Mitch Redekopp (River City Technology Services): Transition from Databases to Fully Managed IT
Title: Mitch Redekopp (River City Technology Services): Transition from Databases to Fully Managed IT
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Mitch Redekopp, the CEO of River City Technology Services, tells about his journey from the kitchen to the tech world and how he transformed his company from a break-fix model into a thriving managed service provider (MSP). Starting off as a line cook, Mitch took a leap into IT school, where he met his future boss and mentor, Jeff. After hounding Jeff for a job, he became the first employee of River City Tech. The episode dives deep into the evolution of the company, highlighting the shift from focusing on access databases to embracing cyber security and managed IT services. Mitch shares his insights on the challenges of transitioning business models, emphasizing how important it is to adapt to the changing tech landscape.
One of the standout moments in the episode is Mitch's candid discussion about the ups and downs of running a business. He talks about the delicate balance between operational tasks and sales, and how he learned the art of delegation. Through his journey, Mitch learned that hiring people who are smarter than you is crucial for growth. He and his CTO Eric have structured their team in a way that allows them to focus on sales and strategy, freeing up time to expand their client base. The conversation also delves into the importance of understanding client needs and building long-term relationships rather than just chasing quick sales.
Overall, this episode serves as a goldmine of practical advice for aspiring MSP owners and anyone looking to pivot their business model. Mitch's story is not just about the technical side of IT; it's about the human side of business, the relationships built along the way, and the ever-evolving challenge of staying ahead in a competitive market. Grab a coffee, sit back, and soak in the wisdom from Mitch on this episode of the MSP Owner Podcast!
Takeaways:
- Mitch Redekopp transitioned from a break-fix model to managed services, which was a game changer for his business.
- River City Technology Services focuses on offering one all-inclusive package, simplifying their pricing model for clients.
- The importance of personal connections in sales is key; getting to know local businesses boosts client trust and engagement.
- Mitch emphasizes learning from failures and not being afraid to delegate tasks to focus on growth and strategy.
Transcript
Foreign.
Speaker B:Welcome to the MSP Owner Podcast.
Speaker B:Today we're speaking with Mitch Redecop, the CEO of River City Technology Services, an MSP based in Saskatchewan.
Speaker B:Under Mitch's leadership, River City has established itself as a trusted partner in the region.
Speaker B:The company does approximately $1.6 million of annual revenue and has 6 or 7 employ.
Speaker B:In today's episode, we're going to touch on a variety of things.
Speaker B:Operational, financial.
Speaker B:But I'm particularly interested in talking about his transition from a break fix shop to a recurring managed service provider model.
Speaker B:Sometimes a tough transition for some people and businesses.
Speaker B:So Mitch, thank you very much for joining me on the MSP Owner Podcast.
Speaker A:Thank you.
Speaker A:Thanks for having me.
Speaker B:Start off, Kajud, dive into your background and what River City looks like today.
Speaker A:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker A: So I started out in: Speaker A:I was actually in IT school.
Speaker A:So before that I was about six years as a line cook working in different restaurants.
Speaker A:Just had a child for the first time and thought I got to get out of this restaurant industry.
Speaker A:So I took a one year course for IT administration.
Speaker A:And during that course is when I actually met the previous owner of River City Tech.
Speaker A:He was our teacher at the time and three months into that he quit and started this company, River City Tech.
Speaker A:So during that whole year I kind of just hounded him for a job.
Speaker A:Luckily, you know, he gave me the, the pleasure of walking around delivering flyers while I was in school.
Speaker A:And then sure enough when I was done that one year, he did hire me as his first employee.
Speaker A:So that's kind of where I initially got into it.
Speaker A:But the company itself, he himself was a Microsoft MVP in access databases, which I didn't realize at the time that that was going to be our primary focus.
Speaker A:So I basically try to unlearn everything I learned in IT school and had to focus on access databases for, for.
Speaker B:Those who aren't familiar, what, what does that mean?
Speaker B:What did that mean back then?
Speaker B:And then, what does that mean today?
Speaker A:The Microsoft MVP part?
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, I think.
Speaker A:Well, back then it was just he was either one or two of the people that were acknowledged in Canada as being someone in the access database community that was giving back.
Speaker A:Always talking on forums and providing samples and giving out free information or teaching more things like that.
Speaker A:So I think it's still a lot of.
Speaker A:Yeah, you still see it today a lot.
Speaker A:But I don't probably on the access database world, I'm sure that's dwindling slowly.
Speaker B:Yeah, I figured.
Speaker B:But I didn't know if it was still a hot topic and how you Got new clients today versus, you know, how the business started.
Speaker A:Yeah, that's a, that's a.
Speaker A:I mean that's full circle.
Speaker A:We went through a whole bunch of different things between the access databases and then moving on, you know, later on we, we did get full circle into software development for a while where we were taking the access databases, turning into web apps and that was a learning experience for myself as well.
Speaker A:That's kind of when I, you know, I had taken over and wasn't really understanding that, you know, one off projects do end at some point and you got to really plan to have another one in place.
Speaker A:So I think it was July two years ago, we finally dropped our OR software development side and decided to refocus on just cyber security and managed IT services.
Speaker B:It sounds like at least based off of what I saw in your background, you started out before River City, you worked for a voice company or was that part of what this was?
Speaker A:Yeah, no, that's actually something newer for us.
Speaker A:It is just a brand of our company.
Speaker A:So we did add on VoIP services as well.
Speaker A:Just to give another piece of our know one all in one technology stack where you want to be the only person that our clients have to call.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So whether it's website design or phone services or their it just that one partner, one phone number.
Speaker B:This is your first job out of.
Speaker B:Out of school?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:You haven't worked anywhere else except for.
Speaker B:And now you're the owner, one of the owners of the company.
Speaker A:At least, at least out of IT school, Correct?
Speaker A:Yeah, I've had a lot of cooking jobs.
Speaker A:A lot of those.
Speaker B:Got it, yeah, got it.
Speaker B:It started off you were the, the first employee at the company from someone who is a, you know, the initial founder and he, he had a bunch of expertise in this database management and that's how he got the initial C client base.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:And so what did you do back then?
Speaker B:What was like the scope of the nature of the work?
Speaker A:Was it.
Speaker B:Was it you were a technician or coder or what did that look like?
Speaker A:Yeah, fully.
Speaker A:I mean mainly access databases for sure.
Speaker A:We had quite a few large projects that he was working on, recurring clients, that kind of stuff.
Speaker A:But I would say that my day to day, yeah as soon as I got out of school it was learned everything you need to know about VBA code and access databases and how they work.
Speaker A:So taking a lead on that, he did a little bit of website development too back in the day.
Speaker A:Lots like Joomla Stuff and learning.
Speaker A:Joomla.
Speaker A:And WordPress and all those Backends.
Speaker A:Quite ashamed of some of the websites they put out way back then.
