SPEAKER_01 0:19

And welcome to the Info Tech Podcast. My name is Jimmy Huber, your host, and this is the podcast that explores the intersection between technology and uh business. And today we've got an MSP leader on the line with us, uh Chris Parmigiani. Uh, he is with CMIT. Um, and we if you're a regular listener, you know that we've had a couple other CMIT franchise owners, and it's always great to talk to these guys. Um, but I will say I don't want to uh put the cart before the horse, but in talking with Chris, he has uh a definitely a different perspective of most other business owners that I talk to. Um so if if you're struggling with growth or um just wanting to understand what other people are doing out there that have success, I think this is going to be a really good episode for you. Um so, Chris, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_02 1:11

Thank you, Jimmy. Thanks for having me. Glad to be here.

SPEAKER_01 1:13

Yeah, you bet. So um for those that don't know, I always try to give you know our guests opportunity to share their background and their journey. So go back as far as you want, but um you tell us a little bit about your career, kind of what you've done to bring you to this point, um, and what what brought you into CMIT?

SPEAKER_02 1:32

Okay. I mean, Jimmy, I usually start my origin story by saying what a long, strange trip it's been because um when you hear my background, you're thinking, well, how'd you end up in IT? Um so I'll give you the dime tour. Um started out in the title business uh back in the 90s, uh, did that in both Baltimore and then San Francisco. Then I got a job with Power Bar, the Energy Bar, the Power Food Incorporated at the Energy Bar, and I worked in their Canadian operations. There I learned how to do exporting, importing uh products in out of the country into Canada, and then how to do warehousing, third-party warehousing. Um, I went from there to a sales job selling capital warehouse equipment. That taught me an important lesson in life is that selling um is a skill and something I could do, but you should really like what you sell because it makes it that much more interesting for you. Um so that was one of the big lessons. Uh then I went into software sales. We sold uh first online non-brick and mortar banking and an open enrollment via the IVR system. Uh this is the late 90s. I then was recruited to run a call center. That call center was running 24-7, 365, and our product was a dating service. We were not a matchmaking service. We used IVR to have men pay, women were free, and they met uh on our system. And in the late 90s in San Francisco and then Chicago, we were doing over $100,000 a week in sales of selling just time. Um a lot of management lessons. Um then I was recruited naturally to Goldman Sachs uh at that point, directly from selling love, uh, going to uh the financial the financial services world of Global Sachs. I was in their asset management division, I ran their institutional client service desk. I then was recruited to T R Price in Baltimore, where I did numerous jobs. It was then 13 years, but my uh my career expanded things from running operations, global teams, doing strategy, being in the program management front office. Um, and then I had the opportunity to stand up and operate the business process improvement practice for the entire enterprise, um, which was one of the highlights of my career is is doing process. Um from there, I was I went to moved to New Jersey and then went to work for Morgan Stanley. I ran two major programs for them. And then in December 2019, I was part of a 2% cut. And so I say that was one of the one of the few gifts I got from corporate America, which was the exit, um, which actually started my started ended me where I am today. I knew when I left that their their building that day that I was done with corporate America, I had no idea where I was going. I just knew I didn't want to go back. And as luck would have it, I got a call from a franchise broker who said, Hey, I saw your resume, you sound interesting. I figured, hey, I got nothing but time, I'll talk to you. Um, and we looked through some different options, different businesses, et cetera. But we came down to technology, I started really thinking about it, did some research, and CMIT was a good match for me because it was something I did my entire career, but never really packaged it this way, which was people, process, and technology. And so that marriage, uh, so I saw an opportunity in my experience and the marriage of those three things of saying, well, maybe I could make a living doing this, um, doing helping people with the process of IT, which I will now tell you six plus years in, is the most critical business process every business runs, whether they like it or not. And so that's how I got started, been doing a little over six years and absolutely love what I do.

