710 Leadership Insights: Marnie Stockman

[Uncle Marv]
Hello friends, Uncle Marv here with another episode of the IT Business Podcast powered by NetAlly. This is the Wednesday live show. We are at a different time.

We're a little bit earlier in the day. Thank you for those of you that have been able to join us. I see a couple of people out there, out in social media land.

We are on YouTube, LinkedIn, and the Facebook. I'm joined today by Marnie Stockman. We are going to chat about the last interview that we had.

We actually had to break it up into two podcasts, so we'll recap that, and then we'll see what else has been going on since we did that interview. I hear we have a couple of announcements coming up. And then I want you to stay tuned because I am going to talk a little swag that I think people will want to pay attention to.

It's not even by a vendor. That's how special it is. And then of course, I'll mention Techon Unplugged.

You saw the video there. I want to make sure that my boys, Paco and Rick, get all the love they deserve. If you can get a chance to go to that.

And look at that. People saying hello already. Brian, Mark, thank you guys.

Go Noles. Yeah. Not after that last weekend, Paco.

I was embarrassed as all could be. Marnie, welcome to the live show.

[Marnie Stockman]
Thanks for having me. I'm going to give a shout out to Brian and Mark, too.

[Uncle Marv]
All right.

[Marnie Stockman]
Gentlemen, it's been a while.

[Uncle Marv]
Yeah. So, that just got me all flustered now. Florida State has just, I mean, the way to end last year and the way to start this year should just not be any worse for Florida State Seminole.

It's just outrageous. Anyway, let's talk about some good stuff. Marnie, how's life been?

It's been almost, what? Three weeks since we did that? Three weeks, I think.

[Marnie Stockman]
Yeah. So, in those three weeks, I've done some interesting things, including went to the swamp in Mississippi, where they have a leadership training program for the military who want to lead it like LASA. It was fascinating.

And it's not our military. It's for partner countries to help them become better leaders as they go through the ranks of their countries.

[Uncle Marv]
Now, are these partner countries that are going to stay partners? Because we've trained some countries in the past that have rebelled against us.

[Marnie Stockman]
Yeah. Fair. So, the U.S. apparently aims to find upcoming leaders of partner countries that we do want to continue to be allies with and find folks from there to chat leadership. It was really interesting.

[Uncle Marv]
Nice.

[Marnie Stockman]
Much like the IT space. It was 31 men and two women, so it felt not all that dissimilar, except they were all in camouflage. And I didn't know that there were 33 varieties of camouflage, but now I do.

[Uncle Marv]
Oh, I'm sure there's a different one for every different terrain, environment, and all that stuff, right?

[Marnie Stockman]
100%. Yeah.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. So, I don't always like to do this, but sometimes I like to recap the previous podcast because some people, you know, they hear it and then they come here live because they have questions. Some people are behind on my shows and that's a shout out to Jason Miller, who's still in the 600s.

Yeah.

[Marnie Stockman]
We're like in 710 or something.

[Uncle Marv]
Yeah. I mean, I realize I've put out a lot of shows this year and that's attributed to the conferences I've been to. I've been to more this year than I've been to in years past.

The Pitch It competition for IT Nation, did 26 of those, so I get it. It's a lot, but they're short. They're not long and they all have great information.

But let's just do this. Your basic, the top three things that I took away really had to do with, you know, core values, leadership philosophy, and customer success. So I took that away and I think a lot of people did, but I want to ask you is you probably got a lot of feedback because it's funny.

My guests get feedback. I don't get the feedback. You don't get the feedback.

It's weird. So I want to ask what feedback or questions you have gotten since we recorded those episodes?

[Marnie Stockman]
Yeah. So I got some on each of those pieces, so it's kind of interesting. The first was somebody said that when we talked about the core value piece that spoke to them for a couple of different reasons.

So I had a couple of folks talk to me about core values. The most interesting, I think, was when someone said, I think my whole team needs to think more about their own personal leadership. So I think what he was telling me is he felt like he had the misconception that leadership is only for the boss, the owner of the company, and that really everybody has their own core values.

And if you don't understand your own core values, you don't know how to lead your own life and you don't see how you fit into the company core values and culture. And so when he realized that, you know, often small MSPs, they start as one human shops and obviously the culture of the company, the core value of the company is what the owner feels. But as employees come in, they need to see how they fit into that.

So that was that was the core value follow up I had.

[Uncle Marv]
Nice, nice. So I've, you know, pondered on that a little bit and I came at it from two different perspectives. One is the business side, you know, where when I, you know, hired employees, a lot of what I looked for is.

This person, do they have the same it was, I didn't think of it as values, but it was like the same type of pursuit, the same type of drive, the same likes that we do, because I just wanted to know that we could get along, especially in a small business when it's just, you know, at the time I actually was up to four people. And, you know, back then, yes, we went out a lot. But as you started to do remote stuff, you're going to be stuck in a building with these people for most of the day.

So I wanted to make sure that we could get along. Of course, I wanted to make sure that, yeah, I was the boss. But, you know, one of the things, yeah.

But one of the things I learned is that your people are not going to believe in your business as much as you do. So you have to find something else for them to, you know, hang on to that falls in line with where you want to go.

[Marnie Stockman]
Well, I think that's, you know, Simon Sinek says, if they believe in your why, they'll buy your what. And I think as salespeople, people get that. They're like, yeah, I might not hear what you're saying.

If I believe in what you're selling, I'll buy it. But your team has to as well. And a lot of people don't realize that you're like, I'm not selling anything to my team.

Yeah, you are. You're selling your company to your team and the culture. So you need to have a compelling why for them, because you're right.

It's not going to be the same thing because it's not their company. So do they believe in serving others? You know, do they believe in wanting to provide, you know, outstanding technology, delivering business outcomes, whatever your mission statement is?

[Uncle Marv]
Yeah. Do they believe, you know, in enough to go on the journey with you? I mean, if you want to if you want somebody to stay with you 10, 15, 20 years, it's a journey.

