754 Frank DeLuca: From BBS to MSP Success

[Uncle Marv]
Hello friends, Uncle Marv here with another episode of the IT Business Podcast, the show for IT professionals where we talk about all things in the industry with an emphasis on how to run your business better, smarter and faster. This is the show, the weekly live show, Wednesdays at 8 p.m. that we do most Wednesdays. We are coming up to the end of the year.

Next week is it folks, the last podcast, the holiday podcast party where we will review, reveal the winners of the 2024 Podcast Awards. Be sure to head over to the website and vote. Basically go to itbusinesspodcast.com slash survey and you can do some voting there. You're voting for best guest, best episode and best swag. And then I ask you a couple of questions to tell me, hey, if you like the show this year, that sort of thing and tell me what we can do better or tell me what to stop doing and that'll be it. Let me give you fair warning about tonight's show.

There will probably be some cursing from me. So if you are new to the show, I normally don't curse, usually not a big deal. And if you are familiar with the show, you may not have heard me curse before.

You're going to because I have a trigger event that happened today that I want to talk about. So I don't know if I'm going to talk about that early or late. I'll kind of decide as we go along.

But let me go ahead and kick off the show with a couple of news stories. First of all, to let you know the show is brought to you by NetAlly. They are our legacy partner.

And tonight's live stream is brought to you by Super Ops. And they are the folks that also sponsor the mug that I drink from every evening that I do the show. So superops.com and then our podcast partners TruGrid. They've been a fantastic secure remote access program. And check them out at the website. Click on the sponsor tab and check them out.

So speaking of partners, I want to start out. I've reached out to my friends over at SonicWall because there was a press release yesterday that kind of caught my attention. And SonicWall and CrowdStrike have announced a partnership to create a new managed detection and response offering, bringing enterprise level security capabilities to small and medium sized businesses.

And it's kind of odd because, of course, SonicWall has been making a ton of changes this year. And they've already partnered with Sentinel One and Sophos. And this, of course, is a new deal.

They are going to be combining their 24-7 security operations center with CrowdStrike's Falcon cybersecurity platform. And I mean, I have a link to the article in the show notes. And I just thought it was quite interesting, given all the changes that they've done.

And of course, given the incident that happened earlier, I think it was what, six weeks ago or something with CrowdStrike and Microsoft. And it should be interesting to see that what happens with that. So I wanted to reach out to my friends over there and see if they'd come on and try to squeeze in one more show before the end of the year.

That will be an audio podcast if it happens. If it doesn't, blame Michael Crean. That's all we got to say there.

So let's see. I'm going to go ahead and do this. Let's see.

So we may or may not have Florida Man story tonight, folks. But I will tell you this. Florida Man's a good one.

It involves Santa Claus. Comcast. I normally don't tell you guys about my stack.

And I'm going to tonight to tell you that over the years, it has been a running joke that if anything happens during the show, a little audio glitch, we cut out, internet just goes away, that I have a Comcast internet connection. And that has always been the case. Earlier this year, though, AT&T Fiber showed up in my area.

I have been on AT&T Fiber for about seven months. And it has been fantastic. Not Comcastic, fantastic.

So I will be dumping Comcast here at the end of the year. And I just thought that would be great news. And I got triggered with that comment because I saw that Comcast is going to be acquiring Nitel, and they're going to be providing network as a service.

And I was going to talk about that today. But I thought, you know what, I'm just going to go out and say I'm getting rid of Comcast, mainly because their broadband service, I don't care what that dude on those commercials says, fast, reliable, blah, blah, blah. When it's working, it's fast, but it's never reliable.

And their fiber product, I'm assuming is good, but it costs too much money. So AT&T business fiber has come in at a very affordable price. So I got it.

I only got the 500 meg because that's pretty much all I need here. The gig is available. And I think they're going to be going higher down the road.

So if there's a price change, I may be looking more into that. So those of you that have been making fun of my internet, stop it. I'm on AT&T fiber now.

And let's see here. I'm going to save my vendor rant. Yes, it is a vendor rant.

And I know I called out a vendor last week, and I actually gave them props because I got an email response where they apologized for what they did to me. So I was good until today. So we will go into that later.

What I do want to do is go ahead and bring on my guest today, Frank DeLuca, from the CTO agency. Frank and I have been getting to know each other over the last year or so. And I have questions about his story and his business.

And we're going to chat about that and get to some good old MSP talk. Frank, how are you?

[Frank DeLuca]
I'm doing all right. How are you, Marv?

[Uncle Marv]
I am good, sir.

[Frank DeLuca]
Good, good.

[Uncle Marv]
So how is your end of year coming along?

[Frank DeLuca]
The end of year is actually going okay so far. I don't want to jinx anything, but I've got a migration coming up next week. So there's still plenty of time for stuff to blow up.

[Uncle Marv]
Really? Next week? Wow.

Now, are you doing it?

[Frank DeLuca]
It's long overdue.

[Uncle Marv]
Okay. Let me guess. Windows 10 upgrades?

[Frank DeLuca]
Uh, actually, this is moving off of some on-prem stuff and getting them out into the cloud.

[Uncle Marv]
Really?

