Speaker 0 | 00:09.605
today um a long time waiting really uh so excited to be doing this one today um we have mr timothy tim kravitz kravitz correct that is correctly plenty all right and there’s so many reasons why this show you is uh like lenny please know but uh the um you’re so much more important by the way than him in my life i just want to let you know that like if he was on the show right now i’d kick him off i would kick him off for you um and everybody else that’s ever been on the show anyways the reason why this show is so important is you have i guess You freed yourself. I don’t know if I want to say freed yourself. That might not be the right word because that might offend other people. But you’ve left. Let’s just say you’ve left. Started your own business, logistics, technology, HQ. And I think a lot of IT guys do that. A lot of guys start MSPs and everything. But yours is even, it’s so much more big time. And we’re going to get into who you are in a second. But why don’t you just take a few seconds just to let me know what you’re doing, why it’s so important. because I think it is a very big deal.
Speaker 1 | 01:23.685
Sure. So I started Logistics Technology HQ in March of 21 here. Oh, you got some friends behind you.
Speaker 0 | 01:33.450
You know, I didn’t need to eat at the same time during these shows.
Speaker 1 | 01:39.373
Hello.
Speaker 0 | 01:39.613
This is real.
Speaker 1 | 01:41.535
This is the COVID world, right? You know, listen, my wife’s a teacher. I got all of her stuff behind me, so I get it, you know. She got the beer because we have this. I do.
Speaker 0 | 01:53.116
Okay. They better be smart. Like your wife, is your wife hard on them? Is she harder on your kids? Cause she’s a teacher.
Speaker 1 | 01:58.198
She’s worse than me.
Speaker 0 | 02:00.078
Okay. Okay. I would love to hear those conversations. Oh, really would.
Speaker 1 | 02:05.540
With my son is, uh, he’s extremely smart. He’s easy. You’re old and he’s already running circles around me. So I’m going to have my work cut out for me. Yeah. So, but as I was saying, um, logistics, logistics, technology, HQ, um, was started this month of March of 21 as a response to an industry that I specialize in. Specifically, I am in the logistics space known as Final Mile or Distributive Network. So I was a CTO and CIO for some of the largest in the country, specifying in distributing pharmaceuticals to key players. So nursing homes, assisted living, group home, hospitals. doing lab pickups, those type of things. And with the COVID, it was like the nuclear bomb that went off this year. And the good news is that the companies I worked for before had a lot of talent in the C-suite around saying, hey, we know tech’s important. Here’s a budget, go do it. And that was a great thing. We were able to craft a gold standard for the industry. And it became such a gold standard that Yeah. I decided to start my own company with the blessing of my, uh, the owners for my last company, Stein express, who I left, um, just last month, they, uh, they said, Tim, we want you to be successful. And they knew it was time for me to move on, but they’re actually one of my first customers. So it ends up working out pretty well where I still help them out, but they can, I can save them some money and they are, they’ve got the gold standard. So fast forward, why am I doing it? Um, a lot of companies, um, that are out there like stallion. have come to me via LinkedIn and just through some networks that I’ve made over the past 10 years. And they’re just saying, hey, we would love your help. We would love to, you know, understand how to make technology work for us. And it kind of was, for me, it was the time to say, let’s go do it. And for me, it was one of those things that, you know, money’s always been a motivator for me, but I couldn’t expect my company size to support a salary of what I think I’m worth. It wasn’t that I think there was a lot of offers that I got from bigger corporations to get it. It was just more of, do I want to stay within the typical day-to-day mentality or take all the skills that I’ve cultivated and made over the years and go out and do it for myself finally and work for myself? And I’ve always had the entrepreneurial spirit. I wanted to make it happen. I just didn’t have the money or the backing to go do it. So I literally, full disclosure, I took my 401k. I threw it on red and I’m hoping it hits. And, you know, that’s where I’m at.
Speaker 0 | 04:44.462
I’m so glad you mentioned that, too, because I’ve upset so many financial planners. I’ve literally had them say, I’m washing my hands of you. I can no longer speak to you.
Speaker 1 | 04:59.794
It’s one of those things that you got to do. But at the same time, I look at it and you can’t get a small business loan. So this is the funny thing, right? So I couldn’t even go get a small business loan, even with perfect credit. And, uh… They pretty much started like, well, you have to be in business for two years and you have to be a W2 employee. How are you making a business if you’re working for someone else, especially in our roles? If you have non-competes and non-solicitations, how can you even do it? You’d be in breach of that. Now you can be sued and you’re not even started. So it was just like it’s almost like they kind of do this in a way to almost pigeonhole you. And, you know, for me, I just want you know what? I’m not going to stand for it anymore. And I’m going to go and put it on red. And the good news is that I’ve already landed. a few customers within the first few weeks of the company opening. And they’re actually going to pay for my salary and more in my yearly contracts that I’ve established. So that just kind of goes to show that like, you know, yeah, it’s fearful, but you got to believe in yourself and you got to go do it. And I’m doing it. And I’ve always said to my wife, I said, I can always get a job. I’ve got the skills. I’ve got the background. I know what I can make, but there is a, there is a threshold. And ironically, I believe. I know that the CTO and the CIO today will be the CEO of the future. I just don’t know. I think it’s still about six or seven years behind. And from where I’m at in my career trajectory, I don’t want to wait for that. So I’d rather go and start my own business, go and help pull an entire industry forward, become the subject matter expert, and really kind of do two things. Give the opportunity to smaller business owners like mine, like myself now, right? The ability to get better technology working for them. but do it at a price that they can afford. And then ultimately, what does that do? It creates almost like a lobbying group for our industry, which has really been distributed for many years. We’ve got a lot of broken processes, a lot of underdeveloped applications, like legacy systems that haven’t been touched for years that prevent us from going into the future of AI and things. So if I now can go to a software vendor and say, listen, I represent 100 couriers who are asking you for this, they’re going to want to listen a lot more than just like, hey, I’m a courier that’s forward thinking. I’m going to build this custom thing. completely derail your development cycle for just me like that’s where technology stunts because all they’re trying to do vcs all they’re trying to do now is just pump into the next cash cow that can make it happen quick that’s it or for us it’s a special use case you need to essentially set a standard that we need to go to so that’s kind of how i’m starting to cultivate my my customers and ultimately get that leverage power hopefully maybe by the end of next year and start really helping the industry forward with some strategic partners. And that’s the goal.
Speaker 0 | 07:43.209
So we got to get back to that. Yeah. And I want you to think, first of all, because here’s what came to mind when you said that. What came to mind to me was vendors coming in. and saying, hey, we can sell you this new ERP or this new CRM or XYZ, and we’ll be able to solve all your problems, and it’ll be great, and we’ll do it all in eight months. And what I got from you was that that’s not realistic, and it’s also not conducive to the uniqueness or the vision and mission of any particular company.