So.

[Marnie Stockman]
And they have to see a path on that journey for themselves, not just as a like, oh, you know, you're great. Tier one help support. I think you will be doing that for the next 30 years.

That's you know, that's the start of that journey. That's not the end of that journey for most people. And so you need to show them that path to like when we grow.

This is how you grow, too. And it might be in that role if they have more opportunities to expand the way they work in that role or the team that they, you know, build in that role, et cetera.

[Uncle Marv]
Yeah. So before I just got sidetracked, but I want to get back to my second point. The other way that I was thinking about that is.

So a month ago, I was on the campus of Indiana University and I was there for a reunion for a conference that I did many years ago for Junior Achievement, it was the National Junior Achievement Conference, and it wasn't as a delegate that we went back, it was staff. Us as staff have been going back and visiting every few years and we talked about what is it that draws us back? Because this was a conference that was only one week a year.

And most of the people on staff didn't work for Junior Achievement in that sense, but every year we would go back and it was a grind, first of all, to get there and put together this conference for three thousand kids, you know, plus another three hundred staff, business and industry leaders that would come in in the middle of the week and trying to get all of this stuff working. And one of the things that came up because I did podcast interviews for them, that's on another show, and one of the things we kept asking is, what is it? What is it?

And they all kept talking about the fact is we all had the same sense of loyalty, belonging and family.

[Marnie Stockman]
The fact that there is your that's the culture, the core values of that. Yeah.

[Uncle Marv]
The fact that they could just everybody just rolls in once a year. You couldn't you maybe didn't talk to anybody for that entire year. But that week you picked up right where you left off and it was fantastic.

And the same thing is happening now, 30, 40 years later, where people like, man, I missed those days.

[Marnie Stockman]
So that that is a strong culture right there. It reminds me very much, you know, I tell the story how in the world of EdTech, the first company I worked for got acquired three times within 18 months. And the core, the original company, we will still we've got a group text of six of us and we will find each other, you know, once a year, because that felt exactly like you said, loyalty, collaboration, you know, family, et cetera.

Once the acquisition started happening, that kind of went away.

[Uncle Marv]
Yeah.

[Marnie Stockman]
The original core six are there.

[Uncle Marv]
Right. So that oh, now to the sidetrack to where I was going. So as we were talking, so I listen to a lot of podcasts and for some reason I found myself listening to a Gary Vee podcast.

[Marnie Stockman]
Oh, yeah. Yeah.

[Uncle Marv]
And it was one of his podcast words. He's just, you know, answer question, answer question, answer question. And he was talking about I don't even remember what he was talking about, but I remember that he kept mentioning this one person who worked for him who had just started working for him.

And he was saying already he goes; this person is going to run one of my businesses someday.

[Marnie Stockman]
So was it this like you said that like, you know, the alignment was just right.

[Uncle Marv]
Yeah.

[Marnie Stockman]
Yeah.

[Uncle Marv]
And I think I mean, the fact that he was talking about the people that he hires, he hires, you know, for them to grow. Yeah. And when he sees that potential in them, he doesn't hold it back.

He actually encourages it and says, look, you're going to be running one of my things one day. So keep doing what you're doing.

[Marnie Stockman]
Keep doing what you're doing. I love that. In Ted Lasso, there's a line where Higgins tells Keely a good a good mentor knows that you might leave one day.

Right. If it's somebody within the business, but a great mentor wants you to. They're going to help you grow to the best version of you, whether or not that's within that company or not.

So I love that.

[Uncle Marv]
So another thing that usually happens after we do an interview is people think about, oh, I should have said this or I should have asked that. So I wanted to ask you, because we did have a long conversation, but even I was like, oh, I should have. Can you think of anything or have you thought of something that either I should have asked you or you should have brought up when we were doing that interview?

[Marnie Stockman]
Yes. We started talking about, you know, like the process for customer success. And we talked about segmenting your customer base.

And but we didn't. And I had somebody actually reach out and ask, like, what are some metrics that you really do want to track to make sure your clients are happy and healthy? And we talked about in the customer success book that that there's a there's a list of things that folks can do to kind of red, yellow, green it.

But one of the things that one of our partners brought up that we actually ended up building into Lifecycle Insights was this notion of do you have momentum with a client? Because your whole goal is to have happy, healthy clients with no churn. And he had lost two large clients that were unsuspecting churn.

Everyone's going to lose a client. But, you know, that we talk about the KPI of like having zero unreported churn. You should know it's coming.

You should feel something's not right. You know, they're cranky about something. They asked you for the server password, you know, passwords like that kind of thing.

Something should trigger. But he had two that kind of blindsided him. And so when he went back and did kind of an autopsy of what should have been assigned to him, we came up with four metrics that we actually started aiming to automate in the platform.

And the four things were this. Are you sticking to your business review cadence? Now, last time we talked about not everybody deserves a quarterly business review.

But once you've picked a cadence, quarterly, semiannual, annual, whatever it is, are is that in fact happening? So are they showing up? Are you scheduling on time?

Stick into the cadence. The second are the decision makers coming to the table. So what he found was that they were doing regular business reviews, but the owner wasn't coming.

It was their project manager, not a key decision maker. So he really didn't know the feel of the relationship. The third thing was, have they purchased a project outside of your contract within the last year?

So if they haven't purchased a project, and this goes kind of with the fourth thing, which is, is their stack alignment improving? Right. Are they drinking the Kool-Aid for your secret sauce that makes you your company what it is?

If they are not accepting your recommendations so that their stack alignment is improving or they're not accepting your recommendations for a project, those are actually signs that you don't have momentum with that client and you need to decide, is there something you can do to turn them into the right kind of client? Are they, in fact, not going to be a client? And it's interesting because this particular company spent time really deciding and they decided that some of them were never going to be good clients and they didn't fire them, but they knew they would churn.

