683 Align Spending with Business Goals - Tim Coach

[Uncle Marv]
Hello friends, Uncle Marv here with another episode of the IT Business Podcast powered by NetAlly. And if you're watching live, yes, we are once again at a different time slot. We are at the 4 p.m. Eastern slot, but it is still the live show. We are still going to have some fun here. I am joined today my good friend, Tim Coach, who is, I don't know if between jobs is the right word or embarking on a new frontier is the right word. But Tim Coach is here and we're going to be chatting about spending money.
Coach, how are you?

[Tim Coach]
I'm doing great. So that's like, that's I think that's a perfect example is what do you call it, right? So there's certainly some great companies I'm currently talking to and vetting out those solutions and, you know, really putting effort into making the right next step for not only myself, but them, right?

And it's been quite interesting to go through this process. But in the meantime, as I was sharing with you, I like I don't do sitting around easy. So over the last couple of weeks, I've set up a consulting firm that really helps with kind of like the MSPs, the vendors, the channels, kind of all of that.

And I'm taking I've been involved in a few contracts now where I'm helping companies out as I'm going through this process. So it's been fun for sure on both sides, but we'll get there eventually, I'm sure.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. Well, it is a good time. And I thought you'd be, you know, kicking back, resetting, recharging.

But oh, no, that is not what you're doing, especially if you're going to come here and talk about this semi controversial topic, I think.

[Tim Coach]
Oh, listen, money is a controversial topic wherever you talk about it. It's controversial between departments. And like we can certainly get into it all day because I'm not beholden to anybody.

But I, but it's just a great conversation that often doesn't get the attention it needs to when people are trying to grow.

[Uncle Marv]
Right. And it's funny because when we first started talking about this, you know, in your mind, you are coming from the vendor side, the channel side. And I'm thinking, OK, I wonder how this translates to the MSP.

But bottom line is it does when you're talking about spending money and spending it strategically based on what your goals are. So let's kind of get into it. So when I talk to you, I don't know, was it a month ago now that we had this conversation?

How much has changed from what you thought then what we were going to talk about to now?

[Tim Coach]
Oh, I think it's still very relevant. I mean, it's not nothing's changing. I'm just I'm able I'm in a position where I'm having these great conversations with these companies that are, you know, they don't either they don't know what to spend.

And then more importantly, they don't know how to spend. It's like some of the times I talk to them, it's like they're taking this buckshot approach. And I'm like, that's not necessarily the path you need to go down.

Right. Same thing with the MSP side. You know, as you know, I rebuilt a bunch of MSPs and that's where I came from.

But when you're an MSP and you're trying to decide where to where to budget and spend money to submit to send staff to either A, get educated, B, look at the next pipeline, get, you know, thought leadership, whatever it is you're doing, that money should be strategically looked at and spent and not just out on a whim. And there are certainly some great shows out there that have no cost at all to their heavy time commitment. But it's like, how do you judge which one to go to and how to go to them and where to spend that?

[Uncle Marv]
Well, listen, there's still a cost. I mean, it's not just time. I mean, myself this year, I've mentioned many times that I will be going to three times as many conference this year as I normally do.

And it's not just the time. You still have to, you know, travel there and you're not always getting your accommodations paid. You still got to eat and all of that stuff.

And I've been lucky enough to get some media passes. So the ticket price, you know, maybe no cost, but, you know, there's still, you know, money coming out of pocket. And for me as an MSP, that time away, that money, you know, reallocated towards those extra conferences.

I've got to balance that out. So I get it. But yeah.

[Tim Coach]
And look, there's, I mean, we both know that show schedule. I was talking to Tim Henry the other day and, you know, the generics are putting some stuff together. And there's like, they've got a list of like 500 some odd shows in a year that are out there available.

How, from an MSP or a vendor, how do you figure out where you're supposed to go? Like that's a lot of shows and it's not, you know, people are like, oh, we're being overwhelmed. We need to consolidate.

We need to get less. But the reality of it is, is it's not going to happen. Someone's always going to feel like they can do a show better, right?

Just like the majority of MSPs are like, they're tired of working with someone. I'm just going to go out and start my own, right? It's the same thing.

You know, it's vendors are like, they go to these shows and they're like, oh, I like this show, but this and that and that and this is done right. I'll just start my own. Okay.

Well, where are you going to fit it in? Because now it's a hard for the vendors to decide, am I going to go to this show, which is a premier show in the U.S. or am I going to get this show, which is a premier show in the U.K., but they're overlapping by a couple of days. And do I have enough staff and funds to do them both?

[Uncle Marv]
Right. So let me ask you this question to kind of get us started. So from the MSP side, you know, we have to deal with that, you know, which conference do we go to?

Where do we get the biggest bang for our buck? And I can ask you that from the vendor side but let me ask it in this way. So with all of the conferences that are out there, MSPs sometimes will look at a conference and be like, well, why isn't that vendor here?

They can certainly afford it. Or why aren't they, you know, sponsoring at this level for this conference? They can afford it.

From an MSP's perspective, you know, listen, a lot of times we're guessing as to the money that, you know, they actually have allocated. We may see in the newspaper that, you know, they just got, you know, a billion in funding or whatever the number is. So in our minds, we think, yeah, that money's there.

Why aren't they spending it on either us or the conferences and stuff? Now, from the vendor side, how do you explain that to MSPs in terms of where the money is actually being spent?

