Speaker 0 | 00:09.602

All right, welcome everyone back to Dissecting Popular IT Nerds. Today, we are talking with Malachi Salazar, and you have, in my personal opinion, the coolest background picture on LinkedIn. Well, thank you, I appreciate it. Yes, and profile picture as well, because you live or support, we should say support, maybe live, we don’t know that yet, a secret world, a secret world that many people don’t know about unless you live in that world. And that is the world of RVing or RVs. And I have a… I haven’t told many people this vision or a secret, kind of like a business. There’s a few businesses that I want to start up someday. One of them would be a trailer park, believe it or not. Like an off-the-grid, off-net trailer park. I work in IT, I work in technology, and the irony of all of this is that I like to be off-the-grid as much as possible. And I looked up the other day how many Americans right now… are living in an RV, not a trailer park, right? Not like a double wide, not a single manufactured home, but actually living in an RV, probably traveling around the United States, doing whatever they do. And it’s well into the hundreds of thousands. So let’s just start off with that. How connected are you? You’re the IT guy, okay? at head of Funtown RVs. And we can get to like how you transformed their entire network when you first came in, however long ago that was. Maybe just, you know, but first, how connected are you with the world of RVing?

Speaker 1 | 02:12.036

So as far as RVing, I mean, like I said, I live and breathe RVing ever since I came to work for Funtown RV. Before then, not so much. My grandparents were RVers. So they’d go out, they’d go camping in a small travel trailer. with just us grandkids and we that was about as embedded as i was with our being and there’s a whole lot to rv that i didn’t understand before uh even coming to work for funtown rv uh you know i didn’t know the different types of makes models manufacturers i mean there’s a whole bunch that i didn’t know uh prior to coming into working here um but now i i mean i live and breathe it i don’t have an rv of my own uh which is a funny story because that’s how i actually um found the job uh to work for fun town i was actually working for hickambotham brothers who’s the oldest hardware store uh in the state of texas they were started in 1881 so i started working there i worked my way up pretty well there from you know just working as a um sales associate or supervisor uh to assistant manager then i went up into network administrator or i’m sorry i.t specialist and then went up to network administrator and uh You know, I’m a real money guy. So when I was living in an apartment, I said, listen, I’m paying someone else’s pockets. So why don’t I just go buy an RV and start living in it? And so that way it’ll, you know, put something in my name as far as equity. So I started looking into an RV and somehow, some way, it may have just been a sign that I was meant for this, but I fell into the career page of Funtown RV. And right there was IT, I believe it was IT manager. It wasn’t IT director. It was IT manager. So I said, well, you know, why not? I mean, I loved my job where I was at and I was comfortable, but I said, you know what? I’m up for a challenge. So I came across it. I applied, got brought into an interview and, you know, started, they started explaining what situation they were in. And Funtown RV was… was a work because they were operating off of older PCs and they really had no network infrastructure in place. So there was really no firewalls. I mean, there was really not much to their network that I could see. So I said, man, this would be simple. Let’s just come in here and build it up. And so I started-Well,

Speaker 0 | 04:45.299

hold on, hold on. We got to slow down here because I’ve got, first of all, a thousand questions. Number one, you didn’t know the world of RV. So you didn’t know- So yes or no, did you know what a fifth wheel was before you started working there?

Speaker 1 | 04:58.812

I did not know.

Speaker 0 | 04:59.973

Okay. So for everyone out there listening, maybe we’ll do a poll. Maybe we’ll do a poll and release this podcast. Do you know what a fifth wheel is? Yes or no? If you don’t, you’re allowed to listen to this podcast. If you do, you are encouraged to listen to this podcast. Okay. Number two, old PCs. When you say old PCs, I mean, how old is old? Because I know some people that would say, hey, we’re running Windows XP. That’s just fine. How old is old?

Speaker 1 | 05:32.125

Well, so for me, you know, old was the company started in 2010. So we had the time that I was getting involved was right about the eighth year that the company had started. So most of these computers were 10 years or eight years old at the time, some even 10 years old, because they were refurbished from the first time that they were put into operation with Funtown RV. So. We were talking a mixture of environment from make, model, type, and just performance.

Speaker 0 | 06:05.982

What was the oldest artifact that you found on site?

Speaker 1 | 06:13.846

So the oldest one I had found was a, I believe it was a Dell. I couldn’t remember the exact model, but it was still running XP. And I think it was put in the back of a warehouse because it was only whenever they wanted to like. clock in and out, I believe, or something. It was just in a warehouse put in a room, but it was still running XP. It was very old, probably running off of four gigs of RAM. I can’t remember how much.

Speaker 0 | 06:38.681

Oh, that’s fast.

Speaker 1 | 06:40.742

Yeah, very.

Speaker 0 | 06:42.523

But I mean, really, when I think of old stuff, well, first of all, if you don’t mind me asking, how old are you?

Speaker 1 | 06:51.948

25 years old.

Speaker 0 | 06:53.349

Okay, now that explains it. That explains it. Four gigs? Come on. It’s still, the word gig is still in there. Okay. No, but anyways. Okay. So 25 years old. Okay. So, and how long ago was this?

Speaker 1 | 07:11.161

This was about four, five years ago. About four years ago, four and a half years ago.

Speaker 0 | 07:18.084

Okay. So you may be the youngest IT manager slash director that has done a rip and replace build up. fix from old windows xp finding uh artifacts to you definitely artifacts to you to um um that i’ve had on the show so congratulations yeah well thank you i did have i’ve had a 17 year old and a 19 year old that started their own msp on the show so that’s you know that’s probably like the world record for youngest um maybe entrepreneur it guy but i like this idea of working in a hardware store you know being money conscious Which is important in IT. A lot of times you just expect, hey, show me the money, give me the money, and I’ll make everything work and go great. And we don’t understand the concept of managing a budget, etc. So first of all, I got to hear this story a little bit more. So what, do you go in to buy an RV and you see a job application on the wall?

