October 10, 2024 • 35 mins
In this episode of Now That’s IT: Stories of MSP Success, we sit down with Brandon Layhew, President and Managing Partner of ByteTime, to explore his incredible journey from sales success to leading a thriving MSP. 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.
For current and aspiring MSP leaders, this episode is packed with actionable insights on leveraging strong client relationships, evolving your services, and embracing cybersecurity to drive business growth. Learn how Brandon navigated challenges, adapted to industry changes, and turned adversity into an opportunity to propel ByteTime forward.
Whether you’re looking to strengthen your MSP’s sales strategy, enhance your service offerings, or build a robust cybersecurity foundation, Brandon’s story offers valuable lessons for every MSP leader. Tune in to discover how to balance sales, services, and security to position your MSP for long-term success.
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'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
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
One, two, three, four .
If I'm being candid, there's atime in a company where we
really struggled and I began tobelieve it was as a result of my
lack of IT background I beganto feel inadequate and broken.
Those feelings of inadequacyand brokenness actually changed
the course of the company.
Our industry, our organizationsand our delivery models face
(00:25):
chaos every day, every day.
And here's the deal we caneither face the chaos, see what
we can do with it, use it asfuel for the company, or we can
practice what I call the ostrichstrategy, which I've been
guilty of at times.
You know, just burying my headin the sand and hoping it's just
going to fly on by, right.
And at that moment you start torealize well, the world's going
(00:49):
to change around me or it'sgoing to change me as a result.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Right, Welcome to Now that's it stories of MSP
success, where we dive into thejourneys of some of the
trailblazers in our industry tofind out how they used their
passion for technology to helpturn managed services into the
thriving sector it is today.
Our guest this week is aseasoned national sales manager,
public speaker and proventeammate committed to assisting
(01:13):
the clients, organizations andpeople with whom he helps
discover a place for theirsuccess.
He's the president and managingpartner at ByteTime in Katy
Texas.
And managing partner atByteTime in Katy Texas.
His teammates have describedhim as the impact that has led
to not only the successfulrelationship with over 300
clients in eight states, but our95% customer retention and over
(01:34):
the last five years.
Brandon Lahue, welcome to theNow that's it podcast.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Thank you for having me.
When's that guy going to showup?
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Little story for our podcast listeners.
Brandon is a longtime colleague, friend and a great storyteller
, so I'm really looking forwardto the pod this week and I know
his story.
I've heard you tell it before.
It's a great story and so Ican't wait for you to share it
with folks.
Thank you so much for finallyjoining.
You're a busy man, I know.
(02:03):
Thank you for having me.
So you and the guys at BiteTime go way back.
Can you start by telling us howyou all first met?
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Kindergarten.
We all grew up in a little town, katy, texas.
At the time it was about 7,000,8,000 people and we all went
through kindergarten through12th grade together.
Our parents all knew each other.
Rob's mom was a nursepractitioner.
His dad was a painter.
Scott's parents both worked forthe original trash company in
Houston called BFI.
My mom, to this day, stillkeeps kids out of the house.
My dad worked in print shop andas a handy man for most of his
(02:35):
career.
Paul's dad was our high schoolfootball coach and his mom was
our fourth grade English teacher.
What were those days likegrowing up?
What would you guys do?
Man, we were a rowdy bunch.
We were wanderers.
I don't know necessarily if wewere aimless wanderers, but we
were definitely wanderers.
Tight group.
We'd love you and we'd fightyou quickly too.
Good group of guys, actually.
(02:55):
Scott went on to serve in theinfantry in the United States
Army, paul went on to be adecorated Marine and Rob Special
Forces Airborne.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Ranger.
Wow, you guys all come fromhumble backgrounds, and what
were some of those values orlessons in those early years
that are shared with peopletoday?
Speaker 1 (03:11):
All of the traditional ones that come with
sports, being a part of a team,being a part of something bigger
than yourself, hard work,discipline, self-discipline,
commitment to excellence are theprogram that really Paul's dad
defined has a standard, and thatstandard is when excellence
becomes tradition.
(03:31):
Greatness has no limits and Ithink it's a quality that not
only the young men that areraised in that community believe
but the community believes as awhole and that's kind of stuck
with us through time and it'skind of a standard of how we do
things, standard of excellence.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Before ByteTime you had a successful career in sales
.
How'd you get into that worldand what was it like achieving
such rapid success in healthcaresales?
Speaker 1 (03:56):
Well, candidly, after my ninth year in college, me
too I knew we had a lot going on.
I know we had a lot in common.
So, no, I really was unsure,directionless, I think, through
college and I changed my majormany times.
One of my favorite quotes ofall time is I think it's George.
George Eliot said it's a threadthat's that's woven through my
(04:18):
experiences.
But after my ninth year ofcollege I decided I wanted to go
to law school and I startedapplying to law school and uh
was um scheduling to take thelaw school.
They all sat and took that andstarted applying and uh had a
(04:41):
rough start date.
Um, I was going to go to schoolin California and I ended up
needing some money.
In between I didn't come formoney and had a lot of things I
wanted to do and a lot of thingsI wanted to buy and a lot of
bills that needed to be paid.
So a buddy of mine and anotherguy that we grew up with his dad
and uncle had an advertisingmarketing firm and they were
selling marketing advertisingpackages to health care
(05:02):
providers across the country.
Advertising marketing firm andthey were selling marketing
advertising packages tohealthcare providers across the
country and they were doing thisover the phone and like two
phone calls and it was.
The packages range from 17 anda half to $75,000.
And I had a six month waitbefore school started and and
they convinced me to come in andjust said you know, come check
it out.
And so I went and sat next tothis young lady and listened to
(05:23):
her bang out a hundred calls ina day, and at the end of the day
they said you know, come checkit out.
And so I went and sat next tothis young lady and listened to
her bang out 100 calls in a dayand at the end of the day they
said well, what do you think?
I said, man, I think I could dothis pretty easily.
So, sure enough, they said,well, come do this with us for a
little bit and make a littlebit of money.
And I said, okay, and so I,good guys.
(05:48):
And so, anyhow, I did this and,and my first month of doing
this with them, I got my firstcheck and it was a $16,000
commission check and, needlessto say, by the end of that year
I had, I had paid more in taxesthan my parents had ever made,
wow.
And so after about a year theycame to me and said do you think
you could teach other people todo what you're doing?
(06:09):
I said, sure, absolutely I do.
And so they let me hire a teamand started doing them and
training them.
And we went about it andstarted generating millions of
dollars.
And then they came back andthey said do you think you can
teach other people to lead otherteams?
Yeah, sure, why not?
Right?
So we did that and eventuallywe started growing this company
(06:32):
to about 2 million a month andit was a very good experience,
learned a lot about sales.
They brought in some reallyhigh level guys and what I
learned was some of these salestechniques.
You know, foot in the door, doorin the face, low ball I just
did, naturally, in conversations, and so that was kind of cool.
Maybe I found the direction Iwanted to go and got excited
(06:52):
about it.
And the next thing I knew Ilooked up and law school was in
the rearview mirror.
What led you to leave it allbehind?
Life has a way of humbling you.
You know it really does, and Igot to a point where my life was
out of control.
I was wild, I didn't know whatto do with that money and I woke
up one day and realized Ineeded to slow down.
And so, you know, there weretimes I'd wake up on a plane in
(07:17):
Mexico, times I'd spend sometime in Vegas and have to get
them to wire me a plane ticketback.
You know, life has a way ofhumbling.
We make tough decisions, butultimately, how do you learn
from them?
I think that's what matters.
And so I slowed down, went towork for a, for a local
nonprofit in Houston, and metsome great people, and about
that time I met my wife andeventually, you know, I wanted
to get back into the businessworld and take another shot at
(07:39):
it and start making some moneyagain.
And I reached Scott, who's myhim and I are the two majority
shareholders and Scott wasliving in New Braunfels.
He was actually the IT managerfor that company that I was
working for, and Scott wasliving in New Braunfels now and
he had started ByteTime.
