MSP Mastery: Ctrl-Alt-Deliver
Welcome to Ctrl-Alt-Deliver: MSP Mastery — the podcast for IT leaders, MSP owners, and service delivery professionals who want to elevate performance, improve processes, and stay ahead in the fast-changing managed services landscape.
MSP Mastery: Ctrl-Alt-Deliver
From Reactive Owner to Strategic CEO: How Louie Kouvelas Scaled Two Businesses with EOS, Sales Systems and Focus
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Welcome to MSP Mastery: Ctrl-Alt-Deliver Podcast, the podcast for MSP owners and leaders who want to build a better MSP; one that actually works for them.
I am Jeni Clift, joined by my husband and long time business partner, Nick Clift. Together, we unpack what is really working in thriving MSPs, including insights from the trusted partners who support them.
In this episode, we are joined by Louie Kouvelas, Managing Director of Discover IT and Infocom Software. With more than two decades of experience across managed services and software development, Louie has built two successful businesses that work side by side to help organisations improve their technology, operations and outcomes.
What makes Louie's story particularly relevant for MSP owners is his journey from being deeply involved in the day to day to becoming a more strategic leader. We explore the role EOS played in creating accountability, how he overcame the common MSP challenge of building a sales engine, and why some of the toughest leadership decisions are often the most important.
Here is what we covered together:
✅ From Technician to CEO: Why business owners must stop solving every problem themselves and focus on the bigger picture if they want sustainable growth.
✅ Running an MSP and Software Company Together: How Discover IT and Infocom Software create value through alignment, partnerships and a customer first mindset.
✅ EOS in Action: How implementing EOS helped create accountability, structure and clarity across both businesses.
✅ The Right People Challenge: Why leadership maturity sometimes means helping people find success somewhere else when they are no longer the right fit.
✅ Building a Sales Engine: The lessons learned from failed sales hires and why processes need to come before hiring a BDM.
✅ Creating Predictable Growth: How structured lead generation, sales accountability and long term planning transformed the business pipeline.
✅ Avoiding Shiny Object Syndrome: Why successful leaders learn what to say no to and stay focused on their long term vision.
✅ Leading Remote Teams with Accountability: How scorecards, KPIs and clear expectations create trust without micromanagement.
We created this podcast to share the real conversations and lessons we wish we had more of while running our own MSP; practical insights from people who understand the challenges of this industry.
For more about Louie and Discover IT visit: discover.com.au
Louie Kouvelas Linkedin Page: https://www.linkedin.com/in/louie-kouvelas/
👉 Read more episode notes here: mspmastery.blog
👉 Watch the full video on YouTube: youtube.com/@MSPMastery
🎧 Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4gftErFYrR8F80kthgvFbs
🎧 Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/msp-mastery-ctrl-alt-deliver/id1828105793
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As the CEO, you have to focus on the big picture, not the day-to-day, more concentrating on how do I do service to this business so that it can grow to the maximum it can grow at, that in the end gives results and satisfaction to our customers. It's taken a while to get that maturity level for me to actually go, it's okay to say to someone, hey, you don't belong here. This isn't the right place for you. Because you feel like you're being a horrible person saying that to someone, but at the same time, you also realize you're doing them a favor. They need to be achieving things and getting that accreditation that they well done, you've done a great job.
SPEAKER_01Welcome to MSP Mastery, the podcast for MSP owners and leaders who want to build a better MSP, one that actually works for them. I'm Jenny Clift, and alongside my longtime business and life partner Nick, we unpack what's really working in thriving MSPs, including insights from the trusted partners who support them. With 60 plus years of combined experience, we've seen it all from the first break fix calls to the sophisticated MSP tools of today. We've always been early adopters of the tech and the strategies that shifted our industry towards recurring revenue and long-term success. Our goal with this podcast is to share the real stories and hard-won lessons that inspire and add genuine value to our industry, helping you to build a business that is both profitable and fulfilling. This is MSP Mastery. And here's Nick, myself, and today's special guest. Today we're joined by Louis Cavellas, who's the managing director of Discover IT and Infocom Software. He brings more than 20 years of experience across managed IT services and software development. Louis leads two closely connected businesses that work side by side to help clients simplify technology, improve day-to-day operations, and get better value from the systems they rely on. What we've always appreciated about Louis is his practical and grounded approach. He understands both the technical side of the work and the bigger business picture, which is a big part of why he has built such strong and well-aligned businesses over the years. We've known Louis for a long time and have had the pleasure of working alongside him and his leadership team now for more than five years. So it's great to have him with us on the podcast. Louie, welcome to MSP Mastery.
SPEAKER_02Hello, Jenny. Hello, Nick, and thank you so much for having me on board.
SPEAKER_00Nah, Louis, this is good. This is going to be a great conversation, this one, because there's a couple of segues down the track. One of the questions, which we'll get into the synergies between MSP and software.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I suppose that's where I'm a I'm a little bit I'm a little bit unique. Apologies. I'm a little bit unique in that space where I have two two businesses, Infocom Software and Discover IT. That we'll get into, I suppose, but I've got some synergies in there of what they do and why there's two of them.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, which is interesting. Often we'll see people who have a like a spin-off of tool that they've developed for MSP, but there's not too many uh where where you've ended up of having those really closely aligned businesses. Louis, can I get you to introduce yourself, share a little bit about your professional journey?
SPEAKER_02So obviously Louis Kfellas, I started I'm the founder and managing director of Discover IT and Infocom Software. Started the businesses way back in the early 2000s. In fact, Discover started in the year 2000 and Infocom started about 2003.