So they prepared for what to do when they lost that client and they didn't aim to save it because it wasn't a client that they felt like we're saving. Others were and they worked to do that. But I thought the conversation I had with the person that asked me about it after our podcast, I felt like it was worthy to bring back and chat about today.

[Uncle Marv]
OK, nice.

[Marnie Stockman]
So does that ring any bells for you, like to see those?

[Uncle Marv]
Well, I can tell you right now I have a client that we're offboarding that I've been preparing for them to leave for months. I have known that it wasn't a good fit. I think that they were I don't know.

I don't want to say they were in denial, but they were dragging their feet on something. And it was a situation where they weren't bad enough for me to kick them to the curb.

[Marnie Stockman]
Yeah.

[Uncle Marv]
Like I have done with a client in the past, but it was enough to know that, look, when the time comes, I'm happy to help you leave.

[Marnie Stockman]
Yeah. Yeah.

[Uncle Marv]
So that is kind of freeing when you get to that place and you realize, well, it's freeing if you know that you're not going to miss the money.

[Marnie Stockman]
I mean, that that is I mean, I you know, you said you've been preparing for that for months.

[Uncle Marv]
Yeah.

[Marnie Stockman]
So to be able to then cut that, you know, anchor is easier.

[Uncle Marv]
Yeah.

[Marnie Stockman]
If you if the money's a problem, then you've got to you better be extra sure on those metrics and track those things. So it's never a blindside loss of income.

[Uncle Marv]
Right. I also wanted to ask you, you had mentioned about the fact that you were starting this masterclass and the timing should have been around now that that was happening. So where are we with that today?

Today?

[Marnie Stockman]
Live. How about that? Yeah.

So you can go to lead it like lasso dot com. And for anybody listening, if you type in kickoff 20, so all caps on the kickoff 20, you'll get 20 percent off, which will be open through the end of September. So we're super excited about the masterclass.

We've gotten some I got some folks in there ahead of time to see what they thought of bits and pieces. This is perfect for not just business owners, but for all of the team members that need to figure out who they are. This is designed for personal leadership.

So this is who you are and how you fit within what are your core values and think about like, am I stuck somewhere in a relationship, in a team I work with, work for, et cetera? So, yeah. Today, thanks for asking.

[Uncle Marv]
OK, it's like lasso. There's the masterclass on the website now. Good too good to know.

So here's a question I just thought of when you talked about the fact that if you've got corporate people in the masterclass and then you've got employees in the masterclass and you got somebody who's in it just for personal development or something.

[Marnie Stockman]
Yeah.

[Uncle Marv]
How do we address all of those at the same time?

[Marnie Stockman]
So this is one of those asynchronous masterclasses that is, you know, we've got like three hours’ worth of video. So we have a community where they can respond to questions within the community. So think of Facebook feed.

Right. But we also have a workbook where they work individually so they can really work together if they wanted inside the community and chat back and forth. But everybody's creating their own personal goal for it.

So I think that's what we really try to make it personalized so that everybody was working on the best version of them, not an expectation of this is a business scenario. So many times, I like in one of the lessons, we have a business scenario, a team scenario and a home scenario. And you can pick which one of those you want to think about and respond to because we have a lot of students.

So the folks that we see coming in have a lot of kids coming out of college trying to figure out what they want to be. We have a lot of those. We have a lot of teachers coming in.

We have a lot of emerging leaders or new to leadership folks that are coming in different than CEOs that are doing it as well. So we really wanted to aim to help everybody see their space, you know, in their own leadership journey.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. Very nice. All right.

So we'll have that in the show notes, folks. And I'm going to actually take a break here because this is where I wanted to end the recap. If you want to go back, if for some reason you're out of order in your shows, the interviews that I'm speaking of are Episode 706 and 708 with Marty.

And we obviously go into a little more detail there about the things that we've mentioned, the core values, leadership, philosophy and customer success. And, of course, the overriding influence of Ted Lasso in Marty's life. So that would be good.

Let me take a quick break here and recognize some folks here. The IT Business Podcast is presented by NetAlly, your trusted ally in fast and reliable network testing. And additional promotional consideration is provided by Super Ops, your all in one PSA RMM solution and TruGrid.

Experience effortless remote desktop access. And I should say by the promotional consideration, if you are watching the live show, I've got my mug of drink by Super Ops that I drink out of. Very nice mug here.

And I'm going to take a moment to talk swag. And this is a note for vendors, but for people that are just nice coffee drinkers. So apparently I had asked somebody for a mug back in April.

And I had forgotten that I had asked about the mug and it showed up at our door Monday night. And so Kim had already left. It was probably 630 before I left the office.

And as I go to open the door, there's a package literally laying up against the door. For some reason, our post person just they don't knock.

[Marnie Stockman]
Here you go.

[Uncle Marv]
But in that was this mug. And that is the side here. And I'm going to show the other side.

Our good friend Rafi. Rafi Jamgochian had sent me a mug and on it is his logo. And I want to say this.

I still don't remember why I asked for the mug.

[Marnie Stockman]
Well, because who doesn't want that mug?

[Uncle Marv]
Thank you for sending it.

[Marnie Stockman]
That's fantastic.

[Uncle Marv]
And it may have been because I saw it and like, oh, I want one. And part of the reason is a lot of these travel mugs. Now, first of all, it's a nice, you know, stainless steel tumbler.

[Marnie Stockman]
That's nice.

[Uncle Marv]
With the lid there. But a lot of the ones that have been coming out are these little 10 ounce, you know, mini coffee mugs. Yeah.

Or all the Stanley knockoffs where they're too big.

[Marnie Stockman]
Yeah.

[Uncle Marv]
This is a nice 15 ounce size.

[Marnie Stockman]
That is good.

[Uncle Marv]
And I, you know, just like my pens, my mug. I like it. I like them to feel substantial.

This feels like a mug.

[Marnie Stockman]
Very well done, Rafi.