And so when I started to pitchthe idea of starting my own
(08:01):
business, I was going to getinto marketing and advertising,
because that's what I knew andmy wife said you know, you need
to find some references, youneed to find some people to talk
to, some seek wise counsel,something that we talk about a
lot in our house.
So we seek wise counsel, and soI reached out to Scott to see
about his experience and calledhim up one day.
I said, scotty, well, how'sbite time, tell me about it.
(08:22):
And he said, man, it's reallystagnant.
And I knew what he meant.
You know, if he was here I'dsay this in front of him.
He's an IT nerd.
And so he didn't have thedesire, the heart to go out
there and push for new business.
And it just dawned on me atthat moment.
I said why don't we combine ourskill sets and see what we can
do with it?
And he said let's do it.
(08:43):
For those who don't know, I'mnot technical, I'm the least
technical person in this room,but as a matter of fact, he had
to drive the two and a halfhours from New Braunfels to Katy
to set up internet in my house.
That's how non-technical I am.
He had plugged the router infor me and I don't even know if
I owned a computer at the time.
So, anyways, that happened andthat's how we got started,
(09:03):
learned real quickly that weneeded to get somebody with some
networking experience, and sothat's where Paul came in
customer service and help deskdesktop support type experience,
and Rob was at the time workingfor the second largest banking
IT service provider in thecountry, compushare and so we
jumped off the end of the deepend.
Originally we wanted to hightech had recently been signed
(09:25):
and we wanted to help healthcare providers, because that was
the industry we were familiarwith help them become more
familiar and develop a processconverting from paper charts to
EMRs.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
So you're going through this personal reset,
professional reset.
You know almost a start freshstarting over.
Professional reset you knowalmost a start fresh starting
over.
You reconnect with Scott.
Was it the opportunity that youhad that really led you to join
Scott, or was it a chance to beable to work with old friends
again?
Speaker 1 (09:55):
To be candid.
I don't know that I've everthought about that, but the
prospect excited me.
I don't know if it was thechallenge or you know, working
with Scott and eventually withRob and Paul those guys but I
think the vision of it is kindof what really excited me, like
not necessarily where we weregoing to start, but the
potential of where it could landor what it could lead to.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Things happen for a reason.
You're obviously spiraling,you're in a bad place and then
you come across some old friendswho are you know, have gone
through the services and arevery grounded and maybe right
place, right time situation foryou to get relaunch your career
and probably so.
Yeah, that's really interesting.
So the four of you Scott, rob,paul and yourself you've known
(10:38):
each other since childhood.
How did these relationshipsshape the way you built Byte
Time together?
Speaker 1 (10:44):
It's a really good question too, man.
You're full of good questionstoday.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
You know.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
I think first and foremost the fact that they're
all technical and I'm notcreated this natural sink for us
where I have this I don't knowif it's a gift or a curse right
Depends on who you're talking toyou but when somebody says, can
you do this, my answer is justinstinctively yeah, let's go,
(11:11):
let's go.
And then we you know we'd go onmeetings and and prospective
clients would say could you dothis for us?
Could, could you?
Could you do this?
And then we get in the car andsay, hey guys, how the hell are
we going to do that?
I don't know, but y'all aregoing to figure it out.
You know we're more and moreconfident in answering that
question.
You have a problem.
We're going to figure out asolution, we're going to sell
(11:33):
you that solution and then we'regoing to deploy that solution,
then we're going to support thatsolution and that's the way our
business was built, Did thoserelationships?
Speaker 2 (11:42):
obviously they helped you, but did they ever cause a
friction or a challenge betweenany situations where those
relationships may be?
So I work.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
I coach with a guy that is in intelligence or was
in intelligence for the USgovernment military guy, and he
talks a lot about these reallyfamous historical generals books
that they've written and can'tthink of any of their names, but
he talks a lot about them andthey all talk about a concept of
friction and how friction candrive conflict.
And when you control thefriction, you control the
(12:18):
conflict.
When you control the conflict,you control the direction or the
process that you're about to go.
And so what I've learned overtime is you know we know each
other's personalities really,really well and we know what
buttons to push and which onesnot to push.
And I know, when we get intoconversations, I've learned over
time to keep my mouth shut andask them the questions and let
(12:39):
them answer.
When they answer, I'm going toget true, honest feedback of
what's in their heart and theway they feel.
And it helps guide me to mydecision-making process or to
our decision-making process.
And I know that there's certainones that I can't ask first
because if I ask them first it'sgoing to dominate the
conversation.
There's ones that if I ask last, if I ask them last, well,
they're going to clam up andthey're going to get frustrated
(13:00):
and not want to say anythingbecause they know their voice is
different.
But I love, love, love wheneach one of them will say I want
to play devil's advocates hereor the devil's advocate here,
because I know when they do thatwe're looking at it from all
sides and the decision is goingto be pretty good.
I think it's Colin Powell thatsays you know, give me, you know
, 30 to 80% of the information.
I'm gonna make a solid decision.
Give me anything less oranything more, and I probably
(13:23):
won't.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
So you go from a no technical background into
running an IT company, butyou're this sales guru, right?
This master, this motivator.
Did you feel like my words, mywords, right?
I've seen it, brandon, I'veseen you sell ice to Eskimos, as
they say, right, and so did youever feel that that depth that
(13:44):
you had in sales gave you anadvantage?
Speaker 1 (13:48):
It's funny you say that about selling ice to
Eskimos, because what mostpeople don't realize is the
weather does get warm in Alaskaat times and there's nothing
wrong with having a reservesupply.
That's great.
There's a need, right, there'sa need for a reserve Salesman.
So I disagree with the analogy.
When people say that becauseEskimos need ice, all right,
they really do.
They live in it.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
Yeah, so did you ever feel that sales background that
you had?
You'd run a team of sales, youtaught people and now you're
coming in and you're the faceright, a couple of owners, but
you're really the face of thisIT company.
Now Did you ever feel like thatbackground really gave you an
advantage to really catapult youguys?
Speaker 1 (14:25):
I think if it gave me an advantage, it's given me the
ability to kind of get outside,step away from the day-to-day
interaction with the clients onthe technical support side.
If I'm being candid, there's atime in a company where we
really struggled and I began tobelieve it was as a result of my
lack of IT background.
(14:47):
I began to feel inadequate andbroken.
Those feelings of inadequacyand brokenness actually changed
the course of the company.
How'd you get through thatbrokenness actually changed the
course of the company.
How'd you get through that?
Well, you know, rewind to COVID.
Right, we're coming out ofCOVID and we had lost about
60,000 in MRR at the time, whichis for us we're not a big
(15:09):
company, we're 14, 15 employees.
We had lost a significantamount of our reoccurring
revenue and our customer basewas obviously shrinking and we
were really struggling with leadgeneration.
We were really struggling withmarketing.
We were really struggling withthe changes in our industry
because, man, our industry, ifyou don't like it, just wait a
(15:31):
day or two.
It'll be something differenttomorrow, different tomorrow.
And ultimately, what evolved outof that was I started getting
bombarded by this guy onFacebook, former MSP owner,
talking about how he could teachyou how to sell MSP services
for $100, $200, $300 a seat, andI drank the Kool-Aid man.
(15:52):
And what I got out of it wascybersecurity.
Wow, right.
And I didn't know much aboutcybersecurity.
We hadn't really been impactedby it.
Ransomware was obviously a bigdeal, but beyond that we really
hadn't been touched by it.
And anyways, I startedresearching everything I could
about cybersecurity because Ididn't understand what it was,
(16:14):
but I realized, if I could makeit the foot in the door sale.
I could sell it and we couldturn the course of this company.
And so about that time I gotsome notification for like
certification course through theBooth School at the University
of Chicago.
I was like, well, that soundsinteresting, you know.
So I'd signed up to take thiscourse on cybersecurity and the
(16:34):
day before it was scheduled tostart I got notified that it
didn't make.