SPEAKER_00I did not know that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, Discover came first, then came Infocom. And my history has been my entire life. Went to university, studied IT or computer programming, uh, computer software, all that. Absolutely loved anything to do with computers, really, in the end. Anything to do with technology. And from there worked at a number of businesses, small, medium, and large. Doing being a software developer and operations general manager, a few scenarios there, product development, team leader, that type of thing. So yeah, sort of lots of experience working for others before the switch went over to doing my own thing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I'm surprised as well. I thought it was the other way. I thought it was a software business too. So there you go. After all these years, I find out I was wrong. So let's get into it. So, as always, as an EOS implementer and you're very familiar with these questions, but please share your personal and professional best from the last six months.
SPEAKER_02So, from a personal point of view, I'd start with that one. The biggest thing is work, work can be chaos. And that work carries carries forward into your personal life. So you're not always present in your personal life as much as you should be. So the one thing that I've definitely have done in the last six months is gotten better at switching off and going, right, work time is over, that's it. Switch the computer off, walk away, don't even think about it, go and do something completely different, spend time with the family, do any other tasks that need to be done that are more family or personal oriented. And that's you know, that's been a great way to a great success for me in the last six months of getting more more switch off time, which in the end has created more creativity. So when I did get back into work, the mind was fresh. And so it made a difference to me to go, oh wow, I'm completely fresh. All the stuff that was dragging me down last week, that's gone. Let's start afresh. Enthusiasm back. Fantastic.
SPEAKER_00That's great. That's great.
SPEAKER_01I thought you were going to talk about booking your trip to Europe for six months. Six weeks, sorry, not six months, six weeks.
SPEAKER_02I have got that in the cards as well. But that's more of a stress than anything else, because you've got so much to planned. Okay. What's your professional best for the last six months? So professional has been the growth that we've had in our lead generation and sales processes. So we've gone from the middle of last year of having reactive here and there opportunities appearing for us, us knocking on occasional cult calling type of scenario, to all of a sudden having a structured lead generation process that's that all of a sudden we have a sales funnel that's full of potential customers, lots of customers interacting with us. So that's been yeah, outstanding from that perspective. So seeing the growth professionally in that space in the last six months is just amazing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's great.
SPEAKER_01And that probably creates a few stresses of its own. Oh my god, what are we doing with all these leads?
SPEAKER_02Good problems to have.
SPEAKER_01That's one of the best problems to have. So let's talk about those two businesses. So Discover, what, 26 years this year? Infocom more than 20 years. Can you share how Infocom kind of evolved? You started Discover first, but then how do you move? How did you move into the software side as well?
SPEAKER_02I might just sort of start it with on the Discover side because that sort of paints the picture more nicely. While working for someone else, I was getting questions from lots of friends and associates and external friends of friends going, hey, we've got a business, we need to set up a new environment. Do you reckon you could help us? We heard you helped Fred out. Can you help us out too? And lo and behold, like we got a full-time job where you can't do that business hours. So uh you would do that after hours and on weekends, and absolutely thoroughly enjoyed it. And it was small business server around those days, so that was lots of fun setting it up and seeing the customer satisfaction that you're yeah, at the coal face with the customer, setting something up, getting their emails working, getting their printers working, getting their network drives working. It was just so much fun and excitement. So it sort of started there, and that b eventually got to the point where I decided to take that full time, and that would be the the the approach I would take, like leave where I was because this was way more fun. Moved across to doing that. And just as I started to go full-time in Discover IT, a friend of mine made the phone call and said, Hey, we're acquiring a a software, ERP software business in the logistics space. Would you be interested in working for us and in fact investing in it and running the show for us? And I've gone, heck, with my software development background? Hell yeah. I'm in. So that kind of started in 2001, but 2003 is where it officially started to really kick off. And between 2003 and 2006, we sort of redeveloped the software, and that's where 2006 is when I actually fully took over. So it's been 20 years since I fully took over as the managing director. And so yeah, it started off on the IT side. Opportunity came along that there was some old business owners looking to retire. They didn't want to redevelop the software in a in a Windows-based platform, they had a green screen-based solution. And with my technical background and development background, it made a lot of sense to step in and get involved with the the business partners and and help grow it. So yeah, that sort of began the journey.
SPEAKER_01Nice. So just for Nick's benefit, what version was it then? That's our running joke in terms of.
SPEAKER_00That is a bit of a running joke, yes.
SPEAKER_02It was version 0.9. Oh, 0.99. Um and where are we now? Version five. Version five, it depends which which module you talk about.
SPEAKER_00Correct. I have I've learned my lesson, yes.
SPEAKER_02Back then there was only one version of one bit of software that was version 0.9, and we got our first pilot customer live with our software to to get them up and running. And then shortly after we had our version one, which was a transport customer based in Perth. They became our first logistics true transport customer. We had a whole bunch of customers using the old Unix software, but this was our first Windows-based, .NET-based solution that we delivered. They were the first of many, and now we've got over 50 customers uh in that space.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, nice. That's good.
SPEAKER_01So, from an alignment perspective, because not all of Discover's clients are in that transport logistics industry. And this is something that we've done a lot with over the years, and Nick, feel free to jump in as well, is creating those partnerships where, you know, we we did a lot of work with local government and then partnered with some of the local government software. But can you talk through how those two kind of sit together of and if partnerships has really played a business in in where you're at now?
