Sales as a Team Sport: Moving Beyond Founder Led Heroics with Nicky Miklós

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 Nicky Miklós, a sales leadership strategist, coach, author, and host of the Smart Business Growth Podcast. Nicky has more than 20 years of experience helping businesses build smart sales systems and confident leaders. She was also instrumental in our own journey at DWM Solutions, helping us transform our sales team into a high performing engine.

What makes Nicky’s perspective so valuable for MSP owners is her focus on healthy hustle, the idea that you can achieve strong commercial results without sacrificing your wellbeing or the health of your team. We explore how to move away from being a hero founder and how to build a sales culture where growth is everyone’s responsibility.

Here is what we covered together:

✅ The sales team sport mentality: Why growth should never sit entirely on the owner’s shoulders and how to involve different roles across the business in the sales process.

✅ The death of the information giver: Why being a source of data is no longer enough in the age of AI, and how to transition into a decision facilitator for your clients.

✅ Building bidirectional trust: The counter intuitive leadership tactic of paying staff to exercise during work hours to drive stronger efficiency and deeper loyalty.

✅ Moving beyond cowboy culture: How to shift from a figure it out as you go approach to an aligned system using playbooks, capability lifts, and structured methodologies.

✅ The human proof advantage: Why leaning into imperfection, like raw videos or unscripted voice notes, builds more trust in 2026 than polished corporate content.

✅ Sales rhythms and benchmarks: Why you need clear benchmarks of success and regular checkpoints to maintain consistent momentum without micromanaging.

✅ The growth set point: Understanding that the strategies that got your MSP to its current size are likely the same things holding you back from the next level of growth.

✅ Non attachment to outcomes: How to stay disciplined with your sales activity and follow ups without taking individual no’s personally.

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 Nicky visit her website page: nickymiklos.com

👉 Read more episode notes here: mspmastery.blog
👉 Watch the full video on YouTube: youtube.com/@MSPMastery
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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Leaders especially need to understand the differences, not try to bash people into a certain shape or a box. There's no such thing as a square peg or a round hole. Everyone's this weird ass shape.

SPEAKER_01 0:10

There's a growth set point. We've got to remember what got us here is not going to be the thing that gets us to our next set of growth. And if we go into avoidance or denial or just plug along, we'll plateau and we'll decline. Be really clear on your benchmarks of success and take the action that you need to take, but do not attach to the outcome of each specific action or conversation.

SPEAKER_00 0:36

Welcome 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 been early adopters of the tech and the strategies that shifted our industry toward 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 build a business that is both profitable and fulfilling. This is MSP Mastery. This is Nick, myself, and today's special guest. Today's guest is someone very special to Nick and I, Nikki Midlosch. Nikki is a sales leadership strategist, a coach, author, a TEDx speaker, and host of the Smart Business Growth Podcast. With more than 20 years of experience, she is absolute magic when it comes to building smart sales systems and confident leaders. Nikki has founded Evergreen Coaching, co-founded Business Together, and wrote the book Healthy Hustle, which is all about finding that sweet spot between big ambition and actually looking after yourself. She also created the sales activation model to help businesses grow without the usual chaos and heroics we see so often in our industry. We know Nikki incredibly well because she worked with us at DWM Solutions for about four years. She was instrumental in coaching us and helping us shape our sales team into a well-oiled, total ass-kicking machine. And she has a way of bringing out the best in people while keeping a sharp eye on the results. Nikki, it's so good to have you here. Welcome to MSP Mastery.

SPEAKER_01 2:42

Oh my goodness, it is so awesome to be here. What an intro. Thank you very much. And, you know, working with you and the DWM team were is absolutely one of the key highlights of my career. Like, you know, we we got some kick ass results and we had so much fun along the way. And I think it's a real testament to what can be done where we really focus on yes, absolutely getting those results, but having a healthy, happy, thriving team. And I really believe that, you know, we can have both. It doesn't have to be one at the cost of the other. So super excited to be here to talk to you both and your audience today.

SPEAKER_02 3:19

Yeah, welcome, Nikki. It's good to see you again. And yeah, I just remember back some of the fun things we did in the activities and how we kind of gamified the process and ultimately landed on a formula where everyone was helping everybody get the best results for the company and for themselves. And that was that was awesome.

SPEAKER_00 3:38

And I think one thing that you know Nick and I always put a lot of thought into, you know, before the episode, sort of our theme, what we want to talk about and and what we came up with today is that sort of sales is a team sport. And that's I think what we really did well, and you what you helped us to do really well of bringing the team together rather than everybody kind of doing their own thing and screw everybody else. It was just bringing that team together and having, as you said, so much fun in the process.

SPEAKER_01 4:06

Yeah, definitely. I mean, success is not a solo sport, you know, even in solo sports, and I'm not a sports person, but I am slightly obsessed with the tiles at the moment and have been for the last few years. But you know, regardless of what industry we're in, there is always a team of people. You know, we don't do it on our own and we all have a different role to play. So I love that analogy that we're bringing in today.

SPEAKER_00 4:28

Fantastic. Okay, so as an EOS implementer, I always start the podcast with the same thing. So share your personal and professional best from the last six months.

SPEAKER_01 4:41

Yes. Oh, okay. I love this question. So I would have to say, well, my personal best is I went zip lining, treetop zipling. Now, you're both quite adventurous, so I don't know. You've probably done something like this before. But out down at Mantanbourine. So where zip lining amongst the trees, don't ask me how high, because I can never remember. But it was such a freeing feeling. I loved it. I just was like, whoa, and I was so nervous. And why one of the reasons I loved it is A, because I love being amongst the treetops. But I actually busted some myths about my own self. And I thought, you know what? I love this kind of adventure. I need to do more of it. So that is definitely my highlight. And yes, I am going to go skydiving now. Bit of a jump, but that's going to be the next thing, which you both have done, haven't you?

SPEAKER_02 5:24

Uh Jenny couldn't. I have done it. I've done uh skydiving with Oscar. Jenny couldn't do it.

SPEAKER_00 5:29

I just had knee surgery and and I was the one who wanted to do it and I missed out. It's never too late. Let's do it. Let's do it. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 5:37

I love that. And I think professionally, you know, my business has evolved over since the time that we've started working together. And really in the last six to twelve, but mainly this last six months, it's evolved to Nikki Mikklosh, to the new evolution, really leaning into this space. I've always worked with high performance and sales, but really focusing on this sales leadership or commercial leadership, the overarching business growth space. And I've got to say, business has absolutely been booming. So, you know, when you make the right call and you make a bit of a risky decision, and it's like the universe, the market will thank you for it. And I've had one of my strongest six months in business. So I would say Nikki Miklosh is my professional highlight of the last six months, if I can say that. That is my business name as well. So a bit awkward sometimes.