So I scrambled and wanted tostay.
The course found a course thatwas being offered of all places,
at Harvard, or, as some of theguys I work with like say,
harvard, and it's a little bitconvincing.
I got my foot in the door thereand they let me take this
(16:54):
course.
Man, did I overshoot?
I outkicked my coverage.
It was just filled withdignitaries, state department
officials and these people fromsome big time organizations.
Wow, the certification was incybersecurity, risk management
and compliance, which I was justlooking for.
Cybersecurity.
The other things were bonus.
I had no idea how it all tiedin.
(17:14):
So, anyways, to make a longstory short, I started taking
this course and the proctorfirst thing he says is this is
taught by Harvard.
The certificate will sayHarvard on it.
You should expect to be treatedand prepare like a Harvard
student.
It was about that time I said,oh crap, I think I bit off more
than I could chew.
But anyways, I stuck with it,finished the course.
(17:36):
It was supposed to take about20 hours a month.
You know I'm not the brightest,smartest cat in the litter, so
it took me about 20 hours a weekof studying and worked my way
through it and in the end I wasa little more adept at speaking
the language and I'm actuallycertified now to be able to go
on to any businesses' frontdoors and tell them how to
(17:59):
harden their cybersecurityposture.
That's great, brandon.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Thank you for sharing that story I remember you
telling that before and thanksfor going into a bit more depth
on who was actually in the roomfor these.
So have you always been thatway, brandon?
Someone, that's, if you didn'tknow know the answers.
You either read a book or youwent and you researched it
because it seems like you know,you started out and you have an
MSB.
You weren't even reallyfamiliar with the term MSB, yeah
(18:25):
, and then you're being asked tosort of transform this stagnant
business into something else,something new.
So how did you figure out?
What the heck?
I don't needed to.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
I don't think that I was asked to do it.
I think we were just in a placewhere we were kind of drifting
along.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
And that's the thing I think in the number one
bestselling book of all time.
It talks about that.
We've got to pay closeattention to what we hear,
because if not, we'll drift away, will drift away.
And if you think about the lasttime you were on a boat or in
the ocean, you get in the waterand you pull up to a spot and
you're sitting there and all ofa sudden you're having a good
time, you're enjoying yourselflistening to music, fishing, and
(19:05):
all of a sudden you look up andyou're way over here and you
start asking yourself well, howdid I get from way over there to
way over here?
Well, what does it take todrift from way over there to way
over here?
And you know what?
The answer is Nothing.
It takes absolutely nothing.
You do nothing and you willjust drift.
And I felt like that's what wewere doing.
(19:26):
We had lost sight of, like whenwe started the company or when
I got involved.
We went from just you know 14accounts and we're just kind of
it was all break, fix.
And then we went to thissituation where we were showing
up at customer sites and theywere saying, hey, can you do
this?
And we say yeah, and I mean wegot involved with an RMM tool
because somebody asked us how wewere going to monitor their
(19:46):
devices.
I had no idea what they weretalking about, figured it out,
and so we found an Able and Ablebecame our first partner, our
first corporate vendor partnerCustomer would ask us.
And then eventually I got to thepoint where I was like there's
got to be a better way to dothis.
And so I started reaching outto again buddies of mine that I
grew up with and you know guysworking at Halliburton and Shell
(20:07):
and Exxon, and said, man, howare y'all doing this?
How are you supporting 50,000users?
You know, and they startedtelling me about tools they were
using and different resourcesthey had.
And so I started.
I got my second best friend inthe world is Google, and so I
just started Googling theseresources and started reaching
out to these people and tellingthem what we're trying to do.
And, hey, is there a way thatyou can give me what you've got
(20:31):
at a price that I can go sell itto small businesses?
I want enterprise levelservices and solutions that I
can provide at a small businessprice.
And that's how we grew thecompany and that's how we grew
and it went fast, really fast,and then all of a sudden, I
think the market got stagnant,like we just got saturated with
we hit this MSP boom, you know,eight or 10 years ago, and the
(20:51):
market just went flat, you know,and so leads started drying up
and COVID hit.
And I don't know that I cantake credit and say I'm this
great visionary or strategist.
I just think crap happens andyou either embrace it and work
through it or you tuck tail andrun.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
I don't think you give yourself enough credit.
I'm sure it wasn't you alone,but I think you have the
personality to be able to getpeople together and solve
problems and motivate them.
You're a pretty good thinker,you know a pretty good logical
thinker.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
Chris, it goes back to that first comment I made.
I'm waiting on this guy youkeep talking to show up, because
the guy sitting here doesn'tfeel that way.
I mean, I got a great team.
We just really try to focus onalignment, assignment and
execution.
You know, are we properlyaligned?
Are we where we're supposed tobe, when we're supposed to be
there?
You know, assignment, do ourpeople understand the assignment
(21:42):
?
And if you can do those twothings and put them together,
this third step being relentless, relentlessly pursuing, success
happens on its own.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
So ByteDime's service-first approach has been
a cornerstone to the success ofyour business.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
How did you develop that philosophy and how do you
keep that focus with the companyas it grows?
As you know, I'm a high schoolcoach and been a high school
football and baseball coach forclose to two decades, and one of
the things that I say to myplayers I say to other coaches
all the time, it's a staple Ilove you, I love you.
And for me, like, love is whatthis whole thing is about, and I
know it sounds cheesy, but justbear with me here because
you'll understand where I'mcoming from.
(22:23):
If you love what you do, you'regoing to show up and do a good
job every day.
If you love who you do it with,you're going to show up and do
a good job every day.
Right, you're going to do yourbest, you're gonna put your best
foot forward.
And if you love why, you do itsame thing.
And those first two thingsbecome even easier, and so if
you're capable of tellingsomebody that that's the hard
(22:45):
part, showing them is easy.
For me, anyways, saying it,backing it up, becomes that much
easier, right, and so for us,you know, I think that I'm
surrounded by guys that I'veknown since I was five, for 45
years.
Those dudes are all old.
They're all 50.
Now I'm only 49.
I'm the baby of the bunch.
We show up to work every daybecause we love each other and
(23:07):
we have for a very long time andwe love our parents.
We love, you know, each other'sparents have been a part of our
lives for as long as we've beenalive, I mean.
So service to us is just simplybeing a part of something
bigger than yourself, and that'sthe way we were raised, and
we're still cutting cloth withthe same guys we've been cutting
cloth with for 45 years.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
That's great.
You mentioned you love coaching.
Why is that?
Speaker 1 (23:32):
I'm a believer and I'm an obedient believer.
For those out there listeningthat they'll know what I'm
talking about.
I think that God calls me to bea spiritual head of my
household.
It's his words, not mine.
So in that area, that arena,I'm in a leadership position.
I'm father to four children.
In that area I'm a leadershipposition.
I don't consider myself the headof bite time, but I carry the
(23:52):
title of president.
I'm in a position and when Iget on that football field it
allows me to be a part ofsomething bigger than myself.
It allows me to just be, not totake anything away from real
guys out there who fight warsfor a living, but it allows me
just to be a soldier and get tobe on the front lines and in the
trenches.
But I tell my kids all the timethis that the greatest gift God
(24:15):
gave you is your spirit.
He gave you that brain toprotect your spirit.
And you know we're raising youngmen in a world today that is
defined to confine a young man'sheart with political
correctness, racism, feminism,liberalism.
I just pissed off half yourlisteners, off half your
listeners.
But look, truth is is that afootball field, a baseball field
(24:37):
are two of the last places onearth that you can go, be what
God meant you to be, and that'sfearless.
In Genesis it says that hecreated you in his image and I
think it's in Ezekiel.
He says that he has awarrior-like heart, or the heart
of a warrior.
They call him Yahweh, and if hecreated you in his image and he
has the heart of a warrior,what type of heart does he
(24:57):
expect a young man to have?
