August 15, 2024 • 34 mins
In this episode of Now That's IT: Stories of MSP Success, we sit down with Dave Wilkeson, the founder and CEO of MSP Advisor, to uncover the key strategies that propelled him from a tech hobbyist to a renowned leader in the Managed Service Provider (MSP) industry. Dave shares invaluable insights into the critical role of financial discipline in scaling an MSP, offering candid advice he wishes he could give his younger self.
Listeners will learn how Dave successfully navigated the complex waters of MSP growth, from securing a solid financial foundation to leveraging strategic partnerships and recurring revenue. Discover the pivotal moments that shaped Dave's journey, including the lessons learned from early ventures, the transition to managed services, and the importance of surrounding yourself with the right talent.
Whether you're an aspiring MSP owner or a seasoned pro, this episode is packed with actionable takeaways that will help you steer your business toward sustained profitability and growth. Don’t miss out on Dave’s expert advice on becoming a successful MSP advisor in today’s competitive landscape.
Let us help you unlock your business's full potential.
N-able Business Transformation is Expert led and Peer informed.These valuable executive programs are tailored to provide effective guidance and a faster path to a scalable and successful business.
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.
This podcast provides educational information about issues that may be relevant to information technology service providers.
Nothing in the podcast should be construed as any recommendation or endorsement by N-able, or as legal or any other advice.
The views expressed by guests are their own and their appearance on the podcast does not imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent.
Views and opinions expressed by N-able employees are those of the employees and do not necessarily reflect the view of N-able or its officers and directors.
The podcast may also contain forward-looking statements regarding future product plans, functionality, or development efforts that should not be interpreted as a commitment from N-able related to any deliverables or timeframe.
All content is based on information available at the time of recording, and N-able has no obligation to update any forward-looking statements.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
One, two, three, four .
You need different kinds ofpersonalities to really really
be successful.
I think it's really hard for asingle business owner to just be
super successful on their own.
Even if it's not a partner,they've got somebody in the
(00:21):
business.
That's that X factor.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Welcome to Now that's it Stories of MSP Success,
where we dive into the journeysof some of the trailblazers in
our industry to find out howthey used their passion for
technology to help turn managedservices into the thriving
sector.
It is today Dave Wilkison, orWilkie as his friends call him,
founder and CEO of MSP Advisorand a new venture called
(00:45):
Instrumental Dave.
Welcome to the Now that's itpodcast.
Thanks for having me, chris, sosarcastic.
An entrepreneur, it leader,school board member, pilot,
ex-school board member Is thereanything you can't do, Dave.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Yeah, I can't shoot par in golf.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
That'll come with practice.
You're a member in a beautifulcountry club in.
Youngstown, ohio, old world.
Very good, keep practicing andyou'll get as good as me someday
.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Right yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
So you went to school for chemical engineering.
Let me ask you have you evertouched a chemical in your
career?
Oh, I've touched, oh chemicalin your career.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Oh, I've touched.
Oh, in the career yeah, no no,no, never done it, no in college
sure yeah, yeah, yeah that, butthat.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
So what?
What was so exciting about it?
And computers that made youwant to start in tech?
Speaker 1 (01:37):
well, you know, computers were my hobby, right
like when I, when I was young, Idid programming.
I worked for a company and wedid well, it was a couple of
guys, right, we were writingsoftware for schools and I was
having a blast.
I mean, I was the 16-year-oldthat was able to go out and pay
(01:59):
cash for a car a really nice carbecause I had been working
programming and it was reallyjust a hobby.
I, I, I just thought it wassuper cool, um, but I never
really thought of it as a careerand never.
It was never really what I,what I, pictured myself doing.
Uh, my dad was an electricalengineer and he actually
(02:20):
transitioned to computer,basically an early version of a
computer engineer.
Um, but I, I just, um, I neverpictured myself doing that.
It was too much of a hobby Ididn't know that about your dad.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
I obviously got to know him.
Um, I didn't know that he was.
Uh, he got you, he was the onethat sort of inspired you.
Mine is the same yeah, packardelectric.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
He worked at Packard Electric and he ran the only
computers they had at the timethere.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
So can you talk a little bit about maybe some of
the early lessons that youlearned, sort of pre-MSP
business days, because you had acouple of different ventures
there.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Well, you know, one thing I learned in my first
venture was essentially acomputer store, I guess, for
lack of a better term.
I started actually when I wasin college and we did, we built
PCs you know early days likethis was 89.
I think I started this and youknow I learned a lot of things.
I learned number one I neverwanted to sell to consumers like
(03:24):
residential bad idea.
I learned that you have to besuper careful about your money.
I had a controller thatbasically stole a bunch of money
from me.
So I learned that.
You know you really you can'tjust go along and not understand
your finances.
You really have to have a goodhandle on that.
(03:45):
You know, I thought I'd justturn this over to this nice lady
that knew what she was doingand that's just a really bad
idea.
And I learned that.
You know it's not easy.
It's not as easy as just kindof focusing on the tech.
That you really had to kind oflearn the business side.
And you know I wasn't abusiness guy.
(04:06):
My parents, my motherspecifically had a bookstore and
so I had a lot of exposure toall that and was interested in
it.
But that really I never, reallyI never really focused on that
piece.
You know I sort of almost gotit as osmosis, but it was really
.
You know it's a critical.
It's a critical piece to abusiness Sure.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
What was you were?
You've been a multi-timeentrepreneur right Started
several businesses.
What were a couple of thoseearly ones that you started?
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Yeah, so there was the computer store.
You know we sold the businessesbut we also sold to residential
.
We had a storefront all of thatgood stuff.
Somewhere along the way inthere I saw, I guess, what we
would call now the next killerapp.
You know, of course there wereno apps at that time but email.
I was like man, this electronicmail stuff is awesome and I
(04:56):
really saw it in college, right.
So I was going to YoungstownState University and you know it
was just basically an educationthing, right, and there was no
internet, there were no dial-upinternet providers in Youngstown
.
So I started a separate companykind of behind my computer
store, started buying modems andstarted that up just to do
(05:20):
email.
That was my focus.
And quickly the World Wide Webcame along and we started doing
web stuff.
I Like that was my focus.
And quickly the worldwide webcame along and we started doing
web stuff.
I thought that was super cool,that that pulled me back to my
programming.
You know from my early days I'mlike, oh, this is, this is
awesome, um and so, uh, we,that's a really growing.
I ended up selling the computercompany because I wanted to
(05:42):
focus on the internet stuff andwe ended up building a lot of
big early web applications forthe state of Ohio, for the
country of Trinidad and.
Tobago, the city and county ofSan Francisco.
So we were doing work all overthe place in these web
(06:07):
applications, basically earlyweb applications.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Very neat.
So, 2005, I think, you decidedto buy into a small IT services
business in Youngstown.
What was the opportunity yousaw that made you want to not
only sort of take your talentsthere?
