Speaker 0 | 00:01.460

Hi, nerds. I’m Michael Moore, hosting this podcast for Dissecting Popular IT Nerds. I’m here with Rob Glass, CEO of Computer Systems Plus Incorporated. Hey, Rob, how’s it going today?

Speaker 1 | 00:19.730

Hey, it’s going good, buddy.

Speaker 0 | 00:21.691

Hey, I’m going to start off with a little icebreaker segment. We call it Random Access Memories. I ask a question and you come. back with whatever comes to your head first right uh first question i got for you is virtual reality or augmented reality as in which one do i prefer or i

Speaker 1 | 00:45.709

love the augmented reality that’s coming out i’m a little bit of a r and geek nerd and some of the heads up notifications on the augmented reality uh stuff i’m looking at Kia’s new EV6 all-electric vehicle right now. It’s got an augmented reality on the screen, kind of putting you some heads-up stuff. I nerd out about that because that reminds me of a lot of the sci-fi stuff growing up as a kid.

Speaker 0 | 01:12.107

I agree with you, actually. Seeing some of the sci-fi that they have out now, I actually think the augmented reality is even cooler because you get to interact with the real world and then add on top of it additional information that might help you out. So I’m actually… excited. I’m a glasses wearer. So hopefully, eventually I can have a heads up display while I actually talk to people.

Speaker 1 | 01:33.225

That would be cool. If they could query my LinkedIn and remind me of their name, that’d be awesome.

Speaker 0 | 01:38.488

Exactly. What’s the worst computer you have ever used?

Speaker 1 | 01:44.993

The worst computer I’ve ever used. I think I’m going to pivot a little bit and say it is actually an old CRT monitor. So we do take care of a lot of clients and sometimes we see some scary things when we show up at their sites. And it wasn’t that long ago, maybe a few years ago, that we were planning a new title company and they had all CRT monitors still in the late 2018s. And so to think that there were still last two monitors in existence hurt my eyeballs to even look at. I think that classifies as the worst because it was unimaginably bad.

Speaker 0 | 02:27.352

They’re so heavy and yet built so well. They lasted so long.

Speaker 1 | 02:32.796

Yes, but if you look at one now, because you’ve all forgotten what they look like, it will hurt your head to look at them for more than five minutes.

Speaker 0 | 02:42.524

Last one here. We use so many acronyms in IT. What’s your favorite acronym?

Speaker 1 | 02:49.970

My favorite? Favorite act? I think my favorite is TCIP because you ask an interview question, you will usually ask what does TCIP stand for? And you will get the most random responses because no one can remember. And it’s just such a common one that we all throw out every day that I think half the people in IT forget what the full meaning of it is.

Speaker 0 | 03:24.292

Transport Control Protocol Internet Protocol. That’s right. Now I’m thinking I should run some type of a contest where people can just put their craziest acronyms for TCPIP and see what happens. Oh, that’s a good one. I actually thought maybe you would say MSP, right? Since I think it’s great. You are running a MSP, and it’s been around for quite a while, right?

Speaker 1 | 03:48.390

Correct, yes. So my thought were… Technically, two generations old. My father started the company in 1984. So we’re 38 years old and running. Though MSP wasn’t a thing in the early 80s. So that’s a more recent badge that we wear. But it is a 38-year-old established IT solutions company and managed service provider. We get new names. We were a value-added reseller for a long time. So… Whatever the new name is, that’s what we are and that’s what we’re all.

Speaker 0 | 04:21.565

Nice. So you said that your father started the business?

Speaker 1 | 04:28.326

Yep, out of his garage for a few months, but he saw the value of having an actual commercial space. So he’s very proud to say he was not a one-man shop for very long working out of his garage. So yeah, he started it. I was, not to date myself, but I was three at the time. So I’ve been with the company. in some form or fashion all 38 years.

Speaker 0 | 04:50.395

Wow, wow. You know, thinking about this, every time I hear about somebody starting something, they start it out of their garage. So I’m now starting to think that maybe I should just get my operations, move them out to my garage and start it there.

Speaker 1 | 05:03.805

Yeah. Started on your garage. The old Steve Jobs building PCs in his garage, kind of a deal. But now you moved to a commercial space within a few months. He just wanted that actual brick and mortar feel to get started with. But it’s definitely the American dream for sure. Wow. Starting it up and running it.

Speaker 0 | 05:23.170

You don’t see many ISPs. Sorry, I’m sorry, ISPs. Sorry. You don’t see many MSPs that have been around for 38 years. Wow, that’s pretty impressive. You guys specialize in small and medium businesses you were kind of talking about?

