Michael Snyder and Logan Snyder at Total BC: Building an MSP with Family
We’re diving into the world of family-run MSP businesses and how Micheal Snyder and Logan Snyder, a father-son duo turned transitioned their business from a pure play voice/telecommunications provider into a comprehensive IT provider. Michael as CEO and Logan as COO share their journey from humble beginnings in 1997 to now. They spill the tea on navigating family dynamics in the workplace, including the not-so-fun parts of firing relatives—yikes! We’ll also chat about how becoming a dad changed Logan’s work vibe and sharpened his focus, proving that family ties can be a double-edged sword in business. So grab a drink, kick back, and let’s see how these two keep it all in the family while hustling in the tech world!
Title: Michael Snyder and Logan Snyder at Total BC: Building an MSP with Family
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Looking to sell your MSP or partner to take your business to the next level? DataTel actively seeking to acquire quality MSPs to it's capability & client base. If you own an MSP generating more than $1M in revenue annually seeking and wanting a change, contact ben@datatelco.com .
Takeaways:
- Starting a family business can be a wild ride, especially when family dynamics come into play.
- Customer service is not just a policy; it's a passion that drives our business every day.
- Transitioning from voice services to managed IT requires smart decisions and continuous learning.
- Nepotism isn’t our style; we believe in earning respect through hard work and dedication.
- Every client interaction matters; we aim to provide prompt, personal responses every time.
- Trust is built on reliability and stellar service, especially during tough tech crises.
Transcript
Foreign.
Speaker B:Logan, why don't you start off by giving us a little bit of background on.
Speaker A: You started in the field in: Speaker A:97 was, wasn't really, you know, to technologically sound back in 97.
Speaker A: ment for that said company in: Speaker A:I actually decided that I could do this better and offer better customer service.
Speaker A:Plus the company was getting bought by a holding company so I didn't want to go through all that.
Speaker A: So I started total VC in: Speaker B:Cool.
Speaker B:And Logan.
Speaker B:Hey, Ben.
Speaker C: gure you can say I started in: Speaker C:And it's kind of just been instilled in me in the last six years I've been back at WC truly of just how dedicated we are customer service.
Speaker C:And that's kind of just been hammered in from the start.
Speaker B:So Michael, I take it you're, you're pro child labor.
Speaker B:How did that work out for you?
Speaker A:At first, not very good.
Speaker A:I, you know, I, I have, I fired his mother, I fired his brother, I fired his cousin and yeah, that was it.
Speaker B:Maybe you could start off with one of the.
Speaker B:I think what's a really interesting dynamic here is, is you guys are a family business, right?
Speaker B:Or right now it is.
Speaker B:And you've had it in the past as well.
Speaker B:I'm really curious about.
Speaker B:Obviously you started this yourself, Michael, and then, you know, at some point you brought Logan in.
Speaker B:But I'd love to hear about those first family introductions, how they got into the business and then, you know, their departure from the business and how that, how that, how that went.
Speaker A:Yeah, well, the first one would be his mom.
Speaker A:She was the first one that got into it.
Speaker A:And you know, for, for, for lack of better terms, some, you know, some dynamics do not work.
Speaker A:Some, some think they, you know, you know, when you're working with family on, on my side of viewing, it is.
Speaker A:I, I've told them all because Logan, not only my older brother works with me and one of my nephews works with me, so.
Speaker A:And all of them know 8 to 5 is business.
Speaker A:You know, you could, we could be throwing darts one moment and I could be cussing my brother out the next moment.
Speaker A:But, but after 5:00, you know, we're buddies, we're, we're back family.
Speaker A:But between that, no.
Speaker A:So his mother didn't understand that dynamic.
Speaker A:So that had to go.
Speaker A:And one of my nephews, he was just too lazy, no work ethic.
Speaker A:So he had to go when Logan started.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:Well, then, then my brother started with me 12 years ago.
Speaker A:I guess it was Logan probably.
Speaker A:And yeah, so, you know, he's been there for the, the real ramp up of everything, if you will, to, from going from a mom and pop shop to an actual company, you know, and, and not saying anything negative about, about what size anyone is, but there's a lot more dynamics of, of that part of it to where, you know, you have, you're wearing 12 hats at one time.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:So my brother J.R.
Speaker A:he's, he allowed us me to wear all of those hats and he handled just what he still does today, the, the dispatching, the customer service and so forth, so on.
Speaker A:So then Logan came along about six years ago and.
Speaker B:And Logan is your son?
Speaker A:Yep.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:So he came about six years ago.
Speaker A:And I thought it was important to, you know, you can't just throw somebody, you know, nepotism is, is real, of course, but you don't want that to be portrayed to everybody.
Speaker A:So he started out, you know, swinging cable, installing phones, installing cameras.
Speaker A:And he was a, he was a grunt.
Speaker A:And then he moved to, to project management while still doing the, the other work, the engineer work.
Speaker A:And now he's in his position CEO.
Speaker A:And I think it has served him well because he's had to.