[Uncle Marv]
So, Rafi, thank you.

[Marnie Stockman]
I'm sure you're drinking a lot of coffee out of that.

[Uncle Marv]
So I will say that I understand. I'm not going to talk about what brand this is because it's not your promotional item type buy. It's not going to be your two, three or four dollar mug.

It's going to cost you. But this is a nice mug.

[Marnie Stockman]
That's worth it.

[Uncle Marv]
So as we're as we're going through vendor swag at the upcoming conferences, folks, pay attention.

[Marnie Stockman]
Yeah, let's I'm happy to chat. Wax will suck on swag. I feel like the world doesn't need junk.

Right. So let's the swag shouldn't be junk like and yeah, he's not going to hand out a thousand of those. No, he's like but if you know when you got it, you're not throwing that out the door.

You're keeping that bit.

[Uncle Marv]
Swag is one of those things where I listen. I know I get a lot of swag on purpose. I go and grab I got I got about a hundred shirts hanging in the rafters.

[Marnie Stockman]
I see a hat behind you.

[Uncle Marv]
I'm trying to come up with a little hat stand thing that I've got because I didn't want to. I didn't collect hats back in the day. I didn't collect socks back in the day.

But apparently there was a phase of that. So I've got, you know, I don't know, at least a hundred pair of socks that are here. And that's not including the ones that I sent with Kim up to the mountain because that's a lot of what would happen if I get all these stuff and anything that was extra.

I'm like, I'm first of all, I don't wear vendor swag. That's probably the first thing I should say. So it's I mean, we're talking I've maybe worn two vendor shirts in 20 years.

[Marnie Stockman]
Wow.

[Uncle Marv]
Maybe if you want to sponsor more.

[Marnie Stockman]
So, OK, what I just heard is that your left pocket is now available.

[Uncle Marv]
Instead of instead of MB Systems or Uncle Marv. But I would collect all these shirts. I'm like, what am I going to do with these?

That's why I started hanging in the rafters. And then I would send all the extra stuff up to the cabin because the kids and stuff are always going up there and somebody spills something and needs a shirt, pajamas, you know, as we're sitting around the cabin at night and we go in December. So it's cold and people are always looking for socks.

So I would get I would take the really thick ones and send them up to the Georgia cabin. So but now it's to the point where they're like, you know what? Stop sending that stuff.

[Marnie Stockman]
We're not trying to insulate the house with the socks.

[Uncle Marv]
But I also don't want to grab swag, come here, pick out the good stuff and throw the rest away.

[Marnie Stockman]
Yeah. Yeah.

[Uncle Marv]
I do have a junk table in the back over there that I'm trying to figure out what to do. But yeah, vendor stuff.

[Marnie Stockman]
So if it's stuff that an elementary school teacher could use as prizes.

[Uncle Marv]
Some of it.

[Marnie Stockman]
Some of it. I say as a mom of a brand new fourth grade teacher, like she's always mom, what do we have around that we can use for presents?

[Uncle Marv]
You know what? That's a very good idea. I can partner with somebody and be like, hey, you need some little giveaways and stuff.

Now, of course, they're going to be I.T. logo stuff.

[Marnie Stockman]
But have you seen elementary school kids recently? They're not picky.

[Uncle Marv]
I tell you what. Flashlights and sunglasses. My nephew loves.

[Marnie Stockman]
See? So when and already.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. One final thing before we get back to the show here, I mentioned at the top, if you watch the video, it started off with a recap of 2023. We are coming up to TechCon Unplugged 2024, September 12th through the 14th.

Yes, it is coming up quick. But if you are near the Hanover, Maryland area, there's still some tickets available. I just had somebody get in touch with me the last week because I had to make sure the code worked.

So if you still use my code MSP seven five, that'll get you seventy five bucks off the ticket and you can go there. It is at the hotel at Irwindale Preserve. And I know I'm saying it wrong, but you know where to go.

We've got some great sponsors, some great speakers, twenty five plus educational sessions, plus breakfast. And Marnie, you're going to be there.

[Marnie Stockman]
I am going to be there. So I have to say, I've gone to a lot of conferences, clearly not as many as you because I've got three pair of socks. So I need to get on the program.

But I really thought that TechCon Unplugged was impressive last year. So I went to New Jersey. That's where I that's one of the times that we met live.

And I thought that was impressive because it was legit education, not sponsor pitches about buy this. It was let's go and do something to make your business better. The food was yum because people always care about that.

And I everybody that was engaged there, I think, was really engaged in participating. Right. There was I have been places before where the Q&A is sort of lackluster.

But folks were really asking good, meaningful questions. And I believe you walk away from that better. So I'm excited to be there.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. We will see you there. And anybody else that wants to go kick on the link, use the code and get to D.C. You know what? I had another swag item I was going to show, but I'll wait till next week.

[Marnie Stockman]
I was like, oh, we lost. I did.

[Uncle Marv]
I meant to have a I meant to have another mug here to talk about. But that can wait. All right.

So, Marty, back to our discussion. Let me let me switch gears a little bit, because I want to ask you this question in a way that gives you a little bit of a runway. To answer, because you talked about your journey.

First of all, I should say, did anybody comment about your, you know, summa cum laude?

[Marnie Stockman]
Nobody. I like when I saw that, I was like, where did you grab that from? That must be on my LinkedIn.

Nobody mentioned it. I'd like to say maybe because they weren't surprised.

[Uncle Marv]
Yeah. So I wanted to ask this question because we talked about your journey, you know, from being a teacher and pivoting and coming into the tech space. I asked you, why are you still here?

You gave a great answer there. But I wanted to ask, you know, if there was anything that. Surprised you when you made the shift and not just when you came into the channel and, you know, did the thing with Life Cycle Insights, but while you're still here and still, you know, I don't know if I can say you're still learning about the industry because it's that big.

But obviously you're gaining enough knowledge to share with other people and stuff. But is there something that kind of surprised you in the sense that when you got in into our space, you're like, I didn't expect this?