Speaker 1 | 08:28.120
You know, everybody wants to sell. the next ERP system, right? Oh, look, I’m fancy. I’m on AI. I’ve got all these cool things, right? But unless you have the ecosystem that supports it, you’re not there. And you’re going to spend a lot of money for something that’s going to give you half of what they’re promising. And that’s, you know, case in point in my world, right? I specialize and I’m a strategic partner with eCourier and that system’s been around since 99, right? It looks like it’s from 1999, but the functionality. is extremely robust. They’ve got 25, 30 years of building use cases, right? So now you can fast forward and they’re trying to throw in these new AI, look at all the AI you do, but guess what? You’re going to spend three times the amount of money, but you don’t have the data to populate the AI that makes it work, right? So it’s one of those techniques, why would you do it?
Speaker 0 | 09:20.253
From an IT leader’s standpoint, so to make sure that we’re keying in on the key points, it doesn’t need to be… for everyone out there listening, it doesn’t need to be logistics. It doesn’t need to be anything, right? From an IT leadership standpoint and from a leadership standpoint, so the advice is to both people, right? What is the advice to the IT leader? Like, I don’t know, don’t be lazy, be creative, find a way to make the solution work or, you know, because there’s a lot of people out there and I kind of have this nightmare every now and then. more of a nightmare or an argument in my head that I have in the shower when you’re arguing with someone and it’s kind of like… You don’t just, you know, take responsibility. Don’t just hire the vendor and throw everything on the vendor and then, you know, hope that that’s necessarily going to make your life better. Like take some response. Like, yes, make the vendor do what they say they’re going to do. Make sure you pick the right vendor, all that type of stuff. But I see people pick the wrong vendor just because that vendor, just because they don’t want to do the work. So they pick the wrong vendor because that vendor is going to do X, Y, Z, and they won’t have to deal with it anymore. But that’s not the right decision for the company because the… product is not going to do what they need it to do, or it’s not going to benefit them. It’s not going to be at their bottom line. But the case in point is a phone system. And I’m just using this as an example. So someone might have an old PBX on site, right? And they’re used to the truck roll PBX vendor guy. They’re used to him coming out, logging into the PBX, making the changes or logging in remotely or rolling a truck whenever there’s something wrong and they don’t have to deal with it anymore. And the phone system does what? It makes a call, it receives a call, paging, whatever else, all the old school advanced phone features, which maybe there’s some presence, there’s a couple other things. But why does the IT director renew the agreement on that? He renews the agreement on that because he doesn’t have to deal with it right now. He just has to pay the bill. But what would be the better choice for him? It might be an omni-channel, it might be a full Teams integration, it might be all these other things, but he doesn’t do it. Why? Because he’s going to have to manage it now. Well, he might not have to, but how hard is it really to manage, I don’t know, a bunch of add voice onto your already existing tenant anyways? But the point is, you know- At the end of the day, he’s like, nah, I’m just going to pay this phone vendor another, I don’t know, 80 grand and call it a day because I don’t want to deal with it. That’s to me just a small example in my world.
Speaker 1 | 12:00.241
That’s how you find yourself out of an IT job very quickly. So, you know, if you think about it, right.
Speaker 0 | 12:06.184
But here’s the thing though. Now, so that’s the IT leader. So what’s the advice to the IT leader? But then there’s also the leadership. So the leadership might be completely clueless. of what’s going on.
Speaker 1 | 12:17.272
Most are, most are, most are not technical. They’re not tech, right? But what I’ll tell you is that it’s shifting. You know, there’s more millennials now getting into the C-suite. It’s starting. And as that goes, the, that attention to detail is going to be critical. And I’ve been fortunate enough to work with some more forward-thinking Gen Xers and boomers, right? That, you know, are in the, that level and we’re going, listen, you know, the tech’s got to work for us. What are you doing? How is it impacting my business? What’s the ROI on it? And quite frankly, that’s the piece that IT leaders now need to look at. It’s not just, I have a break-fix problem anymore. That’s going to happen, right? It’s how does the technical strategy impact the bottom line of the business? How does it create efficiencies within the business? How does, you know, can you provide reporting to make decisions? Because that’s what they need. Reporting on all of the analytics, everything that people talk about. that they want, that’s all pre-dependent on your ecosystem and your suite of applications and how you designed them, your workflow and your output. Are they streamlined? And quite frankly, a lot of jobs that you needed someone there to push paper, like for bills and things like that, you can automate a lot of that now. So if you think about it, the future that everybody talks about where jobs are getting cut and they’re trying to find ways to save money, that’s happening now. And the biggest advice I can give is when you’re talking to your C-suite, You’ve got to be able to qualify the decision you made on not just cost, but how does it solve the problem and how does it interrelate to your ecosystem? Is it going to make it better? Is it going to disrupt service? Is it going to disrupt your internal workflows? And that is the due diligence that isn’t done. And like you mentioned before with the phone system, Phil, it was you throw it over the wall. Hey, here’s a vendor. Go do it. Now you have no. institutional knowledge. You have no way that you’ve crafted it to make it specialize for your business. And that is a flawed approach in tech. You’ve got to be the strategic thinker. You’ve got to essentially anticipate what they don’t know. And I kind of use this term with my team was, you got to know what you don’t know. And that’s kind of how it is with the C-suite. You need to know going in, they’re not going to understand what you’re saying. You cannot make this a high tech conversation. You got to be able to translate, you’re going to spend this amount of money. And you’re going to get this back in a very simple manner. If they want to go and understand it more because they’re inquisitive and they’re a more tech-centric C-suite person, great. But don’t.
Speaker 0 | 14:52.577
kill them with tech and that’s what a lot of techs have a problem with is they go hyper tech and then the glass eyes go over and then the c-suite goes i don’t see it you know if it’s um see i i think sometimes it’s the opposite too i think sometimes the uh the the the it director it manager goes and kind of downtrodden already thinking they can just speak dumb or already thinking that it’s only about money and like it’s about the budget and saving money and everything like that and we gotta you know it’s got to be down to the penny which and which i think ironically you know, like a lot of times it is, I say, ironically, just because people are, I sell on value, sell this, it’s about value. It’s about return on investment. Yeah. But sometimes it really is about, you know, like, you know, the budget line item, right?
Speaker 1 | 15:36.765
Equivocate it. You got to say, Hey, listen, this could be a, this could be a, a, a, an actual cost multiplier, or it could be a revenue multiplier, depending on how you, you look at it. And, you know, that’s the thing, right? You can say things are costing and. an executive team is always going to look at IT as the necessary evil, right? I got to pay this to keep my lights on. But if you can show that for every dollar you’re spending is working for you, then you’ve got the right, you know.