Speaker 1 | 08:19.810

Not necessarily. So I’m going through the website and I went in. through the website. I was estimating the payment, uh, doing all of that. And I was going to put a finance application. And I guess, I don’t know if there was an incorrect routing on the website or what it was, but it led me to a job application. And so that’s where I came across the job. And I was like, well, heck I’m already here. Let’s just try it. And, uh, so I did try it, got pulled in for an interview.

Speaker 0 | 08:45.523

So they kind of lost made money with you.

Speaker 1 | 08:48.125

Yeah, exactly. So I still don’t have an RV, but I do have the job. So I guess that’s a win-win, right? Um, So I got brought into an interview. We discussed potentially what I can do and how I could help. I went back.

Speaker 0 | 09:00.929

What they say, what were they saying? So they knew they had a problem. So this is interesting. So somebody there knew that they had a problem or they knew they, what, what did upper management, what were they thinking that they needed?

Speaker 1 | 09:16.834

Well, so we did have an IT director at the time and he is now still there. His name is Ken and he is now my IT manager. So, one thing that was happening was that the department wasn’t fully structured enough to give Ken or anyone the capability to fully run the department and really set up the network, per se. So, we had someone running the department who didn’t have any IT knowledge, who ran the department and several others. So, he didn’t give the full attention to IT that it should have been. So, that was where the issue had come. And then, of course, there was a small team of two. And the issue was that… The company grew so fast from 2010 to where it is now. So from 2010, it started off as a small building in Main Street in Cleburne, Texas. Then it grew to be the number one towable RV dealership in the nation within 10 years.

Speaker 0 | 10:08.030

Wait, you are the number one dealer right now?

Speaker 1 | 10:11.291

The number one towable dealer in the nation, yes.

Speaker 0 | 10:15.433

So towable, so meaning fifth wheel?

Speaker 1 | 10:17.474

Fifth wheel.

Speaker 0 | 10:18.754

Travel trailer. Well, I’m a travel trailer guy. I’m a travel trailer guy. So… Um, I’m in the market too, by the way. So interesting. I shouldn’t say that. We’ll deliver anywhere.

Speaker 1 | 10:34.864

Oh, we will.

Speaker 0 | 10:39.527

I need a double bunk house. I need at least 33 feet. Um, the other thing is, is I have eight kids, so I must tow behind a van. So these are all, you know, these are all factors that someone would do a needs assessment on. And, um, Anyways. Yes.

Speaker 1 | 10:54.721

And you know, it’s interesting that you said all that because, uh, there for a while I did also head up, uh, I was the director of marketing for a while and that kind of gave me the, uh, self mentality of being able to say everything you said that you have a wife, kids, you need a bunkhouse, whatever it may be. And that kind of helped me progress even more on my knowledge of the travel trailer industry. And so that was interesting.

Speaker 0 | 11:21.456

Kind of going on a tangent. How do sales and IT coexist or merge? Where do they merge together? Because a lot of people don’t, a lot of IT guys, one of the themes of the show is, and you’ve grown fast and done well. One of the themes that comes up a lot is selling IT. Yep. And you seem to have had an experience in both departments, kind of. if that’s true, where do the two merge? How, what piece of advice or ideas or concepts do you have there?

Speaker 1 | 12:01.955

Well, for us, and I’m not too sure if this is true for any other type of industry, but for us, really everything is web-based. So whenever there’s no computers or anything along the lines for anyone to make a sale or receive a lead online, that’s where it meets. Because without IT being able to… properly provide the resources for ourselves to do their job, then the company doesn’t make money or the salesman doesn’t receive a lead or we’re unable to go to a website to, you know, function any type of business. So what else,

Speaker 0 | 12:35.702

what other pieces, what other channels or rivers or veins of sales come through IT? We’ve got internet, but what else?

Speaker 1 | 12:46.970

I mean, you got your walk-ins, but even at the walk-in station, you know, they have type in their information through an iPad or they swipe their driver’s license through there. So you got your walk-ins that use technology at one point. So really every aspect of the business uses technology in some way or fact.

Speaker 0 | 13:03.442

I’m totally leading this question, by the way, because there’s another piece that we’re, there’s many other pieces that I believe, I would say that we could call it the omni-channel. We, you know, what about the telephone? Is that handled through IT?

Speaker 1 | 13:18.868

Oh, most definitely. Yeah.

Speaker 0 | 13:20.448

Okay. Um, I’m an ex telecom guy. I’m still a telecom guy, but I kind of say X because telecom takes everything. Um,

Speaker 1 | 13:29.281

yeah, even our call center. I mean, you know, they use phones on a daily basis. They’re our main point of contact when anybody calls any of our numbers. So they definitely use it. They enter their leads through a computer, um, through, you know, software. So, I mean, that’s all handled by us.

Speaker 0 | 13:43.769

So it is a cost center. Uh, we hear this a lot. I hate that terminology. And I’m constantly looking for ways for IT guys to sell IT as a business force multiplier. What, back to XP, back to XP days, back to the, you know, Jurassic Park, you know, what were we, what did you look at? What did you do? And were you able to measure any type of results? Well, first of all, I don’t even know where to begin. First of all, somehow you got the job. How did you sell yourself and say, yeah, I’m the guy. I’m the nerd. This is no problem. I can knock this one out of the park for you guys. I mean, how did that interview go? What did you do? And then from there, how do you prove your worth?

