January 2, 2025 • 53 mins
In this special recap episode of Now That’s IT: Stories of MSP Success, host Chris Massey and producer Stephen McNulty, are joined by guest John Joyce, revisit nine of the most memorable episodes from the podcast’s 45-episode journey. From navigating the 2008 financial crisis to building thriving MSPs with resilience, transparency, and collaboration, this episode dives deep into the inspiring stories that define the MSP community.
Highlights include lessons on leadership, partnerships, and finding purpose through adversity. Whether you’re an MSP veteran or just curious about the space, this retrospective offers actionable insights and a look at what’s to come in Season 3.
Listen now and join the conversation shaping the future of IT.
Matt Hutter:
Side Hustle to Successful MSP: Matt Hutter on Starting and Growing His Business
An intriguing narrative of Matt Hutter who transformed his side gig into a thriving enterprise, all while navigating the tumultuous terrains of a recession and family life.
Brandon Layhew
Sales, Service, and Security: How Brandon Layhew Leads ByteTime
Brandon shares how he turned a stagnant IT company into a fast-growing MSP by blending a service-first approach with cutting-edge cybersecurity offerings.
Bente Roycroft
Customer to CEO: Bente Roycroft on Transforming Accurate Network for Growth
Bente Roycroft, CEO of Accurate Network Services, paints a vivid picture of her transition from environmental consulting to leading a thriving IT business. Bente reveals how an appreciation for the written word set the stage for triumphs in hiring, HR, accounting, and strategic business planning.
Let us help you unlock your business's full potential.
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Book a Call with Chris Massey now to learn what Business Transformation can do for you!
'Now that's it: Stories of MSP Success,' dives into the journeys of some of the trailblazers in our industry to find out how they used their passion for technology to help turn Managed Services into the thriving sector it is today.
Every episode is packed with the valuable insights, practical strategies, and inspiring anecdotes that lead our guests to the transformative moment when they knew….. Now, that's it.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
One, two, three, four .
Welcome to Now that's itStories of MSP Success, where we
dive into the journeys of someof the trailblazers in our
industry to find out how theyused their passion for
technology to help turn managedservices into the thriving
sector it is today.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Welcome everyone, excited to have you all here for
a special episode of Now that'sit Stories of MSP Success.
I have a couple of specialguests.
You'll notice it's not just one, we've got two here and the
first I just want to introduce.
He's a legend in definitely theFlorida market, if not the
(00:40):
Southeast, a University ofFlorida graduate and a friend of
mine, mr John Joyce.
John, tell everybody a littlebit about yourself and your MSP,
please.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
I'm not going to tell any legends, that's for sure.
So no, thank you and go Gators.
No, so CRS, I'm one of theowners here.
Company has been internallyfamously around as long as I
have.
We're the same age, socompany's 37 years old at this
point.
I'm part of.
You know what we laughinglyrefer to as the fourth
generation of ownership, butit's not family generations,
it's just always been internally, you know, bought from within,
(01:10):
as it were.
So it's never gone throughoutside M&A, it's never gone to
outside sale.
We're just, you know, it'salways been CRS doing its CRS
thing for the decades.
At this point I'm just, you know, honored to be able to come up,
you know, as part of a.
You know I was brought into thecompany.
I had started an MSP gosh 20years ago almost now an IT
company, more by the name backthen and then grew that to a
(01:32):
handful of people, met CRS andthen I merged into CRS, but
again not in an ownership way.
I came in as a technicaldirector to you know not to
retell that whole story, there'san episode out there somewhere
about it I came through as onthe engineering side of the
house, but then, when you know,the ownership at the time was
ready for their next chapter.
My now business partner and Isaid well, what about us?
And here we are.
So you know, kind of taking CRSinto that again, that next
(01:54):
generation of what it's going tomean as a culture, as a company
, as partners in this MSPcommunity, that's so, so
important to us.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Awesome so important to us?
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Awesome.
But more importantly, I wantedto start off with a question,
chris, because now for you know,I think it's upwards of 45
episodes you've been askingfolks like me about us, so I
wanted to actually put you inthe seat and ask you know, tell
us about you, it's your turn.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
I never loved to talk about myself, but I'll give you
I'll give you some briefbackground and, by the way, a
more detailed explanation ofJohn's sort of background in the
history of his MSP.
He was in season one, so I'dlove for you guys to check that
one out, and we're going to talkabout some other episodes as
well.
All right, so about me many ofyou know this already because I
(02:37):
have a lot of friends that watchthis podcast, but for those
that don't, I actually come fromthe MSP space as well.
I had a chance to join in asmall little shop, about a 15,
20 person shop, oh, say, 18 orso years ago.
This thing called MSP wasn'treally a thing yet.
(02:57):
It was pretty much a hardwareresale and installation and time
and materials hardware resaleand installation and time and
materials.
And we came across a vendor inthe field that I actually work
with now work for now that hadthis idea of like, just charge a
monthly charge and do stuffproactively and people will love
(03:18):
it.
And so we tried that and I tellyou what it took off.
And we grew from that 15 personshop to about a 70 person shop,
went through an acquisition,doubled in size, continued to
grow to until we got to about280 employees, and then I had a
chance to move on to GreenerPastures and get where we are
(03:38):
today.
Pretty cool.
My background though I've runoperations, so I'm definitely on
the technical operation side,procedure side, but I took a
stint in marketing and I ranmarketing for a couple of years.
Yeah, I know that's prettyweird, huh, so I did that for a
couple of years You've actuallydone it all.
I've had some fun times, but andmaybe that's why I love doing
(04:03):
this and and again, that's kindof why we're here today is I
love letting MSPs tell theirstories about themselves, and
that's why this podcast is namedwhat it is.
And I tell you what I want tointroduce somebody else, or pass
it over to somebody else.
For this man right here, mrStephen McNulty, there would be
(04:27):
no.
Now that's it.
He is the brains behind theoperation, the producer, if you
will.
He makes it all look good.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
The actual legend.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Makes me look good.
So, mr McNulty, pleaseintroduce yourself.
Yeah, I appreciate it.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
I run a lot of the organic content for us here at
Enable, and I have a journalismbackground and I believe in
storytelling, like you just said, and so I came to Chris about
two years ago and said, look, Ithink that we should do a
podcast and just have MSPs telltheir story.
And Chris and others said, well, what are we going to talk
about Enable?
And I said it doesn't matter.
And he said, well, how do youknow, or how do we know these
(05:00):
MSPs have stories, or whatstories are we going to go out
and get and know these?
You know MSPs have stories, orwhat stories are we going to go
out and get?
And I said I don't know.
Just tell me who's interesting,who have you talked to, who
have you met, or or who's doing?
Pretty well, and I'll take thegamble that, if we talk to them
for 45 minutes to an hour, youare going to find some really
powerful and interesting stories, whether it be from the
entrepreneurship, um, or just,you know, owning a business or
running a business at a highlevel, and I think one of the
(05:23):
coolest parts is that youbelieved me once.
We started pretty quickly.
I think the coolest part,though, is how quickly the
guests believe us after theydidn't.
They're like what do you wantto talk to us for?
What do you want to talk to meabout?
I don't have anything to offer.
And then afterwards, when wetalked to them for a little bit,
they go oh, I get what you mean.
(05:43):
Now there's a few lessons in mylife that are, you know, maybe
worth sharing, and so we tappedinto that pretty quickly and I
can't believe it's been about ayear and a half now 45 episodes
and so I thought today it wouldbe fun to do a different style
episode and play some clips.
We pulled out about nine ofsome of our most memorable.
(06:03):
They're not all of them, likeyou said, there's plenty, but
these are nine of the ones thatwe chose, and we just want to
play the clips for you and countthem down and walk through them
.
So, as I mentioned, it's reallyabout the stories.
So let's go ahead and jump intothe first one that I've pulled
out, and that's Matt Hutter, who, like a lot of folks John you
(06:26):
in a different way were impactedby the 2008 financial crisis.
I really liked Matt's storyabout how he got started, so let
me go ahead and play that foryou.
Speaker 8 (06:30):
I told myself, chris, maybe I'd go out on my own
someday.
I don't know if I would haveever had the guts if I wasn't
pushed out of the nest.
October 1st 2008,.
Got laid off, came home atlunch in the middle of the week.
My wife's like why are you homelunch in the middle of the week
.
My wife's like why are you home?
And I'm like funny story.
The next day the front page ofthe Wall Street Journal listed
that company I worked for with600 of us.
It mentioned.
(06:50):
600 people were laid off frommy employer, so it softened the
blow a little bit, but I washappy I had the side work at
that point.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
I've stayed in touch with Matt over the years and
what's been really impressive ishow Matt has stayed so positive
, like even on those rainy days.
I actually saw him last week inRaleigh for I think his fourth
or fifth business transformationprogram that we've run, and he
still was talking about thissort of initial time.
(07:19):
We met in his office years ago,you know, when we were sort of
pitching this idea of let's getMSPs together and allow them to
talk to each other you know peergroup style and and he was so
excited about it Cause I mean hetold us he's like I only know
what I know.
And then as he got to talk tofolks, he realized he was doing
(07:40):
some things really, really welland I think I think it's a big
reason why he's been able tokeep such a talented team that
he's hired over the years.
I mean he has a small team buthis, his turnover is very, very
low and it's just what a greatpersonality, what a great guy.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
Yeah, what you just said, chris, and I and I agree
to know, and Matt also, I onlyknow what I know that's a big
component of the collaborationpiece of this community, though,
because we all only have apiece of the puzzle, some more
than others because we're alldifferent.
You know stages of our ownjourney and that through you
know the maturity of thebusiness.
But getting people together ina room and that's been one of
(08:19):
the, you know I've also darkenedthe rooms of many of those
business transformation eventsand hope to do more in the
future.
And time and time again I getasked why Not in a negative
sense, but still just why?
And over and over I leave thoseopportunities with A far more
than I ever brought to the table.
But hopefully everyone getsthat experience because we all
(08:39):
have those nuggets, those piecesto bring.
And again, that collaborationis one of the things that makes
this community and this businessmaybe not solely unique, but
definitely rare.
I don't know many other linesof business where people that
are objectively competitors canget together in a room and tell
the deepest, darkest secrets oftheir business with as much
openness and transparency as wedo.
Maybe we're all crazy, but Iwould say, on the whole it's
(09:02):
worked out pretty well for us.
Speaker 4 (09:03):
So a question for you , John.
I think you have a uniquerelation, like I said to Matt,
in this 08 financial crisisthing and I think entrepreneurs
do as well to what I'm talkingabout, and that is the
unrelenting adversity that youyes.
And what that actually does toyou.
How do you think and I think itmay have shaped Matt, and how
has it shaped you where comingout in the 08 financial crisis
(09:28):
like based on adversity from thestart.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
It was a crucible right.
I mean those that you know.
Everyone, every businessgeneration, has its own form of
adversity.
You know whether it's in thebest or the worst of times, but
I think everyone can universallyagree that was a somewhat
unique set of times and nomatter where you were, he was in
the workforce.
In my case, I was preparing toenter, I was wrapping up, as
Chris mentioned earlier.
I was in my later years at UFlooking out at a job market that
(09:53):
did not want me, or they had ahard enough time dealing with
the people that were already ontheir respective payrolls.
They were not looking to take abunch of snotty-nosed kids out
of college that thought theyknew what they were doing.
We didn't, by the way.
But you know I remember thedecision to start that business
then and again not to redo ourepisode from a year ago.
But I looked at my best friendat the time and said we have two
choices, you know roll the diceon ourselves or hope someone
(10:15):
else is going to take us up onthe offer.
And you know, when the I feelthat connection to Matt's story
and so many like it where thattime period.
There were a lot of thosemonolithic decisions to be made.
I'm either going to go left orright, up or down.
The only choice I don't have isto do nothing.
I suppose many folks could makethat decision, but that
(10:37):
entrepreneurial piece I don'tthink that's in any of our DNA.
To just sit, just sit by and,you know, hope for the best or
wonder what's going to come nextFor better, for worse.
We're going to charge forwardand try.
Many, many, don't mishear me.
Many things didn't work, tonsof things didn't work.
I could spend a lot more timetalking about those than the
ones that did.
We just always managed tosometimes be lucky a few other
(10:58):
times, be good and have the endresult be what we built out of
school and then, I said, or saidearlier, later came to CRS and
then has become part of the CRSDNA over the last decade and
what I hope you know, itcontinues to evolve for years
ahead and for all those otherMSPs.
But those of us that can drawthe roots back to those moments,
I agree with you.