Speaker A:But that's just the way it goes.
Speaker A:You got to learn somewhere.
Speaker A:So, yeah, lots of learning like that.
Speaker A:And it was very much our, like, last thing we thought about it was, oh, well, since you're doing Access database, can you help us with some it?
Speaker A:Which seems weird because he was, you know, the teacher at of IT administration at the school I went to.
Speaker A:But access databases and websites were definitely our number one thing.
Speaker A:So I always joke that that's basically it.
Speaker A:I went to school for a year, then I spent two to three years just not learning, unlearning everything I was taught and learning something different.
Speaker B:I'm curious about the transition from that business to the one that it looks like today.
Speaker B:Right, yeah.
Speaker B:I'm sure that the things that the company's doing is.
Speaker B:Is very different.
Speaker B:Was that a pretty gradual transition from more database focus to taking on more network and IT type business and talk about that?
Speaker A:Yeah, I think it was pretty gradual.
Speaker A:I mean, we did start getting more and more into taking over those people's IT and then realizing anytime we had someone that we talked to with an access database, it would just naturally turn into it.
Speaker A:Almost like the opposite of what we do now.
Speaker A:So we did start getting to that.
Speaker A:And more and more obviously access became less and less popular.
Speaker A:More things are coming out to replace that.
Speaker A:So that side of the business just started to dwindle.
Speaker A:We still had our current clients and current recurring things we had to do for fixing those up.
Speaker A:But the new projects kind of started slowly, not coming in.
Speaker A:But I'd say the biggest turning point for us as a company too was the old owner, Jeff Shirley owned an apiary.
Speaker A:So he had this big need for protecting bees.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:He the bee crime was up and he lived in a rural area.
Speaker A:There was this initiative by Saskatchewan that he won.
Speaker A:So he came up with this idea of how we could protect bees, and it was the.
Speaker A:The rural crime challenge.
Speaker A:So he won that.
Speaker A:And this all led into this other product that he called Be Secure.
Speaker A:It's based on Lorawan technology.
Speaker A:And not to go too deep into the weeds of this, but that product itself was trying to help rural crime.
Speaker A:We started working the police on that kind of stuff.
Speaker A:And this whole thing just started spiraling to the outside a little bit more, where then it all sudden changed in this whole thing with cold chain monitoring.
Speaker A:Long story short, they got investors and that's when it started being apparent that he had to focus more on this side of what he was doing, and it turned into its own business and started splitting out for us.
Speaker A:So that's kind of when I would say his exit from the access database stuff also stopped my love for wanting to keep that going.
Speaker A:But I was, you know, really fortunate that being his first employee, he was always very much treating us as partners.
Speaker A:He always treated me the same, always show me the finances, show me everything, teach me how to, like, we're doing things right.
Speaker A:So I was never like, out skirted in any way.
Speaker A:Always felt part of the team and was really appreciative of getting to learn hands on.
Speaker A:Um, and eventually when he moved on like that, I was, you know, moved into the, the CEO role.
Speaker A:Um, we did have employees at this point too, but that's when I would say the biggest time came where when he exited a little bit and moved into this other company, still being the owner of this one, we kind of stopped the whole access thing and focus more on it.
Speaker B:Sounds like he treated you a partner from the beginning, even when you were just, you know, the one of the first employees.
Speaker B:Is that how you saw it from your sheet?
Speaker A:Absolutely, yeah.
Speaker A:And, and I think that's a huge part of it, is the fact that he wasn't hiding anything, you know, just completely open about absolutely everything.
Speaker A:Really helped me understand how businesses work too, because like I said, I had no formal training.
Speaker A:I mean, I went through high school, but I went to, you know, restaurant industry life for however long.
Speaker A:And then the first thing I ever did was it.
Speaker A:So I have no business background, I have no other training of any sort.
Speaker A:So just learning as I go is the whole thing for me.
Speaker B:Do you feel like you have a natural proclivity towards the business stuff or the technical stuff?
Speaker A:Yeah, definitely.
Speaker A:Now probably the business stuff is more so where I'm leaning.
Speaker A:Technical side, I, you know, I get the joke all the time from my CTO that I'm hashtag CEO.
Speaker A:I'm getting to that point where I have those.
Speaker A:Those problems that I can't deal with myself or I'm causing issues.
Speaker A:So, yeah, the technical side is.
Speaker A:Is dwindling down a bit.
Speaker A:But yeah, I've always had a love for website development, so that's still close to my heart.
Speaker A:I don't touch it anymore either though, which is.
Speaker A:Which is fine.
Speaker A:It's where I got to.
Speaker A:So I know my position, I know my place, and I know how to delegate, and that's kind of where I.
Speaker A:Where I got to be.
Speaker B:How much of the other business is still website development, software development versus managed services?
Speaker B:Like what's the percentage?
Speaker B:Is there still any left?
Speaker A:Percentages?
Speaker A:Yeah, trying to think.
Speaker A:Website development's not, not huge.
Speaker A:I would say, you know, for recurring purposes, maybe maybe 5 or 10% of our total ARR is for like maintenance packages and so on.
Speaker A:And then for the website sales maybe makes up, you know, 15% of the sales for the year.
Speaker A:Something in there.
Speaker A:Nothing, Nothing too big.
Speaker A:But I still love it.
Speaker B:It seems material.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Because those, those end up being smaller dollar amounts.
Speaker B:You probably have a lot of volume of clients.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:You probably have a lot of clients in small hosting packages.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:So we get more and more of that and definitely I use it as a, a part of our package tool.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Besides this, we do all of this, plus we're going to host your website for you and we'll do your maintenance package for you.
Speaker A:All part of your managed IT package.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So it's another bonus for them to bring it in house and, and have us host it for them.
Speaker A:So it's a great way to, you know, I get a lot of website leads.
Speaker A:You get those brought in, then you start talking about their IT and you'll be surprised how many website leads can turn into IT clients.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker B:Interesting.
Speaker A:No point in stopping it.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:You're.
Speaker B:You're kind of using website leads and development as an opportunity to transition into fully managed it.
Speaker A:Correct.
Speaker A:And it works opposite way.
Speaker A:If we bring an IT person in when they want to revamp their website, they talk to us first.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Very cool.
Speaker B:How is that translated into how you think about sales?
Speaker B:It sounds like your sales focus is going to be.
Speaker B:Is local.
Speaker B:Is that correct?
Speaker B:You're locally focused.
Speaker B:Mostly.
Speaker A:Definitely locally focused at this point.
Speaker B:Gotcha.
Speaker B:So you're locally focused.
Speaker B:And then what are the types of sales activities?
Speaker B:Because that six employees, you probably don't have a full time, full time salesperson.
Speaker B:It's probably you.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, it's definitely me.
Speaker A:For all the sales activities, we did have an outsourced BDR doing cold calling for a while.
Speaker A:That actually worked quite well.
