736 Kelvin Daniels Shares An MSP's Success Story

[Uncle Marv]
Hello friends, Uncle Marv here with another episode of the IT Business Podcast, and we are here live in Miami at DattoCon 2024 at the Fountain Blue. And I'm upstairs back in the podcast room, and I have a new friend that I found. He was squatting here earlier, and we got to talk and say, hey, we need to do a show together.

So I've got Kelvin Daniels, the director of sales and channels at a company called Xtona. So, Kelvin, how are you?

[Kelvin Daniels]
Doing well, man. Happy to be here and excited to be at DattoCon and enjoying some of this Miami weather.

[Uncle Marv]
That's right. You are from up north.

[Kelvin Daniels]
Way up north, man. Almost Canada. So, I mean, it gets cold up there.

So they should move this thing to February, so maybe January. So then that way, it's really nice for me to come down here versus freezing.

[Uncle Marv]
There's other conferences, though, that you can kind of spread out. But coming to Miami in November, it's not too hot. No.

Right. So most people in the other parts of the country want to come down here during then. But you're right.

February would be a great time.

[Kelvin Daniels]
It would be. It would be nice.

[Uncle Marv]
Plus, it's my birthday that month, you know?

[Kelvin Daniels]
So, I mean, it would be a nice little treat for me.

[Uncle Marv]
So you can make it a family affair.

[Kelvin Daniels]
Yeah. Have everybody's schedules completely messed up and completely backwards just for me. So it would be nice.

[Uncle Marv]
So, well, let me ask this. Of course, obviously, you're here to be a part of DattoCon. But let me ask what your relationship is to Kaseya in general.

[Kelvin Daniels]
It's kind of interesting. I've actually been a very long-term legacy Datto partner. I've been selling Datto since the Cirrus One.

[Uncle Marv]
That's why you looked at me funny as we got started.

[Kelvin Daniels]
Yeah. I was like, oh, bro, sorry, man. But no, I've been a legacy Datto partner.

I've been selling it for over 15 years. And we were actually credited with starting some specific ways of selling Datto and looking at marketing at first as a continuity solution versus other people. So we were kind of the originators in the Midwest of that and have continued to grow.

And with the Kaseya purchase, we were really nervous. But I'm glad I was just nervous and not right.

[Uncle Marv]
Okay. All right. So I assume that everything has kind of continued status quo for you.

I have to believe that a lot of that has to do with the size of your business. So let me at least ask that as a point of reference. You know, Xtona, has it been there the entire 15 years?

And what type of business is it?

[Kelvin Daniels]
So I joined the team at Xtona about three years ago. Okay. I've been in the technology industry for over 20 years.

So I've worked there for the third MSP, full functioning MSP that I worked at. So when it comes down to that, yeah, the company has been around that long for sure. But we're not using Datto till about three years ago.

[Uncle Marv]
Till you showed up.

[Kelvin Daniels]
Till I showed up. Yeah. We were using a competitive product.

Might rhyme with Kuda or something.

[Uncle Marv]
We can say names here. Don't, don't listen.

[Kelvin Daniels]
No, we were using Barracuda. And by the time I came in and the guys took one look at a couple of the scenarios or the use cases, we just ended up, it was a pretty easy sell to the technical team to get them to take the chance. And we've been very happy with it.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. So full disclosure. If somebody happens to be listening to this for the first time, either because of Kelvin here or because of DattoCon, I was a previous Datto user.

Probably going back seven, eight years. Got some cheap customers is basically what it is. And they were just complaining about the monthly cost.

And so I kind of relented. I had a solution I went to. I used it as part of my RMM and stuff.

But I am still a Kaseya customer. I do Datto networking. I have IT glue.

I just have not yet gone on the 365 platform. So let me ask you, have you done that?

[Kelvin Daniels]
Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's been a really interesting situation. So we were actually using what's now Network Detective Pro rapid fire tools.

We're using that for, again, I've been using that forever. We use that as a great sales tool. And so the fact that we were already using Kaseya before Kaseya bought Datto, it made it easy.

So we actually, we were already using RocketCyber. And so for us to integrate the rest of the stack in, so we did the full K365 conversion. And we're in the middle of launching the RMM portion of that now.

So RocketCyber has been extremely successful for us. The EDR solutions are successful. We've had great luck.

And of course, we have almost the entire Barracuda fleet completely displaced by Datto now. So that was a challenge with some of those customers because Barracuda was cheap compared to Datto.

[Uncle Marv]
Yes, yes.

[Kelvin Daniels]
Yeah. So we had to do some real, real good negotiating with our customers to get them to understand the difference.

[Uncle Marv]
Well, it was a big thing. So I did have, I don't want to say I yanked everything. I did have a couple of law firms where we kept it.

