ERP079 - MSP Insights Series 5

You don't sell the individual technologies and pieces and components that you've put together. You're not selling a Barracuda email security system, you're just selling a spam filter. And if you sell the benefit of the product rather than the product itself, then the product can be replaced as necessary as time goes on. Welcome to Evolved Radio, where we explore the evolution of business and technology. I'm your host Todd Kane. The Evolved Radio podcast is brought to you by Evolved Management Consulting. It's our mission to help MSPs increase profit and decrease stress. If you're in the MSP industry and manage people, you should really check out my service manager training course. It's like the missing manual for how to run high-performance service delivery teams. Most managers in the IT space have never had any formal training. If you'd like to step up your game and become a successful manager, check out the Evolved Service Manager training course at training.evolvedmgmt.com. That's evolved with a D as in Delta, or you can visit my homepage and scroll down to the training section. Today, we're continuing our series of interviews with MSP owners and operators. We peel back the curtain a bit to hear from the people working inside their MSP businesses. We focus on revealing the lessons learned and experiences in building a managed IT service business. Joining me today on the Evolved Radio podcast is an MSP channel champion, Ernest Murray of Genuine Technology. Ernest is a well-recognized member of the MSP community, his focus on SOPs and strong technical standards is often used as a reference point for others. We also talk about his view of security on our industry and Ernest provides a host of insights from his experience growing his managed services business. If you enjoy the show, please consider leaving a rating and review in your favorite podcast app. It really helps to spread awareness and bring more listeners to the show so we can share the message with more of the community. Now, on with the show. Ernest, welcome to the Evolved Radio podcast. Hey Todd, thanks so much for having me. Great to have you. So, another guest in this series that we have running around MSP owners and operators. And kicking things off with a common question, I'm always curious about people's history on this and like to know what was the story behind you starting your your first IT business? Was there a point in time or something you reflected on where you said, you know what, I'm going to I'm going to start my own IT company? What was the story behind that? Uh, you know, it's a great question. I started my MSP. I mean, throughout my life, I've always had this ideal of making people's dreams come true. And part of that was with my dad and his his company. He ran a very technologically forward thinking HVAC company. You wouldn't think of heating and cooling and technology, but he really wanted to bring those two together as much as he could. And he loved the aspects of automation and constantly pushing that envelope forward. He was one of the the first in the nation actually put computers in the trucks and and start tracking a lot of the the repairs and everything that was happening from the truck perspective. And my dad doesn't do technology, like he doesn't have a mind for it, but he understands the benefit of it. And so part of me being an only child and homeschool all the way through, I grabbed on to that vision. and started helping him and his business and then that led to helping other people and other businesses nearby and helping his friends with with their companies. And that that's how I got started in in the IT space was really just a drive for helping small businesses and making people's dreams come true through technology. Cool. Very similar story to me. I kind of just sort of fell into it very early and and family associations and neighbors and stuff like that. Uh you just sort of fall your way into it, I suppose in a way. Was it intentional or or or was it sort of happen stance, the circumstances created that opportunity for you? The circumstances very much created the opportunity. My normal desire and odd way of understanding computers made it possible. Very cool. Okay. So I guess, you know, you you've had a great career in this and and a deep history, the stack that you've built and and the technology that you're using for your company. is is sort of widely viewed and and compared against I find and your name comes up a fair bit, which we'll we'll talk about a little later as well. But just based on sort of your plentiful experience, what are some of the things that you've learned in your experience in growing your MSP. that either you think other people should know or that you wish you had understood earlier in your growth journey? The most important thing, especially when you're starting a new MSP is, and this is highly overlooked and it's something that goes against the grain for the people who are mostly starting MSPs. Marketing and sales. Marketing and sales is just it's we start off as I mean, you had this this chat with Paul, but marketing and sales is something that is not natural for most MSP owners. And it's something I wish we had focused more on when we were developing our company in the early stages before we had a bunch of clients building that marketing engine. so that we had just this natural flow already in place of of sales coming in the door. The other thing is that we focused way too much on the technology. Which again, stack