SPEAKER_02 6:26

Shouldn't be too hard to find, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:31

Okay, so in saying that, can you introduce yourself? Just, you know, where did you come from? We met, I don't know how many years ago now through coaching training. But yeah, how did you end up Mickey Miklosh as Nikki Miklosh?

SPEAKER_01 6:44

So I love that. You know, I grew up in Sortel in a small town, small coastal town. I was dying to move to Sydney. I moved to Sydney as soon as I could. And I kind of really fell into the work that I was doing. I'm first generation Australian. My grandmother fled the Hungarian Revolution in 1956. My mum came to Australia 10 years later. So my grandmother couldn't, my mum has two other sisters, couldn't bring her kids. So she came out to Australia. It took her 10 years, and it was the Salvation Army that helped my mum and sisters come also to Australia. So my mum hit the shores at 13 years old, not being able to speak a word of English. And, you know, seeing my mum, seeing my grandmother and my aunties, incredibly strong, resilient women, they, you know, set up a certain life for themselves as best they could with what they had. And my mum, who is a serial entrepreneur, she's had many micro businesses, but she was very creative, she is very creative. And so she had the, you know, she did market stalls. I remember doing the market stalls when I was late teens with her. And, you know, that was her business, but she could only ever get so far because she didn't have the support around her. She didn't have an accountant, a bookkeeper. And I remember I was probably about 16 and mum did a TAFE course, a business TAFE course. And I remember sitting there helping her, like, I want to help you do this course because I want you to be successful. And I'm learning about things as well by default. You know, we were figuring out some of the metrics and numbers and how to price things. And I think that has absolutely stayed with me. You know, I got out of Sortel, I went to the city, I had no plans. I just wanted to have fun, but I fell into this world of sales. And, you know, I ended up getting sales roles in retail and then progressing pretty quickly into sales leadership roles and eventually worked in media advertising. A big part of my career was there. I opted out and tried to start a business when I was 29 and I made $17 in six months. That's one seven, just to clarify. Um, it was very successful. Not it was in every other way other than financially, because I learned so much. And I went back in and I went back into sales director roles and I led really large teams, you know, over a hundred. I then started my business because I realized people don't like selling. And particularly I find in your industry, there's a real resistance to sales. So that's when I started coaching. I met you, Jenny, we connected, you know, and along all of this way, I guess it's like putting all the pieces of the puzzle together around this passion to help individuals unlock their potential. And then that grew. Now, that was the coaching aspect, but that grew to how can I actually help this on a larger scale in businesses and creating high performance teams? And, you know, it is sales, it's sales leadership, it's holistic business growth. Sprinkled throughout there, I burnt out in 2012. And, you know, all of that is what has led me to today today, where, you know, I did a TEDx talk on the art of healthy hustle. In the same year, I wrote a book called The Healthy Hustle, which is again about that meeting point of how results, very commercially driven results, but doing it in a way that feels good and we can actually prioritize life as well. So yeah, that's I I hope that wasn't too much, but that's the journey of Nikki Mikkelosh to where we are today.

SPEAKER_00 10:10

Thanks, Nikki. Fantastic intro, and there's so much there, I know, and and we'll get some more into that. And because I think we would have met in about 2014. And interesting that we both kind of stepped into that coaching journey after illness. I'd been diagnosed with a uh uh a chronic autoimmune disorder, you'd burned out, and sometimes I think we stuff's going on with us and we ignore it, and then it escalates to the point where you can't ignore it anymore and you need to make some changes in uh in lives. And it's interesting that we both ended up in that room after similar things.

SPEAKER_02 10:49

Yeah, and I think that goes for business and leadership as well. Like you can't be a good leader, in my opinion, until you understand yourself properly. And sometimes it does take a smack in the head to actually get you to take the time and think, well, hang on, what's going on for me? Why am I acting this way? Why am I doing this? What's the impact? And and you go through this cycle, and women are much more attuned to what's going on with themselves than what say an average Aussie male who's got the weight of the world on him, got to run the business, got to look after the family, got to look after the customers. They don't give themselves the time. And I was probably in that mode for 15 years. Just burn, burn, burn, push everything as hard as you possibly can, and you end up I was lucky enough to learn from Jenny's experience and not let myself get to the point where I completely cracked. Get close a few times. I was definitely gonna go in low lawns at some point in the journey on multiple times.

SPEAKER_01 11:46

I really love that you were able to learn from seeing Jenny's experience. Because I also think that oftentimes, even if it's someone the closest to us that we know and love when we see them, we sometimes still don't learn those lessons for ourselves. So I think that actually says a lot about you as well, Nick. And it's so true. And it's it's hard to be able to say, actually, I need to pause, or I need some help, or I'm struggling for different reasons, men and women. And, you know, I'm not a man, so I don't know what that experience is like, but I would imagine that there's potentially more conversations amongst women around this sort of thing, although there's different reasons that we might hold back or try and take on more, potentially than in in groups of men, you know, like that that stoic must stay strong for everybody would be a lot to have to continue to carry. And I think it's so cool that we are normalizing these conversations.

SPEAKER_02 12:41

Yeah, definitely. And and it all circles back into how to build a strong team because you've got to have people in the team that everyone's different, right? And they will have leaders especially need to understand the differences, not try to bash people into a certain shape or a box, you know, the old round, what's the square peg, round hole type of thing. There's no such thing as a square peg or a round hole. Everyone's this weird ass shape.

SPEAKER_01 13:03

That's so true. I love it. And you know what? Let's embrace being a weird ass shape because the sooner we do, the happier we'll be. And we also then give our team permission. You know, like we oft, I so many times I'm talking to leaders and they say, Yeah, yeah, but I tell my team to take a lunch break. I tell them to leave on time. Amazing. Tell me, when was the last time you had a lunch break?

SPEAKER_00 13:25

Yeah, 1987.

SPEAKER_01 13:26

When did you leave work before your team or on time? Like it doesn't matter what you say. They're looking at what you do. This is one of the oldest analogies, like in the book, right? People are we we what's that saying? Who remembers it? There's a saying that's really common around this. It's not what you say, it's what you do.