Speaker A:We did get quite a few leads.
Speaker A:I had really good strategic lists of who I wanted to go after.
Speaker A:I found out that cold calling with something in common is, is way better than just cold calling.
Speaker A:So while we saying, hey, we're part of this together, we're here, we're, you know, located right beside you, whatever it might be, I found that people are more intrigued to speak to you.
Speaker A:So that, that really worked well for us for, for a while.
Speaker A:But yeah.
Speaker B:What were the, what were the stats on that, I'm curious, like, what did that cost?
Speaker B:Did you, did you.
Speaker B:How many leads did you get a month?
Speaker B:Did you have any, any deeds there?
Speaker A:Yeah, off the top of my head.
Speaker A:That's tough.
Speaker A:Let's see here.
Speaker A:It was quite, quite pricey for Canadian dollars.
Speaker A:I'll tell you how much.
Speaker A:I think we paid around 5,500amonth.
Speaker A:And I would say out of it, we probably closed about 20 grand mrr in new.
Speaker A:New leads before we parted ways.
Speaker B:And that was over like, how many months?
Speaker A:That was six months.
Speaker B:Okay, so invested 30 grand and got 20 grand of MRR.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker B:That's a, that's really good.
Speaker A:Yeah, it was great return on investment.
Speaker A:So I guess the question will be why did we stop?
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:I think the biggest thing for us at the time is just wanting to.
Speaker A: When you look at: Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:That's a local employee.
Speaker A:So for me, idea is and still is.
Speaker A:And we just kind of part of ways recently.
Speaker A:So the plan will be to bring someone in house in that role.
Speaker A:Kind of learned everything I need to know about cold calling and how they work things and implement that system.
Speaker A:I was able to build, you know, videos and playbooks on all that kind of stuff.
Speaker A:So the plan is to bring someone in house, teach on this, and kind of have them do that and maybe some other tasks as well.
Speaker A:I just figure it's a good, a good opportunity to bring someone in and have someone else take over some of the workload.
Speaker B:Like you felt it was successful enough where you want to invest in it internally and have it become like a, a core function of what you guys do rather than outsource it.
Speaker A:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker B:Wow, that's pretty impressive.
Speaker B:I think people will be surprised at that because a lot of what I hear from cold callers or from people that are doing cold calling is, oh, it.
Speaker B:It didn't work.
Speaker B:Oh, you know, I think at the end of the day, I think you hit it on nail on the head.
Speaker B:Is the, the focus and, and having something that's relative to the client, whether that's location, end industry, whatever, like there's got to be some commonality or no one's going to care.
Speaker A:100.
Speaker A:I mean, we're a little bit lucky that we're in a technology park, so that's where we rent our space.
Speaker A:So the first thing I did was just give them a, a list of everybody else that's in this park.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And just say, hey, we're Also in the same building as you.
Speaker A:We're in the same park as you.
Speaker A:Whatever.
Speaker A:It might be easy lead.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker A:And that was great.
Speaker A:More so.
Speaker A:Not even just for getting clients, but just to introduce us to absolutely everybody, like, anybody that wanted to meet.
Speaker A:Say hi.
Speaker A:Hey.
Speaker A:Oh, actually, we have a lot in common.
Speaker A:You know, there's an ERP company that we now bounce, you know, leads off of.
Speaker A:Didn't even know they existed, like that kind of thing.
Speaker A:You know what I mean?
Speaker A:So a lot of opportunities for working together with other people.
Speaker A:And we did get, you know, new business from IT as well.
Speaker A:Another good tip, I would say, is, like, if you're part of a chamber of commerce or any other business association near you, get that list, give it to your bdr.
Speaker A:Say, call every single one of them and say, hey, we also noticed that you're part of this business association.
Speaker A:We're looking to be a resource for you guys.
Speaker A:What are you guys doing for it?
Speaker A:Or who could I speak to regarding your it?
Speaker A:Something like that.
Speaker A:And they just.
Speaker A:I think they really like when you have something in common, it seems more approachable than just a straight cold call.
Speaker A:It's like, I notice you guys are part of this as well.
Speaker A:We have something in common.
Speaker B:Hi, I'm Ben Tigelar, the host of MSP Owner podcast and the CEO of Datateller, an IT managed service provider with 35 employees.
Speaker B:The mission of this podcast is simple.
Speaker B:To have authentic conversations with IT owners about their journey, how it started, the challenges they faced, and where they're going next.
Speaker B:Every episode, I personally walk away with a new actionable item to strengthen my own business.
Speaker B:But a quick word about my company, Datatel.
Speaker B:We are actively acquiring MSPs who align with our service and culture.
Speaker B:So if your company is generating between 1 and $10 million of revenue, I want to talk to you.
Speaker B:But wait, you're probably thinking, why me and why Datatel?
Speaker B:First is, I get you.
Speaker B:I understand the challenges MSP owners face.
Speaker B:Being one myself, feeling overworked, overwhelmed, constantly being on call, struggling to bring in new business.
Speaker B:I have the solutions and people in place to address these pain points.
Speaker B:Second is culture.
Speaker B:We run our business on eos entrepreneurial operating system, which has been transformative for our employees and clients alike.
Speaker B:I believe that building a great company comes down to finding and retaining great people who are in the right seats.
Speaker B:Everything else is noise.
Speaker B:If any of this resonates, it probably means we're a fit and we should be having a conversation.
Speaker B:Until then, let's get back to the show.
Speaker B:So you spend a decent amount of your time on the sales.
Speaker B:If you could bucket your own personal time as CEO into the different functional buckets, how would you like talk me feel like a day in the life?
Speaker B:I'm very curious at this size MSP where you spend your time and what you do.
Speaker A:I'd say most of my time will be the sales calls.
Speaker A:So making, making cold calls like now myself just while I'm waiting.
Speaker A:I just want to keep leads going, I don't want to stop that.
Speaker A:So I'm always doing that.
Speaker A:Lots of follow up calls.
Speaker A:Like the pipeline is very busy so always need to be continuously doing that.
Speaker A:Just getting ready for sales presentations, going to do sales presentations.
Speaker A:We still do those in person as much as we can.
Speaker A:Because I just love, me love meeting people and then just having, you know, coffees with prospects, coffees with people that we could work with and then just trying to respond to my email once or twice a day, see what's in there and handle things that way.
Speaker A:But yeah, a lot of it will be just strategic thinking as well, trying to plan what the future looks like for the business and you know, coming up with things like that.
Speaker B:Wow.
Speaker B:So you must have a really strong technical partner who is your cto.
Speaker A:Yeah, my CTO is Eric Yelti, who is also actually my lab partner when I went to school for that one year at it.
Speaker A:So he got a job at the Research council which was actually across the street from us.
Speaker A:So we've been, you know, hanging out, going for lunches for the last, whatever, seven, eight, nine years.
