SPEAKER_01 0:01

And welcome to the Info Tech Podcast. I'm your host, Jimmy Huber. And today, uh my guest is Randall Martinez from IT Pros Management Group. Uh Randall, thanks for being on today. Appreciate your time.

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Thanks for having me, Jimmy. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 0:16

Yeah. So as you know, InfoTech's podcast is based on the intersection of business and technology. So as I talk to more and more MSP leaders, it's always interesting to get their origin story. So uh Randy, I'm gonna kick it over to you and have you explain. You know, you're uh uh a seasoned veteran, I would say. I mean, you've been in the industry quite a long time, so I'm I'm sure you've got a lot of stories. Uh take as long as as you want, but tell us kind of your your origin, your background, and um, and how you got to IT pros.

SPEAKER_00 0:45

Sure. Thanks a lot, Jimmy. I appreciate it. I always like talking about this. I've written a few books, uh, magazine articles, just things like that. So I've had to think about my origin story because for the book covers and for things like that. So uh it's funny because it's kind of full circle. I started my IT career in uh Las Vegas, Nevada. I was working for the Department of Justice after I got out of the military. Uh, after eight years of uh active duty, I decided to kind of part ways and spend time with my family. I had a young family at the time. Uh so I was looking for obviously civilian work. And uh my interest at that time was going to be in law enforcement, to be honest with you. So I got a job with the Department of Justice uh while I was waiting to get accepted to a law enforcement agency that I was applying for at the time. So what happened was I was working here in I live in Henderson, Nevada, which is right next door to Las Vegas now. So as I said, it's full circle. I ended up back in Las Vegas. Um so I started working uh for the Department of Justice. And back then, this is, you know, I'm an old guy, I'm gonna be 60 years old this year. Scary to say that. Just for you.

unknown 1:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:51

Um, and I was working there, and at that time, even with the federal government, there wasn't really IT folks like we have today. You and I are IT professionals. That didn't really exist back then. Back then it was like, you know, who has a knack for this that can help. So it I ended up having a knack for it. Not something I had trained for at that time, but I had a knack for it. I like it, I was curious, I was pretty good at troubleshooting. So I ended up being by kind of the, even though my position wasn't a technology position, it was more of an administrative assistant for the uh U.S. Attorney's Office in Las Vegas at that time. Um, I ended up kind of helping out all these different departments in the federal building. So I ended up being kind of the IT guy before there were IT guys. Uh and I was helping, you know, the FBI guys, the uh Marshall's office, the U.S. attorney's office, other small agencies that were in the building when they needed technology to go, hey, Martinez knows, even though I never been trained on it, but just had a knack for it. So I ended up doing that more than I was actually doing my own job. And I started liking it. So I pursued that that as a career path, again, still waiting to get into law enforcement. Um, and then my then wife, who has since passed away uh several years ago, um at that time she said, even though I got accepted into a law enforcement, a couple of law enforcement agencies, she said, no, I don't want you doing this anymore. And I'm like, what? What do you mean? I spent all this time applying and doing all these things and and and she never had really thought about me getting accepted or getting actually getting an offer. And I ended up getting two to three offers all at the same time. And that really pissed off my uh background investigators because they're like, You made us waste all this time. I'm like, I'm sorry. But my wife at that time was really adamant about it, and uh, I just had to make a decision that I couldn't do that. She didn't want me risking my life more than I already had done in the military. So, you know, you have to do what you gotta do. So I thought about it and I ended up kind of looking at technology as that secondary career. I like helping people, that's the reason I wanted to go into law enforcement. Um, so this way I was able to then help actually people um, you know, do things in the technology space. So I ended up getting jobs in different technology positions. I started off kind of as an IT person, um, putting out fires in different buildings and in different industries. And then, you know, I advanced, I got a job as an IT manager, an IT director, and moving forward in time, I, you know, built my resume up to the point where I worked for an MSP. I quit one job, uh, was an IT director. I took a couple months off and then said, Hey, I want to get back to work. So I got a job as an MS as an account manager uh for an MSP here in Southern California, well, in Southern California when I used to live. And they basically said, you know, want you to come on board. So I came on board. But the one problem there, and the reason I kind of spun off and decided to build IT Pro's management group, was I was in the responsibility of having to help these businesses as an account manager, but I was restricted by the company's policies. So I knew I could do things a certain way to improve businesses, but the problem was that there was company policies that I was restricted from doing those things. So I said, I can do this a lot better, I can make adjustments. So I branched off on my own, picked up a few clients, built out my processes, you know, brought in tools, figured things out. And, you know, 15 years later, here we are. Uh IT Pros Management has is a you know a very good company. We've started out in Southern California. We've now branched off because we moved to Las Vegas, so we're building our practice here in Las Vegas as well, as well as keeping our team in Los Angeles and still helping our clients there and building this additional market. So from the starting point of just being kind of that de facto IT guy for the Department of Justice in Las Vegas, to now, you know, being chief operating officer for IT Pro Management, that progression of time and effort and training and education has gotten me to this point. And now I don't consider myself a technology person. I consider myself more as a business consulting type of person because I understand business, because I've worked in different industries, helped different industries, and also have allowed myself to learn technology where learn how to apply technology is the best way of saying it into specific industries and businesses to help those industries A become secure, B, grow and you know, get a really good ROI or return on investment under technology spend. So that in a nutshell is my origin story. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:41