Speaker 0 | 16:04.872
Yeah, I don’t think it’s that they don’t get technology. I think it’s that you just need to speak it in their language. And then, you know, they’re not, you know, because most likely, you know, they’re pretty darn smart and maybe. smarter than many of us and in many ways um but you just need to speak like even like my 85 year old father he’s a retired doctor he’s he he got his his aol got hacked this week and uh wow that’s a that’s a whole aol you know i mean so that gives you like an idea of like kind of where i’m coming from this but when but for the most part though for an 85 year old guy you know He’s got an iPad. He’s got his desktop. He’s still using all the technology. He’s just using it the way that he wants to use it. So it’s just a matter of sometimes it’s like a matter of education, or in his case, it’s just a matter of password memory. To be quite honest, that’s the biggest problem. Okay, so moving on. What’s really exciting Well, I don’t know if I’d say exciting. That’s the wrong word. But your kind of your story growing up, I think how you got into technology to me is fascinating.
Speaker 1 | 17:26.070
Yeah.
Speaker 0 | 17:27.350
Where do you like? How do you start out? Like, what was your kind of like early? If I asked you, what’s your earliest memory of technology? What pops in your mind?
Speaker 1 | 17:37.176
I think of Oregon Trail and, you know, MS-DOS, you know. Yeah. You know, like, what is it? Windows 95, you know.
Speaker 0 | 17:45.161
type of thing maybe like pre-docs into windows 95 type of thing my father had it in the basement you know and put the floppy in and yeah oregon trail is sitting on top of my fireplace right now i had to rip it out of my kids kids hand last night and you know what it is it’s like the 15 dollar handheld that i bought from target did you have you seen that there’s an oregon trail handheld now like you know how they have like the cheap things that you plug into the tv with 200 games on it this one’s like an oregon trail handheld Like, do we have it? I was like, I can’t believe this exists. I had to rip it out of my, like, six-year-old’s hand last night. But anyways.
Speaker 1 | 18:21.916
So, like, I remember, you know, going through that. I mean, I love, you know, the PlayStations and the N64s. I’ve always loved technology. I was big into Legos and Kinects, like the engineering. I’ve always had an engineering mind growing up. And I loved it. And I got to school. And, you know, I was never really good at theoretical math. So, like, after Calc 1, it just wasn’t my thing. And that’s where, like, super. great programmers that are that abstract and thinking they do very well there for me. I can do a lot of it, but, you know, I found this, you know, as I was in college, I went to Rowan University in New Jersey and I was, I was down there and, you know, I started, I said, you know, what am I good at? And I wasn’t quite sure what my path was going to be. I loved law and justice. My family’s were all retired top lawyers, right?
Speaker 0 | 19:06.991
That’s going to be interesting around the, around the table right now, when you go home, that’s going to be interesting conversations, watching the news and stuff.
Speaker 1 | 19:12.525
Yep. So, so, you know, you know, I had that, right. And then I also had, you know, I had that background. Plus, I also had a business sense, you know, I had grandparents that own their own business, and I’ve always had that entrepreneurial spirit. So I was like, you know what, I think I would like to do corporate law. And I really like technology. And because of the how fast technology was going, I figured, hey, you know, technical law, and going into that would be my, maybe my niche. Right. That’s when I got into school, I decided to do a major in business and law. And I had a concentration in I.T. when I was there and I graduated with, you know, with those degrees. But during that time, I had the opportunity to intern with. with the Kennedy County prosecutor’s office. And it was kind of me getting into the law enforcement side of my, my interest in my family. And they actually brought me in to do technological things. This isn’t the nicest thing to talk about. It’s a kind of a taboo to talk about, but I used to infiltrate the, the bad people of the world from a technology space. So who would that be? That would be underground, you know,
Speaker 0 | 20:22.448
channels for child pornography for um you know drugs weapons pretty much how long the the just because i have eight kids but the the child pornography ring yeah how long um how long can you actually does that how long can you work a job like that even can you even work in a day like how long before that like psychologically takes a toll case in point phil it’s why i got out of it right it’s like
Speaker 1 | 20:51.027
I got into business and technology and its thing is, you know, I spent about two and a half years in there, two and a half, three years doing it. And it was a way to obviously cultivate my skills from a technology standpoint because.
Speaker 0 | 21:04.073
How were you catching people back then?
Speaker 1 | 21:06.454
So back then you had the shareware was a big place. So that was Kazaa, Shakespeare, Napster, Winamax, you know, all the, you know, the torrenting sites that, you know, you would use.
Speaker 0 | 21:21.752
they didn’t like, I don’t understand, like, how would people hide stuff like that on a torrenting site? Or did they not even hide it at all? And they were just thinking, there’s no way to track me because,
Speaker 1 | 21:30.034
you know, at the time you have to realize this was, you know, 14 years ago. So, you know, the technology wasn’t where it is today. The understanding, the institutional knowledge of tech wasn’t there. You had a bunch of guys in the, in the prosecutor’s office going, what the hell is this? We don’t know how to use it. You know, the FBI gave us some tools, but we’ve never been trained. We don’t know how to use it. So us tech centric you know we’re the first i’m the oldest millennial right so we were the first like ones to get technology in our hands they said hey you guys do this come and help us and we did so we would pose as you know in the chat rooms as the as you know as a child or you would you know you would you would do these different things to start kind of baiting and getting enough probable cause and evidence to then go through the next um layers of of of you know essentially taking out rings And back then, we didn’t have the tools that they have today. But back then, you had to really do the work. You had to, you actually had to monitor and check IP addresses. And the goal was to always find the kingpin, who is distributing it, right? So you might find someone that was viewing it, but then you try to connect that. It’s almost like the RICO loss with the mafia, right? You get the little guy, but you ultimately want to try to find where it goes, right? And you got to do these tracings. Well, some of these guys were sophisticated, right? They had, you know, they had server redirects. They had, they had. different network topologies to help kind of keep you off the trail um and it took a long time and most people were they using any like public spaces like libraries or something or weird stuff like that i’m just curious schools uh-huh libraries starbucks you know it could be anywhere their personal house but most um would try to do it in their house just because they were always afraid right but ultimately um you know they would spoof networks and stuff like you We had a warrant, we had a new knock order that we got and actually knocked down a nine-year-old lady’s house. It was someone that hacked into their network and was relaying off of them. So these are the type of things that we had to go through, but you have to do the work to try to find them. And it took over a year. People don’t know this, and this is still affected today. If you see in the news that someone got taken out for that, they didn’t just find it in one day and go. They actually established the hash values and all of the things that you need to be. part of the evidence to take someone out like that that takes over a year and it’s going to be damning they’re going to have a mountain of data and what people don’t know about um the technology is it’s more admissible and it has more credibility in the courts than dna because it’s a science like knowing that you went to that site in your computer with the forensics it’s it’s insane what we can do and that’s what i used to do i used to have to not only you know help them find it um get the investigators the information so that they can go and make the case to the judge and say, listen, we’ve got to go and get this person. And the excuse was, you know, we had to know that there was enough smoke for there to be fire. They would go and we would take the computers. And we were pretty good. Once we had them, you knew what you were going to find in those hard drives. And that’s when it got really nasty for me. You know, you have to essentially look at every photo, every single disgusting thing you would see, and you’d have to doctor it. And there was only one. level that you could use in the courts because you would be re-victimizing the child. So we actually had to doctorate. You would have to put in a description of what you’re seeing in the photo, and you would have to then make that available to both the defense and the prosecutor. And that, you know, looking at that and having to do that piece of the work is kind of what threw me off. And it’s where I give people that do that stuff today a ton of credit. And it is it is a thankless job. It is one of those type of jobs where you just go, how long can one person do it? And I could tell you it took me two and a half years. My wife will tell you, you know, we were dating at the time and it changed me. I mean, I became very callous, very just negative. And it’s why I can see why cops become how they become over the years. If all you see is the worst of the worst every day, what do you expect the world to be? And that’s where for me, you know, it gave me a lot of skills that let me learn what I wanted out of life and what I wanted out of technology and where my career is going to go. But it showed me where I don’t want to go. And that kind of pushed me out of the law enforcement track and kind of pushed me back into the business track. And
Speaker 0 | 25:51.168
I got to ask you, I got to ask some questions.