In some small way, I hadcoaches that poured themselves
into me, that carved out a pathfor me to turn back to when I
strayed, and I feel like I'd becheating the system if I didn't
repay that.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
I got to witness your coaching firsthand a couple of
years ago, and what was reallyfun about this at your practice
is you had a mic on and so wegot a little of the behind the
scenes and what was interestingto me was yeah, there was X's
and O's Tog, but you're askingthe kids how are you doing in
school, how are you doing withyour grades?
(25:33):
You're treating your parentswith respect, I mean, you're
having different conversationswith those kids.
Why is that so important foryou?
Speaker 1 (25:41):
Again, I had coaches that poured themselves into me.
I mean absolutely pouredthemselves into me.
And it goes back to that what Isaid earlier If you're going to
tell somebody you love them,you better know them.
Don't just say it, you bettermean it.
And how do you mean it if youdon't know them and you got to
engage in their lives?
Speaker 2 (26:01):
You talked earlier that success got the better of
you, so how have you handled itdifferently, now that bite time
is starting to thrive?
Speaker 1 (26:08):
Well, I'm going to correct you there.
Success didn't get the betterof me, money got the better of
you.
Money got the better of you,money got the better of me.
Okay, you know, I think thatit's for a different reason,
right, and I hope, if anybodytakes this away, what they take
away from this conversationwe're having today is that, you
know, loving other people, beingof service to other people
(26:32):
surrounded myself by greatpeople and, as a matter of fact,
you know, you said earlier,everything happens for a reason,
you know, and it all kind ofconnects.
And, and I actually had haverecently had the opportunity in
our company to offer wisecounsel to a person going
through similar situation, andI'm not gonna say I did a good
job, but I felt like I would nothave been able to be there for
(26:53):
this person in the way that Iwas had I not been through my
own trials and tribulations.
And, by the way, one thing I'velearned through coaching and
doing this is that nobody wantsto hear a story from some dude
who's been silver spoon fed.
They want to hear about a guy,a gal, who's challenged hell
with a bucket of water andbelieve that they had the faith
to put the water out.
Confidence to put the water out.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
Brandon, you talked in the past about embracing
chaos and using fuel.
Can you share a specificexample of where you've had a
chaotic situation at bite timeand maybe turned that into a
positive outcome?
Speaker 1 (27:29):
Well, I mean coming out of COVID was pretty dang
chaotic in itself.
But I'm thinking of two and I'mjust wondering if I want to put
one on a podcast.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
You can speak in generalities.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
if that's no, I mean, I think, if I could speak just
in general about the chaos ourindustry faces, it's constantly
changing.
10 or 15 years ago, let's go 20years ago the term MSP really
came into existence.
And I'm speaking this from from.
Uh, my second best friend toldme right, yeah, google says that
(28:03):
the term MSP really didn't comeinto existence until the early
2000s.
So let's go 20 years ago.
Well, 10 to 15 years ago westarted calling ourselves MSPs.
But if we were even in business, most MSPs weren't business.
10 or 15 years ago, what wereally were was we were selling
some specialty.
But if we were even in business, most MSPs weren't in business.
(28:23):
10 or 15 years ago, what wereally were was we were selling
some specialty service or wewere a break-fix company.
And then you fast forward 10years ago, we really started
hitting the MSP boom.
Like, you know, that's whenyour customers started knowing,
when you told them, hey, I'm anMSP, and people stopped going.
Well, what's that?
You know, they knew.
Well, five years ago we reallystarted the cybersecurity boom.
You know, two to three yearsago we started pushing
compliance and insuranceregulations.
(28:43):
Right, Mm-hmm.
Well, think about recently, morerecently, how much our stacks
have changed, right, like thethings we've added email
security suite, edr, mdr, socand SIEM.
You know, hardware as a service.
We've gone to hardware as aservice, left hardware as a
service, came back to hardwareas a service.
I mean, the list of things wehave now that we provide as MSPs
is just too long, right, butit's like this necessary thing
(29:09):
that we have to do.
I remember a time when we firstgot started, all you needed was
a good RMM, and so my point insharing all this is, like our
industry, our organizations andour delivery models face chaos
every day, every day.
And here's the deal we caneither face the chaos, see what
(29:34):
we can do with it, use it asfuel for the company, or we can
practice what I call the ostrichstrategy, which I've been
guilty of at times.
You know, just burying my headin the sand and hoping it's just
going to fly on by Right, andat that moment you start to
realize well, the world's goingto change around me or it's
going to change me as a result.
Right, and back to the foodanalogy.
(29:57):
Chaos is kind of like fuel foryour company.
It's food for your company.
If we put the right food in ourbody, we're going to live a
healthy life, we're going togrow, we're going to thrive,
we're going to excel.
And if we don't, if we put poorquality food or bad food, or we
don't put food in our body atall chaos, challenge we're going
to end up falling apart,deteriorating, be passed by,
(30:17):
eventually absorbed or done awaywith, and so, for me, embracing
chaos is the fuel for growth.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
That's great, Brandon .
Appreciate you sharing that.
So what are you the mostexcited about with Bite?
Speaker 1 (30:33):
Time as you look towards the future, man, I don't
know if I have the best life inthe world, like I.
Literally I've got a beautifulwife who, like is fantastic,
supports me.
Happy anniversary.
Well, it's funny, you broughtthat up on camera.
Like literally 10 minutes ago,my wife texted me and said happy
anniversary.
Well, it's funny, you broughtthat up on camera.
Like literally 10 minutes ago,my wife texted me and said happy
(30:54):
anniversary.
And so happy anniversary, man.
So I forgot just to be honest.
I mean.
So we got four amazing kids Ouroldest daughter's in school in
Georgia.
Our oldest son's committed toplay baseball.
He's a switch hit and catcherat Rice.
Our two youngest are fantastic.
Yeah just can't say enough aboutthem.
But to answer your question,here it is.
(31:15):
I wake up every morning andmaybe this is selfish of me to
do this, but I force aleadership call and every
morning at 8 am Rob, scott, pauland now Nauf have to get on a
call with me every singlemorning at eight o'clock.
I look forward to that call,man, like like I'm forcing,
(31:36):
maybe I'm buying my buddies, buthey, I force them to get on
this call with me.
And we don't just talk aboutbusiness, we talk about life.
You know, we I'm all over theplace, man.
That's, that's what I lookforward to every day, I mean
that that call.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
That's awesome, Brandon.
So the question we ask everyoneis when did you know?
Speaker 1 (31:55):
now that's it you know there was a time Scott and
I were trying to figure all thisout and my wife at the time was
selling advertising and we wererunning out of money.
Just to know, we were runningout of money.
You know, just to be candid, wewere running out of money trying
to get this business off theground and we were I don't want
(32:18):
to say desperate, but we knewsomething had to change.
She's one of the extremelyencouraging women.
And did I say she was beautiful?
Because she is?
You did say it, she's stunning.
I outkicked my coverage man.
I do that a lot.
So one night, you know, we'rein this situation where we don't
know where we're going or howwe're going to get there.
(32:38):
Clearly, I'm feeling inadequateand starting to doubt myself,
you know.
And we were laying in bed andthe lights were out and I hear
her sweet voice say it might betime.
It might be time to find a realjob.
And it wasn't.
It wasn't that she had given uphope or that she didn't believe
(33:04):
in me.
She knew how to motivate me.
And about a year later, Ithought about that conversation
and we had money in the bank andwe had employees and we were
still doing it.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
And that's when I knew I made it.
Thank you so much for sharingthat, brandon.
That was really special.
You are a good friend, a greatcolleague.
I'm really glad you could joinus this week, share your story,
and I wish you and the Byte Timeguys the absolute best in the
future.
I just have one question foryou.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
What's that.
If you were to rank howhandsome all of your guests have
been.
If I didn't have this beard,where would I?
Speaker 2 (33:48):
be.
I've actually seen a picture ofyou without your beard.
Have you really?
I didn't recognize you.
Have you really?
I think it's your LinkedInpicture.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
I think you need to polish that.
I cut that out.
