Nick Akers (Inzo Technologies): The Art of Acquiring and Rebranding
This episode is with Nick Akers, the President and CEO of Inzo Technologies. We’re diving deep into his journey of rebranding from STL Communications to Enzo Technologies—a big move for a company that’s doing $15 million of revenue with a crew of 40.
Title: Nick Akers (Inzo Technologies): The Art of Acquiring and Rebranding
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Nick Akers, is the CEO and head man behind Inzo Technologies (formerly STL Communications). We kick things off with Nick's unexpected leap into entrepreneurship, starting with a little invention during grad school that caught the eyes of venture capitalists. From there, he transitioned into various leadership roles, including running a family-owned chemical company, where he doubled its revenue before deciding to break free and carve his own path. After a few awkward stumbles in the search fund world, Nick finally found his gem in STL Communications, which he rebranded as Enzo Technologies. This episode is packed with insights on scaling an MSP while keeping company culture intact, and Nick shares some hard-earned lessons on leadership and the importance of a solid team. If you’re looking to grow your own business, you won’t want to miss his take on value creation and the art of navigating the tricky waters of mergers and acquisitions.
We get into the nitty-gritty of MSPs, exploring Nick's strategies for rebranding STL Communications into Inzo Technologies and what it took to maintain a strong team culture amid rapid growth. Nick's journey is not just about the numbers; it’s about the people. He emphasizes the importance of listening to employees and fostering an environment where everyone feels valued. We also discuss the challenges of finding the right leadership team and how Nick approached making tough decisions to ensure the company’s future success. It’s a candid conversation filled with practical advice for anyone in the IT space or looking to scale their operations.
Lastly, we can’t forget the juicy bits about the MSP market and vendor relationships. Nick shares his candid thoughts on the less-than-ideal partnerships we often find ourselves in, especially with the rise of private equity in the tech space. He highlights the need for MSPs to be discerning about their vendor partnerships and the importance of delivering exceptional service to clients. So if you’re ready to take notes and pick up some golden nuggets for your own business, this episode is a must-listen!
Takeaways:
- Nick Ackers transitioned STL Communications into Inzo Technologies, reflecting a fresh and strategic rebranding effort.
- The company emphasizes creating a strong culture while navigating significant leadership changes after acquisition.
- Nick's approach prioritizes employee engagement and satisfaction
- The acquisition process involved shifting from a niche focus to a broader market approach in MSP services.
- Nick's leadership style draws inspiration from successful family business practices to foster a people-first workplace.
Transcript
Foreign.
Speaker B:Welcome to the MSP owner where we explore the journeys of MSP entrepreneurs building and scaling successful IT businesses.
Speaker B:Today I'm joined by Nick Ackers, President and CEO of Enzo Technologies.
Speaker B:Nick's company does $15 million of revenue with about 40 employees.
Speaker B:Today we're going to dive into his rebrand from STL Communications into Enzo Technologies, scaling in MSP while maintaining a strong culture and some lessons that he's learned throughout, you know, the company growth and leadership.
Speaker B:So excited to get into it.
Speaker B:Welcome Nick.
Speaker A:Hey Ben, how you doing?
Speaker B:Doing pretty good.
Speaker B:So why don't you kick it off by giving us a little bit of background of where'd you start off your, your professional career?
Speaker B:So we have a little bit of context here.
Speaker A:Sure.
Speaker A:So my undergraduate degree is in chemistry and so I didn't want to get a job after graduating so the natural thing to do was go to graduate school, also in chemistry.
Speaker A:So did that and just a series of events, probably got fortunate and invented something kind of cool in graduate school that got a fair amount of attention and ended up starting what became a venture capital funded company.
Speaker A:So you know, right out of graduate school I had to figure out how to license technology, get patents, start a company, hire people, lead people as the CEO, deal with investors, all this type of stuff.
Speaker A:So it was a really good and unique first experience, first career experience.
Speaker A:And then we did that for about eight years and brought on a strategic as the new majority owner and so good, decent run.
Speaker A:It was a lot of fun then from there really kind of a more normal career path.
Speaker A:So I ran business development for an engineering firm that was largely dealing with commercial and defense aerospace customers and did that for a few years.
Speaker A:Super fun job, worked with people that were way more intelligent than I am.
Speaker A:It was a really, really great experience.
Speaker A:But I think the formative years of my leadership activity was really in a family owned chemical company.
Speaker A:So it's my father in law's company.
Speaker A:So it started out there as an individual contributor but very quickly became the managing director as really like a president COO type role in terms of responsibility and was there for six or seven years.
Speaker A:We doubled the size of the business.
Speaker B:How big was that company?
Speaker A:Yeah, we got it to about 100 million by the time I left 300 employees.
Speaker A:You know, when I joined it, you know it was a great company but it really hadn't gone through that professionalization stage yet.
Speaker A:And so there was just tons of low hanging fruit that were obvious to me to go just start to professionalize the business.
Speaker A:You know these were simple Things I know it sounds simple but know, putting in budgeting processes, putting in employee review process.
Speaker A:You know, we redid the hotech stack for the business hardware, software, put together a board.
Speaker A:So I ran the board for a number of years and then just became kind of a, a natural point of I knew I'd like pushed the organization pretty hard.
Speaker A:You know, we, we had grown quite a bit.
Speaker A:The next logical step for us would have been to probably engage in some acquisitions.
Speaker A:And I just knew my father in law wasn't going to go there.
Speaker A:So you know, I had this crazy thought, I just decided to burn the boats and jump out of that.
Speaker A:I call it the velvet prison of a family business and try to go do something myself.
Speaker A:So I spent about three years in fumbling around.
Speaker A:I didn't even know what a search fund was or eta, but I was trying to buy a business and just kind of making up the process along the way until I discovered ETA and got into a more formal search fund that ultimately led to acquiring this business.
Speaker B:So you did not get an MBA and do the traditional search fund path?
Speaker B:Nope.
Speaker A:I had not a single business or.
Speaker B:Finance class in college I would love to dig into.
Speaker B:You were at the family run business, you had a key leadership position and then you decided, hey, I want to go try to buy a business, let alone a technology company.
Speaker B:Did you have a pain point or you were like I want to carve my own path or what?
Speaker B:What was your motivation there for, for seeking a change?
Speaker A:Yeah, there were a lot of things.
Speaker A:You know, I know quite a few second and third generation family business people and we all kind of have the same stories of challenges of being in a family business, especially when you're, you are the second or third generation.
Speaker A:So you know, family business is messy.
Speaker A:You know, you're discussing business at Thanksgiving and you know all that type of stuff.
