[38] – Special Guest: Richard Tubb – The IT Business Growth Expert

Welcome to PSA Impact, your podcast for all things PSA, RMM, and MSP. With your hosts, Rayan Bucianico and Chris Tim. Learn how to get the most out of your PSA tool and manage your business by maximizing profitability and increasing efficiency within your MSP business. Let's listen in. Hi, everyone, and welcome to another episode of PSA Impact.

With your hosts, myself, Chris Tim, and my co-host, Rayan Bucianico. Hey, Rayan, how are you doing today? I'm doing great today, Chris. How are things over there? Very well, thank you.

I believe it's warm over there for you. Yeah, it is. It's actually beautiful out today. Nice. So I don't know if you had anything planned for today, but we have ourselves yet another very special guest.

I'm really excited. Yes. This special guest probably needs no introduction, but I'm going to give it anyway. So he's well-known in the IT community. He's very active in all of the channels.

He's very active in all of the communities. He seems to have a solid finger on the pulse of what's going on in that all things IT. So without any further ado, let me introduce the one, the only Mr. Richard Tubb. Thank you very much.

What an introduction. Thank you, Rayan. You're very welcome. Thank you for joining us. How are you doing?

My pleasure. I'm really well. All the better for seeing you too. Chris, one of my oldest friends in the industry, and I mean that in both the literal sense and the metaphorical sense there as well. And Rayan, it's a pleasure to actually spend some time in your company.

I've been looking forward to this. As have I. And you and I, we've crossed paths practically all the time, but never, or not a whole lot on the one-on-one type of thing. So I'm really looking forward to having you on our show today. So thanks for taking time out and joining us.

Thank you. Thank you for having me. So Richard, I guess for the one person in the industry who doesn't know who you are, do you want to just give us a little introduction about yourself, where you come from, how you got to where you are today? Sure. Well, bless you, mate, for bigging me up.

I appreciate that. Yeah, so my name is Richard Turb. I used to own a managed service provider business based out of Birmingham in the UK. And I actually sold that business 10 years ago now. And so what I do on a day-to-day basis is I'm an author.

I'm a speaker. I'm a blogger. I'm a podcaster. I'm a video recorder in the managed service provider space. And basically, what I do is help other MSPs, other IT business owners, to avoid the many, many mistakes that I made when I was an MSP owner.

And the great thing about that is, Chris, there was an infinite number of mistakes there. So there's an infinite number of pieces of content that I can write and talk about it. So plenty of mistakes to share with people. Absolutely. I think I've probably made every one of those same mistakes.

I mean, you and I pretty much grew up in this industry together. I think we probably met each other back in, I want to say, like 2003 or 2004, somewhere around there, when we were both fledgling MSPs. That's right. It was a long, long time ago. And yeah, it only seems like yesterday in some respects.

And then in others, I look at you, Chris, and I think, wow, it's been a long time. I love you too, mate. Well, I mean, it has been a long time, right? I mean, that's, what, at least 20 years? Exactly, yeah.

I can remember, I mean, you and I, when we were running managed service provider businesses together, and it was probably a stretch to call them MSPs at the time, because we were sort of moving out and doing the break-fix thing and moving into the recurring revenue side of things. But you're absolutely right. We sort of grew up in this industry together. So I love you, mate. I appreciate all you've done in this industry.

Yeah, I appreciate you too, mate. So, and actually, that leads me, I guess, nicely into the first question. You mentioned that you used to be an MSP, and used to run an MSP business. So, as this is a podcast all about PSAs, and I kind of know what you're going to say with this, because we've had this conversation before, but if you were to start an MSP business again, would you go for a PSA, RMM solution, even if you started as a one-man band? And if you did, would you kind of go for the PSA first, and then go for the RMM?

Just talk me through that process. Yeah, it's an interesting question, isn't it? And it's, you're right to ask it, because lots of people ask this question, when should I get a PSA tool? For me, if I talk about, first of all, theoretically, what I would do if I was to start an MSP again, and for all the MSPs listening, let me reassure you, I am not starting an MSP again. I'm not going into competition with you.

No way, no how. Very happy doing what I'm doing. But theoretically, if I was to start an MSP again, having a PSA tool would be the absolute first thing that I do, because all three of us know, and everybody listening to this should know, that the PSA tool is the heart of a managed service provider business. It is the business operating system. Everything that you do within your business really should go through the PSA tool.

So absolutely, I would start off with a PSA tool. That's the theoretical side. But in practical side, we were just talking about our long history in this industry, Chris. I can remember the time when I was moving from break-fixed to managed service as a fledgling MSP, I probably put off getting a PSA too long. So I was using a CRM system, a customer relationship management system.

