SPEAKER_01 0:01

And welcome to the InfoTech Podcast, where we talk to MSP leaders and focus on the intersection of business and technology. My guest today is Kevin Remdi. He is from CMIT Solutions. Kevin, thanks for being here today.

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Oh, my pleasure. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 0:19

Yeah. So I always give my guests a chance to kind of riff on their background and their origin story. Everyone has a unique perspective. So I'll just give you the floor and explain to me, you know, how you came to run an MSP, maybe a little bit about your uh history and getting into the industry and kind of how you arrived at where you're at today.

SPEAKER_00 0:38

Yeah, well, uh back in 1980, I uh graduated from the University of Minnesota with a computer science degree, a Bachelor of Arts. Um, I'd been a music student before that, so it made a transition to the Bachelor of Arts kind of uh easy. But um I worked uh initially as a software engineer. So I was a software developer, worked at a large company. Um a layoff of about uh 200 of my closest friends and myself led me to a small software company in Edina, uh Minnesota. And then I uh I worked there for a number of years. Eventually, though, uh the company like the internet was just becoming a thing. And so I kind of stepped in and helped with managing servers and then managing the networking. Um and uh one of my my best moments at that company was moving from an internal uh Novelle-based um networking scheme to turning it over to TCP IP overnight and uh and connecting to an external dedicated dial-up connection to the internet and nobody noticed, which was perfect. You know, no the times the desk phone doesn't ring is always a good thing. Um but I really enjoyed that job, and again, number of uh purchases of uh and sales of the company between uh companies, and eventually there was a Dutch company that didn't need me as an IT manager in North America anymore. So uh so I went to work for Microsoft and I was there for 14 years. Really enjoyed my role there as a senior technical evangelist. I know it's a strange title. I don't think they're using it anymore today, but back then it really meant doing presentations, doing live events, um, look staying on top of the technology, um, really the cutting edge of things as related to Microsoft, and eventually Microsoft's move to the cloud was a big part of that. Um but in uh 2017, uh left Microsoft and was kind of wondering, okay, what's next? I I really enjoyed doing small business IT back before Microsoft. So I thought, well, I could start my own IT business, and I knew some people that had done that sort of thing and worked with them uh a little bit. But um learned after meeting a uh area developer for CMIT Solutions that there was this thing called a franchise model. Um there were a couple of franchisees, uh franchise awards, I should say, um, in this space. And so with the help of a uh a franchise uh mentor, I guess, um, and uh helping me pick okay which one of these would be the best fit for me, um, he had a actually it's interesting, he had an online evaluation for for me and and other people he worked with to kind of determine what would be the best sort of a franchise business for you. Um and for me it was either a um uh a kickboxing studio or it was, I don't know why, uh kickboxing studio or or an IT franchise, and of the ones that are available, you know, the CMIT seemed like a good fit.

SPEAKER_01 3:21

That's awesome. Yeah, we talked about this a little bit earlier. I mean, I've I've talked to a lot of MSPs and they're you know usually bootstrapping off the ground, but your uh origin story probably has one of the most depth to it. I mean, you've seen the industry, I mean, from the 80s, I don't know what the equivalent in the car industry is, I guess back into like 1900 is the equivalent. I mean, you've seen decades of progression, um, and then you ended up in a franchise model. So what attracted you to that, I guess? Because that I think is pretty unique, and not a whole lot of others maybe have that experience.

SPEAKER_00 3:52

Yeah, I think um, you know, at the time it was um again, the decision between doing it myself or doing it with franchise really came down to, first of all, in my pick of CMIT solutions, they were um very well respected and very well rated, especially among the franchisees. Um the uh there was a survey company that does an annual survey of the franchisees of particular franchise uh groups, and they want one of the questions is how how satisfied are you with the way the home office, the the main franchise or is is managing the business. And it was always very highly rated among the franchisees in terms of the support and uh the system they had in place. But when it comes to the reason between franchising and doing it myself, it is that system. It really has a lot to do with uh, okay, they've already got operations in place, they've got a proven model, they have uh marketing that's already there for you, and you can take advantage of it. Thus they set up your your website for you. So if you go to cmit solutions.com slash twin dash cities dash west, that's my location. Um one of about 300 locations around North America. But you know, they they provide content for that, they they help with the uh with the marketing. Um beyond that, um, we have a weekly quick tips email that goes out uh to my my uh CRM basically, um any leads that I think would be interested in our business. Um and then it's you know it's just informational, but you know, that's the sort of thing that I would have to build myself and really and take a lot of time to do it. Uh where I'm trying to grow the business, I'm trying to uh to support my customers. In fact, you know, when I started, I didn't have any customers. So that was the first thing to do was get customers, get out there and network and and take advantage of the marketing that they they had. Um eventually, you know, grow it up to a good customer base, and I've got an employee working for me now, but I still have that technical background, so I can I can jump in when I need to.