I think there's there'ssomething again maybe not unique
(11:19):
but certainly special aboutlooking into that kind of very
murky future and saying let's go, cause that's the only choice
we had.
Speaker 4 (11:28):
Yeah, interesting, so to to move on to our next one
there.
So, brandon Leahy.
I'd like to play a clip fromhis episode.
It was a recent episode andanother one who you know, in a
way it was forced where he hedecided to step back himself,
but kind of step back and lookedat, looked at in the face and
said what are we going to do?
And then I one of my favoriteparts of his episode is how he
(11:51):
shared the support of his wifeand how his wife supported him
and pushed him again.
That was a big part of Matt'sstory as well, so I'll play that
clip here from Brandon.
Speaker 6 (12:00):
Life has a way of humbling.
You know we make toughdecisions, but ultimately, how
do you learn from them?
I think that's what matters.
And so I slowed down.
I went to work for a localnonprofit in Houston and met
some great people, and aboutthat time I met my wife, and
eventually I wanted to get backinto the business world and take
another shot at it and startmaking some money again.
And I reached out to Scott.
(12:21):
He had started BiteTime and sowhen I started to pitch the idea
of starting my own business Iwas going to get into marketing
and advertising because that'swhat I knew my wife said you
know, you need to find somereferences, you need to find
some people to talk to, someSeek Wise Counsel something that
we talk about a lot in ourhouse.
So Seek Wise Counsel, you know.
And so I reached out to Scottto see about his experience and
(12:43):
called him up one day.
Speaker 4 (12:44):
I said Scotty well, how's bite time.
So, Chris, let me ask you.
I mean, he talks a lot about,you know, seeking wise counsel,
and I think that's somethingthat you guys have really pushed
forward in in businesstransformation and it carries
through throughout a lot of thepodcast there.
So, kind of, what's yourreaction to, to the story?
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Well, brandon is an amazing person.
I mean every person, everybodywe're going to talk today.
I'm going to say this they'reamazing people.
And everybody that's on thepodcast is as well.
Brandon is, and he'll be madthat I call him this.
Brandon could be a prophet.
Like Brandon says the most wisethings and it's just what he's
(13:22):
thinking at the time, or whathe's thought through, and he's
very composed.
He doesn't you know, he doesn'tspout nonsense.
Like he says some of the mostamazing stuff at the most
amazing times.
A very religious person, verysort of you know, founded.
His home life is very, verysolid.
I met his wife in Raleigh acouple of weeks ago.
(13:44):
I mean, she's an amazing woman.
But this interview wasespecially memorable to me.
If you listen to it, youprobably didn't catch this.
If you watch the YouTubeversion of it, you may have seen
a little bit of a glassy eyetear.
I've been known to wear myheart on my sleeve, but I
remember how this episodeaffected me.
(14:04):
I was just so happy and like andproud of of the point that
Brandon was able to get to, bothpersonally and professionally.
I mean, he takes us throughthis entire journey and he had
had a really, really tough timein his life personally that you
know that many of us may not beable to get out of.
And not only did he get out ofthat?
(14:25):
But he's been incrediblysuccessful and inspirational to
so many others.
He's another close friend ofmine.
I've heard him talk to so manyother people business folks as
well as friends.
They don't even know what anMSP is.
They've heard this story andthey walk away going man, that's
(14:46):
a story that really hit home.
So I hope you listen to everysingle one of our episodes, but
this is one that if you got sometime over the holiday.
Definitely check it out.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
Now his is there.
There are some stories that areMSP stories, right, and they
connect with us because we'reprofessionals and it's what we,
it's what we do.
So much of Brandon's story.
It's a human story and thattranscends more than the
business.
That transcends more than whatwe're all here to do every day.
That is, I agree with you.
I've gotten to know him verywell and several of his peers
are at bite time and I respectthe heck out of all of them.
(15:19):
But Brandon especially, justevery time I talk to him, what I
said earlier walking away withmore than I brought to the table
.
You want to talk about somebody.
I owe in that, in that, theequitability of that exchange.
I have never felt where I'mlike man.
He got it out of me today.
No it's.
I've always walked away withmore than a nugget, a bag of
stuff to really ponder and thinkabout, genuinely wise, but also
(15:40):
heartfelt, and again, that's,that's human and that's a.
That's something special.
So I couldn't agree more.
If you, if you've got the 45minutes I don't know many things
you're going to better investthat time in the coming days and
weeks.
Speaker 4 (15:53):
So another part of Brandon's story that's
interesting is he says in theepisode that he had to have
someone come over, and he may bejoking, but had to have someone
come over and set a router upfor him.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
I remember that.
Speaker 4 (16:03):
He's not the IT guy.
He has a unique journey andanother one that comes to mind
and we have a few of thosestories throughout but another
one that comes to mind was BentaRaycroft, who we spoke to at
Empower Frisco, who was actuallya customer of the MSP that she
would eventually go on to lead.
Speaker 10 (16:19):
He says that he was wooing me for years.
I don't know that.
I even recognized that at thetime we would go out for coffee
and everything would be like,hey, can I bounce this idea off
of you?
And so it was that sort ofapproach that he took to
bringing me into Accurate, andso by the time he actually had
the direct conversation with me,I was already invested in the
growth of Accurate.
(16:40):
The other thing is with Luke andany partnership.
I think that knowing yourpartner, knowing the values and
the vision that your partner hasfor the business and being
aligned with them on that,that's the main thing, and I
knew at that point, like Ialready knew, that Luke and I
were going to be good partners,and so it wasn't too much of a
(17:00):
jump for me to to dive in.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
How long did that take for you to to see that, hey
, I'm bought in.
I'm going to take this thingforward.
Speaker 10 (17:09):
It was probably close to a year from the time
that I started the consultingand the time that I I actually
bought in to Accurate.
If you talk to Luke about it,he'll say that this was
inevitable.
It was going to happen.
He just knew it was going tohappen and so it just occurred.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
And yes, God, my hair looked so much better back then
.
It wasn't that long ago.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
I won't comment on the hair, but it was a great
shirt though, chris really I waswearing the brand.
Speaker 4 (17:34):
You've seen a lot of MSPs.
How unique is that setup andwhat do you think makes it so
powerful?
Speaker 2 (17:40):
It's extremely unique .
First of all, let me mentionBenta Incredibly inspiring,
incredibly passionate.
She makes the perfect CEO theperfect leader.
I don't know that she ever sortof set out to be that, but she
gets people to follow her intobattle, into war, into the
trenches, and so I think that'swhat Luke, her partner, saw in
(18:06):
her when she was a customer andwhy he quartered her for so long
.
So, yeah, very, very unique thatyou see someone not not only I
mean, you see someone, not onlyI mean occasionally a customer,
it tech or something like thatwill jump to an MSP.
There's usually a conflict ofinterest, so it doesn't happen
(18:29):
too often, but occasionally it'sokay well, we're going to go a
different direction and then youmake your way back.
I don't know that I've everseen one that's been a customer
non-technical and then becomethe leader of the whole thing.
She's not only charted her sortof success with her personality
and her business acumen, butyou know she's found this
partner in Luke that believed inher so much that he took that
(18:54):
risk.
You know and we haven't had achance to interview Luke yet but
I'd love to ask him where wasyour brain when you were?
like we're going to hand it overand Luke's still very much
involved.
But to be able to give Ben tothe controls like obviously she
is an amazing person and welldeserving of it, but also an
amazing guy on the other side inLuke that gave her that
(19:17):
opportunity.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
Partnership comes in so many different flavors, right
, there's different versions,and it either works or it
doesn't.
Obviously, that's an extremeexample of man From the outside
looking in at least, and gottento know them as I have.
It sure seems to be workingreal well.
And it does make me think aboutyou know.
We know what we know and it'sas important, maybe more
(19:42):
important, to know what we don'tknow, and that's one of those
types of partnership that Ithink excels above most of the
rest.
It makes me think about, youknow again, the blessings we
have, even internally here.
You know, I'm, I'm, I'm half ofa whole.
You know I obviously bring moreof a technical background, but
you know, business has alwaysbeen seated through all that.
But you, but you know, businesshas always been seeded through
all that.
But you know, julie, mybusiness partner, entirely
non-technical.
(20:02):
So it's that's, that'severything I don't know.
No one wants to be in charge ofbenefits, nobody wants me making
sure payroll hits on time, likeall these things that are again
have to do with the quality oflife for the humans that show up
and work every day.
Could I sit down and read abook and figure it out?
Sure would it be done with theattention to detail and the
efficiency and the effectivenessat someone that's good at that
job?
Absolutely not, and that's sohearing like.
Their version of that was likewe know what we bring to the
(20:25):
table, but it's as important toknow what we need from the
others at that table to make thewhole that much better.
I just think that's.
I get so many different typesof partnership, but that's one
that speaks to me because Iwatch at work every day, here
and elsewhere.
Speaker 4 (20:39):
So that may be one of our most unique journeys,
partnerships that we have, Ithink and while the next episode
is that we'll talk about is TedClouser, it's not exactly the
most unique.
It's a lot of those samestorylines that we hear in a lot
of these.
I think he may have one of themost transparent and authentic
episodes and stories and thatwas really powerful.
(20:59):
So let me play a clip for youIn 2018,.
Speaker 12 (21:01):
After we purchased the company, I found myself in a
state of depression.
I really wasn't myself and Ihad to work through that.
And I remember part of theturning point.
My wife looked at me and shesaid listen, this has been a
hard road, but I just want youto tell me what is the worst
that can happen.
And so I said, well, I'm soglad you asked this and this and
(21:22):
this and this and this.
And she said, wow, that wouldbe really bad.
What else?
I said, well, then, it would bethis and this and this and this
.
And she said, oh, that would beawful.
Then what?
I said?
What do you mean then?
What that's like as bad as itgets.
And she said you're right, butnow, if that's as bad as it gets
, let's focus on digging out ofthis hole one day at a time.
(21:44):
And so the go win the daymantra was really as much for
myself as it was to try toencourage others.
So it was my technique of how Igot out of that state one day
at a time, the one and Omentality.
Speaker 4 (21:58):
Chris, I know that was a memorable episode for you.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
Yeah, another emotional one for me.
You know, we had, I had, I'dknown, I'd known Ted before, met
him before, spent some timewith him, we talked about his
story and he sort of gave us thecliff notes.
But when we went, when we gotinto this episode and I started
to ask him about this win theday, because he uses it all the
time in his social posts and hegave us that answer and he
(22:25):
started talking about this deepdepression, this buyer's remorse
that he had after he acquiredhis MSP, you know, the one that
he had worked at for years.
So this wasn't like it was a Idon't know what.
I just bought the one that hehad worked at for years.
So this wasn't like it was a Idon't know what.
I just bought, it was oh boy,I'm in charge.
And he and he really, really,you know, went into sort of a
downward spiral.
Yeah, I almost lost it.
It was really really hard tohear him tell this story, but
(22:49):
then to hear him talk about hiswife, stephanie, who I've also
met and is an amazing woman, andhow she and a couple of the
other sort of leaders in theorganization basically said you
know, ted, you go, take care ofyourself, right, we're going to
keep this thing afloat, we'regoing to keep it moving and then
, when you're ready, you getback into it.
And Ted was able to do that.
(23:09):
And you know, I just I justthink that this is one that I
know that when you talk aboutunique, I don't think what
happened to Ted is very unique,like, I think that's something
that a lot of people go through,especially when they do
something that's sort of outsidetheir comfort zone or the risk
tolerance.
And again, really cool guy,another inspirational guy, very
(23:33):
religious, and I and I love thatsort of he was able to use
religion to help him get out ofthat that depression.
And I and I love that sort ofhe was able to use religion to
help him get out of that, um,that depression.
Speaker 3 (23:41):
And and I'm so happy for him today, Even just the
concept of winning the day man.
Talk about stuff that speaks toanyone that sits in the chair
and just deals with.
You know every business isdifferent, but it's one that I
think is a through line throughthe MSP community is there's
never a permanent solve right.
Our job, if we're doing itcorrectly, is never done.
I tell people when we're doingmutual interviews all the time
(24:02):
for prospective hires, if I evercome to work one day and say I
figured it all out, I'm good atit all, that's my sign.
Right, that's it, I'm done.
I better have found the nextthing because the time's already
passed the need to not just winthe day but invest in that day
and what's next every singletime.
I think it's what makes thisbusiness amazing.
I'd get bored so fast doinganything I could actually ever
(24:24):
get quote, unquote good at thatneed to show up and fight, cause
, especially in the modernversion of this business, it is
a fight.