And as a matter of fact, I still technically have two appliances that will be winding down this month. And they were fairly large. They were 12 terabyte units for two locations for this firm.

So listen, when you find a product that gives them the bulletproof backup, that means something. And most of my clients, they were happy with that for a long time until they weren't. And they're like, yeah, we can live with a day of downtime if we have to.

And I'm like, listen, I don't want to do it. But it's your business. So if you agree that you're not going to scream at me, we'll make the switch.

So that's what happened there. Now, Calvin, let me ask you this. Let's talk about Xtona in terms of the type of business, types of clients you serve.

I have to assume in Minnesota, you do have the same types of clients we have down here in Florida, right?

[Kelvin Daniels]
Absolutely. And actually, we're a nationwide company. So we work heavily in the ISP market.

And so we do a really, really good bit of business there. And that gives us access to a lot of locations across the United States. So we have customers in Missouri, and Oklahoma, and Iowa, Nebraska, I mean, all over the place.

[Uncle Marv]
Nice. Big Midwest influence there. So in the ISP space now, are you dealing with just the ISPs?

Are you dealing with MSP customers of the ISPs? Are you dealing with direct customers? How does that work?

[Kelvin Daniels]
So with the ISPs, that part has been really, really great. Because it's literally just we're focusing on their environment with them. So we're doing a lot of co-managed space with those guys.

So we're filling in a lot of the gaps that some of the other people aren't. And then from there, the end goal is to be working with their business customers. On top of that, we work heavily in the municipalities with law enforcement and municipalities.

We do a lot of work with them. A lot of those are rural in Minnesota. So that's more regionalized to where we are.

But then we're also in the manufacturing space. Very big. So anything that has heavy compliance, it's kind of a sweet spot for us.

Because we're very focused on compliance, very focused on regulation. And being able to give people an opportunity to not have to worry. Like our job is to serve them, right?

So we want to take that off your plate. We want you to be OK and not have to worry about it for a few minutes. Or a few seconds.

Or a few days in cases. Because other people, they said they didn't get a minute of rest. And so our job is to take that worry off your plate so you don't have to anymore.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. So are you happy with the announcement that they did here? That they're now going to be doing the 365 user portion there?

[Kelvin Daniels]
Super excited. When we saw that launch today, I brought one of my engineers. So I have to bring a smart guy with me just to make sure that you know.

[Uncle Marv]
That what they're saying is legit.

[Kelvin Daniels]
So I'm going to grab some crayons and kick it over here for a little bit. When you guys are done talking, I'll come back. So yeah.

So it's been fantastic. We looked at each other and he just got a big grin on his face. And we were already evaluating two or three of the products that were included with that.

So it's going to be a very seamless, very easy transition for us to go to that selection.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. So I did an interview with Nadir Merchant and he made me swear to never call it a bundle. So I wanted to ask the whole idea of having a product that is fully integrated.

Again, I'm not fully on that platform, so I can't speak to it, but you probably can. Being able to go in and have everything work seamlessly together. It's not an API integration.

It's not a click a button and it'll open it up in a frame here and stuff like that. How has that worked for you guys?

[Kelvin Daniels]
It's worked really well. I don't know what you're supposed to call it in the bundle, though. So you can't say bundle, but I can.

So I mean, it's I always look at it like that. You know, you have the ability to take this stack of things here anytime and we can make it easy for us to not only manage it but deliver it. There's a big difference.

I mean, we're ranked in the top 5% of the top 1% of companies in the nation in customer retention. We just don't lose customers. And part of that is because of our commitment to delivery and a lot of the things that we do.

So it really stacks up well for us to be able to create even more time by having better efficiency with some of these solutions that we're working with. And we're sitting there going, oh, man, it's going to take forever to map this out, to make sure that we can get these things switched over. So I mean, there's going to be some pain on our end to switch things over and it's going to affect our relationships with other vendors that we're currently using those solutions from.

So it's going to hurt my discounts and stuff with those guys. But for the price point that they're talking about, it looks pretty good.

[Uncle Marv]
One of the things that even though I'm a small boutique business, I learned long ago, I can't worry about the vendors. It's my clients I've got to take care of. And I've got to do what works well for me and for them.

And hopefully the vendors understand that. And maybe that'll cause them to start making some changes and doing what Kaseya is doing.

[Kelvin Daniels]
I'd hope so, man. So a lot of people call it the MSP space, right? The managed services provider, the managed services provider.

And we've dropped that moniker completely out of our vernacular. We went over to managed services partner. OK.

Because we partner with our customers. Those are our partners. They're not our customers.