and technology is something that MSPs really get hung up on and especially new owners and your single operator, you're thinking I've got to get the best stack in place. What we've learned over the years is that your stack is going to be constantly evolving and changing. Don't get too tied into any one particular product or solution. Because it'll get purchased by somebody or it'll start going downhill or something newer and better and whatever will come out. And that also comes down to the sales side as well. You don't sell the individual technologies and pieces and components that you've put together. You're not selling a Barracuda email security system, you're just selling a spam filter. And if you sell the benefit of the product rather than the product itself, then the product can be replaced as necessary as time goes on. You're right, that's one that I see a lot is that analysis paralysis. of, you know, well, I'm not quite done, you know, maybe this uh how should I build this and what else should go in here? And, you know, three months later, the person is still sort of holding back from from launching a service. or adding a new solution because they're they're just constantly sort of turning the the turning the dial a little further. Which is a bit impossible in an industry that as you say is is is changing so much. I often joke it's an industry with a six-month shelf life, so, you know, learning is just a state of being in this industry for sure. And and I think a lot of that comes down to the mentality of the people who are attracted to the MSP world and the IT services world. And that is that they want to have things perfect. They want to make sure that everything is in a row, that everything is lined up before they execute and do something. And just like you said, that analysis by paralysis by analysis, that overthinking it, that constantly going after something will cause business failures and it it will cause you to not be where you want to be. You've got to be willing to take what's good enough for now and be willing to modify it, change it and expand it later on. Right. Yeah. So the sales and marketing, what have you found to be effective? Like what were you say it's an important component for for MSPs to get right? It's obviously a space where they're not they're not terribly comfortable. So what are the components that worked well for you early on or that you later learned were really key components for that sales and marketing engine? The sales and marketing side has always at least for us been through referrals. And again, I I think that I think when we're when we're talking about finding new business and we're talking about the MSP and the IT space, it's a very relational business. And everything that you're doing within this business is based on relationships and trust. A company is coming to you because or a company has a need for an IT provider because they don't understand it, they're stuck, they are in a place of vulnerability. And when someone's in a place of vulnerability, they're going to be looking for somebody that they can trust, that they can hand that responsibility to, and it's not going to be somebody they picked out of the yellow pages. It's just not. Not that we have yellow pages anymore, but. Yellow pages digital would say different, yeah. Most of the time that that we run into things or that we run across clients who reach out to us from methods other than coming in through referrals, often it's just a second or third bid in their process. Right. And and we can convert those, there's a conversion rate for those, but it's not nearly as high as the ones that come in through a referral basis. Usually those folks have already picked somebody out, but just for due diligence, they have to get three or four more quotes. So I have to imagine you have a more, how would I say this, a more structured approach to farming referrals. Because I, you know, you hear this, like people know that they need business from referrals, but then, you know, their response to it is, well, I've asked some people and I've not gotten anything. So, maybe I'll provide a tactical component here that I find useful in the past and then you can expand on on sort of your process. But one of the things that that I heard that makes a lot of sense and I've seen work really well is that you actually have to be very, very specific in telling people what you're looking for in a referral. Because if you just say, hey, do you know anyone that needs some IT, they're like, I don't know, like maybe, like I'll I'll let you know and then they forget about it the next day and you never hear from them. Whereas if you say, you know, do you know other colleagues in your industry that have a business like yours of a similar size that are have some level of frustration with IT, they've they've made comments to you or complained about something. Can you think of anyone that that we might be good to talk to and provide some value? And the more specific you are in that description, it's more likely to trigger a memory or a thought in their head. of like, oh, actually, yeah, I was golfing with the, you know, Terry last week and and he said he was frustrated with the IT support that they get, maybe I should refer that person. So being specific in in asking for what you're looking for in a referral, I find is really valuable. What are what are some of the other things that you've found useful in in in a more structured approach to referrals? Oh Todd, you're you're exactly dead on there. You