Speaker A:He knows all the products and services that we have.
Speaker A:I mean, he knows some of them better than I do now just because that's, you know, he had to get in there, get his hands dirty and he, and he gained a respect.
Speaker B:How did you set that expectation when he came in?
Speaker B:Did you say, here's the rule book for working with me.
Speaker B:Like, walk me through like that, how you made that decision to allow him to come in the business with the previous experiences of, you know, maybe it didn't work out with your wife working in the business and, you know, a few other instances.
Speaker B:How did you, how did you do that?
Speaker A:Well, Logan Pro can probably talk on this a little bit more, but I treat everybody the, the same regardless.
Speaker A:I remember when Logan came and lived with me for a summer, even though we were in the same city, you know, you know, when you go through divorce, whatever.
Speaker A:And I said, hey, I was like, you know, you're living here.
Speaker A:It wasn't this father son thing.
Speaker A:It's like, you know, we're living in the same House together.
Speaker A:This is more like roommates.
Speaker A:You take care, you clean your crap up, you know, you do this, you do that.
Speaker A:So I've always treated him as an adult ever since he was like 11 years old.
Speaker A:And so when he came into, and because of that, I always had those conversations, those frank and upfront conversations with him.
Speaker A:So when he came to work for me, it was like, hey, listen, this is how it's going to go.
Speaker A:You know, it's, it's, you know, my way and until you learn it and until you know what it is and because a lot of people can talk to talk, but not walk the walk.
Speaker A:So I didn't, I didn't want to hear a lot of chatter when you really didn't know a lot of, a lot of the stuff.
Speaker A:So I mean, at first it was a little rough, but now looking back, I can say that, you know, I come in all the time.
Speaker A:It's has been a lot of growth, a lot of maturing on his part.
Speaker A:I personally think it happened when he became a father as well.
Speaker A:So, you know, he's got the responsibility.
Speaker A:You know, a lot of crap changes when you got two more mouths to feed.
Speaker B:I'm curious to hear your, your perspective in this as well because, you know, obviously it's a totally different position coming from, hey, I'm coming to work with my dad's company and I respect him a lot and you know, he's done this for a long time.
Speaker B:And you're coming in and you know, maybe start off with like, do you feel like you did get a fair shake when you came in, like Michael says you did?
Speaker C:We have two different kind of outlooks on it.
Speaker C:I don't, I don't want to say I came in just, just loose, but I came from a very different field before coming here.
Speaker C:And I was, I was a pipe welder, I was a professional welder.
Speaker C:That's all I did for a living, was blue collar work.
Speaker C:So I think that transition alone was a little, little strange coming from, you know, working on the field every day, guys talking like sailors and then coming into an office aspect of it and interacting with face to face customers every day was, was a little challenging at first.
Speaker C:Obviously I wasn't used to filling out paperwork constantly and Michael can attest to that, that I was the absolute worst at filling out timesheets and tickets for the first two years that I worked here.
Speaker C:And that's because initially they still worked on paper like they were dinosaurs, which was ridiculous.
Speaker C:Six years ago, filling everything out on paper was Crazy.
Speaker C:Anyways.
Speaker C:But over, I would say definitely over the last last four years, three or four years is where I feel like I've seen the most growth not only in myself, but also the relationship, the working relationship between me and Michael, me and junior, me and other technicians as well.
Speaker C:It's kind of like I've, I've made that transition a little more into a higher position.
Speaker C:I mean, I'm, I don't really.
Speaker C:Michael's the same way.
Speaker C:Neither one of us like to say we're COO or we're CEO or anything like that.
Speaker C:I mean, that's, we're, we work for Total bc, you know, we work in Total BC just as much as everybody else.
Speaker C:So there's, there's no crazy hierarchy that we try to do or anything like that.
Speaker C:So I don't, I don't feel like I've made some crazy change to where I'm, you know, up higher or anything like that.
Speaker C:I just, I just feel like we're all getting along and working and mending a lot better together here in the last three years than we used to.
Speaker B:It sounded like maybe a change happened when you became a father.
Speaker B:Well, what inspired that?
Speaker C:Definitely had a change when becoming a father.
Speaker C:And I think, I mean, it was pretty instantaneous.
Speaker C:I think it was more of like, I mean, you're, you're a father having a child, aren't you?
Speaker C:One of the two.
Speaker C:I can't remember.
Speaker B:Yeah, I've got a, I've got a 15 month old.
Speaker B:He's.
Speaker B:My first name is Archie.
Speaker C:That's right.
Speaker C:That's right.
Speaker C:So you know just as well as me and Michael do, the first time you hold that baby, it's like something changes in your head.
Speaker C:Something looks down and it's like, man, I'm never going to let anything, you know, come in between or affect any relationship in any way.
Speaker C:And that includes work.
Speaker C:And that includes going to work every day and doing your best and making sure you can provide not only at home, but outside as well, and gives you a new outlook on responsibility and kind of like other people you're responsible for as well.