SPEAKER_02 13:42

Yeah, yeah, what you do, yeah. And that's why I on purpose, I would always go to the gym during the work hours, right? I'd either go at 11 o'clock or three o'clock. I'm only gonna wreck my lunchtime to go to the gym. So, guys, I know myself personally, if I go to the gym, I am three times more efficient when I get back. The whole process of focusing for an hour, pushing your limits, it clears your mind. You come back, you're 10 times more effective at work. So I don't expect you to give up your lunch break to go to the gym. I'd I will happily pay for you to go to the gym during work hours because I know the productivity gain on the back of that. It's like we went to the gym yesterday for the first time in eight months. At six, at six p.m., Jenny and I are both still working flat out going, this is crazy. We're getting heaps of stuff done. I go, holy crap, at six. Like, that's ridiculous. And that was a direct result of going to the gym at 10 a.m. It is insane. So anyway.

SPEAKER_01 14:33

I also really love the trust in that, you know. So I think it's amazing for uh an employer, an employer to say, I will pay for you to go, you go to the gym in work time, not lunchtime. Like that doesn't happen very often. And what that also implies is massive trust. So when you've got a really high-performing team, there is trust both ways, you know that they're they will be grateful. They might go to the gym and they're gonna, like you said, smash it when they come back. I think, you know, if there's listeners that are, oh, I don't know about that, I'm a bit hesitant. The deeper question to uncover is why? Why are you unsure about giving your team an extra hour in the day to invest in their health and well-being? Because the answer to that is actually going to be really, really telling. It's either I don't trust my team, I'm micromanaging, I like there's so many reasons, right? So we always have to dig under and ask the question, what's the what's causing that feeling or what am I making this mean? Because you're absolutely right, Nick. That is an optimal environment, working environment. And we've got to understand what would be the barrier to us doing at that and what's my mindset barrier potentially. And that's gonna uncover a lot about your culture.

SPEAKER_00 15:44

Absolutely. And it's the same with working from home, you know, having people have to be in the office, have to be able to see what they're doing. We had a remote team, as you know, for pretty much the entirety of our business from 1996, geographically. So we had all of the tools in place. We knew when somebody wasn't doing their job because it was glaringly obvious. And having them in the office and watching them to me just doesn't make any sense.

SPEAKER_01 16:13

And if that's what you need to do to get results, we've got a bigger problem at play, don't we? Like there's there's some other there's some other shit going on there.

SPEAKER_00 16:20

Oh yeah. Okay, let's get into our questions. So if you think back through our years working together, Nikki, we saw firsthand how powerful it was when sales became that team sport that we talked about earlier. So for our listeners, what does that concept actually look like in a day-to-day business in that sales team?

SPEAKER_01 16:47

Yeah. I think, you know, the reality is that there's different roles to be played and there's different strengths. And also, you know, if we think about, okay, like I said, I'm not a sports person, but I'm obsessed with the Matildas, the women's soccer team. So if I think about, you know, their celebration, their coming together in the losses, they're coming, looking at each other and how can I learn from that other person? How can what strengths do they have have? What position are they playing? Do we actually mix it up a little bit? You know, we can really apply all of that and so much more into a sales team. We've got different roles in sales teams. So, you know, if we're talking just for MSPs that have a dedicated sales team, there's there might be the outbound, the hunter energy, there might be the account management, there's the tech manager. But even if you don't have a dedicated sales team, there's different parts of the business that can play a different role in helping to grow the business. And so I think when we have this really siloed view of a salesperson, which is often, if it's a smaller MSP, the business owner, like it was for you, Nick, for many years. And then that contributed, I'm sure, to those feelings that you had and the burn and the pressure. So it doesn't have to be that way, even if you don't have that dedicated team. So I think what that looks like is having actually an understanding of what are the different roles that we can have within our business. And I don't mean like this is my number one job, but you know, if you've got a tech support talking to a client and they just know a couple of questions that can be asked, then they can identify a potential opportunity for other ways that you can be servicing and helping them. It could be that simple. Now there's barriers and blocks to work through around that. But all of a sudden, if you as the business owner or your sales team or sales leader are responsible for sales, A, it's a great experience for the client, like it's even better. And we're all working towards one overarching goal. And when I think about DWM, one of the things that worked so, so, so well is that we celebrated together. And by celebrate, it might have been at our quality quarterly, you know, we did DWM fests, sales fests. It might have been we had a couple of days a quarter. But even I remember doing, I think I came across one the other day, videos in the car when I was on the way to, I don't know, somewhere up here, to Oscar, to the team going, yes, you hit it, you did that, you got that target, or you made that sale, or you got an answer from the client. Even if it's a yes or a no, it doesn't matter, you got an answer. You know, like how do we celebrate together? Because when we feel good about something, when we're laughing, when we're having a good time, we learn better, we retain information better, we show up to our clients and and teammates better. And when we lose the sale or we didn't hit target, we're there to catch you, we're there to support you. You know what, this really sucks. Let's just honor that it sucks for a moment, and then we'll look at what else we can do and how can, you know, maybe I'm not the best person to help you. Maybe Jenny, who is absolutely nailing this particular area, or Nick who's so curious and asks a lot of questions, maybe you need to actually connect with Jenny or Nick to help nail this area. So there's just so many benefits around moving from siloed to, you know, am I part of a big team?

SPEAKER_00 20:09

And it's so true when you're talking about that, particularly the losses. If you're the owner of a business and you lose a big deal or the client goes silent or whatever it may be, and that feeling of being alone, it must be such a huge burden on people.

SPEAKER_01 20:27

Yes, and the responsibility. I've let people down. But actually, no. I mean, unless you've done, you know, you've intentionally done poorly. You know, I will say, like, okay, you know, there are scenarios. But like if you've actually followed the process, you've you've connected, you're leaning in, you're getting feedback, you're putting the client first, all of those things, it's okay because also sometimes the loss isn't as bad a loss as we think, as well. And sometimes having someone else to talk to can help us reframe it. And honestly, every loss, there's an opportunity to learn, full stop. Plus, we're in sales. A loss now doesn't mean a loss in the future. I mean, I've had clients come back years later.

