MSP Business School

In this episode, our team discusses The Game of Risk here at MSP Business School. 2:20 – Brian suggests that organizations engage with customers to understand risk and take the next step in risk management by introducing frameworks to them to manage their organization. Cyber liability insurance can be a challenge for some organizations, so it is important to engage with customers and understand risk during the sales process. 3:11 – Robb said that he’d like to define a little bit better about “What are we talking about when we're talking about risk? Are you talking about it as it relates to the insurance side? Are you talking about the hacking side? What exactly do you mean when you say the global word risk?” 7:21 – Brian explains that there is a challenge of not all risks needing to be solved right due to the cost justification versus the percentage opportunity of risk. For example, if a customer has 3 to 4 risks, it could be that they have a realistic budget and are looking to protect to the best of their capabilities.  12:12 – Robb inquires how to coordinate the sales process between the sales rep, the owner, and the sales LED. He is blown away by the variety of ideas discussed. 17:19 – Brian emphasized the importance of having a good cyber security posture for businesses. There are a lot of different frameworks and regulations that are industry-based, so it is important to focus on cyber frameworks. These frameworks are groups of controls that businesses can define and measure against over time. 21:12 – Brian explains that CIS is geared towards non-targeted companies that don't have security professionals on staff. It focuses on protecting and detecting the first 3 identities, then moving up to implementation where they usually have security professionals, and then dealing with vendors that are the companies that support us publicly. 24:53 – Robb stated that the ads of services are picking up for code management, and they are seeing a lot of interest and opportunity on the upper side as well. There is a lot of opportunity out there right now. 27:54 – Brian's most important idea is to understand the risk and not focus on fear or uncertainty in doubt. He emphasizes that not all risks are equal and not all risks need to be attended to immediately.

Tyson Choptain is the Executive Vice President and co-founder of Broadview Networks, a leading Managed Services and Security Solutions provider based out of Winnipeg. With more than 30 years of consulting, sales engineering, and implementation has a track record of success with technology in the workplace and providing IT solutions meeting business needs. As an entrepreneur who helped build a successful IT consulting business, his focus on business solutions has helped grow the company to be recognized as one of Canada’s fastest-growing businesses and one of Manitoba’s fastest-growing companies. With a philosophy of teamwork and collaboration, Broadview attributes its success to its 30+ employees. In this episode, they talked about The Co-Managed Opportunity. 1:48 – Tyson shares how he got started in the MSP community and how he got to where he is now. After high school, he started a computer consulting company with his father that he ran for ten years. Broadview Networks was a project-based business for the first ten years, not knowing what managed services were. 5:24 – Tyson said that they've had a solid Microsoft relationship the entire time, so they've been able to keep a very big quantity of Microsoft 365 licensing for the size of the firm. Because of several major enterprise project-based customers, we are by far the largest local Microsoft 365 dealer in the products. 7:36 – Tyson claims that when they first started offering managed services to clients without an IT department, they actually offered more co-managed services than the more common fully managed situations they now offer. 8:56 – Brian said that in reality security never goes out of style so when you start looking at things that an MSP can do in a world that’s constantly adapting and always changing over time.    12:58 – Tim stated that Tyson just made an extremely important point. Throughout the years, they have spoken with many security professionals, and attending conferences has become extremely important. It's just becoming more and more crucial to outsource that component of it, and not everyone has the patience for that given the amount of education, salary, and time required. 14:46 – Tyson stated that when selling to a co-managed customer, you are selling to a fully managed customer, thus not every MSP has experience in their sales staff or even how they market their services.  17:03 – Tyson goes on to say that security is an excellent door opener for businesses, as it allows them to gain customers who previously refused managed services. This changes the customer narrative.