[Tim Coach]
So one of the things that has to be kept in mind is it's like any other business, right? Like if you go out and you get a Series A or you're on to Series D funding, right? It's not just the shows and where the budget shows up, but it's like the other thing that both MSPs and as a vendor, someone who reps a company, right, as my job as a channel chief and a representative of the company, we all want to see new development.

We all want to see what's next. We also all want to see the products that we're already using that's out there be more robust. So we can certainly look at those big chunks of money and think, man, they should be doing more.

But the reality of it is, is a lot of that money typically goes in the back end to, you know, hire more developers, right? Make the pipeline a little bit better from a standpoint or the roadmap, I should say, make that a little bit more firmed up and how that goes. So the channel in itself is a very strategic piece.

If you're a big company with lots of money, being everywhere is fairly easy, right? Because you can kind of manipulate who you're spending here and who you're there. But listen, if you've got nothing to do with security, maybe you don't go to the security events.

Now, there's the argument of, well, guess who does really good at the security events? It's the people who are not security. And I can certainly speak to that because a couple of years ago at ThreatLocker, me as a non-security company, won best in show, right?

So it's like, oh, there's some things there. But in the end, it's in line with where does it make the most sense to spend the money? And if I have nothing to do with security, do I really go to security shows?

Or if, you know, I'm not on somebody's line card, right, then do I go to their show? Because let me tell you something, that third row to the right in the back corner, that's not a very friendly place to be. And those things cost money.

So it's like if you want to move from, you know, excuse my language, if you want to move from back by the crapper up to the main level, those are just continual increments of cost. And then if you want to speak, that's additional cost. If I want to put a widget in the bag that you guys get when you come to the show, that's a cost.

So being very strategic about where you place that money is how I would explain it to them is sometimes it just doesn't make sense to be at those shows. It could also be disqualifiers. Like if my product says that this is the batch of people that I can work with, but this is the amount of people to show, it may not make financial sense for me to be there because I'm only going to get two or three really good leads.

[Uncle Marv]
Now, one of the things that MSPs also grapple with is the whole idea of every time we go up to the booth, the first thing that wants to happen from a vendor is, can I scan your batch? Can I scan your batch?

[Tim Coach]
Yeah.

[Uncle Marv]
I get it. But at the same time, it's a little frustrating to get all those calls and those repeated emails and stuff like that. So in terms of to get this question out of the way so that we can move on, does a vendor really have a quota when it comes to the number of badges scanned, the number of demos booked from a show, that sort of thing?

[Tim Coach]
So the short answer is a lot of them do, yes. But it also depends on the person that's in charge, right? So I know a lot of the companies that we all know, I know because I talk to their channel chiefs, I've talked to their VPs of BizDev about how you are justifying the show?

How are you getting what you need out of it? Now, for me, because I've attended so many, I'm a very non-pressured person. Now, from my MSP days, I'm also a child of the Sandler selling system, which means that if you know that selling system, it's drive to the no.

So what it's saying is that every step of the way, and this comes from my MSP roots, is you're trying to get the client to say no, that they don't want you. Now, I know that's a very odd thing to say, especially if you haven't read Sandler, but what you're doing is you're moving them along, quite honestly, the qualification path to say, you know, when you get to that contract to sign, you should have gotten rid of every objection before you ever got to that piece of paper. Now, for me at the booth, I don't want to waste anybody's time.

So if somebody's coming up and talking to me, I want to ask them a couple of qualifiers, disqualifiers early on. And if it doesn't make sense, I'm just going to be like, hey, you know what, like we're not ready for you right now, or I don't really think this product is a fit. And I still have a way to show value for the company, but it's certainly not a quota.

But I certainly know others that say, hey, we spent $10,000, so I expect 100 demos out of this call. That may be the right way for them. For me, it's more about how does data drive it.

And, you know, so yes and no, depending on who you are and who's leading the department.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. Now we can move on. So now that you're...

[Tim Coach]
It's like the police, you know, that every cop in the world will tell you they don't have a quota.

[Uncle Marv]
Of course.

[Tim Coach]
Every cop in the world has a quota. You got to justify your job. That's just how it is.

[Uncle Marv]
So, which explains, and I've tried to tell this to people, because in Florida, it's huge where, you know, we've got the cops that sit and they're just writing traffic ticket after traffic ticket. They could do that all day, every day. And there are some days that they just don't.

And probably the reason, got the quota.

[Tim Coach]
I mean, there's a reason why that you see, you know, a more visual appearance of our officers towards the end of the month than you do at the first of the month.

[Uncle Marv]
Right?

[Tim Coach]
Like cities running low on funds. We got to get some stuff done here, guys. Come on.

[Uncle Marv]
Or a nice holiday or, you know, big event weekend. So that happens as well. More people, more tickets.

[Tim Coach]
Yeah, we got a guy in this town I live in and I met the guy on several occasions, super nice guy. But that guy loves sitting in the Walmart parking lot and popping people for seatbelt tickets all day long. Like if you're one of those that you like getting your car and you start it and you take off and you put your seatbelt on as you're driving, I guarantee you that guy will pop you.

[Uncle Marv]
Wow. That's, yeah, that's very specific. Wow.

All right. So, Tim, let me ask you this. So, you know, you've had some time now you're in between gigs or you're pivoting and stuff.

You've had a little bit of time to, you know, think from a more holistic view and not just from one particular company. So what is it that you've kind of noticed in your conversations, you know, since PIA days?

