Think licensing is just fine print? Think again. In this episode, we sit down with Chad Muckenfuss, Telarus Hybrid Engineer and Cloud Architect - East, to uncover how licensing silently shapes the customer tech stack—and their bottom line. From hidden pitfalls to strategic plays, Chad reveals why licensing isn’t just a detail—it’s the game. 🎙️ Don’t miss this eye-opening conversation that could change how you think about every deal you touch. Watch now before your competitors do!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to the podcast designed to fuel your success in selling
technology solutions. I'm your host, Josh Lopresto,
SVP of Sales Engineering at Solaris, and this is Next Level
Biztech. Everybody, welcome back.
We're here talking about a cool new topic we haven't talked a
lot about in the past, at least from a dedicated perspective.
(00:22):
We're talking about how licensing rules the game even
when you don't see its adjacent reach.
Back with us today, back from Episode 118, Mr. Chad
Muckenfuss, Regional Engineer, Cloud Architect for Solaris.
Welcome back on Man. Thanks for having me back.
Love it if if anybody hasn't seen your episode 118, we talked
(00:43):
a lot about your background. We're not going to go into
background today, but I would I would encourage everybody go
back and listen to that. It was a lot about managed
services as well. So it's kind of an extension of
that track. Maybe maybe kick us off with,
you know, you, you know, you've,you've, you've grown up in this
kind of regional engineering role, newly minted last year
into this kind of hybrid cloud architect for the East.
(01:05):
Also, talk to us a little bit about what shifted, you know,
what's been the biggest evolution in your role or your
mindset, I mean, since some of these changes.
Yeah, I think one of the biggestthings for me has been leaning
more and more on the overall team as a whole because we're a
whole lot smarter as a group than we are individually.
(01:27):
And I've come to learn that IA lot of my career I've worked
kind of as a lone wolf type of thing, everything from, you
know, the rainmaker type model to building an engineering team
from the ground up in the past. And it's always been about, you
know, me and what can I do and, and how can I better myself?
And what I've learned here over the past two years has been, you
(01:51):
know what? We are collectively way smarter
together and being able to leverage a different take on, on
an opportunity, a different viewpoint on a partner that all
those types of things have really come together and, and
helped me kind of make that nextstep up into that architect role
where I know I'm not alone. I know I've got people to, to
(02:14):
ask questions to, even if I'm going to get hassled a little
bit by my teammates, which is fine.
It's, it's been, it's been a really good growth period over
the last two years for sure. So, so let's think about this in
your role, I guess look at it through your lens, right?
As this architect engineer, you're working a lot, you're
working across a lot of these platforms, right?
(02:34):
You're seeing SAP, you're seeingcustomers have Oracle private
cloud, public cloud. What's your edge when you snap,
when you step into those environments and kind of how do
you how do you help differentiate that approach?
One of the big things for me really has been being involved
in so many different opportunities and seeing, you
(02:57):
know, coming in. I had worked on a couple of ERP
opportunities total over my prior career and coming here
I've probably done 8 or 10. So now going stepping into an
ERP and understanding the nuances and the differences
between each different platform from Sage to Oracle, NetSuite
(03:18):
to, you know, Microsoft Dynamicsand understanding that Dynamics
has a couple of different parts to it.
You've got the CRM side, you've got the traditional ERP side and
all of those things kind of playtogether and having real world
examples now to talk to not onlythe partners about, but also
their customers and say, what are you looking to accomplish?
(03:38):
Because having experience in them, albeit just from a, from a
higher level, you can talk to which ones are gonna fit.
Is it more of a financed focusedERP or is it something where
they really need something that's gonna fit into the
logistics world or how does thatreally fit their business model
as a customer? It's, it's been a huge help and,
(04:00):
and we see so many different opportunities on a weekly,
monthly, quarterly basis here that it really helps me sharpen
my edge to say, hey, you know what, I've, I've had this
before, I've had this question before, here's where we can go
in, here's where we can help andlet's have a, a detailed
discussion. And it also helps in knowing on
(04:20):
the supplier side too, Like, hey, these people do a really
good job at Oracle NetSuite. These do a really good job at
Sage or one of the other ones. So let's, let's pivot and make
sure that we're bringing the right players to the table
quicker than having this whole vetting process and going
through a bunch of calls and, and all that kind of thing.
And the same thing is true with industry changes.
(04:43):
So you mentioned, you know, public cloud, private cloud,
hybrid cloud. I, I use this in, in the talk
tracks that I'm now a part of with the cloud side of things.
And there was a big push, as you're well aware, on the COVID
side of things. Hey, let's get everything up
into the public clouds. We're using Azure, we're using
AWSGCP was a small part of that.Now it's growing substantially.
(05:07):
Everything's public cloud. Well, then cost overrides happen
because nobody's paying attention to what's going on
with the cloud spend. And then all of a sudden a CFO
gets ahold of that and it's like, Oh my God, what am I
spending all this money on? I need to pull this back.
I need to get a better handle onit.
So then CIO's are engaged and assessments are done.
And what I'm seeing in the mid market and enterprise space is a
(05:29):
transition back to a hybrid cloud model.
So you've got that that private cloud solution that they're
pulling things back to for all of the daily applications that
are that are being utilized on aregular basis.
And then leveraging the public cloud for what it's really good
for is, is storage. Obviously Microsoft has a 365
(05:50):
model, so SharePoint A1 drive, all that kind of stuff is
important. But the daily applications,
anything that's driving, especially in manufacturing
really works better in a privatecloud, public cloud hybrid
model. So those are those are kind of
the key things that I see on a regular basis from a from a
couple of different aspects there.
(06:11):
So let's think about, you know, throughout your career, hard
lessons, right? Give us a what's a hard lesson
that we haven't heard yet? Maybe you know you, you learned
your yourself the hard way. You had a great mentor that that
helped you avoid some of these things.
Just give us a give us a good lesson learned.
I think one of the key things that I've learned is take your
(06:33):
time in making decisions in and trust the process.
I know that sounds trite and a little overused.
Probably I've made some, some quick decisions in the past and
my career to jump from one company to another.
And I should have taken some time, you know, joining, joining
(06:54):
a startup company that that ended miserably was a great
learning process. But when you're in the midst of
that, it, it kind of sucks. So, you know, learning, learning
to just kind of take a step back, talk to people that that
you know and trust, whether it'sfamily, whether it's friends
outside of the industry that you're in, because they see
(07:16):
things way differently than thanI do and my peers in the
industry do because they're looking at it from really not
understanding what I do. I mean, you talk to my family
now I have no clue what I do. Nobody.
Nobody knows. We're 15101520 years in and
nobody knows. Yeah.
But with that being said, again,those lessons learned are going
(07:37):
to stick with me for my entire career.
They've helped me grow. And I think specifically here at
Telaris, it's really been a lot of people are willing to help
you along that journey and kind of be a sounding board and be
something that is, is not typical in an organization this
(07:59):
size. And I really appreciate that.
The culture is really what drew me here.
And I'm very thankful that I'm here and I'm, I'm thankful also
for the struggles that got me tothe place that gets me here too.