Speaker 1 | 14:34.195

Yeah. So obviously it was no simple task. I mean, you got, I was 19 at the time coming in saying, hey, I can be a night manager. I can redesign your full infrastructure for you. and then hopefully try to go in to be a director or whatever it may be. And so that wasn’t an easy task. So I sit down for my first interview. uh, with a good friend of mine now, uh, Maria, she sits me down, we have this conversation and I’m assuming she, you know, I go on my way and I’m assuming she, uh, hands my application over to her director, um, who then calls me back down for a second interview. So I get brought down into a second interview, sit with them both. Um, you know, we go on our ways, I go back to my job and it was roughly about a month or two that, uh, I got a call back, but in the, in the room. So I’m in the room with, uh, both, uh, Maria and her director and we’re there. talking. And it’s very hard to sell yourself because, you know, first off, even when I was an assistant manager at the hardware store, you got people who are older than you taking demands or taking direction from someone younger than you. Most of the time that doesn’t sit well with a lot of people. And so you got myself sitting in this room and, you know, we’re talking and it’s hard to sell myself because of my age. And that was actually one thing I brought up during the interview is that I know my age may be a factor, but don’t let it. pull you from what I’m capable of doing. This is where your, this is where your pain points are. And this is where I can get you to, um, it may take time and money. And that’s what most of the IT is. It’s time and money. Uh, we can’t just flip the switch of, you know, uh, a button and make things happen. There’s, uh, processes in between, uh, you know, A and B to get to the final C, whatever it may be.

Speaker 0 | 16:15.751

How do you know to say all that?

Speaker 1 | 16:18.613

Uh, You know, I just did.

Speaker 0 | 16:20.995

No, you don’t just do it. You don’t just know it. Like a lot of times we say things like, I don’t even know why I’m successful. I don’t know. I just am because you had the experience, I’m guessing.

Speaker 1 | 16:29.581

Yeah, I had the experience from obviously my old job, but I also with my age and the way I was trying to present myself is the progression that I’m how ambition I am to get to where I want to be and throwing it back. Like I said, with Higginbotham Brothers, you know, I was a. I came straight out of high school and I went in and I was going to take a gap year off of college. So I started off as a sales associate. Then I advanced so quickly, all within three months apart, mind you. So I started off as a sales associate. Three months later, I moved up to floor supervisor. Three months later, I moved up to assistant manager. Then about six months in that span, I moved up to IT specialist and then network administrator. So that was all so fast within a short period of time. And so I tried to persuade that to them that. you know, don’t let my young age be a factor of this. I was able to accomplish A, B, C, D, E through Hickenbotham. I’m sure I can do that for you guys in a different aspect.

Speaker 0 | 17:27.508

And so-Is there anything that, I don’t know if you can teach that. Is there anything that drives you? Like what really drives you? What do you think drives an ambitious person versus another person? Because I’ve seen it numerous times. I’ve seen a new guy come in and run circles around the old- so-called veterans you know and the veteran yeah i’m gonna be able to do that good luck you know like good luck and it’s all a bunch of you know naysayers and you know i guess haters so to speak not that everyone deals with that but then i’ve seen you know new guy put his head down ignore all the negative self-talk negative speech and everything and just run circles around people what do you think it is that drives those people or what you know is there anything that was that kind of lit the fire for you you

Speaker 1 | 18:16.746

You know, you’re right. It’s probably hard to teach that. The thing for me that lit the fire was the accomplishment aspect of it, feeling successful of being able to complete something that I said I would. That’s always been something. So if I said I was going to do something, I was going to be true to my word and I was going to complete it. And when I did complete it, that was going to give me a sense of accomplishment and successfulness. And so that’s what lit the fire under me is that, you know, I know I can do it and I will do it. And when I do do it, I will. applaud myself and pat myself on the back that I did what I said I was going to do.

Speaker 0 | 18:54.497

Accomplishments, wanting to achieve something, measure results. So anyways, you tell them, don’t let my age be a factor. They’re like, okay, well, we brought you back in for the third interview anyways. We’re hoping you’re going to say that, but show us the money. What can you do?

Speaker 1 | 19:14.065

For sure.

Speaker 0 | 19:15.010

And so we want to be the number one RV dealer. Bring us there.

Speaker 1 | 19:20.419

We’re going to be number one. We’re going to be number one today. Yeah.

Speaker 0 | 19:24.826

They want a guy like you. They want a guy like you. They want the plaque. They, you know, like the. Do you guys have plaques? You must have like number one sales rep of the month and the plaque.

Speaker 1 | 19:33.715

We do.

Speaker 0 | 19:34.275

You know, you do. You, there’s no way you’re the number one RV dealership without, and there’s some guy, there’s some guy that probably has the most plaques. I know there’s a guy in there who, what’s his name? What’s his name? So her name.

Speaker 1 | 19:48.668

you know i’m trying to think it’s been a while since i’ve been down to the school no uh yeah you put me on the spot now i’m gonna start pulling reports to see who’s the number one salesperson there oh no tell you what if i do say the wrong name i’m gonna walk in the store fixing an issue and they’re gonna be like hey and you know you gotta go back to the field and go to the comments of that guest and type my name okay and thus

Speaker 0 | 20:11.316

The disconnect between sales and IT. Exactly. Why do you not know I write your paycheck?

Speaker 1 | 20:19.700

Yep.

Speaker 0 | 20:20.200

Okay. Anyways. Moving on. I had a girl one time. We were at like some… When I first got started at the Cisco startup years ago, there was like some girl asked like who someone’s… I was like… I had won like a bunch of like awards or something and we were at some like… basketball game event and my my team lead was with me like like my like my coach like my he like made me who i was right she leaned over and she’s like and what’s your name and he was like i write your paycheck like joking around we were joking he’s like you don’t know who i am he’s like i’m the one that made him anyways it’s a fun it can be an exciting environment to work in a in an organization that knows it’s a sales organization primarily as a sales organization, an entire goal is to like sell and you can’t get around that in an RV or car dealership or any of that. There’s a lot of hypey kind of fun, crazy stuff that goes on. You know, it’s not the, it’s not the stereotypes, although it is all of the stereotypes at the same time. With that being said, okay, you’re in the interview. We got to get to the, I gotta, I gotta hear the rest of this story.