If I pull a LeBron quote therebut also buy into it.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Yeah, what I saw was, first of all, they had a data
center which I was kind ofenamored really quickly with,
because the internet businessthat I was always run was almost
run, you know, like in a closet, almost like the technology
piece, and we ended up moving itto that data center, which is
how I kind of got exposed to theguys um at at drs and, uh, I
(06:51):
thought that was super cool.
You know that techie and mecame out and thought, man, we
could really do some cool stuffhere, um kind of do next level
isp stuff, um the hosting, youknow the the.
They were kind of playingaround with Citrix as a service,
you know, in those days andthey were a big Cisco shop.
(07:11):
I love the Cisco gear,microsoft and I had basically I
had sold at that point I hadsold my ISP to a company and had
worked for them as kind of partof the deal and had realized
how bad an employee I really wasand how that is just not, you
know, and I think that probablyresonates with a lot of MSP
(07:33):
owners.
In fact, somebody told me thatyesterday that they were
completely unemployable.
So we did that and you know Ijust saw really good
possibilities.
They were like I don't knowpossibilities they were.
They were like I don't know,they were probably like 10
employees, nine employees,something like that, and had a
pretty good bar business.
You know, cisco, microsoft, uhbusiness, hp, and then the data
(07:56):
center.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
I thought we could do big things you talk a little
bit about your other businessowners, just what sort of
talents, personalities they hadum are we talking?
All business owners just no, no, the ones that you for the msp,
that you bought into oh, okay,yeah, well, that was pretty cool
actually.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
So, um, you know, our , our one partner could sell ice
to eskimos, like literally.
He was so good, he sold managedservices to an IT company and
he did it, I think partiallybecause I told him he couldn't
do it.
He came and he said hey, Ithink I've got an opportunity to
(08:34):
sell managed services to thislarge, much larger than us, by
the way, it company.
I go, why would anybody?
That's stupid.
Why would anybody do that?
Particularly because weactually would bid against them,
like we would go into deals andthey would be one of the
bidders on the deals, and I waslike you know, you can't do this
(08:57):
, and a couple of days later hedrops the contract on my desk
and he's like we're onboardingthose guys, so, um, so he was
just really really good, um, atsales, um, and then we had a
couple of tech like highlytechnical guys, uh, a microsoft
guy and a cisco guy you know,ccie, um, and there was just
(09:18):
there were a lot of kind ofbones there and what.
I really didn't realize that atthe time.
But like what I call now the Xfactor, like you need different
kinds of personalities to reallyreally 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.
(09:40):
You know, even if it's not apartner, they've got somebody in
the business.
That's kind of that X factor.
And that was true.
You know I had that happenmyself.
One of my employees at mycomputer company that was just,
you know, he was just a reallygood salesperson, didn't know it
kind of thing and technical,and I had it happen at the ISP
(10:02):
as well and you need that kindof energy.
So we had that.
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 (10:17):
So you mentioned that DRS started out pretty much as
a VAR business.
Obviously they had some timeand material doing some service,
some projects.
But how did the idea of managedservices come about?
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Well, uh, um, my partner was at a conference, a
Cisco conference, and PaulDipple spoke at the conference
and he came back and he came tomy office.
He goes, he goes, man, I'm.
There's this thing calledmanaged services and you, you
sell flat rate it to companiesand I'm like that sounds really
(10:51):
dumb, like, oh, how are yougoing to figure out the number
of hours?
Like what happens when somebodyuses a hundred hours and
somebody uses two?
Like he goes, he goes, we'redoing this Like we got to figure
this out.
And I'm like I was you know, Iam the eternal pessimist, you
know he's the eternal optimist,he was, and I think that's part
of that yin and yang thing too,by the way and he's just like,
(11:13):
oh, we can figure this out,we'll just, we can make this
happen, right.
And I'm like, yeah, this is.
But I started looking at it andwhat really attracted me was,
you know when I, when I switchedfrom that computer company to
the ISP, the big thing I sawthere that made business easier
(11:33):
was the recurring revenue youknow we had when we were selling
that dial-up ISP and thehosting stuff.
We had money coming in everymonth.
You know it was just, you knowit was right there coming on in
and in the computer company itwas.
You get up in the morning andyou go, okay, I got to sell
something today.
You know, I got to sell acomputer system.
(11:54):
Or I got to sell, you know,this business that I've been
talking to.
I got to close that because I'mnot going to make payroll if I
don't sell something and youjust don't have that in
recurring revenue.
So when Mike, my partner,started talking to me about that
, that was the really attractivepiece that made me sort of kind
(12:14):
of come over and say, all right, well, we're going to kind of
look at this seriously and tryto figure this out.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
That's great.
I think there's another Mikefrom Enable that came into your
life during those early MSPfiguring it out days.
Mike Cullen, Can you talk aboutthe impact that he made on DRS
and really the future of thatbusiness?
Speaker 1 (12:38):
Yeah for sure.
So Mike Cullen, some peoplecall him the godfather of the
industry.
So we had joined a peer group.
It's called True Profit Groups.
We had joined a peer group it'san invitation-only group and
that's kind of where I found thepower of working with peers.
(12:59):
And we were having a lot oftroubles with Ncentral.
There was a really bad rolloutand we're talking, by the way,
like version I think it was likeversion 2.6.
It's kind of burned into mymemory and I was at a peer group
meeting and I was complainingabout this rollout, how much
(13:21):
trouble we were having, how muchtrouble we were having kind of
getting support to kind of getit all figured out, which was
mainly because everybody washaving the entire user base was
having trouble.
And we did a thing in the peergroup where a vendor would come
and sponsor dinner and MikeCullen from Enable came and
sponsored dinner and you know Iwas introduced by one of the
(13:43):
other guys in the peer group.
I started talking, mikeCullen's, you know, pouring the
wine and he goes.
I'm telling him my problems, hegoes, we're going to get this
solved.
And literally, you know, he madea few phone calls and we got
this thing figured out and hebecame, you know, I would talk
to him probably every couplemonths, you know that entire
(14:05):
time, and we would just talklike he would call and say, hey,
you know, he would kind of pulla bunch of companies and say,
hey, you know, we're thinkingabout this, or you know, we came
up with this idea.
What do you think he was?
Just he was so open to kind ofthe industry and thinking big,
(14:27):
just a, just a super smart guy,sweet guy, and literally I mean
I bet I talked to him at leastannually, if not more, you know,
until last year.
So great guy.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Yeah, he was definitely a great influence on
so many people in the industryand I remember you sharing how
he helped DRS back in the daysas well.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
And such a strong partnership.
You know, like he he was theguy at Enable and then and then
eventually kind of Dave Weeks aswell.
You know they were like theguys that, um, you know if, if
there was a problem or or just aconcern, or you know I remember
in the old days having a bigconversation about integrating
(15:11):
with our PSA, like guys, we got,you got a right to the PSA,
it's so critical.
And those were the guys thatchampion that idea in the, in
the enable organization and kindof, I think, pushed that
through and got it done.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
So DRS grew organically pretty quickly and
thanks to you and the otherexecutives, did you ever feel
you were growing too quickly?