I mean, we're on this.
You know the cybersecuritylandscape and everything else.
You know.
I tell people all the time weall got into this business
fixing printers for a living andwoke up one day as cyber cops.
No one asked.
That's just how we came to workone day, and so the concept of
literally winning the day.
(24:45):
There's a lot of very cold hardfact to that statement, because
A we had to celebrate winningtoday but we have to come back
and do it again tomorrow, andthat's not meant to be a
negative.
But that journey, that strugglecontinues and if that's not
what you're there for, thatcould be one of your signs that
the business is not for everyone, and I was thrilled to see you
(25:05):
know how he came out the otherend of it, but at least having
the presence of mind to decideis this for me anymore.
You know, some folks shouldhave those harder conversations
not fun, but they should happen.
Speaker 4 (25:19):
I think another episode that really speaks to
everyone like you said, but in adifferent way, with the wise
counsel, is Boyd Smith, anotherbusiness transformation veteran
and very candid about thestruggles of being an
entrepreneur, and full of goodone-liners and tips.
So I'll play a clip of it there.
Speaker 9 (25:32):
There is a big difference between being
self-employed and being abusiness owner and a lot of
small business people.
They go into it that they justreally want to be the best them
they can be.
They want to be the bestsalesman they can be, they want
to be the best technician theycan be, they want to be the best
coder they can be and theyreally want to not held back and
(25:52):
just be the best and theyactually own their job.
A business owner in contractshas a totally different mindset.
It's all about the team thatyou built, it's all about the
systems that you built, it's allabout the integration.
And if you want to really knowthe difference between a
self-employed person and abusiness owner, you know.
If a business owner leaves fora week, you know are people
still served If a business ownerleaves for a month or three
(26:15):
months or whatever the case is.
If a business owner leaves fora month or three months or
whatever cases, are thecustomers still cared for?
Does the income still come in?
Are people still served to ahigh level?
Or if you're not working, doesthe income quit?
Does the service quit?
Does the people you're servingsuffer?
And that's the big differencebetween a self-employed and a
business owner.
Speaker 3 (26:34):
John, I'd love to hear your take on that.
Talk about a whole otherepisode, but the best version I
can do right here right now.
I got to know boy, we've metseveral times through numerous
other events, but really by luckand absence got to connect at
the most recent Enable Austinsecurity event and generally
spent the better part of anevening just trading those war
stories about exactly that andthe business owner versus
(26:54):
self-employed.
Again, because that was a bigpart of our conversation,
because I've lived, continue tolive, through all versions of
that.
Again, when we started out, my,my, my again lifelong friend
and I started that firstbusiness, um, you want to talk
about self-employed?
If I wasn't awake, there was,the work wasn't getting done.
I mean, it's just that, was it?
(27:20):
Um, we were it for a very, verylong time and then the, the
byproduct of that, was so builtinto me that even once I then
entered a larger body at CRS,sure, I had what to me was an
enormous amount of resources,still a small business, for sure
, but you know, compared to fouror five people, you know,
upwards of 30, felt like an army.
But I reacted the wrong way.
I held on to even more.
I, if I, you know, I'll just doit myself, was far too often
the mantra of the day for myselfand some of the hardest habits
(27:41):
to break that I continue to workon.
Today I'll come back to what'sactually best for CRS as a
company, what's actually bestfor our team as our culture and
how I support them in my chair,and, you know, what's best for
the partners that we serve everyday and me.
Needing to be involved is theopposite of that in so much as
something we're journeyingthrough right now.
We just we just changed one ofour major software platforms
(28:03):
internally.
It was a conscious decision.
I can't be assigned a ticketanymore and that's by design,
and that wasn't because I was.
You know, you don't give mestuff to do.
It was to stop me from sayingjust give it to me, they can't,
they can't, I can't even tellthem to just give it to me, and
that was.
You know.
Again, it's a.
It's a very technical, you know, minute detail, but it was a
(28:24):
big Rubicon for me to cross.
So that, and that's that's a,you know, a 15 plus year journey
in the making to say, in myrole, how am I best serving
those three things I listedbefore.
Doing that work is almost neverthe answer, because I've got
the people that, the people thatare empowered to do the right
work, they're given the righttools to accomplish it and they
(28:45):
have the drive and the focus toget to the other side.
I'm there to remove theroadblocks, make sure they have
all those things.
That's so, you know.
Listen to Boyd's episode, butalso I said, talking to him one
on one on that very topic, thatI actually think back on those
conversations you know veryrecently, making some of those
conscious decisions.
What are these things that wecan do to, frankly, put the
guardrails on me and help mecontinue to break the bad habits
(29:06):
and be the best version of whatI'm supposed to be doing for
the company, our people and thepartners we serve?
Speaker 2 (29:12):
I've talked to Boyd a lot about this guys.
He's very passionate about thissubject of the difference of
sort of a business owner andjust a single person business,
but it's like what he's done.
First of all, he's one of thegood guys for sure.
He is someone that I love.
There's something about all thebusiness transformation folks,
(29:35):
folks that come through theprogram.
They're all willing to sort ofshare both their successes and
their failures.
Boyd does this a lot to getimmediate feedback so that he
can pivot and obviously improvehis business but also help
others.
He shared his mistakes withothers so that they can
obviously realize oh, by the way, I'm making the same one now
(29:58):
and even today he still triesthings that you know may not be
sort of the norm, but he needsto sort of feel that out and
make sure that it doesn't workbefore he pivots, and so I love
that.
He's very, very passionate andhe's very, very grounded.
He's an avid pilot.
I don't know if he mentionsthat in the episode, but he's
(30:20):
offered to fly from GoshenIndiana to Youngstown Ohio and
pick me up and bring him back tohis house and enjoy the fun of
Goshen Indiana.
But I've gotten to know himreally well over the years and,
like many of the others on thislist, he truly cares about his
people and I think he goes outof his way to show gratitude to
(30:41):
those people.
Even for a small business owner, he has had very little
turnover.
Matter of fact, we were justtalking about sort of the one
employee that he lost recently.
That's like the first in a longtime and it was really sort of
a mutual decision.
You know, it was like adistance thing and the remote
work wasn't working and theyreally had to have a heart to
(31:01):
heart because the employeedidn't want to go.
But it also, you know it just,and so it's just like he does
everything that he can for histeam and I think that's what's
amazing about Boyd.
Speaker 4 (31:13):
So the next episode is someone on the personality
spectrum could not be moredifferent maybe than Boyd, but
when you have a conversation youleave with just as much wisdom,
who is as willing to give andreally does love to help, share,
but just does so with adifferent touch, and that's Mr
Ori Seaton.
Speaker 13 (31:33):
It's very hard when you're growing the business and
a lot of you all are.
You know one, two, four, sixpeople shops, eight people shops
.
It's definitely not easy, butI'm gonna tell you that in the
long run it will make it easierfor you.
You're like we're at a pointwhere we have to fire a ton of
customers.
We have a ton of customers thatare killing our technicians and
(31:53):
the morale, and we're huge onculture.
If I would have said no yearsago, I think we'd be in a way
better place at this point.
We're in an amazing place, butnow we have to go through
something that no one ever wantsto do is fire people that
you've known for so long, andJimmy spoke about it.
It's not an easy thing to do,but you could say no at any time
and you should say no anddefinitely provide one package
(32:14):
my buddy Ori.
Speaker 7 (32:15):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
He, he's.
He's so incredibly smart, he'sso funny, he's extremely
passionate about the things thatare important to him.
Yep, um, the giants, theyankees pretty much most new
york teams.
Uh, I actually went to theyankees guardians alcs game with
them and, yes, his yankees beatmy guardians and it was enjoy.
(32:39):
It was fun to watch Ori and hissort of like comment just
absolutely.
He was just so happy the podcastto look in the in many of the
things that Ori gets sort ofpumped up about.
But something that I thoughtwas would be really important to
share with folks is that youknow Ori lives with this mantra
of MSPs helping MSPs, similar towhat I said about Boyd, but
(32:59):
like he uses that term I usethat term now, I use that
hashtag term because it's reallywhat, like what I try to do at
Enable.
I think you've got to give toget, and I think that's a really
important thing that Oribelieves in as well is getting
together peer groups, like ifyou asked Ori what's one thing
that I wish I would have donesooner, he'll say join a peer
(33:21):
group, right, like getting inwith others that I can say this
is what we're doing and them go.
No, that is not what you wantto do.
It's so, so important and sogreat person.
I'm sure you'll see him in thechannel.
Say hello, he's a great guy.
Tell him the Yankees suck orsomething, and you'll get them
(33:42):
all fired up, you know.
But anyway, he'll go out of hisway to share.
You know his processes, youknow the tools that he's using.
He's a huge advocate of sharedlearning and peer groups so, and
a good friend of mine as well.
Speaker 3 (34:01):
I enjoy every single exchange I get to have, when
they're never enough and they'renever long enough, because I
always feel like there's there'smore.
There's, there's more to thisconversation than something else
will come up.
He's, the conviction he feelsaround the business is so
genuine.
I just I said every interaction, whether it's, like I said, in
a smaller setting or even on theother side of a podcast, just
when he talks about culture,when he talks about, you know,
the decisions they made that ledthe business from where it was
(34:23):
to where it is and to where theyhope it's going.
What he said in that clip,stephen, that you just had there
, about learning to say no, man,that is something that going
that's, you know, counter theDNA of your typical entrepreneur
or business person saying no tothe sale, saying no to the next
piece of business, but havingthe maturity and the presence of
mind to know is it the rightpiece of business?
(34:45):
Is it?
Is it what's best for thecompany?
Is what's best for them?
You know, taking their money asexchange for a service, it's not
actually going to deliver foreither party.
You're setting up such amassive future failure.
Why bother?
And I've, you know, obviously,obviously they've seen their own
flavors of it, cause that's me.
That's where you learn thosethings.
But the difference is I hear itin his voice again, even in
that clip, and I've heard it inperson the conviction behind it
(35:05):
to know that, no, this is howwe're going to deliver our
product.
You know, this is, this is theway it is from us.
If that works for you, great.
If not, there's plenty of otherproviders out there that maybe
aren't even doing it wrong.
They're just doing it differentand this is the way we're going
to choose to do it, and I'vewatched that serve them so well.
But just to hear them talkabout it, if you count yourself
(35:27):
lucky enough to be around for it, listen, because there's always
going to be a lot there to takeaway.
Speaker 4 (35:31):
Yeah, and you guys talk about MSPs, helping MSP and
all that wisdom.
I think one of the ones, ofcourse, with Chris and our
Robert Welburn, but more fromthe MSP side, of course, that
really does live that is DaveWilkerson, and it was really
interesting to get his fullstory and not just his lessons.
Speaker 5 (35:48):
You need different kinds of personalities to really
really be successful.
It's, you know, I think it'sreally hard for a single
business owner to just be supersuccessful kind of on their own.
You know, even if it's not apartner, they've got somebody in
the business that's kind ofthat X factor.
And that was true.
(36:09):
You know, I had that happenmyself.
One of my employees at x factor, and that was true.
You know, I had that happen, uh, myself one of my employees at
my computer company, that wasjust you know, he was just a
really good salesperson, didn'tknow it kind of thing and
technical and I and I had ithappen at the isp as well, and
it's you need that kind ofenergy.
So we had that that.
(36:29):
I didn't really know it at thetime.
I didn't consciously go.
This is the mix that's reallygoing to work, but it was
definitely there.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
If you're lucky enough to have ever met Dave,
he's probably left a lastingimpression on you.
He's a huge part, as youmentioned, of what Robert
Wilburn and I do with BizzardTransformation here at Enable.
He's a former MSP owner that hetalks about and he was and
still is a very strong-willedleader who most of his staff
(37:01):
would run into a burningbuilding for, or a downed data
center in my situation and Irecommend you seek Dave out in
the channel if you're a readerand be sure to check out his
book.
It's a great look inside thewealth of an MSP sort of
knowledge that he brings back tofolks.
(37:21):
So great guy, a mentor of mineand I wouldn't be where I am
today without Dave.
Speaker 3 (37:28):
My respect for Dave is many layered and all positive
.
He's one of the few peoplethat's ever looked at me square
in the eye and be able toconversation, said are you nuts?
And he meant it.
And, and and you know, crs andmyself especially are well known
for doing things a bitdifferent in a lot of ways and
it works for us and, much likeCorey, we're convicted to a lot
(37:49):
of those things and, you know,keep plotting our path.