Speaker 1 | 05:39.897

Correct, yeah. So we do well in the small and medium space. Our price is very well. Our services are aligned to that. We are proud that we do so. We take huge enterprise services and boil it down to small and medium companies’needs. So it’s kind of the best of both worlds on the service offering front. But we just like our mom and pops. We’re still a small business. We take care of a lot of small businesses in the southeast and specifically East Tennessee. And that’s just a good space to be in. I’m a firm believer in small business drives our economy, feeds the bigger businesses. So we feel like we’re placing the economy.

Speaker 0 | 06:18.463

And that’s great. The, you know, got a nice place in my heart for Tennessee because my wife lived in Dixon, Tennessee for, you know, most of my life.

Speaker 1 | 06:30.317

Yeah.

Speaker 0 | 06:31.197

So, um, and on top of that, I used to manage a data center over in Nashville. So, um, a lot of ties to Tennessee over my years. I, you know, I, I never lived there, but I visited there many times. I love Tennessee. Great, great state.

Speaker 1 | 06:47.070

Yes. And, uh, I do have an attachment to Dixon too, as well. Um, I knew a lady from there back in my college days, so we won’t go down that road on this conversation.

Speaker 0 | 06:57.078

So now So when people think of MSPs, it’s always kind of a the question comes up. If I have internal IT, why do I need an MSP? Or is there a combination of the two? Or is it a replacement? But I think it’s a great spot right here because you’ve got a whole bunch of IT folks and also business leaders that follow this podcast. And I would love if you could explain what your thought process is on where managed service providers fit in for businesses and how they can, you know, not necessarily replace, but, you know, work with current existing IT in some cases and adapt. What’s your thoughts?

Speaker 1 | 07:57.962

Yeah, so that model is being more commonly known as co-managed IT. And it is a growing space, that area where you have on-staff IT and you have a managed service provider. So the co-managed, we have clients we co-manage with their IT staff. We have clients and we see the space where we are 100% their IT services and solutions provider, nothing on staff. And then we have clients where we offer one little small managed service out of our offerings, whether that’s a BCDR or a cybersecurity service that just helps their team to kind of fill in their space. So there’s really three spaces that exist there. We’ve adapted, I think, pretty well to all three over the years. But as a general topic of conversation, managed service provider, I think we’re seeing that just like we see outsourced bookings. Just like we see outsourced payroll, just like we see outsourced staffing. So if that makes sense in your business, we often come alongside of a lot of other outsourced providers. We’re typically not always a company’s first outsourced service of some kind. A business will be used that model already. They don’t have bookkeeping in-house, they don’t have in-house. Legal, CPA, they’re very used to this conversation. So we just kind of flow right into that. We’re usually not people’s first service. It’s been outsourced. But I think the one thing that COVID taught us is that when it comes to business continuity, you put a lot of eggs in a sole key person on staff. And I never want to take anybody’s job away from them or have someone let go because they brought in a vendor. We all hate that sticky conversation. But the reality is as a team of individuals, um for cost left and a payroll cost we can provide a broader depth of service than so that’s where it kind of comes in as a better value to a business owner and be like hey I know I’m paying John. John’s great. He’s on staff. He’s there when I need him. But John also can provide VCIO services. John also isn’t monitoring stuff 24 by 7 with outsourced services. And so we help do a lot that John can’t do. And when John’s on vacation, he can’t help me. Rob’s team is never on vacation. There’s always somebody there. And so for business continuity, it’s really hard to do the same thing with in-house staff unless your hundreds and thousands of people and have that. So that’s then where we offer that kind of co-managed model. In the small business space, it works well.

Speaker 0 | 10:40.543

That’s a great way to look at it. I think that’s right. You kind of see where a small business can kind of grow using that spot. An interesting thing about MSPs is they deal with so many different industries. And especially you being over near Nashville, where there’s a ton of businesses. I know Nashville is huge from a healthcare standpoint. I know they have some other different businesses. What are you seeing from the standpoint of the kind of emerging businesses post-COVID in this new kind of realm? What are you seeing from a business standpoint? where you guys need to, these businesses that are growing that need this type of support?

Speaker 1 | 11:36.829

I mean, it’s pretty much the same story post or pre-COVID, really. But we’re seeing that we can adapt and scale to a certain point. We’ve had some clients that have grown larger than us. And then, so that’s where we do focus on the small space. So that works well. We’re happy to play a… part in any company’s history, obviously, as they grow. I think the thing that we see is, and challenges too on our part, is acquisitions are always sticky because bigger companies will gobble up little companies as they go along and buy client lists or competition or whatever that looks like. And so we don’t normally go along with the companies that get acquired because they are being part of some of the other IT services. So It definitely is something where, you know, we have to keep our ear on the ground on a business side, what business needs are there, what technology needs are there, how do we help them grow, grow them to a certain point, and then we’re happy to offer them up to somebody else that offers them better. And I think, you know, we are technically in Knoxville, but we do see the same thing that Nashville sees. I mean, we have industries here like, you know, they’re huge, pilot gas and oil all over the United States. thousands and thousands of patients. I think Warren Buffett picked them up recently, that sort of thing. And so we see huge corporations like that. And then we see little mom and pops here in the same space, much like Nashville Seeds. So how can we help both? And how can we be of value? It’s kind of a daily thing where we just have to keep our ear to the ground of the changes.