No, I see a lot of parallels in my own career. Um, but yeah, the the fact that you understand how to help people and you have a passion, it sounds like, for serving people first, and that's kind of and then you happen to get into technology, I can totally relate to that. And I think that makes you genuine too. Um, you're not just a nerd, you know, in the back corner talking about, you know, just technical jargon and all that. You can connect with people. So the progression to build out a company then that can do that, but then shift into it. Sounds like it's more of a business and a consultant side. So talk about that a little bit because I think a lot of times um MSP owners will get stuck in the the day-to-day, you know, doing tickets, making sure that their managers have what they need and and being way more involved and they don't realize maybe that there are limits um on their business growth. It sounds like you know, you've kind of figured that part out. Um, I mean, you're on a podcast with me, right? Sometimes I never have time to do kind of that. But um, you know, you're working on your brand and you're you're kind of getting to that next level. So how did that happen for you? Was that intentional or did you just kind of is that just a natural progression? Um, talk about that a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 7:45

Uh for for most businesses, and again, I uh associate with a lot of MSPs across the United States. I belong to the 20, which is a uh group of MSPs that have come together to do things the right way to get best practices in place. Um, so I've really been able to grow through that. But um I always knew I had to do it. It's just a matter of the ability to be able to do it. Um, you know, when I started this, I was doing everything myself. You know, granted, I kind of knew what to do. I'm I consider myself to be a smart person. I'm curious, I want to learn. Um, but again, I was doing everything. And as I started moving forward and understanding the business side of running an MSP, I realized, hey, I can't do everything because I am the weakest link of that process, because I can't do everything. Even though I'm capable, it's just not efficient. So I brought on some staff. Um, nowadays, my family is my staff. My daughter uh is uh the vice president of technical services for our company. She is responsible for all the technical work that's going on. My wife has helped me build this business, and she is our business development manager and helps with the marketing, sales, the outreach. Uh, she's got a great personality, so it's a good, good position for her. She likes talking to people, which is great for this type of position. So it's a family business, and we've brought in friends of my daughter to help the company. Uh, we just recently now um hired my other daughter's boyfriend, and he's turned out to be a great hire because he wanted a job. Yeah, and he came in with no technical experience. But I'm we don't look for that. We look for people that have good personalities, that can talk to people that know how to communicate. And then the technical side, like I tell people, I could train a monkey. If you give me enough time, I could train a monkey to do technical things, but I can't train a monkey to be personable, to be able to communicate, talk to people properly. Those are things that are innate in the person, and that's what we look for when we hire people. So we've just hired a part-time person in Los Angeles. So we are growing from the realization that I can do everything. And now I'm doing things to grow the brand, like you mentioned, grow our sales, increase our revenue, and having good people do the actual day-to-day work, the service delivery, as you may call it, um is done by people that know how to do it. Uh and I just think I bring that um, I would say that ethos of helping others. If you look in my background, I've got superheroes all over my background.

