053: How to Create a POWERFUL Support Network That Actually Works?

"Community is not about belonging. It’s about belonging to something that makes belonging matter."

This powerful distinction lies at the heart of our conversation about what genuine community means in today’s business landscape.

When businesses confuse having customers with having community, they miss the transformative power of authentic connection. True community emerges when we help others grow without constantly asking, “What’s in it for me?” The results are extraordinary—customers evolve into passionate advocates, sales conversations shift into relationship-building opportunities, and everyone thrives together.

During COVID, this spirit of community came alive through weekly support calls, where 40–60 people gathered to navigate uncertainty. These calls helped nearly 20 businesses secure PPP loans, sparked marketing breakthroughs, and even led to successful acquisitions. Today, the gatherings continue as a space where people freely exchange knowledge and offer emotional support. Initiatives like collecting donations for food banks and aiding struggling local businesses showed how small acts of kindness can ripple outward with lasting impact.

MSPs often act as “first responders of the business world,” protecting not just operations—but livelihoods. When we embrace this responsibility, our mindset shifts from transactions to transformation. The beautiful paradox? By focusing less on sales and more on service, business naturally grows. When vendors educate MSPs instead of selling to them, and MSPs champion client success over upselling, clients don’t need to be pursued—they seek you out.

Have you felt the difference between belonging to a network and being part of a true community? We’d love to hear your story. Connect with us and share how community has shaped your business journey.

Ken Patterson on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kenpatterson16

Chapters

• 0:00 The Mission of Hope
• 2:42 Community Initiatives That Matter
• 7:20 True Community vs Customers
• 10:47 Relationships Over Sales
• 15:28 Making Real Impact During COVID

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

It's all about community, mark. That's the one, like I said, we have, the best community on the planet and if we can find ways to help each other and help new people coming in and just people in general, you know, I'm there, I'm, you know, and I say this to people and it's funny about how little people take you up on it. When you tell them, hey, I'll help out, right, it's like no, I'm not joking about this. I've had people say to me and I'll say it on here too Look, find me on LinkedIn, connect with me. Mark will have my contact information If you need help with anything, regardless of what it is, you know what I do for a living, but with anything, reach out.

Speaker 2: 0:45

This podcast you talk about help. This podcast is a mission of hope to help one person every day through the podcast of giving back right. And you talk about where are people at you and I will be seeing each other in just a few days. Obviously, this episode will release many weeks from now, but that is me giving back right, because I know I'm I'm just one of hope. I hope I can help one person in that room that maybe are in a spot that I've been in that caused me to make the changes I made, and maybe my story will help them. Yep, or they know that they're not alone in the world, right, that someone else has been through it and this is how they got through it. So help one another, right.

Speaker 1: 1:33

Yep, it's all about community, mark. That's the one, like I said, we have the best community on the planet and if we can find ways to help each other and help new people coming in and just people in general, you know, I'm there, I'm, you know, and I say this to people and it's funny about how little people take you up on it when you tell them, hey, I'll help out, right, it's like no, I'm not joking about this. I've had people say to me and I'll say it on here too Look, find me on LinkedIn, connect with me. Mark will have my contact information.

Speaker 1: 2:07

If you need help with anything, regardless of what it is, you know what I do for a living, but with anything, reach out. I may not even know the answer, but I may know someone who does, and that's a start. That's how you can start. So I put myself out here for everybody because I need help all the time and if I don't get that help, I know how stressful it can be. So, being able to talk to somebody and maybe it's someone you know, someone different like me I'm different. If you need to talk to someone, reach out, send me and send me a message. I have a few initiatives going right now. I and that don't have anything to do with me, and everybody should do the same I'm doing something right now.

Speaker 1: 2:50

With all the layoffs that just happened, I put myself out there and offered myself up for anybody that got laid off to have a conversation with, maybe point them in the right direction. And, mark, I've even invited some of those folks out in Denver to the event so that they can come out and meet MSPs and vendors and just have conversations and, who knows, maybe it sparks a job for them, maybe it sparks a link to a job. But the point is there's so many small ways you can help out in the community. You know, like I said, I'm having these people just come out to the event and they're going to have the availability to talk to vendors and MSPs. Make new connections. You never know where that connection could take you. It doesn't mean that person's going to hire you or that person's going to do something for you right then there. But if you make a good connection, they may know somebody who knows somebody and tie that connection together.

Speaker 2: 3:35

It's a very small world.

Speaker 1: 3:37

Yeah, it's a small sandbox we play in Mark, that's for sure.

Speaker 2: 3:41

So you did mention that's one of your initiatives. What's your other initiative?

Speaker 1: 3:44

Well, I do have a a and, by the way, you're invited. I don't know if you know you're so busy too, but I do a community call every Thursday that basically it's vendors, MSPs, and we just go on there. Some of them have called it their therapy session. Ok, we've done this. I started it in COVID. During COVID, I used to do Tuesdays and Thursdays and we had like 40 to 60 people on there. It was crazy.