Speaker 0 | 13:19.917

What kind of trends are you seeing in in supporting these small, medium businesses? Are you seeing any emerging trends that we should be aware of?

Speaker 1 | 13:35.145

Well, I mean, there’s always a cybersecurity trend. Everyone’s a big duh on that one. I think that we are seeing trends where that is not only becoming a need because of security, but I think in some markets, this might also sound kind of like a big no-duh kind of moment, but it is. if you’re not taking that cybersecurity concepts and needs, if you’re not taking it to a proper level in your business, you’re not going to be able to be able to work with the government. You’re not going to be, you know, you can’t be a small contractor anymore and not have these certain criteria in place. You’re not going to be able to get cyber insurance or if you do not have certain things in place. I mean, it used to be back in the day, you could buy cyber insurance. No one cared, right? Well, if you don’t have patching now, if you don’t have endpoints, if you don’t have edge security, you’re not going to get. you know, policy put in front of you. And so there are things now from a cybersecurity standpoint that, you know, used to be, well, that’s nice. I wish I was more secure, but now it’s like, Oh, I can’t even do my job or run my company without it. And so some markets probably like Nashville, Atlanta, bigger markets, that’s that, that happened a few years ago for the smaller markets like Knoxville and stuff. We’re having that conversation a lot of like, you know, you’re not going to be able to get cyber insurance next year if you don’t do this kind of a thing. So that, that’s a big part of it. at least in our world in East Tennessee, that’s kind of our current emerging trend, if you will.

Speaker 0 | 15:01.875

You know, I’m glad you brought up a security piece. It’s so huge. It sounds like you were talking about DFARS and CMMC certification, right? Yeah,

Speaker 1 | 15:11.723

those are fun acronyms that we talked about.

Speaker 0 | 15:13.844

Yeah, exactly. It’s just an acronym for everything, right? Yeah, those are huge. And, you know, it’s interesting to see. I’ve worked with some of the smaller companies on DFARS and CMMC, and there’s different stages based on if you’re a contractor, right? Right. What and what I what I found on there was, you know, a well, first of all, CMMC is having, you know, is basically coming into fruition now. It’s been it was kind of pushed, delayed, allowed people to kind of get up to speed. But I’ve seen some of these requirements. And and frankly, from a small business standpoint, it makes it really difficult for small businesses to do business with the government if they’re contracted.

Speaker 1 | 16:01.563

Sure. Yeah. I mean, we have one, you know, can’t say names or anything, but we have a client that makes a little metal widget that they sell them. Just a little thing. I think it has something to do that shoots something up near the explosion or something at some point. But that’s all they do is manufacture for the feds. They make that one little piece of metal widget, you know, seems so small and insignificant, but they have to meet these criterias. And they’re a little mom and pop manufacturer. And so. Yeah, it’s tough. It is definitely challenging. It’s challenging for us to be able to fully understand that and then regurgitate it and explain it to them on a level that they can understand too. So that adds challenges to our form of IT as well.

Speaker 0 | 16:47.810

It is, you know, it’s difficult for internal IT to sometimes talk to executives and say, hey, you need to spend some money. Right. I bet it’s got to be difficult from an MSP standpoint to turn around and talk to clients and say, hi, I know you’re spending money, but you need to spend more and here’s why.

Speaker 1 | 17:10.771

Yeah. And it gets even a little bit more awkward when you’re like, oh, by the way, I can actually help you spend that money with my own services. And then definitely play as consultants or VCIOs, virtual CIOs, you definitely play a balancing act of, you know, sometimes we show them there’s a better service elsewhere. Yeah. that they can get. And that kind of helps the conversation and build rapport. Be like, Hey, I’m willing to say, spend this money over here, not with me, but because you need it to run your business. And so we work very hard on building rapport with our clients. Not only when we’re first initiating the conversation of contracts, but months and months after that, it’s all about constantly building that rapport with them. And that goes so much more than QBRs and all these, it has to be more than just a paper thing you shove in front of them. It’s about doing business with them in a reliable way that they can trust. And when you build that trust, it’s easy. When it’s not there, yeah, it’s hard and sticky.

Speaker 0 | 18:07.798

All right. You threw out another acronym on there, QBR, right? I’m pretty sure that stands for quarterly business review, right?

Speaker 1 | 18:16.685

Yep. You got it. Yep. All right.

Speaker 0 | 18:18.427

And what does a QBR give your clients? Yeah.

