Revisiting Karl Palachuk and Zaun Bhana: Trust, Value and the AI Hype Reality Check

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, there is no special guest, just Nick and myself, as we revisit some of the standout themes from two of our previous conversations, with Karl Palachuk and Zaun Bhana. These are the topics that have really stuck with us and that we have kept reflecting on since we finished recording those episodes.

We start with Zaun's idea of the MSP as the third profession, sitting alongside the accountant and the lawyer as a genuine trusted advisor, rather than just another line item on the expense sheet. We share the real story of a client who panicked over a low ticket count, and how that moment completely reframed the value conversation around prevention rather than reaction.

We also reflect on Karl's view of managed services as the stable foundation, and why chasing every shiny new trend, cloud, cybersecurity and now AI, should never distract from the recurring relationship built on trust and service. Nick shares his honest experience experimenting with AI over the past six months, why the hype is starting to settle, and why quantifiably adding value with these tools is a lot harder than the YouTube demos make it look.

From there we get into Zaun's point about defining value before the price comparison ever happens, including a real negotiation story from the health sector, and why understanding your core systems and your cost to deliver is essential before you decide who you are actually competing with.

Finally, we open up about the mental challenge of the next chapter, the identity shift that comes with stepping away from a business you built from nothing, and why planning what comes next is just as important as planning the exit itself.

Here is what we covered together:

✅ The third profession: Why MSPs are increasingly seen alongside accountants and lawyers as trusted advisors, not just technology vendors.

✅ From reactive to proactive: The story of a client who panicked over only six tickets a month, and the reporting exercise that changed everything.

✅ Prevention over reaction: Why the real value proposition is keeping problems from happening in the first place, not just resolving them quickly.

✅ Reporting for the sake of it: Why some vendor driven reports exist to justify tools rather than serve the client, and how to find out what your clients actually want to know.

✅ The stable foundation: Why the core of managed services stays the same even as new technology trends come and go.

✅ The AI hype reality check: Why implementing AI to genuinely add business value is a lot harder than watching a YouTube tutorial.

✅ Shadow AI and staff behaviour: Why staff are already experimenting with free AI tools, and how MSPs can guide clients through the risks.

✅ Building your own trusted network: Why partnering with other specialists, rather than trying to do everything yourself, protects the client relationship.

✅ Defining value before price: A real negotiation story from the health sector on knowing your cost to deliver and where your true value lies.

✅ Understanding core systems: Why knowing a client's most critical system changes how you prioritise and respond to their needs.

✅ Data driven value conversations: Why analysing recurring ticket trends tells a much stronger story than a generic SLA report.

✅ The mental shift of exit: Why so many MSP owners tie their identity to the business, and what it takes to separate the two.

✅ Planning the next chapter: Why having a clear purpose after exit matters just as much as the financial outcome of the sale.

✅ Legacy beyond the business: Reflecting on the people, clients and opportunities created over 26 years in the industry.

We created this podcast to share the real conversations and lessons we wish we had more of while running our own MSP, with practical insights and honest reflection for the people building this industry every day.

Revisit the original conversations that inspired it:

Listen to Karl Palachuk Episode here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2514171/episodes/18491874
Listen to Zaun Bhana Episode here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2514171/episodes/18530691

👉 Read more episode notes here: mspmastery.blog
👉 Listen on YouTube: youtube.com/@MSPMastery
🎧 Listen on Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/4gftErFYrR8F80kthgvFbs
🎧 Listen on Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/msp-mastery-ctrl-alt-deliver/id1828105793

Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:00

You can't show the value or the extra value add that your business provides. It does just go back to price. Everyone else says, what should we change? What should we do different? How can I make my staff more happier and more productive? And how can we make your job easier to service us? That's when you're at that trusted advisor stage. There's a general vibe at the moment that the hype of AI is kind of dying off a little bit, and people are realizing that it's when you go to implement it yourself to actually add value. It's really hard.

SPEAKER_00 0:32

Welcome to MSP Mastery, the podcast for MSP owners and leaders who want to build a better MSP. I'm Jenny Clift, and alongside my longtime business and life partner Nick, we draw on our 60 plus years of combined experience to explore what's really working in thriving MSPs. 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. And no special guest today, just Nick and I. We are revisiting a few topics from our previous episodes with Carl Palacak and Zorn Barner. These are the themes that have really stuck with us and that we've been reflecting on together since we finished recording those episodes. Nick, welcome.

SPEAKER_01 1:25

Hi Jen. Hi, listeners. It's great to be here again. It'll be a good refresher of some of the previous topics, and I think they're still relevant, and I'm looking forward to it.