SPEAKER_01 5:04

So that is quite the story. You've packed a lot into the last what four minutes there. So let me let me try to rewind and just piece that apart a little bit. So so you're basically an operations guy. I I think if you dilute that, not to diminish what you you said there, but you're you're coming, I think, almost the inverse of most founders that I get on here. Usually people that I would say, even in the MSP space, are the technical lead, they're the the visionary, the idea people, and then they have to hire someone, usually, that as the operations chops to actually execute most of the data data of the business. You already have that. So tell me about kind of you know found founding a company or getting on board with as a franchisee with CMIT, having that skill set, but maybe filling some of those other gaps. Or did you have that you know background too, as far as the the technical chops and the the other stuff that's a little more common?

SPEAKER_02 5:57

No, Jimmy. Um the joke with me and my team members is that I'm I'm slowly becoming a level like negative point two attack. Um I I'm not I'm not as I'm not as inept as I joke, but I'm not a technician. And I if you go to my LinkedIn page, the first thing I tell you is I'm not a techie. So if you're hiring me because you think I'm the guy who's gonna come to your office and fix your equipment, that's a mistake. Uh that's not who I am. Um I've had the privilege and the opportunity through my background to be trained as an executive, to be trained as a leader, to understand where my own weaknesses are, and then backfill them and not be embarrassed by them, not shy away from them. I am perfectly happy operating in the gray. And that's part of what I learned from processes. Like, you know, I don't need to know everything that you do from A to Z to have a process improved. I just need to understand what's critical. And in this business, I've I've been able to determine what's critical for my skill set and that what is critical for my bench and my team. And so I readily go out and get the services and the resources I need that backfill all the holes in my own experience to bring forward a high-performing team that says, we can answer all your questions. It doesn't always have to come from me, it can come from one of my counterparts, etc. And so, and that's one of the other advantages of being part of CMIT. CMIT has a massive ecosystem of over a thousand technicians that if my team and I can't think of the right solution, we can take it to the CMIT ecosystem and say, has anybody seen this? And I'll tell you what, Jimmy, I've never seen a question not get answered. I mean, some of them might be MacGyver-S solutions, but everything gets answered because you have a thousand experienced people professionals saying, Yes, try this, try this, try this. And yeah, when you're when you're a solutions-oriented person like myself and you're running a business with the name solutions in it and you're helping people solve business problems.

SPEAKER_01 7:48

Kind of like this one. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:49

Exactly. Info Tech Solutions, yes, exactly. Um, and I and I like I like the fact that both you and I are businesses is plural. Uh yeah because I don't believe that there is a solution for every one solution for every issue. There are multiples. It depends on the perspective you come from, how you approach it. And that's where I go back to my background that I shared with you. Yes, it's very, yes, it wasn't planned, but it's given me very, very wide open perspective because I've worked in multiple industries and I don't approach things the same way most people do. As like a technician says, this is the issue. I ask it different questions. I want to understand different parts of how we got to where we are.

SPEAKER_01 8:27

Yeah. So what is your customer base then? How does that help you with marketing and sales? Because your your approach, what you've just talked about, a lot of people that I've I've discovered have to train that. Usually, you know, it's an engineer that's trying to sell something, it's it's harder to communicate because frankly, let's let's face it, business owners don't care about technical jargon. They don't care about how you want to do something, they just want to know how much is it, what does it do for me, how does it provide value, right? And I got to believe that you're bringing some of those uh chops to your your business. Is that correct?

SPEAKER_02 9:00

Yes. Uh in the corporate space, when I was a program manager, um, you know, you can imagine what are your jobs in the corporate space when you're a program project management is I talk to you as a technical team and then swivel chair and talk to the business. So I obviously rely more on that circle to the to the to the business side and say, I can speak what you're speaking. I understand what you're saying. And like if my job is to figure out how do I translate what you're saying into a technical conversation with my team and then play the in-between to say to people, don't worry about your DMARC and DCAMP. They're letters to you. It's important to your business, but don't worry about it. That's our job, and that's what we take care of. Um, and so I I try to keep things very simple. Um, you know, I believe that IT should be simple. I believe that, you know, IT, but IT should be managed by professionals. And so it should be simple, but it also should be efficient, it should be effective and be overall providing protection. And you can get there without using a lot of fancy words and and and jargon. You can get there by having common sense speak of saying to a client what keeps you up at night.