Speaker 1 | 18:25.753

So some of our clients, it’s funny. Can we- my contact manager and I were just talking about this earlier. Some don’t even want to meet quarterly. They have no desire. They barely want to meet annually. But just we kind of force that on them because we have to have that health check and check up, right? No, you have to understand this is important for you. So the ones that we do have that more calendar review, that’s more than just once a year, maybe it’s half a year, maybe it is quarterly. We’re reviewing everything from… the health of their fleet from a hardware standpoint to what is endpoint and manage that response finding and building reports from that. So we’re pulling in all this data set. Some have other criteria depending upon their business that we pull in to, we have reports that show make sure everything’s encrypted from a disk encryption sample. So it kind of depends on the client’s need. We’re really trying to tailor the information and not just shove in unimportant information from them, but things that is important to them. So if our clients are concerned about things silly, I don’t know, how is their bandwidth being utilized? Are there people just watching YouTube all day? If they need a report like that, we’ll say, okay, let us involve that report into these meetings with you. So we take the time to kind of figure out what their needs are and then tailor those reports to what their needs are.

Speaker 0 | 19:49.922

Very nice. I’d like to pivot specifically to you. It’s very interesting. Like you mentioned, you started very young, at a young age, kind of being, I guess, so to speak, almost thrown into the IT world, right? With your father, you know, running that stuff. Actually, very similar. My dad… was in the, it was an IT, it was a programmer in, in the, um, in the air force and then, uh, moved into, uh, uh, doing more of a, um, a sales role, but for IT, um, uh, IT work. Right. And so, um, and so the, you know, I was thrown in at an early age, uh, you know, sitting there at, you know, seven, eight years old on, uh, you know, on a early prodigy, uh, uh, running off like a DOS or something. you know, with a green screen, you know, and trying to compose an email and then kind of evolved from there. Right. And I want to kind of, if I could, hear your journey from that young age and your perspective on that.

Speaker 1 | 21:00.310

Yeah. I mean, my perspective is obviously tailored a lot to my father’s goals and desires. And so he started this company. because the IT industry was running him ragged and he missed my first birthday because he was doing a deployment for a bank in Atlanta. And he said, never again. I’m going to run a company and I’m going to make my own job. And so if you’re familiar with the E-Myth, the E-Myth revisited books and those kinds of scenarios, there’s three people that start a company. One of them is a technician role. My father’s that classic technician role. He made a company so that he had the job that he wanted to work in. He never really wanted to have a company, but he always wanted the right job. And so I say that because that hard work mentality, that figure it out, that Mr. Fix-It kind of mentality was always in front of me. And so at an early age, I loved it. I mean, it was back in the bulletin board days, back, you know, all sitting around 56K modem was like rocking and blazing, you know, back in the bull. multiple days you know we we would you know get stuff and dial in and figure all it out and um fix stuff based upon what someone else had written when that was here on google and it kind of evolved from there in that i in some ways i followed his coattails and then diverged off a little bit but i mean i was always into this like repair fix figure out i eventually ended up getting an engineering degree in electrical engineering and um an emphasis in digital design Because I got tired of fixing stuff all the time, only to find out that I was so good at labs, so bad at math, that I really was designed to fix problems I could put my hands on. I did my first server deployment if I had a driver’s license, which is really awkward when your mom has to drop you off at a law firm to put a server in. And so I had my hands in IT since an early age. I learned a lot of things from that. I learned everything will always break over and over again. So if I wanted to better myself, I had to look at how to bring services that build up a business. But I’m still doing the same thing where I’m fixing a problem. But from a business standpoint, if that makes sense. Not necessarily from a network or a server standpoint. But yeah, so I started out early age, hands in everything, fixing everything, servers, networks, and then went into engineering. And then. I actually came back to the business now nine years ago. When I came back, it was the conversation of, I’m not here to be a technician again or a systems administrator or a network engineer. I’m here to be a business person. So I took what I learned from the business side. I tell people I translate geek all day long because now I know enough on the technical side and still have my hands in a lot of those cookie jars of… technology but i’m here to make a business person’s life better and explain that to them and so i have the best of both worlds after being in business so long is that i can do both and situation fix business problems and still fix the occasional it problem so all right so so you know taking this from uh you know a technician mindset is kind of uh you

Speaker 0 | 24:23.624

know where you’re coming from and uh you know i i had my uh you know first start on a on a help desk and and kind of spent that that time kind of building up that technician role, solving, doing troubleshooting, solving problems. And I just learned it never got away from you. It was, it’s always something, uh, innate, uh, you know, once you learn it, that you have to solve problems regardless of them being tech versus business, but there’s a difference. Right. And so I want to go into this a little bit with you because, um, there are people that, um, are great at solving technical problems. And there are people that are great at solving business problems. And then there exists this fuzzy area in between where people can solve either technical or business problems, but… underlying between all of them are generally the same basic principles to doing that. What is your thought process on how you started with tech, transferred to business, and what did you bring with you from that tech troubleshooting that you can apply to the business side of troubleshooting?