SPEAKER_00 1:38

Let's talk first about Zorn Barner's episode and specifically when he talked about MSPs as the third profession. So Zorn gave us a really useful way to think about our role in the business ecosystem. He mentioned that most small to medium businesses have an accountant, they have a lawyer, but increasingly we're seeing them looking at their IT company as that third profession or trusted advisor, as we always called it. And it really elevates our position from the people who fix PCs or the technology to the people who help protect and grow their businesses. So, Nick, I think this really mirrors our own experience where we shifted from talking about servers, all of that techie stuff to talking about business strategy and risk. So if you look back through our time and through that transition, when do you think or what do you think was that specific shift in your approach that moved us from just being a tech vendor to being seen as that trusted advisor?

SPEAKER_01 2:52

Yeah, I I think it's an evolution over time with the client. Typically, when you first engage with a client, it is to fix a problem or there's an issue or there's something that they're not happy with. So it is a bit of a focus on the technology. But over time, you do develop the trust to fix problems efficiently and then get into the conversation about well, what else is going on in their business? What are their challenges? Where are they going? And I remember thinking, I think it was one of our business coaches early on in the piece saying, IT service providers are at the same level in a PL as cleaners and the electricity bill. It's a commodity, it's a utility, it's something you have to pay for, you don't want to pay for it, you don't value it. And we need to get ourselves out of being a utility or a commodity and into the value adding line, which is where the professional services are, like Zorn said, like accountants and lawyers, etc. And I think it is an evolution over time.

SPEAKER_00 3:49

If you're on that expense line, they're just always looking to save money. How can I get the same thing cheaper?

SPEAKER_01 3:55

Yeah, exactly right. It becomes a commodity, and then you're just basically comparing apples with apples. And I think it is a bit of a journey and it is a lot about listening. Like I've been reflecting on this a bit lately with some sales coaching and you know that I've kind of joined up with morphability, and there's some processes and structures to it. But I think back, I never ever in DWM did a PowerPoint presentation to a client to sell a solution or a deal. It just didn't happen because we had a conversation. We identified what the issue was, we were advising them on where they should be going. And then when it came time to do that project, it wasn't really a sales pitch. It was more a, okay, we've already identified the problem, you've got some budget for it. How do you want to solve this? When do we want to get it done? So it is a lot more like a professional service, like an accountant slash lawyer. And don't get me wrong. I've I've dealt with lawyers and accountants that are like electricity bills and cleaners. They're very transactional and they're very, you pay for a service and you get a very basic thing back, and you can get the same off of Chat GPT now. So you don't want to be there, that's for sure. So to summarize that, it is a bit of a an evolution over time. It's about asking good questions, shutting up and listening, and then letting the client ask you or explain to you what their challenges are, and then you coming up with a a structured conversation. And I think I would go into those conversations with an outcome I had in mind, not necessarily to sign a deal with them today, but to educate them on how to solve the problem. And sometimes it wasn't us that solved the problem. Sometimes it was a we referred them to another partner, or we just said, hey, I really don't know, but I'm happy if you reach out to your network and you find a few people that on this topic, for example, when the council wanted to replace its rates software, I said, I'm happy to jump on the conversation with you and let's talk about it and let's make sure we get a good solution for you. But it wasn't coming from us, for example. And that's when you become that trusted advisor when they know it's not transactional. They know every single time I talk to you, you're not trying to sell me something.

SPEAKER_00 5:56

And if you are in that place of when you go to see a client, you are talking about individual tickets. Why did this take so long? Why hasn't this been resolved yet? I think it's a pretty dangerous place to be because you are in that transactional cost saving. Even if you're on a recurring revenue and they're still digging into individual tickets, it's a pretty dangerous place to be now.

SPEAKER_01 6:19

Yeah. You remember back to the days when we acquired a small company's clients in Melbourne, Technia, and Andy was one of the guys that managed that. He came across and we had a client that we were probably charging two and a half, three thousand a month. And he went to have a meeting with them and he was panicking because the report said we did six tickets for the month. And he was like, Oh my god, they're gonna sack us, they're gonna get rid of us. And I said, No, no, no, no, no. What we've got to show is show what we've done to prevent the tickets from happening. So we went through a process and I got all the reports out of all the proactive support we did, all our RMM logs and all the patching we did, and and it ended up being something like 300 pages of activities. And then I convinced Andy that that was okay. Then we went and had the meeting. I went with him and had the meeting with the client. She goes, Oh, so the purpose of this board agreement is for you to prevent any problems from happening. So our staff are productive. I said, Yes. She goes, Oh, so we really want zero tickets, not six. She goes, I said, that's exactly right. And then that changed his whole mindset to what the value prop was. The value proposition was we're keeping their systems working so their staff are productive. It's not the value prop is not us reacting to a ticket quickly and fixing the ticket. Yes, we do that, but that's part of what we do. It's not the value. The value is we're preventing the tickets and the problems from happening in the first place.