SPEAKER_01 10:23

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:24

And that's because I believe in that superhero ethos of service above else, above everything else. So uh I've trained my team, I bring that ethos. We have staff meetings and I always bring that up. Our job is to help our clients become heroes. We're not the heroes, we are the guides, we are the people that can make things happen, and we want to make our clients look like heroes for hiring us, for bringing us in and giving us the confidence to be able to provide those services. So that's the mentality. But getting back to your question, you know, it was I knew in the back of my mind how to do it. It just took time to do it. And um, but it was intentional. It wasn't just me stumbling into it. At a certain point, you come to the realization that you've got to move out of your own way and get out of your own space and give opportunity, trust people to be able to run the business, help you run the business so you can grow the business. And that's kind of where I'm at right now in the life cycle. Hey, I've got time right now to do these, you know, podcasts, be able to write a book, which I recently did, be able to do videos, be able to reach out, go to conferences and talk to people, you know, be a public speaker and carry our message of what I believe in from a technology and a business standpoint. Uh, cybersecurity and AI are really big now, obviously. And so I'm able to bring those two worlds together as well as that business context, and that allows me to grow our brand by doing those things. And the only way I was able to do that was to step out of the way from being the IT guy to being a chief operating officer or you know, founder of a company.

SPEAKER_01 11:57

Yeah. Wow, you had so much there. I mean, I feel like I could fill four or five more podcasts just on what you just did there. Um I want to I want to pick out a couple of things. We were talking earlier, um, that you have you mentioned this, a lot of family in the business. And it sounds like you're using your family as recruiters, like good people, you know, know good people. And so hiring on culture first, it sounds like, and then you know, training the technology piece, I can totally relate to that as well. I mean, I think that's a hundred percent the right approach. Um, but doing it with family is just another level. How do you uh navigate that? Because I feel like you know, I've known a lot of other family-run businesses, and sometimes it can get a little dicey, right? You're living with the same people, you're working with them, it's a it's a lot of time, you know. So it can be, I feel like, a really positive thing, but there's also some challenges there too. How have you navigated that? Obviously, it's working for you and and you've grown with that. Do you have a uh formula or something for that? You know, everyone says work-life balance. Uh, I I feel like that's almost a misnomer, but um, how have you been able to see success working with with family and and growing it from there?