[Marnie Stockman]
I mean, I don't want to just say the quantity of acronyms. And I come from education where we feel like we are running a running chance at winning that one. That was impressive.

But that's not fair. So I will say the level of collaboration and the desire as a community to get better. I came in not feeling so much competition, but coopetition, as some people say, among vendors and the MSPs themselves.

I don't think you see that everywhere where the entire industry is working to be better. So I also think that so Ted Lassen has another quote, same, but different. The other thing that surprised me was that, you know, I hadn't been in this industry at all.

Literally, Alex Farling taught me that MSP did not be Maryland State Police the day he pitched Lifecycle Insights to Nick and me to see if we wanted to start right before it was called Lifecycle Insights. OK, can we build a QBR tool? So very new to the space, but things that weren't new are the good best practices that businesses need to do to really thrive.

So the collaboration and the fact that customer success can, in fact, drive business in every industry. I thought that was it was just interesting to see in a different world that I had never had any exposure to. The collaboration I saw in a lot of ways.

So when we first started, before we had any paying customers, I reached out to some vendors in the channel who certainly had way more partners than we did. You know, some of them are fairly large companies that have four to five thousand partners or did when we when I first reached out to them and they were willing to do webinars with us to have conversations and were really engaged in wanting to have educational conversations, not a webinar where we just pitch products. And so I thought that was unique in the space.

So, yeah, that was the first thing that that really stuck out, is just rising tide lifts off ship sort of mentality.

[Uncle Marv]
Interesting. So I know that we talk about that a lot and then we behind the doors talk about the bickering amongst ourselves where we're fighting over what's really a best practice and things of that nature. So it's good to hear from the other side, because even though I'm a podcaster and I talk to a lot of I'm still an MSP.

Yeah, I still deal with other MSPs and sometimes they're nice to deal with and sometimes they're not.

[Marnie Stockman]
Yeah. So can I say something? I think the space could do better.

[Uncle Marv]
OK, go ahead.

[Marnie Stockman]
Can we take some honest feedback?

[Uncle Marv]
Sure.

[Marnie Stockman]
So MSPs need to market the whole MSP space better or pick a name. And I say that because I stood in front of 90 superintendents of school boards and boards of ed. So the boards of ed are businesspeople in the community.

Right. So there were nine superintendents and there were 81 businesspeople from the eastern shore of Maryland, which are all small towns. There's not an enterprise corporation over here.

They all should have managed service providers. And when I asked who knew what MSP stood for, one human raises him. And so I thought, wow, that entire industry could do better.

Truly, rising tide could lift all ships if the entire industry did a better job of saying small business helps small business. And that's what your MSPs are for the space. Do you agree or disagree?

Feel free to debate me. I can take it.

[Uncle Marv]
Oh, let's go. So here's the problem I have. Even within our own space, we fight about what the definition of an MSP is.

[Marnie Stockman]
Fair. So I don't say it. I'm not saying it has to be MSP, but like what?

[Uncle Marv]
You're right.

[Marnie Stockman]
You're in the world.

[Uncle Marv]
Pick a name. Pick a name.

[Marnie Stockman]
Pick a name. Be that own it and market that for the community.

[Uncle Marv]
Yeah. So part of what I have thought about is the fact that a lot of us are stuck in areas where the small to medium sized businesses really are still used to doing with a tech person.

[Marnie Stockman]
Yeah.

[Uncle Marv]
Whether it's I've got my tech guy or my tech girl. And they don't want to deal with a corporate type of structure of an MSP because as soon as they hear, you know, I got to pay monthly. I don't want to do that.

So there's some education that needs to be done as to know you want to pay monthly because ABCD reasons. That's part of it. There's still a huge part of our of our country, I'm going to say, that is just that mom and pop small business mentality where we don't want to deal with a managed service provider because what they're seeing is managed service providers gobbling each other up.

[Marnie Stockman]
Yeah.

[Uncle Marv]
Only to get bigger. Only to have that customer experience take a turn for the worst.

[Marnie Stockman]
Well, could they say like mom and pop feel with like legit tech chops, you know, some like because you're right, that's what they want. And I'm just speak for myself. So my daughter's boyfriend cold calls for MSPs in the basement.

And I have a vent right here. So I hear most of the cold calls and I like gets to explain what the MSP space does every single time. So I just feel like, yeah, getting some language around.

And you're completely right. They want the mom and pop feels with the legitimate service. And so it's hard to weigh like mom and pop shop professional.

Like we're still delivering security the way you need it to be done. So I think some messaging around that's interesting. So I can't see the comments of Brian or Mark and anybody else that's joined in.

Brian may have something to say on that, and I'll take it.

[Uncle Marv]
We haven't had a comment come up since Mark's last comment where he said, oh, I expected no less than summa cum laude.

[Marnie Stockman]
Thanks, Mark.

[Uncle Marv]
So, yeah, if anybody out there has a comment and they want to chime in, let us know. The other thing I think what happens on our industry is not only can we not come up with a definition, we cannot come up with a standard that people recognize from business to business. Most people, if you say I need an electrician, I need a plumber, I need an auto mechanic.

There's a general sense of what that is. And while there may be distinctions between this person only works on Jaguars or imports, this person works in American. It's still the same thing.

They get that. We are still struggling because now we've, you know, you've got your, you know, you've got everything from your trunk slammer to your brake fix to your, you know, small MSP, a large MSP, your MSSP, MSSP.

[Marnie Stockman]
Right. Right. I knew where that was going.

Yeah. And you can see MMC or, you know, CIS or like all we can just list through those as well.

[Uncle Marv]
I have so I have a topic that I'm holding. OK, because I'm still finishing up and I'm going to say I'm going to say this much. So the customer that I mentioned that I'm going through the offboarding with that I expected.

So I am number two of three MSPs that they've dealt with. The previous one that they worked with didn't really do anything for them, except sell them licenses for three sixty five. And then they would assist when needed because this this company had an in-house tech.