[Tim Coach]
I think the thing that I've noticed as I talk to more people is just especially the new companies that are coming in, right, is how they're trying to figure it out. But there's nobody there helping them to say, hey, strategically, these are maybe the five or the 10 events or you need to stay away from this series, but this series would be really good for you. You know, it's more just a sheer lack of knowledge about, you know, I'm a vendor.

I've created a product. I would like to sell my product. How do I go about selling it into the channel?

Because a lot of them start out with they know somebody and it's word of mouth, but it's really just a lack of understanding the amount of shows and which shows best suit their specific company. Because some of the shows just if you have the knowledge, right, they just don't fit that company. So there's no reason to spend that money.

It's also the companies that are like they want to spend big money at the big shows, but that's their entire budget. And I mean, I don't want to be mean or unthoughtful of anybody, but it's like if you spend a lot of money and you're on the third row in the back, you maybe see people on the third or fourth day or they trickle by you, right? But that may not be the best spend of your budget.

Maybe it's better to pick two or three shows that you know people who qualify for your product are going to be at those shows and spend it over that time and start building that reputation and start building your name in the community before you just go all in.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. I'll plead guilty. I go up and down all the rows, mainly because I'm looking for swag.

But I know that when I get to those corner areas, I don't want to be caught there alone because those people haven't talked to people in a while and they're just happy to see somebody sometimes.

[Tim Coach]
Ryan, there's some companies that have done some really good stuff. ConnectWise used to have New Vendor Row in the back, right? If you went all the way to the back, that's where New Vendor Row was, right?

And then last year, they moved them out into the hallway and some people were like, ah, I don't really know about that. I thought that was really smart on ConnectWise's place because, yeah, these guys are not in with the rest of us, but it was really like ConnectWise was very thoughtful about, hey, these are our new vendors coming into space. Let's get it to where people have to walk by them and they have to see what's going on before they go into everybody else.

They're spending $50,000, $75,000, $150,000 to be there.

[Uncle Marv]
I like that. Even though most of them were little kiosks, they weren't as big as a booth you'd have inside, but people were stopping and that's what you want.

[Tim Coach]
That's the thing, right? Strategically, we look at booths and where the booth is going to be placed and how the booth looks, right? ConnectWise is always very, everybody gets a pre-built booth.

These are the only things that are available. Depending on your level, this is where you get. They're very strategic about how they think about where they put people.

Taking that New Vendor Row and putting it out front in the hallway where everybody had to pass them, I mean, the only thing that they've ever done better was the puppy corner a couple of years ago because everybody went to the puppy corner, if you remember that.

[Uncle Marv]
Yep, I do. A lot of what we're talking about, as I mentioned earlier, can also be applied to MSPs, even though we're talking about it from a vendor perspective because if you're an MSP and you're trying to do stuff locally, you're trying to get to a chamber event, a local fair or expo and stuff. For Lauderdale, we have those all the time.

We have IT conferences at our convention center, which is 15 minutes from my office here. I have the opportunity to do those. I don't because I'm no marketing Marv.

I'm not going to go spend that money, but these are all things that can be done. Let me ask you in terms of you talked about being strategic, which I'm thinking the first part of that is to align your budget with the goals and objectives, which you've kind of hinted to, focus on high impact areas. That's not just at the conference you're at, but high impact, meaning the type of conference you go to, the number of attendees that fit into your bucket, right?

[Tim Coach]
No, absolutely. The budget is key. Understanding the budget and how to properly spend the budget is key.

Then deciphering the shows you're going to. Look, if you're selling a widget and that widget goes out and does something completely irrelevant to security and you're going to spend the money to go to RSA, probably not the best spend of your budget, right? I mean, that's a high-end security conference.

If you're there for some sort of, you know, let me rate my coworkers, right? There's a couple of really great, smile back, things like that, right? That's based around how you build culture within your own company, right?

RSA is probably not the place that you want to go spend your money because you're there, most of the people there are either high-end business owners or high-end tech. That's not really the crowd that's looking for, you know, that their focus at that show is culture and how do I find tools that improve my culture? That show is specific.

And there's a plethora of other shows out there that you are perfect at because those are the people that are attending.

[Uncle Marv]
Right. Now, are there any type of metrics that can be applied as to how you make those decisions?

[Tim Coach]
As far as to what shows you go to?

[Uncle Marv]
Well, yeah, in terms of like, first of all, I guess, you know, how much to spend, you know, is there like a metric as to how to, you know, what percentage to give to that budget or what percentage to give to the number of leads you hope to get from an event?

[Tim Coach]
Yeah, I think it's, so I, so I qualify, I ROI everything down to essentially how you pay for it, right? So in the early days at PIA, we did, it was price per endpoint, right? That's how it was priced.

So for me, I took the amount that I'd spent at the show and then broke that all the way down to what the amount of endpoints were, because we asked that question, Booth, how many endpoints do you have? And we entered that information. So we had the data.

So I could just fine and tell you, you know what? In 2023, NerdioCon cost me 11 cents an endpoint, right? The problem is, is now you can, you can go on up from there and say, okay, well, what was my cost per company?

The problem when you're an endpoint charging vendor is that you may have one company that has 500 endpoints and you have another company that has 5,000, that's not really a justifiable cost. It's certainly a number you want to track, but it's hard to say this is the number when you're not charging by that number. And then you also want to say, okay, well, when I sell X amount of contracts, how do I quantify that I have paid for this show from leads from this show?

Now, as far as the contract work, yeah, you get the prospectuses in and you just really start digging in what makes sense. Some of the shows you just want to be at, right? There's shows that you should just be there to have a presence.