SPEAKER_00 13:03

I think the biggest thing is uh again, I've I have a military background. I, you know, spent eight years in the military prior to that in high school and in it's even junior high school, I was involved in some type of military program. So it's always been innate in me. Um, if you know, if I wouldn't have gotten out, I probably would have made a career out of it. Um, but I I bring that to the table, and everybody knows, everybody in my family knows that that is really important to me. I'm a very uh patriotic person. I really believe my sons served, my son, one of my middle son is still in the Marine Corps, made it a career. He's a Marine Corps officer. Oh, that's true. My other son was an Army Ranger. Uh so service to us as a almost DNA type of thing has really been important. So I bring that to the table and I tell my people, you know, we're gonna run this like a military operation. Whether you're my daughter, whether you're my wife, whether you're whatever you are in relationship to me, when it comes to delivering services to our customers, what we say has to be done. And I take that military type of mentality of get the mission done, get it accomplished. And I use those leadership skills that I learned in the military that I train my staff into as well. So a lot of our training is surrounding around leadership, around you know, doing what you're gonna do, accomplishing your mission, proper planning. Things that you may even hear on the news today because of the you know things that are happening in the Middle East. You hear generals and secretary of war saying things about planning it, which are things that whether you're you know conducting military operations or whether you're running an MSP, uh makes sense. It's just scale. It's bigger, bigger scale, smaller scale, but those things still make sense. So we're able to do it because again, I think my family knows who I am, what I am, and how I bring things, how I raise my children, how I interact with my wife. So they understand that that's my the way I am. And if you're willing to fall in line with that, then we can grow our business. So, you know, personally, my daughter will call me and and I will treat her like an employee. But after hours, she's my daughter, and I love her, and I love you know my grandkids. So it it's a delineation there that I make very clearly, and everybody knows it. So as long as we're I'm transparent with that, I think that's what allowed us to kind of grow our business, be able to, you know, make wealth for our family, make wealth for the individual family members, um, but as well being able to know that I can trust the people that are working and that I can make commitments to our clients that my team can deliver because they've got skin in the game, basically. You know, we grow, they grow. If we shrink, they shrink. It's the same way we treat our clients. We our contracts or our scope of work are built on growth. If they grow, we help them grow, we grow. If they can't grow and they need to shrink, then we shrink with them. So we're always in alignment. And I do that with my family as well. So I think that's been the gig big piece is being transparent, them knowing me, me knowing them, and we each complement each other to allow the the whole, the totality to grow because of the way we run our business.

SPEAKER_01 16:08

Yeah, that's really uh great. I mean, I I can relate to those things in in my own life. I mean, relationships are everything. And the clients, whether for better or for worse, as long as that relationship piece is there and they understand that you are there to first serve them, and you can pass that along to your your staff. Um, oh, people see that and they want to work with with genuine people, and you're clearly that. And the fact that you can pass that on, and it sounds like train your staff, your family to be leaders themselves and to grow up um and and progress through the business, right? To offload from you. Um that's something that I think um not everybody has those skill sets. And the the fact that you're and then attracting even more you know people to you, that's that's infectious. Um, so that's fantastic. You mentioned a couple things there too. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 16:56

No, so I was gonna just add to that one piece. I'm glad you brought that up, is I've I've had to make my team, even my family, my daughter, especially, because now she's in a major leadership role. She's come up. She helped me when she was in high school doing all the grunt work, the stuff that you and I would not want to do, crawling under desks, you know, unpacking computers, things like that. So she's come up the chain and now she's you know in a leadership role. She took it seriously. She got an education, she's got a degree in information technology. So she made the effort, so now she's reaping the rewards of those efforts. But still, being a younger person, they're uncomfortable even doing this, talking on camera. So I've had to kind of break that and make people feel uncomfortable to get them past themselves and move on to that next stage. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 17:45

Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's almost like uh be un be comfortable with being uncomfortable because if you're just in your comfort zone, your sweet spot, that it's really hard to get out of that. So I think that's a a testament to your your character and like uh maybe a little tough love there, but I would have to believe that they would respect that, especially in the long term, as they uh you know grow themselves and can can look back and see how far they've come, right? Um that's one of the most satisfying things for me is my own staff. You know, as I've worked out of you know, several roles, and not only have they become uh growth in themselves, they've they've grown personally, but they've become better at certain things than I am, right? Like you you can't you can't do everything for everybody. Um so that's uh super satisfying, and it sounds like yeah, you're you're definitely not immune to that either. Correct. You've mentioned a couple things um towards the end of that segment. Um you wrote a book, it sounds like and you're starting to you know publish materials, maybe you know, document some pieces of of your career. Obviously, I'll put all that in the show notes so people can find those later. But um, what prompted you, I guess, to do to do those pieces and and what is in the future? Are you are you doing more? Um, what's what's the plan?