Speaker 1 | 25:53.609
Sure.
Speaker 0 | 25:53.829
Because everyone’s going to want it. Everyone’s. I mean, first of all, the people that you guys caught, are they easily you walking down the street right now? Can you look at someone and be like, oh, yeah, there’s something wrong with him? There are certain key factors like things like what?
Speaker 1 | 26:14.775
Like, you know, recluse, you know, kind of typically. Right. This is the stereotype, right, is you typically would profile this person as, hey, they’re, you know. they’re a rack loose right they don’t really go out much um you don’t really see them dating much um they might not have many friends right they’re typically the person in the back of the room nobody wants to see they’re usually very kind of like almost like a meek-minded that’s that’s typically what you would think and see that’s what the movies portray but uh it’s not it’s it’s literally um it’s a different way of your brain processing what makes you go and this is why you see it in the churches right with the catholic church that happened you know, to anybody in just the normal day to day. I mean, the ring that we took.
Speaker 0 | 26:58.045
Who are the guys you caught? Like, let’s just go through like, who are they?
Speaker 1 | 27:02.509
Two pediatricians.
Speaker 0 | 27:04.410
Oh God.
Speaker 1 | 27:05.451
Two principals. Okay. A judge, a lawyer. And, um, and you also had a couple, um, just like high standing executives, like people of status, right. Educated, well-to-do. It wasn’t some, you know, some guy in, you know, in a you know in the gutter somewhere that you would expect and uh that’s the honest truth is that it was um you just don’t know and you’d be surprised on how when things come up people are like you have no idea when you know sometimes the patterns will kind of make themselves known but you just go i would never know and what people don’t know about this is you know you know it makes me extremely angry to see these people but what people don’t know and when you’ve been in this arena and you learn what kind of made this happen a lot of people that are doing this have been victimized as small children they typically were a product of abuse and are now acting out on that that old abuse so not all but that’s typically the pattern you see is that they were abused as a child they are and this is psychological right you know they know that you are stunted in that that arena and you’re stunted at that age essentially when you got abused you know so now that’s how you value love that’s how you are you know motivated sexually those are the things that you look for and uh you know and it just goes to show right you know you had pediatricians you had judges you had all these people that were in a ring that got taken out and it these are all people that are products of that and like i said it’s uh it’s a sick world but when you’re in it you understand you understand more of why you know and granted to me it’s worse than murder right but at the because it’s a it’s a crime that keeps on repeating right and uh you know i have to see you know, 20 people take the stand for this guy that abused them and half of them are dead, overdosed, drugs, the other were there. So, you know, it’s a dark thing we’re talking about here. And this is where, you know, I like to say, you know, for me, I just, I could not do that every day. And for the people that can, I give them so much credit. And this is one when the cops are getting screamed at and all that. Granted, listen, there’s problems, there’s problems all over the world, but I tell people, you gotta give these guys a break, right? I mean, there’s a lot of things that you don’t see every day that they do. And I can tell you there’s some pretty sick people in this world. Just be thankful that you’re not seeing it on your YouTube every day or it’s your child that could be getting victimized, right, because they’re keeping them off the road. So show the show the love where you can. And like I said, for me, it was one of those experiences that I will, you know, be grateful for that I had. I’m not grateful for what I had to see and experience, but it taught me a lot in my early career. Hey, this is not what I want to do. I’m pretty sure for you, you’ve talked to a bunch of people, you know. wouldn’t it suck to get down on the road 15 years and be like, I hate this. Why did I do this? Why, why I got here. I’m thankful that I had that experience to go, you know what? Course correction needs to happen. Let’s go this direction now.
Speaker 0 | 29:58.808
Do you wonder? Yeah, I do wonder. I think there’s a certain thing to be said about just being thankful for having food on the table and running water and hot water. And there’s a lot of things that, you know, I travel. And there’s some guys I was talking with a couple weeks ago, locked up in an Egyptian jail. And I was talking with about like 20 Palestinian guys. And I mean, I was thrown in there just on pure suspicion. I completely understand why the police do the things that they do in various different areas of the world. With that being said, you know, I was in there with like some, you know, pH, some guy that had a master’s degree in architectural engineering. And he’s a Palestinian dude that, you know, takes a flight into Cairo. And there’s no way to get over the border into the Gaza Strip without, you know, a bus taking him there. So the police hold him there so he doesn’t do it at night. where it’s dangerous and then they drop him off and the morning he was there with like 20 other people and I was talking to him. I was like, are you married? Do you have kids? And he’s like, no, why would I wanna bring kids into this world? And I was like, why? He’s like, I mean, quickly your problems of wondering whether you’re gonna get home to your wife and kids again and hold your kids again quickly kind of disappear, even though that was the reality. He said, He’s like, we have running water, we have electricity for maybe four hours a day. We don’t really know, running water, things like this, all these kind of basic necessities, you know what I mean? That you start to think, even the general regular person in America that might be really struggling or fighting over toilet paper or whatever we’re fighting over, has running water and electricity. Yeah. Some down, some down. Yeah.
Speaker 1 | 31:50.716
And you’re right. Not everybody even has that in our country, but we have stability. We, you know, we have, we have all the infrastructure, you know, be thankful that same thing for security, government, all that. Yeah, it sucks. But at the end of the day, you know, we’re in a lot better off places than most. And that’s a hard thing to see when all you’ve seen is our bubble for a long time.
