May 10, 2025 • 18 mins
Carrie Richardson and Ian Richardson host the WIN Podcast - What's Important Now?
Serial entrepreneurs, life partners and business partners, they have successfully exited from multiple businesses (IT, call center, real estate, marketing) and they help other business owners create their own versions of success.
Ian is certified in Eagle Center For Leadership Making A Difference, Paterson StratOp, and LifePlan.
Carrie has helped create and execute successful outbound sales strategies for over 1200 technology-focused businesses including MSPs, manufacturers, distributors and SaaS firms.
Learn more at www.foxcrowgroup.com
Book time with Carrie here!
Be a guest on WIN! We host successful entrepreneurs who share advice with other entrepreneurs on how to build, grow or sell a business using examples from their own experience.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Carrie Richardson (00:00):
Good afternoon everybody.
Welcome to the WIN podcast.
My name is Carrie Richardson.
I'm a partner at Fox and Crow.
And with me today is Will Oinky,who is the VP of MSP Sales for
Nerdio and a sponsor at thisyear's PAX 8.
Beyond.
How are you doing today, Will?
Will Ominksy (00:17):
I'm doing fantastic.
Really excited to be heretalking about, Nerdio and PAX 8
beyond.
What a great event.
Carrie Richardson (00:23):
I'm excited.
I didn't go last year, but I didgo to the first one.
And this will be our first majorevent sponsorship for Fox and
Crow.
These interviews are great forme because they're giving me
tips and ideas for what Fox andCrow might do at Pax8 Beyond.
Before we got started, we talkedabout how Nerdio is now hosting
their own conference.
(00:43):
you've chosen some interestinglocations for those events.
how has planning your own eventchanged how you approach
sponsoring an event?
Will Ominksy (00:54):
It's a great question and I think it's pretty
interesting'cause it's a verydifferent perspective when
you've put on your own event.
There's a lot of behind thescenes things that happen.
you wanna make sure everybody'scomfortable having a good time
and, getting something out ofit.
So when we now sponsor an eventand at PAX 8 beyond, we're
thinking about how can we ensurethe people that we're engaging
(01:15):
with or take time, to come overto our booth maybe, or one of
our breakout sessions are gonnaget the most out of it.
being thoughtful about curatingcontent and having conversations
that are gonna help them propeltheir business.
It's less about us telling themhow great and amazing Nerdio is.
it's more about starting withtalking to them asking questions
about their business and whatare their goals and what are
(01:37):
they looking to get out of theevent, and then giving them
information.
Or helping them achieve thosegoals.
that's how we think about it.
A lot of learnings with puttingon our own event and doing the
same things, getting feedbackand using that to shape our
go-to market approach.
Carrie Richardson (01:52):
NerdioCon has been going well.
You've got three years underyour belt now where's next?
Will Ominksy (01:56):
We are still in the planning stages for next
year.
We will be making anannouncement fairly soon about
where it's gonna be.
I'm very excited about it.
as you know, we try and pick fundifferent locations, we found
that, most of our, attendees arefrom North America and many
North Americans don't havepassports.
So that can certainly be astruggle.
For the sponsors it can be,logistically difficult, to ship
(02:18):
stuff and get a booth down thereand those types of things.
we do love doing thingsinternationally, but, this year
was our first year doing it inthe States, and it worked out
really well.
Carrie Richardson (02:26):
So for PAX 8 beyond this year, what
preparation has Nerdio done?
We're a month out, what are yourexpectations for the event?
Will Ominksy (02:39):
Yeah, so we have two different approaches that
we're taking because we've beenpartnered with PAX 8, and in the
MSP community for a number ofyears now.
for us it's really about astrategy to make sure we get a
lot of time with our existingpartners, understand where they
are in their journey in terms ofMicrosoft adoption, where we
focus, and also a separatestrategy around making sure that
(03:00):
we can get the message out aboutwho we are, what we do and how
we can help MSPs who have notstarted working with us yet.
Everything from partner dinnersto what we're gonna be
showcasing at our booth or inour breakout sessions.
One of the big ones is thatnerdio, for example, is in the
Microsoft 365 management game.
For years, we've been focused onAzure infrastructure and Azure
(03:22):
Virtual Desktop.
But we also have this.
great product and seen a lot ofgrowth on the M 365 management
side, which I think a lot ofpeople don't even know that we
do yet.
Carrie Richardson (03:31):
Tell us a little bit about that.
Will Ominksy (03:33):
Obviously with being in the Microsoft ecosystem
for so long and working withMSPs, they, said,"Hey, you
helped us so much with AzureVirtual Desktop.
But that's only a small portionof what we do day to day in the
Microsoft ecosystem.
We also manage.
Microsoft 365, and that can bedifficult.
we need a multi-tenantmanagement tool.