They're our partners. We're partnered in delivering them the best experience that they can have for their employees and for their customers. Because if they don't have to worry about the stuff that we're dealing with, now they can focus on their delivery.

And so our job is to give them the ability to serve as much as we want to be able to serve them.

[Uncle Marv]
So I'm going to have to ask you to come back and be on another show where we can talk more about that, because I've got a show that'll be coming up soon about the moniker. MSP, MSSP, IT solution provider. What do we call ourselves?

Because there's starting to be a little bit of friction as to what people want to be called. And the bottom line is, it doesn't matter what we're called. Are we serving our customers and doing what we need to do to keep them safe, to keep them working, and to, in a sense, make their lives, I think you said, seamless, right?

[Kelvin Daniels]
Yeah, I mean, and this might get a little off topic for some people. But we spend the time in our lives sharing our times, talents, and treasures with people, right? So at the end of the day, when I can share, when I can create additional time for people, because we're taking care of them, they have an opportunity to share that with others.

Whether that's their family, or whether that's a non-profit organization, United Way, whatever they want to go serve at, right? So if we're taking care of those issues so they have extra time, we're helping them share their time, talents, and treasures. And they're treasures, because in a lot of cases, they're upside down on IT.

They're dying. You have a 15 or 20 user business. They know they need help.

And their brother's cousin's son that just got and took a computer class has been messing up their network for a long time. And they're using tiny dumb switches and mess.

[Uncle Marv]
No, man, they're buying processors like this because this is killing it in the gaming community. This has got to work for business. So I got a nephew that's all about that.

[Kelvin Daniels]
Absolutely.

[Uncle Marv]
So let me do this. We've got just a couple of minutes. I want to make sure you be the opportunity.

Apparently, you were here doing a lot of stuff at the conference. So let me ask you, in terms of just being here, are you really able to enjoy the conference, or are you just working all the time?

[Kelvin Daniels]
Yeah, this one's been a little different for me. I've been able to do some things I really like to do as far as being able to enjoy that. Hit the beach, maybe?

No, not like that. I'm talking about it's still work related. But for me, it's interesting.

I enjoy being able to stay on top of things so that I can turn around and take that back and give our team and give other people a little shot of what we're looking at. But with this situation, being involved in some of the product councils and being able to have some input and to get some ideas on some other peers that we work with in the industry to really check and see, hey, here's some changes they might be making to this product. What do you guys think of that?

And because we're on the front lines, we get a real good opportunity to have those conversations. I really enjoy that. That's something that's important to me because I get a chance to really work with other people and two brains, five brains, 15 brains is better than one brain.

So that part's great. And then being able to, last night, our account manager, Manny, and Vega, they took us out to go grab a bite to eat. And we just got a chance to connect at a human level.

That part is the important piece.

[Uncle Marv]
Yes, it is.

[Kelvin Daniels]
Yes, everybody's so worried about the business sense of it. But if you care for people, business generally takes care of itself. And we're very fortunate.

We've had, I've had bad account managers in the past, and they cared about their quota. They didn't care about us. And we have the benefit of having somebody that really cares about us.

He cares about his quota too, don't get me wrong.

[Uncle Marv]
Well, yes, I was going to say, we can't let that slide because, listen, I end up talking to a lot of account managers. Now, I happen to be on the smaller side. So I don't always get to keep my account manager.

But I can, I was going to say this earlier, but I'll say it now. You know, people like me are happy to have people like you that they will bring to the table and ask, you know, does this work? Does this, you know, stand with the customers and with your employees to make them be able to do a better job?

So thank you for being able to sit at those meetings that I don't get to sit at.

[Kelvin Daniels]
I didn't get to sit at it for a while either, man. Three different MSPs that I've worked at, all three of them were non-existent Datto partners. And we went from not having a single device in the field to being Blue Diamond VIPs in less than three years.

And that's because we've been able to put the solution out in a little bit different way. Other people started trying to do that now. So it's like, I wish that I just like patented my secret sauce a lot sooner than I did.

[Uncle Marv]
I'll ask you about that off air because I saw a website that I'm like, hmm, that looks like Datto. But I know that you've got another commitment here. So I want to make sure I honor that and give you some time to get over to where you need to go.

But Calvin, thank you very much for spending some time here.

[Kelvin Daniels]
Appreciate it, man. It's an honor and a privilege and I'm looking forward to getting to know you more and getting to know more about the space and the environment we all get to enjoy.

[Uncle Marv]
Well, it's a lovely space. It's a big space, I'm hearing and seeing. But happy to be a part of it.

So thank you again and I'll give you back your time. And those of you listening, thank you very much. And I think I've got one or two more interviews coming here from DattoCon.

But that's going to be it for now. And until next time, Holla!