ERP120 - Rethinking vCIO: Future of vCIO

And then there's level three. So, you can't pair a level one VCI with a level three client. Right? And a level three client is a fast growing company, sometimes they're private equity backed, or just, you know, they have are aggressively looking to grow, expand, mature, and scale. Right? So, kind of pairing people with the right level VCI is, I think, key. Welcome to Evolved Radio, where we explore the evolution of business and technology. I'm your host, Todd Kane. Are you an MSP struggling to build a truly profitable account management or virtual CIO program? You're not alone. Every day I see managed service providers facing the same challenges. Account managers who aren't sure how to deliver real strategic value. VCIOS who struggle to justify their role to clients. QBR meetings that feel much more like tech support reviews than strategic planning sessions. And the constant battle to scale these services across different client sizes. After working with hundreds of MSPs, I've developed a comprehensive program that helps to solve these exact challenges. So if you're interested, check out the program in my training library at training.evolvedmgmt.com. That's training.evolvedmgmt.com for more info about my account management and VCI program. For more info about my account management and VCI program. In this episode of the Evolved Radio podcast, I'm joined by Alex Markov from Strategy Overview. Alex and I continue the rethinking VCI series. Alex is a long-time friend of the podcast, appearing in a very early episode of the pod. And I'm happy to have him back to jam on VCI again. We explore the importance of mature VCI practices, the integration of AI and automation, and maintaining high standards in client services. Enjoy the continued conversation in rethinking the VCI. Alex, welcome to the Evolved Radio podcast. Hey Todd, good to see you again. You as well. So, another returning guest, welcome back. You were a very early guest in the podcast, I had you on episode 31. And this will be somewhere in the 120s now that we're we're posting this one, so. Been a while, great to have you back. Yeah, how many years was that? Uh, that's also a good question. Uh, let's see here. I can look this up. It was like in the before times. Definitely the before times. Doesn't have a date posted on it, so I I this would be like 2018, 2019. Probably something like that, yeah. Yeah. Crazy. Yeah, a lot has changed since then. Yeah, a lot has changed since then. Yeah, I mean, kind of a cool thing. The topic has not changed. So we talked about sort of the VCI process back then. Um, and, you know, to some extent we still haven't nailed it, I guess, in the industry. So we've been doing the series rethinking VCI and and kind of talking originally with Louise about maybe we're doing this all wrong. And then I've had a few people on since just to to kind of dive a little deeper and understand the complexities of this role. Uh and this is something that you guys have been doing for a long time, enough so that you went and built some software to support your MSP to do this. So, what's your sort of read on the current industry, like you're going to events and speaking to people about this. You run a software company to help people with this. What are you currently seeing in the market related to VCI? I think there's a lot more options. I think the maturity of the VCI topic is is on a new level. Which is really exciting. I've been kind of following all of the the thought leaders on the space. I really appreciate the amount of attention it's getting and I think it's it's wonderful for everybody. It's wonderful for MSPs. I think it's wonderful for clients. Because traditionally MSPs don't do a great job at it. They don't do a great job of standardization. They don't do a great job at client leadership. And been in the MSP industry for 23 years. We're walking into clients 10 years ago looking at really poor quality network racks. And no backups and things like that. That just sucks. That sucks for clients, it sucks for MSPs, it sucks for the people that work at the MSPs. So, it's a really good thing in my opinion that the industry is maturing and thinking about standards, thinking about strategy. I think that's wonderful. I think that's wonderful. And what do you see like when you're onboarding new customers? Either from MSPs or clients that have not dealt with a more mature provider. You mentioned some of them like uh, you know, low standards and, you know, what people pass as, you know, good enough, I suppose, in IT can be pretty fragmented. What are some of the sins that you see that are are common and probably shouldn't be in in some of those environments? Um, I think that the network racks are a mess. I think backup is so readily um just not managed properly. I think cyber security is missing, they they're missing all types of specific elements. And I think that client experience is just at a whole really, really poor. We've seen good IT and when you see bad IT, it there's a big difference on the day-to-day experience of the people working at those companies. And I think that's a huge element that people