Speaker 1 | 21:39.160

Yeah. So I did the interview. I get the job. I come in and I come in as a secret, uh, basically. So I come in, no one knows who I am, uh, because it was kind of all under the, under the rug. So, uh, I come in, I start from behind the scenes. They say, well, I don’t want you to start messing with anything right off the bat. I want you to see how things are operating. I want to see, uh, you, I want you to see the frustrations firsthand before we even start introducing you that you’re going to come in and you’re going to start changing things.

Speaker 0 | 22:05.971

Okay. So they hired a spy. They hired a spy. Yeah,

Speaker 1 | 22:09.012

exactly.

Speaker 0 | 22:10.453

I come in to spy on everyone. This is awesome. This is really good. No, there’s a lot of, all jokes aside, there’s a lot of, not insight. What is the word I’m looking for? Wisdom. There’s a lot of wisdom in that. First, allowing someone to observe, take a backseat, see how everything’s working, really get it.

Speaker 1 | 22:35.968

like a pulse on what the situation what’s going for sure yeah and you know i i appreciated that because i didn’t give me the opportunity to go in and just say hey i’m the new person i’m going to start changing things without getting their input or understanding how the business was structured or how they even operated on those computers and so that’s genius it’s actually really wow it would take only a salesperson to think of this for sure and that would have been our ceo he was a salesperson and you know got us to where we were

Speaker 0 | 23:05.204

He’s like, we’re not really going to, we’re not really trying to sell you an RV. We just want to show you inside the RV and take a look around, you know, and then.

Speaker 1 | 23:12.886

We’ll show you what it could do for you and your family.

Speaker 0 | 23:16.807

No, no, no. You’re not here to buy an RV today. I will not allow you to buy an RV today. No matter what happens, you’re not buying anything today. Anyways, keep going.

Speaker 1 | 23:25.889

All right. I love this. Yeah. So I come in, take the back seat. I get the full view of everything from. all these different buildings coming because we had buildings all over cleaver and we had the call center building we had the corporate headquarters we had a service building we had a sales building so i was driving between cleaver and putting mileage on my car across all these different locations uh just to really get a hint of you know what’s going on in the business so i finally understood a lot of the issues that people were having um because there wasn’t really any infrastructure in place i mean it was very easy for me to walk in if i had a key to the vps you of sales office in cleburne click sign in because there was no active directory or domain or any users for that being and just click in to where it says ftrv users click okay and i had access to everything if you didn’t log out so there was a lot of things that were that were you know eye openers for me and red flags and so say that one more time let’s say that please you wait how did you get access to everything so i was well so we really didn’t have any Active Directory or domain users. So there was only one profile and it was a local profile that was called FTRV account. And all you had to do was click OK and you had access to that full, I mean, local, I should say admin account because in most cases they forgot to change it to just a local account. So in most cases you had… admin access to a full computer. And so, I mean, literally, and this is a theory that I tested was with our BPSLs, we’re all over mirrors, is one day I walked into his office just out of curiosity. He wasn’t there at the time. Sales managers knew what I was doing. I walked into his office and I sat down and I clicked okay. And I had access to everything, to his emails, to our DMS system, to literally everything. And literally the only thing that was stopping anyone else from going in there was… door access control he had an access control uh on his door that he swiped his card and so this is a joke that i always said that the most secure thing at fun 10 rv before i arrived was that doors that were controlled by access control wow because that really was how it was how far have we come in 12 years yeah so um to continue on the story i observed everything i got everything uh that i needed Then I went up and said, this is what we’re going to do. This is how we’re going to do. And so I had a full plan, a diagram. I had some quotes and I said, I’m going to need a team first off because I can’t do this with the two guys I have. And so they’re like, OK, well, let’s build you up a team. So I built up a team and I started assigning those different tasks of what we’re going to do. So first, we’re going to get firewalls in place. Number one. Two, we’re going to. you know, see what equipment we have to work with as far as making it more secure. Three would be all of our equipment going and doing a revamp of any equipment that’s older than what, I couldn’t remember what specs I had at the time, but I said, anything older than this, we’re replacing with new computers. And then we, you know, we went on to getting email protection, network protection, and we got servers in place, started putting active directory.

Speaker 0 | 26:40.830

Okay. I was going to say, when did AD come into place? At what point did AD come in? Was it a month, two months?

Speaker 1 | 26:48.454

Within two, three months after all of the other stuff that we had going on, because we had to switch over some DIAs over and do a few things. Because there were some loosened contracts that were in place that I didn’t really understand and like. And so some of those were expiring right at the time that we were going to make changes. So we thought it’d be a good idea to… go ahead and switch these AIAs over that were expired and then start putting the firewalls in and then start, you know, putting our active directory and domain in place and DNS servers and all of that in place. And so it’s,

Speaker 0 | 27:24.237

it sounds kind of like a dream come true for like someone to come in and be able to do something and have someone say yes to everything that you need. Sounds amazing. Yes. And it sounds like, it sounds like one of those things where it’s like, no matter what I do. we’re going to win. Like no matter what, if I just do something, it’s going to be better than it was. And I’m not saying that it was that bad, but you know, it’s there, there is a time period from 1995. I’m thinking that’s probably where we draw the line, maybe 1995 or 2000, you know, Y2K was a thing, believe it or not. Um, for you, where were you during Y2K?

Speaker 1 | 28:09.009

You know? Yeah.

Speaker 0 | 28:10.410

You know, so if you were 19 back in 2010, so you were nine. So there’s somewhere where you draw the line of, okay, we’re not doing things with on paper anymore. Yeah. You know what I mean? And you guys were kind of like at that point, I guess, where it’s like, Hey, we got here this, we got, we, we lasted this long. Uh, we need to come on to the technology train. Um, that’s what it sounds like.