So, you know, there's, there's some, there's some pretty bad
stories out there of, of what, what had happened in, in prior
in my career, but they've, I've overcome all of them, you know,
(08:22):
and, and really have had the people to lean on both from a
personal side and a professionalside to, to get me through that.
So again, taking taking a step back, take the time, make sure
it's the right decision and thenand then make the move forward,
which has been kind of the best words of wisdom I can offer.
Love it. All right, let's think about,
you know, as we get into this licensing angle a little
(08:44):
further, let's take us back to maybe some of the earliest
conversations, right? What think back these discovery
calls when licensing would come up.
What was that like? You know, I, I remember early on
just going, you know, we partners bring us all kinds of
stuff and we want to be able to sell everything.
So walk us, walk us through whatthat was like early on and how
(09:04):
did you uncover some of those needs and what did you do?
Well, most of the time in a, in a licensing only model,
especially in a in ATSD situation like we're in, it's,
it's minimal compensation. You know, it's, it's a either A1
and done from a licensing, you know, from a Commission
standpoint on licensing or it isa, you know, a pay as you go
(09:27):
type model. Sometimes on the smaller scale.
I think some of the things that I learned real quick was to get
an accurate user count because typically customers are
initially overinflating it. They want to make their company
seem bigger and better than it is a lot of times.
And not that it's a whatever, but just getting those accurate
(09:47):
counts and understanding what the customers needs are.
Again, starting from an inside solution engineer role and then
moving all the way up over the past couple of years here,
talking with those five and ten person companies and
understanding like, hey, we've got a need, but I don't have the
money to necessarily spend for an E5 license for everybody
(10:10):
here, you know, Susie or Mike who's going to be answering the
phone is is not doesn't need an E5 license, but the three key
people in the business do. And balancing that out,
understanding that the licensingstructure specifically within
Microsoft a lot of times has a lot of nuances to it and it
(10:31):
changes on a regular basis. So keeping up with that, I've
got a few really cool websites that that are always updating
what the licensing looks like and, and how it matches.
And it's a side by side comparison, you know, small
business has, has business licenses that they can use
versus enterprise licensing and,and understanding the difference
(10:51):
in that. And I think going through the
Azure 900 certification and, andunderstanding the Microsoft
licensing structure kind of gaveme the baseline of, hey, here's
what's needed. And that easily translates.
It's called something else, you know, in, in other platforms,
but the idea of it is still there.
So understanding the needs of the customer though is key.
(11:13):
And understanding where the different employees fit in the
SMB side is really important also.
And then you just grow with that.
So now in a, in a cloud architect standpoint, there's
really, really, really good licensing opportunities, but
it's just exponentially larger. We're talking 10s of thousands
(11:34):
of licenses in some cases on international companies that are
Fortune 500, etcetera. That's a much different
conversation than than, you know, Jim Smith's CPA firm that,
that has 5 or 10. So it's just the scale is so
dramatically different and all of those opportunities come into
us here. So being able to balance them
back and forth is, is has been good.
(11:56):
I've learned a lot. So let's think about now as, as
the portfolio of vendors has evolved, right?
I mean, you flashback 10 years ago, we had probably a 10th or
less of the providers that we have now, right?
So the, the portfolio of suppliers has expanded, product
has expanded and we've, we've finally gotten some of these
things that we've wanted for years.
(12:17):
So if you think about when did you realize I guess that this
was just start the start of, of of a broader conversation that
we could grab, that, we could grab that, we could grab that
walk us through kind of how thatapproach is now.
Yeah. I think now having such a wide
variety of suppliers in the portfolio and having a
(12:40):
significantly larger group of managed service providers, cloud
service providers, people that play in the licensing space are
really key to growing. Or we like the phrase land and
expand because what happens is we have the licensing
opportunity is an easy in. But again, the compensation is
(13:01):
not necessarily the best for thepartner or for us in that
matter. But it opens the door to your
point for what are you doing forbackup disaster recovery?
How does this all fit together? Do you realize that Microsoft
doesn't back anything up, that it's just a retention policy?
So having something that backs up your e-mail, your OneDrive to
(13:22):
all of those types of things, that conversation goes from a
single thread to multi threaded very quickly and very easily.
Because whether they realize, whether the customer realizes it
or not, they need those other services, They need those
additional services. And they're typically coming in
thinking about, yeah, I got to renew this license, but it's not
happening the way that I want tosee it.
(13:45):
And then having a broader conversation over the course of
45 minutes to an hour and then walking away going, oh, wow,
there's a lot to to think about here.
This isn't just yeah, yes or no.Do I renew with, with ex company
for my licensing? This is yes for licensing.
And what do I have to do now fordisaster recovery backup?
(14:06):
Do I want to move to a virtual desktop model?
Do I want to look at securing all of the endpoints?
And how do I manage all of that from a cyber security
standpoint? What am I doing with my phones?
Do I want that to be a part of the licensing renewal for
Microsoft Teams? What do I, what do I do from
from the connectivity standpointof all of my users?
(14:27):
Is it something where is traditional coax or fiber or now
am I looking at, hey, maybe I just go completely wireless and
use mobility from that side of things.
So all of those come come out ofthat conversation about license
renewal. You know, I, I feel like, I feel
(14:48):
like we're spoiled a little bit here.
And what I mean by that is to your earlier point of we get to
do so many of these deals and somany of these opportunities, we
become so confident in, in, in anon arrogant way that we just
know that when we walk into a customer situation, there's
always a goldmine of opportunitythere.
And I think we go, oh man, we get 5 minutes into this and we
(15:11):
go, I am not going to uncover all of this in an hour, right?
And you'd think sometimes I don't know what, what my talk
track is going to be. And you know, what are, you
know, what are we going to focuson?
What's this personality going tobe like?
And you get into it 5-10 minutesin and you go, Oh my gosh,
there's so many ways here that we can help.
I think maybe it is sometimes the hardest thing trying to boil
(15:32):
down and focus everybody in. Yep, yeah.
And especially myself, like I have to take and take a pause
and say, wow, there's like 15 different things that we can
help them with here. But Oh yeah, let me look at this
e-mail. What was I supposed to talk
about? And and kind of pull back a
little bit and then follow up with a partner after the fact
and say, hey, you know what, let's address the immediate
(15:53):
needs here. But here's the list of
everything else that we can go back and talk about once we get
these first couple of things addressed for them.
And again, the partners love it too, because I just prior to
doing this recording, I was juston a call with a with a newer
partner. They're scared to death to
really talk about and they admitted this to talk about
(16:14):
anything outside of UC and contact center.
That's the world they know they're comfortable with.
And they said, well, how can we utilize you, meaning me and, and
the engineering team better? And I said, look, you don't need
to know anything other than asking the question to your, to
your customer, saying, hey, I know we're talking about phones
(16:34):
right now, but can I've got a couple other things that I just
want to mention. Do you have a cybersecurity
posture for your company right now?
Like what's your plan for cybersecurity?
Do you have anything that operates in the cloud or, or how
do you handle all of the data, all those kind of things, just
very basic questions. And then the end to all of those
questions is do you mind if we set up a call with one of my
(16:57):
engineering resources to have a discussion about some of those
things outside of the phones? And nine times out of 10,
probably 9 1/2 times out of 10, it's sure absolutely who.