can't just say, hey, do you know somebody who needs IT services, it has to be specific. Train your clients what to look for and how to refer. They want to refer you. They want to, but they don't know how, they don't understand it. Again, the technology side of things is so vast and vague that they don't know who is an ideal target for you. And when people are making referrals, it's again a very personal and relationship thing, they don't want to send somebody to you that's bad because they feel that that could damage their relationship with you. And at the same time, they don't want to refer somebody who isn't a good fit because that would damage the relationship with the other person. So you've got to be specific in who you're looking for. And often what I've found and and we switch it up through through each of our our TBRs, we switch it up with each of our our meetings with our clients. But we'll ask them and each time it'll be a little bit different. Do you know anybody who's moving into a new another company that's moving into a new facility? that we could help move into there. Do you know anybody who's struggling with a lot of spam in their email right now? Do you know anybody whose emails are constantly dropping into your junk mail folder? Like there's a lot of of ways and if you come up with these list of very specific things. You can prompt people very clearly and ask for those specific referrals and then also in the process, make it clear to them that. if it works out great, if it doesn't, that's not going to impact anything with our relationship here. And so giving them that confidence to be able to go and do it. And if you're doing referrals or you're going to any of these like BNI or any of your local groups where you're getting together with other local businesses. Again, the same process there, the people in the room are not your customers. You're not going after the people in the room, you're going after the people they know because they are connectors. And so you again, you have to be very specific in those events to say this is what I'm looking for and use those that same list of things, but change it up every week so that it's something a little bit different every week. That's a really important point. I I think that that is not something that occurred to me necessarily, but is is a really important point about those networking events. People often say, well, it's not terribly useful because, you know, I went there and just meant met a bunch of realtors, right? And, you know, they're they're not necessarily a great client for me. But you're right, it's it's they're they're not the target. So I think that's a really important thing to keep in your mind when you're when you're attending those. BNI is and those types of groups is an interesting one. I maybe that's part of it is like people are not thinking they're reading the room wrong as to who they should be speaking to necessarily. But I also find there's a highly variable quality between kind of chapter to chapter and city to city. Do you think that that that is a component of it or is it more just that people are not necessarily approaching the room correctly? The vast majority is that is that you're not approaching the room correctly. You walk in thinking, I'm here to network with these people and get these people as clients. And that's not the case. You have to see them as connectors. They exist there because they're looking for community, they're looking for people to connect with. And and that's the whole thing about those is to to be trading referrals outside of the organization. And while that may seem like, oh, there's a room full of business owners here, they're not really going to be the best fit for you in most cases. So that that's certainly part of it. And then the other part of it is making sure that you take advantage outside of the groups to meet with each of the individual members. You've got to develop the personal relationship. Again, IT and MSP and everything that we're doing here is very highly personal. It's very much like a relationship with a doctor more so than it is a mechanic for your car. Your doctor's going to know a lot of personal info about you and know a lot of your dirty secrets and all of that and as IT, we have access to that same stuff. So you've got to go out there with that mindset of, let me build the relationships with people and give those people the tools that they need to connect me with other people. the clients I actually want. Yeah, right on. I want to maybe to dip a bit into knowing that we should avoid the stack, but I'm curious maybe one of the components of sort of your approach to the business. is and correct me if I'm I'm wrong in understanding this that you guys are are quite prescriptive in that you have an integrated stack that is sold as a solution and you can't really kind of take it on in a piece mail fashion. The way I would interpret this is you guys have designed a technology stack that provides a solution that is all the components provide some layer of value. and you don't necessarily say subscribe to, you know, the the good better best model or the gold silver bronze, but this is our solution. We've tested it and it's good for you and, you know, you're you're fairly prescriptive in that. Is is that the case and can you kind of expand on your thinking around that? That was a hard one to come up with. We really had to think through from every angle we could possibly think of to put this together. We need tools that allow us to