Nerdio feels like a logicalco-organization that could
(03:55):
support us there.
a couple years ago we startedinvestigating that.
in November, of 2024, we made avery large release to help with
things like OneDrive TeamsIntune and Autopilot, Features
that you get when you buy M 365,but many MSPs are not using
those features, right?
They buy this license.
you get your Microsoft apps inexchange but they're not able to
(04:17):
standardize all of theircustomers and there aren't many
tools out there that can do thatvery seamlessly and easily.
One of the things I love aboutMicrosoft is they have a
solution for everything.
Now, is the MSP industryspecifically gonna see value in
it, And are their SMBs, gonnasee value in it or find some
other product they give you alot of flexibility and they're
(04:38):
including more in Standard SMBflavor licenses, like business
premium.
look at Defender, a highly ratedsecurity product.
included in business premium.
And MSPs are like, well, I don'tuse it'cause I don't know how
to, I go to these events andthere's many security products
that I can use.
And one of our goals is givingthe MSP, flexibility, right?
And I'm not saying go replaceone of these other amazing tools
(05:00):
because we work with many great,partners out there.
It will also be at the event.
but we all know security.
It's like an onion, right?
You have all these differentlayers.
So you're paying for defender.
Let's make it easy to enable it,and have multiple layers in your
security stack.
Carrie Richardson (05:15):
I haven't healed from our SharePoint
migration 10 years ago.
Will Ominksy (05:19):
I remember selling when I was at my MSP, SBS
servers and I would talk up howSharePoint, you get this with
your SBS server and it'samazing.
in a lot of places, SharePoint'salso where things go to die.
You gotta give it the care andfeeding that it needs.
There's limitations in,character length, number of
files, number of nested foldersand things like that.
Carrie Richardson (05:37):
I'm making the switch to an Apple computer
this month.
It'll be, my first time notusing a Windows interface in my
entire business career.
Will Ominksy (05:49):
My teenage daughter had to have her Mac and
you know, I'm the computer guy,right?
'cause I'm in the industry eventhough I'm in sales.
anytime she needs help, I'mtrying to figure out the
interface and do it.
I love my iPhone, don't get mewrong.
but a Mac is difficult.
That's a great use case for anAzure virtual desktop, right?
You can stream down yourbusiness critical applications.
We see that all the time.
Carrie Richardson (06:08):
I'll send it over to Ian.
He's in charge of that, althoughI think he still got a little
PTSD from, back in the techsupport days.
He's not a big fan of, peopleasking him how things work when
it comes to computers thesedays.
Will Ominksy (06:21):
It's so funny how that happens though.
Like even in my neighborhood.
I'm the computer guy, right?
I'm the VP of sales, but, I'm,probably better than all of
them, in terms of my technicalability.
But I have no formal, technicalexpertise or training.
Carrie Richardson (06:35):
What's the equivalent of, let me Google
that for you, except for ai.
Let me chat.
GPT that for you It's great ifyou understand what you're doing
already.
But I don't know how great it isfor creating plans for things
that you've never tried to dobefore.
I feel like you could probablytroubleshoot a computer provided
your computer is working at thetime.
Will Ominksy (06:57):
I feel like people, salespeople, just have
that kind of personality inthem, we're less afraid
sometimes just to try new thingsand see if it works out.
so sometimes we fall into thosethings, right?
Like, okay, I read the prompt.
Let me try that.
Oh, I just destroyed mycomputer.
Okay, I'll go back to step one.
Carrie Richardson (07:13):
That's me, except with my Webflow website.
If I have one big regret from2024, it would be the migration
over to Webflow.
So we're both going to be on thefloor at PAX 8 this year.
Tell me a little bit about howyour team prepares.
Will Ominksy (07:30):
There's a lot of things that go on behind the
scenes in preparing.
One of ours is a schedule ofevents, who's gonna be where,
and mix up different individualstrengths, with that.
For example, we create our boothschedule, who's gonna be at the
booth?
We wanna make sure that there'ssomebody that understands sales,
somebody that understands Azure,as well as M 365 now that we do
that, and somebody that'stechnical.
(07:51):
Somebody that can walk through ademo, answer questions, those
types of things.
Then we have other peoplepreparing for, our breakout
session, Walking around there,having conversations, making
sure people know, when ourbreakout session is asking them
to attend, and getting feedback.
Also building in time for us toregroup.
You go into an event, with aplan, this is exactly how it's
(08:11):
gonna be and this is what we'regonna do and it's gonna be
great.
Then you learn some things.
I've been.
At other events where we domultiple breakout sessions and
we go do the first one.
We always leave time afterwards,right?
To regroup what worked, whatdidn't work, what did people
like, what did people not like?
and then spend time to readjust.