miss. That it's really about people working at those companies and working at just going to work every day. Right? And they're just going to work in a really crappy network. That has downtime and and computers are old. So, I think that that's a big deal. So, I think that that's a big deal. Why do you think this is? Like why do you think so many organizations struggle with the fundamentals around this? Because if you think about it, it's kind of odd, like the original days kind of pre-time and materials. A lot of IT consulting was more sort of as as it was termed IT consulting. Uh and then it it turned to a lot of the sort of break fix and then now towards the MSP model. And a lot of that change should facilitate sort of better controls and better systems in place for people to be able to manage this stuff. And maybe it's just a situation of high volume that makes it difficult for people to keep pace with this. Is that it or do you think there's sort of more elements to it of of why we continue to get this wrong? I think it's a combination of high volume, poor systems and apps, like our app strategy overview. You can take on a client very rapidly and standardize them very rapidly. Essentially, we we built the platform after listening to Paul Dipple for 10 years. Right? And going through HCG or Connectwise Evolve now. And really modeling our platform on the entire kind of high OML MSP process. I think that's a major element is there's a lot of volume, people are signing clients. And then they're just taking them on, they're onboarding them, plugging them as IT glue or Hudu. And and then just moving on. Right? They they don't have a consistent process to standardize aggressively at onboarding. Which is better for everybody. Right? It's not it's not anything involved in sales, it's just wonderful for everybody. If all of your firewalls and switches and networks are as close to a standard as possible. It's wonderful for the clients calling in because their issues are handled quickly. Um it's great for your sales people to to sell um and like procure the same equipment over and over again. So. A lot of MSPs miss that at onboarding. And then definitely they don't have a regular cadence to meet with clients. The amount of MSPs that have not automated their technology strategy meeting um scheduling is massive. Um it's like one of our fundamental points of health is you have to automate that invitation process. We've come up with a way to do it in Connectwise, there's ways to do it in every PSA. So, you have to automate that, create a consistent process that you send the invitation to each client quarterly or yearly. And then follow through with that, follow through with the review. Because technology changes. And then definitely putting in specific process elements. In the MSP, like when you're onboarding a client, there's a VCI step. When you're offboarding a client, there's a VCI step. When a point of contact changes, there's a VCI step. There should be definitely be these strategic process elements in the MSP that keep the whole uh rhythm going. Because as soon as you get off that rhythm, you can blink and you can have a client under management for two years. And they could be missing major security elements. That they could just blow up on your MSP at any moment. Yeah. It is interesting, if you think about it, like so much of this is fundamental. Like everything in business always comes back to stick to the fundamentals. Because you're right. Like just not having a process to follow. Sends you automatically down the wrong track. Uh and if you do have a a process around your technology management and your client management approach. Then it helps to kind of keep you on track because as you said, things are busy. People get distracted, you focus on other things. And lo and behold, you know, you you're like, when was the last time I met with that client? Like I'm not even sure. And as you said, point of contact change is a major risk for MSPs. Like if you don't kind of get nervous when a new controller comes into an organization. Uh you haven't been through that experience a couple of times. Yeah, it's uh so much of that as you said, it's just elemental of setting up a process and managing that process with your clients, right? Right? Yeah, and and and also there's like the technical process, which is huge. But also also the people process, like the connection process. So, uh I I teach all MSPs that when you sign a new client. The principles should reach out to the principles of the client and make an introduction, like not through a ticket, not through an email, maybe even through a text message, through I message. Right, create that human connection, create that um element. And then definitely when a point of contact changes, the VCI or whoever should connect with that person. And call them, even go on site, shake a hand, right, be there, make a connection with them. So those like people connection elements are huge. Once you create a connection with people, then lead and be the technology leader that your company's need. And then they deserve. That's what I think that MSPs need to really focus on in in the coming