SPEAKER_00We had a a couple of one of our first clients that we got in 1996, I think it was, was a local government council, the Gunnar Warwickshire Council up in northern Victoria. And we were looking after the IT, and then because they were in a bit of a a mess, and I had experience with local governments in my previous role at UNISES, so I kind of knew the layout of how things worked. This was before Windows Network, so this was this was yeah, basically a mainframe in the corner running an old bit of software. And we we yeah, we'd come in and put a Windows network in and got them at least PCs and a bits and other bits and pieces and email working, etc. And they were out to tender on a bit of software. So this software company came in and they said that the CEO said to me, Nick, I need you to be on the evaluation panel for the tender. And I go, Oh, okay, cool, I can do that. So I'm there representing the the council on the panel evaluating software vendors that have put submissions in. And through that process, I got to meet four or five different software companies. And the company, the one the software tender, they came back and said, Hey, we really like the network you've set up here. We want you to help us with some of our other opportunities we've got. And and that basically went from that one council where we're working with nine different councils across regional Victoria, and that that relationship with the software company was super valuable as far as developing our core core one of our core businesses, which was local government. So, yeah, that's kind of where I was coming from. It's like for the MSPs listening out there, it's having an alliance, and Louie's a bit unique because he he's got both the MSP and the software dev, and so you've kind of got a really, really close alliance, because you're just talking to yourself, basically. But uh you join But if you if you have a software vendor that has a reliable technology partner to combine, you can you can present a much better case to a potential client. And I'm sure you find that as part of your skill set to believe you're offering with with Infocom. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00That worked exceptionally well for us, and and it got us a lot of opportunities into other councils that we would not have got in there because a lot of the government works through tenders. So the software company would do the big tender process, and we just bolt on the side with oh, this is the option to actually have hardware that'll support the product properly. And and we kind of got in that way, and it worked really, really well. So for the guys listening out there, I if you don't have a a niche or like a I know people that are just do dentists and they have a relationship with the dentist software or like the legal guys, Leap. Leap was a bit of software for legals. We used to partner with Leap and they would give us a lot of leads. So I think it's a really and the fact that you've got the two, the software vendor and the MSP together, I think it's really unique, and I think it's great. And your customers would be benefiting hand over fist with that for sure.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. And look, we've yes, we are kind of unique that we haven't had to rely too much on external parties to for opportunities. But having said that, we have partnered with many of MSPs or IT companies in the past, and still do, up until now, where you know we don't we don't step on their territory. We let them, it's their customer, their IT, let them do their thing. And in fact, they know their customer back to front, whereas we don't know them to that level. And we're we're all about partnerships and adding value to our to our clients and our partners, not stealing from our clients or anything, or our partners, sorry, like we're not we're not there to do the wrong thing by our partners. We're very, very loyal in that space. So we've worked with many IT companies that have introduced us into businesses for logistics requirements. And we've worked really well together to deliver a better solution for the customer because they understand the IT side. We've understood the software side, and together it's a match made in heaven where we've delivered an outstanding result for the client that the client's been over the moon with the success of what they've achieved and the efficiency gains they've gained by implementing our software at the same time, having the right IT partner to who's communicating clearly with us as well and part of the journey. So we've certainly experienced that from that perspective. And look, we've also done it from our own perspective where we've had IT customers that we've just purely done the IT for, and they've an opportunity has arisen where they're going, well, we're throwing out our ERP, we need a new one. Our IT team's gone, hey, you should look at us, our software side of the business, Infocon. I think they can assist you, and together with what we know about you on the IT side, we can actually get a great result for you. And we've done that many a time for clients as well. So yeah, there's definitely, definitely opportunities. And in the end, it's helped us on the IT side grow our uh our strength for the customs that we already had, that they go, hey, not only did you look after IT well, but you've introduced us to the software side, and the software's done such a great job of us, together with your help in that, that you know, we're not going anywhere. We're we're very, very happy with how the two are functioning together.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it is it is unusual. And and uh, but I like hearing that you are, you know, you've got those other trusted MSPs that you're also working with, or I'm sure internal teams as well. It's not a you know, you get both or nothing approach.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, absolutely. And we've always been about what's the right solution for the client. We've not not been about you must buy our product and you must buy tea and all that. It's what's the right thing for the customer. That's what all it comes down to for us. And if we're not the right solution, no problems, we'll move along. But if we can offer some advice or help, we'll offer it. And if they implement want to implement our software at the same time, or maybe they want to do our IT services, more than happy to do that for them as well.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Now I wanted to talk about this is something we we spend a lot of time in working on the EOS process. You got two businesses to to balance, and often one is is difficult, but balancing two a whole new ball game. So what have you put in place to ensure that both get the attention they need? And how do you stay on top of leading both teams?
SPEAKER_02First off, it kind of all started with up until just before COVID. It was all running smoothly because it was all not very chaotic. We were growing, but not growing exponentially. But at the same time, uh around that point in time, I realized that I couldn't grow, couldn't keep growing these businesses and giving them the the results that they the businesses needed, the results our customers needed. If I had if I was getting my hands involved in every single task, in every single process that was happening out there. So to give the the company and the teams the attention they needed, I realized that I needed to do something different, something had to change. And I'd spoken to a couple of people and I'd heard through SMBIT about EOS and and I thought, you know what, I'm going to buy that book, get a grip, and I'm going to read it. And I read it from cover to cover and absolutely loved it. And I gone, that and in fact it was talking about a software company in that book. So it's like, oh my god, it's talking about us. That's us. Hang on, which person in there is me? And who's who in the team? But uh that was that was a an eye-opener, and instantly I recognized, heck, this is what we need. We need systems in place, we need processes in place, we need accountability, and not just accountability of me being the accountable person for the whole process, but yeah, your role isn't just manager of XYZ, your role is accountability for XYZ and defining those specific key roles or key accountabilities that they had in their role rather than oh, this is a title and you're in charge, but I might override you, and in fact, I might get involved in the details. No, no, it's your baby, this is what I expect, this is how I want it done. So it's the one thing I realized is that the only way we're going to grow this, and the only way I could keep sane, I suppose, and keep on top of it all, was to implement EOS. So it yeah, it all sort of started once I finished reading the book, made contact with my with the EOS Foundation and found this person called Jenny.