Speaker A:And I think sometimes people are viewed not so much as an individual person, but like what value you can bring to the family business.
Speaker A:So there were some personal struggles, but also, you know, I was maybe 40 years old at the time, maybe 39, I don't remember.
Speaker A:But you know, I knew that my father in law was not leaving anytime soon.
Speaker A:So I didn't want to really sit around.
Speaker A:And you know, this might be a huge mistake of mine, but you know, I didn't want to sit around and just kind of like hang out around the water cooler for another 10 or 15 years.
Speaker A:That just doesn't fit my style too.
Speaker A:I'm too aggressive, like I want to go get stuff I want to grow.
Speaker A:Let's, let's go, let's go.
Speaker A:And so that just led to me wanting to go create my own path and legacy.
Speaker B:How did you end up, for those who aren't familiar, you went and raised a traditional search fund.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Can you explain what that is or what your structure was, if it's different?
Speaker B:Because I don't think people within this industry have a lot of context for what that is.
Speaker A:Yep.
Speaker A:So the traditional search fund, you basically raise a sum amount of money to cover the expenses of your search phase from a handful of investors.
Speaker A:You know, you might have half a dozen, you might have a dozen and you're, you're going to raise anywhere from, you know, 400,000 to, in my case it was about 700,000 because the model was a little bit different.
Speaker A:And so that's paying for your personal salary during typically a 24 month search period.
Speaker A:It's meant to pay for your due diligence fees leading up to the close.
Speaker A:So what I did was an accelerator based search fund with a partner called Nova Stone Capital.
Speaker A:And it, it essentially looks exactly like a normal search fund in terms of the economics for everybody involved.
Speaker A:But the pitch of the accelerator model is you come in and they just, they essentially immediately fund you.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So you don't have to go give your pitch to half a dozen investors.
Speaker A:You're giving your pitch to this Nova Stone Capital, they select you, they take.
Speaker B:The whole equity stack.
Speaker A:They.
Speaker A:So their model has evolved since I joined.
Speaker A:So I was the first searcher in North America.
Speaker A: joined in, what was it, late: Speaker A:So you know, I still have a handful of individuals on my cap table, but Nova Stone brought them all to the table and managed that whole process.
Speaker B:I see.
Speaker A:Whereas now they've gone more to what.
Speaker A:I mean it really looks like a private equity fund structure.
Speaker A:They have the fund, you know, they have limited partners that feed into it, but you just go, you get approved and you're immediately funded.
Speaker B:Got it.
Speaker B:So it reduces the, the having to raise capital like a traditional search fund would, would need to go and raise individual units from, from investors.
Speaker B:So it kind of solved, solved that.
Speaker B:And then I assume that they had some, that did they have a pretty good track record of closing deals within Europe or how did you make the jump from someone with probably not a lot of experience in the U.S.
Speaker B:yeah.
Speaker A:So there were a few things that, that made Me kind of gravitate towards their program.
Speaker A:One, they did have a track record in Europe.
Speaker A:And novastone like these other accelerators that are in place now is they also in addition to the capital they pitch other services.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So NovaStone for example had in house legal teams, in house due diligence teams to kind of do the first step of light diligence.
Speaker A:They had deal sourcing teams to help you as you build your list, to do outreach and you know, they had the in house Excel wizards.
Speaker A:So I looked at the partnership as they bring to the table some of the skill sets I don't have.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So I mentioned I didn't get an mba.
Speaker A:You know, I can't do the crazy LBO models that, that those folks can do.
Speaker A:So I viewed it as a way to improve the odds of success in closing a deal.
Speaker B:And they probably love to you because you have tons of business management experience running larger companies and you just didn't have that.
Speaker B:That typical MBA profile is my guess.
Speaker A:Well that's a fair point because their whole pitch is they partner with what they call mid career professionals so that they're not looking for the folks right out of MBA school, they're looking for people with a 10 or 20 year track record.
Speaker B:That's awesome.
Speaker B:So it's like a perfect, perfect opportunity role for someone who's in like upper management and then they can go and find a business.
Speaker B:And so you ended up, can you talk about what types of businesses you were looking for?
Speaker B:Size industry.
Speaker B:Because you ultimately bought an msp.
Speaker B:But what, what, what did the scope look like at the starting versus near the end?
Speaker A:Yeah, so I started the search with a, a hyper specific acquisition thesis and it was really leveraging my experience at the chemical company.
Speaker A:I had started an acquisition thesis while there and just took that and modified it for kind of the search fund space.
Speaker A:So I did the whole proprietary thing from the beginning.
Speaker A:Thought I would just leverage my network, which I did.
Speaker A:I had good conversations with owners, was able to get brokers to provide me with deal flow based on kind of the professional background.
Speaker A:But kind of two things happened that caused me to pivot one on, on the proprietary conversations.
Speaker A:They were just taking way too long.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So you know, you don't know if you're dealing with a serious seller, you know, and it was my own inexperience.
Speaker A:You're just, you're taking way too long before you get to a price discussion and you find that there's a mismatch.
Speaker A:But also the deals that we were getting into price alignment on whether it was a individual or brokered is the multiples at this time this was coming out of COVID were astronomical.
Speaker A:Even for a 2 million EBITDA specialty chemical company, you're looking at 8x plus.
Speaker B:It was a really hot market.
Speaker B:I mean it still is very sexy industry.
Speaker A:Yeah, it, it's a, it is a very good industry.
Speaker A:And so when I would bring these deals back to the NovaStone team, because that's where you're going to get the majority of the, the equity capital is.
Speaker A:Nobody's entering a search fund deal for 8x.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:That's just, that's not going to happen.
Speaker A:So there was a misalignment in devaluation of the, the market that I was looking at acquiring in.
Speaker A:So about six months into my search phase, I did a total pivot to industry agnostic geography agnostic and just was really looking at that typical search fund acquisition list.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So low Capex recurring revenue, you know, limited customer concentration, sticky product.
Speaker A:You know, we, we all know the list.
Speaker A:So it, it took probably three months and, and also focusing only on broker deals just exclusively.
Speaker A:And so it, it took about three months before I found this one.
Speaker A:The company was called STL Communications.
Speaker A:We found it in September.
Speaker A:I guess that was 22.
Speaker A:So my search fund started December of 21st.
Speaker A:I always get the dates confused.
Speaker A:So we found this in September 22, got under LOI basically Christmas Eve of 22 and closed in May of 23.
Speaker A:So we're getting close to two years now.
Speaker B:Was this the first MSP you looked at or had you looked at a lot of them and kind of honed in?
Speaker B:Okay, this is a, this is a great opportunity, a great space.
Speaker A:No, this, this was the first one.
Speaker B:Nice.