Turns that down, like why? Once you know it's available,
why do you turn it down? Like why?
Why wouldn't you? I just think people, I, I just
can't imagine being a customer in 2025, trying to figure this
(17:18):
out yourself, it's so hard. It is.
And then you do the Google searches and then you're
bombarded with endless, you know, calls and, and endless,
you know, just salespeople reaching out to you.
Getting an agnostic, a truly agnostic approach to buying any
type of technology or investing in any type of technology is
really, I mean, it's, it's worthits weight in gold to customers
(17:41):
because it's just a huge time consumption for them that they
don't have the ability to do a lot of times.
So, so let's walk through a thread, then let's, let's pull
this up to an example of, OK, you walked in and and, and the
project started here. Maybe it was ERP, maybe it was
infrastructure and then how do you take that?
How did you take that Other places to security CIX data?
(18:03):
You know what? Where did you go and how?
Well, I'm going to use an example that that's fairly
recent. Within the past couple of
months, it actually started as alicensing, specifically
licensing Microsoft Opportunity.The customer was not happy.
They were coming out of or wrapping up a Microsoft
(18:23):
enterprise agreement, an EA agreement that as what that's
referred to. And they had several 1000
licenses in place and it was allover the place.
They didn't like how Microsoft locked them in to not being able
to adjust. They liked a what's called a
cloud service or CSP model better and it just fit their
(18:44):
business model much better. So that's where we started the
conversation and we ended up about 45 days later, they signed
off on a well into 6 figure licensing opportunity with
additional managed services to be able to go in and come
alongside their IT team now. And they're, they have a whole
(19:08):
backup and disaster recovery that's going to be set up
leveraging Microsoft Azure. They're doing from on Prem to
full cloud based migration for AD.
They've got all of these things coming on that that they knew
were there, but just didn't A, have the resources to do it and
B didn't really feel comfortableenough with their knowledge
(19:32):
internally on the IT team to be able to handle it.
So we came alongside of them and, and we're accomplishing all
of that. Now what's on the table is it's
kind of the reverse. UC is now on the table because
they want to migrate to Teams. That's a huge one.
They, they have several 1000 users all over the US and
Canada. And they, it's much easier for
(19:54):
them to manage a Teams instance than it will be for them to, to
handle all different types of phone systems or a typical UC
system with, with hard, hard wired phones and all that.
So they're just moving pure Teams.
Which is great 'cause again, multiple opportunities and it
all goes hand in hand with the with the licensing aspect of
(20:14):
things that we started in the door.
So I think that's a great one because all that the partner was
expecting to do was have a conversation in and around the
the licensing aspect. And now it comes back full
circle. They've got managed services on
top of it. They've got ADR plan now for the
customer and they've got UC contact center teed up for, for
(20:39):
the future here before the end of the year.
So it was a huge win all the wayaround for everybody.
And I think again, it was a simple conversation about
licensing to start out. You know, it's a, it's a really
great call out and I and I thinkmaybe this is obvious to some,
but if, if not, you know, if I'ma, if I'm a newer partner and
I'm thinking about that, right, Maybe my, maybe my vision right
(21:00):
now is, is just how do I conquerthis one thing that's in front
of me, right? And I'm going to move from this.
I'm going to go to that. I'm going to go to this.
I'm going to, I got to, I got tobuild my business and I got to
grow. But I my, my brain for stuff
like this, my brain kind of goesGantt Chartie and grid and
pipeline and future opportunities, right?
Like I can't, I can't tell people enough, OK, bring, bring
(21:22):
somebody from the team on, bringyou on.
Have that conversation about what's expected right now from a
licensing perspective that's in your CRM, that's on your, your,
your project road map, maybe that you see pieces right now,
maybe it's in nine months from now.
So you have these cascading, these compounding effects of
just a singular customer, but then you go knock down 3456
(21:45):
doors like that and you just think about how this pipeline is
just massively building so that in, you know, 6 to 12 to, you
know, 18 months, you've got morebusiness than you can even focus
on. And your next worry is, Oh my
gosh, do I have to hire somebodynow?
Right. And then the commissions are
flowing in. And so I think if you, if you
stay focused on that, I love that.
(22:07):
I'd love seeing that compoundingeffect, but also just we know
that we can turn 1 opportunity into 3 guaranteed every single
time. One of the cool things that I
that I've gotten to do, especially this year, I've spent
a fair amount of time on the road in front of partners
throughout the Northeast and Midwest.
And some of the, one of the key things that we talked about is
our swim lanes of technology. Here we've got that, that single
(22:30):
pager, that's the swim lanes of technology for all of the
Northeast NE roadshows that I'vedone.
We laminate that. And then we talk about when you
go and sit in front of your partner, slide it across the
table with a, with an erasable marker and say, Hey, this is
kind of the landscape of all thethings that I can offer as, as
(22:52):
your technology advisor, circle some of the things on here that
are going to be a fit. And then let's take a picture
with our phones. And I'm going to be able to
follow up with you here. And I have some engineering
resources that can talk in depthabout these opportunities,
solutions, whatever it may be. And then you know what the, the
TA takes that back, wipes it clean and does it again.
(23:14):
Because the last thing ATA needsto hear or wants to hear from
one of their customers is, oh, Ididn't know you did that.
I bought here, I went to CDWI did this.
That's, that's a, that's a huge loss.
And so this helps eliminate thatbecause it is a bit of an
overwhelming document, but it gets the customer thinking and
(23:35):
realizing like, oh, Chad sittingin front of me here has all of
this to offer. I, I should be working with him
on, on all this stuff, not just this one small portion of what
I'm talking to him about. So it's, it's really been a game
changer for a lot of new partners and, and I have the
privilege of, of talking to a lot of them and helping them on
board and going through a lot of, of questions and answers and
(23:58):
all of that. And it's just been great to see
them start a land their first deal with us and then B how that
how does that grow? Can we help them grow it?
It's it's a cool and exciting process.
Do you feel puts on the spot, I guess, of statistics, 62% of all
stats are made-up. But let's let's work on one real
quick. What percentage, when you're
(24:21):
sitting with a partner and a customer and that exercise
happens, what percentage of end customers realize how much their
TAS can really do for them? What would you say?
I think it's, it's typically it's, it's, I would say it's
between 60 and 65%, maybe a little bit more than that, maybe
(24:43):
pushing towards 70. It's a sliding scale though,
because a lot of times in the SMB space and mid market space,
it's a bit of an aha moment. But they still are going to kind
of pull back a little bit and go, well, I still use and they
have other friends or other people that sell them different
parts of that as you go upmarket.
(25:04):
So the larger mid market and then you get into enterprise to
them. I mean, it jumps to the 8080
plus percent because they don't have the time to do it, nor do
they have the expertise to do it.
And they'd much rather hand it off to somebody that's, that's
agnostic and has engineering resources and can do it all for
them. And just come back with, here's
your three options. It's, it's, it's significantly
(25:27):
higher the, the, the larger the company gets and, and the, the
higher up the scale it goes. But even on a minimum you're
you're 6065% of the time you're picking up something else out of
that opportunity than what you initially went in for.
Beautiful. Let's think about here, I, you
know, this is about kind of staying adaptable, right?
(25:49):
Let's think about we've got everything's moving fast.