SPEAKER_01But it was coming into COVID, wasn't it? Because I think we had to do our sessions. We did I think we did the first one in person, and then it was remote from there, yeah. Forgotten about that.
SPEAKER_02So that was definitely a bit of a challenge, but it was it was really good. Like it made us accountable, made everyone accountable for what we're doing. We had measurements in place, we had scorecards in place, we had performance goals of what where we're trying to grow the business, what sort of KPIs we were trying to hit, and it was front and center. Every week we we would meet and still meet to go through our scorecard items to work out where are we at? Are we hitting our things? What's below the below the the threshold, what's gone red, why is it gone red? Let's discuss that as an IDS, as an issue. Let's let's have a session to discuss all that. So look, that's the only way you could keep the sanity trying to run two businesses is to structure it more, put process and procedures in place, assign the right people, and have exposure to it all. So there's no no hidden things happening behind the scenes. It's all front and center and lots of clarity as to where the business is going.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's interesting, Louis, because it's makes me think back to our original journey with the US as well. And we we we were searching for something, we didn't know what it was, and we tried a number of different business coaches and a number of peer groups and platforms, and and ultimately it was in the trip to the US where we Jenny and I went to different sessions. I think we went to Dadocon, Autotask Live, and True Methods Newsfest. The three of the conferences in the three-week period, well two-week period, and every single one of them had a speaker about EOS, and we said, all right, this is a bloody sign. So we ended up getting two books in the US, and we read them on the plane on the way back, and that was Traction. Traction's like the the operator manual, so it's a bit of a dry read. I get a grip's my favorite book because it's a story, you can relate to it, you can see yourself in it, you can see your team in it. And we got back in a similar journey to yourself, and it made such a huge difference. But the thing I wanted to dip back to over the years, have how have you identified and dealt with this thing about where the people that got you here are not gonna get you there? Because everyone goes through that cycle, and that was the biggest chunk one of the biggest challenges for us is realizing that oh, these people that are that are in our team that we love, they're not gonna help me get to where I need to get to. And I think everyone, every business owner goes through that at some point in their life, and I think How do I handle that? I just wondered if there's any kind of yeah, if you you hit that and how you got it how you got emotionally around that bottleneck.
SPEAKER_02It would be fair to say absolutely hit that and absolutely worked out very quickly. EOS very much exposed where certain leaders' deficiencies were and how we needed to either get them up to speed or find someone else to do that role. And absolutely it exposed it like there's no tomorrow. And and it just worked out that you know previous hiring, and I I think I could put my hand up and saying I've been fantastic at hiring the wrong people. Haven't we all? Yeah. So that's a nice person, he gets along gets really well and we get along really well. And geez, I'd love to have you as part of the team. And you get him in there, him or her in there, and you realise actually our goals don't align, our ways of success don't align, and in fact, we're not compatible at all, but they're still a nice person. So that that made it awkward because there's an amount of people that we've had to sort of have that conversation with and say that this isn't the right place for you. And it's taken a while to get that maturity level for me to actually go, A, it's okay to say to someone, hey, you don't belong here. This isn't the right place for you. Because you feel like you're being a horrible person saying that to someone, but at the same time, you also realize you're doing them a favor that they are probably miserable at what they're doing working for you because they're not meeting the standard. And people need that job satisfaction, they need to be achieving things and getting that accreditation that they well done, you've done a great job. And if you're not giving that because they're underperforming and you're constantly saying, Hey, we need to do that better, and this is what I want, and they're constantly not getting to that pass mark that you're looking for, it's not it's not fun for them. So that that was the other growth I had in that thing of maturity in that space, realizing that actually I'm doing them a favor. It might sound horrible, but I'm actually doing them a favor in saying, Hey, this is you, this isn't the role for you. But because of that, it's it's really has exposed what the right people should look like, what accountability is I'm looking for. And I suppose I've I've made this mistake so many times, and now together with my EOS business experience in general, it's grown to the level of being a lot better at picking, not perfect still, but a lot better at picking who the right people are and what I'm looking for, what are the the business outcomes in their performance that I'm looking for to get to help us achieve where we want to grow to? Because up until up until EOS came along, we were very much day by day, living day by day in regards to direction. So direction was, well, this sounds interesting, let's do this. Tomorrow, oh, this sounds interesting, let's do this. Bright shiny object syndrome, maybe a little bit. But since EOS has come along, we've had you know one year, three year, five-year goals, ten-year goals type of thing. So that's made a a huge difference to go, hang on, we've got some some very, very major goals that we want to try and achieve. And we've broken that down, thanks to to Jenny and team, to you know, achievable quarterly goals and working all the way up to yearly, three-yearly and so forth. And because of that, you can actually see a path forward. And from that, it allows you to focus and you know, hang on, does this meet with where we're trying to go to, what we're trying to achieve? Or not? And if it doesn't, we need to re-evaluate.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, absolutely. And it really is about, you know, as you said, about people letting, as we've always said, set people free to find an alternative path to success. As you said, you're doing them a favor. Like if they don't fit, surely coming to work is just not rewarding. So do the right thing by them and the business. But also it is about that focus. And yeah, I think all entrepreneurs, business owners have a bit of shiny object syndrome, so it allows you to know what to say no to, which is often what we don't want to do. You started working with morphability for sales coaching. What's the biggest impact of bringing something like that sales coach? Because part of that morphability process has been hiring a BDM. And we can see the work with the work that we do with you, you're actually seeing results. You said at the start of the podcast about that lead gen now working. So what do you think that missing piece was that you've actually got right now?