So they were just there kind of like as help desk.

[Marnie Stockman]
Yeah. Barely co-managed.

[Uncle Marv]
But they were they were unhappy with the work that the company did when they did do stuff. So I got referred to this company because they acquired one of my people, one of my clients. And my client kept telling him, you know, you need Marv, you need Marv.

So finally, they called me in and I didn't think they'd go with me because I'm like, they're not one willing to spend the money. There was a reason that the only thing the other company did was sell three sixty five.

[Marnie Stockman]
Yeah.

[Uncle Marv]
Well, short story. The tech convinced them to go with me. I worked with them.

The tech went away. I was going to be their MSP and do services for them. But they could never sign the agreement.

So I became their help desk. They brought in somebody, a previous tech who worked part time for them. And then I would give them assistance.

And they think they're too big for me. And I'm like, no, not really. But they've been talking to another MSP that is much bigger, that is telling them, well, this is what an MSP is.

And this is there's some stuff there. So just that one client has had three different versions of MSP. And I think that's part of our issue in this space.

[Marnie Stockman]
Yeah. So do you think there should be certification or at least tiers to be able to say, like, yeah, we're tier three? We must be.

We do.

[Uncle Marv]
Listen, I'm not going to let you get me in trouble.

[Marnie Stockman]
OK, that's always a solid plan. I can't make any promises.

[Uncle Marv]
But should there be something? Yes, I think we do need to come up with something. And I know that people in the industry are trying to help guide the past so that government doesn't force it on us and that we have a say in what that means.

We have certifications, but to be honest, people don't care.

[Marnie Stockman]
I mean, I didn't mean like certifications on products, but more of a like a business.

[Uncle Marv]
Yeah, well, there needs to be something you can hang on the wall.

[Marnie Stockman]
Yeah.

[Uncle Marv]
That the entire industry recognizes.

[Marnie Stockman]
Yeah.

[Uncle Marv]
Oh, yeah. They're authorized to call themselves a solution provider or whatever.

[Marnie Stockman]
Correct.

[Uncle Marv]
So that a company can, I don't know, double check or whatever.

[Marnie Stockman]
Yeah. Go to the better business bureau and say, oh, yeah, this is a thing.

[Uncle Marv]
There it is. There needs to be something. I just don't know what it is.

I'll be honest.

[Marnie Stockman]
My son was a mechanic, so he just got his certification. Everybody knows what that is, right? Like, oh, you've got to have that.

The funny thing is, he's starting as an IT help desk and support specialist in a local public school system in a week. Yeah.

[Uncle Marv]
Nice.

[Marnie Stockman]
Because he decided he no longer wanted to be a car technician. He wanted to do it for fun. But he also now can also repair your car and your computer.

[Uncle Marv]
So, I mean, yeah, there are things happening and people could get, you know, the trust marks and this and that. I mean, it's there are things that are happening. But we just we do need something.

Basically, what you mentioned earlier, there needs to be this big educational push to the rest of the world about what it is we do.

[Marnie Stockman]
Yeah. Yeah.

[Uncle Marv]
So. Wow. That was interesting.

[Marnie Stockman]
Sorry. You probably didn't see me.

[Uncle Marv]
That's OK.

[Marnie Stockman]
The teacher in me, I'm going to give some feedback while I'm here.

[Uncle Marv]
I have no problem with that. I just, you know, I just don't want to get in trouble if I well, you know, I don't care. It's my show.

[Marnie Stockman]
I say, yeah.

[Uncle Marv]
So, well, let's do this. Let's go ahead and go down this path. So we talked about that in terms of what should be happening.

What would you say has been probably the best or most memorable thing, most memorable thing that you have seen or has happened to you in the space?

[Marnie Stockman]
Well, I have to say a most memorable might be when we received the Go-Giver Award at the Evolved Peer Groups. So I don't know if you've read Bob Berg's book, The Go-Giver, but it is a philosophy that we kind of grew the company by before we had even read the book. And, you know, there are a lot of large vendors that support the ConnectWise Evolved community.

And that was voted on by MSPs. And so for MSPs to say, right, well, I mean, we've done lots of presentations to select us as Go-Givers in the community was really flattering. So that really struck that was that was it said that education and just being authentic and personable and transparent and create a company that creates raving fans really does make a difference.

And people see that.

[Uncle Marv]
Nice. So are you going to be able to stay in this space if the leadership stuff takes off, lead it like lasso takes off? I mean, I know you got a lot to say and a lot to share, but there's only so much time.

[Marnie Stockman]
So, you know, I like every time I've gotten a job, somebody has said, like, what do you want to be when you grow up? I'm like, I don't know. I'm like happy doing this right now.

Can I just do that until something else comes along? So I love things I know about myself is I love a good challenge. And so, you know, as long as this is as long as I feel like I'm providing value and there are challenges for me that I would I don't see any reason to not.

Now, the leadership bit, I think, is very much something that the MSP space needs as well. So I don't see talking about leadership as not talking to MSPs, right? The message may be less general, right?

There's sort of leadership at a higher level, but there's also how do you lead or how do you lead within your company? So I think in many ways I will have those conversations all of the time.

[Uncle Marv]
Do you find in our space and I'm asking from what I've seen that there are companies that get to a certain level and they struggle with leadership because they're too busy, focused on the operational things and.

[Marnie Stockman]
Oh, dear. Yes.

[Uncle Marv]
OK.

[Marnie Stockman]
One hundred percent. I mean, I think I think it is one of those cases where your superhero power becomes your weakness at some point, because MSPs love automation like. It's an addiction.

How can we turn this into a process? How can we automate it? But, you know, if you read Adam Grant's book, Hidden Potential, he will say in the world of AI, in the world of automation, in the digital age, you, your company, your brand, your technology has to win the character revolution.