Speaker 1 | 28:43.643

And that was actually one of our biggest tasks was getting people, uh, really involved with this technology change. Uh, because, you know, now you got an active directory. So now you got those men who were just accustomed to clicking okay. And having their stuff up, up to now having a username.

Speaker 0 | 29:00.431

Exactly. Now that is, that was going to be my main question. My main question now was What kind of friction did you draw? And as you are implementing these things that are so sensible, like so simple, so makes so much sense, right? And to you, it’s like, are you kidding me? What kind of friction did you get from end users that were like, well, I’m just not doing it? Did you get any of that?

Speaker 1 | 29:37.126

Yeah, we did.

Speaker 0 | 29:37.747

And how did you deal with it?

Speaker 1 | 29:39.791

So obviously it was the way we dealt with most of the friction was just this is how it’s going to be. And you’re going to have to do it. If not, we’re going to have to find another. you know, another way for you to do your job. And if you can’t do it as effectively, then, you know, that’s up to your manager to try to find out for you. But for us, this is the lay of the land and this is how it’s going to be. Uh, because we couldn’t allow someone to, to have that mentality and then leak that mentality over to everyone else. And now I have a whole store that’s not involved in wanting to move over to this new technology aid, uh, versus just that one person.

Speaker 0 | 30:13.441

Did you have any human, did you have any, um, Yes, we can say that that’s how it’s going to be, right? But everyone out there listening right now, that’s probably not how the conversation went. In other words, did you use emotional intelligence and do you have any way of having these coaching conversations with people? Can you remember anything specific?

Speaker 1 | 30:32.818

I can’t remember anything specific. The one thing I do remember is that we host these monthly GM meetings. I think they do it weekly now, but at the time, I don’t know if it was monthly, but I got on there once and I explained that. this is the way we’re going and this is why we’re going this way. And I really left it up to the GMs to have those conversations with those people.

Speaker 0 | 30:53.847

Good. So there’s the trick. The trick is say it to everybody at once in the mean way, not the mean way, but like, Hey, look, it’s like, seriously, this is it has to be this way. You say to everybody that way, it’s not like picking anyone else. And then you’ve got other people backing you up, cheerleaders, other people to enforce the other enforcers.

Speaker 1 | 31:13.984

And that was the real trick is that, you know, I mean, even, with my success here at Funtown was being able to have trust between myself and the directors and then being able to have the mid-level management trust me as well. So that’s how we did it is whenever we implemented it out, I sent an email to everyone saying, this is going to be the new process. I’m going to have my support staff on there to support you 100% with whatever you need. We’re launching a new help desk at the time because we didn’t have a help desk. It was all based off of a Google Excel spreadsheet. So I had to implement that. as well as if you have any issues, this is who you contact or email you contact moving forward. And so it was a long email, but it was very descriptive on how things are going to be done. And then on that GM call, I described to every GM that this is what we’re doing. This is how it’s going to have to be. And I’m going to allow you to go tell your staff. Did you give them the why?

Speaker 0 | 32:07.028

Did you give them the why? This is where we’re at right now. This is where we’re going. And this is the why.

Speaker 1 | 32:13.770

And I think you have to, because if you don’t, at some point, they just think that you’re just the new guy coming in and wanting to change things just because you can’t.

Speaker 0 | 32:20.555

Yes. Back in the old days of Starbucks, two decades ago, I’ll never forget the management training that got banged into us over and over and over again, which is give people the what, what, why. This is what you’re doing. This is what I need you to do. And this is why. Yes. People need a why. They really do. And then it makes sense. What we didn’t get to was, at what point did you go from spy to now I’m the guy?

Speaker 1 | 32:54.311

You know, it was probably about five, six months. And it was a very difficult task because the IT director at the time, he’s been there since 2010. He started contracting just as an independent contractor, and they brought him in as IT director. And… That was the most difficult part was being able to tell him that, you know, I’m going to now be the IT director. We’re going to put you as IT manager and, you know, we’re going to start moving forward in another way. So that was that was the hardest part in figuring out how we were going to make all that happen. And so when we finally did, it was probably about six to eight months that we did that. And then after that, you know, it’s just kind of how it went. So, you know.

Speaker 0 | 33:42.902

Powerful. Yeah. I’m not in your family at all. I’m not related to you whatsoever, but I’m proud of you.

Speaker 1 | 33:53.492

Thank you.

Speaker 0 | 33:55.054

Yeah. And I’m 45. Jeez. There’s still hope for me, some maybe. But I can’t do the young. Oh man, I don’t even know. If I could go back in time and look at myself at what I was doing when I was 25, like right now, and like actually like watch it like a movie, I’d probably just be shocked. So good for you.

Speaker 1 | 34:19.171

I think it’s all about timing because, you know, we could go, I could have gone a different route and not taken a gap year and started this whole journey of my career very early. Because that was the reason I took that gap year in college was so that I… could start early in the workforce and start making money. You know, that was my thing. I want to start making money. And so I think that it was very good that I went along this career path versus going straight into college and doing that because I don’t think I’d actually be where I am now at the age of 25 if I did take that path. I think it would have took a little bit longer.

