July 18, 2024 • 26 mins
In this episode of "Now That's IT: Stories of MSP Success," we sit down with Marco La Vecchia, the Chief Revenue Officer at Produce8, to uncover the secrets behind his remarkable success in the managed service provider (MSP) industry. From his early days at N-able to his leadership roles at AVG and Fully Managed, Marco has consistently driven growth and innovation through strategic sales initiatives.
Marco shares his journey from an aspiring professional golfer to a key player in the MSP world, providing invaluable insights into how sales can be the catalyst for scaling your business. He discusses the importance of building a strong sales culture, the traits to look for in top-performing salespeople, and the crucial role of a dedicated sales leader.
Listeners will learn about:
- The "work hard, play hard" ethos that propelled N-able to success.
- How leading with a security-first approach at AVG reshaped the MSP landscape.
- The transformative sales strategies that grew Fully Managed from a local MSP to a national powerhouse.
- The significance of aligning sales and marketing efforts to drive qualified leads and close deals.
- Marco's current venture at Produce8 and how it's set to revolutionize productivity for MSPs.
Whether you're an established MSP owner or just starting, Marco's proven growth tactics will provide you with actionable strategies to elevate your sales game and scale your business. Tune in to gain a wealth of knowledge from one of the industry's most respected leaders.
Don't miss this episode packed with expert advice and real-world examples of how effective sales tactics can lead to extraordinary growth in the MSP space.
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 .
There isn't a company in theworld that has ever grown
without salespeople.
But that comes with a caveat.
I do not think that MSPs shouldhire salespeople if they don't
have a good sales leaderTeaching them what they need to
do, because a lot of these MSPscan't help the salesperson, and
(00:21):
that's where I think the issuehappens.
A lot of times you hear that Ihired a salesperson.
Six months later nothinghappened and the owner decides
I'm going to let go of thesalesperson because it's a cost.
A sales leader somebody that'sdone it before, that has the DNA
, that knows how to buildpipeline of qualified
opportunities that a salespersoncan work, help them with
(00:42):
marketing strategies, put awhole entire system in place
that allows the MSP to besuccessful.
To me that's a winning strategyand I think the good MSPs have
done that and they're the onesthat continue to grow and excel
and acquire because they havethe revenue streams to support
it.
The smaller ones continue tostruggle.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
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 Marco Lovecchia,current chief revenue officer at
Produce8, a work analyticsplatform for managed service
providers, sales leader andone-time scratch golfer.
(01:25):
Welcome to the Now that's itpodcast, marco.
Thanks for having me.
How are you today Doing so well?
Awesome, I'm super excited tohave you on the pod.
Talk a little bit about yourstory and what the MSP space was
like early on, and differentstories about some Enable folks.
So thanks again, marco, thanksfor having me.
All right.
So you are in high school.
Your dream was not to be a headof revenue at some IT firm down
(01:53):
the line.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
You had different aspirations, right, I did.
Yeah, I started playing golfwhen I was 12 years old and my
mom put me in golf to get me outof trouble while I was growing
up.
So I really enjoyed it, had apassion for it.
As I was going through highschool, that was my ambition.
I wanted to be a professionalgolfer.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
That's great.
That is not an easy professionto be successful at or even to
get into, and it's great whenyou're in high school.
You might be at the top two or3% of your high school.
To get an opportunity incollege, which you did have
until you got injured, right.
That's rare.
But then from there it's acrapshoot, right.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Yeah, it's tough, like, probably the best thing
happened to me was probablygetting injured.
You know, you and I had talkedabout how I tore my ACL and I
had a scholarship, a full rideat a school in the US and
Ashland University in Ohio and,being a Canadian, that was a big
thing.
I kept on playing soccer andtore my ACL and so that dream
and those aspirations quicklywent out the window, kept on
(02:49):
playing golf for a number ofyears and went to university and
college in Canada and then gotinto the workforce and worked at
one startup and then I joinedFrank Coletti and Mike Cullen at
Enable.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Well, you were a poli-sci major right, but you
didn't want to go intogovernment.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
No, like I live in Ottawa, canada, so capital of
the country, and especially ifyou're studying political
science, probably your next jobis going to be some job in the
government, and that reallywasn't what I wanted to do.
So I studied marketing, afterbusiness marketing, and started
working with high-tech companiesin the Ottawa area.
Through the 90s and early 2000s, ottawa was known as Silicon
(03:26):
Valley North, and there's stilla lot of high-tech companies and
software companies that arebeing developed.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
Let's talk about how you got introduced to Enable.
So you mentioned Frank and Mike.
How did you know those guys?
What was the circle like?
Speaker 1 (03:38):
Yeah, so I didn't know Mike and Frank at the time.
Actually, it was a friend ofmine that was working there and
she had mentioned to me that yougot to come and join this great
company, great staff, amazingculture, and so I went in and
had an interview with Mike andFrank and we hit it off right
away.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
What was that first conversation like with Mike?
I know we talked a little bitabout it.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
So I had a really long interview with Frank.
We talked about a number ofdifferent things.
And Frank says to me he goes,I'm going to let you have a
meeting with Mike.
And so Mike called me in hisoffice, we sat down and within
15 or 20 minutes Mike's likeokay, you got the job.
So that's how we started.
What was the culture like atEnable back then?
It was work hard, play hard.
(04:18):
You know we had a lot of fun.
I don't think the company wouldbe where it is today with the
focus in terms of really kind ofwhat we brought to the sales
team at that point in time.
And you know, early on, whenyou were kind of talking about
enabled technologies and stufflike that, it was all brand new.
Right, like you know, I wastelling one of the MSPs at the
event today is that you know, inthe early days when we were
(04:39):
selling remote monitoring andmanagement, we were doing off a
powerpoint presentation.
We couldn't even do demos, wejust had to get them to believe
in what we were doing.
And you know we joked aroundinternally that we were trying
to sell msps the dream andteaching them about recurring
revenue.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
And it worked, obviously for sure talk about
what it was like working withmike colin in those early days
oh, mike, mike was somethingright like he, I think over the
years.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Mike definitely softened up Early on.
Mike was, you know, he reallydrove people and drove the team,
but was very fair in terms ofhow you work with him and all
that kind of stuff.
I mentioned to you before that.