Speaker C:I mean, just, just brings a different aspect to life.
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker B:I completely agree.
Speaker B:I wouldn't say it changed everything for me, but it like changed my focus and my clarity with what I wanted out of life.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And Ben, you'll, you'll see that you, you'll go through the, the, the span of it, because mine was when, when Logan was born, it was what, you know, this is who I'm working for now.
Speaker A:And everybody in my family knows it.
Speaker A:Even his mom knew it.
Speaker A:It's like, you know, forget me, it's.
Speaker A:It's him.
Speaker A:So, you know, I was working to grow something for him, so I got into that thing to where I worked a lot, was.
Speaker A:Was working my butt off building it and so forth, so on.
Speaker A:But the good thing is, now that we're to a point, he can come in, and the things that I felt like I missed because I did work, you know, 100, 100 hours a week, now I can work.
Speaker A:I've been able to work less, of course.
Speaker A:And we have a, A, A dynamic relationship, not only as father and son, but also as.
Speaker A:As teammates from total bc.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:And, and yeah.
Speaker A:So don't feel bad as you're growing and trying to build it for Archie, because there are, There's.
Speaker A:There's a bright side to it.
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker B:I can only, I can only imagine what, what it's like.
Speaker B:I mean, I also find it really interesting the, the family dynamics here and in family businesses.
Speaker B:One of the things that my wife and I have talked about is would we ever work together?
Speaker B:And the answer is basically a resounding never would we work together in a professional capacity.
Speaker B:One of the things that's inspired me because of that is we, we.
Speaker B:I have a lot of entrepreneur friends, and I have a lot of them that they know have significant others in their businesses, and the success rate is not very high over the long run.
Speaker B:That alone is like, okay, like, let's keep.
Speaker B:Let's separate church and state for us.
Speaker A:And I would tell you, my, My wife.
Speaker A:Yeah, and that's.
Speaker A:My wife works in the, in the business now, but I'm smart enough to know that what I didn't say to Logan and my brother, what I didn't say before, I say now.
Speaker A:And it, it's completely different.
Speaker A:It's kind of like Dayton.
Speaker A:I, I say it like this because, you know, when I was dating, I was like, you know, regardless, when you meet that person, you tell them exactly who you are, what you are.
Speaker A:You don't do any of that playing, you know, facade, and you tell them straight out.
Speaker A:And it worked well.
Speaker A:You know, my wife, before we got married, we dated for 10 years, and, and she's in the business now with my other businesses as well, investor finances.
Speaker A:And they just know what the hierarchy is for, for lack of better terms.
Speaker B:Are you used to sitting on the top, Michael?
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker B:I'm very curious about the long term.
Speaker B:Do you guys have a transition plan in place?
Speaker B:Have you talked about it?
Speaker A:We Have a transition plan.
Speaker A:Have we discussed it?
Speaker A:Yes, but it keeps getting pushed.
Speaker A:Be honest with you.
Speaker A:I'm.
Speaker A:I'm.
Speaker A:I'm 54, and I wanted to be honestly working two, three days a week, but the problem is.
Speaker A:And it's not a problem, but the.
Speaker A:The technologies, the growth of Total BC and the growth inside of Total BC and the growth of Logan, honestly, has made me excited.
Speaker A:All those together have made me excited.
Speaker A:And I want to stay around and do a little bit more, but at the same time, I'm ready to take a step back.
Speaker A:And we.
Speaker A:I have talked about that a lot more in the last, you know, six months, but.
Speaker A:But there's a couple more things I want to do for.
Speaker A:For Logan and for Total bc, and then my retirement plan can go into place.
Speaker A:So I'm hoping within a year.
Speaker B:Hi, I'm Ben Tigelaar, 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:Logan, do you.
Speaker B:Do you feel like you guys have a decent plan in place?
Speaker B:Like, would you agree with his assessment there?
Speaker C:I would say, take the wise words of.
Speaker C:Of Donald Trump.
Speaker C:We have the concept of a plan in thought with the concept of what a plan is.
Speaker C:Maybe.
Speaker C:Actually, no.
Speaker C:I mean, we.
Speaker C:We've definitely discussed it in the past.
Speaker C:You know, he.
Speaker C:He gave me the spill when I first came to work here.
Speaker C:You know, I Got a five year plan and we're going to stick to it.
Speaker C:And about a year into that, he was like, throw that out the window.
Speaker C:Never mind.
Speaker C:But no, it's not, I'm also not, am I, am I eager to maybe move in that position?
Speaker C:Yeah, but I'm also not, you know, I'm not stressed, man.
Speaker C:I'm not trying to force my way into it or anything like that.
Speaker C:I mean, I know as, as looking at it from his aspect, he's grown this for 24 years.
Speaker C:I don't care what you do for 24 years.
Speaker C:It's, it's hard to let go of.
Speaker C:It's hard to, to hand that off to somebody else.
Speaker C:I mean, that's, that's your, for lack of better terms, that's his other child that he's got.