Jacob has 25 years of experience in managed IT and cybersecurity services and has participated in multiple startups, acquisitions, and successful exits with experience from company formation through exit and integration. Jacob was Co-Founder and CEO of Proactive Technologies, where he led revenue growth to over $10M per year with an owner-led sales model until Proactive’s acquisition by Abacus Group. Jacob currently works with MSPs to help them optimize owner-led sales and lay the groundwork to make dedicated sales professionals successful. In this episode, they talked about Maximizing your Centers of Influence. 2:23 – Jacob tells how he stumbled into the managed services industry. He did not begin as an IT professional, and he recalls beginning to work in it shortly after graduating from college. 25 years later, he reflects on his generation's lack of IT degrees and notes that it is frequently the profession of the intelligent but unprepared. 11:04 – Tim believes that teaching customers that no one is perfect is one of the most crucial aspects of the sales cycle. You go and try to sell your product or service, whether you're an MSP or simply a little firm. People must be aware of the good, the bad, and the ugly. 12:06 – Robb's question is answered by Jacob. He noted that when they first started the business, their intention was not to be labeled as a financially minded MSP. We wanted to be all things to all people. 14:29 – Brian adds a comment in response to what Jacob stated. He stated that if you can cut through all the minutia and get to the subject the way people see it. 17:28 – Jacob explained that they had finally received their first lead, which he declined. They went through the sales procedure and were selected as finalists. It turned out to be quite difficult to turn down the lead, but what it did is that he always looked at his right leads can come and go. 21:50 – “Did you have a big sales department? Did you have a giant marketing department to get all these hedge funds? How did that work for you?” Robb asks Jacob.  26:26 – Brian said it's fantastic to have it so well set out and know and stay under control while he does that because obviously there's that part of us that just wants to keep hitting the accelerator when sales start flowing in, but they do get to look at it objectively from the other side. 27:23 – Tim claims that because you worked in a field where people tended to come and go quickly, spending time with them after they left was wonderful because they were either going to move on to something else, catch on, or advance in status wherever they went. 28:12 – Brian wraps up the show with a recap. When going through this, he really thought about developing your center of influence, getting those people on board, and really making sure you're treating the people that are closest to you.

Aaron spent the first years of his career in Sports & Hospitality working in Event Management and Operations and started in the MSP industry in 2011 while completing an MBA. Aaron’s expertise is in Project Management, Finance, and Organizational Strategy & Business Development. In this episode, they talked about Peer Group opportunities for the Masses. 1:58 – Aaron explains how he became involved in the world of MSP. He studied at the University of Florida. He earned an undergraduate degree in business management and then took a year to two years off to figure out what he wanted to do before deciding on a career in hospitality, specifically with Outback Steakhouse. 5:33 – Brian states that his business changed when he got involved with a strategist and a peer group. 8:54 – Tim appreciates Aaron for his commitment to lifelong learning in a variety of fields, including sales operations and customer service. “All areas that don’t matter what size MSP you are. You can always be better somewhere and be part of that.” 10:55 – Tim was impressed by what Aaron had accomplished for the community. He asked “What would you say as an MSP who is not in a peer group right now? What would they be looking for or what would be different about it?”  12:17 – Brian said that one aspect of this industry is that it is a burnout-prone one. They observe many owners who become depressed over it. Everyone talks about finding a work-life balance, but nobody ever succeeds at it.  13:37 – Aaron admits that in order to solve this, they make a significant effort to assist some or all of the members in seeing the need to surround themselves with a leadership team and to empower their subordinates so that they may share some of the burdens. 18:09 – Brian believes that many MSPs are unaware of the importance of thinking about the exit virtually from day one since, without doing so, it is difficult to provide guidance and to be realistic about how you will arrive at your goal. 22:45 – Tim adds that they have discussed it in the past and that having strong leadership teams is how more mature organizations develop, expand, and set themselves apart from the competition. Building them up makes sense because if they have a team under them, everyone will benefit.