Speaker 1 | 25:36.120

Yeah, so there was a transition between those two for me that helped. I spent some time with a company, Patagonia. They do outdoor retail clothing. And they have a big top-down on how their business model works on training folks. And it helped me in the people relational side to technology. I think a lot of times, you have that one side of technology problems. And we forget there’s a human behind the screen. We forget there’s a staff. And we forget there’s… A lot of times, I’m talking to my team about… It really is more about the people behind the screen than is the problem on the screen. We have a saying around here, and we probably stole it from somewhere. A client doesn’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. We have to care for those people behind it. And then I think there is the business side of people that care so much about scalability and growth that they forget that there’s an underlining technology that has to support that. And the on-staff IT constantly bumps their head about that because they don’t understand and the business people don’t understand. And then in the middle, I think the MSP or a lot of department managers in IT live in that middle space, right? The CIOs and the IT directors live in that middle space and the MSPs live in that middle space. And so I think what we’re doing is we’re constantly solving the same problems. But in that middle space, we’re looking outward to either one. And we’re seeing how. The outside sources affect that middle space, if that makes sense. So when I meet with a business owner who goes, I have such a hard time with scale. And most times it’s because he’s forgotten about the technology piece side of it. Or when I’m meeting with my team and they’re very technical and they’re solving very technical problems, a lot of times they’re forgetting about the human piece that’s involved in this too as well. And this is why we have systems administrators that will be in a hurry to run out. And… push out a spam service or any kind of cyber service, and they forget that you need to train the end users on what they’re going to expect on that, and it blows up in their face. Why does this blow up in my face? Well, you forgot about the end part of that problem. So that middle space is, I find, thrilling because you have two problems you get to solve. Not just one, you get two. You get the human problem and you get the technology problem, but when you can marry them together, it’s such a beautiful thing when it goes.

Speaker 0 | 28:08.434

That’s a great answer. I really like that perspective, too, of joining the two together and being able to kind of solve both at the same time. And it kind of shows an important hole in both sides, which is if you don’t recognize both of them and combine those, you miss out on projects. And it sounds like you can also miss out on items like, you know, adoptability. of new IT solutions, right? And possibly from the other angle, using solutions that may actually save you time, save you cost, increase your productivity. So marrying the both together is a great way to look at it. You know, you kind of mentioned, like you mentioned before, you did mention the technician mindset and a lot of hard work that came from both your father and you in getting to that spot. So how do you translate, because, you know, you’re one person, right? But how do you translate that hard work mentality out to your team? So, and that’s, I think, the interesting part about this is, and one of the things that I think will relate to both IT directors and MSPs, all these types of different businesses, which is how do you take that mentality that you have that’s been so successful? and translate that out to your team members so that they can reflect back what you started, or I should say your father started.

Speaker 1 | 29:47.374

Yeah, I think what has helped us to do that, and I don’t know if we read that on this, if you would say the same thing, but we’ve aligned ourselves to a set of core values. And those core values, one, put down in verbiage what success looks like. A lot of times people kind of, they want to be successful. They, you know, most people… Most people, I would say, want to be successful on a team, but their view of success may not be yours. And so when you give them, and this goes beyond the whole key performance indicators, KPIs and stuff like that, this is saying this is the core value. And when all three of those align, this is where success happens. And so what we have found is when we’re not being successful, one of those is missing. When we are successful, all three are there. And, um… I struggled early on, to get back to your question, of like, oh, no one works as hard as the boss does. No one works and gives 100% because that was my technician. That was at work value. One of my personal core values is I value hard work and constantly push at it to a fault, probably, my wife would say at times.

Speaker 0 | 31:09.401

No missing birthdays. No missing birthdays.

Speaker 1 | 31:12.082

Yeah. And so. But what we had to say was, okay, is that Rob’s core value or is that a team core value? And we started looking at core values. And once we defined them, we defined them for the team, then it was easy for the team to make. So we have those core values when people align. So when we hire new staff members, shoot, when I’m in the interview process, first interview of our series of interviews, I put them down on paper and I say, here’s our core values. If these three. core values you can’t look at. And they’re the most awesomest core values. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. It doesn’t mean you’re not successful. It just means you won’t be successful here. And so we put those down there. And so that has helped us out tremendously on just naming, claiming they’re there and they don’t work for you. Then we started taking those and we evaluate our clients. And if we see that… Our clients don’t line up to those three. It doesn’t mean they’re a bad group, a firm, or whatever, a business. It just means we might have a hard time taking care of them. And we either help them adapt to those and understand the importance of those, or there’s been times we say goodbye to those, right? Because we just know it’s not going to work out. We’re all going to be upset with each other at the end of the day. So why go against the grain on this when there’s an easier way and there might be a better provider for them? Seeing those core values helps. people are raised up to them and then they look successful because they are. And then we, then they know that they’re successful and that helps them feel better about being part of the team.