Speaker 2: 4:07

How could I not know about this?

Speaker 1: 4:08

Yeah, I don't know how I think I mentioned it at the meeting too, but you probably didn't listen to me. You only wanted to sing karaoke.

Speaker 2: 4:17

Yeah, yeah, you know me, I'm always grabbing the mic.

Speaker 1: 4:19

But no, yeah. So we started back then during COVID and now it's still going on Thursdays. It's every Thursday at 3 PM Eastern time and it's just an hour of Whoever wants to chat. We talk about everything from security to food. It's an open forum. We don't record it, we don't put it out on social, because we want people to be frank and be open and be able to say the things they want to say. So remind me, mark, I'll just send you the invite to it.

Speaker 1: 4:46

So you have it but anybody can reach out and be a part of that. We do it every Thursday. Sometimes we have 10 people on there, sometimes we have 30 people on there, sometimes we have 30 people on there. I don't expect people to be there. What I do is I send the calendar invite for the year and you don't have to respond to that. You just have it on your calendar and if you're busy you don't come. If you're not busy, you pop on. If you can pop on for a half hour, pop on for a half hour and I think people pick up nuggets there of information.

Speaker 1: 5:10

And during COVID we actually helped close to 20 people get their PPP loans the right PPP loans Wonderful. We helped a bunch of people with their marketing. Like there was just crazy conversations during COVID that a lot of people got super successful. In fact, they're not on the call anymore because they got so busy. Seriously crazy stuff happened. One of them got bought out. Seriously crazy stuff happened. One of them got bought out. Like there was a lot of people on those calls that had successful things happen because we learned and we did some cool stuff on there and that's all it is. It's just doing things like that simple things. It's not that difficult. Even during COVID, when I did the tour bus thing and we were driving around the country, one little extra thing we did was we made every MSP pay us in canned goods. We just said, bring two canned goods to the event and we'll lump those all together and whoever the MSP was that was hosting us could donate that to their local food bank.

Speaker 1: 6:04

Very nice or their local charity. Right, not hard to do, just pull that together and be able to do things like that. And I knew that my old city that I grew up in the one we were talking about was struggling during COVID for the food bank. So I figured there must be other food banks struggling. So we traveled around the whole country. That's what we did. We just collected canned goods and stuff that people would brought in and then we'd give it to the local MSP that was hosting us and they would bring it to their charity of choice.

Speaker 2: 6:28

Love it. Amazing, that's awesome of you to do that.

Speaker 1: 6:36

And it's again, it's, it's, it's. These are things that any one of us can do. It's not about me. It's about sparking ideas for how you can help. And, by the way, community doesn't just mean us. Community is about everybody that we come in contact with. So that's like I said. The food banks in your local area are part of your community. Help out in any way you can Help out with places that are around your organization. It does do your business well, even though it's not meant to be that way. And I say it that way because if you're out in the community doing things like that, that gets recognized by businesses. And I think when businesses see you out there doing things that don't have anything to do with technology but have everything to do with the community, it's just another way to make yourself stand out from the rest. Not that you're doing it for that reason, but it does help. So I mean sure you know bottom line too.

Speaker 1: 7:25

We talk about community mark because I feel like community is thrown around almost as much as cloud.

Speaker 1: 7:30

Now. Okay, um, you know what I mean. It's just a term to people now, and it's not Because you have customers. That's not a community. A community is not about belonging. It's about belonging to something that makes belonging matter. That's the difference. That's what real community is, and I learned. That's how I always thought of it, but I couldn't put it on paper until I talked to Eric Bowles and Eric Bowles made that statement to me and I was like, oh my God, that's a hundred percent accurate, because every a lot of the vendors and a lot of the companies think, oh, we've got a community, these are our customers over here.

Speaker 1: 8:07

Really, a community when you met when it matters and you belong to it, it makes it feel like it matters is way different, and the way I can explain it because of my experience in the past was the PAX 8 experience. I helped, I was a big part of that community growing when we grew that from 3,000 members to 15,000 members, and they weren't just members, they weren't just customers. They became stark, raving fans of what PAX 8 did, because we built them as a community, not as customers. We helped them be better. That's how you build a community. When you're helping the people that you serve be better Without asking for anything in return, you give. It's not the with them, it's not what's in it for me. It's what's in it for you, mark. How can I help you, how can I serve you? And I don't want anything in return. That's community, and so if more businesses could take that approach, they'll start to see wins happen in a much more organic way. And, by the way, wouldn't it be nice to stop talking about sales, because I'm so sick of sell, sell, sell, sell. We don't have to sell what we do. People need it. Msps are the first responders of the business world. You're saving people's businesses the way that first responders save people's lives and, in essence, you're saving their lives too, because their lives are their business. That's their livelihood, right? So what better way to do it than to help everybody be better? Help vendors need to learn to do that with msps. Msps need to learn to do that with their customers. Make them better.