uh MSP 3.0 world, right? Is providing IT leadership for clients. Um through all the different things that we're all experiencing. Digital transformation is not a one-time thing. It's a digital journey. And now we're seeing with AI. We're seeing it with automation. Um we're seeing it with a global workforce that companies are hiring from everywhere. Right? So, that process needs to be led and that that evolution. And that constant journey, somebody needs to lead that. And even if you have like our MSP does a good amount of co-managed. They may have a a director of IT or a CIO. But that person is would be so much better off by having a a strong MSP standing with them. To help with making decisions, help analyze things and help lead the IT. So there's a couple of interesting dynamics you mentioned there. I want to dig into. One, the most curious sort of uh, you know, you've led and grown a fairly large MSP. And in in a in a heavy market in New York. Uh and. What is sort of like the D mark points of where the the owner of the organization. Usually acts as the VCI and account manager for a period of time. When is the point that you think it starts to make sense for them to actually delegate that hat. And start to bring on someone who is at least doing account management and maybe doing VCI. What does that look like if you were sort of. Uh sort of summarizing that and suggesting to uh, you know, like you said in a in a room full of people at a conference. Uh who would be kind of in that role of you should probably continue to take this on yourself. And what would it look like if someone should start to think about delegating that role? Yeah. I think that somewhere probably around 100 KMR. Right? I think is a good uh time that they should start to bring on somebody that's full-time. You can fractionalize the role before then. Right, have some somebody on your team that is good at customer facing, um that is good at technical. Uh kind of initiatives and they can start to provide that IT leadership for clients. And then over time, you you scale in for you know, you you'll stretch a VCI. And then you'll bring on additional VCI. But having a concerted effort to bring on a VCI even fractional is important. Owner led VCI is is a thing. Um and I think that until you unless you're like a very large provider, uh principle led VCI still stays a thing. Where you you're involved in some degree, especially with some strategic accounts. And definitely sensitive issues and helping clients navigate because at that point you're basically like a peer to them. And helping them navigate mergers, helping them navigate um business challenges that MSP that any company experiences. So that's why I think that um a lot of owners, they should move to that position, have the VCI lead the day-to-day IT. But the owner could still stay involved on a on a business peer perspective. Yeah, I like that. And the other one is uh co-managed. I mean that that's an interesting scenario. Like you said, like maybe they have an IT director who, you know, should be playing this role. You don't necessarily want to step on toes and, you know, make them feel threatened in some way. Or that you're competitive. That that's always sort of that weird dynamic with with co-managed. Usually from the team, like the the, you know, the the individual contributors on that team are usually suspect or a bit nervous about having consultants around. And whether or not they're they're going to lose their job. How does that work in more at that strategic level for for for you guys? Like what do you see and how do you interface with an internal IT leader? Especially if they were a director or a CIO. Yeah, I mean, we we give them our full platform. We give them all the tools that they can be successful with. Right? And then really we we are one team. We come up with that process that we want to support them as much as possible. So, so the results that they achieve is achieved with a team effort. But we give them our framework. And that is a big deal because a lot of internal CIOs, they're running around and they're recreating the wheel. You know. How many internal CIOs have moved companies to Azure in their career? Right? Three times max, four times if they're like a a serial CIO that's moving around from company to company every two years. You know, but how many times has an MSP moved a company to Azure? And like modernized their SharePoint and and and done those type of projects or or executed a an SSO uh, you know, conditional access project for clients. Right? So, by in giving in co-managed companies kind of an open book of resources. I think that's a major success point for MSPs in the coming years because co-manage is not going to go away. It's going to get even more important. And I think that especially as CIOs move companies, every medium-sized company needs a relationship with the MSP. Like. Because what happens if that CIO and the entire IT team are on the same airplane? Right? The company needs to stay operational, no matter what. Yeah. So. Okay. It's it's very important. Absolutely. I guess like that sort of lends towards, you know, the the future of the industry. You