Speaker 1 (15:35):
Oh yeah, I mean as a as a eternal pessimist.
You're always, you know, reallyconcerned about.
You know that when you, whenyou get yourself out there right
and things are maybe not quiteas right as they are, the
eternal optimist says, oh, it'sall great, we're going to figure
this out.
My brain goes through thescenarios.
(15:58):
That keeps me up at night.
I'm running the scenarios in myhead, and so you tend to see the
bad things and the worst thingsthat can happen along with the
good things, um, and so, yeah, Imean, when you're growing
quickly, you know there'sthere's part of me that always
said, well, I mean we need tomaybe pump the brakes a little
(16:20):
bit.
One of the things, though, thatI've learned over the years is
you, you have to be pushed outof your comfort zone to grow,
and I'm not talking financiallygrow, because you know we could
have just kind of grew slowly,you know, 10, 15% a year,
comfortably, but I'm talkinglike when we would have years of
(16:41):
hyper growth, 50, 60% growth.
It was always uncomfortable andI realized that that that
that's what makes a companybetter.
You know, doing doing thethings that they're not
comfortable, forcing kind ofeverybody to just go, oh man,
how are we going to do this?
And just roll up your sleevesand figure it out and make
(17:05):
mistakes along the way, by theway, and, you know, hopefully
not make the clients miserable.
Sometimes make the clientsmiserable, but, you know, make
employees miserable as they'retrying to figure it out.
That's what, in the end, likeafter you come out of that on
the other side, those are thekind of wins that make a company
really really strong and, Ithink, makes employees kind of
(17:28):
bonds them and really works wellthere too as well.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
That's great.
I'm speaking of employees.
I'm sure you've hired hundredsof employees across your career.
What are some of the qualitiesthat you would sort of look for
in someone that you reallydidn't know, right Like during
the hiring process?
What are some of thosequalities that you look for?
Speaker 1 (17:48):
Yeah, I mean, I think one of the big things I look
for is somebody that's excited,right, like they don't
necessarily have to be excitedabout a specific things thing,
but you know, has that kind ofenergy and, and you know, really
wants to do something differentor or, you know, or maybe
better than what they're doing.
You know, I tend, when I'm doingan interview and I do
(18:11):
interviews now for to helpclients, sometimes mainly
because I've done so much, youknow, I kind of I get a, I
really get a strong impressionabout people quickly in an
interview.
You know, if they're just kindof laid back doing the interview
, kind of just kind of checkingthe boxes, you know, and they
don't have that fire kind ofunderneath, that's always a bit
(18:34):
of a red flag for me.
But one of the things I'velearned too is that you've got
to think it's hard to generalizean employee across the company.
Some people do that and I've,you know, worked with MSPs where
they're always looking for thesame type of person and I really
think that's a mistake.
(18:55):
I think you've got to look atthe role, what they want, and
then try to find a person youknow and a personality that fits
that.
But I think universally youwant somebody that's excited,
you know to work in theenvironment, in the job, in the
company.
You know they need to be ableto express that, you need to
(19:15):
feel it.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
That's great.
(20:01):
I'm sure you've had some goodones, but can you think of maybe
your best employee you've everhired?
Best?
Speaker 1 (20:06):
employee.
Well, there was this guy namedChris Massey that I hired to
help me on the help desk.
And, by the way, if anybody'stalked to Mr Chris Massey here,
the thing that comes outimmediately is his excitement
for the job and the challenge.
And I mean, I guess that goesand I didn't really plan it like
(20:28):
that because I didn't realizeyou were going to ask that.
But you know, that's the thingthat initially I didn't realize
you're going to ask that but, uh, you know that that's the thing
that initially got my attentionabout you and I remember
distinctly thinking because Idon't, I don't remember what you
I don't think you applied forthat job no, I wanted to be a
sales engineer.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
Yeah, and Mike didn't want a sales engineer.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
Yeah and I remember I remember thinking there's got,
we got to come up with a placefor this kid because he's just,
he's just, he's got like a fire.
And I remember sitting andtalking to mike and going like
what do you think?
Like?
He's like wow, we don't, wedon't need a sales guy, yeah,
okay, well, I'm gonna figuresomething out.
(21:08):
And I remember talking to youand sort of negotiating with you
like hey, I can't do what youwant, but how about this thing
over here?
Speaker 2 (21:17):
I think it worked out pretty well because it was
definitely I was, my career washeading in a direction.
I saw this really cool companyagain and I think you were 30
people at the time yeah, I don'tremember it was small and so I
saw this cool culture andthere's this opportunity to come
back to Youngstown and work inNortheastern Ohio and, yeah, I
(21:42):
just saw that opportunity with agrowing company.
It was pretty cool and Ilearned a lot.
Right to be able to say I ranoperations eventually, right?
Speaker 1 (21:50):
Well, you did a lot of different.
We moved you around and then,after I sold, you moved around
again to marketing, which Ialways thought was crazy.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Yeah, it was the best , yeah, that's great.
So, speaking of that, so 2013,I think that was the time when
it was time for you to exit andstart something new.
What's the opportunity that yousaw, sort of after years of
building an MSP?
Speaker 1 (22:13):
Yeah, well, the interesting thing about that is,
I did not plan that at all.
So when I sold you know I have abig farm I thought, you know,
I'd worked so hard as anentrepreneur for so many years.
I thought, you know, at thatpoint I had done pretty well.
I thought, well, you know,maybe it's time to just kind of
(22:35):
mess around with things.
See what you know comes along.
You know, maybe it's time tojust kind of mess around with
things.
See what you know comes along.
Um, we had just, uh, just uh,built a new house, which you
know.
Uh, my wife was like, so you'renot gonna work, and we just are
like, literally I I was, youknow, still finishing things in
the house because I I did thegeneral contracting on the house
.
Uh, actually, I take that back.
(22:57):
That was the second time, yeah,that was the first time that I
was in that um, so, uh, I was, Iwas kind of puttering around
the farm doing things thatneeded to be done and I started
uh getting calls because Iposted on linkedin, you know,
that I had uh left, uh, drs, andI think the first call I got
(23:17):
was from an MSP that had calledme over the years I'm pretty
sure I either met them at anEnable event or a ConnectWise
event and they called me andsaid hey, I see you.
You know you're not the COO ofDRS anymore.
You know we're struggling withsome things and would you mind
just just helping.
And I'm like, well, I don'tknow.
(23:40):
Okay, and we came up kind ofwith a deal where I charged them
by the hour and worked withthem, and that was pretty fun.
I realized that I was able tojust focus on solving problems,
which is kind of in my DNA,without having to worry about
(24:01):
all the stuff that kind of comesalong with that, and that kind
of started things for me.
Then I got some calls from MikeCullen.
He's like hey, I hear you'rekind of helping some MSPs, would
you help this one?
I got some calls fromConnectWise hey, would you help
this one?
And it just sort of grew.