SPEAKER_01 5:45

Sure. So uh we were talking earlier as well, and you mentioned you've been a business for eight years and you're up to 400,000 in revenue, which is awesome. Um, so it sounds like you have one employee now. So basically you're the front end of your business, and then CMIT is kind of the back office. Is that a good way of putting it?

SPEAKER_00 6:05

Good way of putting it. Um, each owner is independent in in many respects. Um, the franchise, and this is if you want to talk about some drawbacks, some of the flexibility that you might get by doing it all yourself, um, is you know, you have to give up some of that because you've got a brand that you need to uphold. They've got rules around that as far as how um if you you know want to create content, um, you should have it approved by the by the home office as far as that goes. Um but um you know it's it's not unreasonable, certainly. So um, you know, when you sign up with with CMIT, you there's a 10-year franchise agreement. Um, and you know, you could sell anytime during that time, but if you if you needed to to get out. But I mean the best options for you if you're part of that system, um, are hopefully there's some other CMIT solutions owner in the area that could also uh expand their territory by buying you. But that's that's way down the road for me. I'm not looking to retire anytime soon. Um having too much fun here. But um so that but but you know another benefit of the franchise too is it is a larger system. So we are approaching 200 million in revenue as a as a total system. Wow. Um we we did a big celebration a couple years ago when we hit 100 100 million. Um this year is our 30th anniversary, so you're gonna see a lot of CMIT solutions uh uh crowing about that, the fact that we've been around for 30 years. Um if you got time, I can actually tell you some of the history of CMIT.

SPEAKER_01 7:25

Please, yeah, that'd be great.

SPEAKER_00 7:27

All right. Um well CMIT right now, CM, uh, we like to say it's completely managed IT. Um but that wasn't the case back 30 years ago. Thirty years ago, the CM stood for computer moms. And the reason for that is it was like it's kind of fun. And and uh there's still some people that were in the system way back then. Um I think the origin one of the original computer moms was still still running her business. But it was a computer club in Austin, Texas. And these these women, uh, these women um they they supported each other, some of them had businesses. Um I'm probably maybe getting some of the story wrong, but this is the way I remember it being told to me. Um the uh the the eventually it became a uh a business of itself. Um was purchased by a a a uh a group that then decided, you know, this is a great model for supporting small business. The managed services approach was coming um and and and going to be a really good way to support small businesses, so the ones that don't have IT, they don't have IT staff. Um so this MSP model. And uh they eventually turned it into a franchise. Um and uh, as I mentioned, there are about 300 locations around North America now.

SPEAKER_01 8:35

Yeah, that's wild. I mean, when I initially reached out to you, uh, you know, I I reached out to a lot of people to get them on the podcast here, and and you reached out, and I that's the first thing I saw was CMIT. I'm like, they're huge, you know, like like what you said, the 300 locations.

SPEAKER_00 8:49

Um that's a back to that. I was gonna finish that thought real quickly. So um the the benefit of this larger system and the fact that we're growing so well uh and growing quickly is that we are getting uh we use that that to our advantage with regard to um our relationships with our vendors. So the the the the corporate office really does a good job of setting up those vendor relationships, getting good pricing for us, for example. So some of the margins that we can get or or some of the pricing um is is extremely competitive in the sense that you know if you're just a one-person shop or maybe just a regional play where you you go to the big the biggies like Caseya and ConnectWise and all those, um, you're not going to be able to get the pricing that we get.

SPEAKER_01 9:31

Yeah. So would you say it's it's almost akin to a peer group, perhaps?