SPEAKER_01 10:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:07

What are you experiencing?

SPEAKER_01 10:09

Yeah, because there is a lot, I think, of fear of the unknown in our space. Um, business owners do stay up at night worrying about things. I mean, a week doesn't go by till you haven't heard of somebody getting breached or some business going under because of a tech problem, you know, that's usually in cybersecurity. And now, you know, with AI and all the advancements there, it just is accelerating. We were we were chatting before um we started recording here. And uh, I would love for you to share your perspective on that, right? As our market continues to evolve, what are you seeing in in the marketplace for not only your prospects, but your customers of what they want? Because it seems to me like our industry is just being dumped on more and more and more scope, right? With you know, we have compliance now, we have risk management. Like it's not just deploy some antivirus, make sure the passwords are reset, make sure everyone's got enough server space and memory and all this. I mean, it's it's way more complicated than that now. And I think there's a lot of fear in the economy too, where things seem to be constricting just a little bit. There's people not, you know, at least from from in our market, it seems like that's the case. What are you seeing, you know, with your business and and how are you addressing things, you know, in 2026 with with this climate?

SPEAKER_02 11:22

I think you know, multiple variables at play, right? I mean, AI, uh from an AI perspective, I'm not alone in this. AI is a cursing and a blessing wrapped in one bundle. AKU. Uh but going back to my background, when I talk to my clients about AI and when I meet prospects, I ask three questions and then usually a fourth question. Um the first question being, what do you do? Second one, how do you do it? Third, why do you do it that way? Um, a fourth question that is always, you know, that kind of overlays it all is like if you're in a certain environment, medical, for example, what acronym or entity has an opinion or guidance or compliance on how you do what you do? Because if you think about it, talking to a medical practice saying, hey, you imagine you're the owner, Jimmy, what do you want to do? This, this and this, like, yeah, Jimmy, half the stuff you said you can't do. So why don't we start a different way? This is what you're allowed to do. How would you like to interact and build your process within those constraints to be compliant? Um and then the fourth or and or fifth question, depending if I've asked that compliance question, is are you doing AI? Yes. My question is very simple, and it doesn't usually make sense when people hear it at first. It's like, what happens if you do it wrong? And my position, my logic there is if you don't know the answer to the first three, you know what can help you figure it out really quickly and probably not what you want to know or the way you want to learn it? AI. AI will show you all your inefficiencies, it will show you all the things you haven't thought about in making your process purposeful and having a strategic vision on this is why we do it, this is how we do it, and this is what we expect to happen. You see people thinking AI is the easy button, it's an easy way to hurt your reputation and create bigger problems if you don't truly know day day and wrote what is your purpose, how do you do it? We use the same mentality though when talking to a client about onboarding. I want to understand what you I don't care that you're using an Apple or a Mac or a I don't care, it doesn't it doesn't matter to me. It's just a device within a process. If I can understand how you get value out of your business process, which happens to include technology, then we make it work for you. And so, yes, my name, as I said earlier, is plural solutions, but each client conversation leads to a solution that's relevant for them to have success. It may mirror mirror the person next door. It may not, but it is a unique conversation with each person because if you understand their process, you understand what role the technology plays within it. And then we make sure that that happens day in and day out.

SPEAKER_01 13:50

Yeah, I love that. I I think you've hit a nail on the head there because a lot of people don't realize how many biases they have in their own teams. And if you introduce AI and it's not just Google, I think most people are stuck in this level of, oh, here's a question, answer, okay, close it, done. They're not really getting as much value out of it. But yeah, I mean, we did this in InfoTech, I guess probably a year, year and a half ago where we started integrating AI into some of our leadership meetings and saying, like, hey, here's what we're talking about. Help us think through this problem and explain. And there's no bias there. So it rips it apart and puts it back together, right? So um I I've said this before, but like you you want AI to be a thought partner. You don't want to abdicate to it, and you're still a thought leader, but I think there's a lot of value left on the table today in people, whether it's fear or just plain ignorance, but you've got a really good way, it sounds like, of guiding, you know, your customers in practical ways. What you just said earlier, I didn't hear one technical piece there at all. It was more like, hey, what are you doing? How do you do it? What happens if, you know, those are things that um uh I would think your customers are already okay with thinking about. And then you're bringing to bear modern tools to help them make that more efficient. Did I did I get that right?