Speaker C:You know, I'm, I'm the favorite.
Speaker C:But he's got a second and it's, it's trusting somebody else to take his kid from him out of nowhere and not burn it into the ground.
Speaker C:I don't blame him for being scared of it.
Speaker C:I would be too.
Speaker C:I couldn't imagine in 20 years when I'm handing it off to my oldest son.
Speaker C:I don't, I don't know about that.
Speaker C:But I, I, I understand the fear.
Speaker C:But at some point we got to work into it and there's some things he's still got to teach me.
Speaker C:Like he said, there's some things we got to work on.
Speaker C:It's more of like back inside of the business.
Speaker C:I feel like operations were, were there and then back inside.
Speaker C:It's just gotta be tall at this point.
Speaker B:My dad is a, what you would call a, a workaholic.
Speaker B:He, he loves to work and he has ideas about retiring at some point, but you know, those, those dreams never come to fruition.
Speaker B:Do you have fears that, that might, that might happen with Michael?
Speaker C:Oh, absolutely.
Speaker C:I, me and my wife have talked about it before and she's, she always makes the jokes.
Speaker C:First off, him and my wife are so close, it's unreal.
Speaker C:I question them too.
Speaker C:She's got him saved in her phone as gay bestie because that's, that's what she calls him.
Speaker C:And that's how she, that's how she loves them.
Speaker C:And we talk about it all the time.
Speaker C:She says, you know, she said, I'm, I'm not worried about you taking over anything like that.
Speaker C:We've both had the same discussion.
Speaker C:We know we're, we're, we're fine how we are right now.
Speaker C:We, that's not our priority.
Speaker C:But she said, I don't think at any point he's going to truly hand it over until his hand goes below the dirt.
Speaker C:Other than that, he's, he's never getting out of it.
Speaker C:You know, I don't think he'll ever be fully out of it either because like I said, it's, it's hard to let go of something until he's physically unable.
Speaker C:I think he'll be a part of WC and I have no issue with that.
Speaker C:But don't be Jerry Jones.
Speaker A:Well, wait a minute, let me, let me go back to the, to the gay bestie thing here.
Speaker A:Not that, not that being gay is a bad thing, but his wife says that I am.
Speaker A:What, what does she say, Logan?
Speaker A:She says that I am the bougiest.
Speaker C:Person she's ever met.
Speaker C:And, and I promise you, you, you spend a day with this man and you'll be like, no, no, yeah, I see it, I see it.
Speaker A:I'm not bougie.
Speaker A:But anyway.
Speaker C:Do you know what was sitting behind him?
Speaker C:Ben at his other the laptop.
Speaker C:He was working at a six thousand dollar massage chair that he purchased.
Speaker C:Okay, don't tell me you're not bougie if you have a full blown massage chair in your house.
Speaker B:Hey, just because you like nice things doesn't mean you're bougie, Logan.
Speaker C:So Ben's bougie too.
Speaker C:Got it.
Speaker B:Maybe, maybe a little bit.
Speaker B:Maybe a little bit.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So exactly.
Speaker A:Yeah, I have, I have, I have neck problems.
Speaker B:I'm excited to see where you guys end up over the long run.
Speaker B:It'll be interesting to see, see the path there, but I want to get into.
Speaker B:I found it particularly interesting the transition that you guys as a company took from being primarily a voice provider, service provider into a fully managed IT provider, more comprehensive services in nature.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:I'm very curious about, you know, given you started the company 24 years ago and it's been three or four years since you started the, you know, the, the fully managed it.
Speaker B:How did, can you talk to me about what inspired you to make that transition?
Speaker A:We moved to our offering our voice platform and you know, we, I started tinkering it with it because we were a, a, a 3Com dealer, loved the 3Com system and it was about really the first land telephony system that, that was, that was everything combined together.
Speaker A:And sitting in the office one time and I'm like, if this can work over to the land, why can't this work over when?
Speaker A: now, so, and that was like in: Speaker A:And then I got, you know, I got our first server going up and so forth.
Speaker A: mer that Logan joined me with: Speaker A:But then as you know, we found more and more that voice rip was coming and there was a lot of things on the IT side that was very predominant to be needed from it.
Speaker A:And you know, just the same way that, that other managed service companies have grown, they started out as maybe just being a break fix.
Speaker A:We found there was a lot of those break fix people out there that while they were good technical people, they weren't the, the proactive type.
Speaker A:I bought an IT company.
Speaker A:It was a small guy, found out that our synergies weren't aligned.
Speaker A:So I gave him back that IT company and we started doing some things.
Speaker A:Then I bought another IT company and then that's when we started really seeing and this was probably about seven years ago I guess.
Speaker A:And there were a real, you know, a managed service, but not really, not really using the right tools and so forth.
Speaker B:So, so really, really you got in, you wanted to do a, you acquired to get into the business rather than, than starting it up yourself just, just because of the.
Speaker B:Why is that?