Speaker 0 | 34:53.093

You wouldn’t have had this crazy story. You just wouldn’t, man. It’s like the five guys story. It’s like the guy going to his kids and saying, Hey, look, I can send you all to college, or we can basically take all that college money and open up a hamburger shop. Kids are like, dude, why do it the way everyone else is doing it? Because they don’t seem to be. They’re already working at a hamburger shop anyways with a college degree, so we might as well own the hamburger shop. Um, I’m not, that’s not my suggestion to everybody because to be a doctor, you have to go to school, but you probably really know what that means. You know that if you’re going to become a doctor, you know, you know what you have to go through. Um, same thing with, you know, all the people that know they’re going to be a lawyer. It’s not the people that just, yeah, I’m going to be a lawyer. Um, it’s interesting because when we had talked back in, wow, I think it was. December of last year was the last time we spoke. Yeah, it’s been a while. It’s been over a year. I wanted to have someone on the show at that time that didn’t think, not didn’t think, but was an example of someone that education didn’t matter, certifications didn’t matter, because there’s a constant debate, you know, do certs matter? Does an MBA matter? And people say, well, if you’re going to get a job at a big enterprise. company yes they do but in your case i’m me personally i’m i’m like you if i had known what i knew now back in college i probably wouldn’t have gone to college but i wouldn’t write as good emails because my degree was in creative writing so i wouldn’t be able to write really good emails but

Speaker 1 | 36:36.298

you know so there’s a point there yeah and you know funny that you bring that up because i do have a degree my bachelor’s degree but it’s in business administration and i did that after i did that after the fact of getting my career started in IT. But, you know, I was at a point that I was already so much involved in IT that I felt that I would have been able to come to Funtown and be able to do the same thing without any certs or degree. But the only reason I did do that was just because of the status. You know, I was going to be the first in my family to graduate from college with a degree. And I was going to also be the first. grandchild. So I’m the oldest grandchild out of both of my family. So I was going to be the first grandchild out of both the families to graduate with a degree. So I was trying to set that bar, not just for my sister, but also for the rest of my cousins that, you know, that I have a degree and you can too, if that’s what you’d like to do. But that was really only the reason I ever got the degree. But, you know, like you said, I didn’t think it mattered at the time because I was doing well off without a degree with my career path that I had taken.

Speaker 0 | 37:45.612

Coming from a family that where you were the first person to have a degree and me coming from a more privileged family where if you didn’t get a degree like you’re an idiot, which is probably one of the reasons why I don’t feel so strongly now that you have to have one because I did it just because you have to in my family. Coming from a family that where you were the first person did. It seemed like an unknown or a larger obstacle to obtain. Because when you come from a family where everyone had a degree, you just know everyone are always telling you like, oh, yeah, you got to fill out the applications. Make sure you do good on the test. Make sure you do this. It’s just a known thing. But if you come from a family where it’s never been done before, it may seem a lot more of a daunting of a task. But then, so there’s two points to it. Was it, did it seem like a large? wall to hit. And after you did do it, were you like, oh, it wasn’t that hard?

Speaker 1 | 38:48.038

Yes. Yes, it did. Luckily enough, our school did provide some resources to help with that transition and help with all of that. But like I said, I did take that gap year. So after that gap year, when I decided to go back to college, I was kind of like, well, where do I start? I don’t have anybody to go to that has this experience. So I kind of did everything on my own. And it was basically just learning and calling the… the schools or whatever it may be and finding out what next steps were. So it was kind of a daunting task for, you know, what it was.

Speaker 0 | 39:21.451

Now the actual schooling itself and getting the actual degree hard or not?

Speaker 1 | 39:27.694

No, it was hard trying to find the time to do it. After the fact, not devoting as much time to it, but still trying to get it done. That was the hardest because, you know, I was working a full-time job. I still wanted to keep my social life. But I still wanted to obtain this degree to be the first in my family to do so. So being able to manage all of that, that was the actual hardest. But the schooling and doing all of that wasn’t as hard.

Speaker 0 | 39:55.892

Any advice to people out there that may be in that position where no one in their family has gotten a degree before? Don’t be overwhelmed by it or it’s not that hard or what do you think?

Speaker 1 | 40:10.818

I think my advice to them would be it’s going to be as hard as you make it. It can also be as easy as you make it. But I think most people who are at that point or my little sister, for instance, who want to go to college. are still in that learning discovery phase. And I tell her, you need to understand where you want to go and then do it. I understand you’re still learning, but you need to learn, you need to figure that out now versus later. It’s harder later in life than it is now. Now you have an open slate, so you can kind of-Explain that,

Speaker 0 | 40:45.695

explain that. Explain the-Know where you want to go. So are you telling me back then when you were working at the- hardware store in Texas, you knew you wanted to be an IT director. Is that what you’re saying?

Speaker 1 | 40:59.664

Yes, to an extent. I knew I wanted to be an IT. And the reason I did is because I went to, in school, they provided a work, I think it’s like a work program where I went to school half the day, but I worked for the school district the other half of the day. So that’s what piqued my interest in IT. Once I got my hands wet, I said, I knew this is what I want to do. And at the time, being that young and in school, I knew I wanted. Keith’s job, who was our school district IT director, at that point, I was like, I want that guy’s job. He’s the one making all the calls. He’s the one doing all this. I want his job. So at that point, that’s what kind of helped with sculpting that career.