SPEAKER_02 15:04

You did. And if you think about it, as I'm asking those questions, I'm thinking about, okay, so you do this, all right. Then I'm thinking, okay, from a technical perspective, that means we need to do X, Y, and Z. And then eventually you get to those conversations. But again, sometimes you don't need to get to the conversation. Some things you can learn as you onboard someone, you can learn some of the things that, you know, I could have asked you that and bobbed you down for weeks trying to find the answer, or I could have confidence and be in the gray area and saying, I know day one, when I take control of Jimmy's computer, I'll be able to better understand the question I didn't ask him because it was too tactical. And and, you know, if you think about it, I believe myself, I believe what my company is here to do is provide businesses with peace of mind that they've hired the right partner, that they do not need to worry about IT. And if something goes wrong with IT, you pick up the phone and you call us. We are we're your partner. And you call us right away, big or small. We don't care if we're resetting your password every single day. That's a better process than having you write it down and stick it under your keyboard because no one would ever think to look there. But that's so we we take the we take the straightforward approach of you know, we have our all of our clients get unlimited help desks. Because I know in human nature, small business mindset, you might debate, should I call? He's gonna charge me for it. And if he charged me for it, it could make my month my monthly numbers harder, et cetera. That's not a partnership if you're having that debate. Because if you don't call me that time and you press a button, we may be speaking after that that click. And if we're speaking after that click, the cost is drastically different than what I would have charged you for 15 minutes.

SPEAKER_01 16:39

Yeah. So I I love that. How do you get your customers and your prospects to trust you then initially? Because I think everything you said is great, but it's built like what you mentioned there, you alluded to, it's built on trust. And I think there's a huge trust problem in our industry, which is why um I think it's hard to get clients because people want the familiar, they want the existing relationship there. It's trusted, you know, for years or whatnot. Um, but it makes it really hard to kind of break in, especially with AI now. I don't want to always bring it back to AI, but that's just the thing, right? Uh, there are so many things out there that are faked that I think people are even, it's eroding even more trust in our industry. Like you said, it's the best and worst thing, you know, that's happened. Um, how are you dealing with that these days to be able to build that relationship and the foundation blocks that basically make every business relationship work?

SPEAKER_02 17:30

You know, it's I I think it's something I'm continuously working on, right? You're continuously working. We all network, we all talk to people. Um, and you know, I'm a firm believer, I'm an avid networker. I believe, you know, what I'm doing is trying to build you know a network of people that know, like, and trust me so that they can refer me and/or become my clients. But with that comes responsibility. We are 100% accountable for what we do as a team. So we don't, you know, if something goes wrong, I always tell my clients, I want to know feedback, good, better, or indifferent. All of it helps me improve. All of it. And you know, some people I'll call you when there's a problem. I don't want you to call me when there's if there's something that goes well, share that with me. Maybe I can give one of my technicians some credit and say, by the way, you made a difference with that person today by taking care of them when they would have a point of stress. To that technician, it might be, oh, it's just I was just doing my job. But every once in a while it's nice to get some feedback to say, you made a difference today by doing something. So, but if you don't ask clients for all feedback and say, just call me when there's a problem, that's all you're getting is problems. Um and sometimes you're reacting to problems, and if it's the majority of one, you might make a mistake. And so I believe in in getting the feedback and then using that voice of the clients and looking at it strategically and saying, what was really said here? What is my opportunity? How can I improve? How can I change? How can I do something? Um, so I I think that's one thing is with building trust with your clients, is showing that you're accountable, showing that you're gonna follow through on your word. Um, and more importantly, I say this to my clients all the time when they ask me questions, I'll say, you know, Jimmy, I'm gonna answer that question, but I want to remind you, I am not paid to tell you what you want to hear.