Speaker 0 | 32:49.458

Yeah, Rob, I think that’s great. I think that, you know, when you look at any type of a partnership, both sides benefiting from the partnership makes the best type of partnership, right? Whether or not that’s, you know, someone being hired and working for the company, or that’s another client that. that you’re working with or someone you’re partnering with to extend your services. Right. Right. Yeah.

Speaker 1 | 33:13.308

So I think it sounds like you read the same books. My therapist does too as well. Gotta have boundaries. You got values, right? We got to put them out there.

Speaker 0 | 33:23.656

So, um, look at it. Uh, um, you said something kind of, you know, it really made me kind of pique my interest, which is, uh, when you’re looking at, uh, onboarding, um, you know, folks for, for hiring folks and having them work for you, uh, you, uh, make sure that their core values line up with yours. Um, is there, uh, you know, any other, uh, I guess, recommendations, uh, that you would have, uh, for, uh, you know, companies, uh, and, or people that are looking to get hired companies that are looking to hire, uh, that, you know, can, can look and get these, uh, uh, these folks. uh, lined up and adjusted with their business, because this is such a, such a big deal. I’m right now. I mean, I, you know, people say the great resignation, I call it the great reshuffling. It is, you know, I, all I see is people moving back and forth, you know, and trying to get to the right spot. And, uh, and it does, it seems like a, you know, uh, you know, reshuffling of, of talent around, um, in that case, uh, what is the, uh, you know, when you go to hire or even when you go, when you look to retain. uh what what are you doing to make to ensure that you’re uh you know keeping and or getting the talent uh that you need and or attracting the talent that you need yeah um so i mean the first one and this is the big conversation that’s hard for us in the small business world is um valuing our our

Speaker 1 | 34:56.108

teammates with the correct pay level um you know it sounds like a you know a big no-brainer but the reality is It’s hard. We’re a small business. We can’t always compete at the salary level, but we do have to understand that there’s a value. And as I’ve talked to other business owners, they say, well, I can’t afford to pay that. I can’t afford to pay that. And it’s like… Well, then you need to look at a revenue stream. That’s a revenue stream problem. Because if this is what you want, if this is the level of candidate you want to attract, then you’ve got to compete with that. And the hard side with us as a small business now with this more comfortable remote force of workers is I’m competing for people that are getting salaries out of companies out of New York that are willing to pay that because they’re getting a great deal about hiring someone in East Tennessee. And so that has really muddled the waters on what that looks like. I tell people, I’ll just internalize it, is that we’re here for the work-life balance. We’re here as a mom and pop to understand the needs. And that’s not always for everybody. Sometimes people are looking at that dollar amount. That’s their first evaluation on when they’re coming on. But I tell people, we’re not the fanciest or flashiest. We don’t have an in-house gym. Nothing fun like that. But we make up with it with good hearts and good worth. ethics and we have a good work-life balance. And that’s our goal so that kids can go to your kid’s soccer game and you have time to do other life stuff. So that work-life balance is a big thing. So presenting that and being able to talk about that at the interview process, I think goes a long way. I think it’s been a while since I’ve had an interview for a job, but I would want that conversation at the beginning. Sometimes we think, oh, it’s just environment. They’ll figure it out when they get here. And I think there are There’s companies that have done a good job at the very beginning to say, no, this is our work environment. This is what work-life balance looks like for us. I’ve been talking to a couple of business owners about what is the four-day work like? What does that look like for them and being able to communicate that? And that’s not for everybody, but for the ones that can make it work, having that at the very beginning of saying, hey, no, we can present a four-day work life. That’s an attraction to them for people. Having that right work-life environment and knowing what works for you in that, I think attracts the people that you want, regardless of that first conversation of money, which will always have to happen. But if you put the emphasis on the right work-life balance that looks good for your team, you’ll attract the people that you want on your team, if that makes sense.

Speaker 0 | 37:31.226

Yeah, I think the key that I heard in that, the key takeaway really was, that’s not for everybody. Which, if you work backwards from that… kind of explains, you know, the big challenge. The big challenge is that there are so many different individuals, so many different circumstances and so many different things that they need to get done that putting a one size fits all on for hiring sometimes may not make sense. But you also you don’t want to what I guess false advertise what your company is, too. So I think the most important thing here, right. And I think what you’re saying is to be truthful about how your company operates, what your values are. and what someone’s going to be compensated and see if they fit your organization, right? Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 | 38:21.452

Yeah, and I know a lot of people, that’s a conversation you see a lot on LinkedIn these days, like putting the pay on a job description. Some people push back. It’s like, well, I don’t want to miss out on somebody, but I also don’t want someone who’s not able to rise to the occasion of what this pay needs to be. And so… I know there’s a lot of conversation, but in some ways, it’s like just putting it out there. I’m not going to be the highest paying person, but I’m not ashamed to put the value of what I think a role is or that I can afford. And maybe the other things that I can present, like balance and core values, makes that make more sense to other people and attracts the right people. But if you don’t have it up in the upfront, they’re never going to know.