I don't think It's fair to thepeople that take time out of
their day, they spend a lot ofmoney, and time being able to
(08:34):
come to these events we wannamake sure that they get the most
value out of it.
And it's also just for our teamtoo, making sure that there's
some built in time.
We still, most of our peoplethat are there still have a
normal job, right?
So being able to go and catch upon some email, make sure you
don't have that customer orpartner waiting on you, to
respond.
and then a little bit of rest.
Because nobody wants to talk toWill standing in a booth who
(08:55):
hasn't slept, at all.
and is not gonna be able to havea high quality conversation or
be present in the moment.
Carrie Richardson (09:01):
Yeah, you don't know this from experience,
You're just guessing.
Will Ominksy (09:04):
Correct.
Exactly.
I mean, I've been around Nerdio,since the very early days where
it was really three of us goingto every single show.
Tony Kai and I did 8 weeks backto back on the road together.
we saw each other more than wesaw our own families.
we love those times, but it'snice having a bigger team.
it's also important to make sureyou're training the next group
that's coming up and has careergoals to learn from the mistakes
(09:24):
that maybe we made in the earlydays.
Carrie Richardson (09:27):
So are you more of a morning go to the
breakfast person or are you latenight, go to the party person?
Will Ominksy (09:34):
So it's funny, in the past probably year, year and
a half, I've switched.
I used to be the late night guy.
Like, don't get me up early inthe morning.
I'll do all the late nightstuff.
you'll find me hanging out atthe bar, talking to people,
going to the parties, that typeof thing.
And now, I would rather be inbed by like nine o'clock, and be
up having my coffee early in themorning.
Carrie Richardson (09:52):
That's how I feel every day now.
I was never much of a nightperson anyway, because by 11
o'clock it's getting a littledrunk out.
And when you don't drink itwears on you.
Will Ominksy (10:01):
Exactly.
And I think there is thatturning point, but you hear from
mSPs all the time, and I noticeit as well.
one of the great things about ahuge event like PAX 8 beyond is
you have like-minded MSPstogether, but it's those side
conversations, those realconversations that you have with
each other.
Not the Hi, I'm Will fromNerdio, and I go into my
standard pitch or something likethat.
(10:22):
That's not what we're there for.
tell me what we can do better.
Tell me what you're strugglingwith.
Tell me about your business.
And that's, I think one of thepowerful things about, an event
like this, that.
people get a lot out of,connecting different MSPs
together, that's something thatwe try to do, as part of our
strategy as well, I might havesomebody come up saying, I'm
really struggling with a VD or,Microsoft in general, or How do
(10:42):
I price or package this?
And I'm like, wait a second.
I have one of my partners whohas figured this out.
Let me connect you two together,instead of hearing from me,
right?
You don't wanna hear from thevendor.
You wanna hear from an MSP who'sexperienced this.
Because I have a siloed view ofthe world.
I'm not worrying about howyou're, automating your
QuickBooks to send invoices.
I'm just worrying about theexecution of Microsoft.
(11:04):
And I think that's, reallypowerful here.
and then they can also talkabout, well, I use PAX 8 and
these five other vendors ontheir line card, and they can
talk about the integration ofall of that and really make
their MSP better.
Carrie Richardson (11:16):
What's your conversion rate like from,
initial conversation at thebooth to signed partner?
And do you attribute first pointof contact or last point of
contact, or do you have somecomplicated way to measure?
Will Ominksy (11:33):
We have a complicated way.
We've tried all of the above.
What we do is spread out all thepoints of contact and, evenly
balance it, in terms of,acquisition costs We find we end
up having multiple conversationsand meeting people at multiple
events.
Sometimes they come to ourevents or our training, camps
that we run as well.
We found that the best way to dothat.
(11:53):
Our average sales cycle isusually around three months, but
how you count that?
One of the things that Nerdiodoes is we provide free internal
use licenses, to MSPs.
a lot of times we start at thebooth, and especially if
somebody's never looked atNerdio, or maybe they're looking
at virtual desktops and they'venever done this before.
They're not just gonna roll thisout to their 50 employee
company, or customer.
(12:13):
They're gonna want to try thisout, make sure they understand
how to manage it.
usually, we're looking to bookconversations coming out of that
how can we help you?
What are your desires?
What are your goals?
the next step very often is,let's either get you some
training or let's do hands-ontraining with those free
internal use licenses weprovide.
And throughout that we're tryingto plan, well how can we help
(12:34):
you with your customer, eitherbring them to a VD or managing
Microsoft 365 more efficiently?
so that's really what we'relooking to do is have those
conversations and open up thedoor.
I don't know if others, take thesame approach.
If you come up to our booth andtalk to us or in the hallways
and have a conversation, we'renot gonna push a meeting if you
don't wanna talk to us.
You don't see value.
Great.
(12:54):
that's fine.
let us tell you what we do, andlet's not book a meeting.