Everybody sees you. You'll certainly do. If you do it right, you'll, it'll come out to be a good show.

And then there's other places where you want, maybe you want to sponsor launch, right? Maybe you want a speaking spot. Maybe you need a breakout session.

Maybe I remember how big it was to be the Datto, the DattoCon backpack sponsor.

[Uncle Marv]
Yeah.

[Tim Coach]
Like that was the backpack that everybody wore for a year.

[Uncle Marv]
Yep.

[Tim Coach]
So you wanted to have that sponsorship level because it got you something, right? It got you that visual marketing. So there's certainly, you know, the deeper the prospectus, the more you analyze what you can get out of it in favor of your company.

Right.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. I'm going to shift a little bit and ask you a question that might be a little different, but you mentioned talking to a lot of new vendors in the space. And there was a conversation we had earlier where you talked about being a vendor and being in the channel are two different things.

So how do you first describe that to a new vendor? And then second part of that is what about old vendors that don't get that?

[Tim Coach]
So it's, it's, it's one of those things where, so, so my specialty is driving leads. That's what I do. Top of funnel.

That's what channel does. Now, the channel has expanded. It's no longer just the channel.

You also have community. You also have education. And typically the person that's in my position is in somewhat charge in charge or somewhat working those different angles.

Right. So what we see, especially with new vendors is they're not ready for what the channel brings. The channel brings a bunch of, I'm going to break your processes.

I bring a bunch of; I'm going to break your processes. And what I mean by that is you've, you figured out a niche that we need in the industry. You've built it out.

It looks beautiful. Yeah. It's got a couple of bugs.

All new stuff does, but people will certainly back you still. Right. Then the problem is, is have you built out your sales side of the house?

Right. And when I say that, I mean, do you have enough salespeople, right? Do you have a sales process?

Do you have BDRs or SDRs that go out there and do some follow-ups early on to make sure you're not wasting salespeople time? Right. And then once you get through that sales process, it's like, do you have enough engineers or do you have a process of procedures in place that those engineers can be the most efficient way they can be with onboarding those people?

Because in the end, the idea of all of us is we don't want people out the back door. Well, if you lose the excitement over the cell, right, then they tend not to, you know, they tend to kind of carry on and go longer and longer. If you mess up the sales process or it's clunky, they don't like that.

If you mess up the onboarding process, they really don't like that. And then the biggest thing I would tell any vendor of any level, any size, make sure you know what your value is and then make sure you can prove that via ROI. Because what happens when as soon as you start with the channel, then you're getting a ton of leads.

How are you going to process through all those leads? I think in the first three months at PIA, we had something like two and a half million endpoints. Now, that came down to, you know, and then we started that.

That was at DattoCon. Then we went to Amsterdam and some before. And I mean, even at Gradient, you know, there was good tons of leads coming in.

How are those leads processed? If you're not ready for that part of what the channel brings, then what happens is it starts breaking on the vendor side. And then that in turn creates questions around stability, equates questions around, you know, your reputation.

And those are things. So on the vendor side, you want to make sure you're solid. You're ready to go.

You don't have to be perfect. You just need to have something in place and then you bring the channel in and then the channel should be providing, you know, 70, 80, upwards of 80% of your top funnel leads for the company.

[Uncle Marv]
And you need to be ready to scale when those leads come in and those sales are sold, right?

[Tim Coach]
Right. Because that's right. Because that's the thing, right?

It comes into the top of funnel. The last thing you want to do is you want that you don't want that top of funnel overflowing, right? So the sales part of it, you need to have that process in place from the time it goes into whatever the CRM is that the salespeople take a hold of it that they know at this point, right?

Because like I know from being an MSP and I know from budgeting that when I hit, when I bring on another, you know, 3000 endpoints, I've got to hire a new engineer. I know that we've done the metrics on the MSP side so many times, you know, it's, it's in the old days, every, every tech should be able to handle 350, right? That was the number.

So if I bring on 350 more and I don't have capacity as it is, I've got to hire same thing in this process. The sales process has to say, okay, well, we're no longer efficiently running through these. They're starting to drag out.

We need another person, right? And then once you got the other person, you got to make sure your onboarding is able to scale quickly as well. Once those leads ramp up and then you have to do it consistently enough that the people you hire as new salespeople, as new onboarding people, as new BDRs are consistently working and that you're not dropping leads because you're so your show schedule or your lead gen has month to three months of breaks in it.

[Uncle Marv]
Right. Can a vendor be at too many conferences?

[Tim Coach]
I don't think so. I mean, I think it's one of those things where we develop our relationships face-to-face like you and I have known each other for years, virtually. It wasn't until you and I really sat down and started talking about music with a couple other people that we really kind of got to know each other.

I think being at the conferences is where you build relationships. It also allows, and this is what I love and I'm kind of an oddball like this. It also allows that comfort level for clients who are not necessarily happy to come up to you and say, hey, Tim, can I have a moment?

Yeah, absolutely. What can I do? And then my first response is listening to what they say, ask some questions so I better understand it.

And then the way I am is I jump on the magic box of knowledge and I start messaging someone that has the answers or can get me the answers. So I'm keeping that communication with that person. I don't think you can be at too many events from my standpoint as a vendor because that's where the relationships develop that people trust and know you and know that you're going to stick to your work.

[Uncle Marv]
Absolutely. Absolutely. So you mentioned a couple of other things about being a vendor in the channel, community, education, and that goes to the fact of I know that every vendor is trying to do an event.

