1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:07,300 I don't know why, but when you mentioned that my most nostalgic scent was in the social 2 00:00:07,300 --> 00:00:08,920 my age, but I guess it's coming back. 3 00:00:08,920 --> 00:00:13,040 So maybe it's not, is when you used to first open up a vinyl album, there was always a 4 00:00:13,040 --> 00:00:14,920 specific smell that came from them. 5 00:00:14,920 --> 00:00:20,160 So you'd pull the plastic off and you'd open it up and you'd go, I got a new album. 6 00:00:20,160 --> 00:00:26,160 Kyle, what's a nostalgic scent for you? 7 00:00:26,160 --> 00:00:27,160 Nostalgic scent? 8 00:00:27,160 --> 00:00:28,160 Yeah. 9 00:00:28,160 --> 00:00:29,160 Nintendo. 10 00:00:29,160 --> 00:00:30,760 Oh wait, that's not a scent. 11 00:00:30,760 --> 00:00:32,320 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 12 00:00:32,320 --> 00:00:33,320 What is this? 13 00:00:33,320 --> 00:00:34,320 What is it? 14 00:00:34,320 --> 00:00:35,320 What is it? 15 00:00:35,320 --> 00:00:42,360 It smells like mold at this point because it's so old. 16 00:00:42,360 --> 00:00:43,360 Dust? 17 00:00:43,360 --> 00:00:46,360 What does dust smell like? 18 00:00:46,360 --> 00:00:50,720 I like how we're getting such nice scents. 19 00:00:50,720 --> 00:00:52,720 Can we smell plastic? 20 00:00:52,720 --> 00:00:54,720 Can we smell dust? 21 00:00:54,720 --> 00:01:00,320 When I play my old games, that's when I get dust. 22 00:01:00,320 --> 00:01:01,320 Very dusty. 23 00:01:01,320 --> 00:01:06,200 You know, I don't analyze, you know, just the nostalgic growing up stuff. 24 00:01:06,200 --> 00:01:13,400 I think it's more of the, you know, mom making the cookies, you know, or sugary cereals, 25 00:01:13,400 --> 00:01:20,240 other stuff that comes to mind, stuff like fruity pebbles and stuff like that is nostalgic. 26 00:01:20,240 --> 00:01:22,040 You get fruity pebbles anymore? 27 00:01:22,040 --> 00:01:23,040 Yeah. 28 00:01:23,040 --> 00:01:24,040 Oh yeah. 29 00:01:24,040 --> 00:01:25,040 You get fruity pebbles. 30 00:01:25,040 --> 00:01:26,040 Yeah. 31 00:01:26,040 --> 00:01:28,320 When stones are still a thing in the world? 32 00:01:28,320 --> 00:01:29,320 Yeah. 33 00:01:29,320 --> 00:01:30,320 Oh yeah. 34 00:01:30,320 --> 00:01:32,040 Yeah, that's that. 35 00:01:32,040 --> 00:01:33,280 That one survived with it. 36 00:01:33,280 --> 00:01:34,960 Lucky charm's another good one. 37 00:01:34,960 --> 00:01:40,520 Like I've listed off a lot of things that might be potentially be carcinogens. 38 00:01:40,520 --> 00:01:42,080 This is great. 39 00:01:42,080 --> 00:01:43,080 Most likely. 40 00:01:43,080 --> 00:01:49,400 So Kelsey, what's a nostalgic scent for you? 41 00:01:49,400 --> 00:01:51,920 That's such a tough question. 42 00:01:51,920 --> 00:01:52,920 Right. 43 00:01:52,920 --> 00:01:56,360 I think it's one thing if I'm not smelling it, like I feel like if you smell something, 44 00:01:56,360 --> 00:01:58,960 then you're like, oh, that reminds me of that. 45 00:01:58,960 --> 00:02:03,880 But I do agree with Kyle that I feel like food smells and I'm still remembering like 46 00:02:03,880 --> 00:02:08,360 going to Disneyland as a child and the fact that they pump smells into Disney, which is 47 00:02:08,360 --> 00:02:11,520 just super fascinating to look into all of that. 48 00:02:11,520 --> 00:02:15,920 But we're like the smell of just like, oh, it smells kind of like sugar and things in 49 00:02:15,920 --> 00:02:16,920 the air. 50 00:02:16,920 --> 00:02:21,760 You're like, that's such a happy association that I'm like, I don't know if it makes sense 51 00:02:21,760 --> 00:02:23,480 for my house to always smell like that. 52 00:02:23,480 --> 00:02:28,600 I tend to use the volcano scent so that I smell like an anthropology store instead. 53 00:02:28,600 --> 00:02:30,720 This is fine. 54 00:02:30,720 --> 00:02:33,040 As we discovered in past episodes, I like shop too much. 55 00:02:33,040 --> 00:02:35,240 So it all checks out. 56 00:02:35,240 --> 00:02:36,240 But I agree. 57 00:02:36,240 --> 00:02:39,600 And you know, like sugary goodness. 58 00:02:39,600 --> 00:02:41,040 But what about you, Ariel? 59 00:02:41,040 --> 00:02:48,120 I was trying to think of like a good one because I didn't want to say burning plastic or something. 60 00:02:48,120 --> 00:02:55,240 But actually, like, you know, I'm thinking like manure. 61 00:02:55,240 --> 00:02:56,240 That sounds weird. 62 00:02:56,240 --> 00:03:01,200 But like when they spread manure in the fields, like I grew up near farms. 63 00:03:01,200 --> 00:03:06,960 That's what I think of, you know, if that's something that I smell now, but that time 64 00:03:06,960 --> 00:03:07,960 of year. 65 00:03:07,960 --> 00:03:08,960 So I get that. 66 00:03:08,960 --> 00:03:13,280 You have like it's like, it's a very strong smell too. 67 00:03:13,280 --> 00:03:14,680 You're like, you can't ignore it. 68 00:03:14,680 --> 00:03:15,680 You know what it is. 69 00:03:15,680 --> 00:03:20,960 I like how we have vinyl kind of plastic dust with the end of cereal manure and then I'm 70 00:03:20,960 --> 00:03:24,680 coming in with, oh, by the way, I like the smell of Disneyland. 71 00:03:24,680 --> 00:03:25,680 Disneyland. 72 00:03:25,680 --> 00:03:27,680 What a wild group. 73 00:03:27,680 --> 00:03:28,680 Oh, man. 74 00:03:28,680 --> 00:03:33,960 I don't know if I can assure one thing I can't stand the smell of. 75 00:03:33,960 --> 00:03:34,960 Of course. 76 00:03:34,960 --> 00:03:35,960 Of course. 77 00:03:35,960 --> 00:03:36,960 Casinos. 78 00:03:36,960 --> 00:03:37,960 Yeah. 79 00:03:37,960 --> 00:03:38,960 I've never been to casino. 80 00:03:38,960 --> 00:03:39,960 Smoke. 81 00:03:39,960 --> 00:03:40,960 Just think of it. 82 00:03:40,960 --> 00:03:41,960 Oh. 83 00:03:41,960 --> 00:03:42,960 Stale smoke. 84 00:03:42,960 --> 00:03:47,400 That's what it smells like, stale smoke with a lot of spilled drinks. 85 00:03:47,400 --> 00:03:48,560 It's nasty. 86 00:03:48,560 --> 00:03:53,640 And then in Vegas, they tend to try to put this vanilla smell over the top as though 87 00:03:53,640 --> 00:03:54,640 that's going to fix it. 88 00:03:54,640 --> 00:03:55,640 It's disgusting. 89 00:03:55,640 --> 00:04:01,160 You're really selling going to a casino for me. 90 00:04:01,160 --> 00:04:03,160 I'm going, yeah. 91 00:04:03,160 --> 00:04:04,160 Yeah. 92 00:04:04,160 --> 00:04:05,160 No, thanks. 93 00:04:05,160 --> 00:04:06,160 You got to go at least once. 94 00:04:06,160 --> 00:04:07,160 There. 95 00:04:07,160 --> 00:04:08,160 There's my pitch. 96 00:04:08,160 --> 00:04:09,160 You got to go at least one. 97 00:04:09,160 --> 00:04:11,440 I'll go and report back on the smell. 