Speaker A:It happened to be in the town that I live in.
Speaker A:So you know, it, it got to be pretty, pretty interesting pretty fast.
Speaker B:Wow, that is amazing.
Speaker B:Considering you're doing a national search and in your hometown.
Speaker B:Were you currently living there?
Speaker B:You moved back to your hometown after you bought the company?
Speaker A:No, this is, this is, I'm in St.
Speaker A:Louis.
Speaker A:You know, I've lived here for 20 years.
Speaker A:It was.
Speaker B:What are the chances of that?
Speaker A:Well, I don't know, but I'm glad, I'm glad it worked out.
Speaker B:I mean I'm sure that.
Speaker B:Did that help during the sale process that you were actually local to the area or not really.
Speaker A:It probably did.
Speaker A:So this, the company was with a broker for probably a year before I found it.
Speaker A:And it was one of those classic search fund situations where the previous owner wanted to retire he's got a lot of hobbies, been successful, he wants to go do his thing.
Speaker A:So he needed a buyer that could come in and write the check, but also run the business.
Speaker A:And so, you know, the private equity folks that, you know, apparently looked at it, they wanted him to sign up for three years, you know, that typical playbook, and that just wasn't what he wanted.
Speaker A:So I think being local helped, you know, to connect with that owner.
Speaker A:And then, you know, being able to bring in local service providers really quickly on the due diligence and legal and all of that, it went pretty well.
Speaker B:Was it a pretty competitive process?
Speaker B:Did you have a lot of bidders, or did you feel like you were the, you know, the leading horse from the start?
Speaker A:We were.
Speaker A:We were the only ones in the deal at that time, which certainly, you know, you're gonna have to wonder what.
Speaker A:What am I missing here?
Speaker A:There's not six other people circling around.
Speaker A:And, you know, now being two years into it, you know, there wasn't anything major that we discovered that, you know, would have been a red flag.
Speaker B:Why do you think that happened?
Speaker B:Was that just the way in which the broker wanted to approach the deal?
Speaker B:Like not prospecting a bunch or just why?
Speaker A:I think the broker.
Speaker A:It was a really good broker.
Speaker A:I give the broker a lot of credit.
Speaker A:They.
Speaker A:They got this deal to the finish line.
Speaker A:They were a big help.
Speaker A:But I think the company had a very challenging story to tell.
Speaker A:So at that time, if you look at their website and their business, they have, you know, roughly a 50%, you know, traditional IT MSP business.
Speaker A:But then they've got this other part of the business that is installing and servicing a very specific product.
Speaker A:In hospitals, it's called a nurse call system.
Speaker A:So it's exactly what the name sounds like.
Speaker A:You think about a floor on a hospital and a central nurses station and all the equipment there that talks to all the equipment in the patient room, that's a nurse call system.
Speaker A:And I just don't think they were.
Speaker A:It's like, what is this company?
Speaker A:Is it an itmsp?
Speaker A:Is it a systems integrator?
Speaker A:Like, what's going on here?
Speaker A:So I just.
Speaker A:I think the story wasn't clear about who the.
Speaker A:Who the buyer should be.
Speaker B:Very interesting.
Speaker B:I feel like that resonates with my.
Speaker B:How my company was marketed as well with the broker, because it had three legs of the store, right?
Speaker B:It had VoIP, it had IT services, and then it had kind of agency.
Speaker B:So it kind of had three different business models within one.
Speaker B:And the story was very Difficult to tell.
Speaker B:And there was a lot of recurring revenue, but seemed like they were doing a whole bunch of different things for different clients.
Speaker B:And they were.
Speaker B:It just made the story more difficult to tell.
Speaker B:And then I think that also presented opportunities, right, for.
Speaker B:For us who can figure out where we want those businesses to go long term.
Speaker B:Hi, I'm Ben Tigelar, the host of MSP Owner podcast and the CEO of Datatel, 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:I'm curious about the overlap between the nurse call and the IT and communications portion of the business.
Speaker B:How much overlap was there or was it literally there?
Speaker B:Two separate, no overlapping value prop between the two?
Speaker A:That was essentially the case.
Speaker A:There was no.
Speaker A:Essentially no cross selling going on.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So we didn't have hospital nurse call customers that were also buying managed services from us.
Speaker A:And, you know, still today that's probably fairly true, although we're trying to be better about cross selling.
Speaker B:That is impressive and interesting.
Speaker B:So how did you get over the hump and figuring that out before you acquired, like in the time where you were doing diligence, how did you, what did you see in the company prior to acquiring?
Speaker B:Why were you so excited?
Speaker A: company had been around since: Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So really long history.
Speaker A:Some really just on.
Speaker A:On the IT side, amazing customers.
Speaker A:You know, if I Rattled off the names, they would be recognized, you know, in long term customer relationships, you know, the really good gross margins.
Speaker A:So the financials look good and you know, frankly we got a really good price.
Speaker A:So, you know, you're kind of buying down some of that risk with a really good entry multiple.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:And because it had a bunch of nurse call, I'm sure that the recurring revenue is lower than a typical MSP or what was the percent when you acquired 40, 50% recurring?
Speaker A:It's, it was just a little over 50% recurring.
Speaker B:Okay, that's, that's still solid though.
Speaker B:Yeah, that's, that's, that's awesome.
Speaker B:And then so you, you acquired the business.
Speaker B:Was there any red flags that you saw prior to close that ended up not being a big deal, like things you were really worried about and they were like, ended up not being a challenge?
Speaker A:That's a good question.
Speaker A:I don't know if we had that.
Speaker A:We kind of had the opposite of, you know, things that became red flags after closing and nothing major.
Speaker A:But you know, at this point I've basically replaced the whole executive team.
Speaker A:So the, the leadership team that was here at closing is not the leadership team that, that I have now.
Speaker A:That's been a big improvement for me personally and I think for the business going forward.
Speaker B:How did you approach coming in?
Speaker B:Is there stuff that you can share about the, that experience, coming into the company, recognizing that this might not be the right leadership team and then how do you handle that over the course of the next year?
Speaker A:Yeah, it was a lot to deal with.
Speaker A:You know, I certainly came into, you know, the first days and months as, you know, wanting to learn and you know, we all know the playbook, like don't break anything.
Speaker A:So trying to be very collaborative and inclusive.
Speaker A:But also, you know, in the search fund model, you have to drive that increase valuation.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:I mean, this isn't, I don't own this 100% myself, so it's not, it's not something I'm going to sit on for 20 years.
Speaker A:You know, investors are going to look for a return.
Speaker A:So when, you know, very quickly realize that my vision is not going to be executed with this team and go at the pace that, that we need to had to start making those changes.