SPEAKER_00 19:00

Yeah, I I really want to educate people. I'm I'm I'm an educator at heart. I like teaching people, especially business owners. I meet a lot of uh great people doing what I do, uh, a lot of intelligent people that are really good in what they do. But uh I you and I probably understand this. We see people that just are clueless about technology and don't know how to leverage it, how to invest in it, how to properly set it up to make it secure, to make it, you know, uh uh an integral part of their business, which in today's world just has to be. And it's amazing how many people I find that are very successful at what they do. But when you ask them something about technology and what are you doing to you know do this, they're just clueless and they don't know and they're scared of it. So my job really has become to talk to people about you know, security is what I started for a few years ago, and I really focused a lot. I wrote a book on that. And now with the advent of AI coming out in the last two, three years and becoming a prevalent thing in organizations, I really want to make sure I leverage my knowledge and my experience because I started playing with AI two, three years ago, and I've gotten pretty good at it. I've implemented it in our own business, and it's made a huge difference uh in how we operate and how we're able to be efficient and fast and and limb nimble, nimble enough to be able to uh if somebody walks up to me and says, Hey, can you handle this? I'm pretty confident I say yes, because I know that I have got so much resources from humans to AI that I can actually do what uh they're asking of. So uh it allows me to do that. So I wanted to kind of bring that out to people in the form of a book for small and bid-sized businesses, which is the market that we cater to. But you know, again, small businesses could be five, 10 employees, up to like 500, 600 employees. That's still a small business in the United States. So we basically uh I wanted to write that book to kind of give people an understanding that AI is there, it could help them, and it how to start implementing it in their business in a secure fashion. That is the key part of this. Uh, I do a weekly um uh webinar called Stealth AI, uh, talking about how AI is kind of the new ransomware because everybody's throwing stuff into AI and without any guardrails or any governance. And that is a big, big problem, and you know that uh being in the industry. So my goal really is to educate people on how to use AI properly, and that's the the kind of the the uh idea behind the book and why I wrote the book was really to get that out to folks. So uh we're promoting the book. I just came out, it just was published or released uh last month, and so now we're just kind of promoting. Yeah, yeah, brand new. So we're promoting it now. Uh it's called uh uh AI unlocked.

unknown 21:47

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 21:47

Okay. Yeah, we'll put links out so people listeners here can can see that. Uh a lot of people about AI, yeah, but not a whole lot are implementing it. Like you, you're probably well, if you're for sure ahead of the curve if you already Been in it for two or three years. A lot of people are still catching up. Um, and then to be able to actually publish a book about it already, uh, that's that's pretty powerful. What are some practical things? I mean, kind of shifting gears here into like the nuts and bolts, right? Like you've already implemented it in your business. It sounds like you're pushing probably some AI solutions to your customers. Um what are the the trends that you see in 2026? Because it it seems like a lot of people they don't understand AI. They think it's just chat and like uh you know the new way of googling things just to figure out some tidbit information. That's a different step between doing that versus actually implementing it and making a meaningful difference in your business. Let's talk about that a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 22:38