[Frank DeLuca]
Yeah. So I had a talk- An on-prem is a server, 2008 server, a couple 2012s. So- Okay.

[Uncle Marv]
Yeah, I just put together a report that I've got to send to a client tomorrow because they've got three 2012 servers that we got to upgrade. Now, they upgraded the other nine, so that was good. But these three, they keep hanging on to.

And I am working on an upcoming show where I'm going to be talking to a vendor that will not be going to the cloud. So that will be interesting. I don't want to bring that up because I got to confirm it and all that stuff.

But I had a long chat with one of my- It was my client's account rep because they've got an upgrade that came out and they want to try to get that done before the end of the year. So I had to get all the details on that. So the rep was giving me all the stuff because they've been flirting with a cloud product that was another division of the company.

But so many people have refused to go to the cloud. Lawyers. So- Okay.

They're kind of like, you know what? We're not going to go. So that'll be interesting.

[Frank DeLuca]
Well, it's funny. It's like this particular client, everything's been on-prem for so long and it's worked so well for so long that they're hesitant. And just with a lot of things changing, they decided, you know what?

Let's finally do it. Aside from the fact that their servers are ancient.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. Have you sent out notices about October 2025 yet?

[Frank DeLuca]
I have not. Mostly because pretty much everybody's on Windows 11 already. Really?

Yeah.

[Uncle Marv]
Okay. Nice.

[Frank DeLuca]
Yeah. And this one that we're doing next week is going to be replacing workstations also.

[Uncle Marv]
Okay. All right. So let's dive in and talk about you and your company.

And I'm going to ask this question first that I did not prepare you for. When people hear the name, the CTO agency, doesn't sound techie at all.

[Frank DeLuca]
It does not. So it started out, oh, I guess, where do I start? Let's start with the name, I guess.

I worked for an insurance company for 20 some years and company had sold and some things happened and I was given some opportunities. And it was more along the lines of consulting where companies that wanted some guidance on what to do, what they can do to enhance their technology at their company, make them more efficient, things like that. I was like, all right, so I'm basically acting as a chief technology officer.

So that's where the term CTO comes from. And I would go into these meetings and come out and they would be like, hey, all this stuff you said is great. Can you do it too?

I'm like, well, I suppose I could and kind of evolved into the whole IT services thing from that. So the name started out with good intentions, but now it's kind of not really applicable to everything we're doing.

[Uncle Marv]
Yeah, it's still got tech in there, but here's the question. So when you were working with the insurance, were you doing tech for them?

[Frank DeLuca]
I was.

[Uncle Marv]
Okay. It wasn't too far off.

[Frank DeLuca]
No, I suppose not. But yeah, I assumed my initial vision was to be more of an outsourced CTO instead of more of the service provider, but it turned into the service provider role, it looks like.

[Uncle Marv]
All right, well, let's do that transition. What was it that actually had you, first of all, go off on your own? And how has that been for you?

[Frank DeLuca]
How far back do we want to go?

[Uncle Marv]
Far back as you want.

[Frank DeLuca]
I mean, I could start with when I used to run a BBS when I was like 13 years old.

[Uncle Marv]
On top you serve?

[Frank DeLuca]
So I got my first computer, I think I was like 13, and didn't know how to do anything on it, but it came with a 90-day Prodigy subscription.

[Uncle Marv]
Prodigy.

[Frank DeLuca]
So when I signed up for Prodigy, I was able to ask people all these questions, and they were super nice and all this stuff. And over time, I got into learning how to program and all this, and I thought, I was like, oh, this Bolton board thing is kind of cool, so I'm going to try that. And ran two node BBS for a couple of years, got a job at a local computer shop when I was 15, was basically their only technician in the back who was actually building computers and doing all that fun stuff.

Kind of just self-taught and went with it. From there, worked for two ISPs doing tech support. And at the last one I was at, I was friends with one of the guys I worked with, and he had some family that was in some businesses, and they were investors and things, and kind of went up to him with an idea and said, or not an idea, but a proposal.

And he was like, hey, if you've got some friends that can come up with a good idea, I want to fund a tech startup. And this was probably in 99 or so. So we had a bunch of ideas.

He asked me and said he wanted to be part of it. So we came up with a bunch of ideas, presented a few of them. And he liked one of them and basically said, okay, I want you guys to do this.

I want you to quit your job and work on this for the next year or two. So I ended up quitting my job. I worked on this tech startup, which have you ever seen the show Silicon Valley on HBO?

[Uncle Marv]
No.

[Frank DeLuca]
Oh, it was a great show, but- I'm not your typical geek. What's that?

[Uncle Marv]
I'm not your typical geek.

[Frank DeLuca]
Yeah. Watching that show reminded me of all the stuff I went through, but we basically went through this tech startup. And at the time our idea was we could probably write software that would let anybody put up their own e-commerce store.

So basically like what Shopify is now. So he's like, I like that idea. So we did it and it worked.

It did what it was supposed to do. But at the time the project kind of got dragged out too long. And it was right around the same time the tech bubble was bursting and nobody believed in anything tech anymore.

So end of the day, the company fizzled out and there were a few of us left over. The guys who had funded it had another company. It was the insurance company.