98 00:04:11,440 --> 00:04:12,440 Yeah. 99 00:04:12,440 --> 00:04:13,440 Yes. 100 00:04:13,440 --> 00:04:20,000 Well, this conversation started because we were talking about our office and what scent 101 00:04:20,000 --> 00:04:22,960 we would want to pump in like Disneyland. 102 00:04:22,960 --> 00:04:28,720 So today on our Tech for Business podcast, we're talking about tech partners and why 103 00:04:28,720 --> 00:04:29,920 you need one. 104 00:04:29,920 --> 00:04:37,200 So Kelsey and myself are joined by Kyle, our president and CEO, Todd, our COO and CISO. 105 00:04:37,200 --> 00:04:41,920 And before we kind of dive into why you need a tech partner. 106 00:04:41,920 --> 00:04:46,800 I just want to kind of level set what do we mean by a tech partner? 107 00:04:46,800 --> 00:04:47,800 What does that mean? 108 00:04:47,800 --> 00:04:49,840 Because that's a big umbrella. 109 00:04:49,840 --> 00:04:56,720 So Kyle and Todd, when I say tech partner, what comes to mind for you? 110 00:04:56,720 --> 00:04:59,920 I can jump in real quick before Todd gets going here. 111 00:04:59,920 --> 00:05:00,920 Why? 112 00:05:00,920 --> 00:05:11,880 It's a, to me, it's an external third party group that has experienced their resources 113 00:05:11,880 --> 00:05:15,720 to assist with skills you do not have in-house. 114 00:05:15,720 --> 00:05:23,160 So that could be related to just computer deployment or server deployments or server 115 00:05:23,160 --> 00:05:29,040 upgrades to physical security to cyber security to application development. 116 00:05:29,040 --> 00:05:35,240 So there's a whole, there's a lot there and a lot of different category sides of it, but 117 00:05:35,240 --> 00:05:40,240 it's really that external group where you reach out to to get additional expertise 118 00:05:40,240 --> 00:05:42,320 you just don't have in-house. 119 00:05:42,320 --> 00:05:47,120 Nothing alike in the plumber, electrician, other types of services you would bring in, 120 00:05:47,120 --> 00:05:51,040 but obviously more slated towards business related services. 121 00:05:51,040 --> 00:05:53,160 Yeah, I tend to agree. 122 00:05:53,160 --> 00:05:57,560 I mean, when you first threw out the phrase, the first thing that popped into my head was 123 00:05:57,560 --> 00:05:59,040 trusted partner. 124 00:05:59,040 --> 00:06:02,880 It's that place where you would go to get additional knowledge. 125 00:06:02,880 --> 00:06:06,720 But it could be something that is the break fix person too is I don't know how to break 126 00:06:06,720 --> 00:06:07,720 fix this. 127 00:06:07,720 --> 00:06:13,000 I mean, can I lean on somebody quickly or something that potentially is an added service, 128 00:06:13,000 --> 00:06:17,200 if you will, if you have the ability to outsource a component of something you just simply can't 129 00:06:17,200 --> 00:06:18,200 get to. 130 00:06:18,200 --> 00:06:20,720 So that ad would be another thing that I would add to it. 131 00:06:20,720 --> 00:06:26,920 Yeah, the other analogy that comes by is you're a CPA and I'm an accounting firm of 132 00:06:26,920 --> 00:06:32,320 those things where you bring in that external expertise to assist with a knowledge side of 133 00:06:32,320 --> 00:06:35,800 it where there's, there can be a lot of additional complexities. 134 00:06:35,800 --> 00:06:39,240 So you hire a CPA firm to help. 135 00:06:39,240 --> 00:06:43,680 The technology partner serves in a lot of those roles as well from a strategic guidance. 136 00:06:43,680 --> 00:06:50,360 So obviously a lot change in technology rapidly, so it can be very difficult to keep up. 137 00:06:50,360 --> 00:06:51,960 Yeah, for sure. 138 00:06:51,960 --> 00:06:56,520 So we've touched on this topic before and I'll make sure to kind of link that in the 139 00:06:56,520 --> 00:07:02,360 description, but I sort of wanted to go through when we're talking about businesses, I kind 140 00:07:02,360 --> 00:07:08,520 of think about small, medium, large, and what a tech partner, why those may or may not need 141 00:07:08,520 --> 00:07:13,380 a tech partner, what pros and cons come for each of those sizes. 142 00:07:13,380 --> 00:07:18,880 So starting out with kind of the small business, I'm thinking like, when I think of small business, 143 00:07:18,880 --> 00:07:23,320 I think of like mom and dad, there's like two to five employees, they probably got a 144 00:07:23,320 --> 00:07:31,480 guy, they bob, who knows how to turn the computer on and off, like that's their level of IT. 145 00:07:31,480 --> 00:07:36,000 Why would a company like that need a tech partner? 146 00:07:36,000 --> 00:07:39,000 Well, you kind of got into it. 147 00:07:39,000 --> 00:07:43,360 They got somebody that knows how to turn on and off, but all the rest of it, they don't 148 00:07:43,360 --> 00:07:44,920 know how to do. 149 00:07:44,920 --> 00:07:47,040 And this scales into the large side too. 150 00:07:47,040 --> 00:07:53,120 It is kind of like into that, the technology change is so rapid that they're just, they 151 00:07:53,120 --> 00:07:54,800 don't know what they don't know. 152 00:07:54,800 --> 00:07:57,440 Is that kind of the simplest term side with it? 153 00:07:57,440 --> 00:08:05,120 So by engaging and having a tech partner, the tech partner is constantly getting information 154 00:08:05,120 --> 00:08:11,040 on industry changes, new technology shifts from key vendors and new solutions that potentially 155 00:08:11,040 --> 00:08:14,600 could be introduced into their business side of it. 156 00:08:14,600 --> 00:08:18,720 By having regular cadence and conversations and engagement tech partner, you're going 157 00:08:18,720 --> 00:08:24,080 to get some insight as to how that technology can assist their business. 158 00:08:24,080 --> 00:08:29,600 Because most likely they're not doing technology as their business, so they have, whether they're 159 00:08:29,600 --> 00:08:35,400 repairing cars or they're an HVAC shop or whatever it may be, they got their knowledge 160 00:08:35,400 --> 00:08:41,360 that they're delivering and the tech partner brings in the technology information to help 161 00:08:41,360 --> 00:08:42,360 them. 162 00:08:42,360 --> 00:08:48,760 Yeah, what I'd expand on there is very similar, but I would add that they do typically have 163 00:08:48,760 --> 00:08:50,080 their hands full. 164 00:08:50,080 --> 00:08:53,400 Those individuals typically are wearing all the hats, so it's not multiple hats where 165 00:08:53,400 --> 00:08:56,040 you'll see in some business, they're wearing all of them. 166 00:08:56,040 --> 00:09:01,560 And to your point, bringing in Bob, he's typically going to be a friend or somebody down the 167 00:09:01,560 --> 00:09:06,520 street or a neighbor or somebody like that, and he may have some stuff in place, he may 168 00:09:06,520 --> 00:09:07,520 not. 169 00:09:07,520 --> 00:09:12,280 A great example is I was talking to a smaller org that we don't even actually do business 170 00:09:12,280 --> 00:09:16,680 with, and they were kind of complaining about some things that were dealing with in this 171 00:09:16,680 --> 00:09:21,520 particular case, it ended up being their internet connection, and they just had an old, I don't 172 00:09:21,520 --> 00:09:25,000 really remember the vendor, I'll just say Comcast, and I'm not picking on Comcast, don't sue 173 00:09:25,000 --> 00:09:27,000 me please. 