SPEAKER_00 9:35

Even model. That's that is kind of an aspect of it. I mean, the fact that we're um so many of us in in uh, like I said, in North America, then we we once your business is developed after a couple of years, um, we often uh many will choose to join or be invited to join a mastermind group. Um so these become like little communities within the big community. And that there's some competition as well. I mean we keep track of okay, what's the total group revenue, and you know, every year at our convention, I think the convention is happening in September this year. Um they have a contest of the the uh mastermind group of the year. The mastermind group I'm a part of is called Forerunners. But you know, so we all have uh team names. But we get together every other week online to discuss different aspects of our businesses. We get together twice a year, once at our annual convention, and then once outside of that. In fact, just this last week, I was in Leesburg, Virginia, and my mastermind group was all there together. Um and we do what's called Limelight Reviews, where one of us um in a in a rotation, um, in this case we did two days, so two different businesses were really on the on the podium, and uh everything was was under the microscope as far as their uh evaluation. So aspects of service delivery, uh client acquisition, uh people management, uh, and so on and finances um were all evaluated very strongly. And then at the end of the day, the different committees that that uh pummeled the the the limelight with questions would then come up with a list of commends. So here's the things that we think you're doing really well in your business, keep doing those. And then here's some things that we found that you know, maybe there's some changes you can make, uh recommendations for improving your business. So it's it's a great way to take advantage of other others, other owners of various maturities that are all in the same same boat, really. And uh you really learn a lot, even if you're not the line light. I mean, you just come away with such a great amount of information.

SPEAKER_01 11:33

Yeah. Have you been in that spot already in your group? Yeah, already uh two times so far.

SPEAKER_00 11:38

Um probably in probably a year, year and a half months.

SPEAKER_01 11:42

Yeah, that that's really great. Um our pre our peer group is in the Caseya Incubator, it's called True Peer, and we call it the hot seat, is when that happens. And I would say that first one is really uncomfortable, like on purpose. Um, but what were some key takeaways that I guess you have? Because you know, you've you've kind of everyone's on their own growth path. So somebody listening today might be, you know, looking for some tidbits of wisdom, whether it's from your, you know, the CMIT, you know, piece there or just your own uh experience in in business. What are some, you know, maybe two or three key takeaways in the last year or so that you've seen that really has helped you get to the next level?

SPEAKER_00 12:17

Um it there's different aspects. One one um is uh an area that uh I have a really good accountant, I have a really good bookkeeper that helps me with things, but there's still things that I can do to to firm up the way I account for things, the way I can track things and and and the way I can improve based on that. You know, having a good handle on what your cash flow is, having a good handle on um, you know, what what value you're you're bringing or your employees bringing as far as uh employees are bringing as far as their utilization. I mean, these are things that um it's easy as you get started to to kind of not worry about and you think, well, as long as I'm charging more than the vendor's charging me, I should be making money, right? But that's not always the case. So getting into the panel and those sorts of things. Um marketing is also another area where I think people don't realize uh the all the different avenues that are available to them as far as um marketing. Now, I personally don't feel that you know Instagram is gonna be a great way to find business because I don't think that people are businesses looking for other businesses like mine. But you know, LinkedIn, certainly, uh, and even to some extent Facebook. But if you as long as you have good content getting out there on your blog site, uh on your your website, um, you know, make it searchable, make it uh make it relevant, you know, make it uh uh uh optimized for SEO, and now of course with with AI, making sure that if somebody's using Chat GPT and they ask for the you know what what should I look for? Is there a good um managed service provider or business support, business IT support, business security, you know, any of those uh questions uh that my website will come up, my business will come up at top of the list when they're looking in the Twin Cities area, because I'm I cover the entire uh West Metro here in the Twin Cities. So any business from uh Brooklyn Park, Blueprint Center, uh Corcoran, Rogers, down to Bloomington, um uh Eden Prairie, um, there's those are all uh in my area.

SPEAKER_01 14:06

Yeah, yeah, I've heard it say that I think consistency is the biggest thing in social. It's not even the quality, it's just consistent and putting things out there. Um and yeah, you hit the nail on the head. I think SEO and what is it called now? GEO generative or AEO, yeah. Yeah, the the AES is huge. Yeah, because people aren't even Googling anymore, they're putting it into chat. And if you don't have tags or keywords for your local area or your market, you're gonna be filtered down.

SPEAKER_00 14:31

So um I think you guys are doing a lot of and good content makes you relevant, and and you know, the large language models will will know. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:40

I mean, that's what we're trying to do here, right? I mean, we're creating content for our own audiences, and hopefully, you know, it's it's good for our target market. So you kind of led already into my next question, and we were talking about AI a little bit, but everyone wants to know about trends these days, right? Um, I think cybersecurity and AI are probably the two hot topics. Um, we talked about that a little bit earlier here before we started recording. Um, what are you seeing in your market that your customers want to know about or that the vendors maybe are pushing? Because we get hit with so many different options, right? Um, at least at InfoTech, we're always trying to filter out what's the most bang for your buck, what's the most relevant, worth you know, our clients' time. What are you seeing uh in your market along those lines?

