665 Leadership Lessons from Nancy Henriquez

Hello friends, Uncle Marv here with yet another street interview here at Pat's Egg Beyond in Denver, Colorado. This is 2024, bigger, better than ever. And we're going to try to squeeze in one more here before lunch.

And, as I had mentioned earlier, we had Juan Fernandez on talking about all the big Super Ops announcements. But of course, I got to have, I don't want to say sidekick, but that was the first thing that came to my mind, Nancy Enriquez, head of community over at Super Ops. Hello, hello.

How are you? Sidekick's not a bad thing, you know. Luca's got Kyrie and Batman has Robin, you know, so sidekick's not a bad deal. You know, I would say, so there's a lot of people that compare Juan Fernandez to Vin Diesel in Fast and Furious.

There's a lot of commonalities with cars and stuff like that. So I'd have to say, yeah, I could be the little sister, you know, so sidekick in a way. Sad to say, I've never watched any of those movies.

Oh my goodness, Marv, you're missing out. I don't know. I don't know, but you guys might be missing out because Luca and Kyrie aren't doing so well.

Down 0-2. Don't remind me. Don't remind me.

My 15-year-old son told me he's going to cry himself to sleep. Well, he did cry himself to sleep after that loss, so second game. That hurt my heart.

All right, well, let's talk about something a little more uplifting. Oh, yes. Please do.

So we're here at PAX 8. And as I had mentioned with Juan, people were telling me when I came in on Sunday, yesterday, saw the sign, they were like, man, Super Ops is everywhere. Yeah, yeah. And of course, the announcements today with PAX 8 having Super Ops as part of the marketplace and everything.

Let me first ask you, because you have been on a whirlwind tour, going from place to place to place. So let me just ask, how have you been? How's life? Go. Yeah.

Oh, I love it. I love it. So I have gotten the chance to go to several different places, new places for me, because I used to not travel that much.

And so it's been an amazing experience. And I think like every conference, every city that I've gone to and met all these MSPs and I walk away with like a renewed purpose every single time. And it's phenomenal.

I can't even explain it. So as head of community, one of the things that you guys have done is you've actually put together a Super Ops community. But even before that, I've got to imagine that you spent a lot of time just simply talking to other MSPs.

And this is completely different from when you ran your MSPs and met up with people at conferences and stuff. Now you're kind of helping them in their journey in some sense or fashion. So how has that been? You know, when I sold my MSP, it was really difficult for me as a woman owned MSP to lessen that number, even by the minute number that my loan MSP was.

That was something that was disheartening for me personally. And now doing the work that I'm doing, I've been able to almost gather and look for all these other women owned MSPs. And that was one of the very first initiatives that I had coming to Super Ops was how do I help other women not only run and grow their MSPs but bring them together so that we can talk about certain challenges that we have as women, unique challenges, trying to run MSPs.

And so that has been something that has just grown tremendously and it has made me so much more excited about what we're doing here and not just in supporting women owned MSPs, but then the extent of my own experience bringing that in as a Latina, as a millennial and being able to now support other MSPs that are on the journey of growing their businesses. And so it's almost like my purpose has doubled or tripled in scale since coming to Super Ops and being given the opportunity to serve the community in that way. So I'm going to take you back a little bit.

Let's see how well you're OK with this. We first met; do you remember when? Oh, man. Oh, you're making me drop.

I know. I'm so memorable. No, no.

We met. You had joined us for a diversity podcast. That's right. 

Before COVID. Yeah. And it was one of those things where you were running the MSP and we were talking about being, you know, a female in tech.

And of course, you know, you're female and Latina and the business owner, which some people didn't respect. And I mean, now I'm not any of those things, but as a black American, there are times when I would get that, where if when I had techs, if I would roll into a shop and would start to do work, people would look at my tech as if he were the boss because he was white. Yeah. 

And when the tech would say, oh, no, the boss is there. People were looking. It was a weird way to explain their look.

Yeah. You know, as if to say, oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. 

I'm sorry. Just I'm the man. But I mean, so looking back, I mean, it's your journey, you know, going through those, I don't want to say struggles, but I mean, it's a little harder of a road for us than it is for some. 

But now you have grown into a position where you can now affect, you know, how other MSPs are viewed in this space of all colors and races and genders and all of that stuff. How much do you think you get asked about that? Or is it just all about, man, I just want to be a better MSP? How can it how can it happen? No, I get all sorts of different questions, you know, and I think that that's the that's the key here, right? Like, although we're all in business and we're all trying to grow businesses, we start as humans. And so our human experience creates the what we create as a business and it impacts everything that we do within that business.

And so it starts off as who we are as people and then goes from there. And so I get the questions all the time of, you know, how did you overcome certain things? How did how did certain things affect you? How did you navigate certain things? And, you know, and I get that question coming from not just women, but also from male MSPs that are young and starting out. I just got a DM in on Instagram from a 23 year old aspiring MSP owner.