174 00:09:27,000 --> 00:09:31,560 But they had an old internet provider, had a very small bandwidth on it, and over the 175 00:09:31,560 --> 00:09:35,600 years what just ended up happening is, and this is pretty typical, you get your technology 176 00:09:35,600 --> 00:09:38,200 in place and it just sits there, there are ads, right? 177 00:09:38,200 --> 00:09:41,880 There's changes, and the way a lot of those agreements are written is there is just this 178 00:09:41,880 --> 00:09:46,200 natural progression, and they were paying a significant amount for what they had in place, 179 00:09:46,200 --> 00:09:50,520 and I said have you ever considered looking at cable or if there's fiber optic in the 180 00:09:50,520 --> 00:09:54,600 area and just did a quick search on my phone, looks like you've got three other vendors 181 00:09:54,600 --> 00:09:58,760 you could look at, have you considered that, and it took a multi-hundred dollar bill down 182 00:09:58,760 --> 00:10:00,640 to 50 bucks by switching to a new vendor. 183 00:10:00,640 --> 00:10:04,240 Now you don't always get the lock into that price for a significant amount of time, but 184 00:10:04,240 --> 00:10:08,760 just as a simple, what can a tech provider do for you is a simple question like that 185 00:10:08,760 --> 00:10:14,560 can save you hundreds of dollars per month, but to Kyle's point too, it can help you with 186 00:10:14,560 --> 00:10:16,560 stepping up your business as well. 187 00:10:16,560 --> 00:10:23,400 So I think on the small business end, it seems like, yeah, they definitely need to help, 188 00:10:23,400 --> 00:10:30,080 but one of the hurdles that they're running into is financing. 189 00:10:30,080 --> 00:10:38,360 If I just have Bob, and Bob's who I got and I can afford, I mean, how does that conversation 190 00:10:38,360 --> 00:10:43,200 with a tech partner go when you say, I got five employees, I don't know if a tech partner 191 00:10:43,200 --> 00:10:44,800 is right for me? 192 00:10:44,800 --> 00:10:48,680 Well, I usually like to lead into those again to get to that. 193 00:10:48,680 --> 00:10:52,080 It's not what it costs, it's what it's worth. 194 00:10:52,080 --> 00:10:57,720 And I think you have to take a step back and separate those two, because to Todd's example 195 00:10:57,720 --> 00:11:04,240 he just gave, again, you may be getting free or very low cost services from somebody that's 196 00:11:04,240 --> 00:11:11,840 got technical aptitude and just moonlighting or something on the side, but they're missing 197 00:11:11,840 --> 00:11:16,080 the objective of the speed of the internet and those overall cost of those things, how 198 00:11:16,080 --> 00:11:19,040 that's affecting the productivity of the business. 199 00:11:19,040 --> 00:11:24,680 You're losing dollars every single day because you didn't, you know, it just brings somebody 200 00:11:24,680 --> 00:11:29,320 in that's just got a little more insight as to how to improve the productivity of your 201 00:11:29,320 --> 00:11:33,640 workers and then all of a sudden, boom, you know, in the smaller you are, the more almost 202 00:11:33,640 --> 00:11:35,840 immediate that can be. 203 00:11:35,840 --> 00:11:40,040 So when you're wearing a lot of hats, you're trying to service your customers. 204 00:11:40,040 --> 00:11:45,760 I mean, that can be a real killer, you know, just trying to get something done is taking 205 00:11:45,760 --> 00:11:51,760 so long or you're troubleshooting your Wi-Fi continuously and or, you know, God forbid 206 00:11:51,760 --> 00:11:57,240 you get, you know, a cybersecurity incident or those things, how impactful those can be. 207 00:11:57,240 --> 00:12:03,120 So, you know, there's it's worth it just to do it and get it done right and bring the 208 00:12:03,120 --> 00:12:08,760 right person in will pay dividends in the long run. 209 00:12:08,760 --> 00:12:14,120 Yeah, one of the things I like to lean on is return on investment and that's what Kyle 210 00:12:14,120 --> 00:12:15,120 is really saying. 211 00:12:15,120 --> 00:12:19,320 It is not something that all small businesses are looking at consistently, especially when 212 00:12:19,320 --> 00:12:20,320 it comes to technology. 213 00:12:20,320 --> 00:12:24,480 They're not looking at it saying, well, if I spend this, I get this in return. 214 00:12:24,480 --> 00:12:27,480 But that's exactly what Kyle highlighted, right? 215 00:12:27,480 --> 00:12:31,680 A great example would be this business thought they could get away with an iPad as their main 216 00:12:31,680 --> 00:12:35,240 computing tool set or they're using a Chromebook. 217 00:12:35,240 --> 00:12:39,840 And then the reality is, is they're trying to build quotes or they're trying to process 218 00:12:39,840 --> 00:12:47,400 the cash, whatever, transaction and it's being slow or you guys have probably all experienced 219 00:12:47,400 --> 00:12:48,400 it, right? 220 00:12:48,400 --> 00:12:49,960 You go in and they're like, oh, the computer is causing me problems. 221 00:12:49,960 --> 00:12:51,160 How many times have we got to check out? 222 00:12:51,160 --> 00:12:52,400 And that's the comment you get. 223 00:12:52,400 --> 00:12:54,840 Oh, the computer is causing me problems. 224 00:12:54,840 --> 00:12:56,000 What is that costing you? 225 00:12:56,000 --> 00:12:59,320 Do you have a line of people out the door that can't check out because you're having issues 226 00:12:59,320 --> 00:13:00,320 with it? 227 00:13:00,320 --> 00:13:05,520 So if you invested on a really nice PC and let's just say that you're, I was going with 228 00:13:05,520 --> 00:13:09,160 the iPad example, you spent a couple hundred bucks on an iPad, but if you had a thousand 229 00:13:09,160 --> 00:13:11,540 dollar device, would that have increased it? 230 00:13:11,540 --> 00:13:13,040 Would you be able to check out more people? 231 00:13:13,040 --> 00:13:15,440 Would you give a better experience to your customers? 232 00:13:15,440 --> 00:13:16,440 What is that worth? 233 00:13:16,440 --> 00:13:18,760 That was exactly Kyle's phrasing, right? 234 00:13:18,760 --> 00:13:21,800 Those are the things that aren't always considered because it's technology. 