(24:24):
And then all of a sudden I waslike, well, okay, I guess this
is a business and I guess therest is history there.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
So let's talk about how you service the MSP industry
today at MSP Advisor.
What are some of the ways thatyou help MSPs?
Speaker 1 (24:40):
MSP industry today at MSP Advisor.
What are some of the ways thatyou help MSPs?
Yeah, so one of the things wedo is one-on-one consulting and
coaching.
Basically I think of it more ascoaching.
So we will typically figure outsort of a budget of time that
they want to spend, becausebasically if we're spending an
hour, they're spending an houror more, if we're spending an
hour they're spending an hour ormore, kind of as homework
almost.
(25:00):
So we do that.
We also have peer groups.
So we have online and in-personpeer groups in North America
and then also in the UK andEurope and soon Australia, which
that one's a little challengingfrom a time perspective.
So we do the peer groups.
(25:20):
We also do consulting aroundPSA.
So we work through you know.
Basically we've run into somany problems, you know, when we
bring a new client on insidethe PSA, that we felt we had to
kind of build a practice aroundfixing that stuff and getting it
(25:43):
to a standard.
And we also do like stackconsultation, those kinds of
things.
So sort of projects, bespokeprojects around those kinds of
things.
That's exciting.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
So for the past 11 years you've worked with MSPs
all across the world, as youmentioned.
Are there any observations youcan make about sort of the
current state of the MSPindustry?
Speaker 1 (26:06):
Yeah, I mean, I think it's changing a bit.
You know, I don't think thefundamentals are changing, but I
think that we are on aprecipice where the RPA and ai
side of things is going tochange the, the labor component,
so dramatically and so quickly.
(26:28):
I mean, you know, two years agoI don't think we were even
talking about this um, and nowit's.
You know, I don't.
I mean, I think they're talkingabout it right now over at the
Empower session, which says alot in the industry to have this
change so quickly.
And some of the things I'mseeing are taking onboarding
(26:51):
from an hour a user to 10minutes, and of the 10 minutes,
only maybe two minutes were ahuman and the rest of it was
just it takes time to to do allthe steps and it's doing it
perfectly every single time.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
And if you had a human, do it you know, yeah, um,
what are some of the commonmistakes that msps tend to make
when they're trying to growtheir business?
Speaker 1 (27:21):
Oh, there's a lot of them, yeah, I mean, I would say
the small MSPs.
One of the biggest problems arethey don't understand their
finances, don't understand howto read that, and so everything
is done by gut feel, and I thinkit actually is a testament, gut
(27:41):
feel, and I think it actuallyis a testament.
If a company makes it toprobably $3 million and they
haven't focused on thefinancials, which is the
majority, because they come froma technical side of the house
and that's just not theirbackground generally, I just
think that they, they it's atestament to how well their gut
feel works.
(28:02):
And then what happens is thenthey, they think they can rely
on it forever, and the problemis, as you get bigger, you don't
know everything anymore.
Like you don't know, you maynot.
You get to the point, hopefully, that you don't even know all
the clients, and once thathappens, gut feel relies on
(28:23):
essentially having all theinformation.
You may not know.
You do, or you may not know howthat works if you're a very
intuitive person, but you've gotto know everything and that all
falls apart.
And so what happens a lot oftimes is, as they're trying to
(28:44):
grow and trying to rely on thatgut feel, they start making
mistakes and in some casesreally big mistakes.
So that finance component, Ithink, and really understanding
that finance component, iscritical.
And then I think the secondpiece of that is starting to
rely on data.
So if you want to makedecisions, you've got to
(29:05):
understand and have good dataand then also understand what
good looks like.
I distinctly remember having aconversation in my MSP before we
got into the peer group wherewe in, in fact, when I joined,
our utilization rate of our guy,our professional services guys,
(29:25):
which was, you know, threequarters of the company, was um
31 or 32 percent and I and andtwo of the partners were
professional services guys.
So we were, I remember, sittingaround there and going, guys,
this isn't enough.
And they they looked at me likeI had two heads and going we're
(29:47):
busting our butts here, likeyou can't do more, we can't do
more billable right and um.
So I remember saying, well, canwe just get it to like 45%,
like let's make that the goal?
Well, come to find out once Ijoined the peer group that 70%
is kind of the target for that.
(30:07):
So you know, not knowing whatgreat looks like, not knowing
what good looks like and tryingto just make it up based on what
, at that point, was justhorrible performance.
You know, I thought it was badperformance.
It was horrible performance.
You know, I think that's reallykind of a critical piece.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
So, dave, you have tons of stories over the past
number of years, obviously tonsof experiences.
Have you ever consideredwriting a book?
Speaker 1 (30:35):
It's funny.
You should ask, chris, we justuh released a book.
Yeah, um, focused on on youknow, msps yeah, you got it
there.
Yeah, talk it down yeah yeah,focused on msps and and really,
um, the, I guess the theory ofrunning a managed services
(30:56):
company, the idea of how tothink about your business.
There's a lot of how-toswritten for the MSP industry and
we wanted to really focus onsomething that was more big
picture.
Let's think about this, becausethat's really how you drive
excellence, I think.
(31:16):
Awesome.
What's the name of it?
It's called Profit and Growthfor MSPs Dragon Boats,
catamarans and Super Yachts andI wrote it with Enable's own,
rob Wilburn Awesome.
He focused on the growth sideof things, the marketing and so
forth, and I focused on kind ofthe operational and
organizational pieces of thebook.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
Any listeners.
They can get it on Amazon right.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
It is on Amazon right now and hardcover and Kindle,
and I have been asked so manytimes now for an Audible that
and I keep telling Robert we'regoing to have to record this
thing, and he keeps going, oh,because this was, by the way, a
ton of work to do, so we'regoing to record something.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
So, Dave, what would you tell younger Dave?
Speaker 1 (32:04):
Oh boy.
Well, I would tell younger Daveto buy more Microsoft stock and
don't sell it, because I had awhole bunch of it and I sold it
and I should have never donethat.
I would have told younger Daveto buy Amazon stock, so that was
probably.
I was thinking more like likeyounger Dave from a professional
oh okay, yeah, yeah, well, youknow, I I think that, uh, you
(32:30):
know, focusing kind of on thenumbers, focusing on the
financial side of the business,I would sort of reiterate that I
would have told me, you know,when you're hiring people,
particularly key people that youknow, worry less about the
money, I guess, and worry moreabout kind of how they, what
(32:55):
they're going to bring to theorganization.
I mean, that's what I do in MSPAdvisor now and it works
phenomenally well.
I want to make sure people makereally good money.
If they are phenomenal peopleand when you surround yourself
with excellence like that, youcan really do great things.
So I would say those areprobably the two big lessons.
(33:17):
We don't want to take in whatstocks to buy?
Speaker 2 (33:20):
So we call this podcast the Now that's it
podcast.
So I want to ask you when didyou know Now that's it?
Speaker 1 (33:29):
Well, what does that?
Speaker 2 (33:30):
mean?