Speaker A:And then when it came to time when Jeff was willing to sell the business, that's when I asked Eric if he's willing to leave his comfy government job and, and come over and take a chance.
Speaker A:So yeah, he came over and helped me purchase the company and we, we took over together that way.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:One of the challenges that a lot of MSPs in this size range face is that the owner is stuck doing the operations.
Speaker B:And it sounds like you're not really doing a lot of that, which is really unique.
Speaker B:How do you guys structure that so that that can happen?
Speaker B:Is it, is it your model and how you've deployed things with.
Speaker B:Why do you think that others have that problem and you don't?
Speaker A:I don't know.
Speaker A:I, I think half of it is that I was lucky to bring in somebody at that role in a partnership role where he actually has an investment in the company as well.
Speaker A:And I know that I can trust him not to leave and that he's going to run everything, that kind of thing.
Speaker A:He is technically strong like he was, you know, working in IT for the last eight years.
Speaker A:Unlike me doing access databases and websites and forgetting everything.
Speaker A:So having him come in and take over was great as soon as he did.
Speaker A:You know, we were still smaller at the time for sure.
Speaker A:I think we had like one other staff member, so it was just three of us.
Speaker A:But I let him kind of control the help desk.
Speaker A:I say to him like, the help desk is yours.
Speaker A:Those are your staff, you deal with it.
Speaker A:I will be part of the hiring process still and, and meet them, whatever might be, but I want to make sure that that's his baby and he controls it and rip that band aid off as soon as I can.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Just.
Speaker A:I don't want to be part of it.
Speaker A:I don't want to hear about it.
Speaker A:I mean, I do.
Speaker A:I'm just kidding about that, but you know what I mean.
Speaker B:But really you don't.
Speaker A:Yeah, I don't want to get assigned tickets anymore, nothing like that.
Speaker A:And I really don't.
Speaker A:Like I get assigned a ticket if it is something very random that needs my attention.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:But are you doing account management too?
Speaker B:Or is that on your CTO's lab?
Speaker A:Actually, no, we.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So we do have a new hire for a client success manager.
Speaker A:We got her four, three or four months ago.
Speaker A:So we brought someone in to handle that as well.
Speaker A:So she's going to be doing all of my business reviews and annual reviews and 1 month reviews.
Speaker A:We got lots of different kind of things that we started planning like bringing onboarding treats.
Speaker A:We got, you know, goodie bags for the employees when we bring them the help desk buttons.
Speaker A:So we bring them on site.
Speaker A:We give them the one on one training.
Speaker A:We say, hey, everybody drop it off their desk, say hello.
Speaker A:She does all that.
Speaker A:And then she'll be also doing.
Speaker A:Yeah, planning the business reviews, getting all the information together and then we'll go together and deal with that stuff.
Speaker A:So she'll be doing the client management, which is great.
Speaker A:She's doing the ordering of the hardware, being the first connection now with our point of contacts.
Speaker A:So one more thing off my plate.
Speaker B:Another thing after your plate, that's.
Speaker B:That's huge.
Speaker B:And then you can focus more on sales.
Speaker B:Exactly where do you feel like if you look good over the next few months, it sounds like your main focus is going to be on sales.
Speaker B:Is that where you think the biggest opportunity is?
Speaker B:Or do you have operational stuff that you all have to figure out before you kind of get to the next.
Speaker A:Level, I think it's a, a good mix operationals.
Speaker A:That's, that's probably my biggest weakness.
Speaker A:And I, I mean I'm not gonna, not gonna hide that.
Speaker A:That's one thing.
Speaker A:Especially without, you know, like I said, no business background, no, no technical background like that in, in working any of these businesses before having that internal operation set up properly has always been my, my biggest gripe, I think, and something I really want to get good at.
Speaker A:So you know, KPIs, things like that, I always thought those were, you know, fooey things that I didn't really care about.
Speaker A:But I can see now that if you're going to grow, you probably do need those KPIs in place and you might as well do it early because it makes it probably a lot easier than having to figure it all out down the road.
Speaker A:So that's one thing that we're lacking.
Speaker A:It's probably internal KPIs and tracking that kind of stuff for, for real, I guess, outputs on, on how everyone's doing as well.
Speaker A:But yeah, I'd say between that and, and sales, obviously I need to find somebody to keep doing the cold calls and, and building the lists and getting the leads and, and things like that.
Speaker A:But I think being the salesperson is key and I think all business owners kind of in our, our stage needs to understand that they are the salesperson.
Speaker A:I don't think hiring a salesperson at our size or anything below our size is the right move, personally.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:Valid, valid position for sure.
Speaker B:So what does your technical team look like?
Speaker B:It sounds like you.
Speaker B:Do you have a, you have your CTO and then a few technicians, engineers or what does that, what does that look like?
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, we have three techs.
Speaker A:So just our CTO and three techs at this point.
Speaker A:Like a level one, level two, level three.
Speaker A:Ish.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:And no, no.
Speaker B:Have you run into issues as it relates to coverage or, you know, people out on vacation and not being able to like if you had constraints around the operations at all.
Speaker A:Yeah, I'd say we, we are probably feeling a little bit right now.
Speaker A:So we are, we got an interview today.
Speaker A:We're looking for a fourth tech.
Speaker A:Absolutely.
Speaker A:But I wouldn't say it's, it's been so bad that, you know, we've been worried.
Speaker A:But I definitely want to get to the point where we're supposed to be.
Speaker A:We're a proactive managed IT company.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So the idea is that we don't have as many tickets as we do.
Speaker A:We need our techs Working behind the scenes and, and trying to get at least things for us even smoothed out more.
Speaker A:So yeah, I think one more tech will, will definitely help with that.
Speaker B:It sounds like you are, you're selling mostly to, to local clients.
Speaker B:Yeah, I'm always really interested to hear from a sales perspective like how are you differentiating versus your competitors?
Speaker B:I think that's a hot topic that people come up, especially those that are local providers.
Speaker B:How are you like, do you, are you winning because you're showing up first when they have a pain point or, or are you offering something within your package or solution that really is truly unique?
Speaker A:Yeah, I think the unique, the unique part, I think we need to make sure obviously a couple things.
Speaker A:One, that they are not in a race to the bottom.
Speaker A:They're not price, price heavy.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Like that's.
Speaker A:If that's all they're after, then we're going to lose every day.
Speaker A:And I always tell them that in the first time appointment and I think it's setting expectations right.
Speaker A:Like, so I don't know if anyone's ever done Sandler training but like the upfront contracts and things like that, it is really about being clear about what you're doing so you don't waste time.
Speaker A:And that's one thing that I've learned over the years is just to stop early, you know, have that first time appointment 10, 15 minutes and if you can already tell that they're very much leaning towards, you know, we just want something to replace our brake fix and as cheap as humanly possible.
Speaker A:I'm going to be like, we're not the right fit for you.