And they said, hey, I got these people, what can we do? And they were like, well, we can use Frank, I guess. We'll take him.

They'll save me. So I ended up working for them for the next 20 years, running their network, basically running all their IT. Wrote an application for them that the company ended up operating on.

Did a whole bunch of stuff. A few years ago, the company sold and some transition happened. And basically that presented me with some opportunity where I can do some work for other people and still provide consulting to my previous employer.

And here I am today.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. Now, what you're doing today doesn't sound like anything you were doing back then. So when you left that and started on your own, how much were you doing for that old employer?

And how much were you trying to figure out how to run this IT service business?

[Frank DeLuca]
So they were, I was doing a lot of, so I was still essentially running their IT up until the end. The consulting I was doing for them was more along the lines of the program that I wrote for them. And then a couple of the other companies that I worked with initially were, one of them had an outgoing CTO that was looking for somebody to fill the void while they found a replacement.

And a couple of others were more like, you know, they had worked with some people and then ultimately just, I guess, liked me more. So wanted me to kind of take over and do things and kind of started talking about, what can we do it on a contractual basis? And then, you know, morphed into the IT services.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. So I should probably give some disclosure here. The reason I know some of this stuff is that you and I are a part of a peer group that we casually hang out every couple of weeks or so.

So I've heard some of this before. So I'm kind of leading you down a path of where you are now. And how much do you want to share about the last year where you've, you know, you were solo for a while and now you're not?

[Frank DeLuca]
I am not. No, I was solo. And things were picking up, was getting pretty busy, getting a good amount of volume coming in and thought it would, it made sense at the time to bring out a full timer, which I did in July.

So I've got another technician that is working with me. And getting things ramped up and kind of teaching him the way of how to use all the tools and kind of getting processes in order and things like that. I think the challenge to date has been just getting all those processes in place and making sure you have that stuff ahead of time and trying to figure it out as you go and just kind of being patient with the process.

[Uncle Marv]
So I know that you were really trying hard to have all of that stuff in place before this person started, something that most people don't do. Most people just, they're already overwhelmed and they just got to get somebody in as quick as possible. So how prepared do you think you actually were when your tech started?

[Frank DeLuca]
How prepared was I versus where I thought I was? I would say maybe 55 to 60%.

[Uncle Marv]
Okay.

[Frank DeLuca]
I think better than half, but still not anywhere near where it should have been.

[Uncle Marv]
Okay. Some of that had to do with you trying to perfect that stack.

[Frank DeLuca]
Yeah, that was part of it.

[Uncle Marv]
So I don't think we've talked about this in the group, but how close to stack perfection were you then and has it changed in the last seven months or six months?

[Frank DeLuca]
It actually has not. It has not changed a whole lot. Things are, for the most part, I've tried out some other things and kind of experimented.

But things are working well the way that I've got them at the moment. So we're both comfortable with the tools that we're using. I am going to be swapping out a portion of them.

I sort of already have. We're kind of doing double with the PSA side of things, but I like it though.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. So you triggered me.

[Frank DeLuca]
Are you going to go into what you were going?

[Uncle Marv]
Yeah, I think I need to give the disclaimer, folks. If you are watching now and you don't like cursing, leave. So well, first, let me ask you this.

Let's continue on with your changing out your stack. And I'm assuming it's to kind of streamline and simplify. You're doing double duty.

Yeah. What has been your process of determination of where you go with your stack?

[Frank DeLuca]
Basically, does it make things easier? And does it do the things I need it to do?

[Uncle Marv]
Okay.

[Frank DeLuca]
I mean, obviously, is it secure? There's a whole slew of other things. But primarily, will it make our lives easier and still provide the service and do the things we need to do?

[Uncle Marv]
All right. And what's your relationship like with your vendors?

[Frank DeLuca]
For the most part, I think the ones that I work with are pretty good, I believe.

[Uncle Marv]
You believe?

[Frank DeLuca]
Yeah. I think they would say the same thing. I think we're good.

Okay.

[Uncle Marv]
So I'm going to be probably changing some stack, which I don't like to do. I, like you, if it works for me, makes my life easier, I'm good. And I've added a couple of things recently, which I think are going to be great.

And I made one change where I felt like I had to justify to the vendor why I wanted to make that change in them questioning, you know, what I'm doing. And I'm like, I'm good. Trust me.

It took me a long time to get to this point. But today, I'll start by saying I was already having a day. I was having a morning where, first of all, and I see the live people just dropping.

So nobody wants to hear me curse.

[Frank DeLuca]
Incoming rant.

[Uncle Marv]
Yep. So first of all, let me say this. I know it's the end of the year.

I know it's mid-December and some vendors have got to get their numbers in. There are some people that are like trying to bang sales and let's get this done. Let's make a change before the end of the year.

Don't you want to make a change in your stack and be on point for 2025? Sure, we all do. But we also are trying to end out the year.

We're trying to wind things down, get projects up. I ain't got time to be thinking about 2025. I should have already done that.

My good friend Paco, in his fourth quarter living, they start doing this back in October. So I'm at the point where I know I've got to deal with the situation. And I'm going to say I made a mistake.