Speaker 0 | 32:13.311
Taking a few minutes for anyone that likes listening to the show, please. The four major drivers of traffic. if you didn’t know this, are Google, Apple, Amazon, and Facebook. Believe it or not, those are the four major drivers of marketing traffic in this world. And the number one driver of podcast traffic is Apple. So if you have a few seconds, please just Google Dissecting Popular IT Nerds. The first thing that’s going to pop up is Apple or whatever it is, iTunes, whatever. Please. Go to the podcast, scroll down, and give us your honest review of what you think of the show. That would be much appreciated. And a shout out to, this is the first day we’re recording on Microsoft Teams. I found a flaw in Zoom. And in Zoom, I cannot use a mixing board and sound effects because it recognizes it as a background noise and mutes it out like halfway. So I get this weird glitchy thing. And in the middle of this meeting, I actually X’d out of… Microsoft Teams by mistake because I didn’t want to get email notifications. And Tim was still talking when I came back on and the meeting was still recording. So if there’s no break in the audio, then there’s another plus to Microsoft Teams.
Speaker 1 | 33:28.514
I was wondering if that happens either.
Speaker 0 | 33:31.996
So as I said, this meeting is being recorded, still in progress. So, you know, we’ll see. We’ll see after this. I hope I really hope there’s no break. So moving on from from. Child pornography, policing, busting the sickest people in the world. Where’d you go from there? And how’d you drive that job? I went to Pollyanna.
Speaker 1 | 33:57.725
I went to Enterprise Rent-A-Car. They gave me a job loss.
Speaker 0 | 34:02.867
Oh, man. Enterprise Rent-A-Car is the beginning for so many people. And this is such a positive change. Some people are kind of laughing because… I know there’s people out there that have worked for Enterprise Rent-A-Car. You either worked for Enterprise Rent-A-Car, you worked for Starbucks, or you worked for Seabion, for any Seabion guys out there that remember that, or you worked for whatever that door-to-door company was that was sold like office supplies. Why can I not remember the name of that company? It was like Skoll or Skroll or something. Why can I not remember that? Or, oh, Vector Marketing. You sold Cutco knives. You know what I mean? So the fact that you went to Enterprise. Which is a great opportunity for some people, believe it or not. But just about anyone, I think, can get a job at Enterprise, but not everyone can be successful at Enterprise.
Speaker 1 | 34:51.076
You have to go through a pretty rigorous… you know interview process to start but uh you know enterprise i’m very thankful for that experience you know they at you know i’m right out of college right you know you need experience and they literally throw you into the arena very quickly and you know it’s essentially what i call my mba right so for me to go from you know the the management trainee to um you know a branch manager of philadelphia airport doing a merger between national and alamo and doing systems there um and doing that in a three-year time frame That doesn’t normally happen in most places. And for me, right, it was one of those type of things that, you know, enterprise rated you on a matrix. So if you hit certain performance scores, sales, all these different things, you would kind of move through the ranks. And what it did was, is it gave me experience at a young age to manage a lot of people, a lot of different backgrounds, a lot of money in certain cases, right? And, you know, essentially they entrust you with running the branch and it’s literally like running your own business. So. I, you know, I’m doing that now, right, for myself, but it really gave me a taste of what ownership looked like. And what it kind of taught me earlier on is that I needed I needed more experience after that. Right. But for me, it was out of necessity. So I started there because I’m self-made, didn’t have to pay for schooling and I needed a job. I literally walked on a Friday from college and I started with Enterprise after the weekend on that Monday and just went right into work. And from there, it was a really cool trajectory. I got my business acumen, a lot of training from enterprise. They give amazing training for management trainees around, you know, they do personality assessments, they do the disk set, they actually, you know, they teach you how to have finesse. And I find that most IT people don’t have that, Phil, is that finesse, that training around how you relate to people. You know, you might be an introverted person, but then you might have a very bombastic CEO. How do you relate to them? You need to be able to understand, recognize personalities and know how to manage and cultivate relationships, even though it might be counter to what you like or who you are. And that’s going to be what you’re going to experience through your entire career. Whether you own a company or not, you’re going to have those. So recognizing that, you know, training around enterprise was so valuable. And I still use a lot of those skills that I learned there today.
Speaker 0 | 37:08.750
One of the best things that anyone can do for themselves is completely throw them into it. throw themselves into one of the most uncomfortable situations they’ve ever been in and you have to make it work in order to survive and put money on the table that right they they definitely do it i mean they give you shoestring budget and shoestring you know employees yeah and go figure it out i mean i can’t tell you how many ties i’ve had sucked up in a vacuum or different
Speaker 1 | 37:31.977
parts enterprise is very conservative right so you have to be in a suit every day now they’ve relaxed now you can wear a polo and you can actually have a beer now so so i can do what you can do phil but uh you know um ultimately the uh the enterprise experience kind of set me on the business track and and i really fell in love with it and ironically i did when they bought national and alamo uh i was part of the pilot program of integrating the different systems and that’s really where i was like you know like you’re good with this stuff you’re good with technology i’m like yeah i always have been i have this background and it really kind of reinvigorated me going into tech again um And I actually, you know, found a job. So I got hired by a company right after Enterprise. It was a small MSP called Kukui Technologies in Marlton. And they were a startup. And it was like a typical startup, right? It was a boys club. It was awesome. I mean, we had a great time. But it gave me a lot of experience around sales engineering, product management, solution design. This is when 365 just came out. And a lot of people are going from on-prem exchange to 365. And, you know, converting the world to that, did a ton of those projects. So it gave, it gave us a lot of experience around how to, um, you know, what makes all these businesses tick. So I was able to do, um, to work with Kukua, um, left there, there was some, you know, unfortunately some issues with ownership at the top, you know, partnership that was dissolving, wasn’t so good. So I would have probably been there still for a long time. Um, but that kind of forced my hand to look at what’s next. So, um, that actually put me into.
Speaker 0 | 39:06.027
the software track i got hired by a company called let’s just a break real quick because i want everyone listening to this because a lot of the things that there’s there’s certain kind of there’s it guys that are like like okay with like sales reps and there’s people that aren’t okay with sales reps and there’s people that are positive vendor negative and i don’t know there’s just kind of mix of just people in general and i think one of the key pieces to your success here is any type of job that threw you into kind of like the sales and business development aspect where you were kind of like forced to understand how the business worked, forced to actually make something happen and feel that pressure of a sales budget. There’s a difference between a sales budget and a kind of quota, I guess you could say, versus an IT budget. Because an IT budget’s like, okay, this is what I have to work with. How can I ask for more? But they’re not going to ask for more if you don’t have that sales experience. Whereas- with the sales experience, you’re like, man, I really got to make something out of nothing. I got to go out and we say that every day, you know, you got to go make something out of nothing. If you’re not being told no, at least three times a day, you’re doing something wrong. You know, a lot of people can’t deal with that kind of that rejection. It seems depressing to them, but it’s not once you kind of gain that self-confidence. And go out and really know that like, hey, you’re doing something to keep the wheels of economy of the economy turning. You’re not trying to force something on someone that they don’t want. You’re just helping someone find a solution to a problem that they have, i.e. no car to get home or whatever it was. So I just that that experience, if anyone doesn’t have that is so valuable. And I just don’t know what the suggestion would be for someone that’s maybe later on in their career on how to get that.