So the biggest thing I'm seeing is again that fear of you know treating AI like a toy. And I tell people, well, you wouldn't treat a loaded handgun like a toy. If you do, you shouldn't have a handgun, right? Because it it is a it's it's a great tool to use, just like any tool. And it's a disruptive force in the world, just like the wheel was, just like the printing press, just like the internet was. All those things were disruptive. Yes, they're and when you disrupt something, you're gonna have winners and losers. Well, how can you become a winner? And this is starting to learn how to apply it securely and not just telling your employees, try AI, see what happens. Big mistake. If you do that, you might as well not do it because you're gonna put yourself at more risk than anything else. So what I'm seeing is really people uh treating it as uh starting off treating it like an executive assistant. Yeah, I can write an email for you, yeah, I can write a document, and maybe it will summarize a few emails, but it's much more powerful than that. Um we're using it now at this stage of our you know use of it, and what I'm trying to get my clients to do is use it as an advisory role. Uh AI, because again, what is AI? It's the accumulated knowledge of the human civilization, right? It has access to all the data, all the information, all the knowledge of human, the human civilization. So, with that in mind, why wouldn't you want to take that and use that as an advisor in your business? Uh create a model of an employee that maybe you can't afford, maybe you can't afford a Jeff Bezos, maybe you can't afford, you know, a Steve Jobs in your business or Warren Buffett. But you can create an agent that can replicate and will have the same knowledge that that Warren Buffett or that Jeff Bezos or that Steve Jobs uh human actually had, and they've written enough material that it draws from that. So that's the biggest thing I think from AI of seeing people use it for very basic things and not understanding the capabilities that it has to help you run your business beyond just technology, just from operations and leadership, uh challenging you because sometimes we get caught up in our own heads on saying this is the way it should be, with nobody challenging you, where you can create uh an agent, an AI agent, no matter what platform you're using, uh co-pilot or Gemini or Chat GPT, but you can create an agent that can challenge you and say, Are you sure about this? And that's the piece that I think that is lacking today is business owners thinking of AI just as a email writer, which is not, I mean, that's just the the the that was maybe two, three yeah, that was about three years ago where that where it was. Now it's a different game and it's growing exponentially every day, not every month, not every week, every day. It exponentially changes it. So you've got to be able to keep up with that and starting using it as an advisor in your business, I think is kind of where I try to tell people to focus on and use it for that purpose. Let it challenge you, let it challenge your staff, because that way you're able to grow and you're not subject to the biases that we all internally have, even though AI does have biases, but you can feed, you can weed those out uh more than you can in a real person.

SPEAKER_01 25:57

Yeah, I love that. Um, we we definitely all have biases, and a lot of times they're unknown to us. We don't realize what we're doing. Even in a group, an executive team, there's still a corporate bias, right? So we've done that internally as well, using it as uh I I heard one person put it, you don't want to abdicate to AI, you still want to run the show, right?

SPEAKER_00 26:17

I say that all the time.

SPEAKER_01 26:18

Yes, a thought partner and not a thought leader. Um, as you bring it to the table, you know, and understand the boundaries, it can be super powerful because yeah, like you said, it can cut through those biases. Um do you see the adoption rate? Uh do your clients are they starting to catch on? It seems like an enterprise people there's a lot of dabbling with AI, but people, it's almost like a board meeting footnote, right? Like they're not actually investing in a meaningful way. They just want to look like maybe that they're, oh yeah, we're doing AI, but there's not a whole lot of meat and potatoes. What are your clients seeing? Are are you seeing uh some you know turnover with that? I mean, it's a it affects entry-level employees, I would think would be the next thing, right? As as AI gets better and better. But what are owners looking at when it when it comes to AI? Are they embracing it or is it still kind of a resistance?

SPEAKER_00 27:06

I'm seeing more um, and again, this is like for our clients, uh, it's because of my efforts to educate and to explain and to understand their business and say, here, here's a process that you're doing this way today. I know it because I'm your technology partner. So I know you're doing it this way. Well, what if we took AI and tried to do it this way and you use this AI model to make a difference in the way you're running a particular process? That's how I've gotten people to that are clients of ours to start adopting it. So I'm seeing more adoption now because uh I spent the last, I would say last year, probably a little bit part of the previous year, on education, saying, hey, this is what we're doing internally, all right, for our company, because we were already putting it into practice. You want to see what we're doing? And I would show them. I have nothing to hide, and you know, cover up confidential information, but show them how we were able to use agents to do analysis, how we're able to use uh AI models to create marketing campaigns, for example, sales, you know, sales copy, or how we're able to analyze data very quickly, or how to respond to queries from our customers very quickly uh from a technical support side. So we started showing that every time we had a meeting, I'd say, Hey, you want to take a look at something? And I would pop up AI and show them, hey, take a look at this. And they would sit there with their eyes kind of glazed, not really understanding it. But I kept doing it, I was consistent on it. And now in 2026, I'm seeing more businesses come and say, Hey, what can we do with AI? How can we fix this or how can we do this? So I think the adoption curve is starting to turn. Um, from what I can see, just using my client base as an example, uh, is I'm starting to see the adoption turn into what we can do besides write an email or check my calendar with AI. So I think that's a good part. Um, it's just a matter of education. And I think that's kind of where my role comes in from a professional consultant, technologist, whatever you want to call me, uh, is teaching people what can be done with AI and see how it can apply to their business. Because it's not going to apply to everybody in the same way. It's a very uh, you know, subjective type of technology. So some people will get a lot of benefit from them, some people may get less, but there's always room for growth. And especially when it comes to um getting your people to use it in a secure fashion. I keep saying secure because that's my hill to die on. It's secure AI. Um I and so I see that happening from our clients. And we've had a few clients. Uh, I've got a wealth management company that we support in Southern California. They have taken it to heart. After I showed them what they could do, they just went to the to the races with it. They said, yeah, let's do it all. And now they're growing. They're they're growing so much now that they're bringing on new staff because they can see the value of it. Now they can offer services faster, quicker to their clients that are sure, you know, large people that have a lot of revenue, a lot of you know, income, a lot of assets to protect. And they're able to take it and onboard these people a lot faster because of the AI models that we've created for them with the policies and strategies to use AI to allow them to work quicker. So small example, but it's great because when we came on board, they were like five people. I think they're up to like almost 20, 20 now, and we've only been with them for about a year now. So they've grown and now they're confident enough to go and start marketing to grow even more. So it's you know, a little example.