I literally made a mistake. I have gone my entire 26 years up to that point, because I've been in business 27 now, entering year 28. And in year 26, I signed an agreement with a vendor.

I signed a one-year agreement to keep my price. And I thought I could deal with that. A month after I signed that agreement, I lost two clients and a big chunk of my endpoints.

So the agreement that I signed meant that I was going to drop below my commit level. And so I would still have to pay for the number that I signed up for, even though I only had so many endpoints.

[Frank DeLuca]
Right.

[Uncle Marv]
Now, not a big deal. Because the way that I bill and the way that I run my company, I'm OK. I can finish out the year without getting another endpoint and still make money.

I know a lot of people can't. And a lot of people, you know, those dollars of monthly commitment are a big bone of contention for people. They don't sleep well at night.

I'm good. I actually had one client when they asked me, hey, would, you know, they were at the time 77 endpoints. And he asked me, he goes, so if we weren't your client, you know, would you suffer?

I'm like, no. And I think he was kind of bummed because he thought he was my largest client. And I'm like, you're not.

And so regardless, yeah, it took a hit. 77 endpoints is a hit. Right.

I don't care how big you are. Definitely, if you're small, that's a big hit. So it was a hit.

But it's not going to make me close my doors. So and that wasn't even a part of this equation with the vendor. So I get the call today from the vendor because I submitted a request that when my contract renews, I want to go back to month to month.

And I was told, well, first, I need to check and see if I can get that approved. I'm like, what do you mean approved? I was told last month that when I signed that I could switch back to month to month if needed.

No, that that's not going to happen. We won't be doing any more month to month. Everything is a commit.

And so I said, OK, well, I think I might be switching. Right. Now, sure, that short answer is I may not.

But the point is, don't lie to me and don't treat me like shit. Which is what I got. And the reason I got that is this kid was 24, first job in the tech industry.

And we're talking and the call started out fine. How are you doing? Great.

Hey, how's Florida? I love it in Florida. Blah, blah, blah.

Yeah, I'm in this business. And I know that you sent an email on Monday and I was supposed to get back to you yesterday. But, you know, I had to take some time off, you know, work life balance.

And I'm like, OK, that's nice. But then proceeded to tell me that I should, you know, understand that the industry is changing it. You know, this is the best way to go.

And I'm like, dude, I know that. Trust me, I've talked to a lot of vendors. I know about the contracts.

And then we got into this whole business philosophy thing. And I was like, I think you need to stop right now. And I think he was literally starting to get upset that I was stopping him.

And I was trying, I was trying to be nice. And it got to a point where he said, well, you need to understand. And I said, that's enough.

That's enough. Here we go. I understand.

I've been doing my business longer than you've been alive. So don't you go start trying to tell me how to run my business. Well, we know what's best for everybody.

I'm like, you don't know shit. Don't try to tell me how to run my business.

[Frank DeLuca]
Oh, man.

[Uncle Marv]
And.

[Frank DeLuca]
Really trying to hit.

[Uncle Marv]
It was just one of those things where I'm like, now I'm at the point where I want to leave the company just to get them out of my life because I don't, it's almost like I don't care how good you are. If you're going to treat me like shit, you're done. And, you know, I've already been on this whole vendor MSP kick because I've seen comments and some Facebook groups and reddit and stuff.

And it's one of those, it's that time of year where vendors are pissed off at MSPs who don't keep appointments and, you know, drag on stuff. And MSPs are tired of, you know, vendors who, you know, call personal cell phones. It happened to me.

All this stuff. And I'm like, we need to have a little rules of engagement or something. And so I'm going to have to do a show in the future.

But I was like that. That was it for me. That was.

[Frank DeLuca]
Yeah, that's frustrating. So you can tell you how to run your whole business for you.

[Uncle Marv]
Yeah. Yeah. And I get it.

Listen. For the longest time, we've asked vendors to help us in some regard. There are MSPs that are like, look, help us, you know, sell cybersecurity.

A big problem in our industry.

[Frank DeLuca]
Right.

[Uncle Marv]
And vendors have taken it upon themselves to become the barometer of what is true and right in the world. When, to be honest, and I'm not, this is not all vendors. So the vendors out there that I love don't take this the wrong way.

But there are vendors out there that are just bullshitting everybody to sell their stuff. And if it's great stuff, you don't need to bullshit me. That's all I got to say.

Just, you know, show me the stuff, show me how it works in my business, show me how I can, you know, help my customers, keep them in business, keep them from being, you know, breached.

[Frank DeLuca]
Right.

[Uncle Marv]
Keep them up.

[Frank DeLuca]
Do all the things that you say you were doing and do them well.

[Uncle Marv]
And, you know, don't be telling me, you know, this, I'm going to upset some people, but you know, the whole marketplace, the whole idea, the whole bundle idea, I get it. I know what's coming. But that doesn't mean I have to run my business the way you tell me.

Right. This world is big enough for a lot of things. Okay.

So Frank, how's the weather up in Cleveland?

[Frank DeLuca]
Yeah, it's getting cold again. We were bombed with snow last week, a little further east than where I'm at. Which is odd because normally we're the ones getting bombed.