Speaker 1: 9:46

And when they're not talking about sales, when you're not, you know your sales. People aren't saying, hey, I got a quote with me, can you buy some licenses? Like, come on, seriously, no one wants to hear that. But what if they call you? Because they know, hey, you guys educated me on this, this new thing over, and I didn't know anything about that. And now I need that. They're calling you for the sale, you're not calling them. It's a reversal and it's how it should be done. Just like I call a doctor when I have a problem, right, the customers will stop calling you when they have a problem and the MSPs, as MSPs, will actually talk to the vendors when we have a problem if they better educate us as MSPs, right? So it's this trickle-down effect, trickle-across. I don't want to say down, because I don't think anybody's below anybody else, but I truly believe that community is at the heart of it all and if you do it right, we don't have to talk about that dirty sales word. In that aspect, it'll all be based on relationships.

Speaker 2: 10:44

Relationships are everything, um, and you're building those through community, through giving back, helping others become better, cause I'm all about becoming better myself. Right, I'm on a journey of growth, um, and we talked about the the being better giving back community. My thing is you mentioned, with the podcast, right being better giving back community. My thing is I mentioned, with the podcast, right, like giving back, um, trying to leave things maybe slightly better than what I inherited. It, right, because, face it, we have, and we talk about negativity in the world and everybody, oh, the world's going to shit. You know, okay, what are we doing to make a difference, right? Right, I mean you can have an impact. Yep, what? How is all much? How much impact?

Speaker 1: 11:28

you're going to make right. That's up to you A hundred percent. And you know, like I said about the, you know people say, oh, I don't have time. No, there's always time to do the right thing. There's just always time to do the right thing and it does come in. It will circle back. If you're doing these right things and you're working in the right direction and your heart's in the right place, it'll come around, it'll work.

Speaker 1: 11:55

You know, and for me I don't know the last. I mean, I've been doing this a long time, over 20 years and for me I get corny because people like don't believe it. But for me I get corny because people like don't believe it. But for me the stories of the people that I've helped are way better than you know. Some of the dollars I could have earned by going down a wrong path or going to the wrong vendor that you know. I just couldn't sell my soul to the devil and do stuff like that. You know. Of course there are vendors who would probably hire me and try to use me and but not go down the road. I want them to go down or not do it in the way I want them to, and I just couldn't do that and I would say, is my wife listening, cause I don't want her to know that? But you know I I won't take that uh the the money over my soul.

Speaker 1: 12:35

You know I want to work with people, the thing I love to do, right, that's what makes me. You know, I'm not. I'll I'll reverse this. I'm not as good as people think I am at my job. Okay, I'm only. I'm only good at it because I love it.

Speaker 1: 12:51

So if I believe in, if I, if I believe in the company I'm working for, I believe in the solution and I believe in it's going to help MSPs, cause that's really my right now, my focus, that actually makes me feel really good. That's the part that takes me to the next level and that's why I look like I'm doing a great job, because I love what I do, so I can do it better, if that makes sense. It's just who I am. It's allowing me to be who I am and I love that part If I can get out there and do good and help people, and you know I've had so many MSPs come back to me and then, of course, I'll tell you you know some some things during COVID that really got me right here.

Speaker 1: 13:34

You know I could I could get a little emotional talking about them. You know we were in Memphis and part of the giving back to the community was we would hire local food trucks that had no work Right, because they had no work, they were out of work. And the food truck guy in Memphis came out and burst into tears like two or three times and gave me a big hug and just said my wife and I were really struggling here. We have nothing coming in and this was amazing and you know all that.

Speaker 1: 14:03

So cool yeah, man dude coming in and this was amazing and you know all that and so cool. Yeah, man, dude, it's it so like. You know things like that, where you're just like, look at the effect we had just by coming here and doing what we needed to do anyways. But we brought in the food truck and gave them some, some cash. We got the, the food banks, we gave them the food.

Speaker 1: 14:18

The you know the tour bus driver and the tour bus. They were out of business that we were paying them to drive us around the country. The you know the tour bus driver and the tour bus. They were out of business that we were paying them to drive us around the country. Right, the hotels we were staying at. Nobody was staying at hotels, so these hotels were pretty thankful at actually rolling out the red carpet. Well, at least some of them, some of them had basically couldn't, couldn't get their rooms ready even by 10 PM. It was a weird time, but for the most part, they appreciated that we were out there doing this because it was bringing money to the economies that weren't, that weren't getting anything.

Speaker 2: 14:53

No, that's amazing, the thing that got you obviously out there. You still had the mission at hand and it benefited others right Along the way. I mean just it was definitely, definitely helpful and those small things they make a difference. They do make a difference, they all add up.

Speaker 1: 15:11

It's not anything crazy to give some time back and you don't realize how huge the impact could be on the other side, Hi.

Speaker 2: 15:19

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