But I that was one of my earlierinteractions with Dave he
didn't know me all that well andand he wasn't saying that any,
any kind of malice he truly wasone.
And was I nuts?
And we actually talked about itsometime after and I thanked
him for it.
I said always do that, anytimewe are, challenge me, because I
(38:10):
do.
You know, I know how much he'sseen his career is.
Again, if you never dove intoit, chris, your point he's.
He's seen it all and been apart of all, all levels, all
aspects of it, so that the fontof knowledge it's there.
But just, you know the gutcheck, because when I then said
challenge me, I also followedthat up with.
I'm not always going to agree,by the way, I might still just
you know, the stubborn childthat I am still go the other
(38:31):
direction, but I still want toalways be.
You know, iron sharpens.
Iron, you know, help me,galvanize me to what I think is
my path.
And then, every so often I'mlike you know what you're right
and we'll pivot, because we alsohave to have that humility to
realize when we're going downthe wrong path and to have to
have as many people as possiblein your life that can challenge
you at that level.
That's something if you canseek it out, do so when you find
(38:53):
it, hold on to it, and he's oneof those valuable assets in
that regard I've ever comeacross in my career.
Speaker 4 (38:59):
Dave's story is a lot like many of the other stories
that we tell, which is very MSPthrough and through, from the
start to the finish, where ITcompany to MSP.
One of the stories, though,full as as much wisdom, has seen
it all equally but in adifferent way, would be Doug
Alexander in the sales world.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
Doug, he comes from the value-added reseller space,
right?
So for those of you thathaven't lived in that space,
pretty cutthroat, right.
I mean selling high-end.
He worked at Dell EMC it wasjust EMC, I think, at the time
pre-Dell acquisition and he wasone of their top sales people.
But once he got his hands onthe MSP market, he definitely
(39:35):
made his mark and he's sharedthat with many people.
Some of it controversial, butit's like some of the others
feels very passionate, verystrong-willed and was able to
move the needle, at least forthe focus team.
Speaker 11 (39:50):
This is going to sound weird, but I I spent a lot
of time staring at our orgchart and just moving the chess
pieces around on the board andbecause I'm really big on it's,
it's, it's all the people do.
You have the right people onboard?
Are they in the right seatsdoing the right stuff?
And after we acquired nsk, Isaw some people there that were
(40:11):
kind of in the corner doingtheir thing and I'm like that
person has a lot of talent andit's not being tapped.
So you just move some pieces,create some new boxes.
It matches up with thego-to-market strategy and then
boom, you know they start toflourish.
Speaker 2 (40:26):
He was able to transform Focus from a 95%
hardware sales and 5% servicesto like a 50-50 mix in a very
short period of time and he's anopen book and in this episode
he shares some of these tacticsand again some of the things
that you'll agree with and somethat don't.
But he does not lie.
He is a honest, willing personand, I think, an enjoyable
(40:50):
person to talk to.
Speaker 3 (40:51):
I think about, you know, I'm a big podcast person
in general, this one included,obviously.
But I think about, you know,scrolling through the back
catalog of different shows Ilisten to because it's
impossible to keep up with themall right, and you know I'm
guilty of it.
Sometimes I'll just skip rightover top one because the topic
just doesn't stand out to me ormaybe doesn't feel like it's
going to align with me, and I'dbe the first to admit, you know,
I think about Doug's episode,which I did really enjoy and
(41:12):
took a ton away from, but Ithink about that scrolling
through on many other shows.
There's a good chance I wouldhave skipped over topic because
I'm not a big capital Ssalesperson.
You know, again, the way youhave CRS kind of do things a
little differently.
Again, not unique, but somewhatrare.
We don't have.
We don't have sales becauseeveryone's in sales, blah, blah,
(41:32):
blah.
But truly that's just, that'snot how we do our business.
No-transcript, it can eitheropen your mind to something you
(41:58):
hadn't thought about before orgalvanize you again to you know.
No, I like the direction thatwe're doing.
Both of those are good thingsand that's why I appreciate
about how I've also, you know,had the opportunity to hear him
speak in person a couple oftimes as well.
And again, it's an open bookand that's fine.
Whether I'm going to agree withyou or not is up to me, but
just getting up there andputting it all out there in such
an open, honest and earnest way, again, we could all do with a
little bit more of that.
Speaker 4 (42:19):
So that's eight episodes that we've talked about
so far.
There's so many more we couldstill talk about.
I've got one more clip becauseI realized that the eight that
we've played so far are all fromNorth America and that doesn't
do the show justice, because wehave lots from Europe.
We have Australia and SouthAfrica represented as well, but
as you know, if you may be ableto figure out just logistically,
(42:41):
as Chris mentioned, he's inYoungstown, ohio.
It's not always the easiest toget him out and about to the
world, but we do our best andyou did make a trip over to to
the uk, to edinburgh, and we wegot to sit down with alan
turnbull, one of the legends, ifyou want to talk about legends
of the channel and the msp spaceto talk about his career
journey.
Speaker 7 (42:59):
So I'll just play one of those clips it's making sure
you retain the clients andmaking sure you retain the staff
because you've not spent a lotof money on that and making sure
you can melt these people intoour ways and our thinking.
Some of the things like ourcharging mechanisms where people
might not used to have beenexpected to pay that before, and
stuff like that, that can be abit difficult I mean, you have
(43:24):
to have these conversations butoverall it's been really
exciting.
I wouldn't say it's been bumpy,but it's been really exciting.
Eight and a half, eight and abit years getting to where we
are and hopefully we cancontinue that trend going and
getting to our next target,which is 50 million within the
next couple of years.
Speaker 2 (43:44):
I should start by congratulating Alan Just
announced his retirement lastweek.
It is well-deserved, but hewill definitely be missed in the
channel, especially in theUnable channel.
He's been very influential,come to many, spoken at many of
our events and been very, veryinvolved.
Alan's expressed he'sexperienced a lot of different
things in the industry.
(44:04):
He has a lot to offer, but hispassion is really around the
mergers and acquisitions sideand this episode was really neat
because he was able to sharesome of those stories, both the
good and maybe one not so good,because they don't not all
acquisitions, not all deals gooff without a hitch.
So really interesting to givehim the chance to be a little
(44:27):
candid, and he did it justice bysharing some of these stories.
I can't wait to stay in touchwith Alan and see what he does
post-retirement.
But definitely check out thisepisode if you are in the
mergers and acquisitions marketor even just curious what that
experience is like.
I think he does a good jobexplaining it.
Speaker 4 (44:47):
So I want to wrap it a little bit here with a couple
of questions.
John, I want to start with youas a listener, as a listener of
Now, that's it.
If you could speak to thefuture guests that we will be
getting, what would you like tohear more of or get more of from
the guests?
Speaker 3 (45:02):
I'm going to lean into more of something that's
already happening, but just moreof it right, which is that
transparency.
We can all use just a littlebit more of the innate humility
that comes packaged with this,is it?
These are all the moments intime.
It's what it all is right.
That journey is a collection ofmoments, a collection of
decisions left right up down,like I talked about earlier, and
(45:22):
the more we all learn that,it's okay to put that out there.
A these are not competition.
These are our mutual partnersin this business and again, this
is what I love about it.
We're all in this fight I wastalking about earlier, together.
So the more we make each otherbetter, the more this community
serves who we serve and makethem safer every day.
That transparency, thatopenness it starts with no half
(45:46):
measures.
This is how we go to market,this is how we foster our
culture, this is how we deliverthe best possible service every
day.
And the more we talk about thatand the more it becomes okay to
talk about that, then theconversation suddenly becomes
organic.
Suddenly.
We don't have to sit down for apodcast for it.
We have the next time we're atan event or the next time you
(46:06):
bump into someone at a tradeshow or whatever it be we on the
side of the street, because atthe end of the day, the part
that actually matters is whatcan help us do that job better.
So it's not introducing any newthird heat to the show or
anything like that.
It's really about everyonebringing more of the same in
ever more interesting ways andcome prepared to just lay it out
there, knowing that some folksare going to agree, some folks
(46:28):
are going to really not agree,and there's going to be a whole
middle probably the majoritythat at least walk away saying
wow, I never thought about itthat way.
I was talking about me and Daveearlier Might not even change
your action based on that, butit did force you in that moment
to think differently.
I promise that's going to havea tangible or even sometimes
intangible impact down the road.
Speaker 4 (46:50):
So, chris, I have a question for you, then, and I
maybe should have prepped youfor this, but I promise I just
thought of it.
When did you know with thepodcast, because I don't know
that you knew from the startwhen did you know?
Now, that's it, this podcast isworking, I think it was the.
Speaker 2 (47:08):
So, first of all, this is not work.
This is a passion productproject for me.
I love talking, talking topeople and allowing them to to
tell their stories.
I think about episode 10 or 11in the first season.
I just said stop worrying abouthow you're going to ask the
(47:32):
question, what the follow-upquestion is going to be.
Just be in the conversation,which is what I do every single
day.
Right, like when I'm talking topeople, you listen, you ask a
follow-up question, and so itwas less about the preparation
and more about being part of it,and that allowed the guests to
obviously go wow, he really,really cares about this.
(47:53):
And so I think that was thepoint when it just clicked for
me and it was like man, I can dothis, I do this every day, I
enjoy it, I love it.
This isn't about me, it's aboutthem, and that's exactly who I
am.
I mean, I love to give peopletheir platform to be able to
share their stories.
One of my favorite things andyou just asked me about it and
(48:15):
is in each one of these episodeswe ask these folks like when
did you know I made the rightdecision, I made the right
change, whatever it was.
When did you know?
Now that's it, and I thinkthat's one of the coolest things
, and thank you, stephen, forcoming up with that idea,
because, man, it's been a killerand I am so looking forward to,
you know, season three and allthe future episodes.
(48:38):
I know there's a number of youout there that you know might be
a little shy, might not want tojump on a camera.
I promise you, I make this easy.
If you would love to tell yourstory, reach out to me via
LinkedIn and we'll jump on thephone and we'll talk a little
bit more, because I'd love tohave some great episodes in
season three.
Speaker 4 (49:12):
And I want to make a special call out to our European
partners, or those who arewilling and planning to travel,
because where we actuallylaunched Now that's it and got
our first episodes was in Pragueat Empower in 2022.
And we will be, or at least I'msure Chris will be.
I do not know that I will makethe full trip, but the Enable
crew will be in the Now that'sit crew will be in Berlin at
Empower in April.
So if you'll be there and youwant to get it on an episode,
that is a great time to get onthe episode and you should be
there either way.
Chris, do you want to plugEmpower at all?
Speaker 2 (49:34):
Absolutely.
It's going to be a great, greatevent Two days of thought
leadership.
There's some amazing sort oftracks and and and and sort of
side sessions that are going tobe really, really good, focused
(49:58):
on the CXO, ceo, cto, cfo roles.
We've got some marketing tracksand and then always a bunch of
technical tracks that are reallymore of these types of stories
though MSPs talking about howthey've done some really cool
things in their business, and Ithink it'll be very impactful to
those that can make it toBerlin and I hear Berlin's just
(50:20):
beautiful in April.
So why not come out there?
And even if you're not anEuropean partner, you Americans,
you Canadians, all the rest ofyou around the world come on out
to Berlin.
Let's make it a, let's make itgreat.
Speaker 3 (50:34):
I was just going to say, if I can throw in an
unsolicited plug, I saw him.
We swear from the attendee side.
Truly, we'll be there in BerlinLooking forward to it.
If, if you're listening to thisin the U?
S or anywhere, and can makethat trip.
Collaborations one of our fourcore values and opportunities to
collaborate at an internationalscale, how.
How does it get any better thanthat?
We're just now getting good atcollaborating with the people
(50:54):
down the street, but when wehave these opportunities from
here in the US states, away,from across the country, but in
this case across the globe,that's where special things are
going to happen.
I insist on believing thatevery time we attend one of
these events, large or small,you get people from this
community together.
Great things are going tohappen.
But I just think there'ssomething even that much more
(51:14):
unique, that much more specialwhen you have people from such
genuinely different walks oflife, the opportunities to share
, collaborate and therefore allleave better.
I don't think there's a bettercocktail for that to happen than
opportunities like that.
So if it's in the cards, do it.
It wasn't even a thought for us.
We'd committed before we leftthe last one.
So it really is things you cando for your business and then,
(51:38):
by extension, for the MSP.
Community is attending thingslike that?
Speaker 2 (51:41):
I want to thank you know, obviously both of these,
these guys right here for doingthis sort of special episode.
It's great to have Steven sortof in the limelight, finally.