Speaker 0 | 41:40.874

I think it’s great advice. I think it’s great advice for numerous reasons. A, you’re 20 years ahead of me, career-wise. I mean, you’re 25. I’m not trying to pat your ego at all, but I’m I think there’s something to be said about goal setting. There’s things that no one teaches in school. They don’t teach in school. They don’t teach in grammar school. I don’t care what it is. It’s like the hustle goal setting mentality is something that is not really taught. Now, I think that might exist deep down inside of a lot of people. The hustle, the hunger that we were kind of talking about at the beginning. Can you teach, what was the word? Can you teach progression and embed? ambition. Well, you can teach the progression point, I guess, right? Like you said, know where you want to go. And then maybe knowing once you know, maybe that’s what helps grow the ambition. Because I can tell you for me, I did it because everyone told me I had to, and I was miserable. I was a horrible student. For sure. And I was pre-med and just because everyone in my family was a doctor, right? Miserable. Drop down. did two years, you know, chemistry, major, whatever, biology, hated it, dropped out, went to creative writing because I don’t know, I liked Shakespeare and history and stuff. But with no direction of what I want to do. And thus why I was working at Starbucks when I graduated, nothing against any of that, but everything. And I would say now that, um, I’m one of the more successful people in my family because I don’t know why. I fell into, I eventually figured out what I did want to do and listened to a lot of kind of, I don’t know, motivational speakers, Zig Ziglar, see you at the top, you know, Tony Robbins figured like, I can’t just be, I just like, I gotta, I gotta deliver something. I’m married now. I got kids. I gotta, you know, I gotta deliver. I have a sense of responsibility, you know? And, yeah. But once I figured it out, then it was about goal setting. Then the ambition was there. Then the hustle was there. So I don’t know what the, you know, final message is here. But I think your advice is spot on and excellent. Find out what you want to do. Really decide what you want to do during the finding discovery phase. You know, don’t screw up your life phase. Don’t like waste a lot of time, you know, you know, doing stupid stuff. Like think about how you’re going to actually amount to something and give back, discover what that is, find out what you want to do. And then, you know, that’ll, that might deliver that ambition and hunger. So for anyone out there stuck in a miserable life, hopefully that will, hopefully that will be helpful somehow. Were you ever stuck in a job you didn’t like?

Speaker 1 | 44:40.237

No, I don’t think I was. Like I said, I… I don’t know.

Speaker 0 | 44:44.660

Sorry, can’t help you guys out there. Because there’s people out there.

Speaker 1 | 44:49.028

Yeah, I mean, I’m sure, yeah. I mean, I know a few people who are out there who hate their job. But, you know, luckily, I never… I went into a job where I just hated it. I hated it. I mean, I had a school IT job. I worked for an ice cream parlor or like a drive-in, which was very fun. That was one of my funnest times of working at a job. Actually, I lied.

Speaker 0 | 45:12.612

Right now is. Oh, Walmart?

Speaker 1 | 45:15.353

Walmart was the most miserable time. Okay,

Speaker 0 | 45:19.194

okay. Yeah,

Speaker 1 | 45:20.034

I’m sorry. I did lie. So maybe I do understand and relate where most of those people are coming from.

Speaker 0 | 45:25.468

Why?

Speaker 1 | 45:27.208

It was, you know, it wasn’t with the business structure or anything. It was just a…

Speaker 0 | 45:31.870

Monotonous?

Speaker 1 | 45:32.311

I was young. Yeah, I was young, younger. And so I worked for IT. Like I said, I went to school half a day. I worked for the school district the other half of the day till five. And I just wanted more money. So I said, well, you know, I knew the store director at the time. And I said, you know, do you have any openings? She said, yeah. And so because I worked in IT… for the school district, I thought electronics was going to be, you know, my go-to department. So I worked in electronics, but I didn’t understand that it did come in with the toy section. So, you know, they have this thing that’s called facing. So what happened was at the end of the night, we’d go in, we’d face everything. But right before the week closed, you would have these kids that would walk in and just put their hand on all these aisles and just like literally go play with every toy they can find. And when the direct, when the store manager at the time would come in and look at my section, they would say, I didn’t do my job. And I’m like, I did my job twice. And these kids keep coming in right before closing and playing with everything and putting it everywhere and anywhere they want.

Speaker 0 | 46:33.023

Enough said, miserable stupidity. Okay. Yeah. I get it.

Speaker 1 | 46:35.904

And at that time I was like, I’m done. I can’t do this.

Speaker 0 | 46:38.526

Um, yeah. Wow. That’s, that’s, yeah. Problematic on so many levels.

Speaker 1 | 46:44.889

I was only there for a week. So, you know.

Speaker 0 | 46:50.472

One week. So at least you know what you want.

Speaker 1 | 46:52.973

Okay. Yes, exactly.

Speaker 0 | 46:54.254

Transformation. We lead through transformation in IT. Now the number one RV towing dealer, meaning not class A’s, more RV terminology, not class A’s, not class C’s, but the number one towing. Travel trailers, fifth wheels. Again, this should be, maybe it’ll be a four part, multiple choice. question we put out there. What were the measurable results? Where you stand now? Has IT been a business force multiplier? How do you sit in the, at the, like, do you sit in like a chair with like a specter of some sort and IT around the executive round table? Hear ye, hear ye, IT is about to speak. What… Where do we sit now and what can you say as far as how IT has made a difference in the business?

Speaker 1 | 47:51.613

For sure. So now after everything’s done, and it’s funny that you say that because we did have our director’s meeting in December. And it’s where all of our directors and mid-level management, they come into one big room and we talk about what we’ve accomplished in all of our 2022 goals. Well, it was neat to see because in 2019. we were at Windstar and I gave a, um, my 20, uh, 2019, I gave my 22, 2020 goals of what I was going to accomplish. And within the two years we’ve accomplished, um, at least the December, uh, we’ve accomplished everything I had put on that PowerPoint in the two years ago. And mind you, this is no easy, this was no easy task to try to put this infrastructure in place. I mean, cause we’ve, we’ve had.

Speaker 0 | 48:42.976

numerous things that we’ve had to do in transition and yeah you gotta add that in you gotta add that in because otherwise the c levels will be like well i mean clearly you didn’t uh set your goals to you know way to set the bar low way to set the bar low malachi um you know i’m

Speaker 1 | 48:58.242

just not buying it i think you need to set uh some higher goals now okay yeah not gonna cut it yeah well you know some of those were continuation goals let me add that in there too where i said i got part of this done but i need this this is this to make it happen Good job.

Speaker 0 | 49:12.608

You got to take care of the objections before they come up. You got to, you got to put those, you know, you got to take care of it in there, you know, and now before you say no to this, some of you guys are going to say this and we don’t need this and that. Okay. Okay. So awesome.