A lot of the principles that Iuse today in my work and in my
career, a lot of stuff have beenthings that I learned from Mike
and conversations with him.
(05:25):
A funny story that Mike and Ihad one day was he calls me in
his office one day and says tome he goes, how's the golf game?
And I said to him you know,Mike, it's not bad.
I said you know, we're stillshooting one or two over par
these days, but you know, I'lltry and see if I can get back to
being, you know, scratch.
And he looks at me and he goes.
Look, he goes.
If you're still a scratchgolfer in a year from now, he
(05:46):
goes, I'm gonna fire you.
So that way that was kind ofhis way to say you know, let's
stop playing as much golf asyou're doing and focus on your
career and your job, and thenwe'll be good and so we did that
, he definitely softened upbecause about a year ago I think
, he called me up and said, hey,you're a pretty decent golfer,
aren't you, chris?
Speaker 2 (06:02):
And they said, yeah, and he goes.
I need you to go out to thiscustomer and play a couple
rounds of golf with them.
So he's definitely went to theMSP.
That's definitely a change forsure.
Mike had such an influence onso many people sort of in the
channel in the MSP industry.
So many people that did knowhim give him a lot of credit for
what became of the MSP industry.
It it was very much aenterprise play at the time
(06:23):
until Enable came along and Mikegot out there and said, guys,
you small guys, you can do this.
And so you guys, he wasdefinitely an inspiration to
that sales team too, right, Imean you guys were carrying the
torch for him.
I mean he was out therepreaching and you guys were
saying, look, this is the future, right, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
I think the thing about Mike and what he brought
was people really believed inwhat he was talking about.
He articulated himself in a waythat he could have a great
conversation with a big MSP ofthree, 400 people and he can
bring himself down and talk toan organization as five
employees and explain to themwhat they need to do with their
(07:01):
business, and not everybody canhave that level of conversation
right.
So he was very articulate theway he did that.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
Yeah, so you've seen the MSP industry evolve over the
years.
But what was it like back whenyou were at Enable?
I mean, what were folks usingfor monitoring and patch and
management?
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Oh, early on I mean it was a dog's breakfast, like
they had all disparaged toolsand there's some, if you
remember, like Silverback, likeGFI, some of the old solutions
and technologies that are outthere.
But what I think it's reallynice is just to see the
dominance that Enable has hadover the last number of years in
the marketplace.
(07:40):
It's quite satisfying.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
We were definitely a major player back in those early
days.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
Oh, like we, you know the way, the way that we
behaved and the way that youknow that we just kind of drove
the activity and and you knowour channel strategy, you know
the marketing strategy that webrought to the table and all
that kind of stuff.
It was nice to see that's great.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
So enable was sold and it was time for you to sort
of find your next gig, and then,instead of going in a
completely different direction,you stayed on the Southport side
of the house.
Talk about that.
Talk about your AVG days.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Yeah, so after Enable , I went over to AVG, obviously
a big security player in themarketplace.
It was a very interesting kindof play because I could see that
security was going to be reallysomething that was going to
impact the MSP space over thenext little while and still is
today.
While we were there, we did anacquisition of Level Platforms.
The whole entire strategy interms of building it out and
(08:33):
leading with security was reallya little bit different, where a
lot of the RMM vendors wereleading with remote monitoring
and management.
So I think we were changing thenarrative a little bit in terms
of what we were doing overthere.
We had dominance across SouthAmerica it was a very popular
product and play across Europeas well.
Obviously, dealing in Canadaand the US, you had your
(08:55):
dominant players like Enable,and we can never overtake them,
but we had a lot of fun there.
I learned definitely a lot ofthings by big companies and how
they did things.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Leading with security was definitely ahead of its
time.
Nowadays, everyone has to orthey're going to be left in the
four winds, but so this iswhat's kind of interesting is
Mark Scott, former founder ofEnable.
He had an MSP and you had anopportunity to join him after
your AVG days, right?
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Yeah.
So I was still working at AVGand Mark and I we had a coffee
one day and he said love for youto come and work with me again,
because we worked with eachother early days at Enable and
it was just really about takinga local MSP that we had in
Ottawa and really kind of growit and go national across the
country and start doing somedifferent things.
And so I thought about it for awhile and then I just thought
(09:41):
the opportunity was reallyinteresting because always being
on the channel side and on thevendor side and then jumping
over to the MSP side wasextremely different.
So I took what I learned fromthe vendor side, what I learned
from Mike and Frank over theyears and all that kind of stuff
, and implemented it in fullymanaged and we were really
successful.
(10:01):
We were early on when I joinedthe company about 40 employees,
about $15 million and we soldthe company a couple of years
ago to TELUS and we were justover 500 employees and we sold
that company for about $180million.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Wow, that's fantastic .
You know, what I love aboutyour fully managed story is I'm
hearing this from some of thereally large MSPs, but you guys
weren't necessarily that largeat the time.
But you took sort of theapproach of building Fully
Managed like it was anenterprise company, right, and
really a sales-driven, like youbuilt out a major sales side.
Talk a little bit about that,because I always hear MSPs say,
(10:41):
yeah, sales, it's owner-driven,we're owner-led sales.
But that wasn't the approachfor Fully Managed.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
No owner-driven, owner-led sales, but that wasn't
the approach for Fully Managedno, I think.
Very quickly we implemented anenterprise sales structure, not
only in terms of number ofpeople that we brought in, but
just in terms of how we went tomarket.
Aggressive focused on driving,marketing, qualified leads,
building pipeline closing likemonth-end sales, all of those
types of things and obviouslyhaving a lot of fun doing it,
(11:08):
but it's extremely challenging.
As you know, the MSP space is adifficult one, and I think it
wasn't only just about the factthat we were doing managed
services, but we brought othersolutions into the mix that we
felt that would help grow ourbusiness as well.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Yeah, you guys, you also did some acquisitions,
right, correct?
What was that like?
To bring, you know, maybe lessmature or smaller MSPs into the
fully managed?
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Yeah, I think we brought companies in that we
felt that would fit into ourbusiness extremely well.
So you know, that was alwaysone thing that Mark did really
well from the standpoint of like, as he's speaking with these
organizations and companies,you're also trying to understand
it Like, maybe they're a goodrevenue mix but like, culture
wise, are they going to fit in?