And it was like, yeah, this is fine. It does help desk. It does a little bit of billing. You know, it does a little bit of document storage and those types of things. Why do I need a PSA tool?

And yet when I moved to the PSA tool, and I think we had, you know, three members of staff at the time, and I was thinking, you know, this is a big cost. Do we really need to do it? And, oh my goodness, of course we needed to do it. It was so obvious with hindsight that needed to do it. And really I would have saved myself a whole lot of heartache, a whole lot of time, effort, and energy, if I'd have just started the business with a PSA tool and built everything on top of that, instead of trying to fumble my way through with a CRM tool or with some sort of homebrew concoction before then trying to move everything to the PSA system.

So in answer to your question, theoretically, you know, hypothetically, practically, and everything else in between, yeah, I would move to, I would have a PSA tool from when I first got started. Now, if I can rewind a little bit further, Chris, and just add to that, when you and I were doing the PSA thing way back at the start of our MSP journey, there was really only a handful of options, wasn't there? You know, we've got the Autotask, which is now, you know, Datto. We've got ConnectWise. There was TigerPool.

There was a few other players around there, but it's probably fair to say when we were doing it, to move to invest in a PSA tool was a massive investment of not just money, because these were, you know, expensive products for what they were back then, but it was massive investment in time because, you know, as you've, both of you have talked about on this podcast before, and Chris, as you've wrote about in your book and everything, PSA tool is not an off-the-shelf piece of software that you just grab, you know, like Microsoft Word or whatever and go, there we go, we've got a PSA. Everything is going to be right in the world. It doesn't work like that. And I think the thing that held me back at the time was just realizing how much effort and time would need to go into implementing the PSA as well as paying for it. But if we fast forward sort of 15, 20 years to where we are today, there's a ton of tools that are really, I'm not going to say easy to set up, but the friction, the barrier to entry is so much lower than it was back then.

So I think, you know, for anybody listening to this who's perhaps not made the move to a PSA tool for the reasons we talked about, for cost, for the complexity, well, the complexity shouldn't really be an argument against it now, because there's people like you two around to help hold people's hands through it. There are other PSA experts in the world. The world is, you know, there's a lot more knowledge around PSA tools now. So the complexity shouldn't be so much as a barrier. And the thing about the cost is it's not so big a lift.

There are new disruptive players in the market that are making it easier for MSPs to slap down their credit card and just get up and running with a PSA tool in no time at all. So I guess that's a long answer to a short question there, Chris. But, you know, if I was to start an MSP again tomorrow, and I'm not going to, but if I was, I would absolutely get a PSA tool. And I would probably get one of these next generation PSA tools that is out there that just enables you to get up and running really, really quickly. So I have a question.

And, you know, I was, one of the questions I wanted to ask was what size of an MSP is the right size? But I think you've already answered that. And the answer is any size, right? So let me just rephrase my question a little bit. So picture the scene.

There's a one man show or one person MSP, and they're struggling, right? They're struggling to keep up with the work. They're struggling to keep up with the workflow and get everything into the system. They're considering hiring. Should they hire before they implement the PSA?

Or should they implement the PSA, take that time, you know, and get their procedures in before bringing anybody else in? And follow up question to that, which should they hire first? Somebody to manage the PSA and do the admin work, or should they hire a tech? Oh, that is a good question. So to answer those questions in turn, in terms of what size you should be when you get a PSA, you know, I talked about it earlier.

You know, if I was to do it again, even as a one man band, I would get the PSA tool. But for people listening to this, you know, they're like, oh, I've got three people. I've got five people. Should I get a PSA tool? Whether you're a big company, small company, one man band, anything in between, I think the answer is going to be the same.

And this isn't an advertisement for the PSA industry. It's got plenty of faults, and I'm happy to talk about that as well. But- We'll ask you about some of those. But the answer's going to be the same, because if you want to get organized and put your business in a position where it can grow, to take staff on, to delegate, potentially even to outsource, if you want to be organized, then you are going to need a PSA tool to get on top of that workload. If you are disorganized and you are getting stressed out, not taking any time for holiday, worried about your business going under because you're a single point of failure, and, you know, if you get knocked over by a bus or something terrible happens, how will the business survive without me?

If you are stressed out, you need to get a PSA tool in place as well, because the only way that you can alleviate any of the problems within your business is by documenting, is by putting systems in place, is by using automation to leverage your business, and so all roads lead to getting a PSA tool. So that isn't a glib answer, Rayyan, to, you know, the question, you know, which way would you go? If somebody comes to me and wants to work with me as an MSP and they say, oh, Rick, I can't remember the last time I had a holiday, I'm stressed, I'm working too much in the business as opposed to on the business, what should I do? And I say to them, oh, well, what PSA tool do you use? And if they say, we don't, let's talk about getting a PSA tool.