George Bardissi is the Founder and CEO of three companies: Bardissi Enterprises, an MSP based in Philadelphia, PA; bvoip, a channel-only firm that works with other MSPs around the world in the Cloud Communications Space; and MSP Initiative, which was founded in the middle of the 2020 pandemic, as a community and networking entity to help bridge the gap between IT Service Providers and MSPs to collaborate in new ways. In this episode, they talked about Breaking the Boundaries of MSP Growth 2:48 – George stated that he mastered many of the skills he possessed at an early age largely on his own and that he quickly became involved in them. He started an IT services business when he was still a high school student. He was really apprehended entering the school on a weekend when other activities, such as building an access point in the cafeteria, are taking place. 6:25 – Sade recalls her fortunate accident entry into the MSP world. Someone she had previously worked with in 2017 was in and out of the MSP sandbox. From that point on, George pretty much took her under his wing and just sort of showed her a little bit of everything, and from that point on, she actually began to gain a true understanding of what exactly the MSP land is like. 11:38 – Brian says it's nice to see the community now taking conferences and extending them out a little bit farther, as well as adding other choices for participants to come together and finish the day in a different way. 16:58 – George responds to Brian's question on how to delegate and scale up. He believes the most important thing he can tell people is to see Gary V. 20:36 – Tim says that one of the things that they do on a daily basis is hiring salespeople for MSPs all across the nation, and it's kind of amazing how, just a year ago, the mindset had changed so that candidates suddenly had more negotiating power than they had ever had in interviews. However, he will admit that he does feel like it's beginning to turn back a little bit—certainly not to the extent it once did, but it is unquestionably beginning to turn back. 22:37 – Sade stated that right now, all efforts are focused on the new type of structured events that MSP is holding, namely the MSP Community Mines.

Chris Johnson is a cybersecurity compliance strategist at heart. He is currently CompTIA’s senior director of cybersecurity programs and ex-officio chairperson of the CompTIA Security Community. In this role, he champions the abilities of MSPs looking to focus more on cybersecurity. 2:22 – Chris discusses his background in the IT industry. He believes that many of the people who were listening fell into it. He had a lot of nasty jobs early in my career because he was someone who said, "I didn't like working at U Haul anymore," but he also had the chance, during the dot-com era, to sort of get his cut by volunteering for a school system at the time. 7:58 – Brian stated that one of the most significant issues in this sector is that anyone can become an MSP tomorrow. 11:37 – Tim has a question for Chris, which he referred to briefly in the beginning, because not everyone is ready to delve deeply into all of this. There are so many shifting parts, such as he knew a new provider, a new company attempting to enter this area. “How do they engage with you?”, “What are the first steps they take”, “What does that look like?”, “How can they achieve some of the things that you just talked about ?” 16:25 – Brian noted that if we look at CIS as a kind of stepping stone based on trust markets, it's a good area that people can get started today since he's always seen CIS as pretty common sense controls for practically every organization. 22:11 – Brian believes we have a good understanding of the measures an MSP can take to get organized. Maybe we can wrap up the conversation today by talking a little bit about what audit expectations would be for the end user. It's not necessarily about dollars and cents, but what that process feels like because many MSPs have never been a part of an audit for either their customers or themselves. 26:45 – Brian believes that if you want the program to be successful in the long run, you must approach it with the perspective that you are going in to improve your business and make your service delivery stronger and more secure. 29:19 – Chris advises getting involved with CompTIA and the membership because these are good places to find resources that can help you navigate this journey and you don't have to do this to yourself. CIS is a great place to start if you are even remotely considering addressing cybersecurity in your organization, especially with group one being somewhat—he doesn't say simple—but it's kind of linear control one step one.