I feel like we say that on everyepisode because it's just true
and it gets more true over time.But as the customer needs shift,
the vendor models evolved cost cutting, modernization, you
know, AI, you know, for the sakeof cost cutting and who knows
what the angle is. How do you keep, how do you keep
the process agile in these discoveries and not not have too
(26:12):
strict of an agenda as you're walking in to still be kind of
open minded in this? Well, for me, it's, it's an
interesting process because I rarely know anything more going
into it than hey, here's the customer, here's what they do
and this is what we need to leave the conversation with.
And then it's handed off to me to run with it.
(26:34):
So I try and hit kind of the basics of all aspects of, of a
traditional technology stack within an organization.
So you, you mentioned communications, you mentioned
connectivity, you mentioned cloud and you know, users as far
as what hardware are they using?Are, are you APC shop?
Are you a Mac shop? Are you leveraging 365?
(26:57):
How many employees use it all, all that kind of stuff.
And it's just kind of a, a general get to know the customer
and what their tech stack looks like.
And then from there, a lot of times, usually they'll share
openly, hey, I'm really struggling with this.
And that all of a sudden just takes a, a line in a different
direction. Like, yeah, we can address the
(27:19):
primary thing that you've talkedabout 9 times out of 10, that
thing the TA is very comfortablewith.
So if it's ATA that's coming in that's comfortable with UC and
Ccas, they've already had the conversation to kind of know
where that's going. I look at it from my standpoint
of yeah, let's let's verify that, no problem.
But what else is there? So let's have a conversation
(27:41):
about their mindset on cloud. Are they in it?
Is it premise based, you know, based on your, if you're
manufacturing, hey, do you need on Prem servers at your
manufacturing sites? If so, great.
Can you leverage a private cloudthat can provide that on Prem
solution for you too? All those types of things, I
think just begin to develop. And again, it goes back to the
(28:05):
beginning of our conversation here, which is having a lot of
these. I mean, we're in four or five,
sometimes 8 calls a day and we're looking at all kinds of
different verticals that we're talking to.
After years of doing that, you kind of get a mindset of, hey,
you know, what if it's manufacturing, it's going to
have these things and we're onlytalking about this.
(28:25):
So you, you begin to kind of build based on, on the specific
vertical what's needed. Same thing with like finance and
banking versus PE and hedge funds.
Like it's, it's two totally different worlds of finance and
they want 2 totally different things.
But you know, again, it's just it's, it's time, it's
experience, and then it's also listening to where the customer
(28:47):
wants to go is the biggest key. If you're not listening to what
they're saying and you've got this like narrow check, check,
check, check, it's not going to go anywhere.
You're going to get that information, but you're never
going to be able to get a broader picture of what the
customer needs. So final thoughts then here is
we think about the future of AI,evolving infrastructure,
(29:09):
securing all that infrastructureagentic, you know, workflows and
things like that. I used all the buzzwords I
possibly could right there. What's your what's your advice
to partners as they're trying toopen up those doors, start these
conversations? Anything different than kind of
what you foundationally built onor where where would you, where
would you take us home here with?
(29:31):
AI for me personally, I love it.I, I get a chance because of of
working here, I get a chance to see a lot of cutting edge what's
happening. I get to talk about it regularly
not only within our engineering team here, but also what's
happening in the industry and and what product sets are out
there and based around it. I am pro AI.
(29:53):
I will be, I will say that and scream it from the mountain
tops, but it's it's a tool and you need to learn to utilize
this tool, not be afraid of the tool and and all of the
opportunities that I get to talkabout it, I leverage that I use
my kids as an example. I I've got a 17 year old and a
14 year old. They use ChatGPT.
I've got my son now utilizing anthropic clawed and, and
(30:18):
looking at Llama and some of theother stuff out there.
They're embracing it as a tool and not being afraid of it and
not using it for, I mean, they use it for goofy things too, but
as any kid would an adult too. But one of the key things is
leveraging it, taking that information and it's no longer
going to be a Google search as we move forward in time.
(30:40):
It's going to be, Hey, did you, did you run that through GPT?
Did you what, what did you get back from that?
So that, that nomenclature that we have as a generation of hey,
go Google the answer. That's not going to be the case
moving forward. And AI is moving and growing and
learning so quickly that it would blow your mind how fast
things are changing. And I think we're just beginning
(31:02):
from a, from an overall consumerstandpoint, we're just beginning
to see the the aspects of what it's going to affect.
And it will literally touch, I think virtually every aspect of
our lives moving forward over the next five years.
That's my prediction on AI. It's, it's changing, it's
learning quickly. It's already digested everything
(31:24):
that's on the Internet already. So now it's just going to
continue to build off of that and get better and better and
better. So hopefully we don't end up in
in Terminator or something, something worse.
Oh yeah, I know. Well, this is all simulation
right now. No, I, I like it.
I mean, I, I think the, I'm, I'mpro pro pro, I, I seems like
(31:46):
getting into these conversationswith customers from an AI, you
know, licensing leads to copilotleads to data readiness and
purview and all of those things.And it, and it seems like we're,
we're really guiding this conversation as to what stage of
this do you think you're at? And the answer is, I didn't even
know there were stages. Ah, great.
Here, here's an AI readiness checklist, right?
(32:06):
Let's figure out where you're at.
And to your point, again, it's let's bring in resources to help
figure out where you are, where you want to go.
It's with your very early conversation.
Some of these are already closing and it's, you know,
it's, it's nice to see that onlybeing a year or two into this,
which is great. So it's really pushing people to
modernize faster because I don't, I, I think that people
(32:27):
don't want to be left in the dust from a competitive
landscape perspective as far as,you know, oh, my competitor, you
know, did, did this. You know, I think those are
those are angles to bring up in conversations to help people
kind of raise the bar a little bit against their competitors.
I, I totally agree. And I think if you look at it
from a standpoint of, you know, we, we've discussed internally
about gamification and, and we can use that on a different one.
(32:50):
But you know, if my customer if,or excuse me, if my competition
is utilizing this and I choose to hold back before I embrace it
or I don't embrace it at all. Like do they, do they win, do I
win? How does that look like?
There's a lot of different angles in that, in that aspect
of things and saying, Hey, you know what, embracing it now,
even if it's on a basic level and begin to, to look at, to
(33:13):
your point, data readiness, datagovernance, having at least kind
of the baseline so that you can eventually begin to layer on the
AI that makes sense for your business.
It may not be a fit right now, but six months from now and
probably less than a year from now, it will be.
And so utilize the time to get your data sets ready, get the
(33:35):
governance in place that you need, and begin to say, hey, you
know what, I've got a strong foundation.
Now let's go out and see what's going to be the best fit for me
in the AI space. OK, my friend.
That is where we wrap it up. Chad, appreciate you coming back
on, man, talking about good, good stuff today, licensing and
beyond. I appreciate being on again and
look forward to the next one. Love it, love it.
(33:58):
All right, everybody, that wrapsus up for today.
As always, don't forget whereveryou're coming to, Spotify,
coming from there, Apple Music, these drop every Wednesday, so
be sure to go on and get that drop as soon as you can.