He's been behind the scenes forfor so long, and so I really
appreciate everything that youdo, steven.
You you make this podcast asgood as it possibly can be, and
and thanks for for believing inme and allowing me to do this.
(52:02):
And then, john, you were one ofour early, you know, interviews
and probably the one personthat I know that's listened to
just about every single one ofthe episodes, which is why we
wanted to have you on here, andso thanks for taking time out of
your busy holiday schedule totalk about some of these
memorable episodes.
And, as Steven mentioned, weonly included nine.
(52:24):
You know there's 30, someothers that are just as good,
and so I just recommend youeither go out to Spotify, apple
Podcasts, wherever you get yourpodcasts.
We've got a YouTube channel aswell for these, if you like to
bring it up on the big screen.
My kids love that.
They love to see daddy up theretalking about stuff they don't
(52:45):
understand.
But check it out and let usknow what you think, like and
subscribe and comment and allthat sort of stuff and really
can't wait to see you guys allin the new year with our season
three.
One, two, three, four .
Welcome to Now that's itStories of MSP Success, where we
dive into the journeys of someof the trailblazers in our
industry to find out how theyused their passion for
technology to help turn managedservices into the thriving
sector it is today.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Welcome everyone, excited to have you all here for
a special episode of Now that'sit Stories of MSP Success.
I have a couple of specialguests.
You'll notice it's not just one, we've got two here and the
first I just want to introduce.
He's a legend in definitely theFlorida market, if not the
(00:40):
Southeast, a University ofFlorida graduate and a friend of
mine, mr John Joyce.
John, tell everybody a littlebit about yourself and your MSP,
please.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
I'm not going to tell any legends, that's for sure.
So no, thank you and go Gators.
No, so CRS, I'm one of theowners here.
Company has been internallyfamously around as long as I
have.
We're the same age, socompany's 37 years old at this
point.
I'm part of.
You know what we laughinglyrefer to as the fourth
generation of ownership, butit's not family generations,
it's just always been internally, you know, bought from within,
(01:10):
as it were.
So it's never gone throughoutside M&A, it's never gone to
outside sale.
We're just, you know, it'salways been CRS doing its CRS
thing for the decades.
At this point I'm just, you know, honored to be able to come up,
you know, as part of a.
You know I was brought into thecompany.
I had started an MSP gosh 20years ago almost now an IT
company, more by the name backthen and then grew that to a
(01:32):
handful of people, met CRS andthen I merged into CRS, but
again not in an ownership way.
I came in as a technicaldirector to you know not to
retell that whole story, there'san episode out there somewhere
about it I came through as onthe engineering side of the
house, but then, when you know,the ownership at the time was
ready for their next chapter.
My now business partner and Isaid well, what about us?
And here we are.
So you know, kind of taking CRSinto that again, that next
(01:54):
generation of what it's going tomean as a culture, as a company
, as partners in this MSPcommunity, that's so, so
important to us.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Awesome so important to us?
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Awesome.
But more importantly, I wantedto start off with a question,
chris, because now for you know,I think it's upwards of 45
episodes you've been askingfolks like me about us, so I
wanted to actually put you inthe seat and ask you know, tell
us about you, it's your turn.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
I never loved to talk about myself, but I'll give you
I'll give you some briefbackground and, by the way, a
more detailed explanation ofJohn's sort of background in the
history of his MSP.
He was in season one, so I'dlove for you guys to check that
one out, and we're going to talkabout some other episodes as
well.
All right, so about me many ofyou know this already because I
(02:37):
have a lot of friends that watchthis podcast, but for those
that don't, I actually come fromthe MSP space as well.
I had a chance to join in asmall little shop, about a 15,
20 person shop, oh, say, 18 orso years ago.
This thing called MSP wasn'treally a thing yet.
(02:57):
It was pretty much a hardwareresale and installation and time
and materials hardware resaleand installation and time and
materials.
And we came across a vendor inthe field that I actually work
with now work for now that hadthis idea of like, just charge a
monthly charge and do stuffproactively and people will love
(03:18):
it.
And so we tried that and I tellyou what it took off.
And we grew from that 15 personshop to about a 70 person shop,
went through an acquisition,doubled in size, continued to
grow to until we got to about280 employees, and then I had a
chance to move on to GreenerPastures and get where we are
(03:38):
today.
Pretty cool.
My background though I've runoperations, so I'm definitely on
the technical operation side,procedure side, but I took a
stint in marketing and I ranmarketing for a couple of years.
Yeah, I know that's prettyweird, huh, so I did that for a
couple of years You've actuallydone it all.
I've had some fun times, but andmaybe that's why I love doing
(04:03):
this and and again, that's kindof why we're here today is I
love letting MSPs tell theirstories about themselves, and
that's why this podcast is namedwhat it is.
And I tell you what I want tointroduce somebody else, or pass
it over to somebody else.
For this man right here, mrStephen McNulty, there would be
(04:27):
no.
Now that's it.
He is the brains behind theoperation, the producer, if you
will.
He makes it all look good.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
The actual legend.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Makes me look good.
So, mr McNulty, pleaseintroduce yourself.
Yeah, I appreciate it.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
I run a lot of the organic content for us here at
Enable, and I have a journalismbackground and I believe in
storytelling, like you just said, and so I came to Chris about
two years ago and said, look, Ithink that we should do a
podcast and just have MSPs telltheir story.
And Chris and others said, well, what are we going to talk
about Enable?
And I said it doesn't matter.
And he said, well, how do youknow, or how do we know these
(05:00):
MSPs have stories, or whatstories are we going to go out
and get and know these?
You know MSPs have stories, orwhat stories are we going to go
out and get?
And I said I don't know.
Just tell me who's interesting,who have you talked to, who
have you met, or or who's doing?
Pretty well, and I'll take thegamble that, if we talk to them
for 45 minutes to an hour, youare going to find some really
powerful and interesting stories, whether it be from the
entrepreneurship, um, or just,you know, owning a business or
running a business at a highlevel, and I think one of the
(05:23):
coolest parts is that youbelieved me once.
We started pretty quickly.
I think the coolest part,though, is how quickly the
guests believe us after theydidn't.
They're like what do you wantto talk to us for?
What do you want to talk to meabout?
I don't have anything to offer.
And then afterwards, when wetalked to them for a little bit,
they go oh, I get what you mean.
(05:43):
Now there's a few lessons in mylife that are, you know, maybe
worth sharing, and so we tappedinto that pretty quickly and I
can't believe it's been about ayear and a half now 45 episodes
and so I thought today it wouldbe fun to do a different style
episode and play some clips.
We pulled out about nine ofsome of our most memorable.
(06:03):
They're not all of them, likeyou said, there's plenty, but
these are nine of the ones thatwe chose, and we just want to
play the clips for you and countthem down and walk through them
.
So, as I mentioned, it's reallyabout the stories.
So let's go ahead and jump intothe first one that I've pulled
out, and that's Matt Hutter, who, like a lot of folks John you
(06:26):
in a different way were impactedby the 2008 financial crisis.
I really liked Matt's storyabout how he got started, so let
me go ahead and play that foryou.
Speaker 8 (06:30):
I told myself, chris, maybe I'd go out on my own
someday.
I don't know if I would haveever had the guts if I wasn't
pushed out of the nest.
October 1st 2008,.
Got laid off, came home atlunch in the middle of the week.
My wife's like why are you homelunch in the middle of the week
.
My wife's like why are you home?
And I'm like funny story.
The next day the front page ofthe Wall Street Journal listed
that company I worked for with600 of us.
It mentioned.
(06:50):
600 people were laid off frommy employer, so it softened the
blow a little bit, but I washappy I had the side work at
that point.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
I've stayed in touch with Matt over the years and
what's been really impressive ishow Matt has stayed so positive
, like even on those rainy days.
I actually saw him last week inRaleigh for I think his fourth
or fifth business transformationprogram that we've run, and he
still was talking about thissort of initial time.
(07:19):
We met in his office years ago,you know, when we were sort of
pitching this idea of let's getMSPs together and allow them to
talk to each other you know peergroup style and and he was so
excited about it Cause I mean hetold us he's like I only know
what I know.
And then as he got to talk tofolks, he realized he was doing
(07:40):
some things really, really welland I think I think it's a big
reason why he's been able tokeep such a talented team that
he's hired over the years.
I mean he has a small team buthis, his turnover is very, very
low and it's just what a greatpersonality, what a great guy.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
Yeah, what you just said, chris, and I and I agree
to know, and Matt also, I onlyknow what I know that's a big
component of the collaborationpiece of this community, though,
because we all only have apiece of the puzzle, some more
than others because we're alldifferent.
You know stages of our ownjourney and that through you
know the maturity of thebusiness.
But getting people together ina room and that's been one of
(08:19):
the, you know I've also darkenedthe rooms of many of those
business transformation eventsand hope to do more in the
future.
And time and time again I getasked why Not in a negative
sense, but still just why?
And over and over I leave thoseopportunities with A far more
than I ever brought to the table.
But hopefully everyone getsthat experience because we all
(08:39):
have those nuggets, those piecesto bring.
And again, that collaborationis one of the things that makes
this community and this businessmaybe not solely unique, but
definitely rare.
I don't know many other linesof business where people that
are objectively competitors canget together in a room and tell
the deepest, darkest secrets oftheir business with as much
openness and transparency as wedo.
Maybe we're all crazy, but Iwould say, on the whole it's
(09:02):
worked out pretty well for us.
Speaker 4 (09:03):
So a question for you , John.
I think you have a uniquerelation, like I said to Matt,
in this 08 financial crisisthing and I think entrepreneurs
do as well to what I'm talkingabout, and that is the
unrelenting adversity that youyes.
And what that actually does toyou.
How do you think and I think itmay have shaped Matt, and how
has it shaped you where comingout in the 08 financial crisis
(09:28):
like based on adversity from thestart.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
It was a crucible right.
I mean those that you know.
Everyone, every businessgeneration, has its own form of
adversity.
You know whether it's in thebest or the worst of times, but
I think everyone can universallyagree that was a somewhat
unique set of times and nomatter where you were, he was in
the workforce.
In my case, I was preparing toenter, I was wrapping up, as
Chris mentioned earlier.
I was in my later years at UFlooking out at a job market that
(09:53):
did not want me, or they had ahard enough time dealing with
the people that were already ontheir respective payrolls.
They were not looking to take abunch of snotty-nosed kids out
of college that thought theyknew what they were doing.
We didn't, by the way.
But you know I remember thedecision to start that business
then and again not to redo ourepisode from a year ago.
But I looked at my best friendat the time and said we have two
choices, you know roll the diceon ourselves or hope someone
(10:15):
else is going to take us up onthe offer.
And you know, when the I feelthat connection to Matt's story
and so many like it where thattime period.
There were a lot of thosemonolithic decisions to be made.
I'm either going to go left orright, up or down.
The only choice I don't have isto do nothing.
I suppose many folks could makethat decision, but that
(10:37):
entrepreneurial piece I don'tthink that's in any of our DNA.
To just sit, just sit by and,you know, hope for the best or
wonder what's going to come nextFor better, for worse.
We're going to charge forwardand try.
Many, many, don't mishear me.
Many things didn't work, tonsof things didn't work.
I could spend a lot more timetalking about those than the
ones that did.
We just always managed tosometimes be lucky a few other
(10:58):
times, be good and have the endresult be what we built out of
school and then, I said, or saidearlier, later came to CRS and
then has become part of the CRSDNA over the last decade and
what I hope you know, itcontinues to evolve for years
ahead and for all those otherMSPs.
But those of us that can drawthe roots back to those moments,
I agree with you.
I think there's there'ssomething again maybe not unique
(11:19):
but certainly special aboutlooking into that kind of very
murky future and saying let's go, cause that's the only choice
we had.
Speaker 4 (11:28):
Yeah, interesting, so to to move on to our next one
there.
So, brandon Leahy.
I'd like to play a clip fromhis episode.
It was a recent episode andanother one who you know, in a
way it was forced where he hedecided to step back himself,
but kind of step back and lookedat, looked at in the face and
said what are we going to do?
And then I one of my favoriteparts of his episode is how he
(11:51):
shared the support of his wifeand how his wife supported him
and pushed him again.
That was a big part of Matt'sstory as well, so I'll play that
clip here from Brandon.
Speaker 6 (12:00):
Life has a way of humbling.
You know we make toughdecisions, but ultimately, how
do you learn from them?
I think that's what matters.
And so I slowed down.
I went to work for a localnonprofit in Houston and met
some great people, and aboutthat time I met my wife, and
eventually I wanted to get backinto the business world and take
another shot at it and startmaking some money again.