If that doesn't make sense.
we'll ask your permission, canwe put you on our mailing list
and, send you updates once amonth just so you know what's
going on.
if not, then we won't put you onour mailing list.
And maybe we'll find some valuedown the road.
Carrie Richardson (13:09):
Favorite swag or swag that people seem to like
the most?
what have you done that peoplereally liked?
Will Ominksy (13:16):
Yeah.
So, they really like socks.
we're big into doing clothes: hoodie, things like that. (13:18):
undefined
Something that you're not gonnabe like, oh, that's cool, and
then end up in the garbagelater.
exactly.
So, that's generally what welike to do.
we'll try and mix if there's atheme of the event, you know, do
something like that.
we just went to Robin Robinsevent and that had a Willy Wonka
theme.
so we had, candy and, thingslike that.
We had cotton candy we werehanding out and, stuffed
(13:40):
animals, people seemed to likethat.
But really I think a lot of itcomes down to clothes.
And actually, surprisinglyenough.
we all work in technology, butpeople love notebooks and pens.
we still bring notebooks andpens everywhere.
a lot of us are old school, yougotta write it down.
Carrie Richardson (13:54):
I'm a big fan.
Will Ominksy (13:55):
Yeah, we've tried all types of things.
Little puzzles and playingcards.
those are decent.
Sometimes at events you'll seepeople, sitting there playing
games, at the bar, late night,things like that.
But, clothes are good.
The other good thing aboutclothes, if you over order,
you're able to donate themsomewhere, And make good use out
of'em.
So we like to do that as well.
Carrie Richardson (14:12):
So at the event, you'll just find
someplace to take them and dropthem off instead of packing them
home or shipping them
Will Ominksy (14:18):
Usually there's a donation box at a minimum
somewhere, where you can dropthem off.
Carrie Richardson (14:23):
Great idea.
especially for socks.
That's something that I thinkhomeless shelters never have
enough of.
Will Ominksy (14:29):
Yep.
Exactly.
Carrie Richardson (14:30):
How many Nerdo t-shirts are there at the
Goodwill in Palm Springs rightnow.
Will Ominksy (14:35):
Exactly.
I've also thought about thingslike, the rest of my team's
like, no, we shouldn't do that.
But I was like, why not?
Why not toothbrushes andtoothpaste?
'cause you can donate that.
I just got back from vacationlast week.
My wife forgot toothpaste.
Luckily I had plenty oftoothpaste, so we got to share.
But you know, those necessitiesthat people do forget.
Carrie Richardson (14:51):
We gave out sunscreen one year.
we gave it out in a littlesquare package with our logo on
the front and they ended uplooking like condoms, which we
weren't anticipating.
Going to Miami.
That'll be amazing.
It was not amazing.
So I think, the takeaway for meon that one was have them send
(15:12):
you some samples before youorder thousands of something,
they show you the front, theyshow you the back and the bleed
line and everything.
But in this case, we had no wayof knowing that when it was all
put together, it was not goingto have the desired outcome.
Will Ominksy (15:28):
It's important to do that too.
also things like your booth orprinted materials, we always
like to get many, many eyes onit.
it's so easy.
Your head's down, in theplanning committee and looking
at it.
you show it to somebody else andthey're like, why did you do
that?
Do you realize what that lookslike?
Or, I'm glad I shared this withsomebody else.
Carrie Richardson (15:44):
Yeah, a set of eyes from outside the
industry is probably helpfulI'll give it to my kid.
Do you understand this?
Will Ominksy (15:51):
Does it make sense to you?
We run a sales training like howto sell Azure and things like
that.
one of the things that I learnedwhen I was at my m ms p doing
sales, that I always recommendMSPs do is, take your proposal
to your customers and have, yourkid, your wife, your mom, your
husband, whoever, look at it.
Somebody that's non-technical,that's not in the industry.
hand it to'em, don't sayanything and say, do you
(16:12):
understand this?
half the time they're like,yeah, I have no idea what this
is.
It's like, all right.
Time for a rewrite or redesign.
I think I'm most excited abouthaving conversations with the
MSP community about all, Nerdiohas to offer.
combined with that, where shouldnerdio be looking to go next?
Where are the next things we cando to help MSPs?
I've been in the MSP industryfor a long time, but I don't
(16:35):
have all the answers.
Nerdio is very much an outsidein organization, so the feedback
is invaluable to us.
And also the connections with,people at PAX 8 themselves,
right?
They see so much, they give us alot of feedback about what to
do.
Microsoft will be there, whichis also exciting for us.
having those types ofconversations, figuring out,
where we can go next, where wecan add additional value.
(16:57):
Make MSP's lives easier.
We have a new enhanced supportpackage where, we can actually
do a lot of stuff that MSPs tendto struggle with in the
Microsoft ecosystem when theircustomers are down or having
emergencies and need to figureit out.