Me and my bride were at awedding.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
I'd have you two without the beard, two without
the beard, but one like one, farabove everybody, with the beard
.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
Let me share one last thing with your listeners.
I don't know where I heard thisfrom or who said it, but I'm on
this quote right now, and thatis that the best teams are made
up of a bunch of nobodies wholove everybody, will serve
anybody and don't give a crapabout being a somebody.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
Awesome.
Thank you so much, Brimman.
Thank you for having me.
One, two, three, four .
If I'm being candid, there's atime in a company where we
really struggled and I began tobelieve it was as a result of my
lack of IT background I beganto feel inadequate and broken.
Those feelings of inadequacyand brokenness actually changed
the course of the company.
Our industry, our organizationsand our delivery models face
(00:25):
chaos every day, every day.
And here's the deal we caneither face the chaos, see what
we can do with it, use it asfuel for the company, or we can
practice what I call the ostrichstrategy, which I've been
guilty of at times.
You know, just burying my headin the sand and hoping it's just
going to fly on by, right.
And at that moment you start torealize well, the world's going
(00:49):
to change around me or it'sgoing to change me as a result.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Right, Welcome to Now that's it stories of MSP
success, where we dive into thejourneys of some of the
trailblazers in our industry tofind out how they used their
passion for technology to helpturn managed services into the
thriving sector it is today.
Our guest this week is aseasoned national sales manager,
public speaker and proventeammate committed to assisting
(01:13):
the clients, organizations andpeople with whom he helps
discover a place for theirsuccess.
He's the president and managingpartner at ByteTime in Katy
Texas.
And managing partner atByteTime in Katy Texas.
His teammates have describedhim as the impact that has led
to not only the successfulrelationship with over 300
clients in eight states, but our95% customer retention and over
(01:34):
the last five years.
Brandon Lahue, welcome to theNow that's it podcast.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Thank you for having me.
When's that guy going to showup?
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Little story for our podcast listeners.
Brandon is a longtime colleague, friend and a great storyteller
, so I'm really looking forwardto the pod this week and I know
his story.
I've heard you tell it before.
It's a great story and so Ican't wait for you to share it
with folks.
Thank you so much for finallyjoining.
You're a busy man, I know.
(02:03):
Thank you for having me.
So you and the guys at BiteTime go way back.
Can you start by telling us howyou all first met?
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Kindergarten.
We all grew up in a little town, katy, texas.
At the time it was about 7,000,8,000 people and we all went
through kindergarten through12th grade together.
Our parents all knew each other.
Rob's mom was a nursepractitioner.
His dad was a painter.
Scott's parents both worked forthe original trash company in
Houston called BFI.
My mom, to this day, stillkeeps kids out of the house.
My dad worked in print shop andas a handy man for most of his
(02:35):
career.
Paul's dad was our high schoolfootball coach and his mom was
our fourth grade English teacher.
What were those days likegrowing up?
What would you guys do?
Man, we were a rowdy bunch.
We were wanderers.
I don't know necessarily if wewere aimless wanderers, but we
were definitely wanderers.
Tight group.
We'd love you and we'd fightyou quickly too.
Good group of guys, actually.
(02:55):
Scott went on to serve in theinfantry in the United States
Army, paul went on to be adecorated Marine and Rob Special
Forces Airborne.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Ranger.
Wow, you guys all come fromhumble backgrounds, and what
were some of those values orlessons in those early years
that are shared with peopletoday?
Speaker 1 (03:11):
All of the traditional ones that come with
sports, being a part of a team,being a part of something bigger
than yourself, hard work,discipline, self-discipline,
commitment to excellence are theprogram that really Paul's dad
defined has a standard, and thatstandard is when excellence
becomes tradition.
(03:31):
Greatness has no limits and Ithink it's a quality that not
only the young men that areraised in that community believe
but the community believes as awhole and that's kind of stuck
with us through time and it'skind of a standard of how we do
things, standard of excellence.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Before ByteTime you had a successful career in sales
.
How'd you get into that worldand what was it like achieving
such rapid success in healthcaresales?
Speaker 1 (03:56):
Well, candidly, after my ninth year in college, me
too I knew we had a lot going on.
I know we had a lot in common.
So, no, I really was unsure,directionless, I think, through
college and I changed my majormany times.
One of my favorite quotes ofall time is I think it's George.
George Eliot said it's a threadthat's that's woven through my
(04:18):
experiences.
But after my ninth year ofcollege I decided I wanted to go
to law school and I startedapplying to law school and uh
was um scheduling to take thelaw school.
They all sat and took that andstarted applying and uh had a
(04:41):
rough start date.
Um, I was going to go to schoolin California and I ended up
needing some money.
In between I didn't come formoney and had a lot of things I
wanted to do and a lot of thingsI wanted to buy and a lot of
bills that needed to be paid.
So a buddy of mine and anotherguy that we grew up with his dad
and uncle had an advertisingmarketing firm and they were
selling marketing advertisingpackages to health care
(05:02):
providers across the country.
Advertising marketing firm andthey were selling marketing
advertising packages tohealthcare providers across the
country and they were doing thisover the phone and like two
phone calls and it was.
The packages range from 17 anda half to $75,000.
And I had a six month waitbefore school started and and
they convinced me to come in andjust said you know, come check
it out.
And so I went and sat next tothis young lady and listened to
(05:23):
her bang out a hundred calls ina day, and at the end of the day
they said you know, come checkit out.
And so I went and sat next tothis young lady and listened to
her bang out 100 calls in a dayand at the end of the day they
said well, what do you think?
I said, man, I think I could dothis pretty easily.
So, sure enough, they said,well, come do this with us for a
little bit and make a littlebit of money.
And I said, okay, and so I,good guys.
(05:48):
And so, anyhow, I did this and,and my first month of doing
this with them, I got my firstcheck and it was a $16,000
commission check and, needlessto say, by the end of that year
I had, I had paid more in taxesthan my parents had ever made,
wow.
And so after about a year theycame to me and said do you think
you could teach other people todo what you're doing?
(06:09):
I said, sure, absolutely I do.
And so they let me hire a teamand started doing them and
training them.
And we went about it andstarted generating millions of
dollars.
And then they came back andthey said do you think you can
teach other people to lead otherteams?
Yeah, sure, why not?
Right?
So we did that and eventuallywe started growing this company
(06:32):
to about 2 million a month andit was a very good experience,
learned a lot about sales.
They brought in some reallyhigh level guys and what I
learned was some of these salestechniques.
You know, foot in the door, doorin the face, low ball I just
did, naturally, in conversations, and so that was kind of cool.
Maybe I found the direction Iwanted to go and got excited
(06:52):
about it.
And the next thing I knew Ilooked up and law school was in
the rearview mirror.
What led you to leave it allbehind?
Life has a way of humbling you.
You know it really does, and Igot to a point where my life was
out of control.
I was wild, I didn't know whatto do with that money and I woke
up one day and realized Ineeded to slow down.
And so, you know, there weretimes I'd wake up on a plane in
(07:17):
Mexico, times I'd spend sometime in Vegas and have to get
them to wire me a plane ticketback.
You know, life has a way ofhumbling.
We make tough decisions, butultimately, how do you learn
from them?
I think that's what matters.
And so I slowed down, went towork for a, for a local
nonprofit in Houston, and metsome great people, and about
that time I met my wife andeventually, you know, I wanted
to get back into the businessworld and take another shot at
(07:39):
it and start making some moneyagain.
And I reached Scott, who's myhim and I are the two majority
shareholders and Scott wasliving in New Braunfels.
He was actually the IT managerfor that company that I was
working for, and Scott wasliving in New Braunfels now and
he had started ByteTime.
And so when I started to pitchthe idea of starting my own
(08:01):
business, I was going to getinto marketing and advertising,
because that's what I knew andmy wife said you know, you need
to find some references, youneed to find some people to talk
to, some seek wise counsel,something that we talk about a
lot in our house.
So we seek wise counsel, and soI reached out to Scott to see
about his experience and calledhim up one day.