SPEAKER_02 21:06

Yeah, exactly. And I think from from me, I was the owner-led sales guy. I was the sales manager, the salesperson, blah, blah, blah, all that stuff. And and what changed for me over the years is having the trust in the process. And then you know, I did a lot of reading and I did a lot of you know work with you, Nikki, and all of our team and everything. And it it's basically no's yes is great, no's great too, because it's just a game, right? So yeah, you've got to have nine no's to get one yes. You know, you you can you kind of had that mindset, it's not try one thing. And it's like an analogy one of our sons would no it wasn't them actually, it was someone else, would apply for a job. They do one application and wait for the result of that. And then they do the interview or wouldn't get an interview, so then they do another one. So that's not how you do it. I remember when I left school was the year eleven, so Our teacher put this he absolutely scared us to death. He said, It's really hard in the market. This is 1980, yeah? It's gonna be really hard for you. And we're at the high-level science at tech secondary school, so it's very hard for you guys to get a job. So you really need to put in the effort. So our kind of team went out, and one of my mates, he applied for 18 jobs. I applied for three because I kind of knew exactly what I wanted to do. He got offered 17 of those 18 jobs. And I got offered all three of the ones I went for because our coach, our leader, our mentor had taught us how to write the application, taught us how to go and bang on the door, ask the questions and hand the documents in. It's a it's a parallel path. It's not a single path. So that's what that's my point. I'm supposed I'm trying to get to is you can't work on one deal and everything's baked on that one deal. You've got to have a system and a process. You've got to be working. You're gonna have the hundred thousand dollar year, you're gonna have the ten thousand dollar year, you're also gonna have a whole lot of a couple of hundred dollar deals. You have to work on all of them. You can't just pick and choose, in my opinion, to get and the result, you don't know where the results are gonna come from. Yeah, like we've had it happen multiple times in the history of DWM where we've we're working and we've got this big deal happening, and at the last second, it gets pulled out from underneath you, and you go, What the hell just happened? And then the next day you get a phone call from another council somewhere else going, I heard you guys, we've got this problem. Can you come and help us? And that deal from the left field is twice as big as the one you lost over there. And if you had been sulking for a month, which I might have done at one point in my cycle, it might sulk for a month or so, and then I'd go back and be an engineer and would not do any sales work whatsoever, and then everything would run out of work and you know the whole cycle would go through that. Don't do that, guys. If you're in that feast or famine cycle, not a strategy. Listen to what these guys are saying on this call because all of us, because you've got to have a strategy, you've got to have a process, and it's a constant churn. It's not, it's not feast or famine, because that that kills you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:00

Yeah, totally. And it's such a good point about some consistent activity, which again is why it's great to have look at this from a team sport mentality, because you might not feel like dusting off and getting up the next day and going again. You just might not, because we're humans, we're not robots. So, you know, even things like having visual, we used to have visual things on the walls, like the thermostat, the thermostat, the the momata, the momata. The momata, thank you. That's thermostat, so American. We would maybe do our buddy, you know, buddy systems or laser coaching or team stand-ups. Like, what can we do to get the energy moving? And I think we have to honor, and like it's okay to be disappointed and allow yourself that, but give it a cap, is what we're really saying here. Because if you then go into the whole sulky note low mood, in sales, we cannot take things personally. I think that's a really important message. It is not personal. Yes, no, not now. It is it's got nothing to do with you as a human. Again, unless you like really did something. But 99.9% of the time, it's not personal. It's not about you. So we've got to practice this non-attachment. Get really clear on the result that we're after, be really clear on your benchmarks of success, your activity numbers, and then kind of let it go and do the action, take the action that you need to take, but do not attach to the outcome of each specific action or conversation. Otherwise, you will just feel really shit a lot of the time. Because it's not personal. If you think about how you busy you are, your prospects and clients are just as busy, maybe even busier, depending on their role. If they are the business owner and they're the decision maker and they're the all the different roles they make, we've got to really get that perspective of what's happening in their world at the moment. And let's face it, the world, it's chaos. You know, we're we're we're struggling a lot, humans, individuals. We are in information overload. We are not wired to take in the amount of information that we are taking in at the moment. And I read a stat that's a bit old now that we are consuming the equivalent of reading 174 newspapers a day. And it's it'd be even more now. We're not our brain is not wired for this.

SPEAKER_02 26:16

No, you can't process all that. It just becomes noise and you get lost in the yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:20

And then it affects our mood and it we get stuck in the busy trap. This is what's happening for our prospects and our clients. It is not personal, it's about what they're dealing with in their world. Yes, we can hone our skills. And did we show the value and are we getting better in our sales skills? Absolutely. But I think that's really important because resilience is key in this game.

SPEAKER_00 26:40

And it is, it's resilience, it's it's being able to, as you said, get get up, dust yourself off, and go back and do it again tomorrow. And because if you think about your business and all of the things that people try to sell you, saying no to 99% of those, it's it's a business decision, it's a budget decision, it's a time decision, it's not whether I do or do not like the salesperson.

SPEAKER_02 27:04

Oh, I no, I I don't know about that. I I think it is sometimes it is.

SPEAKER_01 27:08

I think that I think it plays a part. I think it definitely plays a role. You go, Nick?

SPEAKER_02 27:13

Yeah. I was gonna say just yeah, and this is this is not advice going forward, guys, when you're listening. This is what I used to do, right? So people would say to me, you know, what's your sales close rate? And I said, Oh, 98%. Because I wouldn't do, I wouldn't provide the quote to the client until they'd already agreed on the solution and the way forward. Because back in the early, this is back in the 2000s, you know, through 2020, it was relationship-based. Like I was physically in their face every week. Right? I would drive, I was lived in a chuca, I drove 60,000 kilometers a year. And if I wasn't until I discovered audiobooks, which might have taken me down the path from phone call, I was on the phone, the good old Nokia had signal out in the country sticks. I was on the phone to all my customers, had all my customers on speed dial, and I would just go bang, hey girl. Not trying to sell them anything, just checking in, checking in, checking in. We don't do that today. Yeah, and you can yes, you can blame COVID, but it's also like you said, Nikki, people are getting busier, and don't be offended if someone fobs you off that says no. Because we used to take that really personally. I remember like way, way, way back in the 90s. Yeah, I was in some program and at work and we had to cold call, we got incentivized to sell consumables into our corporate customers. I don't know, it was some stupid idea someone came up with. No one wanted to do it. Like, we're engineers, we're hardcore engineers, right? We went to university, we were hardcore engineers, carried a tool bag full of screwdrivers. What the hell do you want us to sell shit for? Like, this is not gonna work. It didn't work because they didn't sell it properly, they didn't, you know. But it was so difficult. And we every time a customer that we were really loved and we looked after and we was were helping them with solving a problem, we kind of had this really awkward group to sell them an ergonomic arm to put the monitor on. And it just felt really horrible as an engineer being forced into a situation where you had to do that. So I suppose my point we're bringing that up is it is relationship-based, but it's different now than what it was 20 years ago or 10 years ago. Even fight pre-COVID, it's different now. But somehow you've still got to figure out how to have a good relationship with your clients. And but don't be offended, like you said, but don't be offended if they say no. No one's now now the close rate's 25 to 30 percent.