Speaker 1 | 40:51.350
Honestly, I mean, being part of. the sales engineering. So, you know, a lot of times for me, right, for new sales opportunities, I was brought in as the CIO and CTO to help validate what they’re selling. So, you know, for us, it was very customized, right? So when we would come into a pharmacy or to a customer, we would have to know what pharmacy system they’re using. How do you relate data? Can we integrate? What’s your processes? So we had to do a six-week deep dive just around discovery, how we’re going to changing because remember when we were doing a startup this wasn’t a transactional based sale it wasn’t like here’s a hot dog i paid for the hot dog enjoy the hot dog right this is a very long sales cycle very complex and remember we have patients lives on the end of it so you know you got to get it right there the failure is not an option so coming in and helping the sales engineering team you know if you have that opportunity in your world to just sit in the room or be part of it right It gets you experience and gets you talking and understanding what your stakeholders are going to ask of you, right? What are the pain points of the customer? Because that’s what sales guys are going to leverage, right? Is these are the pains our customer sees, and we want to be able to provide a solution to that pain. So if you can be exposed to that, great. You know, there’s also some good books around sales as well. But I would always say, you know, getting in the arena is so much better than just reading a theoretical book. or, you know, yeah, you can listen to some podcasts, right? And that’ll get you somewhere. But actually doing the work, getting in, immersing yourself, that’s going to net you the most training because now you’ve done it. Now you’ve made it a memory that you can recall on and how I’ve articulated this sale with the sales team. And IT is going to become more and more involved in that in days to come because you have to. Everything is so integrated now. You cannot get into a business level relationship if it’s a B2B like I was in and still am.
Speaker 0 | 42:45.224
you can’t get into those relationships unless you’re doing this and if you’re you can’t overcome like you will never experience such elation and success until someone has told you no like five times and then finally they’re like okay you’re right we do need this um you know like the first thing you need to expect that someone’s always going to tell you no the second you come to them it’s like the first time you ask for a raise and the boss kind of laughs he’s like no You know what I mean? Like, I remember I asked for a raise in my first job that was dishwashing. I was like, hey, you know, could I, you know, maybe I’ve been here for a while and, you know, I’m pretty good. And, you know, could I get a raise? No.
Speaker 1 | 43:25.381
Well, no, you’re worth, but I always say this to IT people, right? So my friends that are directors and stuff like that, I always say to them, you know, you’re a number on the balance sheet, right? Are you three X that number? Because that’s what a CEO is going to look at. And if you’re doing extreme performance, you’re bringing the business, you’re helping with sales, bring in more money. These are things that you can cite. When you’re asking for that raise or you’re trying to, you know, get more. Right. And that’s how I was able to move through my career path, you know, pretty quickly and get to the C-suite, you know, at an early age. Am I, you know, in my 30s by able by using that method. Right. And and really just honing in on the fact that, no, you’re worth, but prove it, back it up. If I can go and say, look, look at all the things that I was able to do for you and accomplished. I was able to equivocate this in sales. I was able to help reduce your cost. per month. I was able to reduce this headcount to drive efficiencies. These are all things that are going to make you valuable to an owner. And if you can articulate that, you can write your ticket. It’s the ones that can’t, that I find that just go, oh, I’m going to be the lazy tech guy. You know, like, as you mentioned, the path of least resistance, let me just throw in an application. You know, the user’s got a little bit what they needed. It’s 60% deployed. Okay. Right.
Speaker 0 | 44:35.956
Well, let’s talk about that then.
Speaker 1 | 44:37.017
That’s not going to get you where you want to be.
Speaker 0 | 44:39.058
What are, say, like the top five? areas that if you can solve, make you more. make you invaluable or more, you know, valued, valued more than what you’re getting paid.
Speaker 1 | 44:50.882
So, you know, obviously showing the worth of the dollar being spent in tech, right? It’s not just like, oh my God, our ISP costs X amount of money, right? If you’re able to get a reduction, right. And help out a company, take those dollars and put them into a marketing budget now that they could free up or things like that. Those are things that you’ve got to work. How do we,
Speaker 0 | 45:09.152
Hey, just out of curiosity, how do we do that? How do we get a reduction on our ISP costs?
Speaker 1 | 45:13.694
I think there’s a guy named Phil here that actually. which is who I’ve partnered with as well, which is helping me right now with my new company.
Speaker 0 | 45:20.477
I think we happened to, I’ve reduced that by 75% miraculously overnight. I agree.
Speaker 1 | 45:24.838
I said that. Well, and that’s the thing, but based on, but here’s the thing, right? With this skill that I mentioned here, right? I came in, I’m helping, you know, customers that have never really had a director or a CIO there. And I’m going, you’re spending how much? This is nuts.
Speaker 0 | 45:40.422
Don’t mention any numbers. We’ll just spend 75%.
Speaker 1 | 45:43.783
And you go, what? Like robbery. And this is where you look at where CEOs and owners get pissed off at tech is because they see such a high value. But if they know that they’ve got the right tool at the right price. Right. Now they look at technology as a revenue multiplier, not a cost multiplier. And that’s that’s the key is to change the mentality in the C-suite to showing that tech is something I need. I need I value, which is key. And then I’m going to have work for me and I’m going to make it one of my focal points of my business.
Speaker 0 | 46:17.453
So that was basically bad spend. We got rid of bad spend. We’ll say we’ll call that point number one.
Speaker 1 | 46:21.954
Right. So get rid of the bad spend. The next thing would be, you know, the unrealized ROI. Right. So sometimes they just don’t know how powerful these these solutions are. What are they actually getting you? Right. You know, I call the ivory tower effect. Right. Most owners are going to have, you know, the 50,000 foot view. And they just say, hey, I want this number and I want these things and not understand at the line level all the things that the technology is doing to improve those workflows. So that could mean, you know, you’re able to use automation now through Microsoft Flow or one of these all these different tools that are now available to us that we didn’t have before. Now you can use that to make technology work and maybe you can reduce a headcount there, but maybe use that headcount in a better place. Sales, other parts of the business that need it. So when I look at ROI, technology is going to be valuable in the eyes of an owner if it’s reducing, you know, overhead in some capacity, or it’s helping them get the lead position in a sale, or it’s giving them a strategic, you know, it’s giving them the strategic edge in the marketplace that they’re in to make them stand out.