We have that internal knowledge.
that's really what I'm mostlooking forward to.
Carrie Richardson (17:13):
Great.
I'm looking forward to seeingyou there.
Thanks for joining us today onWin, and we'll see you in Denver
in June.
Will Ominksy (17:19):
Thanks for having me.
It's a pleasure.
Good afternoon everybody.
Welcome to the WIN podcast.
My name is Carrie Richardson.
I'm a partner at Fox and Crow.
And with me today is Will Oinky,who is the VP of MSP Sales for
Nerdio and a sponsor at thisyear's PAX 8.
Beyond.
How are you doing today, Will?
Will Ominksy (00:17):
I'm doing fantastic.
Really excited to be heretalking about, Nerdio and PAX 8
beyond.
What a great event.
Carrie Richardson (00:23):
I'm excited.
I didn't go last year, but I didgo to the first one.
And this will be our first majorevent sponsorship for Fox and
Crow.
These interviews are great forme because they're giving me
tips and ideas for what Fox andCrow might do at Pax8 Beyond.
Before we got started, we talkedabout how Nerdio is now hosting
their own conference.
(00:43):
you've chosen some interestinglocations for those events.
how has planning your own eventchanged how you approach
sponsoring an event?
Will Ominksy (00:54):
It's a great question and I think it's pretty
interesting'cause it's a verydifferent perspective when
you've put on your own event.
There's a lot of behind thescenes things that happen.
you wanna make sure everybody'scomfortable having a good time
and, getting something out ofit.
So when we now sponsor an eventand at PAX 8 beyond, we're
thinking about how can we ensurethe people that we're engaging
(01:15):
with or take time, to come overto our booth maybe, or one of
our breakout sessions are gonnaget the most out of it.
being thoughtful about curatingcontent and having conversations
that are gonna help them propeltheir business.
It's less about us telling themhow great and amazing Nerdio is.
it's more about starting withtalking to them asking questions
about their business and whatare their goals and what are
(01:37):
they looking to get out of theevent, and then giving them
information.
Or helping them achieve thosegoals.
that's how we think about it.
A lot of learnings with puttingon our own event and doing the
same things, getting feedbackand using that to shape our
go-to market approach.
Carrie Richardson (01:52):
NerdioCon has been going well.
You've got three years underyour belt now where's next?
Will Ominksy (01:56):
We are still in the planning stages for next
year.
We will be making anannouncement fairly soon about
where it's gonna be.
I'm very excited about it.
as you know, we try and pick fundifferent locations, we found
that, most of our, attendees arefrom North America and many
North Americans don't havepassports.
So that can certainly be astruggle.
For the sponsors it can be,logistically difficult, to ship
(02:18):
stuff and get a booth down thereand those types of things.
we do love doing thingsinternationally, but, this year
was our first year doing it inthe States, and it worked out
really well.
Carrie Richardson (02:26):
So for PAX 8 beyond this year, what
preparation has Nerdio done?
We're a month out, what are yourexpectations for the event?
Will Ominksy (02:39):
Yeah, so we have two different approaches that
we're taking because we've beenpartnered with PAX 8, and in the
MSP community for a number ofyears now.
for us it's really about astrategy to make sure we get a
lot of time with our existingpartners, understand where they
are in their journey in terms ofMicrosoft adoption, where we
focus, and also a separatestrategy around making sure that
(03:00):
we can get the message out aboutwho we are, what we do and how
we can help MSPs who have notstarted working with us yet.
Everything from partner dinnersto what we're gonna be
showcasing at our booth or inour breakout sessions.
One of the big ones is thatnerdio, for example, is in the
Microsoft 365 management game.
For years, we've been focused onAzure infrastructure and Azure
(03:22):
Virtual Desktop.
But we also have this.
great product and seen a lot ofgrowth on the M 365 management
side, which I think a lot ofpeople don't even know that we
do yet.
Carrie Richardson (03:31):
Tell us a little bit about that.
Will Ominksy (03:33):
Obviously with being in the Microsoft ecosystem
for so long and working withMSPs, they, said,"Hey, you
helped us so much with AzureVirtual Desktop.
But that's only a small portionof what we do day to day in the
Microsoft ecosystem.
We also manage.
Microsoft 365, and that can bedifficult.
we need a multi-tenantmanagement tool.
Nerdio feels like a logicalco-organization that could
(03:55):
support us there.
a couple years ago we startedinvestigating that.
in November, of 2024, we made avery large release to help with
things like OneDrive TeamsIntune and Autopilot, Features
that you get when you buy M 365,but many MSPs are not using
those features, right?
They buy this license.
you get your Microsoft apps inexchange but they're not able to
(04:17):
standardize all of theircustomers and there aren't many
tools out there that can do thatvery seamlessly and easily.