Speaker A:Let's move on.
Speaker A:You know, we, we can go, we can part as friends and whatever, but we're just not going to be the right fit.
Speaker B:Where's the edge of where it becomes too cheap to even try to.
Speaker B:They need some education to understand what the value is that they're getting from you in your mind from a dollar per seat perspective.
Speaker A:Yeah, I guess a couple things.
Speaker A:I guess just making sure you ask the right questions during that first time appointment too.
Speaker A:So just figuring out are they, are they aware of cyber security?
Speaker A:Like how serious do they take it?
Speaker A:Do they have their own liability insurance?
Speaker A:Things like that is, is kind of key just how big they are, you know, if they use the terms that we're just a startup a lot, I always get that one.
Speaker A:It seems to be like one of the biggest cop outs I can hear is but we're just a startup so we don't have a lot of money when they're like 15 employees, you know, much bigger than us.
Speaker A:And I'm like, I don't, I don't understand what a startup means in your head.
Speaker A:But yeah, you really got to get past that because, you know, we have two personal financial companies that they come to us and they just say, we just want you to secure our stuff.
Speaker A:Like, we understand how scary it is and we don't want our client stuff out there.
Speaker A:So I bring lots of examples like that where it's just, it's not about your size, like, ever.
Speaker A:It's just how much do you actually care about having a full managed IT package and everyone taking care of you?
Speaker A:So we only have one package.
Speaker A:And that's the other thing is we have one offering, so we're not going to be for everybody.
Speaker A:We're very boutique, a bit more prime pricing.
Speaker A:And that's what I always say is that we have like what you're going to need.
Speaker A:And it's, it's, yeah, it's just fully inclusive of a whole bunch of different features.
Speaker A:So our whole thing is just giving them peace of mind, making it seamless, making them, you know, be able to sleep at night and have that one person to call for everything.
Speaker A:Vendor point of contacts, whatever it might be.
Speaker A:We want to sit on the phone with your ISP for two hours while you get back to work, whatever it might be.
Speaker A:You know what I mean?
Speaker A:Just adding as much value as we possibly can into one package.
Speaker A:Because that for us as a business for growing, I mean, there's the downside where you say to yourself, this doesn't look great from a scaling perspective, because, yeah, absolutely, we could be bringing in a good, better, best package and get.
Speaker A:We could, you know, for the last 20 or whatever we've lost over the years, I'm sure they all would have said yes to a good package and then we'd be having them dragging along and maybe upselling to them over the years.
Speaker A:But for us, it's just.
Speaker A:No.
Speaker A:We want to stick to people.
Speaker A:That's not your model.
Speaker B:You want to focus on the premium high end.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:You're okay with letting the medium and low end of the market go.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And if, you know, you're saying that maybe I have a small amount of text for what we're doing, and I didn't realize that if that's true, but maybe that is part of it too is it's a much easier for our text to understand one package.
Speaker A:Every client has the exact same thing, the exact same tools, the exact same level of Service.
Speaker A:There is no which client has this and that and many different things to worry about.
Speaker B:Yeah, I think you're doing pretty well on the head count.
Speaker B:A million six and five employees.
Speaker B:That's well below what the, what the typical industry average is.
Speaker B:I would have expected 7 to 7 to 9.
Speaker B:So it means you're doing something right.
Speaker B:You have things packaged properly or you're, you know, your pricing is higher than the average market.
Speaker B:That's kind of what that suggests, which it probably is.
Speaker A:And, and I love, you know, our, I think our average seat right now is 256 per seat.
Speaker A:And that's you know, in, in Saskatchewan.
Speaker A:So I don't know a lot of people, you know.
Speaker B:And that's two local clients.
Speaker B:You're selling a $256 a month correct package average.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, that's our average seat price currently.
Speaker A:And yeah, it's just, it's all about putting that, that value emphasis.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Like really showing them break down, break down everything you're doing.
Speaker A:Show them exactly what value you're bringing, why you're different than everybody else.
Speaker B:And how do you do that in a, are you thinking about in a 30 minute discovery or pitch meeting, what, what does that look like when you're talking to, when you're talking to a client, you're going through that?
Speaker A:Yeah, I mean the biggest thing is education 100.
Speaker A:You got to educate them on the differences between break fix, traditional MSPs and, and what you do.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So we've always done the same thing where we are all inclusive, absolutely everything.
Speaker A:We don't do the ad move changes, we include a computer through us and if it takes two hours to set up, that's covered.
Speaker A:There's no changes that way.
Speaker A:Our model's a little bit different than everybody else too.
Speaker A:Where we don't have a per seat, per device pricing, we actually sell the organization as a whole.
Speaker A:So yes, our cost in the background, we add it all up, we figure out what the price is after we do the discovery and then we say this is it.
Speaker A:This is your 1 line item for your organization.
Speaker A:We've put a really good margin in place and this helps us pad it so that hey, we're all about budget and predictability.
Speaker A:This is your price for, you know, the foreseeable year until we have the annual review.
Speaker A:What I really want is if they go up by one or two people hiring new people, I don't want to change their price on them.
Speaker A:I want to be well padded that it doesn't really matter.
Speaker A:So this is good for them, they can see a path to growth.
Speaker A:And at that one year Mark will review it and say, okay, how have you guys grown?
Speaker A:You've, you've added two new people.
Speaker A:This is a new service fee.
Speaker A:Let's go to the next year.
Speaker A:Um, but we always do three year agreements to start.
Speaker A:But during the annual time that's when we'll revise, that's when we'll double check what's happened.
Speaker A:But I think they really like that too.
Speaker A:I, I don't know.
Speaker A:That's, that's one thing I've always done is just put it into one bulk price.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Does your package also include licensing as well?
Speaker B:Like, like Microsoft licensing?
Speaker B:It's all just built in.
Speaker A:So I always say that too.
Speaker A:I say, you know, we're, our pricing might look bigger but we're bringing everything together into one.
Speaker A:We're not doing, you know, an invoice for Microsoft licensing, an invoice for remote support invoice or backups, an invoice.
Speaker A:And a lot of time that's what we get from clients is they'll come to us and they'll give us the six pages of what they currently got.
Speaker A:And I'll be like, yeah, well they look cheaper.
Speaker A:But when you add up like all the invoices plus your website, plus your whatever, you know, we're taking over all of that.
Speaker A:It's just this is your price for it, right.
Speaker A:This is your new, your new expense line to budget for.
Speaker A:So we, we bring that in like that and yeah, it's, it's been good for us that way.
Speaker B:I found it really interesting, your price point, your size, your employee count it really you're doing something right clearly as it relates to it.
Speaker B:But, but have you, do you feel like you're going to continue along this the.
Speaker B:So it sounds like 250 bucks at the high end and then you probably view the mid range price between like 150 and 200 or like what do you do is medium and low as you have come across competitors obviously.