SPEAKER_01 29:29

No one can claim they close 90% of the quotes they send out because it's just I think this is a really important conversation to have in this modern-day landscape because there are fundamentals that have not changed when we talk about sales. And for example, people will buy from you if they feel they know you, like you, trust you. And we've just said don't take it personally, it doesn't mean they don't like you. I think when we're making a business decision, the tangibles that you talked about, Jenny, are absolutely really important. And also if we feel that we have a connection with somebody, that is going to help them say yes. So I still, you know, yes, it's not personal, don't get offended. But I agree so much, Nick, that we have to come back to the ways of how we're building relationships these days. Yes, you might not have to do the K's in the car, or you might choose to because guess what? No one else is doing it. And right now, we've got to be a safe pair of hands for our clients. And right now, it is getting more and more difficult for us to determine is this a robot calling me? Like the voices are incredible these days, right? Is this a human on the video that I'm watching or is it an AI or, you know, so I do think that there's an opportunity to go back to the old school ways because we're an information overload, all those things that we talked about, this is going to help offset it. And so I think this is an opportunity to for us to think about how are we building relationships and bringing the human element? Because the other thing that's really changed from a sales process is back in the day, we were information givers. Like we were educating people on our product and service, right? We're not that anymore. We don't do that because majority of people that are talking to us, they've talked to Claude and ChatGPT and Google and dun dun dun dun dun. In some instances, they know more about the product and services than the salesperson, which begs the question: what is our role these days? You know, and our role, I believe, is decision, is helping facilitate decisions. And a part of that is helping them feel comfortable that this is the right decision for them. And someone can say no to us, still like us, but it's not the right decision and they might come back to us. Or we're helping them show and find for themselves that actually this is a yes. This is this is a yes for me, this is the right fit. But we've got to get curious about what is our role as salespeople and sales leaders in 2026 and beyond.

SPEAKER_00 31:57

And being that adult that if you do get a no, as you said, Nick earlier, about, you know, not sulking, because you if you've got that relationship and continue to build on that relationship, then future will be a yes, it said of a no.

SPEAKER_02 32:11

And it's I'm not immune from it. I still get it now. Like you have some clients that we do some work with and and it and it's a it's a real it's a real human thing. And but I don't get offended that people haven't answered my email or my phone call or haven't returned my call or whatever. It's just oh they're busy, whatever. I'll come back to me when it's time. Just do you do you, I'll do me, away we go. Yeah, but I think if you're in an MSP and sales from the overall, what what is the purpose of being in an MSP? Right? It is to service clients. We're in a customer service-centric organization, right? Unless you're an app developer and you're doing all this other stuff on the side, even if you're cybersecurity focused, you're still providing a service to the client. And so the only way you can continually show that you're adding value to that client, which is why they'll stick with you, is to be creative. You want to call it selling, discussing, you're you're showing your value all the time, helping them, helping them. So every single person in the business has to have that responsibility. Like you said 50 conversations ago, Nikki, it's it's everybody's job in your business. But that's the secret of a good sales program and process is it's not just a BDM and an internal salesperson. It's the entire company. Everybody has a role. Everybody needs to be thinking of ways to help that customer move their business forward and help their customers because ultimately that's the value add we're offering, right? Because you can just go and use your AI tools and get any bit of tech and pretty much solve any tech problem these days if you if you're willing to invest the time and effort into it. You don't need a company to do that. You need a company to help you on the journey and help you make good quality decisions and implement value add for your customers. So you've got to kind of look down the road a bit. So yeah, everyone.

SPEAKER_01 34:00

And be that safe pair of hands. A really good stat that a lot of my clients love because it gives structure to the follow-up. So when we talk about, you know, they're not getting back to me, don't get offended. Research shows that it takes a minimum of five follow-ups after you've done the first presentation. So this is a warm contact. So if you find that you're like, oh, I followed up once and I'm not going to follow up again, oh, no, no, no, no. We need to follow up more because of all the reasons we just talked about. So give yourself a number. Make sure that you or your team are following up at least five times. And what we do have these days that we didn't have previously are more cool tools to do this in different ways. Record a Loom video. That's another way for them to see you and hear you. I mean, we did Loom back in our day, and I'm still obsessed with it, and I still tell everyone, and I reckon it's still 1% of people use it, right? Connect on LinkedIn, do a voice note. Voice notes are really great because, again, it's another personal touch. And to Nick's point, maybe it's different people in the business. It could be a certain senior leader or a business owner might do a voice note to a client. You know, if you don't have the time to do a phone call, but you want a bit of a wow or a high touch to certain client segments, they might do a quick voice note to say, you know, happy birthday or thank you for your business. We really appreciate it. It's just get creative with the tools that we have, you know, because that's we can we can use this to build relationships.

SPEAKER_02 35:23

You're so right. And I do remember getting my Nikki videos or voice messages, and I go, that is such a cool way of doing it, rather than just reading a stupid text. And but I I just didn't have the guts to do it myself for some stupid reason.

SPEAKER_01 35:35

So you're in the 99%.

SPEAKER_02 35:37

I said this to Jenny earlier this week that I got a I woke up one morning this week and I got a video message from a buddy in the US that I did a motorbike ride through the Himalayas last year or the year before. And it made my day. And he he just reflected on a discussion we'd had in a pub somewhere up in the Himalayan mountains, discussing the process of how to make difficult decisions. And he said, Nick, I I listened to what you said, I took your advice, I sat down with my wife, and we've sold our business, we've sold our house, and we're moving to Utah. And I thought, holy crap, I actually get tingles now just just reaccounting this because it was so powerful. And he's in the truck driving to his new house when he recorded this video while he's driving, and it just made so I did record him a video and send it back to him. Because but guys, that is such a powerful thing. A simple video call or even just a simple audio call rather than a text message. It makes all the difference.

SPEAKER_01 36:31

And the other really important thing about this is that people don't want perfection anymore.

SPEAKER_02 36:36

So one of the things that have stopped people that's why I'm so good at this, because I'm definitely not perfect.