standardize things from a management perspective. Right? I I don't want to be dealing with a 100 different firewall brands. I don't want to be dealing with a thousand different switches out there. I don't want to be dealing with a bunch of different email security solutions. In order for us to know something, we need to know it in depth. And so we went down to the very core basics of what is required for an IT department to manage a company. And then what tools will allow us to do that across multiple clients? And that was the stack that we landed on. So I wouldn't say that we have a locked-in stack so much as I would say that we have a locked-in foundation. Once that foundation exists, we can then utilize the tools in that foundation to build and customize to whatever the client needs. But that foundation of good IT support and security is required in order for us to work with a client. Right. And security, you know, again, being sort of a ever present. and and certainly a rising tide of of an issue in in the MSP channel. Like you've been fairly visible again in in the channel and have a a good relationship with some of the security vendors. How do you think about security and sort of the the growing concern that it's becoming in the channel? Security is something that we as our clients IT department have to manage on their behalf. We have to own that. And I think a lot of MSPs approach it more from the perspective of let me offer these tools. And then the client picks and chooses, that's not going to put everybody at risk. Because the client doesn't understand, that's the whole reason they're working with you, they don't understand technology. They are relying on your expertise as an MSP as their as their IT department. So we have to take that bull by the horns. and say these are the layers of security that are going to be in place and it's to reduce risk for me as as an IT provider. And it's to reduce risk for my clients as well. So a great example or a very recent example, we had an end user that called up recently and said. Hey, I've got this razor mouse and keyboard, I want you to install the drivers for it. We went out and did some quick research and discovered there's open vulnerabilities on that software right now. We said no, we're not going to install this. And we didn't consult with the client, we didn't go to, you know, the the owners. We didn't go to our point of contact, we just simply said, no, we're we're not going to be able to do this. And then during our next check-in with with the the client and our point of contact, we told them, this request came up, we declined it, here's why, here's some alternatives and other options that we could put in place with a stream deck or some of these other things so they have their buttons that they're looking for that we can support and that we know are secure. And what happened, two weeks later, now suddenly that software is in major news headlines because of how much it you know, how easy it is to bypass admin credentials and such. So it is on us to manage that. And and the client has to have enough trust with you to be able to say, yes, the decision that you're making is good for me. And you also can't just simply say no, you have to say no and here's an alternative. Yeah. That that's a really important component. No, but. Talk about serendipitous timing, I guess, that you guys sort of denied that and then it became a more visible thing. Like that that's a a level of detail that I I think is is sort of uncommon. that you, you know, you would you would actually consider researching some vulnerabilities on a piece of software versus just saying, I don't know, I think they need it, right? Well, that's part of our that's part of our philosophy as well within the business is we have a list of software for every client and standardization, right, this is part of the IT management standardization part. We have a list of software for every client and that's going to be deployed to every machine. That's their software, that's their software stack. Anything that's not in that list needs to be evaluated. Why do they need it, what do they use it for, how do we ensure that when that person moves to another computer that we don't forget to install it? You know, there's a lot of support that needs to go on there as well. If we're putting the software on there and something goes wrong with it, who's handling support on it? Where's our documentation, where's our knowledge base on how to use it? Where do we contact the vendor? Because we have to think about it from the IT again, we are the IT department for that client. And when I say that, it's another thing that I think a lot of MSPs are are struggling with at the moment is that they're stuck in this mentality of I'm an outside provider. No. You're not an outside provider, you are the IT department for this client. You are everything from the CIO level strategy down to boots on the ground plugging in cables. And if you don't take that thought process or that if you walk in with anything other than that thought process, the client's going to walk all over you, put themselves and you at risk. Right. Yeah, that's a great perspective. I think like honestly where people suffer from this is they know what they need to do, but they're so kind of run off their feet with, you know, the quote unquote busy. You know, I hate the term hashtag band busy. But what were maybe some of the the the pieces of advice that you would suggest to people that feel they're overwhelmed, they know that they