Speaker A:Well, it, it because I mean you, you have to be smart enough to know what you don't know.
Speaker A:So when, when I purchased the one company, they had a, they had a, a bright IT guy.
Speaker A:And you know, that's the same reasons why we do our coaching.
Speaker A:We have some coaches and so forth, so on for, for our industry because I wanted to do it, do it right instead of doing it wrong.
Speaker A:Because you're going to lay the foundation, you're going to train people how you do things and come back a year later and say, ah, guys, I was all wrong.
Speaker A:This is not how you do it.
Speaker A:Let's go back and do it this way.
Speaker A:It was something unlike on the Voice side that I, that I knew like the back of my hand.
Speaker A:I didn't really know how to effectively run and manage a managed service company and the tech stack and things of that nature.
Speaker A:So we did it for two things.
Speaker A:All of our customers kept asking us, do you do this?
Speaker A:Do you do this?
Speaker A:Why?
Speaker A:Because our service response was so much better.
Speaker A:On our voice side than they ever received from their I T people.
Speaker A:And we, and, and, and it's just a natural progression.
Speaker A:Everything is going to Iot.
Speaker B:The response time was, was identified by your clients as like really important.
Speaker B:How did you think about that?
Speaker B:Like what is the typical response time that you had in your mind that was like exceptional compared to the competition.
Speaker A:Back in the day when before voice rip, you know it was, it was the same day, you know, voiceover but with our voice or IP solution, I would say that we're our response time, average response time because some things are, you know, you have to get a phone out there and so forth.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:But on a normal hate I have this change that I want made.
Speaker A:It's probably less than 42 minutes.
Speaker B:So the competition was, was, was taking many, many, many much longer than that to, to respond to a typical request.
Speaker A:Yeah, if they even responded the same day, probably was the, the next day.
Speaker A:And that's the same thing we find with some managed service companies right now.
Speaker A:I mean we will, one of our clients will call us and say hey, you need to talk to your IT company about this because this is what's causing it.
Speaker A:And we check back with them the next day and say well we sent them an email or we put in a ticket.
Speaker A:We haven't heard from them yet.
Speaker A:Which is crazy.
Speaker A:On our, even on our managed service side, we have less than an hour response time.
Speaker B:That's for across all tickets, all severity levels.
Speaker B:Under an hour.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker B:Do you break down the response time internally as like what your expectations are like to employees?
Speaker B:Like hey, critical needs to be responded in this amount of time.
Speaker B:Like how do you, how do you organize that internally?
Speaker C:I would say we do that a little differently than some companies do.
Speaker C:I know a lot of msps kind of let the technicians triage tickets.
Speaker C:It goes straight to technicians, it goes to an unassigned board and they start working it where we do it a little differently comes into our dispatch board.
Speaker C:We have two people that are dispatchers assign tickets accordingly to what a tech is capable of and it's kind of.
Speaker C:They make the decision on it of, of priority.
Speaker C:But we always prioritize customers contracts first and foremost.
Speaker C:I mean if you, if you pay us monthly, you're, you're going to get highest priority.
Speaker C:We, you know, downs anything down is obviously highest priority.
Speaker C:And then it just falls in that, that typical progression rate that you know.
Speaker C:But I mean there's, there's never been a time I think that a client submitted a ticket and we're not Immediately responding to them from at least the dispatch point of view of, hey, we've received your ticket, we see it, we're getting it scheduled.
Speaker C:You know, the technician might not start working on it, but another two, three hours, we see it, we have it scheduled, we have you prioritized for, for everything.
Speaker C:We respond to it.
Speaker C:Now that's, that's the biggest thing is our customers always know that we're there.
Speaker C:They always know that we respond to them when they know that we've seen it and that we're actively working at.
Speaker C:I'm not.
Speaker C:We don't want to be the company that the customer has to call and leave a voicemail for or submit an email or a ticket online and just wait six hours until technician responds to it.
Speaker C:That's not how we do it.
Speaker B:Yeah, unacceptable.
Speaker B:From, from your standards.
Speaker A:Yeah, Communication is key and communication and, and setting the expectations.
Speaker A:For example, if they call, you know, being you, you've probably been through this, they'll call and say they'll put in a ticket.
Speaker A:Well, but at the same time, you reach back out to them and, and they're like their, their urgency wasn't express exactly in the ticket, but when you talk to them, you see it's more of a sense of an urgency and, and vice versa.
Speaker A:If it's like, oh, you know, they're not here till tomorrow anyway, so, so you can't talk to them today.
Speaker A:So that's why we do it on the dispatch side.
Speaker A:And let's just face it as well, doing it on the triage where the technicians can pick it up.
Speaker A:Guess what?
Speaker A:They all had their favorites.
Speaker A:And because of that, their unfavorites might not get addressed.
Speaker A:And that's not fair to favor, fair to those clients.
Speaker B:And from a calling perspective, if a client calls in, do they leave a ticket or do they get connected directly to an engineer?