Speaker A:And that is probably some of the more stressful things I've ever had to deal with professionally.
Speaker A:I think it was all handled with grace and respect for the folks and in one case after the fact, I was thanked.
Speaker A:It was a relief to the individual.
Speaker A:So I think it worked out the right way for everybody.
Speaker B:And was this the first time that you really had to.
Speaker B:I mean, obviously you had like, let people go in the past, but this is a different beast where, you know, you're letting go kind of the core fabric sometimes of the company you feel like maybe, but then also you're having to deal with, you know, backfilling it as well.
Speaker B:Was it.
Speaker B:Or were you, were you prepared in your prior work experience to like, handle this or this was all another level of, of, of intensity?
Speaker A:Well, you know, for better or worse, I have had to let people go.
Speaker A:You know, even from the very first that.
Speaker A:That company I founded.
Speaker A:And it's.
Speaker A:I think I've heard somebody say, if you enjoy it, you're probably a psychopath.
Speaker A:So we, you know, it's never, it's never an enjoyable thing, but, you know, it's our response.
Speaker A:You have to do it.
Speaker A:I mean, you can't, you can't not do these things.
Speaker A:I think the added layer of complexity here was, you know, these people had been with the business for a very long time.
Speaker A:So, you know, how do you, how do you address that with the rest of the organization?
Speaker A:That was hard.
Speaker A:It.
Speaker A:It took a while to get over that and, and make sure people weren't completely freaked out.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And it's, I mean, part of it is you're coming into a new organization and you have to build trust and then you've got to make some really tough necessary changes and then you have to rebuild that trust again.
Speaker B:And I'm.
Speaker B:I'm guessing, I mean, that's what I, you know, I experienced a little that of that as well.
Speaker B:Yeah, that's a, that's.
Speaker B:That sounds like it was, sounds like it's been good for everyone involved.
Speaker B:The employees are probably happier who are doing something else, and you've got a company who's aligned with where you're going.
Speaker B:Have you, have you tried to.
Speaker B:So it sounds like you had some transition from a managerial perspective.
Speaker B:And then I did see that you guys made a big brand shift.
Speaker B:You went from STL Communications, which we were talking months and months and months ago, while you were still STL Communications, and you made this brand shift and change.
Speaker B:Really curious about how, what inspired that.
Speaker B:How did.
Speaker B:Walk me through that process because that's something that I've been very interested to dig into.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So actually renaming the company was part of our pre closed value creation plan for, you know, a couple reasons.
Speaker A:One, the, the name STL Communications implies St.
Speaker A:Louis.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So it, you know, you're kind of.
Speaker A:My view was you're just, you're limiting yourself right from the get go with your name because it implies, you know, a, a very specific regional focus.
Speaker A:And we have customers in, you know, probably 40 states and you know, we're really strong in like the, the five surrounding states around us.
Speaker A:So, you know, I even asked the owner pre close, like, hey, when you're up in Iowa or Illinois as STL Communications, does anybody ever say like, what are you doing here?
Speaker A:And his answer was, well, yeah, they like, why are you from St.
Speaker A:Louis up here in Des Moines or whatever.
Speaker A:So I wanted to kind of just remove that hurdle, you know, whether it was a huge hurdle or not, I don't know.
Speaker A:But let's just get, get that out of here.
Speaker A:And the other part was, you know, the, the website was not good.
Speaker A:You know, the branding was not good.
Speaker A:It was not my style and you know, wanted to, to bring it up into something that was truly mine.
Speaker A:And you know, we've got a good new website now, a good marketing partner.
Speaker A:It looks awesome.
Speaker A:Yeah, thanks.
Speaker A:Yeah, you know, our logo, I think our logo looks good.
Speaker A:So just real happy with how that turned out.
Speaker B:Cool.
Speaker B:And then you mentioned, hey, a value creation plan before you acquired what, what other items were on that list that were like clear opportunities.
Speaker B:How are you going to create value with this business?
Speaker A:So, you know, none of these are brilliant ideas that I came up with, you know, driving increased percentage of recurring revenue.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:That's going to be obvious.
Speaker A:You know, that that's likely where your higher margin sales are in comparison to project based, you know, nurse call installs.
Speaker A:So, you know, improving the, the margin profile of the business, controlling cost.
Speaker A:You know, certainly I'm a little envious of you that you've gotten at least one acquisition done.
Speaker A:You know, I'd like to get, get a few acquisitions done.
Speaker A:I think there's a lot of opportunity for us in that space.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So your business does 15 million of revenue right now.
Speaker B:Wow.
Speaker B: another acquisition to get to: Speaker B:Wow, that's awesome.
Speaker B:So it was very, it was a very sizable company already.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And we've achieved that 15 million through organic growth.
Speaker A:So we've grown several million since the acquisition, which has been, you know, that's obviously great.
Speaker B:Two years, right?
Speaker B:Since the acquisition.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So you're growing organically pretty solidly.
Speaker B:Where are you seeing that growth come from?
Speaker B:It sounds like mostly IT services.
Speaker B:Given your rebrand to Enzo Technologies, we.
Speaker A:Added a lot of recurring Revenue last year.
Speaker A:I don't want to give the number, but it was a lot.
Speaker B:It's awesome.
Speaker A:And, you know, we're just picking up business.
Speaker A:You know, frankly, we get a lot of business from people not happy with their current provider.
Speaker A:And I'm curious, I think, I think it was you that mentioned in one of your previous episodes that don't say that you differentiate yourself on customer service.
Speaker B:We were talking about that because it was just like, it's that thing that every MSP says the exact same thing.
Speaker B:So if everyone says it, is it really different?
Speaker B:And then someone will come in and say, well, my service is actually better than everyone else's.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Is that what you're going to say?
Speaker A:Well, I'm curious if.
Speaker A:Because I look at it as.
Speaker A:We all sell the same stuff, right?
Speaker A:There's, you know, there's a handful of vendors that provide these services that, that we partner with.
Speaker A:So if we all sell the same stuff and we don't have some marketing gimmick that's driving all the inbound magic, you know, what, what in the world are we going to tell our customers other than, you know, hey, we're going to, we're going to answer the phone when you call us, right?
Speaker B:Yeah, I, I mean, I think, I think we all focus.
Speaker B:I think this is funny because we all focus on the.
Speaker B:What's special or unique about us.
Speaker B:But the reality is, is that the people who win are the ones who can execute, sell, communicate value, and provide consistent service.
Speaker B:Like, those are going to win.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:We always want it to be special, and obviously it's better to be special, but I don't disagree.