SPEAKER_01 30:38

Yeah, right. I mean, that's a great example. I mean, if you're what 4Xing, 5Xing your business just in and utilizing tools that are out there because it's not a cost thing, it's almost just on getting past the fear and educating yourself on hey, this is this is here. So looking forward a little bit, um, you know, you've got a lot of Gen Z now entering the workforce. You've got a lot of people that are in traditional IT, you know, degrees that are coming out of college and they're getting hit with this AI wave of things that, especially in the development world for sure. Uh, what's your advice or what what is the opportunity that you would tell people that are that are up and coming, that are maybe in business and looking to to you know grow their own stack, perhaps? Um, and they're they're just dealing with things that we didn't have 10 years ago, even five years ago. Um, what's your advice to them?

SPEAKER_00 31:29

Well, for people that are coming up, and I always tell folks um, and I've been saying this for years, this is not something new. I've been saying this to people, young people coming up, is technology is great, but if you don't understand business and you don't have understand business operations, and what is the bottom line for any business? What is their revenue model? My conversation with new clients when a new client calls us up, I asked them what is your revenue? And they kind of look at me, why are you asking me that? I said, Because I need to know what am I protecting? How much money am I protecting for your business? Revenue is the bottom line. There's nothing else. Everything else is you know icing on the cake. The revenue is the meat and potatoes of any business. All right. Even nonprofits, they have to make revenue to accomplish their mission. And we support a lot of nonprofits. Yeah, exactly. So it's for us, it's you know, really telling people understand business and then be able to take that technology, whatever that is that you're good at, and plug it in to make that business better. Uh-huh. Be able to have that business grow revenue because that's the bottom line. If you talk to a CEO, a CFO, or a chief operating officer about this widget, this fancy little widget that can do this, they're gonna look at you like, okay, great. Now what? But if you can take and say, you know what, your revenue is here right now. What if we could 2x that revenue in in 12 months using this technology and then uh understand how to apply it to that business? That's where you know young folks need to understand. They focus too much on the technology, and even folks at my age, I remember people my age focus on the technology, it's all it was. And it's like, no, you've got to know how to take that technology and plug it in because technology for technology's sake is nothing. Yeah, because yeah, exactly. Everything costs money, and without revenue, you can't get to where you want to be. So being able to take whatever technology you've become good at and be able to understand a business and know how to plug it in and not just throw it at it and say, you gotta have this, and just throw it at them, it doesn't work. So for young people coming up, my biggest thing is you got your degree in whatever technology field you're working in, whether it's infrastructure, database design, development, coding, whatever it is, it's great. But understand the businesses or understand what business is about so that you can then take that tool and help that business grow. Because without that, it's just uh it's just a nice little degree to have, but you're not gonna be able to apply it because everything costs money. Without revenue, you're not gonna be able to grow, you know, be able to get the technology.