So it is your core values, culture, personality that really will help you stand out. And so if you are I have seen folks perseverate over we can't have a QBR conversation until we have everything automated so that the report will come out exactly as I want. That that's not going to work.

Right. It's the human side of the house. And how can I how can I work with the business owners to help them deliver their business outcomes?

If you spend all of your time, I.M.T. crossing and making sure all of the wires are connected just right. And none of the time building the relationship and the human side of your business, I don't think it'll be successful. So, yeah, I do think that sometimes kind of MSPs get in their own way because their superpower power again becomes their weakness.

[Uncle Marv]
OK, I want to I want to piggyback off that because you made me think of something when I was first getting with because I lifecycle insights we use. I've been thinking of not using and doing something else. But here's why.

So I never wanted to get into that trap of everything has to be right to have that conversation.

[Marnie Stockman]
Yeah.

[Uncle Marv]
But of course, in order to get the reports, you've got to put the time in on the front end. So that was a struggle for us to get all that done. Sure.

[Marnie Stockman]
But I remember I have to do the work.

[Uncle Marv]
But I remember going to those meetings and one in particular, the and this was the business owner, because I try to make sure it happens with that. I mean, he literally took my report, set it off to the side and said, tell me what I need to know.

[Marnie Stockman]
Yeah.

[Uncle Marv]
Without looking at this report. Sure. And luckily I was able to do that.

And then he did go back later and look at, oh, OK, this is what you said. This is what you said. And being able to have those conversations on that personal level, I think is, you know, I get accused a lot of, no, not being an MSP and I don't care.

But I'm good at keeping the customers that I have. They've been with me a long time. I work very hard to make sure I do right by them.

[Marnie Stockman]
You understand their business and what drives them.

[Uncle Marv]
Yeah. And part of that QBR or TBR, whatever cadence, you know, it is. It's being able to sit and talk with the business owner and have them, again, walk the journey, you know, because.

[Marnie Stockman]
I don't mistake me for saying deliver inaccurate information, but people will perseverate on like how many 57 workflows do I need to set up and connect wise so that this one piece of information pops out here. OK, I can time out. You're going to send up 57 processes because, you know, this one use case, like we need to we need to move.

We need to have the conversation and build that relationship, which see you win with that because that's what people are looking for.

[Uncle Marv]
Yeah.

[Marnie Stockman]
Talk to me about my business. Yeah. I mean, yeah.

[Uncle Marv]
The information does need to be correct. You need to have the inventory to be correct. You know, the numbers need to be correct.

When you tell somebody this project is going to cost this much.

[Marnie Stockman]
Yeah. That all needs to be accurate. But let's not over process it.

[Uncle Marv]
Right. All right. Who's getting a little heated in here?

All right. So, Marnie, I've I mean, I do have more questions, but we're coming up on an hour here soon. I want to make sure we get to our Florida man segment, because for some reason I feel you're excited about that.

[Marnie Stockman]
I cracked me up pretty good when I saw that. I was like, yes. All right.

I'll bring a story.

[Uncle Marv]
But let me go.

[Marnie Stockman]
It's my favorite color. I don't want you just randomly asking a question like that.

[Uncle Marv]
Yeah. So is there anything that you want to make sure gets mentioned that we may not have mentioned? I know I asked you, you know, before if there was something we should have talked about, you know, in the last interview.

[Marnie Stockman]
So I've been keeping track of my notes of what I wanted to talk about. And believe it or not, I've crossed all of them out. Well, I think we're good.

[Uncle Marv]
Marcus, Marcus helping you out again with a comment in the chat. Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.

[Marnie Stockman]
Well, that's exactly what we would say is that people would perseverate. And it's kind of funny because the last thing that I had to cross out was this notion of like stop perseverating, do the work. Sometimes folks will go to they'll go to a thousand conferences, not just for the T-shirts in an attempt to make their business better, but then they won't do anything differently before they go.

Because they're like and so that's sort of my encouragement for folks is to don't let perfect be the enemy of good. Thanks, Mark.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. So get yourself ready for Florida, man, or a random question. And before we do that, I want to give a shout out to my buddy Tom Bull to River Computers up in Jersey.

Thought he would. Thought he'd, you know, give me a little ribbing by saying that, you know, how dare Florida man venture outside of the state of Florida? Because he sent me a link to a story in eastern Monmouth County.

Florida man arrested after brand inching knife punching Rumson restaurant manager. And I mean, this seems I mean, come on. This seems weak for Florida man story.

I mean, punching somebody. I mean, I've got a story here where a man was arrested after shooting a teen in a road rage incident. I mean, you know, don't bring a knife to a gunfight here.

But let me ask you, Marnie, what story do you have that can challenge Florida man?

[Marnie Stockman]
All right. So I don't know if I can challenge Florida, man, but this happened in my basement. So I feel like that's at least like, all right, she's got a story from her basement.

So one morning. So on a on a Thursday, we got a new garage door because we're in a new house. So garage door, the guy said it was motion activated.

I was like, what? The lights are motion activated. I don't need that.

I don't want to work a switch like this. Ridiculous. Let's see.

Do my husband pay extra for that? Right. I was kind of salty about it.

And he's like, where do you want it? I'm going to put it at that other door. I don't need motion sensors.

And but I do know that the motion sensor turns the light on. So two days later, no Friday. So one day later, I wake up at five, like I always do.

And I walk downstairs and the lights on in the garage. So the door to my garage has a big window in it and the lights on. I was like, bloody heck, I've owned this freaking thing for 24 hours.

And the light is on in the garage. And so I'm looking like, is there a squirrel in the garage? Is there a bird in the garage?

Why is the light on? It's motion sensor activated. What's going on in my garage?

And then as I look, I listen and I hear talking in my garage. That's five oh five in the morning. My husband's asleep upstairs.

My daughter's asleep upstairs. And I'm going down to work out in the basement. I know to put fire on the wood on the fire.

So I run upstairs and tell my husband who you've met me live. I'm 5’5”. He's 6’2” and a landscaper.