Speaker A:No, I, you know, I, I look at this industry, it's, it's like a, a product and service that everybody needs but nobody wants.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:No CEO wants to get the phone call from us.
Speaker A:And hey, what, what's going on with your cyber security?
Speaker A:I bet.
Speaker A:You bet you've got some exposure.
Speaker B:Hey, man, I, I used to run a dental company and so we'd call them saying, do we want, do you want us to take out your teeth?
Speaker B:So this is a.
Speaker B:Everything's relative.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So increased recurring revenue a ton.
Speaker B:And that came mostly from the it.
Speaker B:Are you, how are you ending up selling?
Speaker B:Are you selling it on a full package?
Speaker B:Are you selling it on a product basis?
Speaker B:Can you walk into, through how you, how you're packaging and selling?
Speaker A:Yeah, that was another part of our value creation plan was to essentially make buying from us easy.
Speaker A:The company didn't have that package managed service plan.
Speaker A:They would sell, you know, if you're going to do data backup, they were selling that individually.
Speaker A:You know, if you're going to do remote desktop management, that was an individual thing.
Speaker A:So we moved that to I think was pretty standard these days where, you know, look for a set price, we're going to do the whole thing, you know, and you put it on all of your endpoints and that's how we do business together.
Speaker A:So we made that shift and I think it made the conversation with the customers a lot, a lot easier.
Speaker B:Did you have to shift some people?
Speaker B:Did you have any TNM clients that you had to shift to managed service model?
Speaker A:Not many, I really don't think so.
Speaker A:There was probably a few that I just don't remember.
Speaker A:But no.
Speaker B:I feel like your sales team looks similar to mine.
Speaker B:I'm curious what the structure of yours look like.
Speaker B:I can tell you what, what mine looks like as well and curious where you think that's going to go over the long run.
Speaker A:So we just revamped the way our sales team is structured.
Speaker A:So previously under previous ownership, you know, it was four, five, six individuals that were just burning the phone.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So and it was a range of people very new to their professional career.
Speaker A:Like this was their first job to seasoned professionals.
Speaker A:So now what we've done is, you know, organize under a VP of sales.
Speaker A:We have account managers that are really meant to service existing customers, you know, do your quarterly business reviews, cross sell, that type of thing, really nurture those relationships.
Speaker A:And then we have our, you know, new business development folks that are, that are focused on new revenue and we're starting to organize those folks into industry verticals.
Speaker A:So you know, previously each salesperson they're calling, you know, they're calling a school and then the next phone call they're calling a manufacturing.
Speaker A:And then, you know, so now we're organizing.
Speaker A:Hey, you know, you are going to become the expert in manufacturing and really understand their pain points.
Speaker A:You're going to become the expert in schools or whatever the example is.
Speaker B:That is awesome.
Speaker B:And then do you have any marketing function yet?
Speaker A:Not really.
Speaker A:So aside from, you know, the rebrand with our website, we don't have an in house marketing resource.
Speaker A:We're, we're evaluating that right now.
Speaker A:You do you have a marketing function?
Speaker B:Yeah, I mean we started so historically Data Tell had really just a boots on the ground sales approach, right.
Speaker B:Local market, local people doing, having relationships, selling stuff to clients in the area and region.
Speaker B:And so that's been there and that's been successful.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:But There's a ceiling, there's limitations to the types of customers you can get.
Speaker B:So we've got a director of sales and then we've got two senior account executives who are mostly, they're like 80% new business focused and then two account executives who are, you know, you know, it's kind of the step below the seniors but they're focused exclusively on new business.
Speaker B:And then we have separate account managers and then we have a, we just hired a BDR which is going to be doing outbound calling and lead more, more in the realm of marketing and lead gen.
Speaker B:I'm thinking about it more as a marketing function rather than a sales function.
Speaker B:And then we have a fractional CMO who's kind of putting together the marketing structure and foundation and all the stuff that we're putting together.
Speaker B:And then that will probably be backfilled by a full time hire or two, depending on where things shake out.
Speaker B:And we're going to put and commit resources.
Speaker B:So yeah, we've been building that out.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Right now actually.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:That's great.
Speaker B:I know that we talked about sales comp plans eons ago.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:I think, I think we had, I think I had acquired and you had recently acquired and we were sending back each other's sales comp plans.
Speaker B:Did you change them fundamentally from when we had those conversations like a year ago to two years ago?
Speaker A:We've tried, we have changed them.
Speaker A:I don't know if they've changed dramatically but you know, I don't know why this is so hard for, for me for us to figure out.
Speaker A:I know it's a mess frankly.
Speaker A:So we, you know, we do I, what I think is fairly normal.
Speaker A:If you sell a recurring revenue you get, depending on how long the contract is, you'll get maybe one month's value or maybe three months value of it.
Speaker A:You know, of project based sales you're going to get a percent of the, the profit margin that's that's in the deal.
Speaker A:What, what I think what it seems like we're doing a little bit differently.
Speaker A:I haven't heard too many examples of this is we don't cap commissions.
Speaker A:So we have unlimited earning potential and a lot of the folks that we've hired, they come from a capped commission environment, you know, so I, I have one salesperson that last year made a whole lot more money than I did.
Speaker A:So we mean it.
Speaker A:Unlimited.
Speaker A:Go, go make as much as you can, can earn.
Speaker B:That's amazing.
Speaker B:And, and you had mentioned the industry specialization.
Speaker B:That is something that we're also Focused on.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Because we were similar to you guys.
Speaker B:You probably have a lot of clients in your region and area but.
Speaker B:And you have a wide list of clients in different industries.
Speaker B:And so we're, we're trying to figure out which end industries are we going to be focused on.
Speaker B:Where are you at in that process and how are you.
Speaker B:I guess we hit the spot and we're like we need to verticalize in order to have better sales, you know, better value to our clients.
Speaker B:So how have you gone about that thought process?
Speaker B:I think we're in the midst of it as well.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So my VP of sales, he's the one leading that strategy and we've really only in the past, maybe two or three months have done, done that reorgan to this vertical specialization.
Speaker A:I think, you know, it's generally going in the right direction.
Speaker A:I see that, you know, maybe we're being more successful in setting appointments, you know, because they're, they're getting, the salespeople are getting used to talking to the same types of customers, the same types of problems.
Speaker A:So I think it's trending the right way.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:I wonder if you, as you develop the marketing function and then you, you bolster the, the sales approach with the industry specific.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Marketing content on your website, emails, you know, all that sort of stuff.
Speaker B:It, I'm sure it will round it out and make, make it even, even better.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:You've got investors, there's a timeline.
Speaker B:So this is probably different than people that just own a business and they're just using it as a, you know, there's probably an end in mind, a goal post to get to so that you can either sign up for the next one or, or you know, call it quits.