Speaker B:Do you know what the pricing is locally in Saskatchewan, like between those tiers?
Speaker A:Yeah, I would say it's probably in that $150 range is probably where you're looking.
Speaker A:You know I just, I, we just got one from a prospect where they're, they had some hourly rates from Rico.
Speaker A:Rico's like a, a big company but they, they acquired one of the MSPs here and they're charging 90 bucks an hour still.
Speaker A:And I thought that was pretty crazy.
Speaker A:So I'm not, wow, sure we can not.
Speaker B:Sure.
Speaker A:We can do that for at least.
Speaker B:What is your rock?
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:Right now, ours is 200 an hour for break fix.
Speaker A:If we do any break fix, which we don't, which is why I can put it so high.
Speaker A:Because it's just, I don't know, we, you know, we never do it.
Speaker A:So I just throw it up there just to show more premium pricing, allow it to reflect also on what we do.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:Wow, that's incredible.
Speaker B:90 bucks an hour.
Speaker A:Yeah, it's still.
Speaker A:They're a little bit behind on that.
Speaker A:That size, but yeah, it is hard with the.
Speaker A:The pricing.
Speaker A:Exactly.
Speaker A:We always come in, we always have the conversation where we are, you know, much more than what everyone else was saying.
Speaker A:So you really got to sell them on the value.
Speaker A:The relationship approach is big.
Speaker A:We always talk about that.
Speaker A:You're not going to be a number.
Speaker A:You know, you actually get a tech when you call.
Speaker A:There's no auto tenant, no triaging, nothing like that.
Speaker A:And then the help desk button, honestly, that thing itself, like, I know.
Speaker A:You know, Ernest talks about that too.
Speaker A:And you guys have it.
Speaker A:But it's funny how that is such a.
Speaker A:A game changer in people's minds when you talk about, isn't this going to save you a lot of time?
Speaker A:Like, there's no.
Speaker A:We're not going to be calling you right away, and we're going to know exactly what computer you're on and the diagnostic information at the time, and they're just like, wow, so cool.
Speaker B:It's funny because it allows the engineers to get what they always wanted, which.
Speaker B:Just send me your information.
Speaker B:I don't want to talk to you so I can do the research and come in and just solve your problem right away.
Speaker B:Yeah, no, you know what it is?
Speaker B:It's.
Speaker B:It is an.
Speaker B:It is an incredible product, and it's a really good marketing tool.
Speaker B:We bring one around with us.
Speaker B:So it's like, this is why.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And it's an embodiment of.
Speaker B:Of what you represent from a customer service perspective, I think.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:We bring it on every pitch, and exactly what people want back is their time.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:They don't want to be sitting on hold with IT support.
Speaker A:So that's what we say is we're.
Speaker A:We're trying to keep you off the phone with us as much as possible.
Speaker A:We're trying not to send you that email that asks you seven questions, and you got to think about when you want to respond.
Speaker A:It's like we get all the information we need and hopefully we're going to solve it before we call you.
Speaker A:And they love it.
Speaker A:So just putting as many spins on that, like, what is it?
Speaker A:I don't know anybody else doing that here, you know, that's what's different about us.
Speaker B:What is very curious about what your discovery call looks like when you're talking to initial prospect for which they've indicated a general interest.
Speaker B:Like, what does that look like?
Speaker B:How long is it?
Speaker B:What does it consist of?
Speaker A:So, you know, we do a couple different things.
Speaker A:I mean, I always say the FTA, the first time appointment will be 15 minutes.
Speaker A:If it is going by really quick and they're like prepared, they're coming out with all their numbers and they look like they're just ready for a sales presentation.
Speaker A:I'll sometimes just skip that discovery call.
Speaker A:You know, in our statement of work and things like that too, we always do have the thing saying if we discover more things then the pricing will change and that always works out fine.
Speaker A:So what we used to do as well was like the cybersecurity risk assessment.
Speaker A:We used to mandatory do that before we'd engage with anybody.
Speaker A:So we'd know exactly what's in their infrastructure.
Speaker A:It was also another paid project and gave them good details.
Speaker A:And if they didn't want to move on with us, that's fine.
Speaker A:You know, at least they have a project, they can use that for something else.
Speaker A:But since we stopped doing that, the FTA and then if we need more information.
Speaker A:I still love to go on site.
Speaker A:I know it's a bit of a time suck.
Speaker A:I mean, Saskatchewan's not bad getting around my city.
Speaker A:I can get anywhere in like six minutes.
Speaker A:So it's not, not crazy, right?
Speaker A:But I love to go on site and love to meet people and I think that if you were to count how many sales pitches I've done on teams or.
Speaker A:Yeah, basically on teams versus going in person and actually meeting people and having that kind of thing, it would be a lot more, a lot more close if you actually go on site.
Speaker B:And so really you're doing a 15 minute, like, how do you do a real discovery in 15 minutes and talk about your model?
Speaker A:Like you don't, you don't.
Speaker A:That's the thing.
Speaker A:You have your 15 minutes and you kind of let it flow into 30 minutes if you need to.
Speaker A:You just see how good it's going.
Speaker A:But usually in the first 15 minutes you can definitely tell whether it's going to work out or not.
Speaker A:You can decide to accent early or, or not.
Speaker A:We're, we're very like, we're Very.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And maybe that's where we let things go is if people are like on Google Workspace or whatever else and they're like adamant they're not leaving Google Workspace, it's not going to work for us, you know, And I'll say that, yeah.
Speaker B:Yeah, that's completely true.
Speaker B:I think it's bridging the gap between if someone's on Google Workspace, then it's like, well, we're on Microsoft.
Speaker B:This is why.
Speaker B:This is the environment, this is the platform benefits that you get.
Speaker B:And they're already using Excel and all of this other stuff that will integrate beautifully into the platform.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So sometimes it's that education piece I think is what you're, what you're talking about.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:If they're not willing to get educated and see what the right solution is, then they're probably not a great client.
Speaker A:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:You bring it up right away and that's the key.
Speaker A:And we did have that with a new prospect that turned into a client.
Speaker A:And that one was great.
Speaker A:I mean I had that one for first time appointment to closed.
Speaker A:We did that in four days.
Speaker A:It was great.
Speaker A:But same thing.
Speaker A:They were on Google Workspace and they agreed to do a migration and everything.
Speaker A:But that was the first thing I brought up.
Speaker A:As soon as they said they're in Google Workspace, I said, are you open to moving to Microsoft?
Speaker A:And they said, yeah, I would definitely look at it.
Speaker A:So if they do that, great.
Speaker A:If they say absolutely not, then not going to work for us because I won't, I, I won't go back to that whole idea of just saying yes to whatever and kind of ruining, ruining what we do internally.
Speaker B:Was, was the business previously like that?
Speaker B:You were doing everything for everyone?
Speaker A:Oh yeah.
Speaker A:And I think everyone's got to start there, so I don't want to.