So that wraps us up for today. And this has been how licensing
rules the game. I'm your host, Josh Lopresto,
SVP of sales engineering at Telaris.
Till next time. Next level Biztech has been a.
(34:24):
Production of Telaris Studio 19 Please visit telaris dot.
Com For more information.
Welcome to the podcast designed to fuel your success in selling
technology solutions. I'm your host, Josh Lopresto,
SVP of Sales Engineering at Solaris, and this is Next Level
Biztech. Everybody, welcome back.
We're here talking about a cool new topic we haven't talked a
lot about in the past, at least from a dedicated perspective.
(00:22):
We're talking about how licensing rules the game even
when you don't see its adjacent reach.
Back with us today, back from Episode 118, Mr. Chad
Muckenfuss, Regional Engineer, Cloud Architect for Solaris.
Welcome back on Man. Thanks for having me back.
Love it if if anybody hasn't seen your episode 118, we talked
(00:43):
a lot about your background. We're not going to go into
background today, but I would I would encourage everybody go
back and listen to that. It was a lot about managed
services as well. So it's kind of an extension of
that track. Maybe maybe kick us off with,
you know, you, you know, you've,you've, you've grown up in this
kind of regional engineering role, newly minted last year
into this kind of hybrid cloud architect for the East.
(01:05):
Also, talk to us a little bit about what shifted, you know,
what's been the biggest evolution in your role or your
mindset, I mean, since some of these changes.
Yeah, I think one of the biggestthings for me has been leaning
more and more on the overall team as a whole because we're a
whole lot smarter as a group than we are individually.
(01:27):
And I've come to learn that IA lot of my career I've worked
kind of as a lone wolf type of thing, everything from, you
know, the rainmaker type model to building an engineering team
from the ground up in the past. And it's always been about, you
know, me and what can I do and, and how can I better myself?
And what I've learned here over the past two years has been, you
(01:51):
know what? We are collectively way smarter
together and being able to leverage a different take on, on
an opportunity, a different viewpoint on a partner that all
those types of things have really come together and, and
helped me kind of make that nextstep up into that architect role
where I know I'm not alone. I know I've got people to, to
(02:14):
ask questions to, even if I'm going to get hassled a little
bit by my teammates, which is fine.
It's, it's been, it's been a really good growth period over
the last two years for sure. So, so let's think about this in
your role, I guess look at it through your lens, right?
As this architect engineer, you're working a lot, you're
working across a lot of these platforms, right?
(02:34):
You're seeing SAP, you're seeingcustomers have Oracle private
cloud, public cloud. What's your edge when you snap,
when you step into those environments and kind of how do
you how do you help differentiate that approach?
One of the big things for me really has been being involved
in so many different opportunities and seeing, you
(02:57):
know, coming in. I had worked on a couple of ERP
opportunities total over my prior career and coming here
I've probably done 8 or 10. So now going stepping into an
ERP and understanding the nuances and the differences
between each different platform from Sage to Oracle, NetSuite
(03:18):
to, you know, Microsoft Dynamicsand understanding that Dynamics
has a couple of different parts to it.
You've got the CRM side, you've got the traditional ERP side and
all of those things kind of playtogether and having real world
examples now to talk to not onlythe partners about, but also
their customers and say, what are you looking to accomplish?
(03:38):
Because having experience in them, albeit just from a, from a
higher level, you can talk to which ones are gonna fit.
Is it more of a financed focusedERP or is it something where
they really need something that's gonna fit into the
logistics world or how does thatreally fit their business model
as a customer? It's, it's been a huge help and,
(04:00):
and we see so many different opportunities on a weekly,
monthly, quarterly basis here that it really helps me sharpen
my edge to say, hey, you know what, I've, I've had this
before, I've had this question before, here's where we can go
in, here's where we can help andlet's have a, a detailed
discussion. And it also helps in knowing on
(04:20):
the supplier side too, Like, hey, these people do a really
good job at Oracle NetSuite. These do a really good job at
Sage or one of the other ones. So let's, let's pivot and make
sure that we're bringing the right players to the table
quicker than having this whole vetting process and going
through a bunch of calls and, and all that kind of thing.
And the same thing is true with industry changes.
(04:43):
So you mentioned, you know, public cloud, private cloud,
hybrid cloud. I, I use this in, in the talk
tracks that I'm now a part of with the cloud side of things.
And there was a big push, as you're well aware, on the COVID
side of things. Hey, let's get everything up
into the public clouds. We're using Azure, we're using
AWSGCP was a small part of that.Now it's growing substantially.
(05:07):
Everything's public cloud. Well, then cost overrides happen
because nobody's paying attention to what's going on
with the cloud spend. And then all of a sudden a CFO
gets ahold of that and it's like, Oh my God, what am I
spending all this money on? I need to pull this back.
I need to get a better handle onit.
So then CIO's are engaged and assessments are done.
And what I'm seeing in the mid market and enterprise space is a
(05:29):
transition back to a hybrid cloud model.
So you've got that that private cloud solution that they're
pulling things back to for all of the daily applications that
are that are being utilized on aregular basis.
And then leveraging the public cloud for what it's really good
for is, is storage. Obviously Microsoft has a 365
(05:50):
model, so SharePoint A1 drive, all that kind of stuff is
important. But the daily applications,
anything that's driving, especially in manufacturing
really works better in a privatecloud, public cloud hybrid
model. So those are those are kind of
the key things that I see on a regular basis from a from a
couple of different aspects there.
(06:11):
So let's think about, you know, throughout your career, hard
lessons, right? Give us a what's a hard lesson
that we haven't heard yet? Maybe you know you, you learned
your yourself the hard way. You had a great mentor that that
helped you avoid some of these things.
Just give us a give us a good lesson learned.
I think one of the key things that I've learned is take your
(06:33):
time in making decisions in and trust the process.
I know that sounds trite and a little overused.
Probably I've made some, some quick decisions in the past and
my career to jump from one company to another.
And I should have taken some time, you know, joining, joining
(06:54):
a startup company that that ended miserably was a great
learning process. But when you're in the midst of
that, it, it kind of sucks. So, you know, learning, learning
to just kind of take a step back, talk to people that that
you know and trust, whether it'sfamily, whether it's friends
outside of the industry that you're in, because they see
(07:16):
things way differently than thanI do and my peers in the
industry do because they're looking at it from really not
understanding what I do. I mean, you talk to my family
now I have no clue what I do. Nobody.
Nobody knows. We're 15101520 years in and
nobody knows. Yeah.
But with that being said, again,those lessons learned are going
(07:37):
to stick with me for my entire career.
They've helped me grow. And I think specifically here at
Telaris, it's really been a lot of people are willing to help
you along that journey and kind of be a sounding board and be
something that is, is not typical in an organization this
(07:59):
size. And I really appreciate that.
The culture is really what drew me here.
And I'm very thankful that I'm here and I'm, I'm thankful also
for the struggles that got me tothe place that gets me here too.
So, you know, there's, there's some, there's some pretty bad
stories out there of, of what, what had happened in, in prior
in my career, but they've, I've overcome all of them, you know,
(08:22):
and, and really have had the people to lean on both from a
personal side and a professionalside to, to get me through that.
So again, taking taking a step back, take the time, make sure
it's the right decision and thenand then make the move forward,
which has been kind of the best words of wisdom I can offer.