And if somebody comes to me as a one-man band and says, right, I want to build a business that's scalable and I want to make sure that the business isn't just focused on me and I want to be able to hire people, what should I do? I'll say, well, what PSA tool do you use? And then we talk about getting a PSA tool in to document and systemize their business. So again, I'm not being glib with the answer, but whether you want to grow your business, whether you want to get out from under of a stressful situation, all of the roads lead in the same direction. You've got to get systems, you've got to get documentation, and that means a PSA tool.

Whether you want to have a lifestyle business, and that's absolutely fine, whether you want to be a one-man band IT consultant, but if you want to take holidays and if you want to give yourself peace of mind of being able to take time off, even at short notice, you've got to have it documented to be able to delegate, to outsource, to hire people, whatever it looks like, all roads lead to PSA. So with that said, second part of your question, what would you hire? Who would you hire first within the business? I can give you the answer to what most people would go for, which is I need more technicians within the business. Oh, I need technicians to come on board, and so if I get an engineer, we can help take some of the workload off me.

That's fine, but what I find is most MSPs who hire technicians then hit a brick wall because the technicians, rather than being able to get on with the technical work, are constantly asking them questions. They're saying, what's the IP address of this client or who's the contact here? And again, you can see me smiling, or rather the listeners can't see me smiling, but Rae-Ann and Chris can, because the answer's going to be, oh yeah, you need to document those things so that if you bring people into the business, they're not constantly tapping you on the shoulder, they've got the information they need, you probably need a PSA system. So going down that road, if it were me, and if I was starting again tomorrow, I would probably hire somebody for the administration side of my business first. I would probably outsource, I would get strategic alliances and partnerships with people for technical ability, and in terms of the PSA expertise or any other expertise that I needed, sales or anything else, I would hire experts to advise me on how to do that myself.

I wouldn't necessarily outsource the sales function or anything like that, but I would surround myself with good people who can advise me on what needs to be done. So I will get off my sight box at that point and step down, Rae-Ann. I don't know if that answers your question or not. Oh, it totally does. And I think that I'm seeing a future book called All Roads Lead to PSA.

I was just going to say the exact same thing. I was actually going to say, I might steal that title, or Rae-Ann and I can co-author this book. So sorry, mate, you said it on our podcast. It's your intellectual property. Go for it, yeah.

Only if we can get Rick to write the prologue, right? The foreword. I would happily do the foreword for it, yeah. I was actually, funny enough, I literally wrote it down on my pad and I was thinking, I'm going to say this. As soon as you finished on that, I was going to say, All Roads Lead to PSA.

I think it's an awesome title for a book. Chris, I have known you long enough that when I saw you writing down on the pad there, I knew exactly what was going through your brain there. So that's not a shock to me. Absolutely. So, I mean, and actually I just wanted to point out something you said about getting a PSA, especially as a one-man band.

So when I was a one-man band, I got a PSA tool right in the beginning. And I remember, as you said, way back then there was Connectwise and Auditask and all the big boys. And as a one-man band, they kind of poo-pooed me and sent me on my way. But I literally said to them, I have all the same pain points that every other business has, right? I have no efficiencies in my business.

I am not able to track time. I'm visiting customers. I'm writing time down on a piece of paper. Like, I definitely want to use a PSA tool. And eventually encouraged them, well, when I say them, eventually I encouraged Connectwise at the time to actually sell me a license.

And they did. And I put everything I did into the business. And that enabled me to scale the business to such an extent I was actually then able to bring on more staff and eventually sell the business. So absolutely, without a shadow of a doubt, if I hadn't put a PSA tool in, I probably would never have sold the business and would never have been able to grow and scale the business. So absolutely agree with what you're saying.

And there's a point, if I can make it here as well, there's going to be people listening today who are using a help desk tool or, you know, CRM or SharePoint or Post-it notes or whatever works for them. And they're saying, this works for me. Why should I spend $50 a month, $100 a month, $300 a month on a PSA tool when it's going to have functionality that I'm not going to use? And I understand that argument. But if you want to grow your business into something scalable or something that's more than just you owning a job, if you want to build a business, you are going to have to do credit management.

You are going to have to do better finances. You are going to have to delegate tickets. You are even going to have to outsource. You're going to have to triage tickets. You're going to have to do all of these things that yes, you are not doing at the moment, but in order to grow the business, you are going to need to do.