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, look, that was something that EOS helped us explore and say, well, we're not hitting our KPIs or the numbers we're trying to hit. We're not we don't have a full pipeline. We don't have regular sales coming in the door. It's all ad hoc, it's all reactive. And so that made it pretty clear through EOS exposed our shortcomings in that area. And that it it it led us down the path of not achieving the results we wanted to where we wanted to get to, but then it's thinking magically we're going to get there. That it would just magically happen. So it it really did expose that we needed some processes, procedures, a structure around the whole a whole sales and marketing area. And and that's where came across Morphability and discovered that or found pretty quickly that morphability is a really compatible fit for us. They're morphability has very much the values and culture of what we're all about. So very lots of synergies. And thought they think the right way, they've been there, done it, they've ticked the boxes in success. We kind of know what we want to do, but we just don't know the steps to get there, who to hire. Plenty of times hired people in the past and just let them loose to actually do the work. And and then wondered why they're not getting the KPIs and the sales that we expected them to get in the door. Because we didn't really support them. We just hope thought that just give them we'll hire a BDM, they'll find sales and they'll make it happen magically. How'd that go? Yeah, not very well. Yeah, so set up our sales team or BDM for not success but failure, really, in the end. There's only so many people they may already know that they can introduce us to, and they're not always looking those customers aren't always looking for a new solution or new providers. So that it made it hard. And that's where identified that Morphability was someone we needed to interact with. They've done the walking, they've done the running in that space, they've got their processes down pat. They brought a maturity that we didn't have in that space. So just over close, close to 18 months ago, we took them on board. And Morphability has been amazing because they built us, they built our infrastructure of our structure, I suppose, in our processes and procedures of what we need to do to land sales, what our marketing funnel should look like, what sort of marketing campaigns we need to put together. Make sure we've got the right software implemented, make sure we've got the focus on all this. Being techies, I can tell you our first focus is not sales and marketing for gratification six months or a year later. Our satisfaction is, well, let me solve that problem for that client right now. That's great. But at the end, the true thing that we needed to do was take a step back and go, you can't keep solving day-to-day problems and expect growth at the same time. And so Wolf Ability stepped in and said, This is the steps we need to take. This is what we need to build as foundations of how you're going to approach. And this is how it's going to work for you guys in your industries and your business culture of what you've got and what you're trying to achieve. So it wasn't like, here, just copy and paste and put something here. It was built, tailor-fitted to our to who we are and how we run our businesses.
SPEAKER_00We had a similar experience back at DWM, because it was all just me, organic, like referrals with customers and working with the partners that we had that would give us introducers to new clients. And then we thought, uh, actually, it was one of the actual local government software sales guys that we ended up taking on as a BDM. Because I kind of had some interactions with him through some of the tender processes and good guy, aligned value, all that stuff, all that thing you just mentioned before. And and you know, we got really excited and he had a few introductions. We had a couple of, you know, did a few dates and you know, got engaged, and then we met a couple of these potential clients, and they were that all went well. That sounded, yeah, it sounds good when you guys are all sorted. Come back and talk to us. So we we did the deal and came on board. And I think that I never forget this. We drove from a chuca to the South Australian border to visit to do a client visit, and we drove through six councils, six shires. And I said to him on the way back, we need to get all of these as clients. And two years later, or three years later, I think we had five out of the six. So that was my strategy, but it didn't really it didn't work. So the reason I shared that is just that if you have a big vision and a goal and you set set a target, you can achieve it. But it didn't actually work out with that guy because we didn't have a funnel, we didn't have a system, we didn't have a process. All I had was my contacts. And when he went through all these contacts in the first year, we did get a few deals out of it and it was all good. But then he said to me, Well, what am I gonna do now? What what what are the what's the product suite? What's the next step? What's the customer journey? And I go, What are you talking about? That's your job, you're the BDM. He goes, No, no, no, I can sell the stuff, but I can't develop the processes. I don't know what your products are, I don't know how to talk your language and all that. And I go, ah, okay. Well, maybe this is not gonna work. And he goes, Yeah, I don't think it's gonna work. So he ended up going back to the software land to sell software because he had a product and a process. And we learn a big lesson from that. And I think it's a similar story to what you've just shared. It's it's not if you're an MSP out there and you're frustrated because you're doing all the sales work yourself as an owner, you your first indication is I just want to get a BDM to so I don't have to do this shit. The problem is that's the last step. Like you've got to understand your clients, your market, your products, and have a process that's generating appointments. Very rare are you gonna get a unique unicorn that's gonna be a gun BDM that's chasing targets and making you money, and also wanting to make cold calls to book his own appointments. That's a unique that's what we call a unicorn, and there's not many of them out there. So spend the time and effort in develop the processes, talk to talk to people, talk to Louie, find out what worked for him, and just yeah, don't rush out and sign a sales guy straight away. That's been my my tip.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we we tried that several times, and just you know, when you keep doing the same thing and expecting a different result, I think that m made us insane.
SPEAKER_00That's the one, yeah. That's good. And so just during that, just to follow up on that, Louis, during that journey, the 18 months, yeah. Um I imagine there would have been some because it's an investment in time and effort and all that stuff and money. And I imagine during that 18 months there would have been some periods of, oh my god, are we doing the right thing? Is this getting us a results? Or was it was it consistently on track to where you wanted to get to, or were there some ups and downs? And yeah, you have that kind of knot in the stomach going.