SPEAKER_00 15:18

Well, I think there's a crossover there. So I will talk about that overlap as far as security and AI. But uh with regard to security, we're seeing more and more, uh, more and more attacks. And and if you are running a business like mine, you have to stay on top of that. What is what is the latest trend? What's going on? Um, you know, what sorts of uh phishing emails are my customers getting, or anybody, and you can probably see that in your own example with your own mailbox. You've probably seen them as well. But you know, it's it's what what happens when someone does click on the wrong link or enter their credentials into the wrong form that the bad guys have put on the screen, or even the multi-factor authentication that's based on uh SMS text messaging, um, they enter that six-digit code that they were just texting. Well, that could have been the bad guys asking for that too. Yeah. Um, you bet. And I had a couple of customers that actually fell for that, and unfortunately, to some sad results. Um, but you to be on top of that uh means, okay, are there tools that can help to uh secure better? And there are, and actually I've I've mandated that there's one particular tool that our customers have to have um in order to uh watch their cloud security, for example. Um but I mean that that really comes back to the whole reason some company would want to go with a managed service provider to help them. They don't know this, and they don't uh they don't know what they don't know. What they do know is that they hear rumblings about security, and maybe they know some other business who got hacked, or maybe they know somebody else whose email was compromised and uh to to a bad result. Um so what do we do about that? Or this is another one too, um the uh cybersecurity insurance. So your your insurance provider, your business insurance providers probably asked you about or you know, hoping that you will buy some cybersecurity insurance just in case that time happens when someone does click on that wrong link or installs a tool that that encrypts all their files and holds them for ransom, but they have to pay a certain Bitcoin value in order to get their files unencrypted. Uh well, you know, if you get hit by that, if you pay that ransom and then you go to insurance companies, say, okay, I need to collect on this. And if you didn't fill out that cybersecurity insurance uh form properly and accurately, um, you know, all the different things that you said you were doing, such as maybe multi-factor authentication, but maybe you actually didn't do that. Well, do you think that insurance company is gonna pay for that? Um and the answer, unfortunately, 40% of the time, is no. Uh they're actually gonna deny that claim. So you gotta you gotta use a company like ours to help with that process, certainly even in the sense of the evaluation. So, you know, send me that form, I'll help you fill that out. And let's get it accurate and let's make sure if there's something that's real easy, some low-hanging fruit to make you more secure, we can actually help you with that. Um, but back to the crossover with AI, the bad guys are getting really good at using AI for the sake of, you know, if only just this one example, creating content that looks believable, right? Uh one of the things that they used to teach you in in cybersecurity awareness training, and you, you know, I we actually provide that kind of training as well. Um, but they would give you tests on, okay, does this email look like it's um it's suspicious? And one of the one of the tells on emails was, well, the grammar's not right, or you know, it doesn't quite feel like it's it's native English, whatever. Um, but the problem is these days that they're all using AI to generate new, you know, perfect emails that will come out just great. So you can't rely on.

SPEAKER_01 18:41

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 18:42

Exactly. Um so that's that's one aspect of it. And plus the fact that they can just um really, really help, you know, narrow down the who they're targeting and then and then target for um you know unlimited agent-driven software driven or or you know, bot-driven uh attacks. Um and you know, the alerting that we see um coming in, I'm you know, dozens of alerts every day of some accountant that I'm responsible for protecting um with an with a uh attempt at logging in multiple times in a short amount of period from some c country far away. Um, you know, people don't know about that, but that's what's happening all the time. And uh it just takes one person with a weak password and no multi-factor authentication, or at least no strong multi-factor authentication using an authenticator app of some sort. Um, that you know, it could get past that. So that's that's that's what's happening with AI. Now, on this uh the other side of it in terms of what my customers are wanting to do with AI, um, absolutely. You know, we can help with uh you know making your people more efficient. Um, you know, there are a lot of companies out there that are mandating their people start using AI and you using it in a secured way, not a free account. You know, you're using a free account, you're you're likely to, um, unfortunately, if you're gonna do some real business work with it and you're putting real business data in there, and that business data is confidential data, uh, if you're not using a paid for secured lockdown account, you're sending your business data out into the cloud, it becomes part of the large language model. And uh now everybody has that. Free is not free. No, no, free means you're the you're the uh the uh product, right? Right. Yeah, you're sure. So that's that's another thing that we hope uh to make sure that our our our customers and our prospective customers understand. Look, we we can help you with uh with you know setting up accounts to to do AI, like we have a really good aggregate solution if you wanted to have access to some 77 different large language models all for one subscription. We actually have that as an option. Um so yeah, there's some good solutions out there, and and you want to again rely upon a managed service provider to help walk you through that, um, help help your users, give them training on how to use it, and then uh yeah, go from there.