So whether you want to do it or don't want to do it, you're going to have to do it if you want to grow the business, even if you're a one-man band with a lifestyle business. Because if you are a one-man band, and I know there's going to be one-man bands, you know, listening today, the biggest challenge you've got, and I'll be really upfront and honest about this, is you're a single point of failure. If you get knocked over by a bus tomorrow and Chris, you know, as well as I did, that three years ago, was it three or four years ago, this happened to me not once, but twice. You know, so for anybody listening to this and think, oh yeah, that's the hypothetical situation if you were knocked over or taken out of the business. I was taken out of my business not once, but twice in a single year, laid up in hospital.

And my business continued because I'd systemized, documented things. So I was able, yeah, I didn't make a lot of money that year, I'll be upfront, but the business was able to keep ticking over. So for anybody listening to this as a one-man band, or indeed anybody who is listening to this and they know they're a single point of failure within their own business, anybody who's got knowledge in their head rather than down in a system, that should be your biggest worry at the moment. And to get rid of that worry, the answer is simple yet complicated. Simple in that you need to get all the information out of your head and into systems for other people to read and use.

Complicated in that you've got to get everything out of your head into systems for people to use. So it's not an easy process, but it is a simple answer to a complicated question. So you brought up some points, right? And of course my brain starts thinking and going into these different directions. So I want to ask, because you're talking about getting the systems in place, you know, and the documentation in place and having this business be able to run, you know, without you, right?

And we all aspire to having a business that can run without us. But if you were going to build this, what do you think are the core components of your basic automation tools that you need in order to be able to automate your MSP, right? Because that's what we're talking about here. So the biggest pain point that I see, so we talk about managed service providers, but nowadays you've got cloud solution providers, managed service providers, and one of my vendor friends called them XSPs because it's literally put an X in front of its service provider. Everything's as a service now, isn't it?

Whichever part of the market you're in nowadays, it's the biggest pain point that people tend to have is around the billing. So you buy, let's say Office 365, Microsoft 365, or Google Apps, Google Workspace, plus antivirus tool, plus the RMM tool, plus the email filtering, plus A, B, C, D, E, and F. Brilliant. But then when you come to actually bill for it, in an ideal situation, that just works perfectly, doesn't it? Because you buy one license off this vendor, you bill the client for it, and away it goes.

We know the world doesn't work like that because you get a client who halfway through the month says, oh, we've got a new member of staff joining. Can we get this? And look, we don't want to pay for a full month. Can you pro-rata it? And then we've got people who, especially during the COVID times, life gets in the way.

People are not working for whatever reason or not. So we need to suspend licenses and suspend billing. It becomes a monumental headache. I mean, I don't need to tell you this, Rayyan, because you're the expert in this field. Not trying to teach you to suck eggs at all.

But the biggest challenge, the biggest pain point that I see people having is how to match up the billing. And the easiest solution that I've seen people come across is I will worry about that another day. And then what they end up with after three, six, 12 months, oh, we've not billed this client for X amount of licenses or whatever. What do we do now? Do we eat the cost?

Do we have a conversation with them? Oh, but they're going to be angry about it. Or the opposite ends of the scale, and this happens to a lot of MSPs. Oh, Chris, I've just had a look at our records. We've been billing XYZ Engineering Company for three users who have not been there for 18 months.

How should we broach this subject with them? So in answer to your question, Rayyan, the automation, the number one piece of automation I've put in is around the billing. And thankfully, you know, I know we're talking about PSA tools, but you've got distributors out there, you know, there's PAX 8, there's GECOM here in the UK and others who have got these brilliant onboarding systems which sort of do all of the automation from the buying a license into billing and doing everything else in between that integrates into the PSA tool that does the billing and that. So, you know, I would invest heavily in making sure that I've not got any holes in my bucket where like licensing and stuff like that is leaking out. I think that's a big part of where MSPs can win with automation nowadays.

Yeah, and I mean, I agree with that. And I think there's a lot of these new sort of vendors have come about, you know, like you said, the PAX 8 and the ShareWebs and what have you of the world who make the integration of that billing really, really easy, right? Because like you say, you know, you custom masks, you're halfway through the month, you go in, you add another license, it automatically adds it to the contract and automatically prioritizes it for you and bills accordingly. So, and I would absolutely encourage any MSP that's using a PSA tool or certainly the ones that integrate with the likes of PAX 8. If you're not using, you know, some kind of automation tool like that, you really should be and really should be looking at those tools because it's gonna make you so much more efficient, you know, with all the old fashioned way of doing it from some of the other vendors are, you know, it's a very manual process and that's where things get forgotten about.

So it absolutely makes sense to integrate with those guys. Yeah, I was chatting, I mentioned Geocom earlier who were, I know you've got a worldwide audience, but for the benefit of people outside the UK, Geocom are a UK based, what we would traditionally call distributors, but of course they're not moving boxes anymore, they're moving, you know, digital bits of information, licenses. So they would refer to themselves as like a cloud solutions provider. But I did a video demo of Geocom with their cloud dashboard and it literally was like shopping, you know, on Amazon or something along those lines, perhaps even Uber Eats when you get in something, some food because I ticked the Microsoft 365 license and then it said, oh, do you want like a antivirus? Do you want BDR in there?