But, you know, rain came by, cleared it all out, and I think it's going to come back again like this weekend.

[Uncle Marv]
So, I'm sorry, I'm looking at the chat here. I see you during my rant. I recently changed a vendor and ended the conversation by saying, if you had called me during the failed year of agreement, as much as you are now, I would not be changing vendors.

Yeah. Yeah, that's a joy.

[Frank DeLuca]
You know, after hearing that, I've actually had time to think, and I am pretty happy with my vendors. You know, I've had a few where, for example, cybersecurity. Like, they'll get on a call with me and my client and explain how, you know, the product will do what we need it to do and all that kind of stuff.

So, you know, they actually do work as a partner, the good ones.

[Uncle Marv]
That's all we want. Yeah, just, you know, listen, we understand we're a reseller, you know. Right.

But just, yeah, let's be partners. Let's do things the way that they're meant to be done.

[Frank DeLuca]
I mean... Go on.

[Uncle Marv]
I was going to say, I mean, one of the things that I remember, as big as HP is, back in 2005, I had spent the first several years building everything. I mean, you were in the store, you built machines, white boxes. I built computers and I built servers for the first seven, eight years of my business.

And there was this one client, my big client at the time, 40-plus workstations, and I wanted to get them a real server. And so I went to HP and asked that, you know, because you had to become a partner to resell their stuff. And I remember they denied my application.

And back then, there was a number you could call. And I called the number and I said, yeah, you denied me. I just wanted to know why.

I've been in business. I've, you know, made good money. And he said, well, you don't sell 100 grand worth of, you know, HP product.

And I said, well, how can I sell 100 grand of HP product when you don't let me sell HP product? And they were like, hmm. They let me be a partner.

[Frank DeLuca]
Good. Good question. Got a good answer.

[Uncle Marv]
So that was, I mean, so, I mean, I don't want it to sound like the size of the vendor makes the difference because there are some big partners out there that are fine. I'm still an HP partner. I've looked at Dell.

I've looked at, I'm still HP. Now, they don't do what they did back then, but I'm still with them.

[Frank DeLuca]
Yeah. I was going to say, you know, we're, I think similar in that we, you know, I would probably consider what we are is like more of like a boutique kind of IT provider. And when you do that, like, you know, my clients are a little more needy.

They want more like white glove kind of service. And, you know, they aren't necessarily like cookie cutter and, you know, I'm not selling like the same bundle to everybody. I'm, you know, giving them specifically what, you know, what they need.

So, you know, having the mix of vendors that are accommodating to that kind of thing, you know, helps things out.

[Uncle Marv]
Yeah.

[Frank DeLuca]
You know, it's like, I don't need the minimum commit and things like that.

[Uncle Marv]
Yeah. Let's do this. I need to, I need to calm down.

So let me go ahead and do a quick little sponsor love to our vendors and we'll come back and continue on.

[Frank DeLuca]
Sounds good.

[Uncle Marv]
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You are either watching or listening to the IT Business Podcast, the show for IT professionals. And we are talking with Frank DeLuca from the CTO agency. So, Frank, as we were earlier talking and asking how this year is going for you and stuff, have you already made plans for next year?

[Frank DeLuca]
Oh, I guess we could say, like, what kind of plans are we talking?

[Uncle Marv]
I don't know. You're going to double in size.

[Frank DeLuca]
So, I am going to try marketing a little bit more, getting a little more aggressive.

[Uncle Marv]
Oh, marketing.

[Frank DeLuca]
Yeah, we're going to see how that goes. We're going to try it out. All right.

You know, part of it is going to be, you know, I'm going to ask my existing customers, you know, for referrals a little more and things like that. But I'm going to be, like, doing some more work on my website, trying to be a little more active on LinkedIn, you know, all that kind of stuff. Try and reach out to some local businesses.

I'm probably going to either hire or contract, you know, somebody to assist with that. And, you know, see if we can grow a little bit.

[Uncle Marv]
So, you know, if you go back and listen to some of the IT business podcasts, you've got a bunch of marketing folks on here.

[Frank DeLuca]
I'm going to have to take a look through your contents.

[Uncle Marv]
Yeah. Well, in this vein, let me ask this, because this is what the marketing folks will ask you. Do you have your ideal, you know, customer avatar?

[Frank DeLuca]
Yeah, I believe I do. You know, a majority of my clients currently are in, like, professional services or insurance. So, like, insurance agencies, companies, CPAs, family offices.

You know, I've got a couple, like, contractors and, like, manufacturing stuff. But primarily, they're the professional services and inherently need a little extra care and regulation. You know, they have rules they have to follow and compliance standards and things like that.

So, a lot of it's a little easier because they just, they know that they need those things. And that's, you know, the stuff that I like to do. I, you know, have gotten accustomed to dealing with auditors and working with that and giving them the documentation, all that fun stuff that they need.

So, you know, primarily, that's kind of who my client base is.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. So, you have it a little easier than I do. I have law firms.

And luckily, I've got a couple of law firms. Their clients are insurance companies. So, those companies have sent down their security requirements, which made it a lot easier for me to sell them the products to help them with their cybersecurity, help them get their cyber insurance.