Speaker 1 | 49:25.115

I’m sitting at that table and I give my team credit. I give everybody else credit who had anything to do with that at the table. Cause I do say that, you know, we accomplished everything that we wanted to, uh, within the last two years we have, um, email security, we have network security, we have a domain, an active directory, we have, I mean, everything we said we wanted, we have. And I’ve measured that with numbers, obviously, with reports, with numerous numbers on… um you know what we had prior to what we have now why we had this and you know that is how i measured why it took so long to get where we wanted to be but as of december of last year we were good on what we had said we wanted at one point so that’s where i could have said i measured myself within my uh four and a half years here at fun town from the time i first started as a spy uh to uh you know coming in as um the director up until now you Everything I had once said at that point in that interview room to the time now is fully completed in a sense. I mean, you know, IT’s work is never done.

Speaker 0 | 50:37.226

Good job. You got to add that in. You got to add that in. Hey, everything’s working. Why do we need you? Yeah.

Speaker 1 | 50:45.391

So, I mean, everything to that point had been completed.

Speaker 0 | 50:49.353

I don’t know what to name this episode. I don’t know if we name this episode. everything we wanted and asked for, we got. That’s a good one. That is good. Or from spy to director or fifth wheel IT. I don’t know.

Speaker 1 | 51:07.004

Yeah.

Speaker 0 | 51:07.985

Fifth wheel IT.

Speaker 1 | 51:08.545

I’m sure you got numerous titles, you can name it, in several different directions.

Speaker 0 | 51:14.229

It has been super awesome having you on the show. Let me ask you one more thing. Sure. How, and this, I mean, this is like opening up a can of worms. I don’t know if I really want to open this up. You have five minutes to answer this question. And you may say, no, I’m not answering that. How do you build a good, I guess we should say, I got to think of the right word here. IT. ecosystem slash team of people. What’s your key to like, how big is your team right now? And how well do you guys work together?

Speaker 1 | 51:55.974

I have a team of seven. And I will tell you, this is the strongest team I’ve ever had from just in general. I mean, IT, this is my team, yes, as far as my first time managing an IT team. But this is the strongest team I’ve had from whenever I was an assistant manager with a retail store, whatever it may be. This is the strongest team I’ve ever managed. And they are great.

Speaker 0 | 52:19.084

So what do you do? I don’t think anything that you have said has been negative. There’s not a single thing. I mean, you even made yourself as a spy look good. So is there anything that you guys do when you’re looking for a team member? Maybe you’re looking to hire. Did you hire all seven?

Speaker 1 | 52:36.949

I did hire all seven. I hired six. Seven was the director at the time and now is my IT manager. But I did hire all seven.

Speaker 0 | 52:44.191

So what’s the deal? Is there good work-life balance? Would you say that everyone loves working there? What’s the deal?

Speaker 1 | 52:52.766

First off, I got to say Funtown RV is a great company. I mean, great company. We’re always hiring. So if you’re listening to this and looking for a sales career or whatever position you would like, I would suggest them to come and apply for Funtown because not only is it great from an environment aspect.

Speaker 0 | 53:10.931

Where are we at in Texas?

Speaker 1 | 53:13.111

We are located. corporate headquarters is located in footworth but our number one dealership in the nation is located in cleveland texas and you know how you know the cost of living down in texas oh yeah it’s a heck of a lot better than new england i can tell you that much and the weather’s better yeah

Speaker 0 | 53:31.439

if i didn’t have family up here and i didn’t have responsibilities i’d probably in texas be in texas with one of those pools with the waterfall with the waterfall and i don’t know 20 acres or something for sure

Speaker 1 | 53:43.776

Okay. Yeah. I mean, but like I said, it’s a great company. We really do work with some of the best customers. I mean, because if anybody is involved in this industry, they know that our customers are really those customers that are very friendly and will do anything to lend a helping hand. I mean, I don’t remember any time that I’ve been in an RV park or had a flat tire. My parents had a tire that a whole group of RVs will line up across a highway and help you change that tire out. I mean, because it’s a friendly, all of our customers. that are in this RV industry or lifestyle are all friendly. And we, we work with a great amount of, uh, good customers. Uh, and like I said, our CEO is great. Our, uh, director group is great. Um, you know, pays great. I mean, we’re, it’s overall a really good company to work for. And I have nothing to complain about. Um, but if anybody, like I said, would like to work there, we’re always hiring.

Speaker 0 | 54:34.768

Let me say congratulations to you guys. Uh, you know, congratulations just, you know, in general. Um, it’s a great story. The, I’m sure you guys have experienced exponential success during the, what we, you’ve made a positive out of a negative situation over the last, I would say two years. I know that RV sales for a fact have to be through the roof now. It’s just one of those things. And for anyone out there that’s never experienced the RV life or really even get it or understand it, you know, go rent a Class C. That’s your homework for the night. What the heck is a Class C? Rent a Class C, pull up a KOA campground list, whatever. And, you know, go spend a month and make sure that, you know, you’re going to have it. Don’t worry. If you work from home, you’ll be fine. You’ll be absolutely fine. Um, I had a 33 foot Summerland with a double bunk house and I worked out of that place while the kids were on the beach and doing various different things for an entire summer. And no one had any clue. I think I probably recorded a ton of podcasts from there as well.

Speaker 1 | 55:49.935

So, uh,

Speaker 0 | 55:51.276

we can do a podcast RV. I’m still, I’m looking, I may just buy a class a, there’s so many reasons for me to have a travel trailer and a class a. There’s, there’s. just so many, there’s just so many reasons to do it. And so many ways that you can think of doing other, all kinds of crazy things that no one will ever know about. So, uh, it has been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for being on the show and,

Speaker 1 | 56:14.344

uh,

Speaker 0 | 56:15.064

yeah, absolutely, sir. Thank you.