Speaker B:How many years ago was that?
Speaker A: or us I would say that it was: Speaker A: So: Speaker A:We broke off, started again from scratch and then that is when we were, we were totally break fix access database.
Speaker A: But: Speaker A:And that's where I would say I joined the tech tribe myself.
Speaker A:I read a lot of books like Package, like Nigel's books and things like that.
Speaker A:Ernest himself had like two hours of calls with Ernest, which probably just changed my whole perspective on everything.
Speaker A:And I'll always be thankful, always be thankful for that.
Speaker A:That was awesome.
Speaker A:He really set me in the, in the different direction and showed me kind of a different light of everything.
Speaker A:So that itself, I, I went through the, managed it the good, better, best, learned everything I need to know about the tech tribe and what they had to teach.
Speaker A:And then, you know, just from a complete newbie that way, put those together, finally got some people on board.
Speaker A:And of course, at some point you got to say yes to everybody.
Speaker A:You feel like to get ahead, you got to get just clients.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And you will drop your price and you will, whatever you need to do, just be like, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker A:And it does help.
Speaker A:It does get you to the start.
Speaker A:But then at some point, you have to tell yourself that it's just not worth it anymore and you need to.
Speaker A:Need to find where that number is.
Speaker A:And I don't know, maybe that number is different for absolutely everybody.
Speaker A:But at some point you're going to realize that you need that one package and stick to it.
Speaker A:And I'll always remember, like, flip flopping between this premium package and the other packages, and then just one day, you know, finally pitch that premium package to a client.
Speaker A:You know, you're always scared.
Speaker A:You're like, this is a crazy number.
Speaker A:No one's ever going to say yes.
Speaker A:And you went there and I pitch it to them in an hour, and they were blown away and they signed like an hour later.
Speaker A:And then that's when I finally got that confidence side.
Speaker A:I'm like, oh, like with people that actually get it and want this, like, those are the clients that I want to, you know, you don't want the people that, that don't respect what you do.
Speaker B:And that is so hard to do if you haven't made those sales yet.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Because you haven't seen that.
Speaker B:And so you're just saying, oh, I'm going to go and do this, and why do I deserve this?
Speaker B:This level.
Speaker A:Correct.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:How did you get over it?
Speaker B:You just had this mindset of like, I'm just going to try it out and see what happens.
Speaker A:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:It's risky because.
Speaker A:And before that too, I did pitch that to somebody else and they, you know, laugh me out of the building or whatever.
Speaker A:So, you know, you think to yourself, I should have, I should have done that.
Speaker A:And then you do the worst thing possible where you pitch them this and then they say, oh, the pricing's too much.
Speaker A:So then you email them back with like three different, better offers that all of a sudden came out of nowhere, which you've always had.
Speaker A:You just didn't want to pitch it, because you know, now you're just scrambling and look desperate and that's the worst thing you could possibly do.
Speaker A:Um, so that one like really hurt and it got me really down on the whole thing.
Speaker A:And then once again, you know, try it again on this other one.
Speaker A:And they signed within two hours.
Speaker A:And I was like, wow.
Speaker A:So if someone can get it that fast, there's clearly gonna be more people out there that'll be, you know, understanding what we do and want.
Speaker A:This level of service, it's just finding the right partners.
Speaker B:Have you found what do your typical clients look like and have you started to sell into certain types and types of clients?
Speaker B:You're like, okay, these are good ones.
Speaker B:They, this is what they look like is, is that started to become a, a more consistent trend.
Speaker A:Yeah, I would say most of our clients, I guess the biggest, the biggest thing we have would be transportation, logistics, construction industry and financial industry or some of our bigger ones for sure.
Speaker A:Those ones seem to just be quickly like yeses.
Speaker A:They, they want this kind of stuff.
Speaker A:They want us to take over all these things.
Speaker A:Lowest ones.
Speaker A:I still find healthcare services are just the absolute hardest ones to get into for some reason.
Speaker A:Even, even non profits.
Speaker A:I love selling to non profits.
Speaker A:I think that they are getting more and more into this.
Speaker A:You know, they get the, the benefit of the super cheap business, premium licensing and that brings their rates down, but they get all of these extra features and we get to handle all these things.
Speaker B:Yeah, we have, we have a few non, non profit clients as well.
Speaker B:I know an MSP who focuses.
Speaker B:They're in one city in California and they focus exclusively on non profits.
Speaker B:And they're two and a half, $3 million MSP.
Speaker A:Yeah, perfect.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And they're growing and doing really well and just focus in that area.
Speaker A:Yeah, Nonprofits love their budget.
Speaker A:So it works and works nicely when I give them one solid number and that's what they know that they get for next year.
Speaker B:Very interesting insight.
Speaker B:I feel like you're, are, are you feeling like maybe at some point you're going to verticalize or are you going to continue?
Speaker B:There's just a lot of Runway on the local side.
Speaker A:Yeah, I think for now there's still local.
Speaker A:I mean, there's so many, so many competitors too though, in such a small area.
Speaker A:It's funny that way, but there's a lot of opportunity here and I know that if, if we did take our time and maybe started stretching our legs a little bit and maybe looking outwards, you could probably grow a little faster too.
Speaker A:So I think the first goal is just still target local.
Speaker A:We haven't done enough of that and make sure we get our name out there more and attend more events and just get more well known.
Speaker A: pecially when we took over in: Speaker A:I feel like the first year was just like it's time to reintroduce our business.
Speaker A:It was something the old nerd maybe didn't do a lot of with the networking side of things.
Speaker A:So it was important for me and Eric to kind of get out there and get.
Speaker A:Get involved.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Get into some of the communities that way and get on some of the boards or whatever we could do to try to just get our names out there.
Speaker B:I'm curious, what happened with the merger?
Speaker B:You said it was a failed merger.
Speaker A:Explain.
Speaker B:What does that mean?
Speaker A:Well, without going.
Speaker A:I mean it did go legal, so I'm going to go very broad.
Speaker B:Okay, yeah, stay as broad as you need.
Speaker A:But it was basically, we were.
Speaker A:Back when we were doing the access database stuff, this IT company was much better at IT than us.
Speaker A:And so what happened was we, we.
Speaker A:We merged with them because it made sense.
Speaker A:Just like we're better at the software stuff, they're better at the IT stuff.
Speaker A:They were across the hall from us.
Speaker A:Perfect synergy.
Speaker A:And so that went through with just like a letter of intent at the time.
Speaker A:And we were there for two years.
Speaker A:And in the two years the whole agreement never got finalized.
Speaker A:It was just still stuck in that letter of intent.
Speaker A:I don't.
Speaker A:This is where I was also still an employee and just kind of.
Speaker B:Oh, you didn't have full purview to the situation, what was happening.
Speaker A:Sure, I was a part owner in Riverside Tech at the time, before we got to that part.