One of the things I love aboutMicrosoft is they have a
solution for everything.
Now, is the MSP industryspecifically gonna see value in
it, And are their SMBs, gonnasee value in it or find some
other product they give you alot of flexibility and they're
(04:38):
including more in Standard SMBflavor licenses, like business
premium.
look at Defender, a highly ratedsecurity product.
included in business premium.
And MSPs are like, well, I don'tuse it'cause I don't know how
to, I go to these events andthere's many security products
that I can use.
And one of our goals is givingthe MSP, flexibility, right?
And I'm not saying go replaceone of these other amazing tools
(05:00):
because we work with many great,partners out there.
It will also be at the event.
but we all know security.
It's like an onion, right?
You have all these differentlayers.
So you're paying for defender.
Let's make it easy to enable it,and have multiple layers in your
security stack.
Carrie Richardson (05:15):
I haven't healed from our SharePoint
migration 10 years ago.
Will Ominksy (05:19):
I remember selling when I was at my MSP, SBS
servers and I would talk up howSharePoint, you get this with
your SBS server and it'samazing.
in a lot of places, SharePoint'salso where things go to die.
You gotta give it the care andfeeding that it needs.
There's limitations in,character length, number of
files, number of nested foldersand things like that.
Carrie Richardson (05:37):
I'm making the switch to an Apple computer
this month.
It'll be, my first time notusing a Windows interface in my
entire business career.
Will Ominksy (05:49):
My teenage daughter had to have her Mac and
you know, I'm the computer guy,right?
'cause I'm in the industry eventhough I'm in sales.
anytime she needs help, I'mtrying to figure out the
interface and do it.
I love my iPhone, don't get mewrong.
but a Mac is difficult.
That's a great use case for anAzure virtual desktop, right?
You can stream down yourbusiness critical applications.
We see that all the time.
Carrie Richardson (06:08):
I'll send it over to Ian.
He's in charge of that, althoughI think he still got a little
PTSD from, back in the techsupport days.
He's not a big fan of, peopleasking him how things work when
it comes to computers thesedays.
Will Ominksy (06:21):
It's so funny how that happens though.
Like even in my neighborhood.
I'm the computer guy, right?
I'm the VP of sales, but, I'm,probably better than all of
them, in terms of my technicalability.
But I have no formal, technicalexpertise or training.
Carrie Richardson (06:35):
What's the equivalent of, let me Google
that for you, except for ai.
Let me chat.
GPT that for you It's great ifyou understand what you're doing
already.
But I don't know how great it isfor creating plans for things
that you've never tried to dobefore.
I feel like you could probablytroubleshoot a computer provided
your computer is working at thetime.
Will Ominksy (06:57):
I feel like people, salespeople, just have
that kind of personality inthem, we're less afraid
sometimes just to try new thingsand see if it works out.
so sometimes we fall into thosethings, right?
Like, okay, I read the prompt.
Let me try that.
Oh, I just destroyed mycomputer.
Okay, I'll go back to step one.
Carrie Richardson (07:13):
That's me, except with my Webflow website.
If I have one big regret from2024, it would be the migration
over to Webflow.
So we're both going to be on thefloor at PAX 8 this year.
Tell me a little bit about howyour team prepares.
Will Ominksy (07:30):
There's a lot of things that go on behind the
scenes in preparing.
One of ours is a schedule ofevents, who's gonna be where,
and mix up different individualstrengths, with that.
For example, we create our boothschedule, who's gonna be at the
booth?
We wanna make sure that there'ssomebody that understands sales,
somebody that understands Azure,as well as M 365 now that we do
that, and somebody that'stechnical.
(07:51):
Somebody that can walk through ademo, answer questions, those
types of things.
Then we have other peoplepreparing for, our breakout
session, Walking around there,having conversations, making
sure people know, when ourbreakout session is asking them
to attend, and getting feedback.
Also building in time for us toregroup.
You go into an event, with aplan, this is exactly how it's
(08:11):
gonna be and this is what we'regonna do and it's gonna be
great.
Then you learn some things.
I've been.
At other events where we domultiple breakout sessions and
we go do the first one.
We always leave time afterwards,right?
To regroup what worked, whatdidn't work, what did people
like, what did people not like?
and then spend time to readjust.
I don't think It's fair to thepeople that take time out of
their day, they spend a lot ofmoney, and time being able to
(08:34):
come to these events we wannamake sure that they get the most
value out of it.
And it's also just for our teamtoo, making sure that there's
some built in time.
We still, most of our peoplethat are there still have a
normal job, right?
So being able to go and catch upon some email, make sure you
don't have that customer orpartner waiting on you, to
respond.
and then a little bit of rest.