Speaker 0 | 39:03.162

That’s a great way to look at it.

Speaker 1 | 39:05.463

You bring them on board and then you got to have that whole awkward let go situation. everyone hates. So,

Speaker 0 | 39:10.596

and not only that, the cost of, um, uh, of, uh, constantly cycling through, uh, employees is, uh, is such a, such a high cost to an organization because they’re, cause you know, you, if you factor in the costs of just on onboard, but then turn around and factor in how much your other, uh, employees need to train the folks that come on board, uh, there are some soft costs that, that people don’t take into consideration. time and effort you know it’s a um it’s something that could end up costing you so i think you’re right i think being up front about what uh what your company is and and showing that honesty right up up front then people know when they come in they were presented with what it was and there’s no uh oh i didn’t know this was going to be what it was so i

Speaker 1 | 40:02.615

ambiguity is is is a hard thing because you want to avoid it as much as possible the vagueness out of the room kind of a thing. And some of it exists. I mean, there is some, but as much as possible that you can move out of the conversation. helps. I mean, that also goes to a client standpoint. I’m not a lawyer. I hate all the legalese. I hate all the contracts. So we’ve done, I think, a very good job on trying to boil it down to human speak, our contracts and our paperwork side of things. But just, again, trying to get out in plain English, what does it mean to do business with your systems? What does that look like? What are our SLAs? What are all these things that we just try to make sure are in writing, in very visible plain text so that there’s no… guess what it means to do business with us.

Speaker 0 | 40:48.461

I’ve gone and looked at a bunch of different MSP websites and looked at the different offerings and stuff just because of my own curiosity. And when I go up on there sometimes and I look, I get very confused. Not me specifically, but looking at it, I can see how people would get incredibly confused about the offerings. If they’re not into the acronyms, the logos, sorry, the slogans, the information that’s constantly talked about from a technical standpoint. If you’re just a CEO, and this is the question to you, if I’m a CEO and I am not familiar with IT, but I want to make sure that… I am fitting up correctly with the correct MSP, right? Or not just even that, let’s extend this out even a bit, the correct partner, right, for my IT needs. What do I do? What do I need to understand? What are the things I need to ask to make sure I make the right decision?

Speaker 1 | 42:07.130

Yeah, so… And that’s hard because everybody processes and looks for different things that support their companies and everybody’s company is different. But I go back to, you know, for me and doing business with somebody else, and I’ll just think about the vendors I bring in to run my business. I look for that conversation to start and be more centered around the results. that someone brings to me, not necessarily the services or not necessarily the acronyms and brand names. You know, we IT people, we’re the worst for acronyms and like aligning ourselves to brand names. And they exist, right? You know, we all have our partnerships and we’re all proud of logos and, you know, different things. Man, we’re real quick to throw out acronyms. brand names and terminology that business owner has no clue about. I love my CPA because he talks to me like a human and I can look at him and say, I don’t understand that. And I have to do that very few times. And he knows that. And so his way of presenting his services, I don’t want to say he’s dumped it down for me because that’s not right. But he talks to me like he knows that I… I need to hear it. And so he’s communicating the value of his services to me, not necessarily the nuts and bolts and services. And so when you’re a CEO looking for an MSP, I would look for one that has a conversation with you, not necessarily has a sales pitch, not necessarily one that throws a bunch of numbers and acronyms out at you, but one that says, oh, hey, yeah, let’s talk about scalability. Let’s talk about that a little bit. What does that mean to you? Or- What are your biggest challenges that you face right now to run your company? Not so that he can pitch you something, but that he’s generally curious about what it’s going to take to support you. You can’t have a conversation with that account rep or the business owner, whatever that looks like for the MSP pitching to you. If you can’t have a conversation with them, then that’s probably not somebody that you’re going to have some longevity with. They’re going to constantly be… Again, at those QBRs or annual meetings, just throwing paperwork at you. That’s what they’re trained to do. Throw numbers, throw acronyms. They’re not going to sit down and have that conversation with you. And so that’s what I would do. And when you get one, ask what their core values are. I go back to that. It’s not like a broken record, but ask that counter. What does your company value? That’s going to tell you, if they can’t answer that question or they give you some kind of elevator pitch that doesn’t make a lot of sense. That’s going to tell you they’re not going to know how to value your business that you’re ready to sign over if they can’t tell you what they personally. So I think having that conversation about views, what results look like, all that kind of stuff, go a long way in finding the right partner for IT. No,