know, historically a lot of the things that we talked about, Louise uh borrowed this from somebody. I don't recall who. Uh about uh filling in the white space. Like so much of this was around tech standardization and standardization of the of the tech stack. And I think that that's still critically important because as you noted, like that doesn't happen in most environments. Which is really unfortunate. Because that's truly the low hanging fruit of this. But now, like I I I think I'm like you, I actually really appreciate uh digital transformation. It's one of those terms that I think doesn't get enough credit because people misunderstand exactly what it means. And how to actually leverage that that that type of engagement. Um but I think it, you know, there's we're now on sort of this hamster wheel of evolution of of the IT environment. And it's a perpetual thing that you need to be aware of. So, like what are your views of what the the role of the VCI starts to play in the realm of digital transformation, AI changes and automation? Yeah, so I think there's levels in VCI, which you've uh talked about. Me and you talked about that a while ago and you you have a a beautiful chart you made with like the levels of VCI. And I think that from the simple side, there's companies that don't need a ton of leadership. But they need standardization and once a year leadership. Right? So, that's a level one company and lower operation maturity level company and they should be fine with this like an entry level VCI. And then there's level two companies that really are relying on technology and maybe they're not they're not using it as a competitive advantage. And they're not fully focused on modernizing all the time. So, that a level two VCI could be fine, same thing with engineering, right? And then there's level three. So, you have you can't pair a level one VCI with the level three client. Right? And a level three client is a fast growing company, sometimes they're private equity backed, um or just, you know, they they have are aggressively looking to grow, expand, mature, and scale. Right? So, having a kind of pairing people with the right level VCI is, I think, key. Um and then, you know, VCI should be involved in standardization, they should be involved in cyber security and IT leadership. But it the the amount of leadership and hands-on that they they get involved with clients definitely varies from client to client. Certain companies are just not focusing on um modernization. And that's fine. There's every MSP has a a fleet of clients like that. And as long as they're paying the bills and they're standardized, they're not going to create some kind of massive blow up for your engineering team. That's fine. Right? Those are companies that are that are operating in the community and are still providing solid services. Um so I think definitely matching the level to the client and what their needs are, I think it's key. Yeah, it'd be nice to be able to pull some of those groups forward. But, you know, it's the the adage of you can lead a horse to water. But you you can't make them drink. Similarly in technology industry, you can show them all the cool tech and how they could improve their business. But they may not be fundamentally interested, unfortunately. Yeah, but they still need backups. And they still need fundamental email security and basic, you know, and solid computers. Right? So. That's why I I really break it down into like digital journey phases. There's phase one is fundamentals. Phase two is operating, phase three is really established and then phase four is expansion. So. Expansion is like CRMs and automation and things like that. You can't start speaking to a a company that barely has their fundamentals down. About some of these higher end things. Yeah, I agree. Is that some of the areas that you've seen some opportunity around automation inside of the client organization? Because I think in our industry we tend to think of automation more from an RMM and an RPA perspective. Like internal processes. Are you guys seeing opportunity in client organizations to deploy some of that technology? Um we're starting. And there's a big push going on about like how do you do manage AI? So our MSP is launching that shortly. We're basically they're going to help companies implement AI and and other solutions. Because we've done it at our MSP and we've done it in in our software company. We have a decent amount of AI running, right? So we can pass that on as professional services and then find a way to package it like we did when we when we moved to manage services 15 years ago. So I think that there's a new horizon of technology services um coming up. Managed robotics is another thing. You know, in the next three to four years, robots are going to become going to start becoming commonplace in our world. But somebody's going to need to manage that. Somebody's going to need to inventory that, warranty update that, you know. That's all coming. So MSPs are at the forefront of this new digital world that I think that is it just kind of gives me the the goosies to think about. Yeah. Do you think like that's it's an interesting