SPEAKER_00 7:41

And just quickly without mentioning any names, but I know you had a meeting this last week with a managed service provider to one of your MSPs, and they did a PowerPoint presentation to you in that conversation about the dollar value of the services that provide, and you just shaking your head going, why are you doing this? So can you just quickly share what that was and why you don't do that?

SPEAKER_01 8:08

Yeah, I was a bit taken aback by it because if you met with a person, you've gone through with their offering, you've signed up for a service, you're expecting that service to be delivered. And it's the job of the service provider to offer you value, right? And feel like they're responsive and they're getting things done. In this particular case, they were, they were doing the work. But for some reason, this owner decided he needed to justify in dollars and cents an hour the potential saving that we could have made or we have made by engaging them for a service. And I just thought, are you not delivering what you said you're doing? Are you trying to justify your existence through some fictitious trumped up expenses? And like it well, it would have cost you this if you weren't on our agreement. I mean, that to me is just such a negative way of looking at things. And he was like really interested in my feedback because the industry he's in, which is a professional service, was that's how they do it. They, their whole value prop is return on investment. And it's it's about dollars and cents. And I go, well, that is not what I signed up for. I signed up for activity and results. I don't even care about the activity, actually. I signed up for results. That's what I signed up for. I don't really even care about the activity. So it was a really interesting reflection, and I think he went away and the service provider went away and had a big think about that because I said, I am not presenting this information to the owner of the MSP. Because I can tell you what will happen straight away. He'll get really defensive and think, what are you trying to hide here? Why are you trying to justify this with this trumped-up report of all these dollar values? And it was hundreds of thousands of dollars, apparently, we saved by paying them two grand a month. Like it makes no sense at any point.

SPEAKER_00 9:50

How much time of theirs was included in that cost saving that you've made us doing this stupid report that tells me nothing.

SPEAKER_01 9:56

Yeah, I said if you want to save us money, don't do these reports. But that in itself is another going back to the original discussion, the value proposition. Back when we we all implemented PSAs and in and in today's, yeah, so we're 2026, right? So it's easy. But I started the business, so we started the business back in 1996 when there wasn't PSAs, there wasn't RMM. So when we in the mid-2000s, when we got into the RMM stuff and all this data became available, like I remember our guys freaked out because I turned I came back from a conference, turned it on, and all of a sudden we had 2,000 tickets in our service desk on Monday morning. And that was a hard lesson. Don't do that, by the way. Don't turn on all the alerting. Iterative process, we got to the point where we decided on this is what the industry's telling us, this is what the vendors are telling us. That this the vendors are telling us what our clients want. So we went to all this effort and put all these big reports, and it was a there's a patch report and a this report and a that report, and yeah, a moves, ads, and changes report, and this and I mean we we ended up with that reporting pack of about 10 different reports, blah, blah, blah. And then the end of the this is ridiculous. We're doing this based on helping the vendors justify the expense of their tools, not what the actual client wants. So I went and sat through a meeting with every single client, and there was two of them out of the 30 odd people I caught up on a quarterly basis with, my QBRs, and that said, we need the patch report because we have to submit that to the state government to prove that we're doing it. Everyone else says, Hey, Nick, we trust what you're doing. And all I really want to know about is what should we change? What should we do different? How can I make my staff more happier and more productive? And how can we make your job easier to service us? That's when you're at that trusted advisor stage. Don't just do things because a vendor tells you to, or because your own, you employ a really smart tech and he goes, Oh, I used to do this and blah, blah, blah. I go, Yeah, but why? Who reads it?

SPEAKER_00 11:50

Okay, let's move on now to something Carl mentioned in his episode around managed services as being, I guess, the stable foundation. So he was talking about longevity of the managed services model and pointed out that while new technologies, like it was cloud, it was cybersecurity, now it's AI, are constantly being, I guess, stapled on to that model. But the core foundation really needs to remain the same. It is a recurring relationship, as we just talked about, based on trust and service. So Carl's view is that MSPs who ignore the basics of the service agreement to chase that next shiny thing, AI now, give us a couple of years, it'll be something else. That kind of lose sight of that foundation. So, Nick, with all the noise around AI right now, how do we make sure we're using these new tools to strengthen that managed services foundation rather than letting them distract us from the core relationship? And you are the king of distraction.