need to step up their game from an operational maturity perspective, you know, they their documentation could be better, their standardization could be better. What are some of the fundamental components that that people should maybe consider or you know, alternatively, where can they filter out some of the noise in your opinion so that they can focus on some of the more strategic activities? The most important thing is confidence. You must have confidence in yourself, in your knowledge, you must have confidence in the solutions that you're using to provide service. That confidence allows you to walk in and say, this is the way things need to happen. That's what allows you to take control of your stack, take control of the company, take control of your clients and and their IT maturity. And there's a lot of of challenge here because usually on the side of an MSP owner who's a tech, who's really a servant, that's kind of their mentality is to serve. versus the CEO of most companies, the business owners of most companies who are very A-type personalities who are just going to try and run you over. They will completely lose respect for you if you don't have confidence. Hmm. That's important perspective. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's it'll certainly help you in your sales game, but also in in sort of enforcing the standards that you think are important, right? Sales never ends. Right. It never ends. Every time that you're talking with a client, it is a sales interaction. Because you're you're continually reselling yourself and your value to them. And again, if you come across with that confidence of, we're going to put this spam filter in place and this is why and this is what it's going to cost. versus coming in, well, we've got this new thing and here's why I think you should do it and I think you might like this a lot. You're don't have that confidence when you're coming across to them, they're going to run over you going, well, it's too expensive, well, I really don't want it, well, you know. Because they're pushing their boundaries, they're pushing their limits, just like kids do with with their parents, they're going to be pushing those kind of boundaries because they don't understand. Really, they do not understand, they don't comprehend why it's so important. But if you come at them with this is what we're doing, why we're doing it and why it's important. then that level of confidence is suddenly there and they're like, okay, great, that's what you think we need to do, let's do it. Right. So is that come down to fake it until you make it type approach? In a lot of ways, yeah. There's also a lot of organizations that can really help with that. Toastmasters was instrumental for me in learning how to both speak, present and have that confidence. Yeah, yeah, Toastmasters is an excellent, excellent organization. Anyone who's looking to increase their persuasion or speaking ability or their salesmanship, I think you 100% agree that's a a great organization to check out. And finally, Ernest, as I I kind of alluded to earlier, I would consider you a very respected member of the community in in the MSP channel. You're sort of grinning. I know I don't know if you you sort of take this with a grain of salt and and maybe, you know, how you view yourself versus how people view you. being a tribal elder in the tech tribe as well as a lot of people just sort of generally talking about you in in the industry. And and sort of how you think about things, the, you know, the tech stack that you have and you're very process oriented and a lot of people, I find tend to try to model off of what you're doing. I'd love to kind of understand your your sort of perception of yourself in this. Is your visibility in the community an intentional thing or is it just sort of something that happened because you're I see you as a very genuine person and someone that that wants to support the community? So did it just sort of arise from your wanting to contribute or is it sort of a a more intentional or unintentional thing that that that you're such a visible and respected member of the community? Well, thank you, Todd. I'm I'm blushing over here. And genuine technology group is the name of the company, so genuine is part of. Yes, it's in the name. No, it it really has not been intentional. Again, it comes back to that initial philosophy that I've had since I was extremely young, which is making your dreams come true. And I've found that while that initially was birth out of trying to support the local businesses around me as I was growing up. I'm now supporting the businesses globally that support those businesses. And so by providing that level of as much as I can and putting ourselves out there and putting our mistakes out there, it not only sharpens us because people come back with really good questions and really good things that make me rethink a lot of what we're doing. So it helps us, you know, iron sharpens iron sort of deal. It also provides a lot of value and benefit to those who think through things in a different perspective because of how of what we do. Yeah, any any sort of consideration on where that leads you to or is it just it is what it is. And and, you know, you're you're going to contribute in areas that you can. Or is there sort of a a larger plan for for sort of your position in in the channel? We'll see. I don't know. I'm open to whatever comes next at the moment. I'm just here to serve and support fellow MSPs to the best of my ability in addition