A-Jay Orr, the founder, and CEO of Simple Plan IT. They specialize in helping businesses specifically those that have government contracts, protect digital assets, and be compliant with all the security regulations that the DOD pushes out. In this episode, they talked about Building Opportunities for Veterans in Transition. 02:13 – Brian asks A-Jay “How did you find your way into the lovely world of IT?”  A-Jay stated that he got into the wonderful world of IT through the military. He was a communication specialist, so his role in the military was to set up communications, tap into satellites, and do other things of that type, which is where he really began his excursion into technology. 8:01 – A-Jay believes that his project management skills helped him transition into the ownership space by allowing him to swiftly evaluate and analyze situations. He wants to acquire military traits and talents so that he can go in and perform such things. 12:41 – Brian is happy to hear A-Jay talk about how he kind of changed and realized that he needs to scale up because he is on the right track and has a fantastic communicator who can be visionary and who really helps define it. .  16:13 – A-Jay says “Being in the military is a unique dynamic in the sense that we could hate each other but we knew that when it was time to go to work”. He said that he could trust them to do their job and protect my life and you could trust me to do the same because the mission came first. 21:05 – A-Jay shares that in Ohio, they are starting this thing, and we are the 22nd state that has this thing going on, and so there are 20, and one of those states that already have them has a veteran chamber of commerce up and running, and so we all get together once a month as a coalition to kind of share best practices and just to inform each other “what’s going on in our different states and our regions” so that we can kind of work together. 24:05 – Robb claims that when Tim and he are hiring, they recruit a lot of people. One of the ways they attempt to relate to people, especially when they are leaving the military, is to give them the impression that they may have been in communications in the military, but when they leave, they can rapidly transfer into sales. 27:48 – Robb asks A-Jay about his resume-writing services and other similar services. 

This week we deep dive into the minds of Enterprise CIO's and see how their concerns can map to the SMB.  The impact of many of the concerns we will discuss will impact the SMB market faster and harder than the enterprise, and MSPs need to be prepared to be leaders and address these issues with their clients and demonstrate value with the solutions.

Show Website: https://mspbusinessschool.com/ Octopus CRM - https://bit.ly/3GwgQkz Kennected - https://bit.ly/3WHCjOc Typify - https://bit.ly/3jOL4qX Hosts Brian Doyle: https://www.linkedin.com/in/briandoyl... Robb Rogers: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robb-roge... Tim McNeil: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timmcneil3/ Sponsors vCIOToolbox: https://vciotoolbox.com OSR Manage: https://osrmanage.com In this episode, we talked about the advantages of having a Virtual Assistant (VA) and how to start working with one. 00:30 – Brian extends a warm welcome to all who join him and his co-hosts, Robb Rogers and Tim McNeil, on their podcast. Also, he mentioned that they're going to talk about something that you should think about when you ask, "How do I scale if I don't yet have the available dollars to hire direct resources or don't want to hire direct resources for some of the administrative tasks in our life?" 01:56 – Brian stated that one of the things he decided to do, as he had done in the past with other organizations he has run, was to reach out to virtual assistants. He understands that many of us have been hearing about virtual assistants in the marketplace and may be confused as to what the true capabilities of a virtual assistant are and what one should expect from this because he believes that sometimes when people enter these relationships, they expect people to just show up at their doorstep and be able to do everything without any real guidance or training. 03:33 – Robb asks one of the biggest questions Brian “What is prospecting really mean to you? because he heard some good, bad, and ugly for prospecting overseas, so what do you mean by that?” 04:06 – Brian responds to a prospecting question. In order to warm up the customer and increase the likelihood that they would comply with whatever your call to action is, whether it be a meeting appointment, demo, or trial depending on what you're doing, there are various methods that go into the sales process. We are attempting to get used to those things. 07:05 – Brian began by discussing how to prepare VA. He also talks about where he got his VA. 13:08 – Tim asks Brian if there's anything he experienced anything that his VA has not been able to accomplish for him. 15:31 – Robb inquires once more about what you can recommend for an MSP owner who is using a VA to assist them with prospecting. What is the first step after watching videos and all that? What is the first action you want your MSP owners to take? 18:50 – Robb also mentions octopus and typify as two examples of coordinates campaigns that use sales navigator lists. 19:10 – Tim stated that there is another company called Kennected that begins with a K, and they have heard some really good things about it as well. It also allows you to schedule social media posts on top of prospecting. 26:53 – Tim concurs with Brian's statement about having his VA work outside US business hours. He also added that VAs are people as well, that they have lives to live, families, and struggles.