Love it. All right, let's think about,
you know, as we get into this licensing angle a little
(08:44):
further, let's take us back to maybe some of the earliest
conversations, right? What think back these discovery
calls when licensing would come up.
What was that like? You know, I, I remember early on
just going, you know, we partners bring us all kinds of
stuff and we want to be able to sell everything.
So walk us, walk us through whatthat was like early on and how
(09:04):
did you uncover some of those needs and what did you do?
Well, most of the time in a, in a licensing only model,
especially in a in ATSD situation like we're in, it's,
it's minimal compensation. You know, it's, it's a either A1
and done from a licensing, you know, from a Commission
standpoint on licensing or it isa, you know, a pay as you go
(09:27):
type model. Sometimes on the smaller scale.
I think some of the things that I learned real quick was to get
an accurate user count because typically customers are
initially overinflating it. They want to make their company
seem bigger and better than it is a lot of times.
And not that it's a whatever, but just getting those accurate
(09:47):
counts and understanding what the customers needs are.
Again, starting from an inside solution engineer role and then
moving all the way up over the past couple of years here,
talking with those five and ten person companies and
understanding like, hey, we've got a need, but I don't have the
money to necessarily spend for an E5 license for everybody
(10:10):
here, you know, Susie or Mike who's going to be answering the
phone is is not doesn't need an E5 license, but the three key
people in the business do. And balancing that out,
understanding that the licensingstructure specifically within
Microsoft a lot of times has a lot of nuances to it and it
(10:31):
changes on a regular basis. So keeping up with that, I've
got a few really cool websites that that are always updating
what the licensing looks like and, and how it matches.
And it's a side by side comparison, you know, small
business has, has business licenses that they can use
versus enterprise licensing and,and understanding the difference
(10:51):
in that. And I think going through the
Azure 900 certification and, andunderstanding the Microsoft
licensing structure kind of gaveme the baseline of, hey, here's
what's needed. And that easily translates.
It's called something else, you know, in, in other platforms,
but the idea of it is still there.
So understanding the needs of the customer though is key.
(11:13):
And understanding where the different employees fit in the
SMB side is really important also.
And then you just grow with that.
So now in a, in a cloud architect standpoint, there's
really, really, really good licensing opportunities, but
it's just exponentially larger. We're talking 10s of thousands
(11:34):
of licenses in some cases on international companies that are
Fortune 500, etcetera. That's a much different
conversation than than, you know, Jim Smith's CPA firm that,
that has 5 or 10. So it's just the scale is so
dramatically different and all of those opportunities come into
us here. So being able to balance them
back and forth is, is has been good.
(11:56):
I've learned a lot. So let's think about now as, as
the portfolio of vendors has evolved, right?
I mean, you flashback 10 years ago, we had probably a 10th or
less of the providers that we have now, right?
So the, the portfolio of suppliers has expanded, product
has expanded and we've, we've finally gotten some of these
things that we've wanted for years.
(12:17):
So if you think about when did you realize I guess that this
was just start the start of, of of a broader conversation that
we could grab, that, we could grab that, we could grab that
walk us through kind of how thatapproach is now.
Yeah. I think now having such a wide
variety of suppliers in the portfolio and having a
(12:40):
significantly larger group of managed service providers, cloud
service providers, people that play in the licensing space are
really key to growing. Or we like the phrase land and
expand because what happens is we have the licensing
opportunity is an easy in. But again, the compensation is
(13:01):
not necessarily the best for thepartner or for us in that
matter. But it opens the door to your
point for what are you doing forbackup disaster recovery?
How does this all fit together? Do you realize that Microsoft
doesn't back anything up, that it's just a retention policy?
So having something that backs up your e-mail, your OneDrive to
(13:22):
all of those types of things, that conversation goes from a
single thread to multi threaded very quickly and very easily.
Because whether they realize, whether the customer realizes it
or not, they need those other services, They need those
additional services. And they're typically coming in
thinking about, yeah, I got to renew this license, but it's not
happening the way that I want tosee it.
(13:45):
And then having a broader conversation over the course of
45 minutes to an hour and then walking away going, oh, wow,
there's a lot to to think about here.
This isn't just yeah, yes or no.Do I renew with, with ex company
for my licensing? This is yes for licensing.
And what do I have to do now fordisaster recovery backup?
(14:06):
Do I want to move to a virtual desktop model?
Do I want to look at securing all of the endpoints?
And how do I manage all of that from a cyber security
standpoint? What am I doing with my phones?
Do I want that to be a part of the licensing renewal for
Microsoft Teams? What do I, what do I do from
from the connectivity standpointof all of my users?
(14:27):
Is it something where is traditional coax or fiber or now
am I looking at, hey, maybe I just go completely wireless and
use mobility from that side of things.
So all of those come come out ofthat conversation about license
renewal. You know, I, I feel like, I feel
(14:48):
like we're spoiled a little bit here.
And what I mean by that is to your earlier point of we get to
do so many of these deals and somany of these opportunities, we
become so confident in, in, in anon arrogant way that we just
know that when we walk into a customer situation, there's
always a goldmine of opportunitythere.
And I think we go, oh man, we get 5 minutes into this and we
(15:11):
go, I am not going to uncover all of this in an hour, right?
And you'd think sometimes I don't know what, what my talk
track is going to be. And you know, what are, you
know, what are we going to focuson?
What's this personality going tobe like?
And you get into it 5-10 minutesin and you go, Oh my gosh,
there's so many ways here that we can help.
I think maybe it is sometimes the hardest thing trying to boil
(15:32):
down and focus everybody in. Yep, yeah.
And especially myself, like I have to take and take a pause
and say, wow, there's like 15 different things that we can
help them with here. But Oh yeah, let me look at this
e-mail. What was I supposed to talk
about? And and kind of pull back a
little bit and then follow up with a partner after the fact
and say, hey, you know what, let's address the immediate
(15:53):
needs here. But here's the list of
everything else that we can go back and talk about once we get
these first couple of things addressed for them.
And again, the partners love it too, because I just prior to
doing this recording, I was juston a call with a with a newer
partner. They're scared to death to
really talk about and they admitted this to talk about
(16:14):
anything outside of UC and contact center.
That's the world they know they're comfortable with.
And they said, well, how can we utilize you, meaning me and, and
the engineering team better? And I said, look, you don't need
to know anything other than asking the question to your, to
your customer, saying, hey, I know we're talking about phones
(16:34):
right now, but can I've got a couple other things that I just
want to mention. Do you have a cybersecurity
posture for your company right now?
Like what's your plan for cybersecurity?
Do you have anything that operates in the cloud or, or how
do you handle all of the data, all those kind of things, just
very basic questions. And then the end to all of those
questions is do you mind if we set up a call with one of my
(16:57):
engineering resources to have a discussion about some of those
things outside of the phones? And nine times out of 10,
probably 9 1/2 times out of 10, it's sure absolutely who.
Turns that down, like why? Once you know it's available,
why do you turn it down? Like why?
Why wouldn't you? I just think people, I, I just
can't imagine being a customer in 2025, trying to figure this
(17:18):
out yourself, it's so hard. It is.