SPEAKER_02Oh shit. I look this there was definitely ups and downs. I wouldn't say ups and downs, but better than anything prior, if that makes sense. So the worst in that space was still way better than the worst of doing it previously, because previously there was a lot of yeah. Previously, I mean, it started off with well, hire at BDM, well, that's not working. Well, they don't get what they're selling. I don't understand why they're not selling it, I don't understand what they're doing. You know what? I'll do it. Biggest mistake you can make is as the CEO going, I'll do all this, I can be the I can be the salesman because I know the product back to front, I know what to tell clients, I know what to talk about. And then you realise, yeah, but you don't have the time running business or businesses to to be sitting there follow doing follow-up calls, building relations with clients and so forth. So you really do need a BDM and to be doing that. But yes, absolutely, you need those foundations laid properly. And morphability took us on that journey. And I could see every single day in that journey that things were improving. We didn't always land sales straight away, but things were happening that we were going on the journey in the right path. We could see the the journey. Having said that, our sales, our new BDM, he landed you know two or three customers in quick succession. So that really helped us get a foot up and head in the right direction and give us the confidence that heck, we're definitely going down the right path here. But having said that, you know, there's no it's not a straight line for growth. It doesn't work that way. You go backwards, you go forwards, you go backwards and forths, and eventually over time you look back and go, hey, we've achieved a fair bit. This is great.
SPEAKER_00Isn't it interesting when you get a few runs on the board from a sales how the overall over the whole company the vibe is so much better, more energetic. Like I've noticed it in our dealings with you guys. Overall, everyone's like much more enthusiastic and and they have the belief, you know. The old Ted Lasso believe sign on the yeah, we we're doing the work, we believe, and it's gonna happen. And I'm I'm so happy for you, mate. It's good.
SPEAKER_02No, absolutely. And you you do notice the change in your leadership team and your general day-to-day staff that all of a sudden new work is coming along. People love new things in general, especially at our organization. They they love new things, they love new things to play with, they love new customers to deal with, and to get that satisfaction of setting something up nicely or looking after a new customer. And you could certainly see as soon as we landed those couple of customers, the enthusiasm went through the roof, and all of a sudden the the attitude has just gone, oh my god, what's next? How are we going to do the next one? Oh my gosh, we might have to employ more people. It's like great, let's bring it on.
SPEAKER_00Growth, oh my god, who would have thought?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_01So I know that your BDM sits across both businesses. So Chris splits his time between Infocom and selling the ERP, the software, and then also spends some of his time in to in discover and selling managed services. So how how does he balance that time? Like, what does that look like?
SPEAKER_02I think he's he's tried a few, or we've we've tried a few different methods, which is certain days dedicated to one and certain days dedicated to other. But we've kind of come down to half days at most. There might be a couple of half days during the week that are purely dedicated to one business or the other. And and the rest is just the flow of all of them, depending on what opportunities are working on, what proposals they're is preparing, and and so forth. So there is a little bit of dedicated time where it's said, you know, this is a minimum of let's say eight hours a week, it will be just purely on this company and eight hours on the other business, but the rest is just intermixed. So there is a little bit of thing, but also a little bit of flexibility. So in the end, kind of let him manage his time to what the opportunities are, where they're at, because that changes week to week as well. There'll be weeks where the software side needs a lot of attention, and then there's weeks where the IT side needs a lot of attention. So there's a bit of flexibility in that, but in general, they're both getting lots of lots of loving and attention. And because we've got our EOS and scorecards, we can see that. We can see what's in the pipeline, we can see what opportunities are presenting, we can see if there's a problem before there's a problem. That makes sense.
SPEAKER_01And he's remote too. You're based in Melbourne, he's in South Australia, so you know, he's not in the office where most of although you only you only have the team all in the office one day a week, don't you?
SPEAKER_02Correct. Correct. So we try and give the team that flexibility to to work from home and yeah, go on site when when needed from home. And then one day a week, we'll come into the office and catch up and a little bit of socializing. So it's not as productive as being from home, but in general, it's still productive in the sense of building those relations and helping each other out and getting to know each other a bit better. And and then once a month we we also have a get together where we'll put on lunch and give a bit of a uh a talk about what's happening in the businesses, where we're at, where we're growing to, what what we've just achieved, what's about to happen, which excites all the stuff.
SPEAKER_01And it's interesting. I I I've always been a big proponent of you know remote work. I remember I remember years ago, one of our newer staff saying to me, Oh Jenny, would I be able to work from home on Friday? And my response was, I don't care where you work from, you can be sitting on a Greek island, as long as you've got your laptop, phone, internet, you know, knock yourself out. But a a lot of pot people in particular in our industry are not keen on people working from home. But I think if we've got the tools in place, you know, the PSAs are perfect for that. EOS scorecards, whatever it may be. You don't need to people to be sitting at the desk and you watching them to know that they're working.
SPEAKER_02No, the old days was very much about measuring hours at a desk. Are you there from 9 to 5.30 or 9 to 5, whatever it might be, or 8 to 5, whatever it might be, is very much doing that. And vaguely, what have you achieved for the week? But now you've we've got specific metrics. We know what everyone should be achieving. We know what KPIs they need to hit. They've agreed to them. Uh we measure them on that. So, you know, if you need to take a two-hour lunch break, knock yourself out. I I really don't care. I don't I don't want to, I don't want to micromanage you and work out what you're doing. I want to know, are we still on track to achieve results you you promised by end of the week? Because that's the expectation what our clients got as well. We've told them the expectation of when to expect delivery. And so we want to make sure that we're uh we're doing the right thing from the client's perspective, which in the end is the right thing for us as well.