235 00:13:21,800 --> 00:13:22,800 You're not great at it. 236 00:13:22,800 --> 00:13:26,800 What you're great at is counting, whatever it is. 237 00:13:26,800 --> 00:13:29,520 And so you don't always think about those kinds of things, but the partner can kind 238 00:13:29,520 --> 00:13:31,040 of come in and quickly highlight those. 239 00:13:31,040 --> 00:13:36,320 They can look at things very easily and say, you're internet slow. 240 00:13:36,320 --> 00:13:38,320 You're spending too much on your phone system. 241 00:13:38,320 --> 00:13:40,040 Your phone system barely works. 242 00:13:40,040 --> 00:13:43,200 Whatever the case may be, you can start to quickly look at those things and identify 243 00:13:43,200 --> 00:13:49,840 areas where you can get quick, fast impact, reduce costs, get better deliverables, et cetera. 244 00:13:49,840 --> 00:13:52,760 And that's where those partners typically come in and really have a big bang for the 245 00:13:52,760 --> 00:13:53,760 bug. 246 00:13:53,760 --> 00:13:54,760 Yeah. 247 00:13:54,760 --> 00:13:55,760 Yeah. 248 00:13:55,760 --> 00:13:57,520 The ROI is the right message side of it. 249 00:13:57,520 --> 00:14:01,200 Let's just do an inventory and just understand that. 250 00:14:01,200 --> 00:14:08,040 I mean, it's true pretty much all businesses, the labor is the most expensive cost to every 251 00:14:08,040 --> 00:14:09,520 business that's out there. 252 00:14:09,520 --> 00:14:15,200 And even if you're a business of one or you're a business of a thousand, it's always your 253 00:14:15,200 --> 00:14:18,840 time or all your people's time that add up. 254 00:14:18,840 --> 00:14:20,280 And it doesn't take much. 255 00:14:20,280 --> 00:14:22,080 And it multiplies. 256 00:14:22,080 --> 00:14:27,000 So a thousand people being affected by an internet outage or slow internet really gets 257 00:14:27,000 --> 00:14:29,880 to be a big ROI quickly. 258 00:14:29,880 --> 00:14:34,200 But again, likewise, when you're a small business and it's just you or a couple of people, again, 259 00:14:34,200 --> 00:14:37,760 you're still feeling a significant impact because you don't have that much extra time 260 00:14:37,760 --> 00:14:39,360 to give. 261 00:14:39,360 --> 00:14:42,680 And wherever you're spending your time, if you're troubleshooting your technology or 262 00:14:42,680 --> 00:14:46,840 you got a slow computer, the computer you bought off eBay because you wanted to only 263 00:14:46,840 --> 00:14:53,040 spend a few dollars is ultimately costing you a multiple more in your productivity loss 264 00:14:53,040 --> 00:14:59,680 than if you just going out and bought a brand new current model is typically what probably 265 00:14:59,680 --> 00:15:01,000 should have been done. 266 00:15:01,000 --> 00:15:04,800 In most cases, come in there because you hear horror stories. 267 00:15:04,800 --> 00:15:10,000 We walk into it all the time that they went by the cost matter factor. 268 00:15:10,000 --> 00:15:11,640 They had a technology. 269 00:15:11,640 --> 00:15:16,800 Somebody was advocating to cost alone and says, no, we just want to buy something cheap. 270 00:15:16,800 --> 00:15:17,800 We don't have a lot of money. 271 00:15:17,800 --> 00:15:18,800 You know what I say? 272 00:15:18,800 --> 00:15:19,800 I want to buy something cheap. 273 00:15:19,800 --> 00:15:23,360 And it's like, well, the people using it aren't cheap. 274 00:15:23,360 --> 00:15:26,800 So why are you giving them the cheap tools? 275 00:15:26,800 --> 00:15:30,640 Those are always the things that always just we want them to just take a step back and 276 00:15:30,640 --> 00:15:35,200 say, this is ultimately costing you a lot more than you think. 277 00:15:35,200 --> 00:15:36,200 Yeah. 278 00:15:36,200 --> 00:15:42,680 I think a lot of these things, as we sort of move up on the tier to maybe like a medium 279 00:15:42,680 --> 00:15:50,000 size business, which is at least our kind of bread and butter, but you know, what are 280 00:15:50,000 --> 00:15:55,080 the differences in pros and cons when it comes to working with a tech partner with a medium 281 00:15:55,080 --> 00:15:56,080 business? 282 00:15:56,080 --> 00:15:59,600 I sort of think about it as they probably have a team. 283 00:15:59,600 --> 00:16:02,240 Maybe some of their employees are a little bit more tech savvy. 284 00:16:02,240 --> 00:16:06,960 So what does it look like for them to have a tech partner? 285 00:16:06,960 --> 00:16:07,960 Yeah. 286 00:16:07,960 --> 00:16:14,400 With the medium size organizations, it's usually is getting them focused on the business applications 287 00:16:14,400 --> 00:16:20,800 and the business, how they use technology specifically within their business and trusting 288 00:16:20,800 --> 00:16:27,640 the partner to do the general IT support needs sides around the patching, the asset inventory, 289 00:16:27,640 --> 00:16:33,440 you know, up, down, monitoring, all those types of things that are, you know, just very 290 00:16:33,440 --> 00:16:38,360 general support, but to have one person or a couple of people internally do that really 291 00:16:38,360 --> 00:16:44,200 takes away, again, doesn't necessarily move the company forward on how technology is servicing 292 00:16:44,200 --> 00:16:46,880 them and or their customer sides with it. 293 00:16:46,880 --> 00:16:52,640 So strategically engaging those as well as having that partner available for knowledge 294 00:16:52,640 --> 00:16:56,240 supplement, supplementation when you need it. 295 00:16:56,240 --> 00:16:59,720 So when you have a project, when you need to do a new initiative, are you going to go 296 00:16:59,720 --> 00:17:04,640 through an acquisition or whatever it may be, you can, you know, engage that partner, 297 00:17:04,640 --> 00:17:08,240 bring in the additional help when you need it, and then have them pull back when you're 298 00:17:08,240 --> 00:17:11,440 back to normal operational and support more side of it. 299 00:17:11,440 --> 00:17:18,000 So it's, it's, we see organizations that tend to, you know, feel like their on site IT 300 00:17:18,000 --> 00:17:23,040 needs to know everything about everything and they need to, you know, do it and carry 301 00:17:23,040 --> 00:17:27,760 that full burden side of that really is just not realistic in this day and age. 302 00:17:27,760 --> 00:17:34,280 You just can't do it, you know, that it's too big of a too big of a roadmap to try to 303 00:17:34,280 --> 00:17:35,280 cover it all. 304 00:17:35,280 --> 00:17:39,960 It's a lot of ground and mistakes are going to be made and there's going to be things 305 00:17:39,960 --> 00:17:42,120 that just don't happen. 