And then you do the Google searches and then you're
bombarded with endless, you know, calls and, and endless,
you know, just salespeople reaching out to you.
Getting an agnostic, a truly agnostic approach to buying any
type of technology or investing in any type of technology is
really, I mean, it's, it's worthits weight in gold to customers
(17:41):
because it's just a huge time consumption for them that they
don't have the ability to do a lot of times.
So, so let's walk through a thread, then let's, let's pull
this up to an example of, OK, you walked in and and, and the
project started here. Maybe it was ERP, maybe it was
infrastructure and then how do you take that?
How did you take that Other places to security CIX data?
(18:03):
You know what? Where did you go and how?
Well, I'm going to use an example that that's fairly
recent. Within the past couple of
months, it actually started as alicensing, specifically
licensing Microsoft Opportunity.The customer was not happy.
They were coming out of or wrapping up a Microsoft
(18:23):
enterprise agreement, an EA agreement that as what that's
referred to. And they had several 1000
licenses in place and it was allover the place.
They didn't like how Microsoft locked them in to not being able
to adjust. They liked a what's called a
cloud service or CSP model better and it just fit their
(18:44):
business model much better. So that's where we started the
conversation and we ended up about 45 days later, they signed
off on a well into 6 figure licensing opportunity with
additional managed services to be able to go in and come
alongside their IT team now. And they're, they have a whole
(19:08):
backup and disaster recovery that's going to be set up
leveraging Microsoft Azure. They're doing from on Prem to
full cloud based migration for AD.
They've got all of these things coming on that that they knew
were there, but just didn't A, have the resources to do it and
B didn't really feel comfortableenough with their knowledge
(19:32):
internally on the IT team to be able to handle it.
So we came alongside of them and, and we're accomplishing all
of that. Now what's on the table is it's
kind of the reverse. UC is now on the table because
they want to migrate to Teams. That's a huge one.
They, they have several 1000 users all over the US and
Canada. And they, it's much easier for
(19:54):
them to manage a Teams instance than it will be for them to, to
handle all different types of phone systems or a typical UC
system with, with hard, hard wired phones and all that.
So they're just moving pure Teams.
Which is great 'cause again, multiple opportunities and it
all goes hand in hand with the with the licensing aspect of
(20:14):
things that we started in the door.
So I think that's a great one because all that the partner was
expecting to do was have a conversation in and around the
the licensing aspect. And now it comes back full
circle. They've got managed services on
top of it. They've got ADR plan now for the
customer and they've got UC contact center teed up for, for
(20:39):
the future here before the end of the year.
So it was a huge win all the wayaround for everybody.
And I think again, it was a simple conversation about
licensing to start out. You know, it's a, it's a really
great call out and I and I thinkmaybe this is obvious to some,
but if, if not, you know, if I'ma, if I'm a newer partner and
I'm thinking about that, right, Maybe my, maybe my vision right
(21:00):
now is, is just how do I conquerthis one thing that's in front
of me, right? And I'm going to move from this.
I'm going to go to that. I'm going to go to this.
I'm going to, I got to, I got tobuild my business and I got to
grow. But I my, my brain for stuff
like this, my brain kind of goesGantt Chartie and grid and
pipeline and future opportunities, right?
Like I can't, I can't tell people enough, OK, bring, bring
(21:22):
somebody from the team on, bringyou on.
Have that conversation about what's expected right now from a
licensing perspective that's in your CRM, that's on your, your,
your project road map, maybe that you see pieces right now,
maybe it's in nine months from now.
So you have these cascading, these compounding effects of
just a singular customer, but then you go knock down 3456
(21:45):
doors like that and you just think about how this pipeline is
just massively building so that in, you know, 6 to 12 to, you
know, 18 months, you've got morebusiness than you can even focus
on. And your next worry is, Oh my
gosh, do I have to hire somebodynow?
Right. And then the commissions are
flowing in. And so I think if you, if you
stay focused on that, I love that.
(22:07):
I'd love seeing that compoundingeffect, but also just we know
that we can turn 1 opportunity into 3 guaranteed every single
time. One of the cool things that I
that I've gotten to do, especially this year, I've spent
a fair amount of time on the road in front of partners
throughout the Northeast and Midwest.
And some of the, one of the key things that we talked about is
our swim lanes of technology. Here we've got that, that single
(22:30):
pager, that's the swim lanes of technology for all of the
Northeast NE roadshows that I'vedone.
We laminate that. And then we talk about when you
go and sit in front of your partner, slide it across the
table with a, with an erasable marker and say, Hey, this is
kind of the landscape of all thethings that I can offer as, as
(22:52):
your technology advisor, circle some of the things on here that
are going to be a fit. And then let's take a picture
with our phones. And I'm going to be able to
follow up with you here. And I have some engineering
resources that can talk in depthabout these opportunities,
solutions, whatever it may be. And then you know what the, the
TA takes that back, wipes it clean and does it again.
(23:14):
Because the last thing ATA needsto hear or wants to hear from
one of their customers is, oh, Ididn't know you did that.
I bought here, I went to CDWI did this.
That's, that's a, that's a huge loss.
And so this helps eliminate thatbecause it is a bit of an
overwhelming document, but it gets the customer thinking and
(23:35):
realizing like, oh, Chad sittingin front of me here has all of
this to offer. I, I should be working with him
on, on all this stuff, not just this one small portion of what
I'm talking to him about. So it's, it's really been a game
changer for a lot of new partners and, and I have the
privilege of, of talking to a lot of them and helping them on
board and going through a lot of, of questions and answers and
(23:58):
all of that. And it's just been great to see
them start a land their first deal with us and then B how that
how does that grow? Can we help them grow it?
It's it's a cool and exciting process.
Do you feel puts on the spot, I guess, of statistics, 62% of all
stats are made-up. But let's let's work on one real
quick. What percentage, when you're
(24:21):
sitting with a partner and a customer and that exercise
happens, what percentage of end customers realize how much their
TAS can really do for them? What would you say?
I think it's, it's typically it's, it's, I would say it's
between 60 and 65%, maybe a little bit more than that, maybe
(24:43):
pushing towards 70. It's a sliding scale though,
because a lot of times in the SMB space and mid market space,
it's a bit of an aha moment. But they still are going to kind
of pull back a little bit and go, well, I still use and they
have other friends or other people that sell them different
parts of that as you go upmarket.
(25:04):
So the larger mid market and then you get into enterprise to
them. I mean, it jumps to the 8080
plus percent because they don't have the time to do it, nor do
they have the expertise to do it.
And they'd much rather hand it off to somebody that's, that's
agnostic and has engineering resources and can do it all for
them. And just come back with, here's
your three options. It's, it's, it's significantly
(25:27):
higher the, the, the larger the company gets and, and the, the
higher up the scale it goes. But even on a minimum you're
you're 6065% of the time you're picking up something else out of
that opportunity than what you initially went in for.
Beautiful. Let's think about here, I, you
know, this is about kind of staying adaptable, right?
(25:49):
Let's think about we've got everything's moving fast.