Every vendor is trying to create a community and Facebook groups and this and that. I guess the question again is can you have too much of that or is there a way to do it that doesn't flood the market, I guess?

[Tim Coach]
One of the most controversial things I'll say, and every marketing person out there will probably hate me for this. It's not my intent. It's just the flooding of it.

We're all webinared out. All of us are. So it's no longer acceptable to do all these webinars if they're not providing any value or if I'm providing a webinar three times a week or twice a month or whatever the scenario was, if it's good quality content, rock on.

But you can tell that and I can tell that by the amount of people that get in. I think there's shows where you get on, you do a webinar, it's good content, it's recorded, and then that content blows up because people are able to watch it at different times. But it's still the quality of the content that's coming out there.

Doing a series all the time and just constantly and waiting for people to get on and you constantly have two people show up or five people show up. Those are rough on the people and it's rough on the audience because if we all did that, but you were talking earlier about you're attending too many conferences. You need to be paying attention to your business as well.

It's the same thing. If we're expecting these MSPs to be on all of our webinars all of the time, how are they going to run their company? And are you providing quality content that they come out of that webinar with?

They learn something new or it's a potential fit for them down the road.

[Uncle Marv]
Right. That's definitely a concern and it also goes to the fact that if we're attending all these conferences and we're seeing the same vendors over and over, I know you, you know me. We either are fit or we're not.

I don't want to say is that a waste of time because sometimes it isn't. If you're friends, it's fine. If we can hang out and talk about music, no big deal.

We didn't do business together, but it still worked and we still found other ways to engage and provide value and all of that. And there are some vendors, I'm not going to mention any names, but I'm tired of seeing.

[Tim Coach]
Yeah. Now I will tell you too, there's one guy out there and I'll name drop just because he's a friend and I like him. Greg Jones does this thing he calls One Minute Wednesday.

It's never one minute, which is absolutely true because none of us can stick to a minute. But the thing I love about his One Minute Wednesday is it's not Greg giving Greg's thing, right? Like he's bringing in business leaders.

He's bringing in, you know, authors, people who are all over the place as far as business. It's not specific to his company. It's not specific to him, but it's, he's created this platform that in two to three minutes, you can typically pull a good nugget of knowledge out there that maybe either you never knew or maybe you knew and you forgot.

But that one I tend to watch because I think he does a really good job about making sure there's quality content coming in and it's not just the same thing being spouted time over time over time over.

[Uncle Marv]
Right. And because he does such a short format, it is vital to get that one thought out.

[Tim Coach]
Well, and LinkedIn, like, like, look, we all have ADD and ADHD, every one of us, right? Like we've gone from, you know, much more than about the length of a YouTube show. And we, none of us have the attention for that anymore.

But LinkedIn is one of those places that, and I'm guilty of it too. I try to stick to that two to three minute format. Two minutes for me is prime because I feel like, okay, people, if I got some quality, say people will like the two minutes.

But what I've noticed in my own metrics is once you start going over two and a half minutes, start going three minutes, you start going to the longer formats. You actually need to change the platform that you're putting that on because you're, you as the content creator are not receiving the results you want. And LinkedIn is great about showing you those analytics, right?

I know if I put up a two minute video and I get X amount of likes, and it's the likes are half the time of that video, then I lost everybody about halfway through the video.

[Uncle Marv]
Yeah. Well, I get it. I mean, this, this is a podcast and most of my engagement is audio through the pod players.

It's not through LinkedIn or YouTube or the Facebook. But I put it there because there are people that will consume that way who don't like the audio version. So I do it, you know, just to kind of give that options.

But I'm, I'm not counting on, you know, blowing up and, you know, being a LinkedIn star or a YouTube star. So.

[Tim Coach]
But that's what's, but that's, what's great about that part of it, right? Is I've always got somebody's podcast plan in the background, right? And it's, and it's one of those things that, yeah, I'm like half listening, but just the way that my brain thinks in the way that I tick, something will be said and I'll catch it.

And it'll allow me to jump over and back up and focus on that portion of the podcast that I really want to hear, right? But that's, I think, but that's the thing, right? That's, that's a great thing about being born in the 70s and being raised in the 80s.

I've got so many things like coming at me all the time. Like if, if having something up that is just, you know, something quality in the background, you know, whether it's an audio book or a podcast or whatever it is, and you catch those things as you're doing your other work, then that allows you the ability to learn while you're getting other stuff done. So I think that's the beauty of the podcast.

It's specifically the beauty of the audio part of it.

[Uncle Marv]
It is, it is. And real quick, let me do something that will engage some attention for the people that have helped put this on. If you've been watching the show, you notice that I've been drinking from this cup.

And I mentioned that because one of my podcast partners has sponsored this mug, Super Ops, and they are here to put the super back into your business and help you with their all-in-one ready-made RMM PSA. So I want to thank Super Ops for doing that as well. What you're not seeing behind me is my true grid caps because they fell right before we got on the show.

But true grid is also a partner. They provide a very nice, very easy secure remote access platform that if you need people that are still running naked on their RDP to get more secure, true grid secure RDP will do that for you. And in a little bit, we will also be dealing with Florida Man.

And that too is sponsored by our friends over at Super Ops. So I want to say thank you to them and get that mentioned out.

[Tim Coach]
Oh, Juan's killing it over there, isn’t he?

[Uncle Marv]
Man, Juan is killing it. Juan is killing me, man. For people that may not know, so today is their Super Summit virtual conference.