306 00:17:42,120 --> 00:17:48,320 And that leads to other more business impacting outages things, you know, can be as far as 307 00:17:48,320 --> 00:17:52,200 it is a really bad cybersecurity incident because they didn't have time to pay attention 308 00:17:52,200 --> 00:17:56,680 to patching or deploy the right security tools or the knowledge to know what security tools 309 00:17:56,680 --> 00:18:02,120 they should use to, you know, just, you know, misconfigured firewalls or things that were 310 00:18:02,120 --> 00:18:07,520 left undone, you know, poor password management accounts that weren't deactivated. 311 00:18:07,520 --> 00:18:12,840 I mean, there's just numerous things that happen when it's just on one person. 312 00:18:12,840 --> 00:18:16,840 It's not that they didn't have the knowledge of skills, just their spread to thin. 313 00:18:16,840 --> 00:18:21,720 And then ultimately they're not focused on where, you know, as a technology partner, 314 00:18:21,720 --> 00:18:25,800 we don't know that businesses generally, you know, certainly as well as they do in their 315 00:18:25,800 --> 00:18:30,200 customer side, but we know general IT very, very well. 316 00:18:30,200 --> 00:18:31,600 And we can do that extremely well. 317 00:18:31,600 --> 00:18:33,080 And that's true of most tech partners. 318 00:18:33,080 --> 00:18:39,760 They can come in, they can do that incredibly well and provide that augmentation services 319 00:18:39,760 --> 00:18:46,640 to really allow that person then to make sure that their sales team, their manufacturing, 320 00:18:46,640 --> 00:18:52,040 whatever it may be, that the technology is getting handled correctly for what they need. 321 00:18:52,040 --> 00:18:55,520 Todd, anything you want to add on that? 322 00:18:55,520 --> 00:18:58,640 What am I going to say after all that? 323 00:18:58,640 --> 00:18:59,960 No, I agree a lot of it. 324 00:18:59,960 --> 00:19:02,960 I was trying to figure out where I was going to come in next and kind of fill in, but you 325 00:19:02,960 --> 00:19:04,560 covered a ton of ground and it makes a lot of sense. 326 00:19:04,560 --> 00:19:09,800 You will see in some medium-sized businesses where IT reports to somebody who may not be 327 00:19:09,800 --> 00:19:10,800 very technical. 328 00:19:10,800 --> 00:19:12,120 So we will run into that too. 329 00:19:12,120 --> 00:19:16,040 And so Kyle touched on that already, is do you need that additional expertise? 330 00:19:16,040 --> 00:19:21,560 And I think it makes sense to kind of highlight that in the senses, even when they do have 331 00:19:21,560 --> 00:19:27,320 technical expertise, those people are very spread thin, very, very often, and it is very 332 00:19:27,320 --> 00:19:31,040 hard for a technical person to know everything. 333 00:19:31,040 --> 00:19:34,080 So cybersecurity was a great example. 334 00:19:34,080 --> 00:19:35,920 Cybersecurity guys are very, very specialized. 335 00:19:35,920 --> 00:19:38,240 They just are because there's so much to it. 336 00:19:38,240 --> 00:19:41,680 It's a very broad topic and there's a lot to know in it. 337 00:19:41,680 --> 00:19:43,400 And those individuals are very expensive. 338 00:19:43,400 --> 00:19:48,000 So when you're looking at medium-sized businesses, they typically don't have the expertise in 339 00:19:48,000 --> 00:19:50,160 every vertical. 340 00:19:50,160 --> 00:19:53,440 So that's one of the reasons why they'll typically look for a tech partner. 341 00:19:53,440 --> 00:19:57,360 And then the other part that Kyle mentioned and I wanted to highlight it is, I always 342 00:19:57,360 --> 00:20:02,840 try to explain it to leadership in the sense of when a partner comes in and they bring 343 00:20:02,840 --> 00:20:07,320 in automation or they're bringing in the stuff that you can easily automate, you're freeing 344 00:20:07,320 --> 00:20:10,160 up your team to do the highly strategic work. 345 00:20:10,160 --> 00:20:15,040 It's the stuff that drives the business further instead of just doing, like Kyle mentioned, 346 00:20:15,040 --> 00:20:18,600 the patching, the updating, the reboots, the password changes, etc. 347 00:20:18,600 --> 00:20:21,880 Those things you can really streamline and you can use tech partners to help you get 348 00:20:21,880 --> 00:20:23,160 those things done. 349 00:20:23,160 --> 00:20:25,960 And then you can actually start focusing on the things that matter. 350 00:20:25,960 --> 00:20:30,720 A line of business app that you're not getting the right reporting out of or tuning up your 351 00:20:30,720 --> 00:20:34,880 SQL server or whatever the case may be, you can focus on the things that truly matter 352 00:20:34,880 --> 00:20:37,880 and less of the day-to-day things. 353 00:20:37,880 --> 00:20:43,880 We've run into many cases where, you know, when you talk about the tool sets that a tech 354 00:20:43,880 --> 00:20:49,200 partner brings in that is that automation Todd's talking about for how you manage your desktops 355 00:20:49,200 --> 00:20:54,680 and monitor your servers and you can be telling those system sides of it why you can go out 356 00:20:54,680 --> 00:20:58,720 and deploy these internally again and bring these even in as an internal application. 357 00:20:58,720 --> 00:21:02,560 Again, that requires now focus inside of there and now automatic. 358 00:21:02,560 --> 00:21:06,720 So it's usually I've had these conversation sites to say, you know, we have multiple 359 00:21:06,720 --> 00:21:09,880 full-time employees that just manage those platforms. 360 00:21:09,880 --> 00:21:15,440 So for you to take your internal resources and now say you're going to devote a high 361 00:21:15,440 --> 00:21:20,480 percent of your time to manage the management platform itself, just as something they don't 362 00:21:20,480 --> 00:21:21,680 think about. 363 00:21:21,680 --> 00:21:27,200 They think it's all I'll do this capital acquisition or pay this monthly fee for this piece of software 364 00:21:27,200 --> 00:21:31,000 and it's just going to do all this work for me and then I don't have to pay this technology 365 00:21:31,000 --> 00:21:33,360 partner. 366 00:21:33,360 --> 00:21:35,600 That's only the acquisition costs. 367 00:21:35,600 --> 00:21:39,920 The management cost is where, you know, the rubber hits the road and it's where most of 368 00:21:39,920 --> 00:21:41,440 the time gets spent. 369 00:21:41,440 --> 00:21:44,520 And again, it's that other ROI component. 370 00:21:44,520 --> 00:21:50,080 There's a large cost side to it because many times to come in and customers have invested 371 00:21:50,080 --> 00:21:55,200 in the past into these platforms and they are collecting, you know, technology dust. 372 00:21:55,200 --> 00:21:56,560 They are not used. 373 00:21:56,560 --> 00:22:01,920 They're not used correctly or they basically were abandoned because they just gave up as 374 00:22:01,920 --> 00:22:06,680 it's just too much for them and they just lost the priority for it. 375 00:22:06,680 --> 00:22:08,360 So it was shiny for a while. 