Speaker B:But you're, you're kind of two years into it.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And what is a typical hold in, in your mind, what, what are you guys looking for?
Speaker A:You know, this group talks about five to seven years.
Speaker A:You know, a lot of this looks and feels very much like private equity.
Speaker A:But there was one, one exit within the Nova Stone portfolio.
Speaker A:Don't quote me on the number, but I, I think they might have held it for less than a year or just right at a year and you know, they had a good opportunity, took the exit, brought on a strategic partner.
Speaker A:And so I think just like any of us, you're always going to be open to opportunities when they come around.
Speaker B:I guess you've probably been close to the market in the MSP world and you probably feel like given you got a great price, you got A good deal on the company as well.
Speaker B:Like a fair good deal for you.
Speaker B:Where do you, where do you want to take this?
Speaker B:You know, you're at 15 now.
Speaker B:Is your goal to get it to 25 or like where do you see as like realistic and opportunistic given what you have in front of you?
Speaker A:Yeah, there's a couple parts to this answer.
Speaker A:So the way search fund economics work is that the searcher, the person in my role, the more irr that you generate, the more you are personally compensated.
Speaker A:And so to achieve the maximum on that calculation curve, you basically have to double the size of the business in five years.
Speaker A:I mean that's generally how the math shakes out.
Speaker B:That's to get a 3 or 4x on the investor money.
Speaker A:Yeah, but for me personally, I, I didn't do this for any financial reason, you know.
Speaker A:Yes, that exit, that's a lot of money for anybody.
Speaker A:But it just doesn't really, that's not my thing.
Speaker A:I, I did this really to prove that, you know, a certain type of company culture can be successful.
Speaker A:You know, it's, it's.
Speaker A:I'm not saying that, that another type of culture is bad, but I just, I believe that if you have a employee first culture treat people like adults.
Speaker A:You know, I'm not a yeller and screamer.
Speaker A:I don't go around yelling at people.
Speaker A:You know, have a nice safe environment where people like to, to come to work and get satisfaction out of their job.
Speaker A:That, that putting that type of culture in place will achieve this financial result that everybody's looking for.
Speaker A:So it's, it's, to me it's about culture first will achieve the value rather than let's go get value and figure out how we're, how we're going to do that.
Speaker B:Where did you learn that culture first approach?
Speaker B:That's not typical or standard.
Speaker A:The person that really put me on that path, his name is Steve Gund.
Speaker A:G U N D A third generation family business CEO, has grown his company from, I think when he started in the business it was maybe 3 or 5 million and now it's hundreds and hundreds of millions.
Speaker A:So I was trying to recruit him to be on our board at the chemical company.
Speaker A:And so I would go and visit his company and he would show me how he's running his business with, with people first, very intentional people first activities.
Speaker A:And we would talk about that and it just really opened my eyes that there was another path.
Speaker A:And then so, so you start digging into it and then you, you see very popular people like Simon Sinek, there's a local business owner, a company called Barry Waymiller, the CEO is Bob Chapman.
Speaker A:So if you're in this area, you'll know it, but know that's a multi billion dollar company and they have a lot of material out there about people first culture and the things that they do.
Speaker A:And it just, just resonated with me.
Speaker A: t are, they're very much like: Speaker A:Like, you know, give me your list every year of the, of the, you know, the 20% of people you're going to cut because they're the low perform performers and go yell at people and like, it's just not, I'm not into that.
Speaker B:If you could describe the culture of the company before you acquired and then like, tell me about that and then what shift has, has, have you made over the last two years?
Speaker A:Yeah, the culture prior to acquisition was very much centered on the owner.
Speaker A:So I'm not given a value.
Speaker A:Judge me, I'm just describing.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And you know, that owner, he was a salesperson.
Speaker A:That, that was his Persona and his very, very good salesperson.
Speaker A:But it was really kind of, you know, the culture was his Persona.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And you know, I think that's the way a lot of successful first generation business owners perhaps are.
Speaker A:So what I wanted to do and what we've taken a lot of steps for is to really drive engagement, you know, make, make everybody feel part of what's going on with the business that they can contribute.
Speaker A:If you bear with me, I'll just tell a handful of stories very quickly.
Speaker A:You know, I think it was in the first handful of days since the transition and you know, had everybody in the conference room and you know, we have to somehow start to build trust with these people.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:They're not going to trust you right out of the gate, but you got to, you got to start going in that direction.
Speaker A:And they don't know me and I don't know them.
Speaker A:So one of the ideas that I heard from somebody else and I just copied it was called everybody in, handed out these notebooks and basically said, you know, take these notebooks, write down all the ideas that you've had about the business, all the ideas that you, you do have now that you think would be improvements, whatever it is, write them down and then let's talk about them.
Speaker A:And told them like, look, obviously I can't promise we're going to do everything that everybody writes down, but I can promise I'll listen to you and you know, I believe I fulfilled that.
Speaker A:We did listen to folks, and we actually implemented a lot of their ideas.
Speaker A:So I think that goes so far with people, you know, just listen to them and actually do what their suggestion is.
Speaker A:Holy smokes.
Speaker A:How often in companies does that happen?
Speaker A:Especially really big companies, like, it never happens.
Speaker A:So we did.
Speaker A:Did that right out of the gate.
Speaker A:And then now with this new executive leadership team, we've put in, like, individual development plans for folks to put them on a career path.
Speaker A:We've invested a lot in training, so we have software that these folks can get trained and certified in.
Speaker A:Anything you could think of in our industry.
Speaker A:We do a lot of employee events.
Speaker A:Like, there's a national fun at work day coming up, so we're going to do stuff there.
Speaker A:You know, we.
Speaker A:We just do a lot of employee centric activities.
Speaker B:Yeah, I think one of the best parts of the CEO job, if you like this sort of thing, is, is investing in people and then seeing the results come out of it.
Speaker B:Like, actually genuinely caring about people, trying to actually help them level up in whatever they want to do personally, professionally, and then seeing the results come out of it is like one of the most satisfying, coolest things I've ever done as a leader.
Speaker A:100% agree that that's an awesome part of the job.
Speaker A:And, you know, the flip side of that is, you know, I think for folks in our position, when you see it not work, when you see somebody that maybe doesn't appreciate that, you, at least for me, you really have to, like, not focus on that.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Because that can really drag you down.
Speaker A:And so I kind of coach to myself and our executive leadership team.
Speaker A:You know, focus on your A players.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:It's easy, and it feels good to kind of get into the nitty gritty, the fires and the things that annoy you, but don't get sucked into that.