And I reached out to Scott.
(12:21):
He had started BiteTime and sowhen I started to pitch the idea
of starting my own business Iwas going to get into marketing
and advertising because that'swhat I knew my wife said you
know, you need to find somereferences, you need to find
some people to talk to, someSeek Wise Counsel something that
we talk about a lot in ourhouse.
So Seek Wise Counsel, you know.
And so I reached out to Scottto see about his experience and
(12:43):
called him up one day.
Speaker 4 (12:44):
I said Scotty well, how's bite time.
So, Chris, let me ask you.
I mean, he talks a lot about,you know, seeking wise counsel,
and I think that's somethingthat you guys have really pushed
forward in in businesstransformation and it carries
through throughout a lot of thepodcast there.
So, kind of, what's yourreaction to, to the story?
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Well, brandon is an amazing person.
I mean every person, everybodywe're going to talk today.
I'm going to say this they'reamazing people.
And everybody that's on thepodcast is as well.
Brandon is, and he'll be madthat I call him this.
Brandon could be a prophet.
Like Brandon says the most wisethings and it's just what he's
(13:22):
thinking at the time, or whathe's thought through, and he's
very composed.
He doesn't you know, he doesn'tspout nonsense.
Like he says some of the mostamazing stuff at the most
amazing times.
A very religious person, verysort of you know, founded.
His home life is very, verysolid.
I met his wife in Raleigh acouple of weeks ago.
(13:44):
I mean, she's an amazing woman.
But this interview wasespecially memorable to me.
If you listen to it, youprobably didn't catch this.
If you watch the YouTubeversion of it, you may have seen
a little bit of a glassy eyetear.
I've been known to wear myheart on my sleeve, but I
remember how this episodeaffected me.
(14:04):
I was just so happy and like andproud of of the point that
Brandon was able to get to, bothpersonally and professionally.
I mean, he takes us throughthis entire journey and he had
had a really, really tough timein his life personally that you
know that many of us may not beable to get out of.
And not only did he get out ofthat?
(14:25):
But he's been incrediblysuccessful and inspirational to
so many others.
He's another close friend ofmine.
I've heard him talk to so manyother people business folks as
well as friends.
They don't even know what anMSP is.
They've heard this story andthey walk away going man, that's
(14:46):
a story that really hit home.
So I hope you listen to everysingle one of our episodes, but
this is one that if you got sometime over the holiday.
Definitely check it out.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
Now his is there.
There are some stories that areMSP stories, right, and they
connect with us because we'reprofessionals and it's what we,
it's what we do.
So much of Brandon's story.
It's a human story and thattranscends more than the
business.
That transcends more than whatwe're all here to do every day.
That is, I agree with you.
I've gotten to know him verywell and several of his peers
are at bite time and I respectthe heck out of all of them.
(15:19):
But Brandon especially, justevery time I talk to him, what I
said earlier walking away withmore than I brought to the table
.
You want to talk about somebody.
I owe in that, in that, theequitability of that exchange.
I have never felt where I'mlike man.
He got it out of me today.
No it's.
I've always walked away withmore than a nugget, a bag of
stuff to really ponder and thinkabout, genuinely wise, but also
(15:40):
heartfelt, and again, that's,that's human and that's a.
That's something special.
So I couldn't agree more.
If you, if you've got the 45minutes I don't know many things
you're going to better investthat time in the coming days and
weeks.
Speaker 4 (15:53):
So another part of Brandon's story that's
interesting is he says in theepisode that he had to have
someone come over, and he may bejoking, but had to have someone
come over and set a router upfor him.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
I remember that.
Speaker 4 (16:03):
He's not the IT guy.
He has a unique journey andanother one that comes to mind
and we have a few of thosestories throughout but another
one that comes to mind was BentaRaycroft, who we spoke to at
Empower Frisco, who was actuallya customer of the MSP that she
would eventually go on to lead.
Speaker 10 (16:19):
He says that he was wooing me for years.
I don't know that.
I even recognized that at thetime we would go out for coffee
and everything would be like,hey, can I bounce this idea off
of you?
And so it was that sort ofapproach that he took to
bringing me into Accurate, andso by the time he actually had
the direct conversation with me,I was already invested in the
growth of Accurate.
(16:40):
The other thing is with Luke andany partnership.
I think that knowing yourpartner, knowing the values and
the vision that your partner hasfor the business and being
aligned with them on that,that's the main thing, and I
knew at that point, like Ialready knew, that Luke and I
were going to be good partners,and so it wasn't too much of a
(17:00):
jump for me to to dive in.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
How long did that take for you to to see that, hey
, I'm bought in.
I'm going to take this thingforward.
Speaker 10 (17:09):
It was probably close to a year from the time
that I started the consultingand the time that I I actually
bought in to Accurate.
If you talk to Luke about it,he'll say that this was
inevitable.
It was going to happen.
He just knew it was going tohappen and so it just occurred.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
And yes, God, my hair looked so much better back then
.
It wasn't that long ago.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
I won't comment on the hair, but it was a great
shirt though, chris really I waswearing the brand.
Speaker 4 (17:34):
You've seen a lot of MSPs.
How unique is that setup andwhat do you think makes it so
powerful?
Speaker 2 (17:40):
It's extremely unique .
First of all, let me mentionBenta Incredibly inspiring,
incredibly passionate.
She makes the perfect CEO theperfect leader.
I don't know that she ever sortof set out to be that, but she
gets people to follow her intobattle, into war, into the
trenches, and so I think that'swhat Luke, her partner, saw in
(18:06):
her when she was a customer andwhy he quartered her for so long
.
So, yeah, very, very unique thatyou see someone not not only I
mean, you see someone, not onlyI mean occasionally a customer,
it tech or something like thatwill jump to an MSP.
There's usually a conflict ofinterest, so it doesn't happen
(18:29):
too often, but occasionally it'sokay well, we're going to go a
different direction and then youmake your way back.
I don't know that I've everseen one that's been a customer
non-technical and then becomethe leader of the whole thing.
She's not only charted her sortof success with her personality
and her business acumen, butyou know she's found this
partner in Luke that believed inher so much that he took that
(18:54):
risk.
You know and we haven't had achance to interview Luke yet but
I'd love to ask him where wasyour brain when you were?
like we're going to hand it overand Luke's still very much
involved.
But to be able to give Ben tothe controls like obviously she
is an amazing person and welldeserving of it, but also an
amazing guy on the other side inLuke that gave her that
(19:17):
opportunity.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
Partnership comes in so many different flavors, right
, there's different versions,and it either works or it
doesn't.
Obviously, that's an extremeexample of man From the outside
looking in at least, and gottento know them as I have.
It sure seems to be workingreal well.
And it does make me think aboutyou know.
We know what we know and it'sas important, maybe more
(19:42):
important, to know what we don'tknow, and that's one of those
types of partnership that Ithink excels above most of the
rest.
It makes me think about, youknow again, the blessings we
have, even internally here.
You know, I'm, I'm, I'm half ofa whole.
You know I obviously bring moreof a technical background, but
you know, business has alwaysbeen seated through all that.
But you, but you know, businesshas always been seeded through
all that.
But you know, julie, mybusiness partner, entirely
non-technical.
(20:02):
So it's that's, that'severything I don't know.
No one wants to be in charge ofbenefits, nobody wants me making
sure payroll hits on time, likeall these things that are again
have to do with the quality oflife for the humans that show up
and work every day.
Could I sit down and read abook and figure it out?
Sure would it be done with theattention to detail and the
efficiency and the effectivenessat someone that's good at that
job?
Absolutely not, and that's sohearing like.
Their version of that was likewe know what we bring to the
(20:25):
table, but it's as important toknow what we need from the
others at that table to make thewhole that much better.
I just think that's.
I get so many different typesof partnership, but that's one
that speaks to me because Iwatch at work every day, here
and elsewhere.
Speaker 4 (20:39):
So that may be one of our most unique journeys,
partnerships that we have, Ithink and while the next episode
is that we'll talk about is TedClouser, it's not exactly the
most unique.
It's a lot of those samestorylines that we hear in a lot
of these.
I think he may have one of themost transparent and authentic
episodes and stories and thatwas really powerful.
(20:59):
So let me play a clip for youIn 2018,.
Speaker 12 (21:01):
After we purchased the company, I found myself in a
state of depression.
I really wasn't myself and Ihad to work through that.
And I remember part of theturning point.
My wife looked at me and shesaid listen, this has been a
hard road, but I just want youto tell me what is the worst
that can happen.
And so I said, well, I'm soglad you asked this and this and
(21:22):
this and this and this.
And she said, wow, that wouldbe really bad.
What else?
I said, well, then, it would bethis and this and this and this
.
And she said, oh, that would beawful.
Then what?
I said?
What do you mean then?
What that's like as bad as itgets.
And she said you're right, butnow, if that's as bad as it gets
, let's focus on digging out ofthis hole one day at a time.
(21:44):
And so the go win the daymantra was really as much for
myself as it was to try toencourage others.
So it was my technique of how Igot out of that state one day
at a time, the one and Omentality.
Speaker 4 (21:58):
Chris, I know that was a memorable episode for you.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
Yeah, another emotional one for me.
You know, we had, I had, I'dknown, I'd known Ted before, met
him before, spent some timewith him, we talked about his
story and he sort of gave us thecliff notes.
But when we went, when we gotinto this episode and I started
to ask him about this win theday, because he uses it all the
time in his social posts and hegave us that answer and he
(22:25):
started talking about this deepdepression, this buyer's remorse
that he had after he acquiredhis MSP, you know, the one that
he had worked at for years.
So this wasn't like it was a Idon't know what.
I just bought the one that hehad worked at for years.
So this wasn't like it was a Idon't know what.
I just bought, it was oh boy,I'm in charge.
And he and he really, really,you know, went into sort of a
downward spiral.
Yeah, I almost lost it.
It was really really hard tohear him tell this story, but
(22:49):
then to hear him talk about hiswife, stephanie, who I've also
met and is an amazing woman, andhow she and a couple of the
other sort of leaders in theorganization basically said you
know, ted, you go, take care ofyourself, right, we're going to
keep this thing afloat, we'regoing to keep it moving and then
, when you're ready, you getback into it.
And Ted was able to do that.
(23:09):
And you know, I just I justthink that this is one that I
know that when you talk aboutunique, I don't think what
happened to Ted is very unique,like, I think that's something
that a lot of people go through,especially when they do
something that's sort of outsidetheir comfort zone or the risk
tolerance.
And again, really cool guy,another inspirational guy, very
(23:33):
religious, and I and I love thatsort of he was able to use
religion to help him get out ofthat that depression.
And I and I love that sort ofhe was able to use religion to
help him get out of that, um,that depression.
Speaker 3 (23:41):
And and I'm so happy for him today, Even just the
concept of winning the day man.
Talk about stuff that speaks toanyone that sits in the chair
and just deals with.
You know every business isdifferent, but it's one that I
think is a through line throughthe MSP community is there's
never a permanent solve right.
Our job, if we're doing itcorrectly, is never done.
I tell people when we're doingmutual interviews all the time
(24:02):
for prospective hires, if I evercome to work one day and say I
figured it all out, I'm good atit all, that's my sign.
Right, that's it, I'm done.
I better have found the nextthing because the time's already
passed the need to not just winthe day but invest in that day
and what's next every singletime.
I think it's what makes thisbusiness amazing.
I'd get bored so fast doinganything I could actually ever
(24:24):
get quote, unquote good at thatneed to show up and fight, cause
, especially in the modernversion of this business, it is
a fight.
I mean, we're on this.
You know the cybersecuritylandscape and everything else.
You know.
I tell people all the time weall got into this business
fixing printers for a living andwoke up one day as cyber cops.
No one asked.
That's just how we came to workone day, and so the concept of
literally winning the day.
(24:45):
There's a lot of very cold hardfact to that statement, because
A we had to celebrate winningtoday but we have to come back
and do it again tomorrow, andthat's not meant to be a
negative.
But that journey, that strugglecontinues and if that's not
what you're there for, thatcould be one of your signs that
the business is not for everyone, and I was thrilled to see you
(25:05):
know how he came out the otherend of it, but at least having
the presence of mind to decideis this for me anymore.
You know, some folks shouldhave those harder conversations
not fun, but they should happen.
Speaker 4 (25:19):
I think another episode that really speaks to
everyone like you said, but in adifferent way, with the wise
counsel, is Boyd Smith, anotherbusiness transformation veteran
and very candid about thestruggles of being an
entrepreneur, and full of goodone-liners and tips.