unknown 19:07

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_02 19:07

I am paid to tell you what you need to hear. I play the role of an IT advisor, consultant to the T of saying, I'm not here to be your yes person. If you think that this, we should do that. I want to do X, Y, that's a terrible idea, Jimmy. I really want to do it. Jimmy, it's your business. If you want to do it, do it. And I'm not going to be the guy who's going to say, after it blows up in your face, told you so, and say, what did we learn from this? How can we improve our collective partnership to learn from this? For years I was in project management, and for years big companies have these lesson-learned meetings. And I would always make comments after the meeting saying, you know, real lessons learned when it changes your behavior. Not when you can come to the meeting for project A and then bring the same deck to project B and just change the dates. Because if you think about it, some of it's checked about. We had a lessons learned meeting. Great. What did it achieve? Besides the meeting, what did it achieve? If you didn't learn from it, that's more waste.

SPEAKER_01 20:05

Yeah, I love that. I mean, I I think this is gonna be one of those episodes where people are gonna rewind and re-listen because you you this is like a masterclass in not only operations, but just dealing with people in general. I think a lot of times that's lost in our industry. We want to get into the technical and and deal with with the technology itself, but you got to start with the people, right? And and I think your approach really brings that to bear. Um, and I gotta believe that that definitely correlates with the results that you're seeing. So um tell us a little bit about your successes this year. I mean, you don't have to go into the you know the financials or whatnot, but what are you seeing, you know, in 2026 trendwise? Um, are you guys in growth mode? I mean, what are what are your thoughts?

SPEAKER_02 20:47

Um well, Andrew, and simply put, I'm always in growth mode. Yeah, um, I I I more clients is better. Is you know, more is not always better, but more clients is better. Um I think one of the things that's different for me in the past six plus years I've been doing this is um what I define as a client doesn't match up to what the market says as a client. The market says you need to be this, this, this, and this, and in this industry. And I say, you know what? Guess who doesn't discriminate on the size of your business? Criminals. If you are one, you're a soulpreneur or you're 2,500 people, your risk profile is essentially the same. And so I don't discriminate on the business, the size of your business. I I truly believe in the mindset of meet people where they are. So you've got no minimum.

SPEAKER_01 21:33

Because every everyone says you got to have a client minimum, or else it's just it doesn't make financial sense. You guys go all the way down to what two, three users? One user. One user. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 21:42

One user.

SPEAKER_01 21:43

So how do you make that work? Because I I think that's a that's a pretty common thing I see in a lot of training platforms, peer groups, and all that is it doesn't scale. There's a certain fixed cost, and you'll never get that back. You know, one call from that person erodes all of your MRR or what, you know, all all the things. So what would you say to that?

SPEAKER_02 22:00

I would say then you should check your own process. Because whether it's one person or 50 people, if one person's phone call can take you offline, then 50 people could take you offline 50 times quicker if you use that rationale that you could have 50 times the problem. And so what we do differently is. I looked at why do people call the help desk? Like I said, I close every ticket every day and I ask myself the same question. Why did they call and can I stop? It's not because I give unlimited desk a help desk and I want people to stop calling because I'm losing money. That's not the case at all. I appreciate that if you're calling me, it's because something is wrong with your technology that I'm responsible for. Or maybe I'm not. Maybe it's your print, your print management company. But I believe in that we should be able to speak quickly. So if you call our help desk, which is 24-7, as I mentioned, we also target an hour SLA because we appreciate that. That sounds like a lot, but we go one step further. I will say in six plus years in this industry, and hopefully you would agree with this, a lot of companies say we do proactive care.

SPEAKER_03 23:05

Oh, sure.

SPEAKER_02 23:06

Actually, drill down what you find is they have a really good proactive plan to a reaction pro reactory problem. Something went wrong, and I have a really good plan. We have those plans too. We have a proactive plan on the other side. So every service that I sell to every single client, whether it's automated or not, has a weekly maintenance ticket that is checked in the overnight shift every single week.