I think it's safe to say thatthe acquisitions we did, they
(11:57):
all went extremely well justbecause they really had the same
type of DNA that we had.
They would adopt our systemsand processes that we had had as
a business, and standardizingon tools, the technologies that
we use, the sales processes, themarketing, all of that kind of
stuff were all kind of importantin terms of what we brought
into the mix Excellent.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
Talk to us a little bit about.
What does an enterprise salesteam actually look like?
Speaker 1 (12:23):
Oh, are you talking more about like the persona?
Speaker 2 (12:25):
of people.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Yeah, sure, there's a bit of you know, whether female
or male like a bravado in termsof like how they look at
themselves and how they feel andjust kind of how they talk
about solutions and howconfident they are on calls and
reaching out to people.
You can put them in front ofany kind of executive into a
large organization and they feelextremely comfortable.
I would say, like when you takea look at people that want to
(12:51):
learn, people that are easy tocoach that's something that Mike
explained to me earlier on.
You know, when we were hiringpeople, he used to always say to
me if you feel that somebody iscoachable, then you can really
kind of teach them anything andthey can be extremely successful
.
If they're uncoachable, you'regoing to have a lot of problems
with them, and I learned thatover time.
(13:11):
So anytime I'm hiring somebody,that's always one thing I
always have in the back of mymind Do we think that we can
coach this person and help themout?
Speaker 2 (13:19):
That's great, maybe a lot of our audience or maybe
smaller MSPs that haven't hiredtheir first salesperson.
Obviously, the owner's been outthere knocking on doors,
talking to people, but whatadvice would you give to a
smaller MSP about when the righttime is to bring sales into the
organization and maybe theprocess of how to incent sales
(13:40):
right, because I think there'salways that risk of well, if I
pay my sales person too much,that's going to hurt the
business, but that's not alwaysthe case.
I mean you want yoursalespeople to be paid well
because that means you are doingwell, I think every MSP should
have salespeople, but that comeswith a caveat.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
I do not think that MSPs should hire salespeople if
they don't have a good salesleader teaching them what they
need to do, because a lot ofthese MSPs can't help the
salesperson, and that's where Ithink the issue happens.
A lot of times you'll hear themthat I hired a salesperson.
Six months later nothinghappened and the owner decides
I'm going to let go of thesalesperson because it's a cost.
(14:20):
A sales leader, somebody that'sdone it before, that has the
DNA, that knows how to build apipeline of qualified
opportunities that a salespersoncan work, help them with
marketing strategies, put awhole entire system in place
that allows the MSP to besuccessful.
To me that's a winning strategyand I think the good MSPs have
(14:40):
done that and they're the onesthat continue to grow and excel
and acquire and because theyhave the revenue streams to
support it.
The smaller ones continue tostruggle and I always say this
like there isn't a company inthe world that has ever grown
without salespeople.
So it's a pretty simpleequation to figure out.
If you want to grow yourbusiness, you need the right
(15:01):
type of team structure in place.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
And I know you didn't ever necessarily fill the
marketing role because you weresales, but you went to school
for it, and so how did marketingplay in at least the fully
managed days?
I mean, was the sales team setup to be successful, because the
types of leads that were comingin were pretty warm?
Just what did that engine looklike of sales and marketing
working together?
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Yeah, I think my background allowed us.
I always kind of look at salesa little bit different in terms
of assessing the market, whowe're going after, what's the
right type of messaging that'sgoing to resonate with them.
It's kind of like what we'redoing over here with Produce 8
is speaking to MSPs to see, hey,listen, do you understand what
we do?
And so I always try and put mymarketing hat on first, and then
(15:44):
I think that helps me out withthe sale as well.
That's cool.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Talk about what did the ideal client profile look
like at Fully Managed from maybethe time you started to when
you left?
I mean, did Fully Managed goupmarket?
What did that feel like?
Speaker 1 (15:57):
Yeah, I think early on if I separate our MSP
business into three buckets wehad our SMB business for managed
services.
So think of anywhere betweenfive and 100 employees.
Ideally our sweet spot I wouldsay it was between 20 and 50
employees.
Right across Canada.
We had a number of sales repsthat focused on that area of
(16:18):
business.
We also did enterprise levelservice desk.
So that's another acquisitionthat we did and those were large
monthly recurring revenue dealswhere we had some contracts
that were 60, 70,000 a monthwhere we handled level one
support tickets and that was aninteresting business.
It allowed us to kind ofpenetrate into the mid-market
(16:38):
enterprise space.
And when we did that, that'swhere we got introduced to
ServiceNow and then we created aServiceNow practice that grew
considerably for us, was verywell received in the marketplace
, and so those three uniquebusiness models really kind of
helped us kind of drive over onaverage $100,000 a month in
monthly recurring revenue.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
That ServiceNow business?
Definitely, I mean it had totake you up market right Because
those are definitely theenterprise players that have an
ServiceNow practice.
So did the sales team?
Did you have sales team thatwere specialized in each of
those different ICPs, or waseverybody sort of have the
ability to sell?
Speaker 1 (17:19):
No, we had different sales teams.
We had one sales team thathandled the main services piece
and then we had one sales teamthat handled the managed
services piece and then we hadanother sales team that handled
ServiceNow and the enterpriseservice desk.
The DNAs of both of those thereps were different.
They were unique.
They were just different interms of how we felt that they
would kind of fit into one modelor the next.
The conversation that you'd behaving on your SMB managed
(17:43):
services are very different thanwhat you'd be having around
service now.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
We talked a little bit about the characteristics
that you were looking for whenyou would hire, and we
definitely talked about hiring agood leader.
How about the opportunity forfolks that were already part of
Fully Managed to sort of jumpinto sales?
We always sort of look atinternally to go, wow, that
personality, that characteristic, that coachable trait, that's
there.
We ought to see if they'reinterested to come over to the
(18:08):
sales team.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
Yeah, we would have those conversations.
Even when I joined fullymanaged, we had a sales team.
But where it didn't necessarilyfit into the future of what the
business was going to look likewas the transition from what I
call like a hardware sales repto somebody that sold managed
services right and more of asolution sell versus a product
(18:29):
sell.
And in order to kind of changethe revenue mix into the
business we had to kind ofchange the people because a lot
of the times the people thatsold the hardware couldn't
necessarily sell managedservices.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
What advice would you give to MSPs on how to incent
the sales teams so that they canbe successful?