So I'll play a clip of it there.
Speaker 9 (25:32):
There is a big difference between being
self-employed and being abusiness owner and a lot of
small business people.
They go into it that they justreally want to be the best them
they can be.
They want to be the bestsalesman they can be, they want
to be the best technician theycan be, they want to be the best
coder they can be and theyreally want to not held back and
(25:52):
just be the best and theyactually own their job.
A business owner in contractshas a totally different mindset.
It's all about the team thatyou built, it's all about the
systems that you built, it's allabout the integration.
And if you want to really knowthe difference between a
self-employed person and abusiness owner, you know.
If a business owner leaves fora week, you know are people
still served If a business ownerleaves for a month or three
(26:15):
months or whatever the case is.
If a business owner leaves fora month or three months or
whatever cases, are thecustomers still cared for?
Does the income still come in?
Are people still served to ahigh level?
Or if you're not working, doesthe income quit?
Does the service quit?
Does the people you're servingsuffer?
And that's the big differencebetween a self-employed and a
business owner.
Speaker 3 (26:34):
John, I'd love to hear your take on that.
Talk about a whole otherepisode, but the best version I
can do right here right now.
I got to know boy, we've metseveral times through numerous
other events, but really by luckand absence got to connect at
the most recent Enable Austinsecurity event and generally
spent the better part of anevening just trading those war
stories about exactly that andthe business owner versus
(26:54):
self-employed.
Again, because that was a bigpart of our conversation,
because I've lived, continue tolive, through all versions of
that.
Again, when we started out, my,my, my again lifelong friend
and I started that firstbusiness, um, you want to talk
about self-employed?
If I wasn't awake, there was,the work wasn't getting done.
I mean, it's just that, was it?
(27:20):
Um, we were it for a very, verylong time and then the, the
byproduct of that, was so builtinto me that even once I then
entered a larger body at CRS,sure, I had what to me was an
enormous amount of resources,still a small business, for sure
, but you know, compared to fouror five people, you know,
upwards of 30, felt like an army.
But I reacted the wrong way.
I held on to even more.
I, if I, you know, I'll just doit myself, was far too often
the mantra of the day for myselfand some of the hardest habits
(27:41):
to break that I continue to workon.
Today I'll come back to what'sactually best for CRS as a
company, what's actually bestfor our team as our culture and
how I support them in my chair,and, you know, what's best for
the partners that we serve everyday and me.
Needing to be involved is theopposite of that in so much as
something we're journeyingthrough right now.
We just we just changed one ofour major software platforms
(28:03):
internally.
It was a conscious decision.
I can't be assigned a ticketanymore and that's by design,
and that wasn't because I was.
You know, you don't give mestuff to do.
It was to stop me from sayingjust give it to me, they can't,
they can't, I can't even tellthem to just give it to me, and
that was.
You know.
Again, it's a.
It's a very technical, you know, minute detail, but it was a
(28:24):
big Rubicon for me to cross.
So that, and that's that's a,you know, a 15 plus year journey
in the making to say, in myrole, how am I best serving
those three things I listedbefore.
Doing that work is almost neverthe answer, because I've got
the people that, the people thatare empowered to do the right
work, they're given the righttools to accomplish it and they
(28:45):
have the drive and the focus toget to the other side.
I'm there to remove theroadblocks, make sure they have
all those things.
That's so, you know.
Listen to Boyd's episode, butalso I said, talking to him one
on one on that very topic, thatI actually think back on those
conversations you know veryrecently, making some of those
conscious decisions.
What are these things that wecan do to, frankly, put the
guardrails on me and help mecontinue to break the bad habits
(29:06):
and be the best version of whatI'm supposed to be doing for
the company, our people and thepartners we serve?
Speaker 2 (29:12):
I've talked to Boyd a lot about this guys.
He's very passionate about thissubject of the difference of
sort of a business owner andjust a single person business,
but it's like what he's done.
First of all, he's one of thegood guys for sure.
He is someone that I love.
There's something about all thebusiness transformation folks,
(29:35):
folks that come through theprogram.
They're all willing to sort ofshare both their successes and
their failures.
Boyd does this a lot to getimmediate feedback so that he
can pivot and obviously improvehis business but also help
others.
He shared his mistakes withothers so that they can
obviously realize oh, by the way, I'm making the same one now
(29:58):
and even today he still triesthings that you know may not be
sort of the norm, but he needsto sort of feel that out and
make sure that it doesn't workbefore he pivots, and so I love
that.
He's very, very passionate andhe's very, very grounded.
He's an avid pilot.
I don't know if he mentionsthat in the episode, but he's
(30:20):
offered to fly from GoshenIndiana to Youngstown Ohio and
pick me up and bring him back tohis house and enjoy the fun of
Goshen Indiana.
But I've gotten to know himreally well over the years and,
like many of the others on thislist, he truly cares about his
people and I think he goes outof his way to show gratitude to
(30:41):
those people.
Even for a small business owner, he has had very little
turnover.
Matter of fact, we were justtalking about sort of the one
employee that he lost recently.
That's like the first in a longtime and it was really sort of
a mutual decision.
You know, it was like adistance thing and the remote
work wasn't working and theyreally had to have a heart to
(31:01):
heart because the employeedidn't want to go.
But it also, you know it just,and so it's just like he does
everything that he can for histeam and I think that's what's
amazing about Boyd.
Speaker 4 (31:13):
So the next episode is someone on the personality
spectrum could not be moredifferent maybe than Boyd, but
when you have a conversation youleave with just as much wisdom,
who is as willing to give andreally does love to help, share,
but just does so with adifferent touch, and that's Mr
Ori Seaton.
Speaker 13 (31:33):
It's very hard when you're growing the business and
a lot of you all are.
You know one, two, four, sixpeople shops, eight people shops
.
It's definitely not easy, butI'm gonna tell you that in the
long run it will make it easierfor you.
You're like we're at a pointwhere we have to fire a ton of
customers.
We have a ton of customers thatare killing our technicians and
(31:53):
the morale, and we're huge onculture.
If I would have said no yearsago, I think we'd be in a way
better place at this point.
We're in an amazing place, butnow we have to go through
something that no one ever wantsto do is fire people that
you've known for so long, andJimmy spoke about it.
It's not an easy thing to do,but you could say no at any time
and you should say no anddefinitely provide one package
(32:14):
my buddy Ori.
Speaker 7 (32:15):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
He, he's.
He's so incredibly smart, he'sso funny, he's extremely
passionate about the things thatare important to him.
Yep, um, the giants, theyankees pretty much most new
york teams.
Uh, I actually went to theyankees guardians alcs game with
them and, yes, his yankees beatmy guardians and it was enjoy.
(32:39):
It was fun to watch Ori and hissort of like comment just
absolutely.
He was just so happy the podcastto look in the in many of the
things that Ori gets sort ofpumped up about.
But something that I thoughtwas would be really important to
share with folks is that youknow Ori lives with this mantra
of MSPs helping MSPs, similar towhat I said about Boyd, but
(32:59):
like he uses that term I usethat term now, I use that
hashtag term because it's reallywhat, like what I try to do at
Enable.
I think you've got to give toget, and I think that's a really
important thing that Oribelieves in as well is getting
together peer groups, like ifyou asked Ori what's one thing
that I wish I would have donesooner, he'll say join a peer
(33:21):
group, right, like getting inwith others that I can say this
is what we're doing and them go.
No, that is not what you wantto do.
It's so, so important and sogreat person.
I'm sure you'll see him in thechannel.
Say hello, he's a great guy.
Tell him the Yankees suck orsomething, and you'll get them
(33:42):
all fired up, you know.
But anyway, he'll go out of hisway to share.
You know his processes, youknow the tools that he's using.
He's a huge advocate of sharedlearning and peer groups so, and
a good friend of mine as well.
Speaker 3 (34:01):
I enjoy every single exchange I get to have, when
they're never enough and they'renever long enough, because I
always feel like there's there'smore.
There's, there's more to thisconversation than something else
will come up.
He's, the conviction he feelsaround the business is so
genuine.
I just I said every interaction, whether it's, like I said, in
a smaller setting or even on theother side of a podcast, just
when he talks about culture,when he talks about, you know,
the decisions they made that ledthe business from where it was
(34:23):
to where it is and to where theyhope it's going.
What he said in that clip,stephen, that you just had there
, about learning to say no, man,that is something that going
that's, you know, counter theDNA of your typical entrepreneur
or business person saying no tothe sale, saying no to the next
piece of business, but havingthe maturity and the presence of
mind to know is it the rightpiece of business?
(34:45):
Is it?
Is it what's best for thecompany?
Is what's best for them?
You know, taking their money asexchange for a service, it's not
actually going to deliver foreither party.
You're setting up such amassive future failure.
Why bother?
And I've, you know, obviously,obviously they've seen their own
flavors of it, cause that's me.
That's where you learn thosethings.
But the difference is I hear itin his voice again, even in
that clip, and I've heard it inperson the conviction behind it
(35:05):
to know that, no, this is howwe're going to deliver our
product.
You know, this is, this is theway it is from us.
If that works for you, great.
If not, there's plenty of otherproviders out there that maybe
aren't even doing it wrong.
They're just doing it differentand this is the way we're going
to choose to do it, and I'vewatched that serve them so well.
But just to hear them talkabout it, if you count yourself
(35:27):
lucky enough to be around for it, listen, because there's always
going to be a lot there to takeaway.
Speaker 4 (35:31):
Yeah, and you guys talk about MSPs, helping MSP and
all that wisdom.
I think one of the ones, ofcourse, with Chris and our
Robert Welburn, but more fromthe MSP side, of course, that
really does live that is DaveWilkerson, and it was really
interesting to get his fullstory and not just his lessons.
Speaker 5 (35:48):
You need different kinds of personalities to really
really be successful.
It's, you know, I think it'sreally hard for a single
business owner to just be supersuccessful kind of on their own.
You know, even if it's not apartner, they've got somebody in
the business that's kind ofthat X factor.
And that was true.
(36:09):
You know, I had that happenmyself.
One of my employees at x factor, and that was true.
You know, I had that happen, uh, myself one of my employees at
my computer company, that wasjust you know, he was just a
really good salesperson, didn'tknow it kind of thing and
technical and I and I had ithappen at the isp as well, and
it's you need that kind ofenergy.
So we had that that.
(36:29):
I didn't really know it at thetime.
I didn't consciously go.
This is the mix that's reallygoing to work, but it was
definitely there.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
If you're lucky enough to have ever met Dave,
he's probably left a lastingimpression on you.
He's a huge part, as youmentioned, of what Robert
Wilburn and I do with BizzardTransformation here at Enable.
He's a former MSP owner that hetalks about and he was and
still is a very strong-willedleader who most of his staff
(37:01):
would run into a burningbuilding for, or a downed data
center in my situation and Irecommend you seek Dave out in
the channel if you're a readerand be sure to check out his
book.
It's a great look inside thewealth of an MSP sort of
knowledge that he brings back tofolks.
(37:21):
So great guy, a mentor of mineand I wouldn't be where I am
today without Dave.
Speaker 3 (37:28):
My respect for Dave is many layered and all positive
.
He's one of the few peoplethat's ever looked at me square
in the eye and be able toconversation, said are you nuts?
And he meant it.
And, and and you know, crs andmyself especially are well known
for doing things a bitdifferent in a lot of ways and
it works for us and, much likeCorey, we're convicted to a lot
(37:49):
of those things and, you know,keep plotting our path.
But I that was one of my earlierinteractions with Dave he
didn't know me all that well andand he wasn't saying that any,
any kind of malice he truly wasone.
And was I nuts?
And we actually talked about itsometime after and I thanked
him for it.
I said always do that, anytimewe are, challenge me, because I
(38:10):
do.
You know, I know how much he'sseen his career is.
Again, if you never dove intoit, chris, your point he's.
He's seen it all and been apart of all, all levels, all
aspects of it, so that the fontof knowledge it's there.
But just, you know the gutcheck, because when I then said
challenge me, I also followedthat up with.
I'm not always going to agree,by the way, I might still just
you know, the stubborn childthat I am still go the other
(38:31):
direction, but I still want toalways be.
You know, iron sharpens.
Iron, you know, help me,galvanize me to what I think is
my path.
And then, every so often I'mlike you know what you're right
and we'll pivot, because we alsohave to have that humility to
realize when we're going downthe wrong path and to have to
have as many people as possiblein your life that can challenge
you at that level.
