100%, 100%.
Um, okay, two two kind ofquicker quiet, well, I guess it
doesn't have to be quick, butone of them may want to not,
you've referenced, you know,Paul Dipple a little bit here in
their service leadership.
Is there uh is there one, youknow, maybe business book or you
know, business coaching programthat has really that stands out
to as just really being a gamechanger for you?
SPEAKER_02 (39:27):
Well, there so this is really funny.
Um, I have a um bookshelf fullof business books.
Um, I have not read any of them.
I have people given me a lot ofbooks over the years, um, but I
gain information throughconversation because it's like
(39:50):
golf digest and golf world andgolf this and golf that.
They all say the same thing,they just verbalize it
differently.
It's different styles.
So I'd rather talk to, you know,that's one thing I love about
the TMT platform, having theauthors there and listening to
them talk, um, and you know,getting information directly.
So there's really not anybusiness book.
(40:12):
You know, one of my early regionmanagers was very, very
influential on me, is a guy bythe name of Paul Brown in Texas.
And he was just a very solid,balanced, calm um manager that,
you know, like taught me, hey,you know, kid employees are like
kids.
When somebody asks a question,the first you always try and
(40:33):
find a way to say yes.
And you go through the data andyou go through, then you know,
if you have to say no, you haveto say no, but you have a reason
for it.
You don't just assume, you know,Six Sigma methodology actually
has been one of the greatestthings for me because being a
data guy, it teaches you to makedata-driven decisions and not
make assumptions.
So that it that that applies toeverything that we do, life and
(40:56):
everything.
You know, my dad taught meeverything is relative.
So somebody said, Oh, that's toomuch money, that's too much
this.
Well, that could be for thembecause everything is relative.
So it just kind of keeps me umgrounded, obviously, my faith.
Um, and then, you know, I tellyou, most recently it's been
Robin.
(41:16):
Um, you know, she and I are bothAries.
Um, where I've come to find outsince we've signed up 15, 16
months ago.
Um, I love her energy.
I love her direct style.
Um, that's very much a mirror ofwho I am.
And so um, you know, when I haveI can have a five-minute
conversation with her, listen toher talk for five minutes, and I
(41:38):
I draw off that energy as a teamplayer.
So even though I don'tnecessarily agree with
everything that she says, andshe'll probably be devastated to
hear that, um, but um, but justthe energy and just the the
drive of I am not going to fail.
You know, I was not going tofail starting this business in
the middle of recession with mykids watching me.
(42:00):
I just wasn't.
And so that was never a therewas never a doubt in my mind.
My wife, panic, abject panic.
You're gonna do what?
SPEAKER_00 (42:10):
She's gotten your panic.
You don't even know.
SPEAKER_02 (42:12):
Yeah, oh, she she absolutely did.
She said, Are you crazy?
And I'm like, honey, you know,trust me.
You just gotta trust me on this.
We're gonna be okay.
Um, so um, so yeah, so I wish Icould give uh, you know, again,
the I guess the best businessbook would be the Bible.
Um, and then uh, like I said,just some really good mentors
along the way.
SPEAKER_00 (42:33):
Yeah.
Okay.
You've been dropping some greatlittle tidbits of advice and and
dropping little, you know,cookie crumbs for for our
listeners here and there forthose wanting to kind of cross
that million dollar mark.
But if you could you could leaveour our friends, our audience,
you know, our MSP community withmaybe one piece of advice, uh,
if they're looking to make itover that hurdle, what would it
(42:56):
be?
SPEAKER_02 (42:57):
Um, I watched a podcast not too long ago that
said that you are responsiblefor everything in your life.
So it's your fault, basically.
If you're successful, it's yourfault.
If you're not successful, it'syour fault.
If you have enough leads, that'syour fault.
If you don't have enough leads,that's your fault.
So um, when you are the owner ofa small business, you you are
(43:20):
responsible.
And there are so many people whodo this that want to try and
blame factors, economy, otherthings for their success or
failure when at the end of theday, ultimately it's you.
Um, so if you are responsiblefor everything in your life, so
(43:41):
it's your fault, basically.
If you're successful, it's yourfault.