Because nobody wants to talk toWill standing in a booth who
(08:55):
hasn't slept, at all.
and is not gonna be able to havea high quality conversation or
be present in the moment.
Carrie Richardson (09:01):
Yeah, you don't know this from experience,
You're just guessing.
Will Ominksy (09:04):
Correct.
Exactly.
I mean, I've been around Nerdio,since the very early days where
it was really three of us goingto every single show.
Tony Kai and I did 8 weeks backto back on the road together.
we saw each other more than wesaw our own families.
we love those times, but it'snice having a bigger team.
it's also important to make sureyou're training the next group
that's coming up and has careergoals to learn from the mistakes
(09:24):
that maybe we made in the earlydays.
Carrie Richardson (09:27):
So are you more of a morning go to the
breakfast person or are you latenight, go to the party person?
Will Ominksy (09:34):
So it's funny, in the past probably year, year and
a half, I've switched.
I used to be the late night guy.
Like, don't get me up early inthe morning.
I'll do all the late nightstuff.
you'll find me hanging out atthe bar, talking to people,
going to the parties, that typeof thing.
And now, I would rather be inbed by like nine o'clock, and be
up having my coffee early in themorning.
Carrie Richardson (09:52):
That's how I feel every day now.
I was never much of a nightperson anyway, because by 11
o'clock it's getting a littledrunk out.
And when you don't drink itwears on you.
Will Ominksy (10:01):
Exactly.
And I think there is thatturning point, but you hear from
mSPs all the time, and I noticeit as well.
one of the great things about ahuge event like PAX 8 beyond is
you have like-minded MSPstogether, but it's those side
conversations, those realconversations that you have with
each other.
Not the Hi, I'm Will fromNerdio, and I go into my
standard pitch or something likethat.
(10:22):
That's not what we're there for.
tell me what we can do better.
Tell me what you're strugglingwith.
Tell me about your business.
And that's, I think one of thepowerful things about, an event
like this, that.
people get a lot out of,connecting different MSPs
together, that's something thatwe try to do, as part of our
strategy as well, I might havesomebody come up saying, I'm
really struggling with a VD or,Microsoft in general, or How do
(10:42):
I price or package this?
And I'm like, wait a second.
I have one of my partners whohas figured this out.
Let me connect you two together,instead of hearing from me,
right?
You don't wanna hear from thevendor.
You wanna hear from an MSP who'sexperienced this.
Because I have a siloed view ofthe world.
I'm not worrying about howyou're, automating your
QuickBooks to send invoices.
I'm just worrying about theexecution of Microsoft.
(11:04):
And I think that's, reallypowerful here.
and then they can also talkabout, well, I use PAX 8 and
these five other vendors ontheir line card, and they can
talk about the integration ofall of that and really make
their MSP better.
Carrie Richardson (11:16):
What's your conversion rate like from,
initial conversation at thebooth to signed partner?
And do you attribute first pointof contact or last point of
contact, or do you have somecomplicated way to measure?
Will Ominksy (11:33):
We have a complicated way.
We've tried all of the above.
What we do is spread out all thepoints of contact and, evenly
balance it, in terms of,acquisition costs We find we end
up having multiple conversationsand meeting people at multiple
events.
Sometimes they come to ourevents or our training, camps
that we run as well.
We found that the best way to dothat.
(11:53):
Our average sales cycle isusually around three months, but
how you count that?
One of the things that Nerdiodoes is we provide free internal
use licenses, to MSPs.
a lot of times we start at thebooth, and especially if
somebody's never looked atNerdio, or maybe they're looking
at virtual desktops and they'venever done this before.
They're not just gonna roll thisout to their 50 employee
company, or customer.
(12:13):
They're gonna want to try thisout, make sure they understand
how to manage it.
usually, we're looking to bookconversations coming out of that
how can we help you?
What are your desires?
What are your goals?
the next step very often is,let's either get you some
training or let's do hands-ontraining with those free
internal use licenses weprovide.
And throughout that we're tryingto plan, well how can we help
(12:34):
you with your customer, eitherbring them to a VD or managing
Microsoft 365 more efficiently?
so that's really what we'relooking to do is have those
conversations and open up thedoor.
I don't know if others, take thesame approach.
If you come up to our booth andtalk to us or in the hallways
and have a conversation, we'renot gonna push a meeting if you
don't wanna talk to us.
You don't see value.
Great.
(12:54):
that's fine.
let us tell you what we do, andlet's not book a meeting.
If that doesn't make sense.
we'll ask your permission, canwe put you on our mailing list
and, send you updates once amonth just so you know what's
going on.
if not, then we won't put you onour mailing list.
And maybe we'll find some valuedown the road.
Carrie Richardson (13:09):
Favorite swag or swag that people seem to like
the most?
what have you done that peoplereally liked?
Will Ominksy (13:16):
Yeah.