Speaker C:So it's really dependent on not only the ticket, our availability of technicians as well.
Speaker C:I mean, we, we, I would say 90% of the time have at least one to two technicians available at any point that you call, whether it's our actual designated technicians or even me or Michael picking up the phone sometimes to help a customer pretty quickly.
Speaker C:But I would say, I mean, the big thing is that you always are going to talk to somebody at tobac.
Speaker C:You're never going to get voicemail to leave or anything like that.
Speaker C:You're never going to be waiting for 10 minutes to talk to a customer, to talk to an employee for the first time or anything like that.
Speaker C:You press our option for service.
Speaker C:Somebody's answering the phone every time.
Speaker C:We'll take care of you.
Speaker C:There's plenty of times where we put somebody on hold in a matter of 12 minutes.
Speaker C:Technicians working on that too.
Speaker C:So it's, it's really just dependent on availability, but it's definitely a big possibility.
Speaker A:Yeah, we view it as if the customer took the time to.
Speaker A:Because they, everybody likes to communicate via email.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So the customer took the time to actually pick up the phone and call.
Speaker A:It's a little bit more important.
Speaker A:Let's, let's just say.
Speaker A:And, and if they're going to take time out of their day to call, we can take our time out of our day to, to speak with them and resolve it.
Speaker A:And, and we'll be honest with them.
Speaker A:If it's like, hey, we are slammed or we're, we got three people on a down system, we will call you right back.
Speaker A:And they appreciate it.
Speaker A:Nobody likes to leave a voicemail for, you know, ever try to call around for H Vac guy or whatever and you're just leaving voicemail at your voicemail after voicemail like nobody wants to do that.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Really, really frustrating.
Speaker B:And are you guys, are you guys on Kaseya or what is your, your psa Connectwise.
Speaker C:We were with Connectwise but now we are.
Speaker C:We are with Autodesk and Kaseo.
Speaker C:We've been with them for almost three months now actually.
Speaker C:So far we're enjoying it.
Speaker C:I mean, obviously still working out our kinks and, and trying to get everything fully set up.
Speaker C:But the setup process was miles ahead of what we received from Connectwise, unfortunately.
Speaker C:But we're, we're still in the learning curve.
Speaker C:Not only us, but technicians, dispatch, billing side everything of it.
Speaker C:But overall we like it so far.
Speaker B:I'm especially curious about the, you know, transitioning from Voice to IT and obviously having core competencies in both.
Speaker B:Do you cross train all of your technicians to do both sides or do you have different folks focused on different things and specializing.
Speaker A:This is where you see the maturity of me allowing him to step back.
Speaker A:We actually had this conversation the, about two days ago.
Speaker A:Mine was cross train, cross train everybody knowing.
Speaker A:And there's a, there's a way of thinking about it.
Speaker A:You know, if you cross train, if someone leaves someone sick, someone vacation, someone else can, can pick up the slack Logan and then convince me and I'll let him talk about his thoughts of it is.
Speaker A:But having more focused people might be a smarter way and they weren't working on something.
Speaker A:Then someone else throws them something else.
Speaker A:So I'll let Logan talk on that part.
Speaker C:Like you said, we've, we've always focused on cross training, which I think was, was fine for us.
Speaker C:Especially when we were doing mainly voip and doing, you know, small IT things here and there is work great.
Speaker C:We had no issue with it.
Speaker C:Now that we're growing to, to be a larger or not larger, but growing into a bigger MSP at this point to where we can, we're trying to take care of more and more customers on both the voice side and the MSP side.
Speaker C:It's not realistic to have everybody be able to do all of it.
Speaker C:Unfortunately, it's not where there's too many tickets, there's too many variety of it, there's too many people.
Speaker C:Too many times when we're working on a server and we have two or three people working on servers or down customers and then suddenly a call net ticket comes in and our dispatch is like, hey, I need somebody to take care of this top off this server real quick or hop off this install you're doing to change a name on a phone.
Speaker C:I'm like, no, we're not doing that anymore.
Speaker C:So we are working towards the steps now whether we have to hire more, which I'm sure we're going to have to is, is building designated teams more of like level one, level two, level three.
Speaker C:And we're going to have our level one technician and we all know level one is pretty basic stuff and so is majority of voiceover ip.
Speaker C:So that will all be level one and then we'll have our level two technician that does, you know, your average networking, level three.
Speaker C:They handle servers, NAS devices, stuff like that.
Speaker C:Like I said, we're working towards that.
Speaker C:We've, we've always done the kind of potluck of, you know, jack of all trades of every technician trying to get that.
Speaker C:But it's definitely getting to the point now we're seeing that it's, it's going to start hurting us more than it's help us and that's what we don't want.
Speaker B:So you're hitting an inflection point with, with your growth and your client needs and you're having to make adjustments to your model in order to meet the demands.
Speaker B:And you know, everyone can't just be a jack of trades.
Speaker B:You got to have some people that ultimately specialize.
Speaker B:How do you do that?