I said, scotty, well, how'sbite time, tell me about it.
(08:22):
And he said, man, it's reallystagnant.
And I knew what he meant.
You know, if he was here I'dsay this in front of him.
He's an IT nerd.
And so he didn't have thedesire, the heart to go out
there and push for new business.
And it just dawned on me atthat moment.
I said why don't we combine ourskill sets and see what we can
do with it?
And he said let's do it.
(08:43):
For those who don't know, I'mnot technical, I'm the least
technical person in this room,but as a matter of fact, he had
to drive the two and a halfhours from New Braunfels to Katy
to set up internet in my house.
That's how non-technical I am.
He had plugged the router infor me and I don't even know if
I owned a computer at the time.
So, anyways, that happened andthat's how we got started,
(09:03):
learned real quickly that weneeded to get somebody with some
networking experience, and sothat's where Paul came in
customer service and help deskdesktop support type experience,
and Rob was at the time workingfor the second largest banking
IT service provider in thecountry, compushare and so we
jumped off the end of the deepend.
Originally we wanted to hightech had recently been signed
(09:25):
and we wanted to help healthcare providers, because that was
the industry we were familiarwith help them become more
familiar and develop a processconverting from paper charts to
EMRs.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
So you're going through this personal reset,
professional reset.
You know almost a start freshstarting over.
Professional reset you knowalmost a start fresh starting
over.
You reconnect with Scott.
Was it the opportunity that youhad that really led you to join
Scott, or was it a chance to beable to work with old friends
again?
Speaker 1 (09:55):
To be candid.
I don't know that I've everthought about that, but the
prospect excited me.
I don't know if it was thechallenge or you know, working
with Scott and eventually withRob and Paul those guys but I
think the vision of it is kindof what really excited me, like
not necessarily where we weregoing to start, but the
potential of where it could landor what it could lead to.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Things happen for a reason.
You're obviously spiraling,you're in a bad place and then
you come across some old friendswho are you know, have gone
through the services and arevery grounded and maybe right
place, right time situation foryou to get relaunch your career
and probably so.
Yeah, that's really interesting.
So the four of you Scott, rob,paul and yourself you've known
(10:38):
each other since childhood.
How did these relationshipsshape the way you built Byte
Time together?
Speaker 1 (10:44):
It's a really good question too, man.
You're full of good questionstoday.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
You know.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
I think first and foremost the fact that they're
all technical and I'm notcreated this natural sink for us
where I have this I don't knowif it's a gift or a curse right
Depends on who you're talking toyou but when somebody says, can
you do this, my answer is justinstinctively yeah, let's go,
(11:11):
let's go.
And then we you know we'd go onmeetings and and prospective
clients would say could you dothis for us?
Could, could you?
Could you do this?
And then we get in the car andsay, hey guys, how the hell are
we going to do that?
I don't know, but y'all aregoing to figure it out.
You know we're more and moreconfident in answering that
question.
You have a problem.
We're going to figure out asolution, we're going to sell
(11:33):
you that solution and then we'regoing to deploy that solution,
then we're going to support thatsolution and that's the way our
business was built, Did thoserelationships?
Speaker 2 (11:42):
obviously they helped you, but did they ever cause a
friction or a challenge betweenany situations where those
relationships may be?
So I work.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
I coach with a guy that is in intelligence or was
in intelligence for the USgovernment military guy, and he
talks a lot about these reallyfamous historical generals books
that they've written and can'tthink of any of their names, but
he talks a lot about them andthey all talk about a concept of
friction and how friction candrive conflict.
And when you control thefriction, you control the
(12:18):
conflict.
When you control the conflict,you control the direction or the
process that you're about to go.
And so what I've learned overtime is you know we know each
other's personalities really,really well and we know what
buttons to push and which onesnot to push.
And I know, when we get intoconversations, I've learned over
time to keep my mouth shut andask them the questions and let
(12:39):
them answer.
When they answer, I'm going toget true, honest feedback of
what's in their heart and theway they feel.
And it helps guide me to mydecision-making process or to
our decision-making process.
And I know that there's certainones that I can't ask first
because if I ask them first it'sgoing to dominate the
conversation.
There's ones that if I ask last, if I ask them last, well,
they're going to clam up andthey're going to get frustrated
(13:00):
and not want to say anythingbecause they know their voice is
different.
But I love, love, love wheneach one of them will say I want
to play devil's advocates hereor the devil's advocate here,
because I know when they do thatwe're looking at it from all
sides and the decision is goingto be pretty good.
I think it's Colin Powell thatsays you know, give me, you know
, 30 to 80% of the information.
I'm gonna make a solid decision.
Give me anything less oranything more, and I probably
(13:23):
won't.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
So you go from a no technical background into
running an IT company, butyou're this sales guru, right?
This master, this motivator.
Did you feel like my words, mywords, right?
I've seen it, brandon, I'veseen you sell ice to Eskimos, as
they say, right, and so did youever feel that that depth that
(13:44):
you had in sales gave you anadvantage?
Speaker 1 (13:48):
It's funny you say that about selling ice to
Eskimos, because what mostpeople don't realize is the
weather does get warm in Alaskaat times and there's nothing
wrong with having a reservesupply.
That's great.
There's a need, right, there'sa need for a reserve Salesman.
So I disagree with the analogy.
When people say that becauseEskimos need ice, all right,
they really do.
They live in it.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
Yeah, so did you ever feel that sales background that
you had?
You'd run a team of sales, youtaught people and now you're
coming in and you're the faceright, a couple of owners, but
you're really the face of thisIT company.
Now Did you ever feel like thatbackground really gave you an
advantage to really catapult youguys?
Speaker 1 (14:25):
I think if it gave me an advantage, it's given me the
ability to kind of get outside,step away from the day-to-day
interaction with the clients onthe technical support side.
If I'm being candid, there's atime in a company where we
really struggled and I began tobelieve it was as a result of my
lack of IT background.
(14:47):
I began to feel inadequate andbroken.
Those feelings of inadequacyand brokenness actually changed
the course of the company.
How'd you get through thatbrokenness actually changed the
course of the company.
How'd you get through that?
Well, you know, rewind to COVID.
Right, we're coming out ofCOVID and we had lost about
60,000 in MRR at the time, whichis for us we're not a big
(15:09):
company, we're 14, 15 employees.
We had lost a significantamount of our reoccurring
revenue and our customer basewas obviously shrinking and we
were really struggling with leadgeneration.
We were really struggling withmarketing.
We were really struggling withthe changes in our industry
because, man, our industry, ifyou don't like it, just wait a
(15:31):
day or two.
It'll be something differenttomorrow, different tomorrow.
And ultimately, what evolved outof that was I started getting
bombarded by this guy onFacebook, former MSP owner,
talking about how he could teachyou how to sell MSP services
for $100, $200, $300 a seat, andI drank the Kool-Aid man.
(15:52):
And what I got out of it wascybersecurity.
Wow, right.
And I didn't know much aboutcybersecurity.
We hadn't really been impactedby it.
Ransomware was obviously a bigdeal, but beyond that we really
hadn't been touched by it.
And anyways, I startedresearching everything I could
about cybersecurity because Ididn't understand what it was,
(16:14):
but I realized, if I could makeit the foot in the door sale.
I could sell it and we couldturn the course of this company.
And so about that time I gotsome notification for like
certification course through theBooth School at the University
of Chicago.
I was like, well, that soundsinteresting, you know.
So I'd signed up to take thiscourse on cybersecurity and the
(16:34):
day before it was scheduled tostart I got notified that it
didn't make.
So I scrambled and wanted tostay.
The course found a course thatwas being offered of all places,
at Harvard, or, as some of theguys I work with like say,
harvard, and it's a little bitconvincing.
I got my foot in the door thereand they let me take this
(16:54):
course.
Man, did I overshoot?
I outkicked my coverage.
It was just filled withdignitaries, state department
officials and these people fromsome big time organizations.