I've got a couple that I'm going to do here before the end of the year. So, the fact that you're dealing with insurance companies already, how much easier does it make your job in, you know, selling cybersecurity?

[Frank DeLuca]
The insurance companies are great. It's pretty easy because they know they need it. And it's like, all right, because if they don't, and they go through an audit, they have to comply with departments of insurance with, you know, they're asking for, and if they don't, they can lose a rating, which directly hits their bottom line.

[Uncle Marv]
Right. So, here's the question. Do they actually know what they're doing?

Are they just saying, hey, look, help us pass this audit?

[Frank DeLuca]
Oh, no, I think at least the ones I'm working with, they're pretty active with it. Okay. So, they have like an IT steering committee.

They have their board meetings specifically for IT roadmap and planning and things like that. No, they're pretty active with it.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. Now, can you say, is it health insurance, auto insurance, home insurance?

[Frank DeLuca]
No. So, I would say it would fall under specialty insurance.

[Uncle Marv]
Okay. Like commercial liability?

[Frank DeLuca]
Yeah. A type of, yeah.

[Uncle Marv]
Private insurance?

[Frank DeLuca]
No, it's like commercial liability. Okay. Just for a very niche market.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. So, that's a little different, because most of mine are, let's see, I can, yeah, I think I can say. So, State Farm, USAA, Travelers, a lot of the clients are insurance defense.

So, if somebody walks into a big box store and slips and falls, my clients will defend the big box store. The problem with that side is, is they think that they can litigate their way out of everything. So, it's like, oh, we don't need that stuff.

If something happens, we'll sue.

[Frank DeLuca]
They just have the threats, so they don't need it.

[Uncle Marv]
Yeah. So, that'll be interesting.

[Frank DeLuca]
All right. It's interesting, because the other half of my clients that are not insurance companies, it's really tough to get them to really ultimately realize that they need the stuff. And one of these clients was actually breached before I was on working with them.

And even after, one of the responses was, well, you fixed it. So, I'm like, yeah, I fixed it. But it would have been nice to never have had to do that to begin with and save a bunch of money in the process.

[Uncle Marv]
Yeah. That's where I tell people, yeah, if somebody broke into your house by busting a window, I fixed the window.

[Frank DeLuca]
Right.

[Uncle Marv]
But I didn't fix the idea that somebody can't come and break it again.

[Frank DeLuca]
Break it again. Yeah.

[Uncle Marv]
So, that's interesting. So, here's something that I've done, and I'll ask you how you're handling it. I'm now at the point where I have a base level that my price includes all of that.

And then everything else is an add-on. So, my endpoint pricing includes my stack, whether it's my RMM, my endpoint protection, my EDR, threat locker, all of that. I've got a user price that includes the secure remote access.

Because I used to always battle each month trying to make sure I've got the licenses set up for TruGrid and all that stuff. I'm like, you know what? Right.

You're just paying for it. And if you don't use it, that's on you. But I'm doing that.

So, that has kind of helped. So, I've got people using threat locker that they didn't want it, but they got it. And some of them, it's weird.

I told them I was going to do it. Right. And it's like they didn't realize it was done until like months later, they get a pop-up.

They can't install that thing they installed from; you know, they downloaded from the internet. They're like, what's this? I'm like, that's that protection I told you about.

Oh, okay.

[Frank DeLuca]
Yeah. I mean, that's good if you're throwing that one in.

[Uncle Marv]
So, I was going to ask, are you at the point where you can kind of throw the blanket it's use out by saying, hey, look, I've got to provide this protection for these clients, which means I have to provide it for all my clients?

[Frank DeLuca]
It's funny you said that. I was literally just having that conversation with somebody today. And ultimately, like, I want to, I believe I want to do that because all of the tools that I'm using, I think are necessary, like kind of bare minimums for everyone.

You know, I want to have everybody on a base, you know, standard baseline really with security and it makes things easier to work on when everything is kind of standardized too. I haven't quite come to terms with how to handle it just yet. So, that's still kind of my end of year decision making.

[Uncle Marv]
Okay. So, here's how I'm approaching it. At some point, I'm going to be audited by somebody.

And to some degree, some of our vendors are actually providing a way to do that, whether it's, I'll throw out like Cork Insurance. Who else? Is it Senteon?

There's a couple of them out there where if you want to get, you know, your customer insured, they'll partner with you. And as long as you can provide proof that you've got, you know, endpoint protection, EDR, blah, blah, you know, X, Y, and Z, then they'll cover you. And of course, the first thing they do is offer that protection for us as the MSP.

So, it's easy to say, well, I've got to have it, you've got to have it. Right. So, that's the approach I'm taking.

[Frank DeLuca]
Okay. Yeah, that's good. I was talking to somebody today about FTC safeguards.

And it's been, you know, like the line between what cyber insurance requires versus what that requires is, you know, they're almost the same. Right. They need EDR, they need endpoint protection, they need backup, they need a disaster recovery plan, they need, you know, all that stuff.

Yeah. And it's like, these are all good practices. Everyone should be doing it anyways.

[Uncle Marv]
Yeah, this is something where I think if we went back to, and this is where vendors can help. Hi, vendors, still love you. The fact that we are still an attack vector for our clients.