Speaker 0 | 47:32.260
When you say unrealized ROI, there are a lot of things out there that, again, getting back to you don’t know what you don’t know type of thing that we were talking about earlier, kind of a vastly thrown around term that people either love or hate. But the point is, if you don’t know there’s a way to automate through technology or to provide that one extra touch point, because we all know that, you know, just I like using sales as an example, right? Like salespeople like typically follow up once or twice, but every sale is made after like seven follow ups. So if there’s like seven, eight different ways that people are following up with people in a good way, in a way that’s productive, even for your customers or people, right? Then that could be something that we, well, we didn’t know we could touch the customer this way. We didn’t know that, you know, I don’t know, there’s a Facebook pixel that we don’t have on our website that could automatically send, I don’t know, advertisements to someone’s feed that they don’t want in their feed, but still they see us. You know what I mean? Now, um,
Speaker 1 | 48:31.288
But that’s the key, right, Phil, is that, you know, you look at it, right, so there’s the ROI component of it. But then you also got to look at this and say, what are you doing from a strategic standpoint? So like point three in this would be your strategy around how you’re using your ecosystem of applications and hardware. The entire picture, right, is critical. And, you know, what I mean by that is being nimble. So in the last two companies I’ve been at, right, I’ve moved them from traditional, you know, on-prem servers, everything into high availability. you know, servers and, you know, web-based applications, because guess what? Now you’re nimble. So if there’s a better solution that comes out there, what can you do? You can bolt in to this, you know, into this ecosystem that’s all web-based now, because we’ve got cloud technology that’s that good. Now you could be very nimble. So when that CEO goes, says, Hey, I want to get into a new vertical within our space. Okay. What does that mean? Oh, we got to do these things, these things. Now you can bring in different. you know, components to solve that new need. And that happens a lot in the courier space, right? It’s like, hey, we specialize in pharma, but now we want to get into nuclear medicine. Now we want to get into Amazon, you know, distributor stuff, right? I want to work with Staples, right? These things, you have to be nimble. And if you’re in technology where it’s just like, well, we can’t do that, or that’s not possible, or you’re the resistance for them trying to grow the business, that’s when operations and tech becomes opposed. And that’s kind of the beginning of the end.
Speaker 0 | 49:58.841
Amazon’s an interesting example because Amazon can either come into town and put you out of business or could put you in business one way or the other. Because there’s a lot of logistics guys that came in and Amazon brought a warehouse in and all their workers just left to go to Amazon. And if they weren’t able to switch to some sort of, I don’t know, robotic workforce management, they were done.
Speaker 1 | 50:20.530
That’s where my point is, is you got to understand the market forces, but you got to have a strategy around your tech so that you’re lean, but you’re getting the most out of it. So that would be point three there, Phil, is just no, you know, like call the head on a swivel, right? Make sure that you are. always anticipating what’s coming down the road. You got to know six steps ahead, what’s going on. And just being in tech and just solving the break fix is not good enough anymore. You’ve got to be in touch with the industry. You got to know what’s going on. You got to be involved with, you know, I’m in a lot of LinkedIn groups with CIO groups and things like that. Just seeing what they’re doing, new strategies, new ways of doing things. Don’t just think your strategy is the only way. Right. And I, and I’ve learned that time and time again. I learned this one way and it worked, but you know what? There might be a better way. And I’ve been fortunate to be surrounded by a lot of smart people in my life. And, you know, I will go to them and say, hey, have you ever done this? And just use your network. And you’d be surprised how leveraging your network can really bring you the right thing. And, you know, like I was a Sigma Pi at Rowan, right? I use my fraternity network a lot now to help hire people out of school or using them in staffing agencies. All these different ways that we profit by association with each other. you know, 10 years, 15 years out of college, we’re able to help each other. My CPA is one of my fraternity brothers, right? He’s phenomenal one, but very knowledgeable. So this is what I try to tell tech people, use your network and don’t be a silo. Keep your head on a swivel and look, and you’ll be fine.
Speaker 0 | 51:45.648
How do you, how do you prevent that overwhelm? Because that can be very, someone could be listening to this right now. And even just me, myself, I’m feeling like this sense of overwhelm, you know, how do you prevent that? Or how do you manage that?
Speaker 1 | 51:57.956
So, you know, you got to take it in small chunks, though, right? You know, you can look at all this, right? But you can’t climb Mount Everest in a day. What do you have to do to climb Mount Everest? You’ve got to train for it, right? You’ve got to have experts that can take you, the Sherpa that takes you up the mountain. You need someone that’s done it before, right? So you can be shown a way that works, right? You need to put in the work so that you don’t die up on the mountain summit because you’ve got the things that you need and the tools, right? The mask and the tank and all the things to get up there. So, you know, climbing Everest is the thing. is the sexy thing that you want to say, but the work that goes into doing it is something that’s done incrementally. So incremental backups, do it incrementally, take it off in pieces, map out the structure, right? And then set up the plan of attack that allows you to execute that plan. And my method has always been in reverse engineering, right? So the output of reporting is usually what every single exec wants. I want this sexy analytics. I want this, I want this. Well, guess what? All of that’s dependent on your ERP systems and all the suite of software that you’re using for data points and structures. Well, your data sets are garbage and your output’s garbage. So now you’ve got this really expensive tool that’s just spinning out information that no one can trust. And now what happens? The tech doesn’t work. Why are we even using it? Now you’ve devalued yourself as an employee and you’ve devalued your system. So, you know, yes, can tech be overwhelming? Absolutely. But if you do it in chunks and you do it. And understand the timeline that it takes to execute that. That’s key. And that’s the other thing, too. I would say just project planning and the timeline fill. That overwhelmingly says everybody wants it yesterday. I want all of this now. Well, we all do. We want that instant gratification. That’s what our world has taught us to be. But in some cases, these might be initiatives. They’re not events. It’s a strategic turnaround that might take the course of a year. Yeah, technically, I could switch on the switch, but it’s going to be so disruptive to the operation that we would blow up our world. We would kill relationships. We would. you know, it would be catastrophic to the business. So that’s why we say incrementally roll it out, plan for success and be nimble enough to change if conditions change as you’re going through that process.
Speaker 0 | 54:10.242
So much just went through my mind from years back. I mean, really so much. If you had any piece of, you know, like, first of all, there’s been a lot of advice. So I guess I could ask you, like, you know, if you got one piece of advice for anyone listening out there, but really, you know, for other IT directors, other IT managers, CTOs, CIOs listening out there, is there anything real particular or unique about yourself that you’ve been able to do or figure out or, you know, fall upon by mistake that would be very valuable to them?