So, they really like socks.
we're big into doing clothes: hoodie, things like that. (13:18):
undefined
Something that you're not gonnabe like, oh, that's cool, and
then end up in the garbagelater.
exactly.
So, that's generally what welike to do.
we'll try and mix if there's atheme of the event, you know, do
something like that.
we just went to Robin Robinsevent and that had a Willy Wonka
theme.
so we had, candy and, thingslike that.
We had cotton candy we werehanding out and, stuffed
(13:40):
animals, people seemed to likethat.
But really I think a lot of itcomes down to clothes.
And actually, surprisinglyenough.
we all work in technology, butpeople love notebooks and pens.
we still bring notebooks andpens everywhere.
a lot of us are old school, yougotta write it down.
Carrie Richardson (13:54):
I'm a big fan.
Will Ominksy (13:55):
Yeah, we've tried all types of things.
Little puzzles and playingcards.
those are decent.
Sometimes at events you'll seepeople, sitting there playing
games, at the bar, late night,things like that.
But, clothes are good.
The other good thing aboutclothes, if you over order,
you're able to donate themsomewhere, And make good use out
of'em.
So we like to do that as well.
Carrie Richardson (14:12):
So at the event, you'll just find
someplace to take them and dropthem off instead of packing them
home or shipping them
Will Ominksy (14:18):
Usually there's a donation box at a minimum
somewhere, where you can dropthem off.
Carrie Richardson (14:23):
Great idea.
especially for socks.
That's something that I thinkhomeless shelters never have
enough of.
Will Ominksy (14:29):
Yep.
Exactly.
Carrie Richardson (14:30):
How many Nerdo t-shirts are there at the
Goodwill in Palm Springs rightnow.
Will Ominksy (14:35):
Exactly.
I've also thought about thingslike, the rest of my team's
like, no, we shouldn't do that.
But I was like, why not?
Why not toothbrushes andtoothpaste?
'cause you can donate that.
I just got back from vacationlast week.
My wife forgot toothpaste.
Luckily I had plenty oftoothpaste, so we got to share.
But you know, those necessitiesthat people do forget.
Carrie Richardson (14:51):
We gave out sunscreen one year.
we gave it out in a littlesquare package with our logo on
the front and they ended uplooking like condoms, which we
weren't anticipating.
Going to Miami.
That'll be amazing.
It was not amazing.
So I think, the takeaway for meon that one was have them send
(15:12):
you some samples before youorder thousands of something,
they show you the front, theyshow you the back and the bleed
line and everything.
But in this case, we had no wayof knowing that when it was all
put together, it was not goingto have the desired outcome.
Will Ominksy (15:28):
It's important to do that too.
also things like your booth orprinted materials, we always
like to get many, many eyes onit.
it's so easy.
Your head's down, in theplanning committee and looking
at it.
you show it to somebody else andthey're like, why did you do
that?
Do you realize what that lookslike?
Or, I'm glad I shared this withsomebody else.
Carrie Richardson (15:44):
Yeah, a set of eyes from outside the
industry is probably helpfulI'll give it to my kid.
Do you understand this?
Will Ominksy (15:51):
Does it make sense to you?
We run a sales training like howto sell Azure and things like
that.
one of the things that I learnedwhen I was at my m ms p doing
sales, that I always recommendMSPs do is, take your proposal
to your customers and have, yourkid, your wife, your mom, your
husband, whoever, look at it.
Somebody that's non-technical,that's not in the industry.
hand it to'em, don't sayanything and say, do you
(16:12):
understand this?
half the time they're like,yeah, I have no idea what this
is.
It's like, all right.
Time for a rewrite or redesign.
I think I'm most excited abouthaving conversations with the
MSP community about all, Nerdiohas to offer.
combined with that, where shouldnerdio be looking to go next?
Where are the next things we cando to help MSPs?
I've been in the MSP industryfor a long time, but I don't
(16:35):
have all the answers.
Nerdio is very much an outsidein organization, so the feedback
is invaluable to us.
And also the connections with,people at PAX 8 themselves,
right?
They see so much, they give us alot of feedback about what to
do.
Microsoft will be there, whichis also exciting for us.
having those types ofconversations, figuring out,
where we can go next, where wecan add additional value.
(16:57):
Make MSP's lives easier.
We have a new enhanced supportpackage where, we can actually
do a lot of stuff that MSPs tendto struggle with in the
Microsoft ecosystem when theircustomers are down or having
emergencies and need to figureit out.
We have that internal knowledge.
that's really what I'm mostlooking forward to.
Carrie Richardson (17:13):
Great.
I'm looking forward to seeingyou there.
Thanks for joining us today onWin, and we'll see you in Denver
in June.
Will Ominksy (17:19):
Thanks for having me.
It's a pleasure.
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