So, if we can, you know, work with our vendors to show our clients, hey, look, we've got to protect your data. So, we're going to do this and we need your help in protecting your data. So, if you can do what we do, we'll all be good.

Keith must have left. I was waiting for a comment from him on that.

[Frank DeLuca]
That rant, man, it got some people.

[Uncle Marv]
It probably did, yeah. I saw some people come back, though, or maybe new people. Anyway, it's all good.

So, all right. In terms of business, now, when did you go solo?

[Frank DeLuca]
I'm in my third year.

[Uncle Marv]
Is it everything you dreamed it would have been?

[Frank DeLuca]
Oh, it's exactly what I thought it would be. You know, it's, you know, it's like everything. You got good days; you got bad days.

[Uncle Marv]
Yeah. All right.

[Frank DeLuca]
There's probably more that keeps me up at night now that I'm actually on my own. But, you know, the day-to-day is probably realistically about where I thought it would be. But the whole other half of it is new.

Like the running the business side.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. Well, I'm sure some vendor will come along and tell you how to run your operations.

[Frank DeLuca]
Hey, you know, I might listen.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. Well, Frank, I want to thank you for coming on. See, it wasn't so bad, was it?

[Frank DeLuca]
No, it was good. I enjoyed it.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. Frank DeLuca, the CTO agency out of, are you in Cleveland proper?

[Frank DeLuca]
Not Cleveland, I'm like 20 minutes south.

[Uncle Marv]
So you're closer to my wife's hometown than I thought, if you're 20 minutes south.

[Frank DeLuca]
I'm probably still closer to Cleveland.

[Uncle Marv]
Well, I mean, I know, but.

[Frank DeLuca]
Yeah, but yeah. Okay.

[Uncle Marv]
So for those of you that do not know, my wife, Kim, is from northeast Ohio, a tiny little town up there. And if you want to know how we met, just ask her and see what she says and compare it to my statement of we met in a bar. Good old Cleveland.

Home of, well, Akron, home of LeBron James.

[Frank DeLuca]
Right, Akron for sure.

[Uncle Marv]
I won't talk about LeBron James. He should have never left Cleveland.

[Frank DeLuca]
You know, I like to think that too.

[Uncle Marv]
So, all right. So let's see here. I think it is time for us to do one of the favorite segments that everybody enjoys, Florida man or random question.

So Frank, we talked a little bit before the show explaining to you what Florida man is. And I'll ask now, do you have a story to challenge Florida man, or will you answer a random question?

[Frank DeLuca]
I regrettably don't believe I've got a story for it. I should have been a little more prepared for this.

[Uncle Marv]
Okay.

[Frank DeLuca]
I'll probably think of something right after the show. Of course. Yeah, this is the way it goes.

I think I may have to do the random question.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. So I'll give you the random question first, and then I'll give the Florida man story. And clicking the random question generator.

The question is, what do you miss most about being a kid?

[Frank DeLuca]
Oh, being a kid. Yes. Things not hurting and cracking and, you know, going out and being able to play and not have to worry about working and doing all that stuff.

[Uncle Marv]
Ah, the joys of being a kid.

[Frank DeLuca]
Oh, man. Yeah.

[Uncle Marv]
I know we talked about this before the show, and people aren't going to understand, but do you watch any of the Cleveland football?

[Frank DeLuca]
Oh, do I?

[Uncle Marv]
Yeah.

[Frank DeLuca]
I haven't watched a whole lot this year.

[Uncle Marv]
I mean, I know you guys are, you know, enjoying the years of suck.

[Frank DeLuca]
No, because it's been that since like 99. You know, like a couple, you know, outliers, but.

[Uncle Marv]
Yeah. I mean, you know, the fumble, the drive. I mean, yeah.

[Frank DeLuca]
Yeah.

[Uncle Marv]
But I mean, the last couple of years with, you know, Deshaun Watson, you know, you've got a few years of suck, but Jameis Winston is, I mean, talk about a walking meme. I was going to ask if you saw him playing in the snow.

[Frank DeLuca]
So I actually, I caught the very end. I did not see much of the game. So I turned out, I was like, oh, this actually would have been a fun game to watch.

[Uncle Marv]
Yeah. For those that do not know, Jameis Winston is a quarterback from Florida State University. My favorite college, even though they suck.

Jameis Winston won a national championship there. He was a quarterback in Tampa, bounced around all over the place. He is your quarterback for your Cleveland Browns this year after they benched Deshaun Watson.

Oh, actually after he got, he got hurt.

[Frank DeLuca]
He got hurt.

[Uncle Marv]
But Jameis is one of those players where he will have, I believe this record will never be broken where he threw for 5,000 yards, 30 touchdowns and 30 interceptions in one season. But those are some of the most exciting games you will ever see because you don't know which Jameis is going to show up.

[Frank DeLuca]
All that back and forth.

[Uncle Marv]
It is hilarious.

[Frank DeLuca]
You're out. You're in. You're out.