SPEAKER_01 23:29

Oh, that's interesting.

SPEAKER_02 23:31

You know why I do that, Jimmy? Because it came from corporate America and I called help desk four times a year on that 90-day change your password because your password has to be changed at seven o'clock on a Monday morning. You can't use the letter T in any position because you used it 12 years ago in the fifth position. And so you go through all these emails, these guesses, and then you call the help desk. But I never had a blue screen when I was in corporate America because that's what they do. And it's almost like if you think about like Vegas, play the way the house plays. The way corporate plays is you're diligent on staying on top of things and you tend to win more often. So we've done this for six plus years, and I'm happy to say we have very little field work.

SPEAKER_01 24:13

Yeah. Well, I think you're um you're in the spiral of uh they call it the spiral of death, I've heard, you know, when you're the opposite of that. You're not proactive, so you get more tickets, so you get more behind, which makes more tickets behind. You know, it's just this reactive spiral of death. That's our peer group, that's their their thing, right? Um, but you're doing the opposite. You're being proacted to prevent those tickets, so you get fewer coming in. And two things I heard there. You close every ticket every day, that's crazy. And then you have an hour SLA. That's bonkers. So you've got to be doing something right. Um, how do you get people to get on board with this? If if you we're talking to, you know, small business owners, most likely, that um, you know, if they're founders, at least like me, I was the first guy to push back on processes. I'll admit it, especially earlier in my career. It's like I can get this done 10 times faster than all those steps you just said. Well, that's great if I want a prison as a job forever. And so you kind of learn. And now we've scaled, and and I actually embrace processes now because yeah, you go slow to go fast, right? And that's the only way you scale. But not everybody wants to get on board with that. I think they see the the short term that it is more work to, you know, document that task, to train somebody to do whatever, you know, to think and look outside the just fix the symptom and figure out, hey, what's the source? What's the root cause? Let's actually get some extra work here to prevent it then forever. You know, that's that's a hump that a lot of people um it's outside their comfort zone, and maybe they don't really want to get on board with that, or it's not easy for them. What would you say to somebody like that? Because you're you're obviously on the other side of that, and it's it's totally working for you. Um if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_02 25:51

I'll answer I'll answer it in a way that you didn't ask this question, but I'll answer it this way. And I'll say this we're both in the same business. We have three types of work we can take fully managed, co-managed, break fix. Can you guess what business line I never entertain? Break fix. I never take break fix. I turn it away every single time because fundamentally it's against who I am. I don't want to find a band-aid for you. I do not want a MacGyver for you. If there was a fire, I don't want to put it out and walk away. I want to figure out why did the fire occurred in the first place and what happens if it happens again? What is your real risk here? And so that root cause approach of saying, I don't want to just do it to do it. I want to do it right the first time. And I want to have mechanisms in place. You think about my my my uh maintenance process is a control. Every good process has a control. My control is like we organize you, your good order, everything's working, then let's check it every single week to make sure that nothing's changed. Like I said, I use uh an email backup, DATO SAS, right? A lot of people use it. There's other cove, etc. We all get the email every day. Here's the last 10 days of all your clients, still has a ticket. Still has a ticket because I want someone else to go and check it. I'm a little crazy in the fact that on the maintenance tickets, I don't close the maintenance tickets. I have another technician who does is not involved in that process, check it. So we're checking our own control on a regular basis.

SPEAKER_00 27:18

Ah, there you go.

SPEAKER_02 27:19

So we're looking for, hey, you know what? Jimmy's been offline for three weeks. We don't know that you're on a sabbatical in Africa. We have no idea. We just know your computer's not online, and we've seen three weeks in a row now. You've missed patching, we're calling you and saying you need to get online.

SPEAKER_01 27:32

Yeah. And I bet that really speaks volumes. Like, oh, they're caring about me enough to make this extra phone call. They're looking at all our stuff. I didn't even know I was offline for three weeks, but they're they're all over it. That's gotta speak volumes for them.