SPEAKER_01 36:40

You'll nail it, Nick. But it's true, right? Like a video walking the dog, or like what's the real human because everything is too perfect now. Even things like, and we don't want to affect quality of work or standard of work. But let's say that you, I mean, you know, it's a LinkedIn post or we're writing something. If there's a tiny little error, a capital instead of a lowercase, our brain goes, oh, human wrote that, wasn't a robot. I'm more engaged in it. So if there is a, like, you know, Nick, I don't know how much makeup you were, but Jenny, you know, we might have makeup days, we might have not makeup days. Like that's actually something that's changed for women in general in business. You know, we don't have to be all fancy every day. Like it's the real raw stuff that we can just do on the move. Like he was in the truck. And that's what people want this these days. So that's almost an equivalent of phone calls when you're driving out 60,000 Ks. We want to see real life humans in their real life world. So don't go for perfection.

SPEAKER_02 37:39

And it is, you know, just reflecting on it now. It it is the like I don't have a pathological hatred of answering the phone, right? If my mobile phone rings and I'm not doing something else, I will answer it. But I would say to you, 99% of the time, I'm doing something else. I'm not sitting around waiting for my phone to ring and I'll I'll get it at the end of the day and go, holy shit, 10 missed calls. And it's I I genuinely I don't, I always answer the phone. If I'm not doing something, I will answer the phone. But it's just so hard to to for people to connect at the same time because we we are genuinely, I'd say, 10 times more busy than we were five years ago. And it's not that we're bad people and we're ignoring you, it's just that there's a lot going on. So yeah, it's uh it's amazing. And and I read my emails on Mondays. That's my allocated time to I don't have time to read emails.

SPEAKER_01 38:29

I love that one day a week.

SPEAKER_02 38:32

And I'm playing with AI telling her to read my my donner bot to read my emails for a bit. Now she's decided that the way to get my attention is to send me emails. So she's sending me too many bloody emails.

SPEAKER_00 38:42

You created a donner monster. You told her yesterday to send your email, so she is.

SPEAKER_02 38:46

Yeah, I didn't I didn't tell her to send me an email on everything. Anyway, anyway, so that personal message and that follow-up, and that's such a good idea. So how many and I'm just reflecting back on this, this is such a great conversation. Even in the customer service, the service delivery, I the MSPs I work with, oh, we uh we've tried to call the customer 20 times to get this ticket closed off. Well, they're not answering the phone, obviously. So just ringing up and asking for them and they're not available is not working. Don't do it five times. Do something different. And we've got to figure out how do we record a voice message and send that to them.

SPEAKER_01 39:22

Yeah, totally. And that's why I always go, even if it's minimum five, let mix it up. So it could be a phone call, always start there, obviously. Could be a voice note, could be a Loom video, it could be a one-liner email, not like a really detailed one. It could be a message on LinkedIn, like think about obviously what's the can and you're right, this isn't just for sales, it's for service, it's for anything really. And also it shows your clients that I was gonna say that you're interesting, but like that you're using different ways, like your creative touch points, and then you'll see maybe they'll respond to you on um a messy voice note message on text instead, or maybe they'll respond on LinkedIn, you know, like you'll get to see what their preference is as well. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:01

How to know how to communicate with them because everybody's different. You know, yeah. We live here in Bali and everything is on WhatsApp.

SPEAKER_01 40:07

Yes, I've noticed that. I'm like, oh, I've got to check my WhatsApp.

SPEAKER_00 40:10

Yep. Where in Australia it's not such a big thing. It's more, you know, email or Slack or Teams, whatever it may be. But here, every single thing is on WhatsApp and it's just you know understanding, and we used to do that with our clients too when we started working with a new client. How do we communicate with you? Because if you know our standard systems are email, but that's not how they work, then you can't it I don't believe it's as successful forcing them to m you know to go to your ways. How do we work best together is the question.

SPEAKER_02 40:42

You know what? I need to wrangle us back in a bit, Jen. So how about this sales teamwork thing that we're talking about today?

SPEAKER_00 40:48

Oh my gosh, this is like a five-hour episode if exactly. Well, we've completely gone over question two. I think we're important. It's good stuff. Absolutely. So I'm gonna go straight to question three. One of the biggest shifts we made with your help was moving away from relying on heroics, which for us was always Nick was the sales hero, or one or two high performers. How did we build a system where the team as a whole drives results consistently?

SPEAKER_01 41:20

Yeah, this is still a really common challenge that a lot of my clients and businesses I talk to have is that results are reliant on a few high performers within the business. And, you know, I think really when we break it down, if we almost imagine there's three sort of key buckets, if you like, just to kind of categorize. One of those buckets, I think, and Nick, you talked a little bit about this before, is around, I call it the methodology, so streamlined methodology. So sometimes it's a bit of a cowboy culture. And I don't mean that, you know, when you watch the old Western movies and it's like this new town has been set up and the cowboys are coming in and they're figuring out their own way of how to do things and they're getting shit done, like it's working, but you're doing it that way, you're doing it that way, they're doing it that way. Okay, cool, whatever. And then all of a sudden, the town gets to a certain size and growth, and the sheriff comes to town. And the sheriff's like, hold on a second, mate, what's going on here? Like, we need we need some rules in place, we need some structure, we need some foundations that are being set up. And oftentimes that's what I see in these, you know, businesses with growth. So we want to move away from the cowboy culture. We need to look at what are the methodologies. So one of the buckets is the the sales methodologies or growth methodologies. And within that, there's three key things: the processes, which is what you were talking about, Nick. Like what actually is a really high-performing, awesome sales process from initial inquiry through to working with them for 10 years, the client, you know, like how do we move them through that? But then we need to actually, like sometimes people have a process, sometimes they don't. But what's done with that? We need to create a playbook. And like, how do our teams bring this to life? And then we need to focus on the capability lift. All right. And this is this is for sure what we did with D DWM. You know, what's the key sales process? What's the documentation, if you will, but like let's make it a bit fun, the playbook, which really aligns with this team sport analogy. Who's responsible for what? How do we do it? It's a structure, it's a guideline, but I get to bring it to life myself in my own way, but at least there's alignment. And then the investment in the capability of the team, the sales capability of how are they having good quality conversations? So that's a really key bucket that is important to make that shift, that all of a sudden everybody has an opportunity to be a high performer because we get to understand well, what's stopping the other people that aren't? Is it clarity of expectations, skill, you know, all of those sorts of things? So that's really, really key. We also then need to look at another bucket, which is the leadership capability. So, you know, I like to think about it as, and you might not have a sales leadership, you know, it might be you're the business owner. And you're wearing that hat, or you have a leadership team, but there needs to be commercial leadership. Commercial leadership means we're building a growth function, a sales engine. I don't just have a team that sells. And within commercial leadership, again, we focused on these things heavily with DWM. What's the culture? Is it a sales culture? Is it a growth culture? Is it a high vibing culture? Are the leaders equipped and skilled to coach their team? Is it a coaching culture? Because that means we take the capability from performance to high performance. And then also performance. Are we managing performance? So commercial leadership alongside manage the methodologies is really important. And then I would say the third, I know this is a bit of information, but this is like a whole blueprint, if you like. So pause, rewind, take notes. This is really good stuff, by the way, for the listeners out there. You know, and this is this was this was developed through the work and beyond with DWM. So the third bucket, and this is often missed, is the rhythms. So the sales rhythms, the growth rhythms. What I mean by that is do you have a roadmap, even if it's a plan on a page? Do you have a bit of a strategic view of what does success look like? Great. If you do, do you then have benchmarks? It amazes me how many businesses don't have KPIs, key performance indicators, or benchmarks of success. They're the same thing, but I find words matter and people get turned off by KPIs. So benchmarks of success. And then have the benchmarks of success. That's great. What are you doing with them? Make sure that you then have regular checkpoints, individual one-on-ones, how are you going with your benchmark of your boss? How are you going with your boss? You don't, I'm on track, great. I'm not on track. What could we do to support you? So those individual and team checkpoints, team meetings, team huddles, all of these things are going to help bring your smart business growth to life ultimately. So you've got to have the right methodologies, you've got to have the commercial leadership, and then you've got to have the right rhythms and checkpoints. And when you have the structure of those things in place, have some fun with it. Don't make it too tight and rigid. The beautiful thing about structure is it gives you the bones and then you can flesh it out however you want.