Do you want email archiving? Do you want this? Do you want that? Do you want the other? You tick the boxes, you press the button, 30 seconds later, it came back and it said, oh yeah, we've set up all of that, we've set that user up in all of those disparate third party systems and we'll send you one bill for that every month straight into your PSA tool.

Now this is not an advert for Geocom because as we said, we've got PAX 8 in the US and Europe now that do something similar to that. But for any MSP, yeah. Ingram Cloud also has an integration tool and I'm sure that there are others out there that's just one that came to mind. Exactly. And, you know, the bottom line here is though, don't rely on manual processes for doing these things, reach out to the vendors and reach out to the distributors to ask for their assistance with doing these things because distributors historically would buy in bulk, you know, a load of boxes from somebody, you would phone them up, they would send you a box out and they would get paid to be the middleman.

Now, the real value that they bring is by enabling the vendors to speak to the MSPs and to do the integration, almost be the middleware for those old listeners sitting there, listening to this, you know, they're the people in the middle that actually make this system talk to another. So the distributors can bring an incredible amount of value. So, Sirik, we've spoken a lot about PSAs and this is a PSA podcast, but I wanted to go for a minute onto the RMM tool because that's something that, you know, a lot of MSPs use RMM tools to manage multiple endpoints, you know, and is the RMM tool a primary target for ransomware attacks on MSPs worldwide? And if so, do you think that this is the beginning of the end for RMM tools and what would replace them? Oh, you like a bit of controversy on this show, don't you?

Is this the beginning at the end of RMM tools? I can put you on the spot, mate. Oh, I'm happy to be put on the spot. So to rewind, let's address the first thing that you talked about there, which is, you know, for any MSPs listening to this right now who do not think that they have got a massive red cross on their back as a target for cybercriminals, think again, you are the number one target for cybercriminals. And we saw lots of media news stories coming out about MSPs and we've had the SolarWinds, you know, hack and all those sort of things that have gone on as well.

The reason the cybercriminals are targeting the managed service providers is that they have the keys, you have the keys to the kingdom. Think about it, whether you're listening to this and you're an IT consultant with a handful of clients or you're a managed service provider with tens, dozens, hundreds of clients, each of those clients have got their systems with hundreds of endpoints on with access to their clients' data in there as well. You are literally the gatekeeper for these hundreds of systems and cybercriminals love the idea of this. You know, if they get a piece of ransomware in there, it's not just going to be one of your clients that's going to be affected, it could be dozens, it could be hundreds and their clients might be affected as well. So it's now time for MSPs to, you know, to put up or shut up.

And the reason I say that is for so many years, managed service providers and people in the IT industry as a whole have said to end users, do as I say, don't do as I do. Let me give you an example of that. Chris, you and I have gone out to visit managed service providers who, and we've walked into their comms room at their office and it's been an absolute pigsty. They have had servers that are just sitting around on piles of books. They've had cable string all over the room and it's been an absolute mess.

Now, if they walked into one of their client sites and saw that, they'd go crazy because they'd say, well, what happens if the cleaner walks in and unplugs the server to plug the Hoover in? Or what happens if somebody breaks in overnight? Where's the locks for the server? And what happens if somebody steals the backup drive or the NAS or whatever, you know, it's not encrypted? Yeah, MSPs were living with all those risks themselves.

And for anybody who disagrees with me, there's going to be lots of people listening to this podcast who are sort of tugging their ear a little bit now and going, oh, yeah, that's not, yeah, I maybe should do better with this. I know because I go out and visit or before the COVID-19 pandemic, I've gone out and visited MSPs who were embarrassed about these things. So the point is now we need to be treating ourselves like a client as an MSP. We need to be using multi-factor authentication. We need to be using VPNs.

We need to be using segmented networks internally. We need to be using encryption on all endpoints and all data in transit. We need to be doing all of these things. Then we earn the permission to have the conversation with the clients and say, look, this is how you run a modern secure business. Let us help you put that in place for yourself.

But really, and again, this is a bit of a soapbox topic for me, as you can probably tell, as my voice gets louder and I get more animated, it's really difficult for us in the IT industry to preach to people, oh, yeah, you should use strong passwords and you should use MFA. When we know that there's loads of people on loads of MSP help desks every day who are not doing those things, and it is a terrifying thought, and we need to pull our socks up as an industry as a whole. So I know I've sort of gotten my soapbox and harped about that a little bit there, Chris, in answer to the first part of your question there, but it's super important that we realize the power that we've got as MSPs and the responsibility that we've got. And that's why we're so valuable to our clients, but it's also why we're such a high value target to cyber criminals. Now, the second part of your question, which is, are RMMs dead?