[Uncle Marv]
All right. So the Florida man story for tonight, and there is a picture to go with it. And those of you are watching, you are seeing what we are calling the St. Cloud Santa. So from St. Cloud, Florida in a shocking case that has rocked the local community, a man known as Santa in St. Cloud, Florida was arrested and sentenced to eight years in prison today for the producing and sharing of what authorities described as horrific child pornography. The case came to light through sophisticated detection methods employed by ISPs and law enforcement agencies. And let me see.

These methods include automated scanning of emails and file attachments, comparison of digital signatures against databases of known illegal content, and real-time analysis of network traffic. So two things here. Santa is already in full form down here in Florida.

And two, your ISPs are working with law enforcement to check your content.

[Frank DeLuca]
It's missing all your traffic.

[Uncle Marv]
Yep. One key technology in this fight is Microsoft's PhotoDNA, which creates unique digital signatures for images, allowing for detection of known illegal content, even if it has been modified. So I am going to have a link to that because that is a combination of a Florida man and a tech story.

[Frank DeLuca]
Yeah, you got two for there.

[Uncle Marv]
I think I'm going to have to try to find somebody to kind of explain all of this technology and how the internet, you can be tracked, apparently. And if you're doing things as naughty as Santa in St. Cloud was, you're going to be caught. So eight years.

[Frank DeLuca]
Wow.

[Uncle Marv]
Man, that's a lot.

[Frank DeLuca]
Oh, Santa.

[Uncle Marv]
Yeah. All right, folks. Thank you for hanging out with us and enduring my rant.

Thank Frank for coming on and enjoying the show here. Please head over to the website itbusinesspodcast.com. Oh, I should do this.

So there's been a lot of activity in people voting. I want to remind everybody that next Wednesday is the last live podcast of the year, December 18th at 8 p.m. Eastern. It will be a holiday party.

I've got several guests that are going to be coming on. We'll be sharing stories and drinks, and I will be announcing the 2024 podcast winners. And one of the things that I did was ask people to give their thoughts about the podcast this past year.

And AI is everywhere. And I was reading some of the answers, and I know that somebody did not write this on their own. They must have gone to chat GPT or something and put my question in because here is the answer.

And Frank, you tell me if this is authentic. Okay. All right.

I thoroughly enjoy the IT Business Podcast engaging discussions.

[Frank DeLuca]
That's already done.

[Uncle Marv]
Insightful guests and Uncle Marv's witty humor. The show's ability to balance technical expertise with business acumen resonates perfectly with IT professionals. To further enhance the experience, I'd love to see more deep dives into emerging technologies like AI and cloud computing.

Additionally, exploring topics like cybersecurity for MSPs, I mean, no, cybersecurity for SMBs and women in tech would be invaluable. Overall, Uncle Marv's passion and dedication make the podcast a must-listen for the IT community.

[Frank DeLuca]
Way too many adjectives for that to be in. Brings me to tears. Hire that person as your PR guy.

[Uncle Marv]
Oh, my God. That is definitely going to go on my review page.

[Frank DeLuca]
Yeah, that's your testimonial right there.

[Uncle Marv]
Incredible. So there is going to be time still to vote, folks. I will be taking votes up until midnight on December 17th, and I will say this.

I like the votes that have been coming in. We've got a lot of votes. Some of them are going to be disqualified because I know that let's just say there's one answer where somebody tried to put in a show number and title that doesn't even exist.

So I assume that must have been another chat GPT answer. What's my favorite episode of 2024?

[Frank DeLuca]
Episode 3214, where you did your thoroughly amazing discussion on quantum computing.

[Uncle Marv]
Yes, it's just so some of these are going to be disqualified. And so far, let's see, I don't have the number of gift cards, but everybody that does submit a qualifying submission will be eligible for a gift card. And I think so far, there's only going to be two $250 gift cards that will be handed out.

So it'll be nice. And in terms of best guest, right now we are in a tie. I've got two guests that have been on this year that, let's see, one, two, three, two guests with six votes each.

So you have a week to break that tie. And let's see, best episode, I'm not going to go into that, but best swag, I think it's going to be interesting because people are not, listen, folks, read the question. And if the question asks for the swag and the vendor, please put both because I think somebody just gave out an answer where it was just two swag things.

I'm not going to say it because I don't want to influence your voting, but let's just say read the questions when you vote because I'm going to have to disqualify a lot of votes based on these answers. And, oh, here's another thing. So part of the algorithm that I'm using is number of downloads and listens versus number of social media engagements.

Yes, I do have a way to measure that. And then some other criteria that I don't want to mention because it's my secret sauce. But right now, there is a podcast in third place that was from last year.

So I'm looking quite forward to see how this ends. Should be good. All right, Frank, that's going to do it.

So we'll end off the show here. For those of you that stayed with, actually looks like a lot of you there. So looks like several of you on the YouTube, several of you on the LinkedIn.

I don't know how many are on the Facebook but thank you. I encourage you to come back next week as we will end out the year with the holiday podcast. It's going to be a doozy and we look forward to everything that will be happening next year.

And I'm going to dive more into emerging technologies like AI and cloud computing.

[Frank DeLuca]
Looking forward to it.

[Uncle Marv]
That's going to do it, folks. So we'll see you soon. And until next time.

Holla.