SPEAKER_00It is interesting about the work from home and or work remote or whatever you want to call it. But you need to have a proper culture of accountability, and that comes from the the leadership team, the owners write down through it, and having that transparency. And yeah, I do a lot of work with MSPs, and one of the challenges is having KPIs set for individuals, but the individuals don't have access to the data on a daily basis. And that is a recipe for dis distrust. And yeah, if all of a sudden you you're getting hammered in a team meeting at the end of the month for not meeting your KPIs, but you've had no visibility of those KPIs on the way through the journey, that's where we have trouble. So we were fortunate enough to use autotask back in the PSA days for us, and the dashboards in that were brilliant because we just did the work and set up the dashboard so everybody, all their KPIs were on their own personal dashboard every single day. In fact, that's where they did the work from. So it was no surprise to them at the end of the week or the month when you're talking about KPI. But I've worked with other organizations that don't have that, they're using different types of PSAs or some places, believe it or not, don't even do timesheets. Oh well, we work, yeah, we have all flexible work arrangements, but that's not flexible with the work you're doing for clients and how you build stuff. So and then if you don't measure anything, you can't like hold people accountable. So it's you wonder why your efficiency levels aren't where it's at, and you know, that I get a bit excited about that because it's I used to be a real anti, anti measuring type of person because you know we have we employ good people, we trust them, we pay them well, they're gonna do the right thing. And generally people do, but they also get very confused and they also don't know what to do next, so they waste half their day trying to figure out well, I've got 20 tickets, which one should I do? Oh well, I'll just ring them all up again and see if they want me to help them today. Okay, that's one way of doing it. And it it's just my point is just I was just thinking about that then. It's just yeah, KPIs and accountability is the culture you want to develop, but you've got to support the team by having the systems and tools in place so they can get access to that data themselves in real time.
SPEAKER_01And clear expectations. Actually, no, they need to know what success looks like. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and that's where some like EOS comes in really handy because you've got some clear measures where everyone's accountable for a number somewhere. So yeah, it's very clear what they need to do to succeed. And again, it's not about micromanaging at all. It's just about business success, driving the business forward, and at the same time giving them the satisfaction that they're achieving something.
SPEAKER_00So, Louie, I've got a just a follow-up question about because I know I know a lot of people listening will be in this state of wanting to do something about sales and wanting to employ a BDM. So it's worked out well for for you guys, and I'm really happy that that's really going in the right direction. But is there any lessons you learnt on that the journey to get the right BDM? And you know, was the timing right? Would you, if you did it again, would you adjust getting the processes right versus the person? Or I I'm not really sure what brought it the current journey you went on, because obviously you've had previous goes out like we did, and we got it completely wrong. So I just wondered if there's anything you could share to the listeners about lessons over this process and how to maximize the opportunity to get a good result.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, look, we I I would highly push get your processes right. They don't have to be a hundred percent right, but they do certainly have to be, you know, in the 80, 90% documented, formatted, knowing what you're trying to achieve, how you're going to do it, the process in place. Now, all of it doesn't have to be in place because as soon as you hire a BDM, as long as you put that focus on heck, let's finish this, let's get shit done, let's get this stuff done, because that'll be the urgency that you need sometimes. Because you can sit there and drag it on and on and on because everything else gets in the way, and you're like, Oh, we're going to put this structure again, but we'll take our time. Oh, I want to buy in the next week, but next week doesn't happen. So it's the week after, and then the week after, and the week after. Well, once you hire BDM and you know and you've got that maturity to understand that we need These structures in place, otherwise the BDM's going to fail. All of a sudden, the pressure's on. So all of a sudden, you do prioritize it. And funnily enough, you do get that to that last uh twenty ten or twenty percent done.
SPEAKER_00Nothing like a good deadline to make things happen.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. And look, we kind of experienced that because we started down the process and we got told by Brendan, who's part of Wolfability, that we'll in a position to look at hiring a BDM April May type of thing situation. Like by the time we get all our structures right, we've got our avatar of who our clients are, all that set up. And I'm going, yep, great, great. But then an opportunity came along for, and I was chomping at the bit, I wanted a BDM sooner than later to start getting because there were some opportunities that came up. And so we we took that step and gone, all right, bugger it, we'll place the ad now. And funnily enough, that sped up the whole process of get the rest of the stuff done sooner so that the BDM's got the support they deserve.
SPEAKER_00No, that's a good share because having having the awareness and having a plan, and then the timing can be accelerated, like you said, based on urgency. But if you if you don't have the plan, then you just say, Oh, I like this guy. He's he's sold some stuff before, he's got a good referral. I spoke to a few of his customers and comes in and goes, Great, right? Oh, where's the where's the where's the pack? Where's the process? Where's the sales book? Yeah, what's the plan? Where's the lead, Jen? And you go, oh, oh, whoops.
SPEAKER_01Or alternately of, you know, April, May becomes May, June, becomes June, July, becomes July, August, and then you think, oh, you know, we'll just put it off till next year, and it just never happens.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, absolutely. And there's been plenty of times in the past where you let the day-to-day stuff get in the way of the real big picture stuff. And if you if you're trying to succeed in business, yeah, you really have to focus as the CEO, as the managing director of the company, you have to focus on the big picture, not the day-to-day, not getting not rolling up your sleeves and getting dirty in in the day, day-to-day issues, but more concentrating on how do I do service to this business so that it can grow to the maximum it can grow at? That in the end gives results and satisfaction to our customers.