It means that you were in theright spot, you were doing the
right thing, you were helpingthe right people.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
Well, I mean mean probably you know what it was, I
think, for msp advisor at leastcovid times, because that was
so stressful for so manycompanies.
You know I did webinars, I Ihad just strings of calls with
msps that I had never reallydealt with, that were just, you
know, freaking out like not tonot knowing what to do and, um,
(34:01):
you know, I was drawing from myexperience in 2007, 2008, with
the you know the kind of thehousing crash and banking crash,
um, and at the end of that Ihad so many people say you know
to me, you know, thanks for theadvice.
You know, that kind of helpedus get through it, that kind of
thing, and I was like I'm reallyhelping a lot of companies here
(34:22):
and it really felt good.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
Dave, thank you so much for being here for talking
with me.
I wish you the best of luck.
Wish you the best of luck withthe book and have a good rest of
the year.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
Thanks, chris, appreciate it.
One, two, three, four .
You need different kinds ofpersonalities to really really
be successful.
I think it's really hard for asingle business owner to just be
super successful on their own.
Even if it's not a partner,they've got somebody in the
(00:21):
business.
That's that X factor.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Welcome to Now that's it Stories of MSP Success,
where we dive into the journeysof some of the trailblazers in
our industry to find out howthey used their passion for
technology to help turn managedservices into the thriving
sector.
It is today Dave Wilkison, orWilkie as his friends call him,
founder and CEO of MSP Advisorand a new venture called
(00:45):
Instrumental Dave.
Welcome to the Now that's itpodcast.
Thanks for having me, chris, sosarcastic.
An entrepreneur, it leader,school board member, pilot,
ex-school board member Is thereanything you can't do, Dave.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Yeah, I can't shoot par in golf.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
That'll come with practice.
You're a member in a beautifulcountry club in.
Youngstown, ohio, old world.
Very good, keep practicing andyou'll get as good as me someday
.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Right yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
So you went to school for chemical engineering.
Let me ask you have you evertouched a chemical in your
career?
Oh, I've touched, oh chemicalin your career.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Oh, I've touched.
Oh, in the career yeah, no no,no, never done it, no in college
sure yeah, yeah, yeah that, butthat.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
So what?
What was so exciting about it?
And computers that made youwant to start in tech?
Speaker 1 (01:37):
well, you know, computers were my hobby, right
like when I, when I was young, Idid programming.
I worked for a company and wedid well, it was a couple of
guys, right, we were writingsoftware for schools and I was
having a blast.
I mean, I was the 16-year-oldthat was able to go out and pay
(01:59):
cash for a car a really nice carbecause I had been working
programming and it was reallyjust a hobby.
I, I, I just thought it wassuper cool, um, but I never
really thought of it as a careerand never.
It was never really what I,what I, pictured myself doing.
Uh, my dad was an electricalengineer and he actually
(02:20):
transitioned to computer,basically an early version of a
computer engineer.
Um, but I, I just, um, I neverpictured myself doing that.
It was too much of a hobby Ididn't know that about your dad.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
I obviously got to know him.
Um, I didn't know that he was.
Uh, he got you, he was the onethat sort of inspired you.
Mine is the same yeah, packardelectric.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
He worked at Packard Electric and he ran the only
computers they had at the timethere.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
So can you talk a little bit about maybe some of
the early lessons that youlearned, sort of pre-MSP
business days, because you had acouple of different ventures
there.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Well, you know, one thing I learned in my first
venture was essentially acomputer store, I guess, for
lack of a better term.
I started actually when I wasin college and we did, we built
PCs you know early days likethis was 89.
I think I started this and youknow I learned a lot of things.
I learned number one I neverwanted to sell to consumers like
(03:24):
residential bad idea.
I learned that you have to besuper careful about your money.
I had a controller thatbasically stole a bunch of money
from me.
So I learned that.
You know you really you can'tjust go along and not understand
your finances.
You really have to have a goodhandle on that.
(03:45):
You know, I thought I'd justturn this over to this nice lady
that knew what she was doingand that's just a really bad
idea.
And I learned that.
You know it's not easy.
It's not as easy as just kindof focusing on the tech.
That you really had to kind oflearn the business side.
And you know I wasn't abusiness guy.
(04:06):
My parents, my motherspecifically had a bookstore and
so I had a lot of exposure toall that and was interested in
it.
But that really I never, reallyI never really focused on that
piece.
You know I sort of almost gotit as osmosis, but it was really
.
You know it's a critical.
It's a critical piece to abusiness Sure.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
What was you were?
You've been a multi-timeentrepreneur right Started
several businesses.
What were a couple of thoseearly ones that you started?
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Yeah, so there was the computer store.
You know we sold the businessesbut we also sold to residential
.
We had a storefront all of thatgood stuff.
Somewhere along the way inthere I saw, I guess, what we
would call now the next killerapp.
You know, of course there wereno apps at that time but email.
I was like man, this electronicmail stuff is awesome and I
(04:56):
really saw it in college, right.
So I was going to YoungstownState University and you know it
was just basically an educationthing, right, and there was no
internet, there were no dial-upinternet providers in Youngstown
.
So I started a separate companykind of behind my computer
store, started buying modems andstarted that up just to do
(05:20):
email.
That was my focus.
And quickly the World Wide Webcame along and we started doing
web stuff.
I Like that was my focus.
And quickly the worldwide webcame along and we started doing
web stuff.
I thought that was super cool,that that pulled me back to my
programming.
You know from my early days I'mlike, oh, this is, this is
awesome, um and so, uh, we,that's a really growing.
I ended up selling the computercompany because I wanted to
(05:42):
focus on the internet stuff andwe ended up building a lot of
big early web applications forthe state of Ohio, for the
country of Trinidad and.
Tobago, the city and county ofSan Francisco.
So we were doing work all overthe place in these web
(06:07):
applications, basically earlyweb applications.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Very neat.
So, 2005, I think, you decidedto buy into a small IT services
business in Youngstown.
What was the opportunity yousaw that made you want to not
only sort of take your talentsthere?
If I pull a LeBron quote therebut also buy into it.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Yeah, what I saw was, first of all, they had a data
center which I was kind ofenamored really quickly with,
because the internet businessthat I was always run was almost
run, you know, like in a closet, almost like the technology
piece, and we ended up moving itto that data center, which is
how I kind of got exposed to theguys um at at drs and, uh, I
(06:51):
thought that was super cool.
You know that techie and mecame out and thought, man, we
could really do some cool stuffhere, um kind of do next level
isp stuff, um the hosting, youknow the the.
They were kind of playingaround with Citrix as a service,
you know, in those days andthey were a big Cisco shop.
(07:11):
I love the Cisco gear,microsoft and I had basically I
had sold at that point I hadsold my ISP to a company and had
worked for them as kind of partof the deal and had realized
how bad an employee I really wasand how that is just not, you
know, and I think that probablyresonates with a lot of MSP
(07:33):
owners.
In fact, somebody told me thatyesterday that they were
completely unemployable.
So we did that and you know Ijust saw really good
possibilities.