No, of course they're not. Remote monitoring and management systems are not gonna die because we're always going to need those type of tools to do the work that we do. But the onus is gonna be on the vendors as well to be a part of that supply chain and to take their security, not just seriously, but military grade seriously, to take things really, really seriously. I've been really pleased looking at the industry, you know, Atera, Datto, many others have made multi-factor authentication mandatory for MSPs. And I applaud that because it's not a good case to say of saying to MSPs, oh, we really think you should use MSA, MFA, I beg your pardon, or two-factor authentication.

It's a case of saying, uh-uh, you're not using our product unless you meet up to our standards because we are gonna pull this industry up, we're gonna make it secure. So, you know, in answer to your question, I don't think RMM tools are gonna go away, but there's gonna be a much higher focus on security. And so MSPs listening to this, do your due diligence, have the awkward conversations with your PSA and RMM providers and say, what does your security look like? What does the roadmap for security look like in the future? Because things like MFA are not nice to have anymore, they're absolutely essential.

Yeah, I agree. And like you say, I mean, Datto is now enforced on both their PSA and their RMM product. So, you know, and I know that all of, or most of the other RMM and PSA vendors at least have the option. So, you know, if you haven't turned it on, then please go ahead and do that. I mean, the amount of MSPs I work with who give me access to their PSA, so I can make some changes.

And this is God's honest truth, the password is 12345. And it's like, guys, this is your critical company data. This is your customer's data. I mean, you know, that right there is probably a breach of every regulation under the sun, right, I mean, GDPR, especially, you know, and, but I see it all the time. I see MSPs all the time, not securing their systems.

And so I think it's really good that, you know, certainly the big vendors have now enforced it and it's compulsory. So. Yeah, exactly. We need as an industry to be, you know, as the French would say, drinking our own champagne as maybe in North America, the phrase is eat your own dog food, but we need to be doing, you know, saying to people, look, this is how you run a secure business. Oh, and by the way, we do this.

We're not just, you know, saying do as we say, not as we do. So, you know, you guys know that my core business is really an account firm. We, you know, we accounting for MSPs, you know, throughout for everywhere. Anyway, you know, I recently went through this hiring process where I was hiring some new people to come to work. And I don't know what made me think of this, but one of the questions I asked during the interview was what MFA tool do you use?

You know, I didn't send it to them in writing. I didn't want to, you know, if I had to explain what MFA was, or, you know, what, you know, what kind of apps they are, then they're not the people that need to come work for us. We're very technology advanced for here. And so, you know, and so the two new hires, you know, one said, oh, I generally use Authy. And I'm like, okay, you're in.

You know, well, it's not why I hired him. You know, I hired him because he had skills, but he at least passed that, you know, basic level test. He knew, not only knew what it was, but he already had one that he used on a regular basis. Yeah, I love that. I love that, Rayanne.

And I've got to share with you as well. My accountant here in the UK is a company called Ashton McGill based out of Dundee, really a progressive forward-thinking accountancy. And they posted an article to their blog just this week, and perhaps we can include it in the show notes if I share it with you. But they talk about, here's what we can learn as accountants from the IT industry. And I wanted to share that with you, and I'll do it on air, because that's just the way we roll.

But, you know, it was one of those really interesting things where they're looking at the IT industry and saying all the things that we do well, which is we use cutting-edge systems, we use cloud systems, we're great at customer service. That's arguable, but, you know, all the impressions that we give them are the things that we're good at. And the accountancy industry is now looking at what the IT industry is doing and saying, we need to pull our socks up and we need to do things a little bit more modern than that. So, you know, it's a great article. And I think there's also a lesson for MSPs without going too far off our tangents.

Keep your eye, don't become so insular within the IT industry, you know, that you don't keep your eyes open to what's happening in other industries and see what you can learn from it, because consumer tech, you know, retail, things like that, you can learn an awful lot about what it is to run a good cutting-edge business from looking outside the IT industry. You know, and that, what a great segue into my next question. There are plenty of MSPs out there, and, you know, sometimes they'll stumble across me and I'll ask them how they found me or whatever. And I might mention a couple of names that are well-known in the IT community or at large. And, you know, if they've never heard of, if they've never heard of you or Carl Palachuk or, you know, Nigel Moore or, you know, ASCII group, so many of the other communities out there, what would you, and if you've encountered this person, where would you steer them?