SPEAKER_00Well, I was gonna uh ask a cheeky question. You maybe if this if you want to answer it, you can answer it. But I can imagine you've got two passions in your life. One is the software business and one is the managed services business. So have you ever, or how do you kind of, or do you have to make a decision on how to prioritize or you know, there's your time personally? It how how does that, how do you deal with the because I can imagine if you've got a big opportunity in the software era and it's a a potentially a large client, your your natural my natural would want to go and just spend all my time on that and other things around me would fall off. So how do you cope with that one, Louis? Is it is just are you just a you're just a magician and you can just handle it all at once?
SPEAKER_02I'm human, emotions get in the way. Poor decisions are made at times where you focus too much on one and not the other. But look, in the end, it comes down to planning. Like I I plan my week out in advance. I already know what I plan to do, what I want to achieve by the end of the week. So I set myself, you know, the top three or four things that I want to achieve for the week. I try and set at least one major goal per day. So and and sort of with that layout, I try and say, right, this is going to be Infocom time, this is going to be Discover IT time. Now, having said that, you still get interruptions, you still get distractions where all of a sudden you you pour all your effort into the IT side or you pour your effort into the software side. And so you you kind of end up with the port custard on the other side of the fence temporarily. But in general, because I've got a bit of a plan of what I need to achieve each week, what I need to, what my goals are for the month, for the quarter, and so forth, I don't miss any of those. So I I'm on top of those. So maybe short term for a couple of days, something falls behind, but then I catch up with it with the next one. So if I've spent too much time on, say, the Infocom software side, I'll make up for it in the next couple of days on the uh Discover IT side.
SPEAKER_00And you've always come across to me as a pretty level-headed guy that's you know, you might be going like the duck and make go mad underneath, but at on the surface level, you're looking pretty cool, calm, and collected most of the time.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, look, try and try and take emotion out of most of the decisions that need to be made. Decisions need to be made on logic and and process, not based on emotional what I'm feeling at the moment and just gut reactions to things. It has to be planned. You have to think it through. And again, if you're just focusing on how do I grow for tomorrow, how do I grow just one day in advance or a week in advance, or just for the for the one year, like if I've you've set yourself short-term goals, that can actually get in the way of your long-term goals. So you always have to reflect back on what your long-term goals are. What are your three to five year goals? Where do you want to be in the long term? And if you focus on that instead of focusing on how do I just increase business by 5% or 10%, I think you can achieve a lot more.
SPEAKER_01And it, like I said earlier, it helps you, you know, what do you say no to? And if an opportunity comes up and you can look at that and say, well, it's tempting, but it really doesn't fit in with those long-term plans, then it's clearly a no.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And previously, that's what I would do. I would I was really good at saying yes to everything. And you go, yeah, yeah, we can do that, yeah, yeah, we can do that. Um it's it's I suppose human instinct and entrepreneur type of approaches, yeah, let's let's give that a go. Let's give this a go. Until you realize, hang on, I've got a five and ten year plan here of where I want to get to. How does this little thing here help that? It doesn't, it's a distraction. So you need to say no. You need to move it on and admit it and say, no, we're not doing the little odd odds and ends that don't support the long-term goal.
SPEAKER_00That's so true. And I'm just reading a book at the moment called The Science of Scaling, and it's all about saying no, like raising your level of what they cause the level your flaw. What is the minimum acceptable standard? And and it's a really interesting read. It's quite challenging because the guy says we're not here. He effectively says we're not here to muck around. Like this is a growth strategy, and if you're not committed to growth, then this is not the science for you. Because his his attitude is go on hide, pay ten times more for the best person in the in the world for that particular skill. Rather than employing ten average people, employ the one that's the best. And he said that's how you scale rapidly. And I thought, ooh, okay, that's that's that can that can be quite challenging. But it's inter but it's all about all about saying no, yeah, saying no to distractions. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02No, I mean I'm sure in fact I know A players make a huge difference to a team. The more A players you've got, the more success I think you your business can have, because the the more time you can focus on, the bigger picture.
SPEAKER_00And like you said earlier in the conversation about having people truly aligned with where the company's going with your values and your mission and vision for the business. And those A players, they don't put up with shit either. They'll they'll they'll call you out and say, Hey, why are we getting distracted? Yeah, why are we why are we doing this over here? Yeah, we we we we could put some you know Linux servers into a client and do all this kind of stuff, but we're a Windows shop. Like, why would we do that? Like there is no logical reason to do that, for example. Or some other completely irrelevant things. We don't do phone systems and now all of a sudden we do on phone systems. Like, where was that ever in the long-term strategy? That kind of thing. So you've got to you've got to be true to your game, know what your game is, and just be the best at it.
SPEAKER_02Totally agree.
SPEAKER_01Let's wrap it. Okay, Louie, thank you for joining us. I know this was your first podcast, so well done.
SPEAKER_00Did very well.
SPEAKER_01You haven't haven't disappeared under the chair or anything, so well done.
SPEAKER_02No, thank you. I thoroughly enjoyed it actually, so it was good.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, why don't you relax and just have a conversation? Yeah. Yeah. And I'd love to get you back on down the track a bit further and with and talk a bit more about the sales side of it, because I think you're one of the the MSPs that I know that has embraced made that leap of faith, that decision. I think I remember after those two espresso martinis I convinced you to have, but yeah, you came back into the session the next day and it was a different Louis.
SPEAKER_02I'm not sure you had to convince me to take them.
SPEAKER_00No, no, no, no, you didn't, but something happened in that conversation that night, and everything from that moment forward's just been on an upwards trajectory. So I wish that for everybody that they had those those moments of epiphanies or whatever it was, clarity, clarity, clarity is what it is, and it said, right, West, we're not screwing around anymore, let's do this. And the only way to sort get where you need to get to is have more sales, and you had the gumption and the and the faith to go and invest in it, and it's paying dividends. So that's awesome, mate. Oh, thank you.
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