And I was actually on that earlier. But I didn't find out till last night when I was going to be on. I didn't find out the links until today.

So that's kind of how my day's been running around. So people that notice, I actually have the same shirt on in two videos today.

[Tim Coach]
Hey, I wish everybody did it the way you do. Like I get a reminder 24 hours before. I get a reminder an hour before, 15 minutes before it.

Hey, get on now. Yeah, I got the way you do it is perfect for someone that's got 20 different things going on.

[Uncle Marv]
I had to do that because the people I get on are super, super busy. So it works. All right, so coach, I know that I kind of, I don't know if I, you know, touched on everything that you had in your mind about what to talk about with their strategic spending.

So was there anything that we didn't hit on that was kind of rattling around up there?

[Tim Coach]
You know, that's the thing is one is it's easier to add to the budget than it is to take away. Right. It's easier to add a show than to try to get out of a contract.

Right. Because people you sign these contracts for, especially these new shows that are starting up and there's some great ones out there. Right.

Like they're depending on your money when you sign that contract.

[Uncle Marv]
Oh, yes.

[Tim Coach]
So it's one of those things that make sure that like for the vendors and I think the MSPs as well. Right. It's one of those things that when you create your budget, create an appropriate budget.

And then if you're like, hey, you know what? This did really good or that did really good. And maybe we should add to it.

It's easy to add to it. I think all of us, just about all the channel chiefs I know or VPs of ISDA, we also all have a bit of a slush fund within our budget. So when something pops up and they're like, hey, do you want to sponsor X, Y, and Z?

You know, you certainly have the opportunity to do that as well.

[Uncle Marv]
Yeah. Let me ask you a question that I don't, I didn't prep you this for this. So I don't see a lot when it comes to co-marketing between the vendors.

You know, it's one thing to go to another vendor's event and be on their line card and stuff like that. But is there opportunity in our space for vendors to co-market together?

[Tim Coach]
I think there is. You're starting to see that, right? One of the big ones that I know that just took place and I really like it is Halo and Enable.

Right. And Empower and Enable said, hey, you know, we're just going to kind of, we're not going to stop doing it, but we're just not going to put the effort into this that we were putting into it. Because we're going to co-partner and co-market and go with Halo because we really enjoy what they're doing.

And then that's bringing those two companies together. So we're certainly starting to see more companies that are, instead of just going out and trying to reinvent the wheel, that are like coming together and say, you know, you do this really good and we do this really good. And let's get together.

Let's do some co-marketing. Let's do, you know, let's figure out a way that we can get on each other's line card. So we can do that.

And I think it's being done in a much more productive way than the old days of, I got to sign up with this vendor. They're going to put me on their line card. But does their sales department really have any real initiative to sell my product?

Right? So I think we're starting to see the vendors, especially at the mid to smaller level, really starting to get together to figure out how they can strategically be partners in that area.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. It's kind of what I was hoping, because there are times where when I do look for something to add to my stack, the first place I go to is what integrations are there with my current stack? And that's how I'll look for it.

And if there is a partnership where you know that these two companies are working together, that sounds a whole lot better to me than me going out and just trying to make it fit myself.

[Tim Coach]
Absolutely. So that's absolutely a thing. And it's, I think we're starting to see it more just from the standpoint of, you know, especially the younger vendors we're seeing on, like, they know they don't have, like, the biggest, baddest offering.

And there's a widget missing. But, you know, a friend over here has that widget. We've become friendly.

So how do we get together and put these two things together and make that work better for the community? I think we're definitely seeing more and more. We're definitely seeing more and more focus on the community as a whole versus the company as a whole.

Don't get it wrong. Every company is out there to make money to build their business. Right.

I think we're just seeing a way that it's strategically changing that it's becoming friendlier among the vendors versus, you know, the frenemies or that you sell this and I sell that. You know, I mean, DattoCon in the day was one of the best places you could go for an agnostic show. Right.

Everybody was welcome. Right. Right.

And I think that's something that we lean towards and we're moving, continue to move forward. We see better and better from that standpoint.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. All right, coach. Well, I think this was a good starter discussion for the strategic spending.

And I don't know you are you let me rephrase this in a way that you won't yell at me for never during your hiatus. Are you, you know, pitching yourselves or do you have companies reaching out to you, not only to be a channel chief, but with any other questions on, hey, you did a great job over here. Can you help us?

What's that process like for you right now?

[Tim Coach]
Yeah. So the process right now is that I'm very blessed, right? I've got some great friends and everybody is like, you know, they know somebody that's looking for somebody like me.

So they're sending me over and I'm blessed enough to realize. And I don't want to I don't want to take advantage of anybody. Right.

That's first and foremost. And I want to see everybody succeed. So that's the reason why I stood up.

It's called third power consulting is what it's called. And that's basically it means, you know, the MSP, the channel and the vendor. Right.

So that's all being in place. The point of that that business, other than to occupy my time, is to help companies be more strategic about whatever, you know, it's I've got multiple years rebuilding MSP. So if you need MSP help, I'm here.

If you're a vendor and you're trying to figure out what you can do better as a vendor or how you do this as a vendor, I'm here. If you're looking for a channel product, I'm here. A lot of that has started to come through the people that are coming to me and saying, hey, we would really like for you to come on board as our channel chief.

And that's great. And I love that. And I love the demand.

But I don't want to put their company in a situation that either from a financial hardship of a channel department or a channel spin over the course of a year when I can say, hey, you know what? You may not be where you're quite ready for a me full time on board. But let's figure out some hours where I can help you at least line out what your path should be so that you're not going into a blind.