SPEAKER_01 20:49

Yeah, that's that's great stuff. I mean, how do you help a young MSP owner that's trying to communicate the value of what you just said to you know their clients? Because at least in our experience, um, you know, insurance is is catching up, I think. Like those surveys used to be four questions, you know, do you have antivirus, firewall? Okay, you're good. Well, now they're getting hit with you know four pages worth of questions, right? So if other vendors are saying it, I think there's a little more reception to security practices, best practices, you know, industry um best practices, but it's still the human factor, I think, is always going to be the weakest link, right? So um for me at least, it's always how do I communicate it in a way that um connects those dots? Because usually it's you know it's a price problem or a convenience thing, right? Like they don't want to do all the steps, you know, they maybe haven't been burned in the past, you know. So it's it's our job, like you alluded to as as as MSPs, is to you know help grease those kids. So, how do you do that when you know owners are just bombarded these days with all kinds of stuff and it's ah, this is another tech meeting, they want me to spend money, you know, whatever the the situation is. How do you get through that and and help provide that value?

SPEAKER_00 21:59

Well, what What is the cost to you if you're unable to perform your business function? I mean, what is the cost to you if you are basically stranded for days or even weeks trying to recover from an attack where your files have been all encrypted, uh, where a system crashed that was the only copy of a particular important file that your whole company was dependent upon? Um, what happens when even you as the owner and your laptop uh hard drive fails, and because they all fail eventually, um, do you have that information protected? Or um somebody in your company installed something that looked like a free PDF reader and now it's infected uh the entire network. Um, you know, these are the sorts of things that they they hopefully understand could happen. And a simple approach would be making sure that systems are uh are protected with a monitored, um, better class than just the built-in antivirus, but actually an endpoint an endpoint detect and respond or EDR approach to antivirus where we get an alert saying, okay, this this PDF editor tool was installed and and uh you know we've we've quarantined it right away, so it's not going to cause an issue. Um or that patching. People don't realize um and and often and too often they they ignore the updates that come out from Microsoft, right? They're they're notified that there's an update that should be applied. Um every second Tuesday, the patch Tuesday of the month, um, Microsoft comes out with updates or third parties also. And if they're not applied, um then maybe there's a security update was that was there that specifically addressed a known vulnerability in the operating system that is now being exploited. Um and you've got you have to get those patches installed because that's that's as uh dangerous as not having a good antivirus product, not having good firewalling your network. These are all things that we can help with. And those are all things also that the again back to the insurance that the questionnaire is going to ask about. Do you have a monitored antivirus? Do you have a patching solution in place that's monitored? Do you have MFA uh multi-factor authentication everywhere that you can? Um is all network traffic encrypted? Do you have backups of that and important critical information? Um, like you said, that questionnaire is getting longer and longer, and it's because of things like this. And those are all the things that that a uh a uh company like mine, an MSP, can actually help provide.

SPEAKER_01 24:10

Yeah, I think that's that's fantastic. And I like the idea that you use kind of stories to bring it in, like examples. I think that really resonates with people versus you know going through a bunch of tech jargon with acronyms they probably don't understand. Um, you know, getting into the nitty-gritty and saying, hey, I have a you know, a client, Bob, or whatever, don't even say their name. But yeah, he went through this whole thing. Like we're trying to help you avoid this pain, not just cost extra money or inconvenience. And I think I gotta believe that most people, if they haven't been affected directly, they've heard of somebody close to them that has. Um so that's that trend is hopefully going in the right direction. Um where do you see all this heading, Kevin? I mean, I I feel like we're on this iteration train that just keeps exploding, right? Like we're hit with so many more things. I think at least infotech scope of work is probably double what it was, you know, even three or four years ago. Um, do you see that trend continuing, or what do you see here for 2026 as we uh kind of go into third quarter?