SPEAKER_01 34:05

Yeah. You have to, it's almost like two oars on a boat, right? You have to have the technical acumen, but you also have to understand the business side. And I think, yeah, you'll never be out of work. The demand for um making that possible for in a business owner's mind to connect those dots, right? Get out of the race and the wheel, step back, look at your business, and then help them bring those things together and understand the value of utilizing tech in the right way. It's not just a loss leader or a you know, expense have to have. It's a it's a differentiator, right? Like it's a competitive advantage if you use it in the right way. Would you agree?

SPEAKER_00 34:41

Yeah, absolutely. If you're able to take technology in today's world and apply it to a business to help that business do extra revenue in 12 months, that's huge. That's that's that's incredible. Uh and you become a valuable asset. You're now no no longer uh a cost center, you're now an investment that's gonna allow this business to grow. Because whatever salary that business may be paying you, they're gonna recoup that, you know, 10x by you helping them implement that. And if you're an MSP like we are, you know, if you're able to come in and you've got a set price that you're working for that client on a month-to-month basis, but you're able to improve their technology, secure their technology, and help them grow, whatever they're paying you, again, they're gonna be able to recoup that 12x, 15x, because again, you're able to bring in a service or provide solutions and provide information that's gonna help the business grow because you know how to do it. And that's kind of the big piece is understanding how to apply the technology and not just understand and be able to do fancy things with the technology, because at the end of the day, you're just gonna have you know a fancy piece of software or fancy piece of hardware. But if it doesn't apply to a business, nobody's gonna be gravitated to it. And business people definitely aren't gonna be.

SPEAKER_01 35:55

Yeah, 100%. I couldn't agree more. Um, and like you said, there's gonna be winners and losers. I think 2026, uh, we're on this exponential rocket ship curve, it seems like, with AI and the change and the pace, which you know, we're both in the tech industry, we're used to change, but I mean, I I've been doing this since 2012, so I'm not, you know, as seasoned as you are, but still like the curve is is crazy. So um, yeah, if you're out there and and you're you're younger and and looking at it, I would not uh don't miss the opportunities, but also don't don't be strangled by fear. Like I think there's a healthy balance there. Um and and you've brought so much of that to light today, Randy. I really appreciate your time and and being willing uh to share your your journey. Um and I hope other people can get as much out of it today as I have. Um, how can people get a hold of you? Uh you you obviously you've got some books, you've got a lot of materials. What's the best way if people want to reach out?

SPEAKER_00 36:49

Uh they can definitely give our office a call. Our number is 866-487-776. Excuse me, 866-487-7671. Uh, you can go to our website, itprosmanagement uh.com, and uh you can find my link in there to schedule a call. I'm very open. That's what the other piece I like talking to people. And even if we don't do business, uh, I am a true believer in any interaction that I do with anybody. Uh, I want you to walk away with some value. You don't have to sign a contract with us or do any work with us, but if I can give you a little bit of value at the end of the day, then I feel good about our interaction, then you feel good because you've walked away with a little bit more information than you had before our interaction. So, my idea is to communicate with as many people as possible. We can part friends, and then at least you have some information. And if we do business together, even the better.

SPEAKER_01 37:42

I can attest to that myself. I send out uh a lot of offers to be on the podcast, and it's interesting the people that respond, and they're very similar to what you said. I mean, there's a mindset shift there uh to understand what we're actually trying to do here to give back, to build relationships. I think that's you know, the rising tide raises all ships. So that's super admirable. Yeah. Appreciate it. This has been the Info Tech Podcast. Um, please find us on social media, share this post with your friends, and we'll see you next time.

SPEAKER_00 38:11

Thanks, Jimmy. Appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 38:13

Thank you.