Speaker A:Focus on your A players, the folks that get the vision, and that's where the success is.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:At our company, we actually did something this morning where we talked about, let's go through.
Speaker B:In our management meeting, we said, let's.
Speaker B:Let's figure out or let's talk about, are there any clients that we want to fire that are making our life really challenging?
Speaker B:And so we went through a short list of a few, and it was like, these were all personality conflicts where the client is outside of the bounds of being reasonable and causing undue stress on the employees.
Speaker B:And usually the employees are like, well, I just have to deal with this, you know, and.
Speaker B:And it's like flipping the switch to be like, we need mutual respect both ways and we're not doing ourselves a service if we're serving them and not getting them what they need.
Speaker B:Same with that client.
Speaker B:And so maybe it's better to part ways.
Speaker B:And that's something.
Speaker B:That's one really interesting exercise that I've seen people do and has been really, really effective.
Speaker A:Yeah, no, I, I think that's a good point.
Speaker A:There are clients that sometimes need to get fired.
Speaker B:Yeah, 100%.
Speaker B:So msps, you're, you're now two years under.
Speaker B:I feel like I'm in a spot a year and a half in that I kind of know the industry, I know where the company's going.
Speaker B:I have confidence now.
Speaker B:How do you feel two years in?
Speaker A:I feel good now.
Speaker A:I, I think it takes two years to really know a business.
Speaker A:And there was a.
Speaker A:It sounds probably like a really silly example that just kind of happened recently that, that made me realize, hey, I actually know what's going on now.
Speaker A:And it's, it's funny things that probably only owners or CEOs notice.
Speaker A:You know, it's just.
Speaker A:I was just walking around and passing through our staging area where we stage equipment for jobs and they're usually labeled with like, this is going to whatever job site and there's just this one little package sitting there with the name of a customer.
Speaker A:But I knew that that job was closed.
Speaker A:Like, so why do we have this piece of equipment here that's for a customer that the job is done.
Speaker A:And so you start asking questions and you find an extra thing that's several thousand dollars that can get returned.
Speaker A:But to me, that's an indication of now you know, all the details that are going on that you recognize that that box is out of place.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:I think it takes two years to get there.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:I think the industry.
Speaker B:I think it took me like nine to 12 months to like understand where.
Speaker B:Nine months.
Speaker B:I was like, oh, I have an inkling of where we needed to go.
Speaker B:And at 12 months I was like, okay, this is where we're going.
Speaker B:Like, I had, I had confidence that sick.
Speaker B:You know, first six months it was like, let's just, let's just learn, be open, figure things out.
Speaker B:And then you start to make decisions and, and start to make really hard corrections at that year.
Speaker B:Mark is what I've, I've seen.
Speaker A:I've got a question for you.
Speaker B:Yeah, jump in.
Speaker B:You don't mind me?
Speaker A:Let's dig a little.
Speaker B:Yeah, little bit.
Speaker A:Friend friendly trouble.
Speaker A:So I saw you made a LinkedIn post.
Speaker A:Really talking positively about EOS.
Speaker A:Like you recently implemented EOS.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And so this company had Eos and I got rid of it.
Speaker A:So I'm curious like what your experience has been that, that gave you such a positive flavor on it.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:With, with eos, I, I walked into a company that didn't have a lot of internal structure.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:They, there was an in person work environment, there was structure, but it was not able to be done very well remotely.
Speaker B:And I'm an, I'm a remote owner, I live in Texas and the company was mostly in Idaho.
Speaker B:And so I needed something in a structure that, that I needed way more structure and I needed to jumpstart it or else we were going to be in a bad situation across the board.
Speaker B:So by necessity I needed to come up with a solution.
Speaker B:And I had seen folks be successful with EOS in the past and really it's about, and I actually did not implement my, at my last company, my partner, I had differing opinions on if we wanted to implement or not.
Speaker B:And so this time I was like, we're definitely doing this because I just want to try it out.
Speaker B:I'd never done it before.
Speaker B:And so it was like a learning experience to figure it out, see how it's a fit.
Speaker B:I think I found a really, I found a really good implementer which is like the professional coach that you hire, really connected with them and fully understood our business and where I wanted to take the company.
Speaker B:And then two, the team bought in entirely.
Speaker B:So they had never had structure and they wanted and were desperate to have more structure.
Speaker B:I could feel it as I talked to them.
Speaker B:It was the things that they talked about.
Speaker B:And so they were kind of going around in different directions wanting more structure.
Speaker B:And so EOS was able to provide that in a.
Speaker B:Okay, this is what the business is about.
Speaker B:This is, these are the things that we're focused on on a quarterly basis.
Speaker B:Rocks.
Speaker B:This is how we should run the best practices.
Speaker B:You know, team, you know, department meetings and whatnot.
Speaker B:So it kind of just gave a structure for a bunch of really good people who just needed consistency and direction.
Speaker B:And frankly, I'm not personally a great person at like structure.
Speaker B:I'm not great at rules.
Speaker B:Like, I try to go around them.
Speaker B:And so I'm like, I want to see how that works because like, I would love for it to work, but I don't usually like to follow my own rules, to be honest.
Speaker B:So that, that it was almost like a, it, it allowed me to become a better leader way faster within an environment where, where most people have success.
Speaker B:Yeah, that's my story.
Speaker B:I can totally see the historical legacy, though.
Speaker B:Like, sometimes you have something and it's just dysfunctional or doesn't work and you just have to throw it out.
Speaker B:Even if it's fundamentally good.
Speaker B:Like, I could totally see that.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Like, it becomes a.
Speaker B:You just need something new.
Speaker B:You need a brand refresh, like STL Communications.
Speaker B:Like, I didn't know it was St.
Speaker B:Louis.
Speaker B:I thought it was scale.
Speaker B:Like, it didn't matter for me.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:But you had it in your mind that it was valuable and some clients did.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:So do you do the thing at the end of the meetings where you rate the meeting?
Speaker B:We do, yeah.
Speaker B:We rate it 1 to 10.
Speaker B:And then if it is under, and if it's 8 or under, then we have to like, really outline why and we.
Speaker B:I try to push everyone to be honest about that meeting because I don't want to have useless meetings.
Speaker B:So it has to be valuable, it has to be good.
Speaker B:If it's not a 10, what is the reason why?
Speaker B:So that we can improve on that or remove the meeting entirely.
Speaker A:Yeah, there's.
Speaker A:There's a lot of reasons I got rid of it, but one silly one was the meeting rating thing.
Speaker A:Because, you know, after I sat through these for like six months and like every meeting was getting ranked a 9 or a 10, like always a 9 or 10.