You know, talk to one company, right? We're not going to be ready until 2025. OK, that's great.

Who's doing your budget? Well, what do you mean? How much are you going to spend in the channel?

What's your channel team going to cost? Is it one? Is it three people?

Is marketing going to help people out? Are you going to pull salespeople off the road? And they just there's things that they just don't know because it's not their wheelhouse.

So that's where the third power consulting has come in is just to help these companies that may not be ready for a full time channel chief, at least get down the path. That'll get them to some revenue, give them some thoughtful effort behind what they're doing and a budget that they can stick to.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. Thank you very much for answering that as I was bumbling with how to ask you because I didn't want to throw it out there if you weren't ready to.

[Tim Coach]
Well, that's what what's funny about this is I will always watch like yours is one of the podcasts that's always going on in the background. Right. And I know she had Dawn on.

[Uncle Marv]
Yeah.

[Tim Coach]
And I was like, oh, I'm going to watch the one with Dawn because I love Dawn and she's entertaining as well as intelligent. And I get on there. And for the life of me, when I named this this this third power consulting, it didn't even enter my brain the name of her company.

And I'm like, so it's like now I owe her a personal apology. Like, like, listen, this this was not meant with any intent. It's totally different than what you guys do.

And I'll be more than happy to shift direction to you. If somebody comes to me thinking that there's some kind of a mix up there.

[Uncle Marv]
Well, listen, I think if there was an issue, you'd know by now. I mean, she's the darling of the channel. She's got ears everywhere.

[Tim Coach]
So well, with that being said, this is this is the first time that third power consulting has been named in public. Right. Like this being I've been doing a lot of private stuff behind the scenes, but I've never promoted this or I've never said anything about it in public for there to be a conflict.

And there and there won't be a conflict. I loved on and there won't be any issues there at all.

[Uncle Marv]
Well, I'll be waiting to hear what happens. So if this is the first truly public announcement, we'll see how the power of the reach of this show is, because if she calls you tonight, you know, and she has my number and she's more than welcome to do so.

[Tim Coach]
I'll talk to her about it. But yeah, this is and like I said, this was this is not like the big announcement of where I'm going when I land. My full intent is to still go to a company, jump in, help them meet their revenue goals, help them grow their name, their reputation and everything they want to see out of their company.

That's where I love. This is I was raised by a man born in 1903 that had a work ethic that would match about 50 people. Sitting on my can doing nothing and the honey do list is only so long like this is just for me to continue to be engaged and have something to do whilst I'm vetting the companies that are potential places for me to call home.

[Uncle Marv]
All right, well, coach, we're going to stay in touch because if you're if you're still doing this at six months, we'll want to do a follow up because that means you're killing it as a consultant or something like that. So anyway, let's do the segment that I'm not sure that you're ready for. Florida man or random question.

And this is for people that are new to the show. Florida man, a big phenomenon here. I have a Florida man story ready to go.

And I usually ask my guests if they have a Florida man story similar in their area where they can challenge or should we just answer a random question?

[Tim Coach]
I'm going to go with random question because Kansas City is not nearly as entertaining as Florida.

[Uncle Marv]
OK, well, then let me pull up the random question generator and see what comes up and generating now. Oh, an interesting question. So the question that was up there before I switched was, what's your favorite car?

But this is the one that came up. What is the worst job you have ever had?

[Tim Coach]
Also, question number one is a 1972 Corvette T-Tops.

[Uncle Marv]
OK, right.

[Tim Coach]
Question number one. Question number two. Worst job I've ever had is, for those that don't know my history, I did spend some time in the military and I did deploy over to the desert for a little live fire over there.

But in the early days when they don't have logistics in place, the people who are the lowest on the totem, i.e. me, gets to pour diesel in a can, set it on fire. And that's how you get rid of where everybody goes to the bathroom.

[Uncle Marv]
What?

[Tim Coach]
Yeah. So basically, you have a whole bunch of outhouses set up. People go there.

That's where they do their business. As far as going to the bathroom. There's a 55-gallon drum that's cut in half that sets under them.

[Uncle Marv]
OK.

[Tim Coach]
And then every day, there's a detail of people that have to go out, pull those out, pour diesel in them, and then set them on fire. So, worst job ever.

[Uncle Marv]
OK. That would be the front end. What happens on the back end?

Isn't that the worst job ever?

[Tim Coach]
No, because it all burns off. Diesel burns everything.

[Uncle Marv]
Everything.

[Tim Coach]
You just throw it in.

[Uncle Marv]
All right.

[Tim Coach]
Everything. Diesel burns everything. You just throw it back in.

That's actually the reason why. So, if veterans don't know, here's a little thing for veterans. If they don't know and they participate in that, there is actually an active program at the VA to check the health of the veterans that perform those duties while deployed.

Because there is some bad stuff from a health perspective that that caused. OK. Quite a few of our veterans.

So, they are taking care of our veterans that have done that.

[Uncle Marv]
Yeah, because that, I guess, the fumes and the gases and yeah.

[Tim Coach]
Oh, you definitely know which side the wind's blowing.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. I'll leave that image for everyone.

[Tim Coach]
Was that better? Your Florida man story?

[Uncle Marv]
That actually might. Yeah, that could have qualified for a Florida man. But let me do this.

Let's actually bring up the Florida man story. I have a video to go along with this that I will play. And there it is there.