SPEAKER_02 27:44

Um goes back to the trust factor, it goes back to building the trust. It's demonstrating that the problem, it's the words I say are my promise, but how do I prove it to you? I prove it to you through my actions. I told you I was gonna do something. I told you our most common tickets, I forgot my password. Let's see what you call in on.

SPEAKER_00 28:01

Sure.

SPEAKER_02 28:01

And that typically is I always I always say that's the one computer we didn't sign up to manage your brain. Like we're not involved in that one. That's that there's variable computer.

SPEAKER_01 28:10

But I can't afford to do that anyway. Yeah, exactly. It's always gonna pay enough to manage the uh the brain. Uh well, I really enjoyed this conversation. I mean, you've got tons of answers and experience that I think resonate with people. What are uh maybe one or two challenges that you've had you know in the last six to twelve months that I mean, we're all on our path, our journey, right? Our learning curve. Um, can you share a couple things that that you're working on right now that you're trying to get better at?

SPEAKER_02 28:35

Sure. I I think one one thing is figuring out the right by client, because I have clients big, small, medium, have everything in between, every industry. I'm industry agnostic too. Um firm believer it's just a computer doing a job and a process. It doesn't really matter that it's yes, it might need HIPAA, hippo, uh HIPAA compliance things. It might need CMMC, but it's still just an Apple or it's still just a Dell. It doesn't matter, it's still just a device.

SPEAKER_01 29:00

But Chris, you're supposed to have a vertical so that you can differentiate yourself and not be generic in your marketing. How do you how do you get past that?

SPEAKER_02 29:07

You know what I mean? My answer is that that's worked for everyone else, and I hope is working out well. I'm not trying to play the same game. I am purposely saying, I'm a process guy. There's a lot of ways to do things, and I'm a big fan of like, let's look, try, let's try some do different things. Um, one thing I say a lot in business is fell fast. When I decided to when I decided to take stuck the under five business, it wasn't planned. Uh I was on a conversation with someone. They said they had two people. I was fairly new in business. I was like, it's a law firm. Great. How many people? Two. And instead of saying no, I asked a different question. And their question made me say, you know what, I want to help you. I don't care that you're two people. And then that night, I process improved myself. So that what I struggle with is constantly improving. I'm a big fan of 1%. Every try to think of 1% of what you can change each day, each week, each month to say, what could make me better, my business better, my experience better. And if you look at that approach, I'm not trying to boil the ocean. I take one thing at a time and look at it. I've what I focus on is cost because my cost directly impact my my clients' cost. So I spend a lot of time negotiating with my vendors. Sure. And I negotiate to the future, not to where you are now. You have six 600 licenses, you have this. We think we can give you this price. Like, what happens when I get to 1200? This, why don't we start there? Let's start where I think I'm gonna be. You do. So why don't we work forward, not backwards? And I've had success with that. And that that translates and trans goes that goes right through to my clients. So pricing-wise, I'm able to be competitive or even better than the average. And then I truly believe that I'm providing a better service in the first place anyway. So to go back to the question of how do you get people to trust them, give them a really good package at a really good price and then deliver everything you said.

SPEAKER_01 31:00

Oh, yeah, that's great. I love that. And the fact that you're willing to be uncomfortable, I think, whether it's negotiating or being willing to be vulnerable and look at yourself and say, hey, I want 1% better. That that infers that there's something wrong or something that can be improved. Uh, I think that attitude is so much more powerful than uh the people that, whether they know it or not, they've maxed out, right? They're always the smartest one in the room, they've got it all figured out. Everyone, they answer everyone's questions. That's really a harder place to grow versus what you've just described. It's a it's a mentality thing. Yeah. Um, and I I think you've proven that that that works, uh, which is really cool to see.

SPEAKER_02 31:35

No, I agree. And oh, I appreciate that. The other thing I'll tell you, the other thing that kind of that I'm working on as always is like, you know, I I I'm not a big outbound marketing person. Uh my business is built primarily on networking and referrals. Um and so to get back to that human component, um a piece of paper saying I do X and Y says one thing. I do X and Y. No proof, nothing else. You can put anything you want on a piece of marketing. But if you take the time to meet, reach out and meet people and tell them, this is who I am, this is how I operate. And if you want to check it, here's a list of people you can call and they'll tell you this is who I am.