Speaker 1 (18:47):
Yeah, first off, what I would say is, if you're an
MSP and you can't figure out acomp plan, I know that Enable
has great programs on theirsuccess teams that can teach
them and show them differentmodels and plans.
The model that we had was wewould pay them out on the first
month of the recurring revenueon the deal.
That was always the easiest one, the sales reps loved them, and
then we would have bonusstructure as well, so if they
(19:10):
overproduced, then they had somesort of guaranteed bonus they
would make if they overproducedon their quotas and stuff like
that.
So I was never fearful, andpeople that used to work for me
over there will always tell you.
I always believed that I wantedmy reps to make a lot of money,
because if they're making a lotof money, I know that they're
going to sell even more, and soit creates that environment.
Again, something that welearned that enable is like
(19:32):
making sure that the guys aresuccessful and they can live a
good quality life was importantto us and it's very important to
me as well.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
That's great, marco.
So you guys went from 40 toalmost 500 employees, and then
you sold to Telus?
Speaker 1 (19:46):
Yeah, we did.
What was that like?
So I know trying to sell thebusiness wasn't easy, right.
Like there was a lot of work.
Mark did a phenomenal job.
Joel Abramson, who's their CEOof Produce8, he was really kind
of like the face of puttingfully managed out there in the
marketplace.
I would say, you know, markScott's a dealmaker, right.
(20:07):
So to kind of go out and sellto a huge brand like Telus you
know it's like Verizon in the US, right so for them to kind of
take a look at fully managed andsaying this is what we need to
bring into our business.
We have thousands uponthousands of end user customers
that can use managed services.
Obviously they were leading theway in the Canadian marketplace
(20:28):
.
So it was really what I wouldsay kind of putting a stamp on,
kind of what we did as abusiness but the whole entire
business model as a whole,that's great.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
What was next for you after the fully managed?
Speaker 1 (20:39):
Yeah, so after so we had to stay on board for two
years and then the last fewmonths we were having kind of
discussions with them, and thenI was having discussions with
Mark and Joel on this newproduce eight venture that
they're kind of building outwith Chris Day.
I think the opportunity thatposes itself in front of us
right now was just too hard forme to say.
You know, let's go do this.
(21:00):
So that's kind of what Idecided to do and join the
company february 1st of thisyear so you got the band back
together, talk, talk.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
Band of misfits.
I think these are the majorplayers they are I think we had
luis heraldo on earlier and ofcourse chris day comes his name
comes up.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
So these are all the big names, like yeah, like they
really are, like all of theseguys, like when you take a look
at mark and chris and you knowmike cullen and you got frank
out there and you got danwensley and you got lewis and
and rob ray and all you knowlike these are the players in
the marketplace, these are theguys that get it so what is
produce eight all about?
Speaker 2 (21:37):
I want to give you a chance to tell everybody yeah,
so.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
So really excited about Produce8.
You know, as you mentioned,it's a work analytics app.
So we're in the market ofworking with businesses MSPs
right now to take a look attheir business and help them
increase productivity.
So we're bringing a newsolution in technology to the
marketplace that nobody's havingthese conversations in regards
right.
Like we talked about this alittle bit earlier on it's.
(22:01):
You know, how are MSPs going tosee this?
And so the idea of what we'retrying to do is kind of help
businesses, with everybodyeither working remotely or some
hybrid model and all that kindof stuff is help them increase
productivity.
We noticed that productivity isdropping, especially if you take
a look at an MSP what'shappening on the support desk,
(22:21):
how people are interacting.
People are being burnt out.
Our solution will give theminsights into how they're
operating on a daily basis.
So what's really interesting isyou take a look at our product.
It helps people from anindividual level.
It helps you from a managementlevel, so you can have an idea
in terms of what's going on andthen, overall, the whole entire
business.
So, as an example, we just cameout with a new feature that
(22:44):
will allow businesses tounderstand how much time they're
spending in meetings and whatthose meetings are costing them.
We're tying in calls, we'retying in calendars.
It's a collaboration tool thatwill help everybody streamline
how they operate on a dailybasis.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
So really, excited about it.
That's exciting.
So you're here at EnableEmpower.
You daily basis.
So really excited about it,that's exciting.
So you're here at EnableEmpower.
You've been talking to a lot ofMSPs about this, about the
product.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
What's the feedback?
Feedback has actually beenextremely positive.
Good to see it's.
You know, as I was coming hereto the event and we are speaking
to a lot of MSPs, you knowwe're doing probably 30, 40
meetings a month where a newstartup that just started up
really kind of selling thisthree, four months ago.
Coming to this event was reallyabout having those
conversations, seeing whatmessaging is resonating and what
(23:26):
makes sense.
The feedback that I'm gettingis this is perfect for what we
need.
In the next 45 to 60 days,we're going to be launching a
partner program.
Ask what the MSPs want.
They want to consume theproduct themselves so that they
can try and help their businessand increase productivity.
It's something that they knowtheir customers are asking for.
We're going to be launching anew partner program in May and
(23:48):
the idea around this is that ourpartners are going to be able
to go and resell this to theirend user customers.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
That's great.
So it sounds to me like, if Iask you, what's next?
It's to grow this right to, tohelp build, produce its offering
and and can continue to expandit.
But how about for youpersonally, I mean you.
You've been in in the channelfor a long time.
You played in the msp space fora long time.
What are some of the personalgoals that you have?
Speaker 1 (24:14):
you know, maybe, maybe in the future I would say
personal goals, like if itpertains to produce aid, is to
really kind of create the nextunit corner in the marketplace.
I think it's positionedextremely well for it's a
different type of solution thatMSPs would be utilizing and
selling right, so majority ofthem are.
You know, they're all tied intoRMM and security and backup and
(24:37):
security and backup, data, datarecovery and stuff like that.
But bringing in produce aidinto the mix and helping them
kind of like drive those newrecurring revenue streams, I
think that's kind of whatexcites me in terms of what I
think we can be in themarketplace.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
I warned you I was going to ask you this.
This is the Now that's itpodcast, so I want to ask you,
marco, when did you know?
Now that's it?
Speaker 1 (25:00):
Oh boy, I thought about this one for a while.
I think really it's the people,right, it's the people that I
work with.