If you're not successful, it'syour fault.
If you have enough leads, that'syour fault.
If you don't have enough leads,that's your fault.
So um, when you are the owner ofa small business, you it you are
responsible.
And there are so many people whodo this that want to try and
(44:04):
blame factors, economy, otherthings for their success or
failure when at the end of theday, ultimately it's you to do.
Um, but if you can do it, that'swhen um growing, uh I find
happens exponentially whenpeople just stop looking behind
(44:24):
them and blaming everybody elseand taking responsibility and
and looking forward.
SPEAKER_00 (44:28):
So that would be my advice is yeah, extreme
ownership, right?
SPEAKER_02 (44:33):
Yep.
Yeah, I mean, who go back toRandy Jackson from American Idol
back in the day, you have to bein it to win it.
unknown (44:40):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (44:40):
And if you because I and I was the same way with my
wife.
Uh, sorry, one last thing is youknow, when we were dating, I
said, Hey, listen, my parentswere divorced, divorce is not an
option for me.
If if you think divorce is anoption, you're not the right
girl for me.
And she just looked at me andshe says, What do you mean?
I said, I mean, I don't care ifit's counseling, whatever.
The only way out of ourmarriage, if we get married, the
only way out's in a body bag.
(45:01):
You or me.
And she kind of looked at me, Isaid, I'm serious, because if
you go in thinking that divorceis an option, then divorce will
be the result.
If you go in thinking we'regonna fight through everything
together through this, andthat's the mindset going in.
I mean, so now we're 37 yearsin, and it's you know, there
have been times, you know, withthe kids, with all the moves,
(45:22):
you know, she was by herself alot.
I traveled, I lived in Hong Kongfor six months.
We started this business fromscratch in the recession, right?
I mean, there's a lot ofadversity to overcome, but we're
still together because that wasthe mindset going in.
So I've talked to businessowners that are looking at
opening a small opening an MSP,and they're like, Yeah, I said
I'll give it two or three years,and if that doesn't work, I'll
(45:43):
go do something else.
I'm like, well, then don't doit.
unknown (45:45):
Yeah.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (45:47):
Just don't why why?
Why put yourself through that?
Because if you're not fullycommitted, where you're not
willing to eat beans and weeniesto get over that hump that you
need to get over, if you're notwilling to tell your kid no to
the free pony or whatever theywant when you have to put it in
the business, if you're notwilling to make those
sacrifices, then you're not init to win it.
So but that's why small businessownership is hard because a lot
(46:12):
of people aren't willing to makethose sacrifices and those hard
decisions.
SPEAKER_00 (46:15):
Yeah.
I mean, great piece of advice,you know, leave our listeners
with.
If if you're set, if you're, youknow, saying that to yourself,
oh, I'll give it a couple yearsand see if I can make it work,
cut it out.
Don't say that ever again.
SPEAKER_01 (46:29):
Ever again.
SPEAKER_00 (46:30):
Yeah.
Switch it to the I am and Iwill.
unknown (46:33):
Yep.
Yep.
SPEAKER_00 (46:35):
Awesome.
Well, Doug, this has beenamazing.
I loved hearing about kind ofthe different story of how you
got into IT and some greatadvice, not only just for people
who are under that milliondollar mark, you know, for MSPs
of all sizes.
Um, I really appreciate youbeing here.
Um, I'm sure I'll see you at anevent soon.
Um maybe upcoming DatoCon,perhaps.
SPEAKER_02 (46:55):
I will be at DadoCon over 10 days.
SPEAKER_00 (46:58):
Yes, that's it.
I'll see you in a week and ahalf at DadoCon.
And anybody else who'slistening, come and find me.
I'm trying to come and findDoug.
I'm sure he'd love to chat withyou too.
Um, but until next time, uh, youknow, hang tight for the next My
First Million podcast episodewhere we're, you know, pulling
back the curtains and gettingall the juicy tidbits on how to
make it past that first million.
(47:19):
Doug, thank you so much again,and I'll see you soon.
SPEAKER_02 (47:22):
Thanks, Allison.
I appreciate it.
See you at Better Your BestFinals.
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