And for me, it's like, how can I help? Because I was 22 when I started my first IT company. And I hid that fact for so many years because I was afraid that I wouldn't be respected because I already had so many other challenges in front of me being a woman, being a Latina and then being 22 at that. It's like, who's going to respect a 22 year old, you know? And so I thought that way.

And so I want to change that for those that are coming into the industry now to embrace who they are, because that is how you're going to make the biggest impact in your business. And so that's, I forgot your question. That's OK. 

You answered enough of it. That works for me. So let's shift now and take that into this community aspect, because one of the things that I've not asked you or Juan about is that community aspect. 

You guys have started building that. I'm assuming it's huge because the interest in Super Ops has been tremendous as far as I know. But let's talk about what are the actual elements of your community. Yeah. 

So it first and primarily starts with education. So not only are we doing the Super Summit where it's that daily or that one day full of business education, but on top of that, we're trying to figure out how do we support you on a day to day basis? You know, how do we support you not just in a business sense, but also on the personal side of things? And so we're bringing in all sorts of different experts, business coaches, personal coaches into our community to talk to everyone that is involved with the community. And you don't have to be a customer to be involved within the community. 

And so you can come in and learn about your business, learn about, you know, how to gain some of that confidence that you need in order to sell more. So it's there's many different elements. And we start off with that education first, because for me, at least, that is what made some of the biggest differences in how I managed my business and then how I grew it and eventually how I sold it.

So it's it starts with that. So the Super Ops events, the community, I understand you guys are putting together a resource library. Absolutely. 

Yeah. So, again, it goes back to education and then providing what those resources are. So, you know, if you are looking for, you know, how do I sell something? How do I market myself? How do I market my business? All of those things are available within our community.

And then, you know, Juan is an author of multiple different books in the series of the MSP Owners Handbook. Tell me those aren't in the resource library. They are not. 

But, you know, that's something that we're actually giving away as, you know, once you join the community, you will get one of those books. So, again, it starts with education. Don't tell Juan I said that.

Don't listen to this podcast. Don't buy Juan's book. No, buy the book, actually, if you can't get it.

The MSP Owners Handbook. Actually, a pretty good, phenomenal starter guide. Absolutely. 

Yeah. All right. So what else is in community? So the events, the resource library, the forums.

Yep. The forums, not just user forums, but also different topics that affect business. And so that's those are all things that we're talking about.

You know, what impacted your business the most and what are some of the biggest challenges you faced? And that's where we learn a lot more is through other experiences. And so those are all things that everyone is sharing within the community. And that's fantastic to see, which is everyone being open and honest and vulnerable, which is what is needed in order for others to be able to learn from.

So, yeah. All right. Well, since you said being open, honest and vulnerable, let me ask you this question. 

Let's see. I think it's going on, what, eight, nine months that you've been in the role now? Yeah. Eight months.

OK. So what personal goals do you have for yourself in regard to what you're doing, both with Super Ops and with your journey? Oh, I love that question. And I hadn't really thought about it per se, you know, and there's so much work to be done within the community itself.

And so for me, it's really about growing that reach and helping as many MSPs as we can. And so until that is done, I feel like I have so much to do here. So that's.

All right. That didn't tell me anything. There's so much work to be done.

That was generic as can be. Well, you know, there's a lot of MSPs that, you know, need help in growing their businesses. You know, a lot of accidental entrepreneurs like me out there that need some guidance.

And so we want to kind of be that beacon. Right. And so that's I guess that's where I see myself continuing to grow is being that beacon and providing all those resources and connections in any way that I can help to grow MSPs.

All right. So I'm going to make this one of those staple questions. And whenever we're on the show, I'm going to ask you, have you updated your goals list and what you want to do? So we'll see how it goes.

And of course, you can always come back and say, listen, until we've educated every MSP, the job is not done. Yeah. Yeah.

That'll be good. All right. Well, I know we're getting close to lunch and you and Juan are going to be on this tour after all these announcements today.

So that should be fun. But folks, Nancy Enriquez with Super Ops. And like I said, head over to the website, ITBusinessPodcast.com, click on the link.

It'll take you there. And I don't know. Do I get credit for anybody that signs up with you? You do, actually.

So come check us out. Help support the podcast and support this partnership, IT Business Podcast and Super Ops. That's right. 

And I don't think I'll be making the next summit, but I'll have to make a trip out to Dallas to see the new office. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. 

Got to have you. Yeah. It's a beautiful office.

And yeah, we'll take you around the city. All right, folks. Well, thank you to Nancy and thank you to Juan from earlier.

And that is going to do it from Radio Row here. We'll be back with more soon. Again, head over to the website and click on the Super Ops link and check them out.

That's going to do it. See you soon.