When you're working with teamsand and new people that are
coming into the industry in thespace and all that kind of stuff
, and you see that you can helpthem.
They can go out and buy theirfirst home you know their cars
and all that kind of stuff andstart living good lives and
(25:21):
people thanking you for theircareers and what they have in
life.
That's kind of when I know thatyou know what, like, we've done
well so far.
So it's always been about thepeople.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
That's great, marco I thank you so much for being
here.
Um, you're as genuine aseverybody said you are and, like
I said, in in an easy clone, aneasy uh doppelganger, for I
think you're very close.
You guys have thatItalian-Canadian vibe going.
So keep up the good work.
I wish you the best of luck inthe future.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
Thanks, man, I appreciate it.
Thanks for having me, it'sgreat.
One, two, three, four .
There isn't a company in theworld that has ever grown
without salespeople.
But that comes with a caveat.
I do not think that MSPs shouldhire salespeople if they don't
have a good sales leaderTeaching them what they need to
do, because a lot of these MSPscan't help the salesperson, and
(00:21):
that's where I think the issuehappens.
A lot of times you hear that Ihired a salesperson.
Six months later nothinghappened and the owner decides
I'm going to let go of thesalesperson because it's a cost.
A sales leader somebody that'sdone it before, that has the DNA
, that knows how to buildpipeline of qualified
opportunities that a salespersoncan work, help them with
(00:42):
marketing strategies, put awhole entire system in place
that allows the MSP to besuccessful.
To me that's a winning strategyand I think the good MSPs have
done that and they're the onesthat continue to grow and excel
and acquire because they havethe revenue streams to support
it.
The smaller ones continue tostruggle.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
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 Marco Lovecchia,current chief revenue officer at
Produce8, a work analyticsplatform for managed service
providers, sales leader andone-time scratch golfer.
(01:25):
Welcome to the Now that's itpodcast, marco.
Thanks for having me.
How are you today Doing so well?
Awesome, I'm super excited tohave you on the pod.
Talk a little bit about yourstory and what the MSP space was
like early on, and differentstories about some Enable folks.
So thanks again, marco, thanksfor having me.
All right.
So you are in high school.
Your dream was not to be a headof revenue at some IT firm down
(01:53):
the line.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
You had different aspirations, right, I did.
Yeah, I started playing golfwhen I was 12 years old and my
mom put me in golf to get me outof trouble while I was growing
up.
So I really enjoyed it, had apassion for it.
As I was going through highschool, that was my ambition.
I wanted to be a professionalgolfer.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
That's great.
That is not an easy professionto be successful at or even to
get into, and it's great whenyou're in high school.
You might be at the top two or3% of your high school.
To get an opportunity incollege, which you did have
until you got injured, right.
That's rare.
But then from there it's acrapshoot, right.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Yeah, it's tough, like, probably the best thing
happened to me was probablygetting injured.
You know, you and I had talkedabout how I tore my ACL and I
had a scholarship, a full rideat a school in the US and
Ashland University in Ohio and,being a Canadian, that was a big
thing.
I kept on playing soccer andtore my ACL and so that dream
and those aspirations quicklywent out the window, kept on
(02:49):
playing golf for a number ofyears and went to university and
college in Canada and then gotinto the workforce and worked at
one startup and then I joinedFrank Coletti and Mike Cullen at
Enable.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Well, you were a poli-sci major right, but you
didn't want to go intogovernment.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
No, like I live in Ottawa, canada, so capital of
the country, and especially ifyou're studying political
science, probably your next jobis going to be some job in the
government, and that reallywasn't what I wanted to do.
So I studied marketing, afterbusiness marketing, and started
working with high-tech companiesin the Ottawa area.
Through the 90s and early 2000s, ottawa was known as Silicon
(03:26):
Valley North, and there's stilla lot of high-tech companies and
software companies that arebeing developed.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
Let's talk about how you got introduced to Enable.
So you mentioned Frank and Mike.
How did you know those guys?
What was the circle like?
Speaker 1 (03:38):
Yeah, so I didn't know Mike and Frank at the time.
Actually, it was a friend ofmine that was working there and
she had mentioned to me that yougot to come and join this great
company, great staff, amazingculture, and so I went in and
had an interview with Mike andFrank and we hit it off right
away.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
What was that first conversation like with Mike?
I know we talked a little bitabout it.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
So I had a really long interview with Frank.
We talked about a number ofdifferent things.
And Frank says to me he goes,I'm going to let you have a
meeting with Mike.
And so Mike called me in hisoffice, we sat down and within
15 or 20 minutes Mike's likeokay, you got the job.
So that's how we started.
What was the culture like atEnable back then?
It was work hard, play hard.
(04:18):
You know we had a lot of fun.
I don't think the company wouldbe where it is today with the
focus in terms of really kind ofwhat we brought to the sales
team at that point in time.
And you know, early on, whenyou were kind of talking about
enabled technologies and stufflike that, it was all brand new.
Right, like you know, I wastelling one of the MSPs at the
event today is that you know, inthe early days when we were
(04:39):
selling remote monitoring andmanagement, we were doing off a
powerpoint presentation.
We couldn't even do demos, wejust had to get them to believe
in what we were doing.
And you know we joked aroundinternally that we were trying
to sell msps the dream andteaching them about recurring
revenue.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
And it worked, obviously for sure talk about
what it was like working withmike colin in those early days
oh, mike, mike was somethingright like he, I think over the
years.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Mike definitely softened up Early on.
Mike was, you know, he reallydrove people and drove the team,
but was very fair in terms ofhow you work with him and all
that kind of stuff.
I mentioned to you before that.
A lot of the principles that Iuse today in my work and in my
career, a lot of stuff have beenthings that I learned from Mike
and conversations with him.
(05:25):
A funny story that Mike and Ihad one day was he calls me in
his office one day and says tome he goes, how's the golf game?
And I said to him you know,Mike, it's not bad.
I said you know, we're stillshooting one or two over par
these days, but you know, I'lltry and see if I can get back to
being, you know, scratch.
And he looks at me and he goes.
Look, he goes.
If you're still a scratchgolfer in a year from now, he
(05:46):
goes, I'm gonna fire you.
So that way that was kind ofhis way to say you know, let's
stop playing as much golf asyou're doing and focus on your
career and your job, and thenwe'll be good and so we did that
, he definitely softened upbecause about a year ago I think
, he called me up and said, hey,you're a pretty decent golfer,
aren't you, chris?