You know, where are the best resources for an MSP or even, you know, a one-person shop? What are the best resources for somebody to go to? That's a great question. And I would actually rewind by saying I absolutely come across people before who, you know, have got no idea of this wonderful community that we're a part of. They've never heard of Chris.

They've never heard of Rayanne. They've never heard of Richard. They've never heard of Carl. They've never heard of, you know, peer groups. They've never heard of user groups.

They've never heard of communities. And their first question, Rayanne, when I say to them, oh, do you know such and such, or have you ever been to this user group? They say, what? There's other IT companies out there and sharing with one another, what on earth did they get out of it and why would they give away their trade secrets? And it is mind-blowing.

And they tread very, very carefully and they think it's a scam. And then I, you know, I say, hey, come along to a CompTIA meeting or, you know, join in this webinar or whatever it might be, or buy this book. And they're like, this has changed my life. I never for a minute thought that there would be other IT business owners out there who would share freely of their time, knowledge and experience to help me grow my business. And I'll say, well, the good news is there's not just a few, there are hundreds, there are thousands of people.

I mean, we work, you know, for all of the faults that I've mentioned. And I should say upfront, I love this industry. I love managed services as the niche part of the IT industry, you know, as a whole that we work in. I love the people in it. And because we all share our knowledge, that old phrase, you know, a rising tide lifts all boats.

I think so many people in our industry do this without even realizing that's what they're doing. And it's helping this industry to mature and to grow. So for anybody who's, you know, not aware that there's all these experts out there who will share their knowledge, time and experience, you know, a quick Google search will show you. What I would say is it's a fairly, without being a clicky industry, it's a fairly tight knit industry, isn't it? So Rayanne, I know you through Karl Palachuk, who was a great friend and mentor of mine.

Nigel Moore, who we mentioned earlier, you know, he and I became friends and went into business together because Nigel read my blog and books and things like that, which is, you know, really flattering. Chris, you and I met through what was HTG back there, which is now the ConnectWise Evolve groups. You know, there's this massive community of people and you only have to meet one of them, I would say. So there's people perhaps have stumbled across this podcast today and they've suddenly got these names. Well, who's Nigel Moore?

What's the Tech Tribe? Who's Karl Palachuk? What's Small Biz Thoughts? Chris Tim's got a book. Rayanne helps people with, you know, their accountancy and their PSA side of things.

What? It can be mind blowing, but you only need to get an introduction to one. And we're very fortunate in this industry and we're all great champions of one another. And so you only need to be introduced to one person and that trust will build up and then you'll be introduced to a whole world of other people. But to answer your question, and your listeners have probably already got the idea, I would never answer a question with three words if I can use 30.

Somebody came to me for the very first time and said, okay, I need to gain access to all of this knowledge and that I would point them towards CompTIA, which is essentially a trade association for this industry. I would point them towards Karl Palachuk's blog, Small Biz Thoughts, or I would encourage them to go and check out the Tech Tribe, which is an awesome online community for MSPs that all three of us are a part of. Those three places you will find, you are going down the rabbit hole. Once you go down the rabbit hole, you're gonna find out there's a million other resources and all of them are gonna be valuable for you. And we'll link to all of those in the show notes.

And just talking about this whole industry, and I think this also kind of ties into the question I wanted to ask you next, and it's kind of the future of our industry. So we're seeing all the time that so many vendors are being bought out by everyone else, and there's ending up being kind of three or four kind of really big vendors that pretty much own everybody. So where do you think this leaves us in the MSP space? Oh, lovely. I love how you put me on the spot with these things.

Am I gonna bad mouth any of the vendors? Am I gonna say this is good, bad, or indifferent? No, because what's gonna happen here is, you and I, all three of us have been doing this for long enough that we have seen small players become big players. We have seen new disruptive players enter the market, and then after a time, those disruptive players become bigger players. Then the bigger players rest on their laurels, and you get a new disruptive player come into the market, and so the cycle continues.

So I know there's a lot of fear and sort of uncertainty out there. You know, all the venture capital companies that are investing and hoovering up these different MSP vendors, and people are like, oh, what's gonna happen? We're only gonna be left with three or four huge players. It's not gonna happen that way. I mean, look at the PSA space.

We're on a podcast about professional services automation here. We've already mentioned Autotask, which was bought by Datto. We mentioned ConnectWise, but there's other players in the market as well, and some of the up-and-coming ones, like Atera, based out of Israel. Gil Pekelman and the team over there have just got $25 million of funding, and that is, you know, their tool is one of the tools that answers the old question, what should I get first, a PSA or an RMM tool? Why not both?

Because their tool does both of those things wrapped up. You've got other companies like, you've got Computecate based out of Holland, the Netherlands are doing great things, Synchro MSP. You know, there's so many in the space. We've got Harmony PSA here in the UK. And Harmony, sorry, has just been acquired as well, right, by Engram, so I don't know if you know that.