Wow, the certification was incybersecurity, risk management
and compliance, which I was justlooking for.
Cybersecurity.
The other things were bonus.
I had no idea how it all tiedin.
(17:14):
So, anyways, to make a longstory short, I started taking
this course and the proctorfirst thing he says is this is
taught by Harvard.
The certificate will sayHarvard on it.
You should expect to be treatedand prepare like a Harvard
student.
It was about that time I said,oh crap, I think I bit off more
than I could chew.
But anyways, I stuck with it,finished the course.
(17:36):
It was supposed to take about20 hours a month.
You know I'm not the brightest,smartest cat in the litter, so
it took me about 20 hours a weekof studying and worked my way
through it and in the end I wasa little more adept at speaking
the language and I'm actuallycertified now to be able to go
on to any businesses' frontdoors and tell them how to
(17:59):
harden their cybersecurityposture.
That's great, brandon.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Thank you for sharing that story I remember you
telling that before and thanksfor going into a bit more depth
on who was actually in the roomfor these.
So have you always been thatway, brandon?
Someone, that's, if you didn'tknow know the answers.
You either read a book or youwent and you researched it
because it seems like you know,you started out and you have an
MSB.
You weren't even reallyfamiliar with the term MSB, yeah
(18:25):
, and then you're being asked tosort of transform this stagnant
business into something else,something new.
So how did you figure out?
What the heck?
I don't needed to.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
I don't think that I was asked to do it.
I think we were just in a placewhere we were kind of drifting
along.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
And that's the thing I think in the number one
bestselling book of all time.
It talks about that.
We've got to pay closeattention to what we hear,
because if not, we'll drift away, will drift away.
And if you think about the lasttime you were on a boat or in
the ocean, you get in the waterand you pull up to a spot and
you're sitting there and all ofa sudden you're having a good
time, you're enjoying yourselflistening to music, fishing, and
(19:05):
all of a sudden you look up andyou're way over here and you
start asking yourself well, howdid I get from way over there to
way over here?
Well, what does it take todrift from way over there to way
over here?
And you know what?
The answer is Nothing.
It takes absolutely nothing.
You do nothing and you willjust drift.
And I felt like that's what wewere doing.
(19:26):
We had lost sight of, like whenwe started the company or when
I got involved.
We went from just you know 14accounts and we're just kind of
it was all break, fix.
And then we went to thissituation where we were showing
up at customer sites and theywere saying, hey, can you do
this?
And we say yeah, and I mean wegot involved with an RMM tool
because somebody asked us how wewere going to monitor their
(19:46):
devices.
I had no idea what they weretalking about, figured it out,
and so we found an Able and Ablebecame our first partner, our
first corporate vendor partnerCustomer would ask us.
And then eventually I got to thepoint where I was like there's
got to be a better way to dothis.
And so I started reaching outto again buddies of mine that I
grew up with and you know guysworking at Halliburton and Shell
(20:07):
and Exxon, and said, man, howare y'all doing this?
How are you supporting 50,000users?
You know, and they startedtelling me about tools they were
using and different resourcesthey had.
And so I started.
I got my second best friend inthe world is Google, and so I
just started Googling theseresources and started reaching
out to these people and tellingthem what we're trying to do.
And, hey, is there a way thatyou can give me what you've got
(20:31):
at a price that I can go sell itto small businesses?
I want enterprise levelservices and solutions that I
can provide at a small businessprice.
And that's how we grew thecompany and that's how we grew
and it went fast, really fast,and then all of a sudden, I
think the market got stagnant,like we just got saturated with
we hit this MSP boom, you know,eight or 10 years ago, and the
(20:51):
market just went flat, you know,and so leads started drying up
and COVID hit.
And I don't know that I cantake credit and say I'm this
great visionary or strategist.
I just think crap happens andyou either embrace it and work
through it or you tuck tail andrun.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
I don't think you give yourself enough credit.
I'm sure it wasn't you alone,but I think you have the
personality to be able to getpeople together and solve
problems and motivate them.
You're a pretty good thinker,you know a pretty good logical
thinker.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
Chris, it goes back to that first comment I made.
I'm waiting on this guy youkeep talking to show up, because
the guy sitting here doesn'tfeel that way.
I mean, I got a great team.
We just really try to focus onalignment, assignment and
execution.
You know, are we properlyaligned?
Are we where we're supposed tobe, when we're supposed to be
there?
You know, assignment, do ourpeople understand the assignment
(21:42):
?
And if you can do those twothings and put them together,
this third step being relentless, relentlessly pursuing, success
happens on its own.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
So ByteDime's service-first approach has been
a cornerstone to the success ofyour business.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
How did you develop that philosophy and how do you
keep that focus with the companyas it grows?
As you know, I'm a high schoolcoach and been a high school
football and baseball coach forclose to two decades, and one of
the things that I say to myplayers I say to other coaches
all the time, it's a staple Ilove you, I love you.
And for me, like, love is whatthis whole thing is about, and I
know it sounds cheesy, but justbear with me here because
you'll understand where I'mcoming from.
(22:23):
If you love what you do, you'regoing to show up and do a good
job every day.
If you love who you do it with,you're going to show up and do
a good job every day.
Right, you're going to do yourbest, you're gonna put your best
foot forward.
And if you love why, you do itsame thing.
And those first two thingsbecome even easier, and so if
you're capable of tellingsomebody that that's the hard
(22:45):
part, showing them is easy.
For me, anyways, saying it,backing it up, becomes that much
easier, right, and so for us,you know, I think that I'm
surrounded by guys that I'veknown since I was five, for 45
years.
Those dudes are all old.
They're all 50.
Now I'm only 49.
I'm the baby of the bunch.
We show up to work every daybecause we love each other and
(23:07):
we have for a very long time andwe love our parents.
We love, you know, each other'sparents have been a part of our
lives for as long as we've beenalive, I mean.
So service to us is just simplybeing a part of something
bigger than yourself, and that'sthe way we were raised, and
we're still cutting cloth withthe same guys we've been cutting
cloth with for 45 years.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
That's great.
You mentioned you love coaching.
Why is that?
Speaker 1 (23:32):
I'm a believer and I'm an obedient believer.
For those out there listeningthat they'll know what I'm
talking about.
I think that God calls me to bea spiritual head of my
household.
It's his words, not mine.
So in that area, that arena,I'm in a leadership position.
I'm father to four children.
In that area I'm a leadershipposition.
I don't consider myself the headof bite time, but I carry the
(23:52):
title of president.
I'm in a position and when Iget on that football field it
allows me to be a part ofsomething bigger than myself.
It allows me to just be, not totake anything away from real
guys out there who fight warsfor a living, but it allows me
just to be a soldier and get tobe on the front lines and in the
trenches.
But I tell my kids all the timethis that the greatest gift God
(24:15):
gave you is your spirit.
He gave you that brain toprotect your spirit.
And you know we're raising youngmen in a world today that is
defined to confine a young man'sheart with political
correctness, racism, feminism,liberalism.
I just pissed off half yourlisteners, off half your
listeners.
But look, truth is is that afootball field, a baseball field
(24:37):
are two of the last places onearth that you can go, be what
God meant you to be, and that'sfearless.
In Genesis it says that hecreated you in his image and I
think it's in Ezekiel.
He says that he has awarrior-like heart, or the heart
of a warrior.
They call him Yahweh, and if hecreated you in his image and he
has the heart of a warrior,what type of heart does he
(24:57):
expect a young man to have?
In some small way, I hadcoaches that poured themselves
into me, that carved out a pathfor me to turn back to when I
strayed, and I feel like I'd becheating the system if I didn't
repay that.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
I got to witness your coaching firsthand a couple of
years ago, and what was reallyfun about this at your practice
is you had a mic on and so wegot a little of the behind the
scenes and what was interestingto me was yeah, there was X's
and O's Tog, but you're askingthe kids how are you doing in
school, how are you doing withyour grades?
(25:33):
You're treating your parentswith respect, I mean, you're
having different conversationswith those kids.