They were like I don't knowpossibilities they were.
They were like I don't know,they were probably like 10
employees, nine employees,something like that, and had a
pretty good bar business.
You know, cisco, microsoft, uhbusiness, hp, and then the data
(07:56):
center.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
I thought we could do big things you talk a little
bit about your other businessowners, just what sort of
talents, personalities they hadum are we talking?
All business owners just no, no, the ones that you for the msp,
that you bought into oh, okay,yeah, well, that was pretty cool
actually.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
So, um, you know, our , our one partner could sell ice
to eskimos, like literally.
He was so good, he sold managedservices to an IT company and
he did it, I think partiallybecause I told him he couldn't
do it.
He came and he said hey, Ithink I've got an opportunity to
(08:34):
sell managed services to thislarge, much larger than us, by
the way, it company.
I go, why would anybody?
That's stupid.
Why would anybody do that?
Particularly because weactually would bid against them,
like we would go into deals andthey would be one of the
bidders on the deals, and I waslike you know, you can't do this
(08:57):
, and a couple of days later hedrops the contract on my desk
and he's like we're onboardingthose guys, so, um, so he was
just really really good, um, atsales, um, and then we had a
couple of tech like highlytechnical guys, uh, a microsoft
guy and a cisco guy you know,ccie, um, and there was just
(09:18):
there were a lot of kind ofbones there and what.
I really didn't realize that atthe time.
But like what I call now the Xfactor, like you need different
kinds of personalities to reallyreally 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.
(09:40):
You know, even if it's not apartner, they've got somebody in
the business.
That's kind of that X factor.
And that was true.
You know I had that happenmyself.
One of my employees at mycomputer company that was just,
you know, he was just a reallygood salesperson, didn't know it
kind of thing and technical,and I had it happen at the ISP
(10:02):
as well and you need that kindof energy.
So we had that.
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 (10:17):
So you mentioned that DRS started out pretty much as
a VAR business.
Obviously they had some timeand material doing some service,
some projects.
But how did the idea of managedservices come about?
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Well, uh, um, my partner was at a conference, a
Cisco conference, and PaulDipple spoke at the conference
and he came back and he came tomy office.
He goes, he goes, man, I'm.
There's this thing calledmanaged services and you, you
sell flat rate it to companiesand I'm like that sounds really
(10:51):
dumb, like, oh, how are yougoing to figure out the number
of hours?
Like what happens when somebodyuses a hundred hours and
somebody uses two?
Like he goes, he goes, we'redoing this Like we got to figure
this out.
And I'm like I was you know, Iam the eternal pessimist, you
know he's the eternal optimist,he was, and I think that's part
of that yin and yang thing too,by the way and he's just like,
(11:13):
oh, we can figure this out,we'll just, we can make this
happen, right.
And I'm like, yeah, this is.
But I started looking at it andwhat really attracted me was,
you know when I, when I switchedfrom that computer company to
the ISP, the big thing I sawthere that made business easier
(11:33):
was the recurring revenue youknow we had when we were selling
that dial-up ISP and thehosting stuff.
We had money coming in everymonth.
You know it was just, you knowit was right there coming on in
and in the computer company itwas.
You get up in the morning andyou go, okay, I got to sell
something today.
You know, I got to sell acomputer system.
(11:54):
Or I got to sell, you know,this business that I've been
talking to.
I got to close that because I'mnot going to make payroll if I
don't sell something and youjust don't have that in
recurring revenue.
So when Mike, my partner,started talking to me about that
, that was the really attractivepiece that made me sort of kind
(12:14):
of come over and say, all right, well, we're going to kind of
look at this seriously and tryto figure this out.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
That's great.
I think there's another Mikefrom Enable that came into your
life during those early MSPfiguring it out days.
Mike Cullen, Can you talk aboutthe impact that he made on DRS
and really the future of thatbusiness?
Speaker 1 (12:38):
Yeah for sure.
So Mike Cullen, some peoplecall him the godfather of the
industry.
So we had joined a peer group.
It's called True Profit Groups.
We had joined a peer group it'san invitation-only group and
that's kind of where I found thepower of working with peers.
(12:59):
And we were having a lot oftroubles with Ncentral.
There was a really bad rolloutand we're talking, by the way,
like version I think it was likeversion 2.6.
It's kind of burned into mymemory and I was at a peer group
meeting and I was complainingabout this rollout, how much
(13:21):
trouble we were having, how muchtrouble we were having kind of
getting support to kind of getit all figured out, which was
mainly because everybody washaving the entire user base was
having trouble.
And we did a thing in the peergroup where a vendor would come
and sponsor dinner and MikeCullen from Enable came and
sponsored dinner and you know Iwas introduced by one of the
(13:43):
other guys in the peer group.
I started talking, mikeCullen's, you know, pouring the
wine and he goes.
I'm telling him my problems, hegoes, we're going to get this
solved.
And literally, you know, he madea few phone calls and we got
this thing figured out and hebecame, you know, I would talk
to him probably every couplemonths, you know that entire
(14:05):
time, and we would just talklike he would call and say, hey,
you know, he would kind of pulla bunch of companies and say,
hey, you know, we're thinkingabout this, or you know, we came
up with this idea.
What do you think he was?
Just he was so open to kind ofthe industry and thinking big,
(14:27):
just a, just a super smart guy,sweet guy, and literally I mean
I bet I talked to him at leastannually, if not more, you know,
until last year.
So great guy.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Yeah, he was definitely a great influence on
so many people in the industryand I remember you sharing how
he helped DRS back in the daysas well.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
And such a strong partnership.
You know, like he he was theguy at Enable and then and then
eventually kind of Dave Weeks aswell.
You know they were like theguys that, um, you know if, if
there was a problem or or just aconcern, or you know I remember
in the old days having a bigconversation about integrating
(15:11):
with our PSA, like guys, we got,you got a right to the PSA,
it's so critical.
And those were the guys thatchampion that idea in the, in
the enable organization and kindof, I think, pushed that
through and got it done.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
So DRS grew organically pretty quickly and
thanks to you and the otherexecutives, did you ever feel
you were growing too quickly?
Speaker 1 (15:35):
Oh yeah, I mean as a as a eternal pessimist.
You're always, you know, reallyconcerned about.
You know that when you, whenyou get yourself out there right
and things are maybe not quiteas right as they are, the
eternal optimist says, oh, it'sall great, we're going to figure
this out.
My brain goes through thescenarios.
(15:58):
That keeps me up at night.
I'm running the scenarios in myhead, and so you tend to see the
bad things and the worst thingsthat can happen along with the
good things, um, and so, yeah, Imean, when you're growing
quickly, you know there'sthere's part of me that always
said, well, I mean we need tomaybe pump the brakes a little
(16:20):
bit.
One of the things, though, thatI've learned over the years is
you, you have to be pushed outof your comfort zone to grow,
and I'm not talking financiallygrow, because you know we could
have just kind of grew slowly,you know, 10, 15% a year,
comfortably, but I'm talkinglike when we would have years of
(16:41):
hyper growth, 50, 60% growth.