SPEAKER_00 46:13

I like that. And I think going back to the the rhythms, you know, EOS were very much into that weekly rhythm, checking in each month and then aiming for those quarterlies, those one year, one, three years, you know, targets. And because you can't hold somebody to account if they don't know what they're supposed to achieve. And you can't get to the end of the month and go, oh damn, we didn't hit it. Maybe we will next month if we haven't been checking in each week. And same quarter. You know, making sure that you're constantly checking in and checking on people's capability, their activities, their results, that sort of thing. It's just so important. And I think that's one thing that we actually did pretty well. And, you know, you were with us before we went down the the EOS path. And it just changed our whole business. It changed everything, the way that we looked at things, the way that we brought the team together. I remember Oscar was our sales manager through most of that time, and he was such a great cheerleader. Yeah, he's not a hunter, he's not a business development person, he's more of that sort of nurturer account manager type of person. But as a sales manager, he was awesome because he was a cheerleader.

SPEAKER_01 47:22

Yeah, absolutely. And when we give people the structure, they've got clarity of expectations. It gives them the confidence as well, doesn't it? Um, and he really stepped up in that role. Yeah, all of these key things that we talked about were what we brought to life even more. And you're right, EOS is that whole bucket around rhythm, like boom, done. And then through that, we identify, oh, that's a capability issue, you know, or oh, they actually don't have any documented processes, or there's no clarity of expectation, or actually there's no coaching that they're getting, which is different to training, as you and I well know. So this is a lot of a lot of businesses also will go, yeah, yeah, we did a sales training. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 48:01

What did you learn? Can't remember.

SPEAKER_01 48:03

And there's the forgetting curve. We forget set, what is it, 50% within an hour or so of what we learned, and 70% within 24 hours. So I think there's a bit of a myth, and and business owners and people that are investing in development for their team can often trick themselves into thinking, yep, I'm doing really good by the team because I invested in some training. But actually, the training is you're not going to get return on investment. You're not going to get banned for your buck if we don't have these other pieces in place. Donate that money to charity unless you're willing to look at how do I create a bit of a holistic view here? Like I feel so bold, like true, right?

SPEAKER_02 48:40

Yeah. And it's it's interesting because I was just reflecting on some of the work we did do with you, Nikki. And I think from a teamwork perspective, I think the ultimate gift to us as business owners was when we we went on that six-week holiday, and when we got back, the team had overachieved and all the targets. And I I believe my mind, the way we achieved that is we we worked, we tried a lot of different commission bonus structures over the journey, and we where we landed was an individual's bonus was 50% on their personal target and 50% on the teams. And when when we got that right, even if one person wasn't kind of making their numbers individually, they could still get a bonus based on the team hitting their number. And then what in my my observation, what happened is when someone was already at their market, they would help the other people in the team hit their targets. And then overall, because I think we had three at three salespeople with targets at the time, it smashed it out of the park. So that and it was a really simple, it wasn't a complicated percentage base, it was just a number, right? The team does well, you get this this many thousands of dollars bonus. You personally do it, you get this as well. And it just was so simple in the end, and that to me just turned everybody into an ultimate team sales team. Because they were all yeah, it was everyone could contribute, everyone could help everybody else. And ultimately, as human beings, we only exist to help people.

SPEAKER_00 50:11

And often you'll do more, you'll do more to help others than you'll help yourself.

SPEAKER_01 50:16

It I think I love that you've brought this point up because, you know, moving to a team, individual and team commission structure in some businesses is like, oh, why would we do that? Like it's controversial almost, you know, because also you you know the the archetype of that really high-performing salesperson that's like the gun, but it's at cost of everything else. And so oftentimes that's not great for culture. You know, what what this also brings up is this conversation around what is the definition of high performance? Absolutely, it's hitting targets, it's hitting KPIs or benchmarks of success. And, you know, it is it is achieving these sorts of things. And it's also how do I lead with influence, even if I don't have a leader in my title? How do I work within a team? How do I manage my emotional state in the team? Am I playing above the line, below the line? Like all of that actually really matters when it comes to certain definitions of high performance. Other businesses or people, you know, might think, no, that's not what the definition for me is. It's only hitting the target. Cool, rock on, go do your individual and have fun with that because you're going to have some pretty interesting people in your sales team. But when we align this commission structure with individual and team and we're still holding to a standard of high performance and results, like actually the magic does happen, like you say. And what we're doing is we're creating an autonomous team where you can step out of the business and have six weeks off, and you can have your team hit target and they just keep smashing it and they feel so bloody good about it because they did it together. And I think, you know, it's a really good point to consider what is the commission structure. And I always am an advocate for a team component, without a doubt. Because I've seen it work so well so many times.