Speaker 1 | 54:41.269
Well, know your value. Right. That’s first and foremost, know your value. Right. And if you know your value, make sure you can back it up. Talking and walking are two different things. And I’ve seen, you know, and I’ve helped other directors that, you know, making a lot of money. And I couldn’t even go to the CEO and say, yeah, you deserve that. Right. Because, you know, you’re everything’s outsourced and you’re just sitting there and you get a break fix once in a while. Right. Like, make sure you’re taking a proactive approach and you’re making yourself sticky. Right. That’s key. right? You want to make sure you’re invaluable to the business. You know, that’s key. The other is, you know, don’t be afraid to learn how to communicate. If, you know, I’ve always said this, you know, to the programmers that are mine, like a lot of them are typical, right? They like to sit in front of their computer. They don’t like to go out, right? They’re not very good in social arenas. You know, I’ll put it to you this way. Everybody values a degree, right? I went to Harvard. I went to MIT. Everybody wants the pedigree there, right? That is going to lose value over time because so many people can learn on YouTube and Google and all these things today, these skills, right? That normally you would have to go to college to get. The next major capital point in executives and that world is going to be your emotional intelligence and your ability to finesse and relate in that arena. If you can do technology and you can do the talk, right? And be able to articulate the solution, show the value. Now you become the unicorn because You can do both. You can do the tech and say to the programmers, I know all the geeky stuff here. And then when I go into that arena, I can. And that’s what I do. That’s what I call myself a professional translator. So I’m able to go to the techs and say, listen, here’s what we got to do. I know how to do it because I can do it. But you guys are better at it. Me. So you’re going to go program it and I’m going to keep the guys in the tower here off your back. I’m going to say here, here’s going to be your output. And, you know, in my role, I’ve done the due diligence to know that when I say it’s going to. It’s going to deliver. It’s going to deliver. And that’s where you’ve got to be integrated into your vendors. You’ve got to have strategic relationships. If you are not part of that conversation and you’re just throwing it over the wall, like you said earlier, Phil, you’re going to get the throw over the wall effect.
Speaker 0 | 56:55.379
That’s really deep, man. When you say know your value, it means like, no, literally you need to know what can output very specifically. It’s not just like, hey, no, you’re important. You’re valuable. Like, you know, it’s not just like this kind of soft thing. It’s like really.
Speaker 1 | 57:10.167
Right. Think about it. And I never be successful. You’re replaceable. Right. You’re a number on the balance sheet. And unfortunately, that is very true. Right. If all of a sudden the revenue is out of that business, what’s going to be the chopping block there? What’s the CEO going to have to do to preserve the company if they can? They’re going to start cutting heads. And what you want to make sure is that you’re like third to last. You know, it’s the CEO, CFO.
Speaker 0 | 57:33.282
co and then you right i’ve been there i’ve been there where a company’s been sold or getting liquidated or getting ready to get sold to someone else and we’re like what happened to all these people what happened to these people and i can remember being like on the last kind of skeleton crew and being like ah and it’s funny you say that so many acquisitions that’s a big thing happening in our arena right now acquisitions are crazy so for me yeah i
Speaker 1 | 57:51.930
you know knowing that that’s going to happen by me being in this in this new company i can help companies in my industry so as they get bought up and realize I can help them with it and just stay agnostic. So that’s why I created my own business too. Yeah. But, uh,
Speaker 0 | 58:06.036
even if you get laid off in the first round, like, like, don’t be like, oh man, I got laid off the companies. I mean, no, that means that you were with the wrong company. Correct. You know what I mean? Correct. You’re, you’re with the layoff company. Like, you know, that’s, it’s, it just, that’s the reality. That’s the reality.
Speaker 1 | 58:22.543
You gotta know that’s going to happen, Phil, right? I mean, that is inevitable.
Speaker 0 | 58:26.765
It will happen.
Speaker 1 | 58:28.245
Right. So, so, And if you go in thinking that your cushy W-2 job is going to give you the security, it’s a false sense of security. And I’ve learned that. And that’s where, for me, I went, I’m in the same risk pattern as being a business owner as I was as a W-2 employee. It’s the same. The only difference now is that I get to control my own fate, and I’m not going to be selling out unless I sell my company. Somebody’s not going to be selling out underneath me. And that, to me, gives me more security, ironically, even though I have a higher risk. now, running my own company.
Speaker 0 | 59:00.735
Yeah. And you really do still work for people. You work for your customers, you work for your vendors, you work for all these other people. Anyone that thinks when you quit your job and you go open your own company that you’re not working for anyone anymore, you’re like so wrong.
Speaker 1 | 59:14.968
No, it’s exciting. As a three-week startup right now, it’s been very busy. And we’re helping out the state of California with COVID testing and distribution there and in some other states i’m in to help with that right and the pharmacy is now bolting on to do that and you know this is kind of a case in point where you know It’s been a hell of a ride from the career. Like I said, I went to software. I went through that track. Then I got into the logistics-based family at SCSRX and then Stallion. My whole thing was I would look at every three years and I would reevaluate too, Phil. I would say, okay, where am I at? Am I pigeonholed? What people don’t realize is that once you’re in that role with a company, your likelihood of making more money isn’t going to get there quicker because you already had a number that they value at. The only way is they’re either going to give you the raise. Or you’re going to have to move to get the number that you know you deserve from the next party. And people get stuck in that, thinking that they’re going to get that number that they feel that they need to hit from their current employer and probably won’t ever happen just because they’ve already set your value. And yeah, they’ll give you some raises,
Speaker 0 | 60:20.096
but… Your line item, it’s going to be like the, hey, you’ve meets expectations, blah, blah, blah. It’s going to be pennies. What can you do for… We’re going to end with this. What can you do for logistics companies in the United States?
Speaker 1 | 60:34.188
So we are the specialists, right? We’re the experts. So we’re essentially leveraging our network, as I mentioned, our strategic partners, like with Teamwork Desk, Zoho, eCourier, you know, Lenovo, all of these different platforms and providers so that we can help come in and essentially be the outsourced IT group that is specialized for logistics. So, you know, yeah, there’s a lot of MSPs out there, right? We’re going to do your break fix. We’re going to do your support patching. That to me is part of the equation, but what we’re trying to do is fill a need in our space that’s been a void for a long time. There’s no one doing it in our niche. And there’s over 3,000 couriers in the country, and they need help. So we’re here to help fill them that void. And we’re trying to do it on every level. We’re trying to do it from, hey, you need to serve some project work, you have a strategic app, or you need some help that we’ve specialized in doing and have done it before, we can come in and help you as a project. We can do T&E. You need something… Done on the fly. Great. Or we can do your outsourced IT and we can be your support desk and also help, you know, create the suite of applications and essentially show you how to cook the cake that we’ve now known as the gold standard that we’ve made. And that’s what we’re trying to do here is, you know, reduce costs, bring it to an affordable level for these guys that are cash, you know, cash strapped in the logistics space and get them the Ferrari they’ve always wanted.
Speaker 0 | 61:59.106
And that’s beautiful. It’s been great having you on the show. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 | 62:03.029
Appreciate the time, Phil. Thanks again for, uh, for everything. You have a great podcast and I, uh, I definitely recommend for everybody to continue to continually listen. And, uh, you know, this is these types of conversations are what I look, I look at your podcast every day, pretty much to see, you know, what other folks are saying. So very important to fill in. Thanks for, uh, for giving me the platform.
Speaker 0 | 62:21.967
Thank you.