point. I I I mean I've been thinking about automation, I've been thinking about AI, obviously. I'd not necessarily thought about robotics being deployed. But you're you're 100% right. So. But it does lend to the idea that maybe more of the work is going to become physical. Right? Like so much of the work that we do is just sort of moving digits and data. Uh but maybe now in the future, like there's there's actually going to be like the bot person inside the MSP. That it does a lot more field work, you know, doing visits. Like. I hope it doesn't end up being like a copier type thing. Like where there's this adversarial relationship with a mechanical thing. Uh but, you know, what are your thoughts on that of like like more of uh physical elements potentially being required uh for the MSP? I mean, it depends on how much robotics will break down. Right? I'm sure there'll be specific repair um operations. And I don't know if it's MSPs today. That most of them are not getting involved in copy or repairs and stuff. The repairs that MSPs do are light. You know, swapping a chip or something like that. So they'll probably still be they'll be like repair operations, but somebody still needs to update the firmware, create a asset list of all all these components. Same thing as like IoT. So, the MSP world is about to get very, very broad. MSPs should start getting ready for it. That's another one that. I I continue to forget about because but it has a very real opportunity. Right? Like there's so much hype around AI and the AI consulting opportunities and as I said on sort of the last the last episode of of this rethinking series. Like I see a a heavy split between people that believe that AI consulting is a thing. And other people that say like that's not going to be a thing for like five or 10 years. But IoT is absolutely in the environments that we work in. But we don't tend to think about it or manage it properly. Uh what are your thoughts on on sort of IoT broadly and how it's impacting the MSP market? Initially years ago, we we were pretty heavy in manufacturing, right? And we had a lot of clients starting to use IoT, but they were just co-managed clients. And they would have, you know, devices everywhere. But I think that that never fully materialized. Because not a lot of companies really have a ton of IoT. They they'll have like their devices. Their eco bees and their ring cameras and all these other things flying around their offices and Sonos and stuff. But. You know, the how much management that really is needed to even not even worth the juice is not even worth the squeeze to catalog all that stuff. And like an asset list. At least for right now, there's no tool in the market that can go around and like capture it all. Right? And. So, and I don't know if that's as big of a a thing unless you're in manufacturing. And you're in those industries. Um that you're actually that you have a lot of these devices and then you need to protect your you need to create sub separate VLANs. And and and really manage those devices firmware updates because a lot of them are just complete open holes into your network. So that's a big one. If you're in manufacturing, your IoT devices should be separated, segmented on a separate VLAN and you should be managing them separately. Um but in regular businesses, I haven't seen that expand so much. But AI, that is a big one. Every business is going to be benefiting from AI in the coming years. Um even on basic elements, right? Of just having a chat GPT team subscription and and helping companies use it better and then helping companies integrate into their workforce. Because. Whatever you think about AI, it's here and every company needs to start thinking about it. And start to implement it into their operation because if they don't, their competitors will. And then you'll have they'll have a better experience. Yeah, definitely creating a a competitive advantage for sure. Um it's interesting with AI. I don't know, I'm sure you've you play with it a lot. I'm a technologist, I've been tinkering with AI since it it released originally. And now I'm sort of like I feel like I'm really getting my stride with it. It's interesting how long it's taken to really figure out how to put it into my workflow despite how much I dabbled with it. But like I can tell you in the last two weeks, like I am constantly in chat GPT and Claude. Right? Like just doing different things and I'm really sort of figured out how it fits into my workflow. Which helps to kind of imagine like why this is a this is something that requires some assistance. Because you're like, well, great, I can ask it some questions if I have some questions. It's sort of the initial initial thought. But once you figure out sort of how it fits into a collaboration process and, you know, supports you in in your your current workload. It is pretty incredible all the things that you can do with it. How are you leveraging uh AI in in your work? Oh, so many ways. I mean, we just launched our AI bot for strategy overview, Arya. And that I think is going to be a a massive game changer in the MSP world. Because Arya can fill out a full QBR and an