SPEAKER_01 12:53

I have spent a lot of time over the last six months experimenting with AI and bits and pieces and and it is it's tough. And there's a general vibe at the moment that the hype of AI is kind of dying off a little bit, and people are realizing that it's it's all well and good to watch YouTube, which I do, and get these really cool ideas. But when you go to implement it yourself to actually add value, it's really hard. It's really hard to do something that is quantifiably adding value to an individual or a business at the individual chat agent use of AI. You need to get into agentic AI, building apps, bits and pieces, but simple stuff. So I would say to Carl's point, being back at that trusted relationship, you need to be aware of what is available, what's going on, and what impacts your clients. And you need to be having a discussion around that to help them because their team, their staff, they're watching the news, they're watching Facebook, they're watching YouTube, they're got friends, the people are talking about it. It's happening all over the place. So they're going off and signing up for free accounts, or worst case scenario, they're signing up for accounts with their work email, which is another thing you need to educate people on, not doing. And they're yeah, they're using an AI agent of some description. That's this shadow AI we talk about. So you need to be having a conversation. And then I think the real value that MSPs have is we have a window into the world of our clients. We have a window into the way they operate, the way their staff are using technology, and broadly, broadly through our contacts around the industry, we know what their industry is doing. For example, if you're a manufacturing or accounting or whatever, you kind of know. So it's not that difficult to liaise with your contacts and find out what's going on in that particular industry, then apply that knowledge, have a conversation with your client, figure out, well, where are their pain points? What are they trying to achieve, and then work with them logically? And I don't suggest that every MSP purport to be an AI guru, right? It's difficult. Like I'm telling you, it's difficult. I think I'm a reasonably intelligent person, and it's bloody hard to get a vibe code thing to do something consistently, reliably that adds value without saying, I've nailed that. I take it my concept to a developer mate of mine who knows coding, he can make it work in an hour. Vive coding is not the solution. It gives you a basic proof of concept, but have that conversation. And there are lots of businesses out there that are coming to the MSB saying, hey, we want to do this. I've downloaded Claude the other day and did this and did this and watched this YouTube guy and did this script and holy crap. And you're thinking, that's great, but what's the ramification in the back end?

SPEAKER_00 15:29

And I think it it comes back to the we're the trusted advisor to the our clients as MSPs. But having our own suite of trusted advisors as well, like SharePoint was never a strong skill of ours, but we partnered with others for small business, you know, sort of, you know, suitable for different sizes of business. Just partner with people who do that because part of that trusted advisor relationship to me is being able to introduce your clients to people that you trust, that they're not, for example, another MS, you know, they're doing AI, but they have an MSP. Next thing you've lost the whole client. But having that suite of people that you can bring in to fill gaps that you can advise on, yeah, maybe your ex-person says that they can do this, but can they really? And you're employing them to do this job and they're going to go and spend and potentially waste an enormous amount of hours and come up with nothing. So I think there's a lot of space in there that as MSPs, we can help our clients get to an outcome without opening them up to risk or setting them up for an enormous cost of no outcome.

SPEAKER_01 16:38

Reflecting on a bit of that conversation with Carl and also a couple of Carl's podcasts I've listened to, the days of when we would go in and say, okay, this is my tech stack. This is I'm an MSP. This is what I offer. You need to take, take all of it or nothing. And we've got this suite of products that we put out there. That's the commodity market. That's really tough. Like, look, some people want that. I struggled really hard with that to sell new clients, assign new clients up based on that model because they really need to build the trust. I'm not going to go and pay 150 bucks a seat for 20 users or 30 users or 50 users on a one or two or three year contract without knowing how you operate. Or it's a big, big risk for a client to do that. And there are people out there that do it and they've got a mill set up and they churn through it and they pump, they pump it out, and they've got really good marketing and they've narrowed down their ideal client profile so succinctly that they know how to show that client value through a PowerPoint presentation. Just sign here and we know we can deliver that because you're going to be in our controlled environment, but they're typically not at that $150, $200 a seat price. They're typically down at the 70 to 100 because they've squeezed it down so much and controlled it that they can deliver a consistent, reliable output. But I don't think that's where the clients want to be. Yeah, they're the clients that don't want to sign up for the technology consulting. They don't want QBRs. Oh, I'll just go and ask Claude. Or we'll go and ask ChatGPT.