Speaker B:How do you get the right resources in place?
Speaker B:Like I can, I can only imagine.
Speaker A:And one of the biggest things what really honestly, just the only one thing that really Throws a kink into it is the projects.
Speaker A:You know, we're unlike most voiceover providers, we, we don't ship a box of phones.
Speaker A:We.
Speaker A:A technician actually goes out, installs trains on site and so forth, so on.
Speaker A:So, you know, that takes that person out of the field for a day.
Speaker A:I mean, out of, out of the office for day.
Speaker A:Then we have our camera systems that takes the person.
Speaker A:So that's what's kicking us in the, in the, in the tush, if you will, or getting busier and busier and busier.
Speaker A:And whether we, whether we're doing an install for a Conant cameras access control or just moving a client from one location to another, that is.
Speaker A:What's.
Speaker A:That is where my thought process of cross training everybody came into play.
Speaker A:But I can see Logan's point to where it's a detriment in some cases as well.
Speaker B:And revenue and employee count right now, where are you guys at?
Speaker A:We're like 2.3 million and we're 13 employees, correct, Logan?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C:Including us and marketing and sales and everything, or 13.
Speaker B:And what are your growth aspirations?
Speaker B:Like, what do you guys think is possible over the next few years?
Speaker B:Whatever horizon you, you think about, like where you want to take the business.
Speaker C:So we're, I mean, obviously everybody's always looking to grow.
Speaker C:We, we have kept a pretty steady growth rate of Michael.
Speaker C:I think it's what, 7% every year.
Speaker C:We're close to that of what we're.
Speaker C:Our revenue is just about every year.
Speaker C:And we're, we're trying to keep that.
Speaker C:I mean, that's obviously a pretty good growth rate.
Speaker C:And we're, we're trying to do it but not outgrow ourselves.
Speaker C:So we're having our limitations.
Speaker C:We're, we're, we've always run a skeleton crew and that's because of the, the crops training as well.
Speaker C:And it's just, it's, it's worked for us.
Speaker C:It always has.
Speaker C:The fear is we're now getting into the larger client, you know, larger clientele, where we're looking at one right now.
Speaker C:We've been in talks with them for almost two months now.
Speaker C: They have: Speaker C:We're going to need a team dedicated to just them stuff.
Speaker C:That's, that's the, the, the breakdown of.
Speaker C:Yeah, can't, can't cross train with that.
Speaker C:You know, that's huge spike in our revenue getting them.
Speaker C:But it is, we're, we're gonna need to hire at least, at least one or two more people to handle that and, and not affect Our day to day just on it.
Speaker C:So we're going to do a breakdown and maybe assign customers where.
Speaker C:What's something we're exploring still.
Speaker B:Nice.
Speaker B:So it sounds like you guys would be happy with, you know, 10 growth a year, keep the train moving, have steady growth.
Speaker B:You're not looking to double the business in three years.
Speaker A:We're always looking for acquisitions.
Speaker A:So that could be.
Speaker A:That could be.
Speaker B:What do you look for in an acquisition?
Speaker C:Customer base is the number one thing we look for in acquisitions, at least from what me and Michael have discussed.
Speaker C:You know, there's, there's a lot you can take from a business, but there's a lot of ways you can improve the internal side of a business.
Speaker C:But if there's no customer base there, it's, it's hard to justify.
Speaker C:Sorry, Michael.
Speaker C:I'm good.
Speaker A:No, you're fine.
Speaker A:You're fine.
Speaker A:No, it's, it's.
Speaker A:We have been because we do a lot of things.
Speaker A:Once again, we don't resell anybody's voice over IP product where we have our own.
Speaker A:It is a lot easier for us to take a, A company, let's say someone that's been in the business and they're nearing retirement and all they've ever done was, you know, traditional phone systems and so forth, so on.
Speaker A:We like those because we know their clients have to have to move to it, so.
Speaker A:And we can, but we opposed to a company that just started a voice over IP company.
Speaker A:Let's face it.
Speaker A:They don't have to be too smart a voiceover IP provider.
Speaker A:All I do is voice over IP because they're just reselling somebody else's product and branding it for them and so forth, so on.
Speaker A:I always say, growing, growing the business and stuff.
Speaker A:We had IT guys and we had traditional telephone system guys.
Speaker A:We're talking like the Nortel Meridians, the big systems.
Speaker A:I can make a phone guy, an IT guy faster than I make an IT guy a phone guy, because in, in the phone system world, there wasn't boxes that you were inside.
Speaker A: that would do: Speaker A:It's like a piece of paper sitting down and you have to program everything.
Speaker A:You have to program it from the ground up.
Speaker A:I mean, it's not just a checkbox.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:It's not like how voice or IP systems are.
Speaker A:Now, where Logan alluded to that you don't have to be as smart.
Speaker B:Yeah, they used to be a lot more complicated to maintain, create, manage and go forward.
Speaker B:They're just a lot easier because these VoIP systems just make it simple, becoming more commoditized.