assessment. She's still very new, she's still needs to be trained and calibrated and you need the right data. But basically what she does is she looks at IT glue and your health standard for every item. And she'll fill out what your status is and how it's aligned in your stack. And then she's going to be writing executive summary, she's going to be writing a lot of things in the organization. So that I think is a major game changer in the entire MSP space. Because we want Arya to run a monthly QBR on clients and monthly standardize your entire stack. I think that's going to be huge. Yeah, I think it lends to the idea of just like all the administrative tasks that you can think of in your organization. Regardless of what you do. And there's a lot of them in the MSP of just sort of data consolidation, data interpretation. Especially in QBRs. Right? Like at least with tools like strategy overview and the others in the market, we've gotten away from people, you know, running 18 reports in four different systems and then trying to cut and paste them into a word document. Like that was originally how we built QBRs in the day. Right? So like at least we're not doing that anymore. But it's still a fair bit of work. And I think like there there is some advancements that'll be pretty cool to make this stuff just more seamless, right? Well, yeah, we're going to fix that. I mean, we're. My vision is a client comes in, a new MSP signs onto the platform. And they click one button and within a minute all their clients get standardized. And you get a full picture. That that's what we're building. Not implementation of standards. But like. Not implementation. No, no, no, but get a total picture and a total plan. Right? That's what we're building. But and then just to follow up on that about what other really tangible uses of AI that we found. On the strategy overview, we implemented Arya into Arya has many faces. She's sliding around all over the place. So, we have um her answering uh support requests, right? It's pretty accurate. I don't have exact statistics. But let's say 10% of support chats are answered by Arya and she just literally looks at all previous chats. And uh knowledge base and supplies answers, which is really powerful. So that's not in our in our product, that's just another face of Arya that's using another engine. And then on the MSP side, our team is very heavy into um AI. They use thread. So like the killer combination in MSPs today is strategy overview, thread and roost. Like those three. That combination is is just a a killer, right? So, they they use thread. Um. And then AI recording on meetings, like transcription. Um like fathom is wonderful. Um so. We essentially are using AI for recording transcription, answering initial tickets, triage. And some of those elements. And then definitely in the cyber security space, you know, through the email platforms, through like. We're heavy mesh user. They're wonderful on email security and they have uh like machine learning on that. That flags threats and things like that. You know. And the classical we call classical, but like, you know, Sentinel one and all that stuff can technically be considered AI driven as well. Because there's some engines that are running there that are AI powered. So really AI is intertwined with our with our workforce. And then definitely using chat GPT. We have Arya as a chatbot in strategy overview too. So I use that all the time. Like whenever I have a little question, I won't even go to chat GPT. I'll ask quick questions in Arya, right in the in the app without leaving. Um so. I'm using Arya in the app, I'm using chat GPT uh teams, I'm using cloud. And then uh I'm still using Google. Like Google AI is really powerful, like when you're searching. Sometimes it's really nice to just search and get a quick answer. That it's in some ways it's a little bit faster than chat GPT. In some ways. Right. Yeah, I I know a lot of people really like perplexity uh for search. I've not had a ton of success, I've just dabbled with it, uh not spent a ton of time. But like just for like if I need steps on something. Like for example, I bought a new TV. Like where is this setting in this TV? A Google search for that like brings up a pretty good answer in that that that Gemini sort of short form at the top of the list. Like it tends to work pretty well. Yeah. Yeah. I had a really good use case uh the other day. So it booked a a trip to a hotel uh for my family for the summer. And it's a new hotel that's opening up, but it's they're kind of renovating. And I couldn't tell if they had a balcony in on the rooms that we were booking. So, I I went on Google Maps, tried to find it, I see that the rooms have balconies. Um and I called the hotel and it was a higher property and they don't have they they don't know, right? Because they they acquired the property. I asked uh chat GPT, I looked at the old name of the hotel and I said, do these rooms have um balconies? And they it did a full internet search, so instead of me having to dig through Reddit and old travel forms and figure it out. Within seconds, it said, yes, these rooms have balconies, every room in the