Speaker 2 (06:02):
And they said, yeah, and he goes.
I need you to go out to thiscustomer and play a couple
rounds of golf with them.
So he's definitely went to theMSP.
That's definitely a change forsure.
Mike had such an influence onso many people sort of in the
channel in the MSP industry.
So many people that did knowhim give him a lot of credit for
what became of the MSP industry.
It it was very much aenterprise play at the time
(06:23):
until Enable came along and Mikegot out there and said, guys,
you small guys, you can do this.
And so you guys, he wasdefinitely an inspiration to
that sales team too, right, Imean you guys were carrying the
torch for him.
I mean he was out therepreaching and you guys were
saying, look, this is the future, right, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
I think the thing about Mike and what he brought
was people really believed inwhat he was talking about.
He articulated himself in a waythat he could have a great
conversation with a big MSP ofthree, 400 people and he can
bring himself down and talk toan organization as five
employees and explain to themwhat they need to do with their
(07:01):
business, and not everybody canhave that level of conversation
right.
So he was very articulate theway he did that.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
Yeah, so you've seen the MSP industry evolve over the
years.
But what was it like back whenyou were at Enable?
I mean, what were folks usingfor monitoring and patch and
management?
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Oh, early on I mean it was a dog's breakfast, like
they had all disparaged toolsand there's some, if you
remember, like Silverback, likeGFI, some of the old solutions
and technologies that are outthere.
But what I think it's reallynice is just to see the
dominance that Enable has hadover the last number of years in
the marketplace.
(07:40):
It's quite satisfying.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
We were definitely a major player back in those early
days.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
Oh, like we, you know the way, the way that we
behaved and the way that youknow that we just kind of drove
the activity and and you knowour channel strategy, you know
the marketing strategy that webrought to the table and all
that kind of stuff.
It was nice to see that's great.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
So enable was sold and it was time for you to sort
of find your next gig, and then,instead of going in a
completely different direction,you stayed on the Southport side
of the house.
Talk about that.
Talk about your AVG days.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Yeah, so after Enable , I went over to AVG, obviously
a big security player in themarketplace.
It was a very interesting kindof play because I could see that
security was going to be reallysomething that was going to
impact the MSP space over thenext little while and still is
today.
While we were there, we did anacquisition of Level Platforms.
The whole entire strategy interms of building it out and
(08:33):
leading with security was reallya little bit different, where a
lot of the RMM vendors wereleading with remote monitoring
and management.
So I think we were changing thenarrative a little bit in terms
of what we were doing overthere.
We had dominance across SouthAmerica it was a very popular
product and play across Europeas well.
Obviously, dealing in Canadaand the US, you had your
(08:55):
dominant players like Enable,and we can never overtake them,
but we had a lot of fun there.
I learned definitely a lot ofthings by big companies and how
they did things.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Leading with security was definitely ahead of its
time.
Nowadays, everyone has to orthey're going to be left in the
four winds, but so this iswhat's kind of interesting is
Mark Scott, former founder ofEnable.
He had an MSP and you had anopportunity to join him after
your AVG days, right?
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Yeah.
So I was still working at AVGand Mark and I we had a coffee
one day and he said love for youto come and work with me again,
because we worked with eachother early days at Enable and
it was just really about takinga local MSP that we had in
Ottawa and really kind of growit and go national across the
country and start doing somedifferent things.
And so I thought about it for awhile and then I just thought
(09:41):
the opportunity was reallyinteresting because always being
on the channel side and on thevendor side and then jumping
over to the MSP side wasextremely different.
So I took what I learned fromthe vendor side, what I learned
from Mike and Frank over theyears and all that kind of stuff
, and implemented it in fullymanaged and we were really
successful.
(10:01):
We were early on when I joinedthe company about 40 employees,
about $15 million and we soldthe company a couple of years
ago to TELUS and we were justover 500 employees and we sold
that company for about $180million.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Wow, that's fantastic .
You know, what I love aboutyour fully managed story is I'm
hearing this from some of thereally large MSPs, but you guys
weren't necessarily that largeat the time.
But you took sort of theapproach of building Fully
Managed like it was anenterprise company, right, and
really a sales-driven, like youbuilt out a major sales side.
Talk a little bit about that,because I always hear MSPs say,
(10:41):
yeah, sales, it's owner-driven,we're owner-led sales.
But that wasn't the approachfor Fully Managed.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
No owner-driven, owner-led sales, but that wasn't
the approach for Fully Managedno, I think.
Very quickly we implemented anenterprise sales structure, not
only in terms of number ofpeople that we brought in, but
just in terms of how we went tomarket.
Aggressive focused on driving,marketing, qualified leads,
building pipeline closing likemonth-end sales, all of those
types of things and obviouslyhaving a lot of fun doing it,
(11:08):
but it's extremely challenging.
As you know, the MSP space is adifficult one, and I think it
wasn't only just about the factthat we were doing managed
services, but we brought othersolutions into the mix that we
felt that would help grow ourbusiness as well.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Yeah, you guys, you also did some acquisitions,
right, correct?
What was that like?
To bring, you know, maybe lessmature or smaller MSPs into the
fully managed?
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Yeah, I think we brought companies in that we
felt that would fit into ourbusiness extremely well.
So you know, that was alwaysone thing that Mark did really
well from the standpoint of like, as he's speaking with these
organizations and companies,you're also trying to understand
it Like, maybe they're a goodrevenue mix but like, culture
wise, are they going to fit in?
I think it's safe to say thatthe acquisitions we did, they
(11:57):
all went extremely well justbecause they really had the same
type of DNA that we had.
They would adopt our systemsand processes that we had had as
a business, and standardizingon tools, the technologies that
we use, the sales processes, themarketing, all of that kind of
stuff were all kind of importantin terms of what we brought
into the mix Excellent.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
Talk to us a little bit about.
What does an enterprise salesteam actually look like?
Speaker 1 (12:23):
Oh, are you talking more about like the persona?
Speaker 2 (12:25):
of people.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Yeah, sure, there's a bit of you know, whether female
or male like a bravado in termsof like how they look at
themselves and how they feel andjust kind of how they talk
about solutions and howconfident they are on calls and
reaching out to people.