That's something if you canseek it out, do so when you find
(38:53):
it, hold on to it, and he's oneof those valuable assets in
that regard I've ever comeacross in my career.
Speaker 4 (38:59):
Dave's story is a lot like many of the other stories
that we tell, which is very MSPthrough and through, from the
start to the finish, where ITcompany to MSP.
One of the stories, though,full as as much wisdom, has seen
it all equally but in adifferent way, would be Doug
Alexander in the sales world.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
Doug, he comes from the value-added reseller space,
right?
So for those of you thathaven't lived in that space,
pretty cutthroat, right.
I mean selling high-end.
He worked at Dell EMC it wasjust EMC, I think, at the time
pre-Dell acquisition and he wasone of their top sales people.
But once he got his hands onthe MSP market, he definitely
(39:35):
made his mark and he's sharedthat with many people.
Some of it controversial, butit's like some of the others
feels very passionate, verystrong-willed and was able to
move the needle, at least forthe focus team.
Speaker 11 (39:50):
This is going to sound weird, but I I spent a lot
of time staring at our orgchart and just moving the chess
pieces around on the board andbecause I'm really big on it's,
it's, it's all the people do.
You have the right people onboard?
Are they in the right seatsdoing the right stuff?
And after we acquired nsk, Isaw some people there that were
(40:11):
kind of in the corner doingtheir thing and I'm like that
person has a lot of talent andit's not being tapped.
So you just move some pieces,create some new boxes.
It matches up with thego-to-market strategy and then
boom, you know they start toflourish.
Speaker 2 (40:26):
He was able to transform Focus from a 95%
hardware sales and 5% servicesto like a 50-50 mix in a very
short period of time and he's anopen book and in this episode
he shares some of these tacticsand again some of the things
that you'll agree with and somethat don't.
But he does not lie.
He is a honest, willing personand, I think, an enjoyable
(40:50):
person to talk to.
Speaker 3 (40:51):
I think about, you know, I'm a big podcast person
in general, this one included,obviously.
But I think about, you know,scrolling through the back
catalog of different shows Ilisten to because it's
impossible to keep up with themall right, and you know I'm
guilty of it.
Sometimes I'll just skip rightover top one because the topic
just doesn't stand out to me ormaybe doesn't feel like it's
going to align with me, and I'dbe the first to admit, you know,
I think about Doug's episode,which I did really enjoy and
(41:12):
took a ton away from, but Ithink about that scrolling
through on many other shows.
There's a good chance I wouldhave skipped over topic because
I'm not a big capital Ssalesperson.
You know, again, the way youhave CRS kind of do things a
little differently.
Again, not unique, but somewhatrare.
We don't have.
We don't have sales becauseeveryone's in sales, blah, blah,
(41:32):
blah.
But truly that's just, that'snot how we do our business.
No-transcript, it can eitheropen your mind to something you
(41:58):
hadn't thought about before orgalvanize you again to you know.
No, I like the direction thatwe're doing.
Both of those are good thingsand that's why I appreciate
about how I've also, you know,had the opportunity to hear him
speak in person a couple oftimes as well.
And again, it's an open bookand that's fine.
Whether I'm going to agree withyou or not is up to me, but
just getting up there andputting it all out there in such
an open, honest and earnest way, again, we could all do with a
little bit more of that.
Speaker 4 (42:19):
So that's eight episodes that we've talked about
so far.
There's so many more we couldstill talk about.
I've got one more clip becauseI realized that the eight that
we've played so far are all fromNorth America and that doesn't
do the show justice, because wehave lots from Europe.
We have Australia and SouthAfrica represented as well, but
as you know, if you may be ableto figure out just logistically,
(42:41):
as Chris mentioned, he's inYoungstown, ohio.
It's not always the easiest toget him out and about to the
world, but we do our best andyou did make a trip over to to
the uk, to edinburgh, and we wegot to sit down with alan
turnbull, one of the legends, ifyou want to talk about legends
of the channel and the msp spaceto talk about his career
journey.
Speaker 7 (42:59):
So I'll just play one of those clips it's making sure
you retain the clients andmaking sure you retain the staff
because you've not spent a lotof money on that and making sure
you can melt these people intoour ways and our thinking.
Some of the things like ourcharging mechanisms where people
might not used to have beenexpected to pay that before, and
stuff like that, that can be abit difficult I mean, you have
(43:24):
to have these conversations butoverall it's been really
exciting.
I wouldn't say it's been bumpy,but it's been really exciting.
Eight and a half, eight and abit years getting to where we
are and hopefully we cancontinue that trend going and
getting to our next target,which is 50 million within the
next couple of years.
Speaker 2 (43:44):
I should start by congratulating Alan Just
announced his retirement lastweek.
It is well-deserved, but hewill definitely be missed in the
channel, especially in theUnable channel.
He's been very influential,come to many, spoken at many of
our events and been very, veryinvolved.
Alan's expressed he'sexperienced a lot of different
things in the industry.
(44:04):
He has a lot to offer, but hispassion is really around the
mergers and acquisitions sideand this episode was really neat
because he was able to sharesome of those stories, both the
good and maybe one not so good,because they don't not all
acquisitions, not all deals gooff without a hitch.
So really interesting to givehim the chance to be a little
(44:27):
candid, and he did it justice bysharing some of these stories.
I can't wait to stay in touchwith Alan and see what he does
post-retirement.
But definitely check out thisepisode if you are in the
mergers and acquisitions marketor even just curious what that
experience is like.
I think he does a good jobexplaining it.
Speaker 4 (44:47):
So I want to wrap it a little bit here with a couple
of questions.
John, I want to start with youas a listener, as a listener of
Now, that's it.
If you could speak to thefuture guests that we will be
getting, what would you like tohear more of or get more of from
the guests?
Speaker 3 (45:02):
I'm going to lean into more of something that's
already happening, but just moreof it right, which is that
transparency.
We can all use just a littlebit more of the innate humility
that comes packaged with this,is it?
These are all the moments intime.
It's what it all is right.
That journey is a collection ofmoments, a collection of
decisions left right up down,like I talked about earlier, and
(45:22):
the more we all learn that,it's okay to put that out there.
A these are not competition.
These are our mutual partnersin this business and again, this
is what I love about it.
We're all in this fight I wastalking about earlier, together.
So the more we make each otherbetter, the more this community
serves who we serve and makethem safer every day.
That transparency, thatopenness it starts with no half
(45:46):
measures.
This is how we go to market,this is how we foster our
culture, this is how we deliverthe best possible service every
day.
And the more we talk about thatand the more it becomes okay to
talk about that, then theconversation suddenly becomes
organic.
Suddenly.
We don't have to sit down for apodcast for it.
We have the next time we're atan event or the next time you
(46:06):
bump into someone at a tradeshow or whatever it be we on the
side of the street, because atthe end of the day, the part
that actually matters is whatcan help us do that job better.
So it's not introducing any newthird heat to the show or
anything like that.
It's really about everyonebringing more of the same in
ever more interesting ways andcome prepared to just lay it out
there, knowing that some folksare going to agree, some folks
(46:28):
are going to really not agree,and there's going to be a whole
middle probably the majoritythat at least walk away saying
wow, I never thought about itthat way.
I was talking about me and Daveearlier Might not even change
your action based on that, butit did force you in that moment
to think differently.
I promise that's going to havea tangible or even sometimes
intangible impact down the road.
Speaker 4 (46:50):
So, chris, I have a question for you, then, and I
maybe should have prepped youfor this, but I promise I just
thought of it.
When did you know with thepodcast, because I don't know
that you knew from the startwhen did you know?
Now, that's it, this podcast isworking, I think it was the.
Speaker 2 (47:08):
So, first of all, this is not work.
This is a passion productproject for me.
I love talking, talking topeople and allowing them to to
tell their stories.
I think about episode 10 or 11in the first season.
I just said stop worrying abouthow you're going to ask the
(47:32):
question, what the follow-upquestion is going to be.
Just be in the conversation,which is what I do every single
day.
Right, like when I'm talking topeople, you listen, you ask a
follow-up question, and so itwas less about the preparation
and more about being part of it,and that allowed the guests to
obviously go wow, he really,really cares about this.
(47:53):
And so I think that was thepoint when it just clicked for
me and it was like man, I can dothis, I do this every day, I
enjoy it, I love it.
This isn't about me, it's aboutthem, and that's exactly who I
am.
I mean, I love to give peopletheir platform to be able to
share their stories.
One of my favorite things andyou just asked me about it and
(48:15):
is in each one of these episodeswe ask these folks like when
did you know I made the rightdecision, I made the right
change, whatever it was.
When did you know?
Now that's it, and I thinkthat's one of the coolest things
, and thank you, stephen, forcoming up with that idea,
because, man, it's been a killerand I am so looking forward to,
you know, season three and allthe future episodes.
(48:38):
I know there's a number of youout there that you know might be
a little shy, might not want tojump on a camera.
I promise you, I make this easy.
If you would love to tell yourstory, reach out to me via
LinkedIn and we'll jump on thephone and we'll talk a little
bit more, because I'd love tohave some great episodes in
season three.
Speaker 4 (49:12):
And I want to make a special call out to our European
partners, or those who arewilling and planning to travel,
because where we actuallylaunched Now that's it and got
our first episodes was in Pragueat Empower in 2022.
And we will be, or at least I'msure Chris will be.
I do not know that I will makethe full trip, but the Enable
crew will be in the Now that'sit crew will be in Berlin at
Empower in April.
So if you'll be there and youwant to get it on an episode,
that is a great time to get onthe episode and you should be
there either way.
Chris, do you want to plugEmpower at all?
Speaker 2 (49:34):
Absolutely.
It's going to be a great, greatevent Two days of thought
leadership.
There's some amazing sort oftracks and and and and sort of
side sessions that are going tobe really, really good, focused
(49:58):
on the CXO, ceo, cto, cfo roles.
We've got some marketing tracksand and then always a bunch of
technical tracks that are reallymore of these types of stories
though MSPs talking about howthey've done some really cool
things in their business, and Ithink it'll be very impactful to
those that can make it toBerlin and I hear Berlin's just
(50:20):
beautiful in April.
So why not come out there?
And even if you're not anEuropean partner, you Americans,
you Canadians, all the rest ofyou around the world come on out
to Berlin.
Let's make it a, let's make itgreat.
Speaker 3 (50:34):
I was just going to say, if I can throw in an
unsolicited plug, I saw him.
We swear from the attendee side.
Truly, we'll be there in BerlinLooking forward to it.
If, if you're listening to thisin the U?
S or anywhere, and can makethat trip.
Collaborations one of our fourcore values and opportunities to
collaborate at an internationalscale, how.
How does it get any better thanthat?
We're just now getting good atcollaborating with the people
(50:54):
down the street, but when wehave these opportunities from
here in the US states, away,from across the country, but in
this case across the globe,that's where special things are
going to happen.
I insist on believing thatevery time we attend one of
these events, large or small,you get people from this
community together.
Great things are going tohappen.
But I just think there'ssomething even that much more
(51:14):
unique, that much more specialwhen you have people from such
genuinely different walks oflife, the opportunities to share
, collaborate and therefore allleave better.
I don't think there's a bettercocktail for that to happen than
opportunities like that.
So if it's in the cards, do it.
It wasn't even a thought for us.
We'd committed before we leftthe last one.
So it really is things you cando for your business and then,
(51:38):
by extension, for the MSP.
Community is attending thingslike that?
Speaker 2 (51:41):
I want to thank you know, obviously both of these,
these guys right here for doingthis sort of special episode.
It's great to have Steven sortof in the limelight, finally.
He's been behind the scenes forfor so long, and so I really
appreciate everything that youdo, steven.
You you make this podcast asgood as it possibly can be, and
and thanks for for believing inme and allowing me to do this.
(52:02):
And then, john, you were one ofour early, you know, interviews
and probably the one personthat I know that's listened to
just about every single one ofthe episodes, which is why we
wanted to have you on here, andso thanks for taking time out of
your busy holiday schedule totalk about some of these
memorable episodes.
And, as Steven mentioned, weonly included nine.
(52:24):
You know there's 30, someothers that are just as good,
and so I just recommend youeither go out to Spotify, apple
Podcasts, wherever you get yourpodcasts.
We've got a YouTube channel aswell for these, if you like to
bring it up on the big screen.
My kids love that.
They love to see daddy up theretalking about stuff they don't
(52:45):
understand.
But check it out and let usknow what you think, like and
subscribe and comment and allthat sort of stuff and really
can't wait to see you guys allin the new year with our season
three.
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