Speaker A:But as soon as we moved into them, I was treated as an employee, not allowed to do anything, that kind of thing, even though I had a small ownership percent.
Speaker A:So it was very.
Speaker A:I was very outskirted on it.
Speaker A:Just a lot of things like that.
Speaker A:They.
Speaker A:They lost a big client like the day after we.
Speaker A:We merged like their biggest clients.
Speaker A:So that kind of just reshuffled the numbers, you know, lots of things like that.
Speaker A:And then it was just a downfall of.
Speaker A:Of things that never got executed after that.
Speaker A:So the whole agreement never did happen in the end.
Speaker A:And then we're just like might as well split and start over again.
Speaker A:So just me and Jeff and.
Speaker A:And left.
Speaker A:And left our.
Speaker A:Our one employee there there and.
Speaker A:And restarted again.
Speaker A:Yeah, sounds.
Speaker B:Sounds a little dramatic.
Speaker A:There was some Drama, I'm sure.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker B:And, and, and it's.
Speaker B:You and Jeff are the owners now.
Speaker B:You guys are the sole, the sole owners of business.
Speaker A:Jeff, Someone that sold it to me.
Speaker B:Oh, see, you're the sole owner now with Eric.
Speaker A:Eric did purchase a small portion of it as well, so.
Speaker A:But a primary winner.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker B:Wow, that's a pretty, pretty amazing.
Speaker B:Pretty cool that this is your first job and then you ended up buying the company and now, I mean, you're at a million 6 of revenue.
Speaker B:What is, what does growth look like for you guys over the next couple of years?
Speaker B:Like do you have specific targets in mind of where you want to get to and what you want the company to look like a year or two years from now?
Speaker A:I mean, just this year I was trying to hit 250.
Speaker A:MRR would be, would be great.
Speaker A:I know it's, you know, you got to shoot big though, if you want.
Speaker A:And I think it's possible.
Speaker A:We just need to keep, keep the leads coming and keep closing.
Speaker A:And at our seed price, it shouldn't take long.
Speaker A:Just need a couple, couple bigger, bigger clients and I don't think it's too outrageous to say so.
Speaker B:So going from what, 100 to 250?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:So that's, that's 150k of MRR difference.
Speaker A:Yeah, why not?
Speaker B:So that means over 12 months you only have to sell 15,000 of MRR by yourself.
Speaker A:Yeah, See?
Speaker A:No problem.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:I want to see your pipeline.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker A:Yeah, you got to keep it busy.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:That's the thing.
Speaker A:The more leads the better.
Speaker B:So that's awesome.
Speaker B:Well, I'm excited to see where you take this.
Speaker B:You're at, you're at one of those like inflection points where, well, you've done something really unique where your team, you're actually able to spend time on growing the business because the business is operating by itself.
Speaker B:So like you're well ahead.
Speaker B:You're operating as if you're a 3 million dollar MSP right now based off of how, where you spend your time, which is, yeah, really cool.
Speaker B:It means you're gonna grow, you're gonna grow way faster than everyone else out, I guarantee it.
Speaker A:Yeah, I, I think delegating is just, oh man, it's the greatest thing ever.
Speaker B:How did you learn to delegate?
Speaker B:That's not like a natural thing that people understand.
Speaker A:It's a really good question.
Speaker A:Trying to think, you know, I've read, I've read so many books, I, I couldn't even tell you.
Speaker A:But I'm sure a lot of them talked about this stuff.
Speaker A:I mean most recently but obviously I was doing a lot of delegation before that.
Speaker A:I, I just finished Buy back your time by Dan Martel and that one has been a game changer.
Speaker A:You know it just reinforced my, my idea and I was like I'm already doing a lot of this stuff.
Speaker A:So it is all about trying to figure out what you're doing that's low hanging fruit and what's worth your time.
Speaker A:The boss trait like the website stuff.
Speaker A:I realized I shouldn't be the one and for the longest time I was the only one doing website changes.
Speaker A:Client emails in we need something changed, it's the CEO doing it because I'm the only one that owns websites.
Speaker A:So quickly axed that got, got an outsourced person to an outsourced team to help take over the small changes.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And handle with that kind of stuff.
Speaker A:So once again time's freed up.
Speaker A:I can focus on sales, that kind of thing.
Speaker A:But yeah, delegating is key and yeah, you do see too many, many things with that.
Speaker A:And I'm not sure if it's you know, you see some owners who've been in the business 20, 30 years and they still are, you know, the number one tech.
Speaker A:And I'm, I'm just not sure if it's just something they, they don't know how to delegate or they just really don't want to.
Speaker A:Maybe they love the tech so much they just never want to leave it and that's probably okay too.
Speaker A:I mean everyone wants to run their business differently.
Speaker B:Yeah, I think it's the engineer mindset.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:Like you want to yeah.
Speaker B:Complete and solve problems, you have tasks, you see things in terms of systems and you know, you, you, you keep getting drawn to it and you want to solve problems yourself because that's how you feel important and make yourself feel good and what's familiar.
Speaker B:So I think people just get in the rut of it because you have to do that.
Speaker B:When you're a half a million dollar business, you know you're the, you're the technical expert so you have to solve all those technical experts.
Speaker B:So to grow out of that is a, is a big transition.
Speaker B:So I'm thoroughly impressed at where you're at and, and where you're going to go.
Speaker B:That's really, really impressive.
Speaker A:Thank you.
Speaker A:Yeah, everyone's just gotta be brave.
Speaker A:I think that's it is, is don't be afraid to delegate because it is so much better afterwards.
Speaker A:You gotta just.
Speaker A:And I think maybe that maybe I learned early when, you know, Jeff brought me on and treated me as an equal partner all the time and was never scared to show me anything.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:He never hid anything from me.
Speaker A:So I always had that mindset of completely transparent with staff, completely transparent with Eric, and just let him, let him take it and run with it like they.
Speaker A:They someone says.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:The holy never.
Speaker A:You don't hire people smarter than you to tell them what to do.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:That's just not the reason.
Speaker A:So I'm always, I'm always good to hire people smarter than me and hope they tell me what to do.
Speaker A:That's.
Speaker A:That's the key.
Speaker A:I love to handle everything.
Speaker B:Hire people that are smarter than you.
Speaker B:I like that.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker B:Well, Nich, thanks for.
Speaker B:Thanks for coming on the podcast.
Speaker B:Super appreciate your time and digging into your background and what River City is doing.
Speaker B:Really cool stuff.
Speaker B:If folks want to get in contact with you, what's the best way to do that?
Speaker A:Yeah, well, you can reach me on LinkedIn, Mitch Ridekop, and then email me as well if you want.
Speaker A:Mitch@rivercitytech.ca.
Speaker B:Cool.
Speaker B:Thanks, Mitch.
Speaker B:Talk to you soon.
Speaker A:Awesome.
Speaker A:Thanks.