You can put them in front ofany kind of executive into a
large organization and they feelextremely comfortable.
I would say, like when you takea look at people that want to
(12:51):
learn, people that are easy tocoach that's something that Mike
explained to me earlier on.
You know, when we were hiringpeople, he used to always say to
me if you feel that somebody iscoachable, then you can really
kind of teach them anything andthey can be extremely successful
.
If they're uncoachable, you'regoing to have a lot of problems
with them, and I learned thatover time.
(13:11):
So anytime I'm hiring somebody,that's always one thing I
always have in the back of mymind Do we think that we can
coach this person and help themout?
Speaker 2 (13:19):
That's great, maybe a lot of our audience or maybe
smaller MSPs that haven't hiredtheir first salesperson.
Obviously, the owner's been outthere knocking on doors,
talking to people, but whatadvice would you give to a
smaller MSP about when the righttime is to bring sales into the
organization and maybe theprocess of how to incent sales
(13:40):
right, because I think there'salways that risk of well, if I
pay my sales person too much,that's going to hurt the
business, but that's not alwaysthe case.
I mean you want yoursalespeople to be paid well
because that means you are doingwell, I think every MSP should
have salespeople, but that comeswith a caveat.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
I do not think that MSPs should hire salespeople if
they don't have a good salesleader teaching them what they
need to do, because a lot ofthese MSPs can't help the
salesperson, and that's where Ithink the issue happens.
A lot of times you'll hear themthat I hired a salesperson.
Six months later nothinghappened and the owner decides
I'm going to let go of thesalesperson because it's a cost.
(14:20):
A sales leader, somebody that'sdone it before, that has the
DNA, that knows how to build apipeline of qualified
opportunities that a salespersoncan work, help them with
marketing strategies, put awhole entire system in place
that allows the MSP to besuccessful.
To me that's a winning strategyand I think the good MSPs have
(14:40):
done that and they're the onesthat continue to grow and excel
and acquire and because theyhave the revenue streams to
support it.
The smaller ones continue tostruggle and I always say this
like there isn't a company inthe world that has ever grown
without salespeople.
So it's a pretty simpleequation to figure out.
If you want to grow yourbusiness, you need the right
(15:01):
type of team structure in place.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
And I know you didn't ever necessarily fill the
marketing role because you weresales, but you went to school
for it, and so how did marketingplay in at least the fully
managed days?
I mean, was the sales team setup to be successful, because the
types of leads that were comingin were pretty warm?
Just what did that engine looklike of sales and marketing
working together?
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Yeah, I think my background allowed us.
I always kind of look at salesa little bit different in terms
of assessing the market, whowe're going after, what's the
right type of messaging that'sgoing to resonate with them.
It's kind of like what we'redoing over here with Produce 8
is speaking to MSPs to see, hey,listen, do you understand what
we do?
And so I always try and put mymarketing hat on first, and then
(15:44):
I think that helps me out withthe sale as well.
That's cool.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Talk about what did the ideal client profile look
like at Fully Managed from maybethe time you started to when
you left?
I mean, did Fully Managed goupmarket?
What did that feel like?
Speaker 1 (15:57):
Yeah, I think early on if I separate our MSP
business into three buckets wehad our SMB business for managed
services.
So think of anywhere betweenfive and 100 employees.
Ideally our sweet spot I wouldsay it was between 20 and 50
employees.
Right across Canada.
We had a number of sales repsthat focused on that area of
(16:18):
business.
We also did enterprise levelservice desk.
So that's another acquisitionthat we did and those were large
monthly recurring revenue dealswhere we had some contracts
that were 60, 70,000 a monthwhere we handled level one
support tickets and that was aninteresting business.
It allowed us to kind ofpenetrate into the mid-market
(16:38):
enterprise space.
And when we did that, that'swhere we got introduced to
ServiceNow and then we created aServiceNow practice that grew
considerably for us, was verywell received in the marketplace
, and so those three uniquebusiness models really kind of
helped us kind of drive over onaverage $100,000 a month in
monthly recurring revenue.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
That ServiceNow business?
Definitely, I mean it had totake you up market right Because
those are definitely theenterprise players that have an
ServiceNow practice.
So did the sales team?
Did you have sales team thatwere specialized in each of
those different ICPs, or waseverybody sort of have the
ability to sell?
Speaker 1 (17:19):
No, we had different sales teams.
We had one sales team thathandled the main services piece
and then we had one sales teamthat handled the managed
services piece and then we hadanother sales team that handled
ServiceNow and the enterpriseservice desk.
The DNAs of both of those thereps were different.
They were unique.
They were just different interms of how we felt that they
would kind of fit into one modelor the next.
The conversation that you'd behaving on your SMB managed
(17:43):
services are very different thanwhat you'd be having around
service now.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
We talked a little bit about the characteristics
that you were looking for whenyou would hire, and we
definitely talked about hiring agood leader.
How about the opportunity forfolks that were already part of
Fully Managed to sort of jumpinto sales?
We always sort of look atinternally to go, wow, that
personality, that characteristic, that coachable trait, that's
there.
We ought to see if they'reinterested to come over to the
(18:08):
sales team.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
Yeah, we would have those conversations.
Even when I joined fullymanaged, we had a sales team.
But where it didn't necessarilyfit into the future of what the
business was going to look likewas the transition from what I
call like a hardware sales repto somebody that sold managed
services right and more of asolution sell versus a product
(18:29):
sell.
And in order to kind of changethe revenue mix into the
business we had to kind ofchange the people because a lot
of the times the people thatsold the hardware couldn't
necessarily sell managedservices.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
What advice would you give to MSPs on how to incent
the sales teams so that they canbe successful?
Speaker 1 (18:47):
Yeah, first off, what I would say is, if you're an
MSP and you can't figure out acomp plan, I know that Enable
has great programs on theirsuccess teams that can teach
them and show them differentmodels and plans.
The model that we had was wewould pay them out on the first
month of the recurring revenueon the deal.
That was always the easiest one, the sales reps loved them, and
then we would have bonusstructure as well, so if they
(19:10):
overproduced, then they had somesort of guaranteed bonus they
would make if they overproducedon their quotas and stuff like
that.
So I was never fearful, andpeople that used to work for me
over there will always tell you.
I always believed that I wantedmy reps to make a lot of money,
because if they're making a lotof money, I know that they're
going to sell even more, and soit creates that environment.