Speaker B:Are you proactively looking for acquisitions or is that something where you're opportunistically like doing it if, if something comes across your plate?
Speaker A:No, I'm proactive.
Speaker A: I have a, I have a call about: Speaker A:About 1.
Speaker A:So cool.
Speaker B:That's awesome.
Speaker B:I'm, I'm excited to, excited to see what sort of stuff you've got on, on your plate going forward with that and integrations are always fun.
Speaker B:We're, we're going through one right now with my re recent acquisition.
Speaker B:So I'm thinking about that, that a ton.
Speaker B:When, when was your last acquisition?
Speaker A:Three years ago?
Speaker C:Yeah, it's been about three.
Speaker C:We, we just passed the three year mark.
Speaker B:And you're, you're glad you did it it.
Speaker B:You, you think it was a huge positive.
Speaker A:It was a positive in the long run.
Speaker A:You have to be careful now.
Speaker A:And like I said earlier, we, we own a couple of different companies outside of it, so and we bought other companies outside of it.
Speaker A:But the IT side of things you make, you can't go on for example a customer, you know, you, you had that trust and you're going to do the right thing.
Speaker A:The customer, you can't go on that.
Speaker A:You have to double check and everything.
Speaker A:Because I got, if I, I got some serious anxiety for the first six, seven months because of some things that I found out.
Speaker A:I mean it was horrible.
Speaker A:And I was, I was like oh man.
Speaker A:But you know, to, to Logan and my, and Junior my operates our operations manager.
Speaker A:We cleaned it up.
Speaker A:Customers are happy.
Speaker A:Did we lose some?
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:And there was an of no fault of total bcs, but of the fault of some of the things that happened during it.
Speaker B:So Got it.
Speaker B:So a little messiness during the transition, some skeletons in the closet that you had to uncover and solve because that's what you do.
Speaker A:Yes, but they all say now.
Speaker A:We've never had a better response time than we ever have now than from you guys than the previous client.
Speaker B:Is that what you tell new prospective clients is you know, why they should go with Total bc?
Speaker B:Like what's your, what are the two or three things why they want to pick Total BC over the competition?
Speaker A:Logan, everybody laughs, but I speak on analogies all the time.
Speaker A:Say he's laughing already.
Speaker A:You know, so obviously the customers yesterday at A new prospective client yesterday.
Speaker A:And, and we were talking about it and I told him, I was like, you know, it's just the little things that we do.
Speaker A:You know, as I walked in, they had a bunch of Amazon boxes.
Speaker A:Like, you know, you get, you get dropped off boxes.
Speaker A:Everything of those ours is customer service 100%.
Speaker A:You could see that by, you know, calling into our office and being able to talk to somebody, test it out, call us at midnight, press the emergency, see who answers.
Speaker A:Somebody's going to answer.
Speaker A:And it's not somebody in another state.
Speaker A:It's, it's one of us.
Speaker A:Talk to some of our clients.
Speaker A:It's anybody.
Speaker A:I, I normally hold up a pen, I said, you know, anybody can sell you this pin.
Speaker A:We're the people that when you run out of ink, we walk over there, unscrew the cap, put a new, some more ink in it, screw it back on, and hand it back to you.
Speaker A:So that's our customer service side.
Speaker A:You know, we worry about their products, but at the same time we don't make the products.
Speaker A:If, if, if a Lenovo laptop dies, it's not on, is we can't help that.
Speaker A:But what we can help is what we do about it for you.
Speaker B:Customer service response time.
Speaker A:Yep, it's 100.
Speaker A:If you do that, everything else will fall into lie 100%.
Speaker A:What I mean, how many times as have you, you could take anything, anything in a bad situation and treat that person with, with kindness or, or whatever, think of anything and it's like, hey, how this lady treated me at the store or how this person treated me there, it made things better, you know?
Speaker A:You know, so sometimes you can't help what happens, but you can help how you make the customer feel and how you calm them down and say, don't worry, I know your server just blew up, but we have your immutable backups and we're going to have you spun up here within the hour.
Speaker A:I can't help their server blew up.
Speaker A:But I can tell you and make you sleep good at night when you go home that by the time I come in at 8am it's gonna be like a, before the server blew up.
Speaker B:So it's awesome.
Speaker B:Well, I've been, obviously I've known you, Michael, for I don't know, a year and a half now.
Speaker B:And it's been awesome to hear your story and you've been personally extremely helpful to me in my business and, you know, feedback and ideas and what we're going to do and you know, acquiring this new company.
Speaker B:So you know, props to you for being a.
Speaker B:Being an awesome dude.
Speaker B:And, you know, I hope you let Logan trill the or blaze of the path, I should say into.
Speaker B:Into helping you lead the company forward to do even better things in the future for your clients.
Speaker B:So it's awesome.
Speaker B:Thanks for joining me, guys.
Speaker A:Thanks.
Speaker A:Thank you.
Speaker C:Thank you, Ben.