Show Website: https://mspbusinessschool.com/ Guests Name: Abe Garver https://www.linkedin.com/in/abegarver/ Company: FOCUS Investment Banking https://focusbankers.com/ Jim Lippie: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jim-lippie-52931/ SaaS Alerts: https://saasalerts.com/ Name: Kipp Stumpf https://www.linkedin.com/in/kipp-stum... Company: ConnectWise https://www.connectwise.com/ Jon Kotman: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonkotman/ Luke Ross: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucas-ross-238b07143/ Kotman Technology: https://www.kotman.com/ Rob Rae: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robtrae/ Datto: https://www.datto.com/ Derek Gabriel: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dereksgabriel/ Ignite Solutions Group: https://www.ignitetheday.com/ Name: Vince Tinnirello https://www.linkedin.com/in/vincetinn... Company: Anchor Network Solutions https://www.anchornetworksolutions.com/ Hosts Brian Doyle: https://www.linkedin.com/in/briandoyl... Robb Rogers: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robb-roge... Tim McNeil: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timmcneil3/ Sponsors vCIOToolbox: https://vciotoolbox.com OSR Manage: https://osrmanage.com In this episode, our hosts, Brian, Rob, and Tim, will share their favorite guests and clips from our 2022 podcast selection. 05:45 – Jim began by saying that the majority of MSPs don't realize when a bad actor is actually coming in with authentic credentials from somewhere they aren't supposed to unless they are monitoring. Therefore, it is crucial that we keep informed of what occurs. 12:01 – Kipp notes that while there are numerous distinct evolutionary programs, the owner's program's flagship is actually centered upon four planes. It is your strategy, as well as your life plan, and it is your personal and business legacy plan. Therefore, your life plan is "What are your one-year goals? What do you want, exactly, since it's only a one-year team goal?” 14:57 – Brian claims that Derek's clip is a fantastic episode since it will be the clip we share with you after you have listened to a journey. 15:40 – Derek shares his journey. He started looking for work but was turned down because of his lack of qualifications. He had applied to work as an installer, was using a headhunter, and had once been interviewed at Sprint for a position that sounded absolutely awful: database administrator for reporting, and creating reports for executives. But in the end, wanting a job with the least amount of responsibility. 19:24 – Robb claims that Vince's clip is his favorite episode because it was about how he felt about an anchor and how to deal with anchor network problems, and since Vince is a peer group facilitator and had so many smart things to say. 24:15 – Tim thinks that too many individuals do things well and likes the idea of not placing a lot of emphasis on the income standpoint. They place a lot of emphasis on the revenue generated by each client. You should be evaluated to determine if these are the proper people for you and if they are real. 24:36 – Brian said there are a lot of other variables you can consider besides just pure income and when you start growing to the level where you are at. He always looks at those plans to make sure they aren't overlooking those clients in the middle of the stack. That is also prepared for ascent. 27:27 –  According to Rob Rae, it is simple to predict that, at some point, any organization, regardless of location or size, will find that having in-house IT personnel is no longer necessary. This may be the case in order to protect internal infrastructure, but as far as anything that is coming from the outside, things are moving too quickly.  34:50 – Robb's query is answered by John. It's always preferable to attempt and change a connection or get it moving in the proper manner when you're in that position. This is why we always give 110% effort to say when we're in that position.  40:30  – Abe states that there is so much competition that he has a merger of equal platforms that will be completed soon and he increasingly sees a competitive advantage to call potential clients and informing them that he has sixty-five nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) from all of these buyers for this assignment, which will encourage serious bids from prospective buyers. 45:56 – Brian thanks all of the listeners for their support as he wraps up the podcast.