Like he should be the one to deal with the talking. Human in my garage. Right.

So, Frank, there's somebody in the garage. There's not. It's probably we live on the water.

So he's like, it's probably voice you hear. I was like, there's somebody in our garage. Get up.

So he gets up and walks down the stairs. And he's like, no, I don't hear anything. And he opens the door and he's like, he shuts the door.

Says there is somebody in the garage. Yeah. Shocker.

Right. So he says to the guy like, hey, can I help you? So guys close to my height.

So my husband wasn't particularly terrified. And the guy was just babbling. And so I kind of snuck back upstairs and my husband said, I think maybe he fell in the river because it was the first day of goose season.

And so the river was cold. It was November, you know, like he thought maybe the guy was just cold and stumbled into our house. So he asked the guy if he wants to come in and go.

Fortunately, a fireplace in our basement. So he brings him in, warms him up and offers him a cup of hot chocolate. And by chance, he texts.

We live in a small town. He checks the chief of tests to text the chief of police. And it's like, hey, I got this guy in my basement just making sure I'm not harboring any fugitives.

Can you tell me if this guy is legit or not? And five minutes later, the guy's like, dude, we have been looking for him all night. He has 10 warrants out for him.

He is a felon. Can you keep him? And my husband had given him a pair of sweatpants and put his pants in the dryer because he was wet.

But his pants were wet because he'd run through the edge of the river to escape the canine unit. And so he said, keep his pants in the dryer for 10 more minutes. We got police coming.

So 10 minutes later, please bust through all of our doors and go arrest the felon that was in my basement.

[Uncle Marv]
Get out. So, of course, multiple questions, but the one is going to be how did he get in the garage?

[Marnie Stockman]
Oh, so the we the house door was locked, but we didn't have a key yet for the garage door garage. The funnier thing still, though, because we used to live in the middle of nowhere where you couldn't even get to. There are three vehicles on the property.

All three vehicles were unlocked with keys in the ignition. He couldn't. He could have just left.

And instead, he stood in our garage freezing cold. So we now have the key to the door. And we now because we literally just moved into the house and we no longer keep our keys in the ignitions of the cars.

[Uncle Marv]
I mean, what kind of.

[Marnie Stockman]
So are we Florida man or is he Florida man? I don't know.

[Uncle Marv]
Yeah. I mean, that's errors on both sides. I mean, keys in the ignition.

I mean, everything is locked down here. I mean, I my wife makes fun of me because I have a nightly ritual where I go and check and make sure everything's locked because we do now.

[Marnie Stockman]
We've upped our game.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. So listen, there's very few times, if any, that I will ever concede that. Yeah, that's going to be Florida man.

[Marnie Stockman]
Yes.

[Uncle Marv]
And if I if we ever did a competition as to what's the best, you know, Florida man competitor story, that might be number one.

[Marnie Stockman]
Fantastic.

[Uncle Marv]
I'm thrilled because, I mean, mine happened yesterday and it is a road raid incident in Hillsborough County, Florida, which is near the Tampa area. Yeah. Around 5 p.m. yesterday, two vehicles traveling northbound on let's see, is this for twenty or two? I don't know the road. It's not seventy five or anything. But during the competition, one driver fired a weapon at the other vehicle.

A 16 year old female passenger was in the targeted vehicle. Vehicle was struck by one of the bullets. She was taken to Tampa General Hospital with non-life threatening injuries.

The suspect, though, was Rasul Hakeem, age 37. And he's been charged with attempted murder in the second degree firearm, great bodily harm. Two counts shooting at or into a vehicle.

And I mean, this could be. This could be a random Tuesday. But I mean, when I was going through my list of Florida man stories, because I've got, you know, Florida man busted for drug trafficking.

Florida allegedly swaps tags and steals a sixty five hundred dollar piece of art for just fifty dollars. Let's see. I mean, I get stories.

[Marnie Stockman]
Yeah. For days.

[Uncle Marv]
For days. Florida man, while on tour, went to Disney World and did something. I don't know.

It's just ridiculous. But that's a great story.

[Marnie Stockman]
Oh, thank you.

[Uncle Marv]
I don't know. Some of these stories are funny. But yeah, that was a good one.

That was some scary stuff.

[Marnie Stockman]
So I didn't tell my daughter because she was still asleep and I really didn't want the guy to know that my daughter.

[Uncle Marv]
Does she listen to you on podcasts?

[Marnie Stockman]
She's another one for sure. She's listening to me right now. She wants to tell that story.

So the police burst in our front door as my daughter was walking out of her door. She's like, what's going on? Because another police with there was the guy was resisting arrest in the basement.

So I had to came through different ways. And I was like, sorry, we're OK. Like there's resisting arrest going on in the basement.

She's like, I thought somebody was attacking you and dad. I heard the big collision because the police like pushed him into the window.

[Uncle Marv]
I was like, oh, dear, that's just kind of funny. All right. Well, we are going to have more chats over a beer in in D.C. at TechCon.

[Marnie Stockman]
So sounds good. I'll see you there.

[Uncle Marv]
Hi, Marty. Thank you very much for coming on the show. This has been fantastic.

[Marnie Stockman]
That was fun.

[Uncle Marv]
And folks, be sure to check the show notes for all the links, especially TechCon. And my Florida man story means nothing after that. And be sure to head over to lead it like Lasso dot com and sign up for the masterclass and personal leadership lessons for life.

Yeah, there we go.

[Marnie Stockman]
Thank you.

[Uncle Marv]
Fantastic. That's going to do it, folks. Be sure to check us out anytime.

We're always on YouTube, LinkedIn and the Facebook. We're here live and we're in your favorite pod catcher. That's going to do it.

Thanks for all the people that were here live with us. Mark, Brian, I saw Emanuel and some other people out there. Thank you very much.

And we'll be back with more of the IT business podcast soon. Until next time, holla.