SPEAKER_02 51:59

And yeah, because I was when I my first business, we had a sales commission structure that incentivized growth on previous months. So I realized pretty quickly that if I sandbagged and canned one month, I could make a massive percentage increase on the next month. And my my partners were going, how what's going on? I said, Well, I don't know, I just can't get anything, anyone to sign anything off this month. It's crazy, isn't it? And so you have to be careful about what you put in place because people are smart, people figure it out what the game is and what the plan is. So yeah, and be that's why I'm not a fan of percentage of this and percentage of that, and of this product you get that margin, this product you get that much. Just pick a freaking number based on what the overall targets are and split it across the team, equal and half as personal, half as team. That's what worked for us, take it or leave it. But it made a huge difference to our team, and and everyone stood up and everyone helped us. That was great.

SPEAKER_01 52:58

And you also had the right people in the team and you quickly identify if they are the right cultural fit when you've got the right commission structure in place as well.

SPEAKER_00 53:07

Yeah, absolutely. Okay, next question. If a leader is feeling like all the sales pressure is currently sitting entirely on their shoulders, which is probably a large proportion of our audience, what is the first practical step they can take to start playing a team sport?

SPEAKER_01 53:29

So the first practical step I would say is to uncover why do they feel that way, actually? I'd like to actually just sit down and think, what is making me feel this way? And the reason I say that, and I'll probably give two steps, okay, because that's like an internal reflection one. There's a whole bunch of reasons that that might be happening. Are they feeling that way because they're saying yes to everything and they're taking it on? Are they feeling that way because there's actually a lot of expectation externally and I'm feeling like I can't deliver on this? Am I feeling this way because my team is not delivering? I am the high performer in the team and they are not delivering. So when we reflect on why do I feel this way, you will then have the answer of the next action that you need to take. And so the second point would be what's one simple small thing you can do to take action around that thing? For example, it could be have a conversation with a team member. It could be re-listening to this and looking at, you know, when I I talked about the three buckets, which one felt the most resonated the most of most of like, oh, the buck clenched, that's not in uh either I'm avoiding it or it's not happening, you know, like, yeah, if you had a like that's the one you want to focus on first, or what's a low-hanging fruit? Because you do have that blueprint as a leader. If you work to that blueprint over time, because there's a a bit in there, you will be able to spread the love, if you will. But, you know, there's so many reasons that this is going to be happening for you. So get curious. Why do I feel like this? And then what's one action that I can take? Reach out to somebody, map some things out, look at that blueprint and think, what is the missing piece here that can help feel like I'm being more supported more?

SPEAKER_02 55:08

And I would say, because I have been in that situation many times. And we because we're smart people and you know, we started a business and we've got a certain kind of entrepreneurial spirit, we keep a lot of stuff in our heads and we rely on our gut and our instinct and our inherent knowledge to to solve problems and move things forward. The people in your team don't know any of that. And so my first step would be actually document what you want the client journey to be in the company overall, then document what you want the sales process to be. Because if you can't document and articulate what you want to have happen, you have no chance that any of the team are ever going to meet your your expectations. Because if you can't articulate the expectations of what good looks like for your business, there's people have no chance of meeting that. And that would be the number one thing that changed a whole lot of stuff for me. It's just and you'll be surprised when you start to write it down and figure it out just how you don't really know yourself. And it's a journey, and maybe you need to run a workshop or maybe you need to get someone like Nikki or Jenny on a call and say, How do I actually get this information together? Because it's sometimes you don't know, you you rely so much on your gut and instinct that it just happens by osmosis, but that's not repeatable, that's not scalable, and you'll always be stuck in the the quagmire. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 56:32

So true. And I think from my perspective, you know, thinking back through our journey and you know, we had various iterations of the business and coaches that came and working through working with us through the business. I think Nick and I came to the realization that, you know, my background was HR and admin, Nick's was tech. We just kind of figured stuff out as we went along. And realizing that we needed help in certain areas of the business like sales, you know, I don't think we ever really did marketing at all, very, you know, sporadic. But realizing that we needed help and looking where we started was, you know, if you want to be an elite, I don't know, tennis player, we talked about individual sports, you know, Raphael Nadal didn't get where he was through sheer, you know, I was good at tennis as a kid, so that's where I went. They had coaches, they had all of those things in place. And as business owners, if you want to start your business, realizing where your skills are and bringing expertise in to help you where your skills may lack. I think that's a big difference with any business but MSPs here in this audience of taking the business beyond where it is now. You know, we see so many businesses that have sat at, you know, one million, two million, three million for years and trying the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

SPEAKER_01 57:52

Yep. There's there's a growth set point. We've got to remember what got us here is not going to be the thing that gets us to our next set of growth. And if we go into avoidance or denial or just plug along, we'll plateau and we'll decline. You know, it's just the reality of business, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 58:08

Green and growing or ripe and rotting.

SPEAKER_01 58:10

Oh yes, baby. Joe Parney, shout out to you. It's one of our favorite quotes that we bonded on early back in the day, 12 years ago now. And it's true, we're green and growing, ripe and rotting as an individual, as a business. You know, it's that constant evolution. And we've got to keep evolving and looking at how we're supporting ourselves and our team and our business to evolve. And we just don't have to do it all alone. Nor should we, because we can't be great at everything. We're pretty great, but we can't be great at everything. So yeah, lean into the experts around you. Such good advice. Okay. I think we might need to call it because we're at an hour. So we've done very well. I mean, shocking, right? Because like the three of us, we cannot talk. Like a bunch of introverts and non-talkers that we are. Like that's right. Just sit here and look at each other. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 59:02

Nikki, thank you. Thanks for joining us. I think this is a conversation that we need to continue. So I think we'll book you in for another session. There's so much of our own experience through that four years working with you, but just your knowledge in your work, in working with your clients and your business as well. But thank you.

SPEAKER_01 59:20

Thank you so much. It is always a blast to hang out with you. I will take any opportunity that I can to be in both of your worlds. So yeah, thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_00 59:29

Thanks again to Nikki. And as always, Nick, thank you to you for your observation, insights, and curiosity, if I can say that word. If this conversation hit home for you or got you thinking, head to mspmastery.blog and keep the conversation going. You'll find all our episodes there and more wisdom from the peers and partners who are shaping the future of our industry. And make sure you subscribe so you don't miss future episodes. We've got plenty more great guests and stories coming your way. Until next time, this is MSP Mastery.