Speaker A:So I finally just asked somebody, like, does anybody ever rank them less than a 9 or 10?
Speaker A:And they said, oh, no, no, no, because if you ranked it less, you're going to get a phone call from the EOS implementer.
Speaker A:So nobody, nobody was being honest.
Speaker B:Yeah, see, see that, that signals to me that the implementer or the integrator was creating an interesting, like, not a good environment for people to be able to be honest and authentic and open, which is the whole point of eos.
Speaker B:So if I was an influencer, I would be like, red flag as a professional person.
Speaker B:And maybe the implementer was bad or maybe they didn't have one, and, and that's a root problem and a, that's like a people problem underneath it.
Speaker B:So it like makes it very transparent and clear, like what's going on.
Speaker B:As you, you can see that, identify it and be like, this isn't actually, it shouldn't happen like this.
Speaker B:We should have varying success.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And then if I see people are doing consistently, it's like, really?
Speaker B:You really think that I thought this meeting was terrible?
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:It's a six.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And this is why.
Speaker B:And like, do you guys disagree with that.
Speaker B:And then, and then it helps bridge the gap between the alignment piece too.
Speaker B:It's sure.
Speaker B:But it also has like a positivity to it, to underlining.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:The level 10.
Speaker B:You want to rate the meetings a 10.
Speaker B:You want to be more positive.
Speaker B:Like, it just, it's set up to try to be like, get everyone aligned, get everyone positive.
Speaker B:And if you have stuff that is an issue, you can bring it up.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:I think that's maybe behind the curtain is like, it's like you want it to be a 10.
Speaker B:So if you think it, it's most likely going to happen more often.
Speaker A:Yeah, that's fair.
Speaker B:So are.
Speaker B:You're just like, I hate all structures or you, you're just like, I'm going to do it my way.
Speaker B:What's, what's your way then?
Speaker B:Because something else exists.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker A:Sure.
Speaker A:So, yeah, perhaps like you like, I hate structure.
Speaker A:Like, if you give me a process, I'm going to try to break it.
Speaker A:Like, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not doing that.
Speaker A:So, you know, but in reality, you need some framework to run a business, obviously.
Speaker A:So, you know, there's EOS and there's a whole bunch of other very similar things that go by different names.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:It's just, it's just a, it's an operating system for a business.
Speaker A:So, you know, between myself and the rest of the executive team, you know, we've got a lot of years under our belt.
Speaker A:We've been exposed to a bunch of things.
Speaker A:So we just, we cobble together what we think are the best parts of different programs and, and, and run the business.
Speaker A:We, we do have structure, but, you know, throwing something up on the screen and making me follow a step by step, like this is how the meeting's going is like not, not my style.
Speaker B:To me, it's an, it's EOS is an easy button because it's got the basics and the foundations ready to go and a structure that most people can understand and get on board.
Speaker B:If you have a more complex organization, I think that a lot of people move on to different things and different methodologies once you figure out the basics.
Speaker B:So, sure, whatever.
Speaker B:I mean, tomato, tomato, you're.
Speaker B:You've got str.
Speaker B:You got your own structure.
Speaker B:It's just called, you know, just call something else.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:Nice.
Speaker B:Was there anything else on your mind?
Speaker B:I feel like sometimes we, we turn this off and then, and then people are like, oh, wait, I thought we were going to talk about this.
Speaker B:Anything that, that you're curious about or we Want to dig into further?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:I'm curious on your opinion.
Speaker A:I don't want to open a big can of worms, but what's your opinion on our supply chain?
Speaker A:Like the vendors that we partner with?
Speaker A:Because mine's not too positive.
Speaker B:You're talking about the, the, the quality of the vendor or what?
Speaker B:Exactly.
Speaker B:Or how I think about them with as it relates to the services that we're providing.
Speaker A:So I, I feel that very few of my vendors are real partners to me and my business.
Speaker A:So like they're constantly changing their, their and most of them are private equity owned at this point.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So they're constantly changing their terms and conditions to be very, very favorable to them.
Speaker A:And you know, they're great at that, the pre sale activity, but wholesale, you know, I, I need some help and it's kind of a challenge to get help out of some of these folks.
Speaker B:Yeah, we've got kind of key vendors and partners that are fundamental, right.
Speaker B:Like your EDR, your backup service, your VoIP solution and then you've got a bunch of tools that are supported.
Speaker B:I think we care less about the tools and those are kind of just plug and play.
Speaker B:It's more the partner stuff that really, really, really matters.
Speaker B:And frankly it's, it's just part of the process from, for us it's just part of the process of owning and maintaining a tech stack.
Speaker B:And so you've got 30 to 40 different tools and partners and the best combination are the ones that work on the operation side, work on the financial side and allow you to potentially differentiate.
Speaker B:And so you're, I mean we're always kind of figuring out and assessing.
Speaker B:We've got probably one or two tools at any given time that are giving decommissioned, changed out because quality, you know, suffers or we found a better solution that's going to solve some other things and reduce complexity in the organization.
Speaker B:So to me it's like one of those like operations like it's, it's an ongoing farming and, and yeah, but yeah, I haven't seen any like stark changes.
Speaker B:The ones who have been good partners have been good partners the last two years and we haven't had like private equity transitions maybe that maybe you've experienced with some of your vendors.
Speaker A:Yeah, so we're in the process of switching out a few of our key ones now and it's, you know, it's, it's two things.
Speaker A:One is it's service and cost.
Speaker A:So I guess like us with our customers, right.
Speaker A:You gotta give them good service at good value or people will start shopping it.
Speaker B:Hundred percent.
Speaker B:I think the vendor space or the vendors within the MSP space is, is really interesting.
Speaker B:They just have a huge voice relative to the owners, which is why I wanted to start this podcast too.
Speaker B:It's because us owners, we've got a lot of opinions, but we usually don't tell publicly what, what we think or what's going on.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:It's all an internal battle.
Speaker B:And getting those voices out into the, the ether, I think it's going to be really interesting.
Speaker B:Really, really interesting.
Speaker B:The vendors, the vendors think they have power, but at the end of the day, it's, it's really us.
Speaker B:We got, we have, we are the.
Speaker B:We're the gate to the ultimate end customer at the end of the day.
Speaker A:Yep, I agree.
Speaker B:I'm super excited that you were able to jump on.
Speaker B:You've got an awesome background and, and your, your experience in acquiring the company and then what you've done so far, it honestly mirrors similar to what, you know, similar to what, what I've done at my company.
Speaker B:So it's always cool to.
Speaker B:Cool to check in and see how you're doing.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker A:Yeah, that's good, Ben, appreciate the conversation.
Speaker B:Yeah, sounds good.