It was always uncomfortable andI realized that that that
that's what makes a companybetter.
You know, doing doing thethings that they're not
comfortable, forcing kind ofeverybody to just go, oh man,
how are we going to do this?
And just roll up your sleevesand figure it out and make
(17:05):
mistakes along the way, by theway, and, you know, hopefully
not make the clients miserable.
Sometimes make the clientsmiserable, but, you know, make
employees miserable as they'retrying to figure it out.
That's what, in the end, likeafter you come out of that on
the other side, those are thekind of wins that make a company
really really strong and, Ithink, makes employees kind of
(17:28):
bonds them and really works wellthere too as well.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
That's great.
I'm speaking of employees.
I'm sure you've hired hundredsof employees across your career.
What are some of the qualitiesthat you would sort of look for
in someone that you reallydidn't know, right Like during
the hiring process?
What are some of thosequalities that you look for?
Speaker 1 (17:48):
Yeah, I mean, I think one of the big things I look
for is somebody that's excited,right, like they don't
necessarily have to be excitedabout a specific things thing,
but you know, has that kind ofenergy and, and you know, really
wants to do something differentor or, you know, or maybe
better than what they're doing.
You know, I tend, when I'm doingan interview and I do
(18:11):
interviews now for to helpclients, sometimes mainly
because I've done so much, youknow, I kind of I get a, I
really get a strong impressionabout people quickly in an
interview.
You know, if they're just kindof laid back doing the interview
, kind of just kind of checkingthe boxes, you know, and they
don't have that fire kind ofunderneath, that's always a bit
(18:34):
of a red flag for me.
But one of the things I'velearned too is that you've got
to think it's hard to generalizean employee across the company.
Some people do that and I've,you know, worked with MSPs where
they're always looking for thesame type of person and I really
think that's a mistake.
(18:55):
I think you've got to look atthe role, what they want, and
then try to find a person youknow and a personality that fits
that.
But I think universally youwant somebody that's excited,
you know to work in theenvironment, in the job, in the
company.
You know they need to be ableto express that, you need to
(19:15):
feel it.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
That's great.
(20:01):
I'm sure you've had some goodones, but can you think of maybe
your best employee you've everhired?
Best?
Speaker 1 (20:06):
employee.
Well, there was this guy namedChris Massey that I hired to
help me on the help desk.
And, by the way, if anybody'stalked to Mr Chris Massey here,
the thing that comes outimmediately is his excitement
for the job and the challenge.
And I mean, I guess that goesand I didn't really plan it like
(20:28):
that because I didn't realizeyou were going to ask that.
But you know, that's the thingthat initially I didn't realize
you're going to ask that but, uh, you know that that's the thing
that initially got my attentionabout you and I remember
distinctly thinking because Idon't, I don't remember what you
I don't think you applied forthat job no, I wanted to be a
sales engineer.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
Yeah, and Mike didn't want a sales engineer.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
Yeah and I remember I remember thinking there's got,
we got to come up with a placefor this kid because he's just,
he's just, he's got like a fire.
And I remember sitting andtalking to mike and going like
what do you think?
Like?
He's like wow, we don't, wedon't need a sales guy, yeah,
okay, well, I'm gonna figuresomething out.
(21:08):
And I remember talking to youand sort of negotiating with you
like hey, I can't do what youwant, but how about this thing
over here?
Speaker 2 (21:17):
I think it worked out pretty well because it was
definitely I was, my career washeading in a direction.
I saw this really cool companyagain and I think you were 30
people at the time yeah, I don'tremember it was small and so I
saw this cool culture andthere's this opportunity to come
back to Youngstown and work inNortheastern Ohio and, yeah, I
(21:42):
just saw that opportunity with agrowing company.
It was pretty cool and Ilearned a lot.
Right to be able to say I ranoperations eventually, right?
Speaker 1 (21:50):
Well, you did a lot of different.
We moved you around and then,after I sold, you moved around
again to marketing, which Ialways thought was crazy.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Yeah, it was the best , yeah, that's great.
So, speaking of that, so 2013,I think that was the time when
it was time for you to exit andstart something new.
What's the opportunity that yousaw, sort of after years of
building an MSP?
Speaker 1 (22:13):
Yeah, well, the interesting thing about that is,
I did not plan that at all.
So when I sold you know I have abig farm I thought, you know,
I'd worked so hard as anentrepreneur for so many years.
I thought, you know, at thatpoint I had done pretty well.
I thought, well, you know,maybe it's time to just kind of
(22:35):
mess around with things.
See what you know comes along.
You know, maybe it's time tojust kind of mess around with
things.
See what you know comes along.
Um, we had just, uh, just uh,built a new house, which you
know.
Uh, my wife was like, so you'renot gonna work, and we just are
like, literally I I was, youknow, still finishing things in
the house because I I did thegeneral contracting on the house
.
Uh, actually, I take that back.
(22:57):
That was the second time, yeah,that was the first time that I
was in that um, so, uh, I was, Iwas kind of puttering around
the farm doing things thatneeded to be done and I started
uh getting calls because Iposted on linkedin, you know,
that I had uh left, uh, drs, andI think the first call I got
(23:17):
was from an MSP that had calledme over the years I'm pretty
sure I either met them at anEnable event or a ConnectWise
event and they called me andsaid hey, I see you.
You know you're not the COO ofDRS anymore.
You know we're struggling withsome things and would you mind
just just helping.
And I'm like, well, I don'tknow.
(23:40):
Okay, and we came up kind ofwith a deal where I charged them
by the hour and worked withthem, and that was pretty fun.
I realized that I was able tojust focus on solving problems,
which is kind of in my DNA,without having to worry about
(24:01):
all the stuff that kind of comesalong with that, and that kind
of started things for me.
Then I got some calls from MikeCullen.
He's like hey, I hear you'rekind of helping some MSPs, would
you help this one?
I got some calls fromConnectWise hey, would you help
this one?
And it just sort of grew.
(24:24):
And then all of a sudden I waslike, well, okay, I guess this
is a business and I guess therest is history there.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
So let's talk about how you service the MSP industry
today at MSP Advisor.
What are some of the ways thatyou help MSPs?
Speaker 1 (24:40):
MSP industry today at MSP Advisor.
What are some of the ways thatyou help MSPs?
Yeah, so one of the things wedo is one-on-one consulting and
coaching.
Basically I think of it more ascoaching.
So we will typically figure outsort of a budget of time that
they want to spend, becausebasically if we're spending an
hour, they're spending an houror more, if we're spending an
hour they're spending an hour ormore, kind of as homework
almost.
(25:00):
So we do that.
We also have peer groups.
So we have online and in-personpeer groups in North America
and then also in the UK andEurope and soon Australia, which
that one's a little challengingfrom a time perspective.
So we do the peer groups.
(25:20):
We also do consulting aroundPSA.
So we work through you know.