Again, something that welearned that enable is like
(19:32):
making sure that the guys aresuccessful and they can live a
good quality life was importantto us and it's very important to
me as well.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
That's great, marco.
So you guys went from 40 toalmost 500 employees, and then
you sold to Telus?
Speaker 1 (19:46):
Yeah, we did.
What was that like?
So I know trying to sell thebusiness wasn't easy, right.
Like there was a lot of work.
Mark did a phenomenal job.
Joel Abramson, who's their CEOof Produce8, he was really kind
of like the face of puttingfully managed out there in the
marketplace.
I would say, you know, markScott's a dealmaker, right.
(20:07):
So to kind of go out and sellto a huge brand like Telus you
know it's like Verizon in the US, right so for them to kind of
take a look at fully managed andsaying this is what we need to
bring into our business.
We have thousands uponthousands of end user customers
that can use managed services.
Obviously they were leading theway in the Canadian marketplace
(20:28):
.
So it was really what I wouldsay kind of putting a stamp on,
kind of what we did as abusiness but the whole entire
business model as a whole,that's great.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
What was next for you after the fully managed?
Speaker 1 (20:39):
Yeah, so after so we had to stay on board for two
years and then the last fewmonths we were having kind of
discussions with them, and thenI was having discussions with
Mark and Joel on this newproduce eight venture that
they're kind of building outwith Chris Day.
I think the opportunity thatposes itself in front of us
right now was just too hard forme to say.
You know, let's go do this.
(21:00):
So that's kind of what Idecided to do and join the
company february 1st of thisyear so you got the band back
together, talk, talk.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
Band of misfits.
I think these are the majorplayers they are I think we had
luis heraldo on earlier and ofcourse chris day comes his name
comes up.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
So these are all the big names, like yeah, like they
really are, like all of theseguys, like when you take a look
at mark and chris and you knowmike cullen and you got frank
out there and you got danwensley and you got lewis and
and rob ray and all you knowlike these are the players in
the marketplace, these are theguys that get it so what is
produce eight all about?
Speaker 2 (21:37):
I want to give you a chance to tell everybody yeah,
so.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
So really excited about Produce8.
You know, as you mentioned,it's a work analytics app.
So we're in the market ofworking with businesses MSPs
right now to take a look attheir business and help them
increase productivity.
So we're bringing a newsolution in technology to the
marketplace that nobody's havingthese conversations in regards
right.
Like we talked about this alittle bit earlier on it's.
(22:01):
You know, how are MSPs going tosee this?
And so the idea of what we'retrying to do is kind of help
businesses, with everybodyeither working remotely or some
hybrid model and all that kindof stuff is help them increase
productivity.
We noticed that productivity isdropping, especially if you take
a look at an MSP what'shappening on the support desk,
(22:21):
how people are interacting.
People are being burnt out.
Our solution will give theminsights into how they're
operating on a daily basis.
So what's really interesting isyou take a look at our product.
It helps people from anindividual level.
It helps you from a managementlevel, so you can have an idea
in terms of what's going on andthen, overall, the whole entire
business.
So, as an example, we just cameout with a new feature that
(22:44):
will allow businesses tounderstand how much time they're
spending in meetings and whatthose meetings are costing them.
We're tying in calls, we'retying in calendars.
It's a collaboration tool thatwill help everybody streamline
how they operate on a dailybasis.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
So really, excited about it.
That's exciting.
So you're here at EnableEmpower.
You daily basis.
So really excited about it,that's exciting.
So you're here at EnableEmpower.
You've been talking to a lot ofMSPs about this, about the
product.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
What's the feedback?
Feedback has actually beenextremely positive.
Good to see it's.
You know, as I was coming hereto the event and we are speaking
to a lot of MSPs, you knowwe're doing probably 30, 40
meetings a month where a newstartup that just started up
really kind of selling thisthree, four months ago.
Coming to this event was reallyabout having those
conversations, seeing whatmessaging is resonating and what
(23:26):
makes sense.
The feedback that I'm gettingis this is perfect for what we
need.
In the next 45 to 60 days,we're going to be launching a
partner program.
Ask what the MSPs want.
They want to consume theproduct themselves so that they
can try and help their businessand increase productivity.
It's something that they knowtheir customers are asking for.
We're going to be launching anew partner program in May and
(23:48):
the idea around this is that ourpartners are going to be able
to go and resell this to theirend user customers.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
That's great.
So it sounds to me like, if Iask you, what's next?
It's to grow this right to, tohelp build, produce its offering
and and can continue to expandit.
But how about for youpersonally, I mean you.
You've been in in the channelfor a long time.
You played in the msp space fora long time.
What are some of the personalgoals that you have?
Speaker 1 (24:14):
you know, maybe, maybe in the future I would say
personal goals, like if itpertains to produce aid, is to
really kind of create the nextunit corner in the marketplace.
I think it's positionedextremely well for it's a
different type of solution thatMSPs would be utilizing and
selling right, so majority ofthem are.
You know, they're all tied intoRMM and security and backup and
(24:37):
security and backup, data, datarecovery and stuff like that.
But bringing in produce aidinto the mix and helping them
kind of like drive those newrecurring revenue streams, I
think that's kind of whatexcites me in terms of what I
think we can be in themarketplace.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
I warned you I was going to ask you this.
This is the Now that's itpodcast, so I want to ask you,
marco, when did you know?
Now that's it?
Speaker 1 (25:00):
Oh boy, I thought about this one for a while.
I think really it's the people,right, it's the people that I
work with.
When you're working with teamsand and new people that are
coming into the industry in thespace and all that kind of stuff
, and you see that you can helpthem.
They can go out and buy theirfirst home you know their cars
and all that kind of stuff andstart living good lives and
(25:21):
people thanking you for theircareers and what they have in
life.
That's kind of when I know thatyou know what, like, we've done
well so far.
So it's always been about thepeople.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
That's great, marco I thank you so much for being
here.
Um, you're as genuine aseverybody said you are and, like
I said, in in an easy clone, aneasy uh doppelganger, for I
think you're very close.
You guys have thatItalian-Canadian vibe going.
So keep up the good work.
I wish you the best of luck inthe future.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
Thanks, man, I appreciate it.
Thanks for having me, it'sgreat.
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