SPEAKER_00 25:09

Well, in all of the ways that AI is making things more dangerous for um because the bad guys are using it. Um the good news is that we have those tools at our at our disposal as well. And so a lot of the tools that we use um are are introducing or have already introduced AI tools that will help in our uh our detection of vulnerabilities, um, are being able to then um basically find where the holes are so that we can address them. Um so that's that's an encouraging piece of it. You know, we're we're we're able to take advantage of that same power and that same uh not only productivity, but certainly in uh regards to intelligently applying security solutions to where they're needed most. Um so I think that's I think that's really encouraging. Um and and again, something that the our our customers hopefully and our prospective customers will also take advantage of. Um the fact that there is, and this is good actually, again, it's on the it's on the uh cybersecurity insurance uh questionnaire, but get your people trained. Um I can't stress that enough. There's a lot of good training solutions out there. We do provide one as well where you'll get the um the periodic link links to a video that talks about a new topic. Uh we can actually send out campaigns of test emails uh for you or at least testing scenarios where you know if you if you had watched the video before, you should be able to detect what the issue is here. And if you didn't, well, maybe you need to go back and review that course again. But um even just having that in place is one of the parts on the questionnaire for the insurance.

SPEAKER_01 26:35

Yeah. It sounds like you've got a great way of threading the needle, right? Like let's not be afraid of AI, let's adopt it, but let's do it in a way that's secure and doesn't just create more problems, right? And if you do that, I I would think it'd have to be a competitive advantage, not only for you, but for your customers too, right? If they're teaching their people how to use the better tools, they're going to be more efficient and more effective.

SPEAKER_00 26:56

Yeah, yep, absolutely. Awesome.

SPEAKER_01 27:00

Well, um, as we wrap up here, Kevin, I always try to give uh guests the opportunity like to talk to the younger viewers that are out there that are maybe a little bit behind, you know, where you are. Um, so what's a good piece of advice you've got? Um it sounds like you're you're running on all cylinders, you know, you're connecting with your customers, you're bringing to bear a full suite of solutions that um are effective and kind of connect with what they need on a daily basis. Um what would you say is is maybe your best piece of advice for someone that's maybe struggling with that or not quite in the maturity model that you guys are in?

SPEAKER_00 27:32

Um I think the one thing um that I probably didn't know when I started out, and it was it became apparent pretty quickly and with good um uh recommendations from people who had been doing it longer than I had, uh, is communication with your customers and really making maintaining that that touch point and having regular um technical business reviews uh so they understand, okay, here's here because otherwise if you don't, they just don't know what you're doing, they're just sending you a check every every month. Um but you know what what is it that you've actually done for me? Have you blocked any uh any viruses on PCs? What's sort of what's the ticket flow look like? You know, what happened with those? Who requested the the help? How was it resolved, and so on? These are things that the owner of the manager of the business wants to know because it it then proves that you're of value. Um and along with that, hey, uh Mr. Business Owner, what what's your goal um beyond this? And is there anything technology related that we can help you with? Are there things that we can help build for you? Or maybe I have some ideas that could make them more efficient or or make them better as far as security goes. So these are all ways to to help um improve their business ultimately, because it really does come down to, you know, my I'm I'm your, you know, you want to call it virtual CIO or or I'm your your technical guy, whatever it, whatever it is. Um that's a role that I I love doing and I love doing it for you. So if there's something I can do to help you there, that's great. But um it it would be, and it is kind of easy just to say, okay, well, they're fine, there's not any issues there, I don't have to meet with them regularly. No, it it's actually very important to do that.

SPEAKER_01 29:00

Sure. No, I love that. That's great. I mean, communication I think is a struggle in our industry at large. I mean, there's a lot of introverts in IT, and you know, we're good at fixing problems, but not necessarily those soft skills, right? At least I've definitely seen that um and had to work on that, you know, in in our culture at InfoTech too. So um Kevin, this has been fantastic. I really appreciate your time and coming on. Um, if people want to get in touch with you, um I guess specifically if they're in the quad cities in in the in that area, but or the twin cities, um, how what's the best way to get them involved?

SPEAKER_00 29:32

Uh well, if you uh you email K Remd, K-R-E-M-D-E at CMIT Solutions. That's one way. Um uh you can go to cmit solutions.com and then look at look for locations. You'll be able to find us on the Twin Cities. There's a couple of us here. Um, my particular website, I think I mentioned earlier, cmit solutions.com slash twin dash cities dash west.

SPEAKER_01 29:55

Awesome. And we'll of course add all that in the show notes so people can easily click and find you. Um and yeah, we appreciate you being on today. Um, and to our audience, hopefully you got some tidbits here from Kevin. Um, feel free to click uh like and share us on social media. The more followers we get, the easier it is to produce more shows. So we'll see you all next time. Thanks.