to supporting and serving the clients that we have through our our MSP. And continuing to grow and support the staff that we have. I think that's that's really where my position is shifting to at the moment. is from directly supporting clients to supporting the staff supporting those clients. And as part of that, supporting other MSPs and supporting their staff, right? Just kind of helping everybody as we move along through this journey. But. you know, I don't I don't know. We'll see what the future holds. It'll be interesting. I am a bit curious just the the structure of of your service delivery. Is most of the staff for a service delivery in house or are you leveraging a third-party uh master MSP in any capacity? It's a a hybrid between the two. So we utilize a company called Support Adventure and the vast majority, actually our entire service desk staff is done through Support Adventure. And they find individuals around the globe who provide our level one to level three support. And so they are full dedicated full-time employees for us. They don't work for anybody else, it's not a not a shared solution, it is dedicated staff. They are much lower cost and I find that they are much better in terms of of how they operate. They have a much better mentality when it comes to supporting and serving than folks that I could find here locally. So we combine that with some staff that are here locally to actually go on site and to support more of the management side of things. And those are you know, so we're doing a hybrid. Yeah. Were you driven to that just on sort of the friction in trying to find local staff or was there sort of some other some other reason that that you looked to an outsource model? The friction, so we've always been outsourced from the very beginning, but we did it through some of your more traditional sources with mission control and continuum and such. And having that level one, two, three stuff off of the plate is really important for us to have grown the way that we did. And for us to have grown as rapidly as we did. We would not be where we are if we were answering phones and trying to do all of that stuff. It was also critical for us to be able to provide that 24/7 support. So it was kind of a natural extension and step for us when we found support adventure to be able to essentially be doing the same thing. Except that we now essentially own those people, those people are ours, they work for us, they're direct staff. Without having to build out a building and without having to build out a facility. I mean, this rather iconic background here behind me is is really this it's the upstairs room in my garage is what we operate out of. And we wouldn't be able to do that if we had to have local staff managing everything. Well, historically, there's been a lot of an amazing businesses that have been built in a garage, right? Exactly. The other thing I would note about that is it allows us to provide that 24/7 support without having to keep people up late at night because we utilize a fall of the sun model. Yeah. Yeah, that's really important. And not everyone requires 24/7, but you know, the other part that I see is as as sort of important in this is that, you know, the support staff is commoditized to a large extent, you know, if it gets done and it get done well, it doesn't really matter where it comes from. And it's more important to be able to certainly spend your time and to some degree the time of of the local staff on things that will actually have an impact with that that client interaction piece that that can't necessarily be done in a remote capacity. So part of the reason I ask is is I'm seeing a bit more of a trend around this and in that the the tier one, tier two, you know, if you've built it, that's fine, but if you're starting, just getting started, I think in a lot of cases you're probably better off to leverage a third an outsource model for for the tier one. and some of that tier two just to offset the or even just to allow you some elastic capability on your staffing, right? Well, and Todd, here's the here's the other part of it that's really important. By utilizing an outside source for that level one, level two, level three, what it does is it drives processes within your own business. Your documentation has to be spot on. True. So you learn and develop those habits very early on in the company, which will really drive you through the next stages of of the MSP growth pattern. So yes, I think that's really important and yes, I think it's a great idea to outsource. But you also have to be willing to accept not 100%, right? They're not going to do things the way that you do them and you have to accept that. Now, that means that in a lot of cases, they're going to do things better than you would do it. I can't tell you how many times I've been shocked by the solutions and resolutions that that some of these folks come up with to solve problems, I'm just like, I would never have thought to do that. Um at the same time, there's a lot of hand palm, I why did they do that? And that just further helps you define your processes and your documentation in in dealing with certain situations. So documentation first, and I think that is a super critical part across all MSPs and all IT providers, and then that allows you to step into the outsource MSP world. Yeah. I think that's true and, you know, you see that in organizations that are built as remote first in that documentation is is really critical. You know, you can get by with a lot of that