Speaker 0 | 45:16.396

that’s great advice for our business partners out there. So I wanted to, you know, kind of move into this. I’m actually pretty excited about this IT crystal ball segment because sometimes, you know, I kind of try and focus what the future of IT is going to be, you know, based on everyone’s experience and what. they seem to know the most about. And considering you’ve been in the MSP world since you were, I think you said three years old, right? I think it’s fitting for you to talk about what the future of the MSP looks like. I know that it’s already undergone a ton of changes. You know, you mentioned remote work. You mentioned, you know, the Yeah. All these different companies that have all these completely different needs and are constantly under flux. I know that in the past several years, we’ve done major transitions to hybrid type work where things are partially in the cloud and some are on premise and some are in co-located facilities. And it’s kind of become a mishmash. And on top of that, too, you mentioned also security. So there’s lots of stuff already changing with MSPs. But where do you think we’re going in the next, say, five years or so with MSPs? And where do you see the MSPs headed towards?

Speaker 1 | 46:59.214

Yeah, so I think where we’re going is driven by a lot of what you just said, and that’s complexity. It is getting more and more complex. complex world. And having the right, from an MSP perspective, having the right MSP to help you navigate that as a business owner will, I think, be the key differentiator between successful MSPs and non-successful MSPs. The days of just keeping status quo or the days of nothing broke this past week, so I’m successful, are going and gone, really. If we can’t have a a partner, I think it’s what you call an IT partner earlier, that can help you navigate the complexity. I mean, just think about data sets are growing exponentially and not only the actual size, but where they are. And even in our small business world with all these SaaS solutions, you could meet a small little five-person CPA firm and hear about 10 different SaaS solutions that they have to need in their business. business, to run their business. And it’s just mind-blowing because the data sets are in so many different places and they’re blowing up and they’re all over the place. So that complexity from a data standpoint, complexity from a compliancy standpoint, we talked about earlier working with the feds and stuff, you know, complexity there that even the smallest little mom and pop manufacturer is going to have to apply to. Complexity from a cybersecurity standpoint is growing daily and good reasons because we got to be secure. And so Complexity is growing, so a successful MSP is going to be able to help a business owner navigate that. A successful on-staff IT person is going to get out of their shell and help their boss navigate those. So I think that’s going to be the key differentiator between a successful person in IT. Let’s move out of the MSP space. In IT in general, it’s someone who’s not. It’s someone who’s not only just going to be able to keep things working. quote, or keep from breaking, but be able to help people navigate the complexity.

Speaker 0 | 49:11.726

I think that’s a great answer. I love how you kind of pulled it out and said, listen, in IT in general, right? The future of IT is you have to be adaptable. You have to understand the complexity and be able to break it down. And then I think what I’m hearing you say is be able to explain and offer solutions. uh, in this incredibly complex world, uh, of things being just, you know, all over the place and how to just kind of bring it in and make sure that folks can, uh, uh, navigate through it, especially, uh, um, executives, other business partners, this applies to everybody. The future of it, if I hear you correctly is complexity.

Speaker 1 | 49:58.846

Yes. And, you know, not to say that the guy on tier one, tier two health test isn’t going to have a successful job. We’ll still need those. But for people that want to grow and constantly better themselves, they’re going to have to be able to navigate that complexity, right? You know, the days of… Somebody being in the basement to quote an old show from the UK and telling people to reboot is high humor. You know, those were, you know, in the 80s and 90s, looking back on my past, those were successful IT people, right? Because they were the geeks that knew how to do that kind of stuff. That’s not going to be the case in the 2030s, for sure. It’s going to be helping navigate the complexity, helping people navigate these big mass. systems and all the SaaS solutions that are out there to help run a company, all that kind of stuff. I mean, we’ll still need network engineers and administrators, but really, they’re going to have to learn how to navigate and communicate too flexibly too.

Speaker 0 | 50:55.523

Well, nerds, this has been Michael Moore hosting this podcast for Dissecting Popular IT Nerds. And I’ve been interviewing Rob Glass, CEO of Computer Systems Plus Incorporated. Rob, it was fantastic to have you on. I really appreciate you taking the time.

Speaker 1 | 51:11.582

Thank you, sir. I always tell people I have a face for radio, so I enjoy podcasts that we can do just voice.

Speaker 0 | 51:20.490

Thank you. Have a good one.

Speaker 1 | 51:21.511

If your listeners need anything from MSP or a brainstorming standpoint or a good bourbon recommendation, I do all of those.

Speaker 0 | 51:31.980

Sounds good. We’ll post your information on LinkedIn so people can stalk you. Have a good one. Appreciate it.

Speaker 1 | 51:36.824

Thank you, Michael.