hotel's balcony. So it's like a it's a ultimate fast Google search in some ways. So I I think that that. I haven't I haven't played around with perplexity too much. But that is a such a cool application of um of AI. That you know, when chat GPT first came out. I was a little skeptical initially that, you know, how is it really going to be valuable, but I it's it's incredible. What the what is possible today. Yeah. Well, the future is very bright. Lots of uh agentic AI showing up all over the place. Helping us do our work and take away some of the menial tasks and freeing up us up to do more strategic work. And spend time with clients driving value, right? That's what I want to do. Yeah. Yeah. Because if MSPs are not focusing on VCI and IT leaders are not focusing on doing manual assessments. And checking things manually and like, you know, uh updating reports. Um and if they're just spending their time providing IT leadership. That is. Infinitely powerful. That the clients are happier, the team is happier. And then having it all visible in a beautiful client portal, I think is is also really important. Like it's another thing that really sets strategy apart. Is a very clean, beautiful UI. I mean, it's we're so meticulous about it, we spend so much time on it. And it's we it keeps getting better and better and cleaner and cleaner. So. And and clients being able to log in and see their full IT strategy, all their assets, everything in one spot. And all their office licenses. It's really a thing of beauty. Yeah. Awesome. Well, appreciate you spending some time, Alex, and talking about uh sort of the the current state and potential future of the VCI. As we're rethinking VCI, anything we haven't touched on before we wrap up here? Um. I think that every MSP just needs a a focused process. Um one thing that we've really brought to. Our MSP and MSPs that are are partners with strategy is. We're telling people, run your companies kind of like a software company. So, when I was an MSP. Right, I lived in a world of PSA, projects, tickets, all that stuff. Right? And then when we got into the software world, we started seeing, you know, Jira, DevOps. Um Scrum, Agile, waterfall, all these concepts. So, I really got a a a first-hand look in how software companies in the world are operating. So. I think that that type of process should be implemented across every organization. Every team, every department should be running in an agile type process. So. Every MSP should have a agile type board and we built that into our app as a plan module. But whatever you want to use it in Asana or whatever, right? I I think our plan module is going to uh be the best out of all those. Um but. Running your MSP and every department and team in an agile process is huge. And that's intertwined with EOS and all these other goal setting processes out there, right? But if you have a concerted effort to improve something and you look at it, break it up into um like a yearly goal and then quarterly and then break it down into monthly goals and then have regular meetings and really track the progress of that. That's I think a major key to MSP success in the coming years is getting fanatical with consistent process and traction. So. That's something that, I mean, you know, you have a VCI course, which is wonderful, right? And and having a consistent process to improve something is is a big deal. Yeah, even just to start with something and then continue to iterate. That's that's what I'm really big on. Is is just start with your core and then continue to layer on and build and build and refine, right? Yeah. There's so many MSPs that we're still experiencing today that, you know, they walk in. They're still doing their uh stuff on an Excel spreadsheet or PowerPoint or something like that. Right? They built an initial process, but they didn't iterate it. Yeah. Right? So, and they didn't have a consistent way to do that iteration. So, like our um planning module is I'm in that all day long. Uh all of our teams have a uh plan and they like are constantly uh chipping away at little tasks. Um outside of Connectwise projects and outside of like traditional project management systems. Then our entire operation runs in an agile methodology. So I think that that's one thing that not a lot of people talk about. But I think that everyone should start to focus on that. Run your MSP in an agile process and then bring that to clients. Bring that type of process to organizations. Whether you set them up with notion or Asana or something like that. You inject that process into an organization. And it creates magic. Like our process that we've chiseled away over many years. It truly creates magic, it grows companies. It grows companies like. I've never seen before and when a company comes in and they go into our strategy process. They just flourish. Because they they they get the fundamentals down and then they just start what's next and what's next. So I think that that. That is something that MSPs need to start really thinking a lot about. Awesome. Well, appreciate the time, Alex. Um keep doing what you're doing. Great work. Yeah, thanks, Todd. Yeah, I'll see you soon.