I didn't know that, so thank you. There we go, breaking news. The point is, there's going to be other players coming through all the time. I mean, you know, I've been in this industry long enough. There was a small player started out a long time ago, a company started up by Christian Negelli in Van Rynum.

Do you remember what they were called, Chris? Centrastage. Centrastage. I remember seeing Centrastage present a user group meeting, and we're going back sort of 15, 20 years now, and having a quiet word with Ian and Christian and saying, this is a great product. I don't think it's quite ready at the moment, but, you know, stick at it and you're going to do great things.

I wasn't quite that condescending, but I caught up with, you know, Christian a while ago. Centrastage got bought out by Autotask, which has now been bought out by Datto, and Christian, you know, is heading up Datto in Europe and the UK now. There's an example of a small player who became an established player who has become a big player, and now they are having their heels nipped up by the likes of Atera and Synchro and Ninja RMM and all these other players that are coming out there. So this industry, yeah, it expands, it contracts. It expands and contracts again, but wherever people become too big and start resting on their laurels, which happens, you're going to get a disruptive player come into the market because the market dictates, the market always wants competition, and so that's why I'm a massive fan of the smaller players who come in and disrupt, and I will use my podcast and my blog and, you know, my video and social media to shine a light on all of the players in the market, just not just the bigger ones.

And actually, if I can say a funny story. So you talked about Centrastage. So when I ran my MSP business kind of the same time you did, I had a very similar conversation with Christian Nagini. They actually came and saw me in my office when, you know, they were just a fledgling company and they were kind of saying, you know, what should a PSA, what should be inside an RMM tool? You know, and I had a very similar conversation with them is, yeah, it's a great tool, it's not quite there, it's not ready, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And I thought nothing of it. I then sold my business, was approached by Autotask. I then went to work at Autotask. And a few years later, Centrastage was acquired by Autotask. And then I ended up working with Christian and Ian.

And it's, you know, it's really good to see a company like that. As you said, it was this fledgling little company that, you know, had this product that wasn't quite there and look where they are today. I mean, they're one of the biggest players in the industry. And, you know, I have so much respect for those guys, but it was really great that, you know, I sort of had that conversation with them and then worked at Autotask and kind of got to work with the guys that kind of introduced me to this product many, many years ago, so. It's brilliant, isn't it?

And the pace of change is so fast. So I mentioned Atera, the RMM PSA company out of Israel. They've only been going for, what is it, three, four years? Because I remember having, I had Gil Pekelman, who is the co-founder, the CEO there, and I had him on my podcast probably about six months ago. And Gil and I remembered the very first conversation we had, and it was only about three years ago where I said, this is a really great product, but it's not quite there yet, but stick at it.

And now, you know, just the other week, they've got $25 million worth of funding, you know, they're going great guns. So again, you know, the point is not to name drop and say we know all of these CEOs and things, but A, it's a very close-knit community, you know, people are very open and open to advice and to guidance. But secondly, don't worry about, you know, the big players getting too big because there's always going to be new players coming to the market to disrupt it. And that's what's so cool about the IT industry as a whole. Yeah, we do have a lot of smart people in the IT industry, you know, and they're always coming up with new and creative ways, you know, to automate something or, you know, do something just a little bit better than the tool that's been handed to them.

So, wow, what a great conversation, Rick. Thank you so much. My pleasure. Thank you for letting me go on. I just treat this like a conversation with two friends, which, of course, it is.

But I hope for your listeners, they've politely eavesdropped on a conversation between three friends that has given them value as well. Yeah, man, this was such a great podcast. And Rick, you're an absolute legend. I've got a lot of time for you and I can listen to you all day. So I really, really appreciate it.

Bless you, man. Rick, if anyone wants to get hold of you and get in touch and, you know, pick your brain, all that kind of stuff, where do they go? What do they need to do? Yeah, probably the number one link to go to is every Tuesday I send out an email to the MSP industry. It's called MSP Insights.

And you can subscribe to that email that goes out by going to tublog, that's t-u-b-l-o-g.co.uk forward slash n-l for newsletter. And I'd encourage you, you will get everything that we've talked about plus lots, lots more. Cool, and we'll link to that in the show notes. Thank you. So yeah, what a fun episode.

And so, Rayanne, really all that's left for me to say now is your PSA is the key to your MSP success. Go out and make an impact on your world today. Thanks, Chris. Thank you, Richard. Thanks, Rayanne.

Thanks, Rick. Thank you for joining us today on PSA Impact. We hope you've learned something and that you'll join us next time when we answer new questions posed by our listeners.