Why is that so important foryou?
Speaker 1 (25:41):
Again, I had coaches that poured themselves into me.
I mean absolutely pouredthemselves into me.
And it goes back to that what Isaid earlier If you're going to
tell somebody you love them,you better know them.
Don't just say it, you bettermean it.
And how do you mean it if youdon't know them and you got to
engage in their lives?
Speaker 2 (26:01):
You talked earlier that success got the better of
you, so how have you handled itdifferently, now that bite time
is starting to thrive?
Speaker 1 (26:08):
Well, I'm going to correct you there.
Success didn't get the betterof me, money got the better of
you.
Money got the better of you,money got the better of me.
Okay, you know, I think thatit's for a different reason,
right, and I hope, if anybodytakes this away, what they take
away from this conversationwe're having today is that, you
know, loving other people, beingof service to other people
(26:32):
surrounded myself by greatpeople and, as a matter of fact,
you know, you said earlier,everything happens for a reason,
you know, and it all kind ofconnects.
And, and I actually had haverecently had the opportunity in
our company to offer wisecounsel to a person going
through similar situation, andI'm not gonna say I did a good
job, but I felt like I would nothave been able to be there for
(26:53):
this person in the way that Iwas had I not been through my
own trials and tribulations.
And, by the way, one thing I'velearned through coaching and
doing this is that nobody wantsto hear a story from some dude
who's been silver spoon fed.
They want to hear about a guy,a gal, who's challenged hell
with a bucket of water andbelieve that they had the faith
to put the water out.
Confidence to put the water out.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
Brandon, you talked in the past about embracing
chaos and using fuel.
Can you share a specificexample of where you've had a
chaotic situation at bite timeand maybe turned that into a
positive outcome?
Speaker 1 (27:29):
Well, I mean coming out of COVID was pretty dang
chaotic in itself.
But I'm thinking of two and I'mjust wondering if I want to put
one on a podcast.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
You can speak in generalities.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
if that's no, I mean, I think, if I could speak just
in general about the chaos ourindustry faces, it's constantly
changing.
10 or 15 years ago, let's go 20years ago the term MSP really
came into existence.
And I'm speaking this from from.
Uh, my second best friend toldme right, yeah, google says that
(28:03):
the term MSP really didn't comeinto existence until the early
2000s.
So let's go 20 years ago.
Well, 10 to 15 years ago westarted calling ourselves MSPs.
But if we were even in business, most MSPs weren't business.
10 or 15 years ago, what wereally were was we were selling
some specialty.
But if we were even in business, most MSPs weren't in business.
(28:23):
10 or 15 years ago, what wereally were was we were selling
some specialty service or wewere a break-fix company.
And then you fast forward 10years ago, we really started
hitting the MSP boom.
Like, you know, that's whenyour customers started knowing,
when you told them, hey, I'm anMSP, and people stopped going.
Well, what's that?
You know, they knew.
Well, five years ago we reallystarted the cybersecurity boom.
You know, two to three yearsago we started pushing
compliance and insuranceregulations.
(28:43):
Right, Mm-hmm.
Well, think about recently, morerecently, how much our stacks
have changed, right, like thethings we've added email
security suite, edr, mdr, socand SIEM.
You know, hardware as a service.
We've gone to hardware as aservice, left hardware as a
service, came back to hardwareas a service.
I mean, the list of things wehave now that we provide as MSPs
is just too long, right, butit's like this necessary thing
(29:09):
that we have to do.
I remember a time when we firstgot started, all you needed was
a good RMM, and so my point insharing all this is, like our
industry, our organizations andour delivery models face chaos
every day, every day.
And here's the deal we caneither face the chaos, see what
(29:34):
we can do with it, use it asfuel for the company, or we can
practice what I call the ostrichstrategy, which I've been
guilty of at times.
You know, just burying my headin the sand and hoping it's just
going to fly on by Right, andat that moment you start to
realize well, the world's goingto change around me or it's
going to change me as a result.
Right, and back to the foodanalogy.
(29:57):
Chaos is kind of like fuel foryour company.
It's food for your company.
If we put the right food in ourbody, we're going to live a
healthy life, we're going togrow, we're going to thrive,
we're going to excel.
And if we don't, if we put poorquality food or bad food, or we
don't put food in our body atall chaos, challenge we're going
to end up falling apart,deteriorating, be passed by,
(30:17):
eventually absorbed or done awaywith, and so, for me, embracing
chaos is the fuel for growth.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
That's great, Brandon .
Appreciate you sharing that.
So what are you the mostexcited about with Bite?
Speaker 1 (30:33):
Time as you look towards the future, man, I don't
know if I have the best life inthe world, like I.
Literally I've got a beautifulwife who, like is fantastic,
supports me.
Happy anniversary.
Well, it's funny, you broughtthat up on camera.
Like literally 10 minutes ago,my wife texted me and said happy
anniversary.
Well, it's funny, you broughtthat up on camera.
Like literally 10 minutes ago,my wife texted me and said happy
(30:54):
anniversary.
And so happy anniversary, man.
So I forgot just to be honest.
I mean.
So we got four amazing kids Ouroldest daughter's in school in
Georgia.
Our oldest son's committed toplay baseball.
He's a switch hit and catcherat Rice.
Our two youngest are fantastic.
Yeah just can't say enough aboutthem.
But to answer your question,here it is.
(31:15):
I wake up every morning andmaybe this is selfish of me to
do this, but I force aleadership call and every
morning at 8 am Rob, scott, pauland now Nauf have to get on a
call with me every singlemorning at eight o'clock.
I look forward to that call,man, like like I'm forcing,
(31:36):
maybe I'm buying my buddies, buthey, I force them to get on
this call with me.
And we don't just talk aboutbusiness, we talk about life.
You know, we I'm all over theplace, man.
That's, that's what I lookforward to every day, I mean
that that call.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
That's awesome, Brandon.
So the question we ask everyoneis when did you know?
Speaker 1 (31:55):
now that's it you know there was a time Scott and
I were trying to figure all thisout and my wife at the time was
selling advertising and we wererunning out of money.
Just to know, we were runningout of money.
You know, just to be candid, wewere running out of money trying
to get this business off theground and we were I don't want
(32:18):
to say desperate, but we knewsomething had to change.
She's one of the extremelyencouraging women.
And did I say she was beautiful?
Because she is?
You did say it, she's stunning.
I outkicked my coverage man.
I do that a lot.
So one night, you know, we'rein this situation where we don't
know where we're going or howwe're going to get there.
(32:38):
Clearly, I'm feeling inadequateand starting to doubt myself,
you know.
And we were laying in bed andthe lights were out and I hear
her sweet voice say it might betime.
It might be time to find a realjob.
And it wasn't.
It wasn't that she had given uphope or that she didn't believe
(33:04):
in me.
She knew how to motivate me.
And about a year later, Ithought about that conversation
and we had money in the bank andwe had employees and we were
still doing it.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
And that's when I knew I made it.
Thank you so much for sharingthat, brandon.
That was really special.
You are a good friend, a greatcolleague.
I'm really glad you could joinus this week, share your story,
and I wish you and the Byte Timeguys the absolute best in the
future.
I just have one question foryou.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
What's that.
If you were to rank howhandsome all of your guests have
been.
If I didn't have this beard,where would I?
Speaker 2 (33:48):
be.
I've actually seen a picture ofyou without your beard.
Have you really?
I didn't recognize you.
Have you really?
I think it's your LinkedInpicture.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
I think you need to polish that.
I cut that out.
Me and my bride were at awedding.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
I'd have you two without the beard, two without
the beard, but one like one, farabove everybody, with the beard
.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
Let me share one last thing with your listeners.
I don't know where I heard thisfrom or who said it, but I'm on
this quote right now, and thatis that the best teams are made
up of a bunch of nobodies wholove everybody, will serve
anybody and don't give a crapabout being a somebody.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
Awesome.
Thank you so much, Brimman.
Thank you for having me.
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