I feel like we say that on everyepisode because it's just true
and it gets more true over time.But as the customer needs shift,
the vendor models evolved cost cutting, modernization, you
know, AI, you know, for the sakeof cost cutting and who knows
what the angle is. How do you keep, how do you keep
the process agile in these discoveries and not not have too
(26:12):
strict of an agenda as you're walking in to still be kind of
open minded in this? Well, for me, it's, it's an
interesting process because I rarely know anything more going
into it than hey, here's the customer, here's what they do
and this is what we need to leave the conversation with.
And then it's handed off to me to run with it.
(26:34):
So I try and hit kind of the basics of all aspects of, of a
traditional technology stack within an organization.
So you, you mentioned communications, you mentioned
connectivity, you mentioned cloud and you know, users as far
as what hardware are they using?Are, are you APC shop?
Are you a Mac shop? Are you leveraging 365?
(26:57):
How many employees use it all, all that kind of stuff.
And it's just kind of a, a general get to know the customer
and what their tech stack looks like.
And then from there, a lot of times, usually they'll share
openly, hey, I'm really struggling with this.
And that all of a sudden just takes a, a line in a different
direction. Like, yeah, we can address the
(27:19):
primary thing that you've talkedabout 9 times out of 10, that
thing the TA is very comfortablewith.
So if it's ATA that's coming in that's comfortable with UC and
Ccas, they've already had the conversation to kind of know
where that's going. I look at it from my standpoint
of yeah, let's let's verify that, no problem.
But what else is there? So let's have a conversation
(27:41):
about their mindset on cloud. Are they in it?
Is it premise based, you know, based on your, if you're
manufacturing, hey, do you need on Prem servers at your
manufacturing sites? If so, great.
Can you leverage a private cloudthat can provide that on Prem
solution for you too? All those types of things, I
think just begin to develop. And again, it goes back to the
(28:05):
beginning of our conversation here, which is having a lot of
these. I mean, we're in four or five,
sometimes 8 calls a day and we're looking at all kinds of
different verticals that we're talking to.
After years of doing that, you kind of get a mindset of, hey,
you know, what if it's manufacturing, it's going to
have these things and we're onlytalking about this.
(28:25):
So you, you begin to kind of build based on, on the specific
vertical what's needed. Same thing with like finance and
banking versus PE and hedge funds.
Like it's, it's two totally different worlds of finance and
they want 2 totally different things.
But you know, again, it's just it's, it's time, it's
experience, and then it's also listening to where the customer
(28:47):
wants to go is the biggest key. If you're not listening to what
they're saying and you've got this like narrow check, check,
check, check, it's not going to go anywhere.
You're going to get that information, but you're never
going to be able to get a broader picture of what the
customer needs. So final thoughts then here is
we think about the future of AI,evolving infrastructure,
(29:09):
securing all that infrastructureagentic, you know, workflows and
things like that. I used all the buzzwords I
possibly could right there. What's your what's your advice
to partners as they're trying toopen up those doors, start these
conversations? Anything different than kind of
what you foundationally built onor where where would you, where
would you take us home here with?
(29:31):
AI for me personally, I love it.I, I get a chance because of of
working here, I get a chance to see a lot of cutting edge what's
happening. I get to talk about it regularly
not only within our engineering team here, but also what's
happening in the industry and and what product sets are out
there and based around it. I am pro AI.
(29:53):
I will be, I will say that and scream it from the mountain
tops, but it's it's a tool and you need to learn to utilize
this tool, not be afraid of the tool and and all of the
opportunities that I get to talkabout it, I leverage that I use
my kids as an example. I I've got a 17 year old and a
14 year old. They use ChatGPT.
I've got my son now utilizing anthropic clawed and, and
(30:18):
looking at Llama and some of theother stuff out there.
They're embracing it as a tool and not being afraid of it and
not using it for, I mean, they use it for goofy things too, but
as any kid would an adult too. But one of the key things is
leveraging it, taking that information and it's no longer
going to be a Google search as we move forward in time.
(30:40):
It's going to be, Hey, did you, did you run that through GPT?
Did you what, what did you get back from that?
So that, that nomenclature that we have as a generation of hey,
go Google the answer. That's not going to be the case
moving forward. And AI is moving and growing and
learning so quickly that it would blow your mind how fast
things are changing. And I think we're just beginning
(31:02):
from a, from an overall consumerstandpoint, we're just beginning
to see the the aspects of what it's going to affect.
And it will literally touch, I think virtually every aspect of
our lives moving forward over the next five years.
That's my prediction on AI. It's, it's changing, it's
learning quickly. It's already digested everything
(31:24):
that's on the Internet already. So now it's just going to
continue to build off of that and get better and better and
better. So hopefully we don't end up in
in Terminator or something, something worse.
Oh yeah, I know. Well, this is all simulation
right now. No, I, I like it.
I mean, I, I think the, I'm, I'mpro pro pro, I, I seems like
(31:46):
getting into these conversationswith customers from an AI, you
know, licensing leads to copilotleads to data readiness and
purview and all of those things.And it, and it seems like we're,
we're really guiding this conversation as to what stage of
this do you think you're at? And the answer is, I didn't even
know there were stages. Ah, great.
Here, here's an AI readiness checklist, right?
(32:06):
Let's figure out where you're at.
And to your point, again, it's let's bring in resources to help
figure out where you are, where you want to go.
It's with your very early conversation.
Some of these are already closing and it's, you know,
it's, it's nice to see that onlybeing a year or two into this,
which is great. So it's really pushing people to
modernize faster because I don't, I, I think that people
(32:27):
don't want to be left in the dust from a competitive
landscape perspective as far as,you know, oh, my competitor, you
know, did, did this. You know, I think those are
those are angles to bring up in conversations to help people
kind of raise the bar a little bit against their competitors.
I, I totally agree. And I think if you look at it
from a standpoint of, you know, we, we've discussed internally
about gamification and, and we can use that on a different one.
(32:50):
But you know, if my customer if,or excuse me, if my competition
is utilizing this and I choose to hold back before I embrace it
or I don't embrace it at all. Like do they, do they win, do I
win? How does that look like?
There's a lot of different angles in that, in that aspect
of things and saying, Hey, you know what, embracing it now,
even if it's on a basic level and begin to, to look at, to
(33:13):
your point, data readiness, datagovernance, having at least kind
of the baseline so that you can eventually begin to layer on the
AI that makes sense for your business.
It may not be a fit right now, but six months from now and
probably less than a year from now, it will be.
And so utilize the time to get your data sets ready, get the
(33:35):
governance in place that you need, and begin to say, hey, you
know what, I've got a strong foundation.
Now let's go out and see what's going to be the best fit for me
in the AI space. OK, my friend.
That is where we wrap it up. Chad, appreciate you coming back
on, man, talking about good, good stuff today, licensing and
beyond. I appreciate being on again and
look forward to the next one. Love it, love it.
(33:58):
All right, everybody, that wrapsus up for today.
As always, don't forget whereveryou're coming to, Spotify,
coming from there, Apple Music, these drop every Wednesday, so
be sure to go on and get that drop as soon as you can.
So that wraps us up for today. And this has been how licensing
rules the game. I'm your host, Josh Lopresto,
SVP of sales engineering at Telaris.
Till next time. Next level Biztech has been a.
(34:24):
Production of Telaris Studio 19 Please visit telaris dot.
Com For more information.
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