SPEAKER_01 32:11

Yeah. Oh, I I think hands down, there's no doubt about it. No question that a referral, especially a warm one, is far more valuable, far more valuable than any type of outbound or cold marketing. Uh, at a minimum, it's a lot quicker. And I mean, I would take uh one of those over 20 cold inbound leads any day. Uh so I think, yeah, if you're focusing on that, you you can't go wrong. Um to wrap it up here, Chris. I I try to give some advice to people, right? Or I want I want some people to get some tidbits and some tangible action items um to go forward. There's been a ton today, but if you would wrap it up in a bow, um what's one thing or piece of advice, maybe something that you've learned recently in the last you know year or so um that you can give those young entrepreneurs to be like, hey, this is one thing I've learned and an action item that they could take with them today to get better.

SPEAKER_02 33:00

And and Jimmy, I've already said this because I say it a lot, because I truly believe it. Fail fast. Don't build out the entire program like, I think I'm gonna market, I'm gonna start an AI campaign, we're gonna do this, this, and this. And when we bring people in, we're gonna do this, and then we're gonna do this, we're gonna do this. Like, stop all that. Throw out your line and see if you get a bite and learn as you go. Build as you go. You'll be it's iterative. Think about you know, project management has moved into agile because it's better. It's not waiting for the big bang. So many people I meet, big and small companies, spent all this time building up these massive campaigns. We're gonna do this, we're gonna do this, we're gonna do this, just based on like either their gut or maybe some research. But the reality is like there's a better way to do that. Uh put out the minimal viable uh solution and try it. And if it works, great. So when I started with my small business, the the the below fives, initially after I took one or two, I was like, maybe I should create like a campaign for this. And I was like, you know what? I'm not going after small businesses. The difference is, and this is this is the other thing I would say to people, is uh look for opportunities to say yes instead of no. Because I was told by everybody else in my own community, you said it yourself, you shouldn't take these. And I stopped for a second and asked the most important question you can ask in any situation. Why? And then when they give you the answer, say why? And then they give that next answer, why? Play the role of the toddler, ask five or six whys, and you'll feel like most of it's folklore because it's gonna blow up your desk. You said it yourself, they're gonna do all this stuff. It's folklore. They will blow up your desk if you don't have good process. But take the time to build the right foundation to do what you want to do the way you want it. Think of Disney. Everything happens for a reason, everything's been thought about.

SPEAKER_00 34:49

Yeah, it's intentional. Sure.

SPEAKER_02 34:51

Make it intentional, and once it's intentional, you can go out with much more confidence saying, I can serve you, but you've never served me before. I can serve you. I guarantee you I can serve you. Yeah, and then prove it.

SPEAKER_01 35:03

I love that. Yeah, Chris, thanks so much for being with us today. I think uh hopefully you you listeners out there could bring some tidbits from this uh this session. I know I definitely have. Um, Chris, if people want to get a hold of you, um, a lot of times people, I mean, they can Google you, I'm sure, and find you. We'll put a lot in the show notes, but um, what's the best way for people to reach out if they'd like to get in touch?

SPEAKER_02 35:25

Email, uh, my LinkedIn has my calendar. Um, so you if you want to have a quick conversation, you know, I know this is going at the MSP community. Some of my best referral partners are the MSPs because we all don't do everything. So yeah, I'm I I think there's plenty of fish in the sea too. So my LinkedIn has my contact information. I'm happy to connect and have conversations.

SPEAKER_01 35:46

Excellent. I think that's part of how I found you too, is just like, hey, grab my calendar. Like, oh wow. Uh, not everybody is willing to do that, but um, I think that's a testament to your character and and who you are. Um, you're the real deal and just want to help people. And so um, yeah, I really appreciate your time. This has been fantastic. Uh, maybe we'll have to have you on again here sometime and and continue the journey. Really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_02 36:08

Thank you, Jimmy. Thank you for having me.