376 00:22:08,360 --> 00:22:10,840 They tried it and just forgot about it. 377 00:22:10,840 --> 00:22:14,720 So again, that was just money probably not well spent. 378 00:22:14,720 --> 00:22:17,560 It's just that it happens far too often. 379 00:22:17,560 --> 00:22:21,400 Cybersecurity falls into the same category too. 380 00:22:21,400 --> 00:22:23,920 Or you would deploy the tool that's up. 381 00:22:23,920 --> 00:22:24,920 It's running. 382 00:22:24,920 --> 00:22:25,920 I don't need to pay attention to it. 383 00:22:25,920 --> 00:22:29,560 And that does tail really well into the cybersecurity point I was going to make is you bring in a 384 00:22:29,560 --> 00:22:33,320 tool set whether it's endpoint detection response or something else that's potentially 385 00:22:33,320 --> 00:22:38,040 more robust and those things create a lot of additional information that you need to 386 00:22:38,040 --> 00:22:41,520 sort through to be completely blunt about it. 387 00:22:41,520 --> 00:22:45,840 And it does take a lot of time and attention to go through all of it. 388 00:22:45,840 --> 00:22:47,160 And a lot of companies will kind of go out. 389 00:22:47,160 --> 00:22:48,280 It's really not that big of a deal. 390 00:22:48,280 --> 00:22:49,280 My team's got it. 391 00:22:49,280 --> 00:22:50,560 We really don't get that many alerts. 392 00:22:50,560 --> 00:22:56,560 But if you look in the cybersecurity world, all those alerts do matter and you will find 393 00:22:56,560 --> 00:23:00,320 that as people do that and they focus heavily on it, there's a ton of burnout that goes 394 00:23:00,320 --> 00:23:01,440 with it. 395 00:23:01,440 --> 00:23:05,760 So conceptually what you'd be looking at as a tech partner in that situation is you're 396 00:23:05,760 --> 00:23:09,040 for all intents and purposes, you're outsourcing that burnout to somebody else. 397 00:23:09,040 --> 00:23:12,400 You don't have to worry about your one guy that you lean on for everything day in and 398 00:23:12,400 --> 00:23:15,000 day out getting burned out and going, I've had enough. 399 00:23:15,000 --> 00:23:16,000 I'm out. 400 00:23:16,000 --> 00:23:19,440 So that would be another good reason as well. 401 00:23:19,440 --> 00:23:24,320 And if they're looking at cybersecurity tools, who's looking at the backup tool? 402 00:23:24,320 --> 00:23:26,000 Who's looking at the monitoring tool? 403 00:23:26,000 --> 00:23:29,960 Who's looking at, who's taking care of the user requests for the applications? 404 00:23:29,960 --> 00:23:31,440 Who's handling the upgrade? 405 00:23:31,440 --> 00:23:39,240 I mean, again, you can start to put together real quickly how it just gets underserved. 406 00:23:39,240 --> 00:23:40,800 Some area gets ignored. 407 00:23:40,800 --> 00:23:43,800 There's only multitasking is a myth. 408 00:23:43,800 --> 00:23:44,960 You can't multitask. 409 00:23:44,960 --> 00:23:46,400 They're only looking at one thing. 410 00:23:46,400 --> 00:23:47,840 They're task switching. 411 00:23:47,840 --> 00:23:50,680 So they're going to look at one thing and the other stuff's going to get ignored until 412 00:23:50,680 --> 00:23:53,160 they do the attention and it's just going to go around. 413 00:23:53,160 --> 00:23:55,400 But something is not getting handled right. 414 00:23:55,400 --> 00:24:01,960 So it makes a lot of sense to strategically outsource what makes sense. 415 00:24:01,960 --> 00:24:07,040 You know, it gets back to getting everything organized, know what you got, automate what 416 00:24:07,040 --> 00:24:10,400 you can and then outsource what makes sense. 417 00:24:10,400 --> 00:24:13,680 That's the best way to approach. 418 00:24:13,680 --> 00:24:15,600 Bob's a busy guy in case anybody wants to know. 419 00:24:15,600 --> 00:24:16,600 Yeah, Bob is busy. 420 00:24:16,600 --> 00:24:17,600 Bob's busy. 421 00:24:17,600 --> 00:24:19,600 Still have some burnout. 422 00:24:19,600 --> 00:24:21,600 He's going. 423 00:24:21,600 --> 00:24:29,440 Well, as our business kind of grows, maybe Bob now has a full, robust IT department. 424 00:24:29,440 --> 00:24:31,200 He's got some security guys. 425 00:24:31,200 --> 00:24:35,600 I mean, we're talking like large companies. 426 00:24:35,600 --> 00:24:39,240 Would a tech partner in that circumstance even be worth it? 427 00:24:39,240 --> 00:24:43,600 You know, if they've got a full team, if they've got, you know, their different departments, 428 00:24:43,600 --> 00:24:47,520 what does a tech partner look like for them? 429 00:24:47,520 --> 00:24:50,120 Those are typically very strategic side with it. 430 00:24:50,120 --> 00:24:53,560 So it's usually a lot of project related services sides of it. 431 00:24:53,560 --> 00:24:58,840 They tend to, you know, our large groups, again, as you mentioned, have teams so they 432 00:24:58,840 --> 00:25:02,840 have knowledge that get trained, you know, in many ways. 433 00:25:02,840 --> 00:25:07,040 So the daily maintenance side of it, they do have people that they have the full-time 434 00:25:07,040 --> 00:25:10,600 employees done the management systems, those things typically side of it. 435 00:25:10,600 --> 00:25:13,960 But when they're ready for upgrades, again, they're managing that already. 436 00:25:13,960 --> 00:25:18,160 When they need an upgrade, they don't have the extra time or bandwidth to do that and 437 00:25:18,160 --> 00:25:20,880 still do their, their main job. 438 00:25:20,880 --> 00:25:26,760 So bringing in the technology partner help augment, handle the project, transition back 439 00:25:26,760 --> 00:25:30,600 to operations, customer takes over the operation size, if they move on. 440 00:25:30,600 --> 00:25:37,960 So it tends to be very, very project focused and very strategic as to how we get engaged. 441 00:25:37,960 --> 00:25:38,960 Yeah. 442 00:25:38,960 --> 00:25:43,040 And I think those larger companies typically know what they're needing additional help 443 00:25:43,040 --> 00:25:44,920 with because there's a lot of different things that come out there. 444 00:25:44,920 --> 00:25:49,000 So if you're in a large company and you have compliance, there's always a need for a third 445 00:25:49,000 --> 00:25:50,000 party validation. 446 00:25:50,000 --> 00:25:53,360 So you could potentially looking at it as a partner that comes in completely independent 447 00:25:53,360 --> 00:25:56,280 from you that's coming in and validating. 448 00:25:56,280 --> 00:25:58,400 And as Kyle mentioned, there's all kinds of projects. 449 00:25:58,400 --> 00:26:03,240 It could be switching, it could be firewall, it could be cybersecurity remediation. 