tribal knowledge and and just sort of what I describe as the five smart guys in a room. But, you know, that's really difficult to scale. So if you can get it right and in having that a process or an SOP culture early on. to to to get those things in place, then it'll it'll set you up with a much stronger foundation for growth later on. And and this is again where balance comes in and it depends on what type of MSP and IT provider that you're you're trying to build. If you want a super high quality, super responsive, everything gets resolved within 30 seconds type of MSP, then the five guys in a room is as far as you're going to go. That's what I would consider more of a boutique MSP. You've got to have super high prices to have the right people to be able to provide super amazing support every single interaction and every single time that a client reaches out. But you can't scale that way. So what type of business again are you trying to build? Neither is it's not a good or bad, you just have to determine what type of business. Do you want one that's going to scale and if so, what kind of scale are you looking at? Or do you want one that's really more of a a lifestyle business where you're building it up and you've got a couple of people helping you out, but you're providing this super amazing support to end users. And you have to price accordingly because if you're going to have a smaller MSP, you're going to have less income or less opportunity for income because you can only support a certain number of clients, so you're going to have to be charging a premium for that. Yeah. Both of those points I think are incredibly important. I double underline both of these. is that being intentional about what you're building is incredibly critical because so many operators and and owners, they continue to just sort of be a passenger in the growth of their business, right? It happens organically without a lot of intent and you end up with what you end up. whether you plan for it or not, right? And you may not be sort of super happy with what you end up with and if you build an organization that is not scalable, but has gotten big, that's a really nasty thing to try and untangle later. versus having a vision of what you want this organization to be and being intentional about how you actually grow to match that model, I think is is super critical. The other part that that I would double underline is, if you're going to have a small boutique organization, charge for it, right? Like you can't have both. I I often see that that that conflict of, you know, I want more clients, so I'm going to price myself more competitively. But I don't have a scalable organization, which means I'm personally working 80 hours a week in order to try and compensate for this, right? Like it's not both. And I don't think there's anything that you should be afraid about. I I'm a fan of always always never be afraid to go up market. Right? And you can sell for more, it may contract a little bit the the size of your sales pool, but you know, in most cases, that's going to be a good thing. You're you're going to end up with clients that are a better cultural alignment with what you're trying to build and you know, they're invested in you and and they're not necessarily price conscious. So that can be a good thing in both of those ways for sure. And it really depends on how you're presenting it as well. Again, if you're coming in and saying, here's all of these products that we're going to put in place, you're like the mechanic telling them what tools you're using to fix the car, they don't care. They care about is what is the end result for my business going to be. And so we don't get price push back, we just don't and we're we're absolutely the highest pricing that anybody's going to find in our area. But the reason is because we come in and say we're aligning with your business, here's the tools we're putting in place, these are the results that you're going to see. You're going to see a 30% improvement in in productivity and we can say that with confidence because we have stories from every single one of our clients of that happening. And so you come in with that mentality of I'm going to help this business. I'm coming alongside as a part owner with no ownership of this business. And I'm going to drive them using my skills and technology to be more efficient and effective at what they do. And if you come in with that mentality and that perspective, it really changes the sales game and it takes numbers out of the equation entirely. Yeah, no, that's great perspective. We've almost in a way come full circle around the the things that you you talked about before. is sales and marketing is critical and one of the most important components to getting that right is is the confidence in what you can deliver. Right. Well, this has been great, Ernest. I really appreciate your time and and everything you do for for for the channel. You know, I know you're you're quite willing to be in touch with people if people wanted to reach out to you and and connect and is there any socials that you would suggest that they land on? Well, thanks for the opportunity, Todd. It's been really a lot of fun to to chat with you about stuff. Yeah, you can reach out on my website. It's Ernest.pro, E R N E S T.pro. Okay. And genuine technology is is the the MSP, cool. Genuine Technology Group is the MSP. We're based out of Portland, Oregon. Awesome. This has been great, Ernest. All the best and we'll see you in the channel. Thanks, Todd.