Basically we've run into somany problems, you know, when we
bring a new client on insidethe PSA, that we felt we had to
kind of build a practice aroundfixing that stuff and getting it
(25:43):
to a standard.
And we also do like stackconsultation, those kinds of
things.
So sort of projects, bespokeprojects around those kinds of
things.
That's exciting.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
So for the past 11 years you've worked with MSPs
all across the world, as youmentioned.
Are there any observations youcan make about sort of the
current state of the MSPindustry?
Speaker 1 (26:06):
Yeah, I mean, I think it's changing a bit.
You know, I don't think thefundamentals are changing, but I
think that we are on aprecipice where the RPA and ai
side of things is going tochange the, the labor component,
so dramatically and so quickly.
(26:28):
I mean, you know, two years agoI don't think we were even
talking about this um, and nowit's.
You know, I don't.
I mean, I think they're talkingabout it right now over at the
Empower session, which says alot in the industry to have this
change so quickly.
And some of the things I'mseeing are taking onboarding
(26:51):
from an hour a user to 10minutes, and of the 10 minutes,
only maybe two minutes were ahuman and the rest of it was
just it takes time to to do allthe steps and it's doing it
perfectly every single time.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
And if you had a human, do it you know, yeah, um,
what are some of the commonmistakes that msps tend to make
when they're trying to growtheir business?
Speaker 1 (27:21):
Oh, there's a lot of them, yeah, I mean, I would say
the small MSPs.
One of the biggest problems arethey don't understand their
finances, don't understand howto read that, and so everything
is done by gut feel, and I thinkit actually is a testament, gut
(27:41):
feel, and I think it actuallyis a testament.
If a company makes it toprobably $3 million and they
haven't focused on thefinancials, which is the
majority, because they come froma technical side of the house
and that's just not theirbackground generally, I just
think that they, they it's atestament to how well their gut
feel works.
(28:02):
And then what happens is thenthey, they think they can rely
on it forever, and the problemis, as you get bigger, you don't
know everything anymore.
Like you don't know, you maynot.
You get to the point, hopefully, that you don't even know all
the clients, and once thathappens, gut feel relies on
(28:23):
essentially having all theinformation.
You may not know.
You do, or you may not know howthat works if you're a very
intuitive person, but you've gotto know everything and that all
falls apart.
And so what happens a lot oftimes is, as they're trying to
(28:44):
grow and trying to rely on thatgut feel, they start making
mistakes and in some casesreally big mistakes.
So that finance component, Ithink, and really understanding
that finance component, iscritical.
And then I think the secondpiece of that is starting to
rely on data.
So if you want to makedecisions, you've got to
(29:05):
understand and have good dataand then also understand what
good looks like.
I distinctly remember having aconversation in my MSP before we
got into the peer group wherewe in, in fact, when I joined,
our utilization rate of our guy,our professional services guys,
(29:25):
which was, you know, threequarters of the company, was um
31 or 32 percent and I and andtwo of the partners were
professional services guys.
So we were, I remember, sittingaround there and going, guys,
this isn't enough.
And they they looked at me likeI had two heads and going we're
(29:47):
busting our butts here, likeyou can't do more, we can't do
more billable right and um.
So I remember saying, well, canwe just get it to like 45%,
like let's make that the goal?
Well, come to find out once Ijoined the peer group that 70%
is kind of the target for that.
(30:07):
So you know, not knowing whatgreat looks like, not knowing
what good looks like and tryingto just make it up based on what
, at that point, was justhorrible performance.
You know, I thought it was badperformance.
It was horrible performance.
You know, I think that's reallykind of a critical piece.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
So, dave, you have tons of stories over the past
number of years, obviously tonsof experiences.
Have you ever consideredwriting a book?
Speaker 1 (30:35):
It's funny.
You should ask, chris, we justuh released a book.
Yeah, um, focused on on youknow, msps yeah, you got it
there.
Yeah, talk it down yeah yeah,focused on msps and and really,
um, the, I guess the theory ofrunning a managed services
(30:56):
company, the idea of how tothink about your business.
There's a lot of how-toswritten for the MSP industry and
we wanted to really focus onsomething that was more big
picture.
Let's think about this, becausethat's really how you drive
excellence, I think.
(31:16):
Awesome.
What's the name of it?
It's called Profit and Growthfor MSPs Dragon Boats,
catamarans and Super Yachts andI wrote it with Enable's own,
rob Wilburn Awesome.
He focused on the growth sideof things, the marketing and so
forth, and I focused on kind ofthe operational and
organizational pieces of thebook.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
Any listeners.
They can get it on Amazon right.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
It is on Amazon right now and hardcover and Kindle,
and I have been asked so manytimes now for an Audible that
and I keep telling Robert we'regoing to have to record this
thing, and he keeps going, oh,because this was, by the way, a
ton of work to do, so we'regoing to record something.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
So, Dave, what would you tell younger Dave?
Speaker 1 (32:04):
Oh boy.
Well, I would tell younger Daveto buy more Microsoft stock and
don't sell it, because I had awhole bunch of it and I sold it
and I should have never donethat.
I would have told younger Daveto buy Amazon stock, so that was
probably.
I was thinking more like likeyounger Dave from a professional
oh okay, yeah, yeah, well, youknow, I I think that, uh, you
(32:30):
know, focusing kind of on thenumbers, focusing on the
financial side of the business,I would sort of reiterate that I
would have told me, you know,when you're hiring people,
particularly key people that youknow, worry less about the
money, I guess, and worry moreabout kind of how they, what
(32:55):
they're going to bring to theorganization.
I mean, that's what I do in MSPAdvisor now and it works
phenomenally well.
I want to make sure people makereally good money.
If they are phenomenal peopleand when you surround yourself
with excellence like that, youcan really do great things.
So I would say those areprobably the two big lessons.
(33:17):
We don't want to take in whatstocks to buy?
Speaker 2 (33:20):
So we call this podcast the Now that's it
podcast.
So I want to ask you when didyou know Now that's it?
Speaker 1 (33:29):
Well, what does that?
Speaker 2 (33:30):
mean?
It means that you were in theright spot, you were doing the
right thing, you were helpingthe right people.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
Well, I mean mean probably you know what it was, I
think, for msp advisor at leastcovid times, because that was
so stressful for so manycompanies.
You know I did webinars, I Ihad just strings of calls with
msps that I had never reallydealt with, that were just, you
know, freaking out like not tonot knowing what to do and, um,
(34:01):
you know, I was drawing from myexperience in 2007, 2008, with
the you know the kind of thehousing crash and banking crash,
um, and at the end of that Ihad so many people say you know
to me, you know, thanks for theadvice.
You know, that kind of helpedus get through it, that kind of
thing, and I was like I'm reallyhelping a lot of companies here
(34:22):
and it really felt good.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
Dave, thank you so much for being here for talking
with me.
I wish you the best of luck.
Wish you the best of luck withthe book and have a good rest of
the year.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
Thanks, chris, appreciate it.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Bobby Bones Show
Listen to 'The Bobby Bones Show' by downloading the daily full replay.