450 00:26:03,240 --> 00:26:06,200 There's a lot of stuff that does take additional resources. 451 00:26:06,200 --> 00:26:11,600 And as we mentioned, and this is true across all sizes of businesses and most business leaders 452 00:26:11,600 --> 00:26:18,400 already know this, but you have limited resources and ultimately your IT guy can be, or gal, 453 00:26:18,400 --> 00:26:24,280 can be full 100% all the time and it then becomes what is the priority where our tech 454 00:26:24,280 --> 00:26:28,440 partner potentially comes in and helps make a boon is you've got the ability to kind of 455 00:26:28,440 --> 00:26:33,000 toggle an on off switch of how much you want to ramp up to something. 456 00:26:33,000 --> 00:26:38,040 I've got a very specific project I want to get in before the summer is over. 457 00:26:38,040 --> 00:26:39,040 Schools would be a great example. 458 00:26:39,040 --> 00:26:40,400 I'm going to quick toggle up. 459 00:26:40,400 --> 00:26:44,000 I'm going to outsource this piece and then I'm going to pull it back down and I'm going 460 00:26:44,000 --> 00:26:45,760 to be able to control my costs. 461 00:26:45,760 --> 00:26:48,960 So it becomes a very easy variable expense for them to manage. 462 00:26:48,960 --> 00:26:50,160 I can budget for it. 463 00:26:50,160 --> 00:26:51,480 I can plan for it. 464 00:26:51,480 --> 00:26:55,720 I can use it and then I'm going to take it away or it can be something that's very supplemental. 465 00:26:55,720 --> 00:26:59,960 So you got that very specific technology need that you need. 466 00:26:59,960 --> 00:27:05,400 Again going back to the example that I meant mentioned with the security alerts is it's 467 00:27:05,400 --> 00:27:07,000 a lot of information. 468 00:27:07,000 --> 00:27:11,320 And if you could potentially outsource that at a reasonable cost that might be desirable. 469 00:27:11,320 --> 00:27:14,200 So those are some good options that would potentially be out there as well. 470 00:27:14,200 --> 00:27:15,200 Yeah. 471 00:27:15,200 --> 00:27:17,080 And there's that knowledge augmentation. 472 00:27:17,080 --> 00:27:21,840 They may recognize for example that they want to do a zero trust deployment. 473 00:27:21,840 --> 00:27:28,040 They want to do some zero trust platform deployment but they don't have the experience yet. 474 00:27:28,040 --> 00:27:32,080 They may have done some initial training side of it but they don't feel like they're ready 475 00:27:32,080 --> 00:27:35,400 for implementation because they've just never done it before. 476 00:27:35,400 --> 00:27:42,080 So again bringing the technology partner let them do the assistance or do the initial deployment 477 00:27:42,080 --> 00:27:48,120 of it and allow them to shadow through that deployment and then be ready to take over 478 00:27:48,120 --> 00:27:53,080 the operations after some handoff and training and then have that tech partner kind of be 479 00:27:53,080 --> 00:27:58,320 the point of escalation when they feel like okay I'm something not familiar with I'll 480 00:27:58,320 --> 00:28:01,240 engage this tech partner and see if they have some familiarity. 481 00:28:01,240 --> 00:28:06,120 So there's some escalation of troubleshooting those things that occurs in those sites. 482 00:28:06,120 --> 00:28:07,720 So very augmentative. 483 00:28:07,720 --> 00:28:08,720 Yeah. 484 00:28:08,720 --> 00:28:12,960 One last thing that I'd throw on that just to kind of highlight it is because your tech 485 00:28:12,960 --> 00:28:18,960 partners tend to be across industry, healthcare, finance, manufacturing, etc. 486 00:28:18,960 --> 00:28:20,520 They tend to see everything. 487 00:28:20,520 --> 00:28:25,360 So they're much more likely to have that additional expertise that Kyle is referring to. 488 00:28:25,360 --> 00:28:29,920 So when you get stuck it's certainly possible and most companies have felt this before. 489 00:28:29,920 --> 00:28:33,960 It's even when the small company you reach out and say, hey Bob I don't know how to do 490 00:28:33,960 --> 00:28:37,960 this Bob has at least a thought of what to go on because he's got a lot more experience 491 00:28:37,960 --> 00:28:41,200 in that technical area than a lot of other organizations. 492 00:28:41,200 --> 00:28:46,120 So the tech partners do have that wide breath that does give them those additional insights 493 00:28:46,120 --> 00:28:49,120 and they work with a ton of vendors. 494 00:28:49,120 --> 00:28:53,120 So when people are looking for what's the right tool, how do I know what's a good fit 495 00:28:53,120 --> 00:28:54,920 your partners typically can do it. 496 00:28:54,920 --> 00:28:57,200 Most of them aren't just schlepping skews. 497 00:28:57,200 --> 00:29:01,720 Some may be but most of them aren't I was going to bash a very large one that I'll leave 498 00:29:01,720 --> 00:29:08,120 it alone but that is their job that is their business model and they will have the ability 499 00:29:08,120 --> 00:29:13,520 to say hey we looked at X, Y and Z and the reason why we picked Y is because of all of 500 00:29:13,520 --> 00:29:16,840 this information they can help you through that process as well. 501 00:29:16,840 --> 00:29:17,840 Yeah. 502 00:29:17,840 --> 00:29:18,840 I feel like- 503 00:29:18,840 --> 00:29:23,160 Yeah and the tech partner can have access to some additional levels of technical support 504 00:29:23,160 --> 00:29:30,240 to that the customer may not be able to get to because of certain certification levels 505 00:29:30,240 --> 00:29:36,480 or partner level size of those we can leverage access to a higher level of support which 506 00:29:36,480 --> 00:29:41,000 again is another reason to potentially engage them on the troll between process or escalation 507 00:29:41,000 --> 00:29:47,080 process because they may be a lot quicker than the direct vendor support is the way 508 00:29:47,080 --> 00:29:48,680 a lot of times they get structured. 509 00:29:48,680 --> 00:29:52,440 It certainly depends on the product and other sides but in many cases that seems to be the 510 00:29:52,440 --> 00:29:57,480 model that is leveraged is have your staff certified, months are certified, if you're 511 00:29:57,480 --> 00:30:02,040 certified partner side of it you go to this direct to this tier support you don't go to 512 00:30:02,040 --> 00:30:07,880 the first tier and wait and then troubleshoot side of it the partners typically skip those 513 00:30:07,880 --> 00:30:12,560 first initial tiers and get right to more knowledge related experts which expedites 514 00:30:12,560 --> 00:30:14,800 the troubleshooting process. 