And this is a story that happened yesterday. July 16th, a Florida man named Mike Dragich, a licensed alligator trapper, was caught on video wrestling an alligator inside a Jacksonville fire station. This occurred when an alligator wandered into the fire station from a nearby pond, prompting the call for his expertise.

So, I'll see if I can up. I can't play it again because I didn't move fast enough. But I will have the link to the video there.

But it shows him. He is also a licensed MMA fighter. So, he chased the alligator around the station barefoot.

And then he managed to get on top of the gator to capture it, despite not wearing any protective footwear. So, yeah, so gators.

[Tim Coach]
That's crazy to me because those things are so indiscriminate about what they eat. I mean, you see the videos of people feeding them. And some other poor little alligator will be close.

The one will snap onto a foot and then the other alligator is missing a foot.

[Uncle Marv]
Yeah. Well, there's another story. Did I catch that?

There's an actual another story where somebody get this foot bit off. Let's see. Okay, that was a shark bite.

So, if people wonder where I get all these stories. So, I, you know, one, you just type in Florida man and that had happened. But I have 10 stories that came up today.

Two of them were the man bitten by the shark. Here's the dude hiding inside of a Walgreens to avoid the cops. Florida man accused of throwing an urn at an ex-girlfriend.

I thought there was another gator story, but this is the one I went with. Yeah, it's very interesting. That is Florida man.

[Tim Coach]
Like, listen, I told you earlier, right? This is a perfect icebreaker. If you want to get to know somebody and you don't know how, walk up to them, ask them their birthday.

They don't have to give them a year, month and date. All you do is Google four man and that date. I guarantee you five stories will pop up that will break the ice right off the bat.

[Uncle Marv]
And it'll even be where people are like, no, that really did not happen. Yes. Yes, they do.

They do. All right. Well, Tim, thank you for coming and hanging out and sharing.

Is that your bedroom or your office?

[Tim Coach]
Oh, this is my office.

[Uncle Marv]
Okay.

[Tim Coach]
I'm in the middle of like, I get bored, right? So I took my area that was my office. I disassembled it.

I'm repainting everything. I got another area that's going to be like when I announced the new company, like that other area will be the one that's my background, right? I'll have some little cool geeky things in there that everybody will geek out on.

So, so this is in between.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. So I see, you know, the Iron Man mask there. I see a couple of other things.

Are those some little plush animals on the top shelf?

[Tim Coach]
They are. These are, so, so we talk about, you talk about the swag. These are the various swag guys.

I don't know how I got involved in that. I probably got involved in this because when I was a gradient, we had this thing, like everybody loved our, our pink plush flamingos.

[Uncle Marv]
Okay.

[Tim Coach]
So, and then if you remember a couple of years ago, there was a thing where they gave it where Dado gave away the Yoda.

[Uncle Marv]
The Yoda.

[Tim Coach]
These are just all the different vendors. Cyber Fox is up here. I got Groot.

These are just all the different plushies or, or little animals, you know, obviously our friends that I've picked up along the way, and they just all go on the top of that shelf.

[Uncle Marv]
So they have a home. Yeah. I was Iron Man.

[Tim Coach]
My son won state football last year. This is a rugby ball that a buddy gave me. It's just, you know, awards, just memorabilia that different people have given me or things that I've looked at.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. Yeah. I don't have the Yoda because apparently they were stingy back then and I wasn't [Uncle Marv] and I wouldn't, I couldn't get it.

[Tim Coach]
Well, technically it's not Yoda. Cause my understanding is they got in a little bit of trouble. So it was technically called something else, but we all know what it is.

[Uncle Marv]
Yeah. Yeah.

[Tim Coach]
So, and the Iron Man, that's one of the ones that we gave away, but that one there is a pretty dysfunctional at this point. And nobody wants a broke Iron Man helmet for whatever reason. So he just got stuck on a shelf.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. Well, ladies and gentlemen, I will have the link. Actually, you don't have a website up yet, do you?

[Tim Coach]
I do not. As a matter of fact, it's logos are getting finished now. LinkedIn is there.

There's no real content on it yet. All that'll be out before channel call.

[Uncle Marv]
Well, folks, if you know how to get in touch with coach, you know how to get in touch with coach. If I get anything to update you with later, it'll be put in the show notes, but that's going to do it for today's show. I want to thank Tim Coach.

Just global chief is the title and third power consulting, pending approval from Don Sizer.

[Tim Coach]
Yeah. And that's what, you know, Tim Coach, you know, if you go back to an old Robin Williams movie, and I forget the name of the top of my head, but he made that he's a robot. And there's a powerful statement that he makes.

And I try to be like that is how is one to be. How can one be of service? And I think that's how I try to live my life.

How can I help others? And I just happen to be in a position now that I can help a lot of people before I move to the next step. And I'm super happy to do that for anybody that needs it.

All they got to do is reach out and everybody knows I'm happy to do that.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. Well, coach, you know, I don't have to wish you luck. You do pretty good, but I'll say it anyway.

Good luck. And we'll be chatting with you soon. And I'll see you out and about on the road.

[Tim Coach]
Oh, you know, we'll see you out on the road.

[Uncle Marv]
All right, folks, that's going to do it. We'll see you next time. Head over to the website itbusinesspodcast.com to grab all the show notes and to see what else we've got going on with there. We're still in the middle of pitch it. And let's see, I'm going to be on the road. So I'll have some stuff popping up there, too.

But that's going to do it. We'll see you next time. Holla.