515 00:30:14,800 --> 00:30:23,400 So I wouldn't be doing my due diligence if I didn't ask is there ever a time when a tech 516 00:30:23,400 --> 00:30:29,760 partner is not right and then I'll kind of open it up for closing thoughts. 517 00:30:29,760 --> 00:30:31,760 No. 518 00:30:31,760 --> 00:30:35,640 And that's the end of our presentation. 519 00:30:35,640 --> 00:30:41,360 Again that's pretty broad it really depends it certainly really depends. 520 00:30:41,360 --> 00:30:45,280 The one thing that comes to mind directly area on that side of it again is with very 521 00:30:45,280 --> 00:30:50,600 verticalized applications when you go much you know that are you know part of the line 522 00:30:50,600 --> 00:30:55,960 of business application for example whatever you know your ERP system is and how are you 523 00:30:55,960 --> 00:30:59,320 using ERP to service your customer side of those. 524 00:30:59,320 --> 00:31:03,320 Again very that's very specialized and not that there aren't again consultants that can 525 00:31:03,320 --> 00:31:05,440 probably come in and drive into that. 526 00:31:05,440 --> 00:31:10,520 If we're talking more general technology partners what we're kind of been speaking of here typically 527 00:31:10,520 --> 00:31:16,880 not your not your group you know for CIT for example when people have using Salesforce 528 00:31:16,880 --> 00:31:24,440 or they're using Microsoft CRM that's not us you know we were more the technology plumbers 529 00:31:24,440 --> 00:31:30,960 is kind of get into making sure that the speeds the feeds the users accessibility their devices 530 00:31:30,960 --> 00:31:36,720 are secure and performances there and have accessibility to get to Salesforce but once 531 00:31:36,720 --> 00:31:43,880 they log into Salesforce we don't know you know and that's so usually once it gets deep 532 00:31:43,880 --> 00:31:49,600 into those things that's another consultant or something better served you know by a champion 533 00:31:49,600 --> 00:31:51,800 in the business themselves. 534 00:31:51,800 --> 00:31:55,680 Yeah my feedback was going to be when you have the expertise is when you wouldn't need 535 00:31:55,680 --> 00:31:59,520 the partner but you wouldn't even be looking in those situations. 536 00:31:59,520 --> 00:32:02,960 The one that I do want to caution on though would be when you don't have the money which 537 00:32:02,960 --> 00:32:07,280 would be probably a natural thought for most people but I think the having the real good 538 00:32:07,280 --> 00:32:12,040 conversation about what is it the worth and what is the ROI that probably is a different 539 00:32:12,040 --> 00:32:16,280 conversation than what your first reaction is I don't have the money for that. 540 00:32:16,280 --> 00:32:20,200 It would be worth the conversation to figure out whether it would be worth spending some 541 00:32:20,200 --> 00:32:24,240 additional dollars or reallocating them if that makes more sense. 542 00:32:24,240 --> 00:32:28,840 Yeah just better planning in that case you know whether you don't have it now but plan 543 00:32:28,840 --> 00:32:34,720 for it ahead of time so you can allocate it will pay dividends just like you're essentially 544 00:32:34,720 --> 00:32:41,640 savings for the right full deployment so save save up to do it right you'll actually be 545 00:32:41,640 --> 00:32:48,480 probably much happier with the results long term than than cutting corners. 546 00:32:48,480 --> 00:32:54,840 Yeah so my closing thoughts are in most cases a tech partner makes sense they can help you 547 00:32:54,840 --> 00:32:58,800 strategically and kind of tailing off the last thing that Kyle said is that budget cycle 548 00:32:58,800 --> 00:33:03,120 is important if you're thinking it is something that you need to be considering if you've 549 00:33:03,120 --> 00:33:07,040 put the time and energy into planning for it you can typically figure out how to pay 550 00:33:07,040 --> 00:33:12,600 for it Ava it's next year or you've built a plan to say how do I put this in in phases 551 00:33:12,600 --> 00:33:16,800 zero trust was one of the things that Kyle mentioned earlier that's not a I put in a 552 00:33:16,800 --> 00:33:21,800 tool that works it's a process you need to plan and you need to work on it it takes time 553 00:33:21,800 --> 00:33:27,800 but if you build the plan you build the budget you can get there from here. 554 00:33:27,800 --> 00:33:34,800 Yeah yeah planning is key on it you know and the last thing I was going to say is you know 555 00:33:34,800 --> 00:33:38,880 when you engage in the technology part of there's many things they'll offer just you 556 00:33:38,880 --> 00:33:44,600 know the advice just from the initial engagement side of it so you know if you're not sure 557 00:33:44,600 --> 00:33:48,800 if you haven't you know start a conversation that's typically you know no obligation it's 558 00:33:48,800 --> 00:33:53,280 not costing anything to just have a conversation and see if there's an alignment and there's 559 00:33:53,280 --> 00:33:58,080 a value side of it there's you know I know for us the initial conversation you go out 560 00:33:58,080 --> 00:34:01,720 there and talk and do that discovery and even like Todd was mentioning on the internet side 561 00:34:01,720 --> 00:34:06,800 of it that that that's just you know typically falls under a sales engagement that's just 562 00:34:06,800 --> 00:34:12,360 an introductory you know side to see if there's an alignment that's cost of your little bit 563 00:34:12,360 --> 00:34:18,080 of your time but that discovery could give you some better insight as to is it the right 564 00:34:18,080 --> 00:34:23,960 technology partner for me and is there potential you know ROI that I can see come out of that 565 00:34:23,960 --> 00:34:28,520 that's that's just an investment a little bit in your time you know so you don't really 566 00:34:28,520 --> 00:34:34,920 have to go deep into your in your budget to worry about that just set aside some time. 567 00:34:34,920 --> 00:34:41,960 I love it that was all very informative I love we touched on more than IT you know it's 568 00:34:41,960 --> 00:34:45,600 strategic it's planning it's budget there's so much more that goes into having a tech 569 00:34:45,600 --> 00:34:51,520 partner and it costs nothing to look it costs you know a conversation is often free so thank 570 00:34:51,520 --> 00:34:57,440 you Kyle and Todd for joining us today if you enjoyed this podcast please like subscribe 571 00:34:57,440 --> 00:35:03,840 if you have a question or a topic or you enjoyed this more you know strategic and business conversation 572 00:35:03,840 --> 00:35:09,800 please let us know reach out to us at info at cit-net.com or head out to our website 573 00:35:09,800 --> 00:35:15,560 cit-net.com slash podcast and we'll be back next week with an all new episode.