SPEAKER_00 18:03

It's a commodity. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:04

Yeah. So and be really careful with AI that you're not trying to just plug it on as another AI thing because it's not standardized yet. Yes, we all need to be doing something and have a paid plan so your data's not getting pushed back into the model and spread all over the universe. But yeah, I'd be hesitant to go into more my clients and say, oh yeah, you need to sign up for 60 bucks a month worth of copilot licenses on all your users because that's what we're trained to do. That's what the vendors push us to do. But what's the value add? Like, what are you actually going to do with Copilot? How's it going to add value? Like last time I use Copilot, still can't make a frickin' Word document.

SPEAKER_00 18:41

But it can make a Google document.

SPEAKER_01 18:42

But it can make a Google document. What is going on here? Very frustrating. So you know, it's not that I want to bag Microsoft, but that copilot infrastructure or the copilot environment is a bunch of individual isolated functions. Like there's copilot for word, copilot for outlook, copilot for web, copilot for chat. They don't talk to each other. It's very frustrating from a person who's used to using something that's fully integrated. So but just be careful. Yes, yes, there are bespoke solutions out there for AI. Absolutely should be talking to your clients about it. You should be learning yourself. So you can be the trusted advisor. But I wouldn't go out there just signing everyone up to the intelligent MSP plan that has everything on it. I don't see how that's going to be much value.

SPEAKER_00 19:26

Okay, let's move on to or back to Zorn. And he talked about defining value before the price comparison. So differentiation, basically. And he said that if your customers cannot clearly explain the difference in the value you provide, they have no choice but to compare you on price. So there's nothing else. I can't. It's apples and apples as far as I can see. So one's cheaper than the other. I'll go with the cheaper one. So we've seen it all, competitor quotes, half our price on paper. But Zorn's point was the battle for value needs to be won long before that quote lands on the client's desk. So think back again. We've been out of our MSP now for nearly four years, believe it or not. Think back to when you were sitting across from a client who says, I can get this for $20 cheaper or $40 cheaper a month elsewhere. How do you steer that conversation back to the actual business value we're providing?

SPEAKER_01 20:25

Yeah, it's an interesting topic. Because a couple of things jumped to my mind on that straight away. One is Dawn's 100% right. If you can't show the value or the extra value add that your business provides, it does just go back to price. And I I remember doing a deal with one of the big health alliances, and they had something like three and a half thousand end users in this group of hospitals. And we did some work for some of the individual hospitals. We looked after the infrastructure, some of them we had under managed service agreements. We did everything. We did a lot of project work with this group, and they came to me and said, look, we're trying to build a help desk model to offer to all of the agencies in their group. And I thought, hang on, that's going to cut my lunch. Okay. So I better have a think about this. And I found out later on down the track they'd already been to a couple of the major players like Dimension Data or Tom Strer or what some of the bigger ones at the time. And I went back and said, look, I reckon I can do help desk, first level help desk for 35 bucks a seat. And they went, you know, thought, oh, that's pretty interesting. And that was a value conversation. It's like how what's the value of you doing it versus someone else? Well, well, we're regional, we're in the we're in the local area, blah, blah. And they said, look, your price is 100% spot on to the other guys. Because I said, but I don't want to sell you. I said, I don't want to sell you a help desk service, right? Because that's not the value prop that the MSP that we are. And they go, Yeah, well, I know that, but that's what we have to deal with for the financial guys we're dealing with. So we didn't end up winning the deal, and they didn't go ahead with it anyway. But it taught me a lesson about being able to understand your cost to deliver your service and where your value is. So when we talk about the all-inclusive price, which includes help desk, on-site, you know, project work, consulting, that is the ultimate, eh? But you need to understand and break that right down. So you know who you're competing with at what level. So if you choose to compete, you are logically, you're not just guessing. And so it's a bit of a long-winded answer, but I I really never had to have that conversation about price. But Jen, you you know we had a we had a really good model client in Shepperton. That business had good tech in theory, right? It had PCs that had SSDs and I7s and there was no issue with them spending money. What the issue was that there was no strategy to what they were doing. And yeah I remember that Ben had people constantly coming to his office complaining about his IT.

SPEAKER_00 22:50

He actually said that he was going to get one of those numbering systems like the supermarket deli so that you know take a number go and stand in the corner and I'll call you when the next number and he he literally had people in his office all the time complaining and that was his his aim was to get rid of those people out of his office.

SPEAKER_01 23:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:08

And we did.

SPEAKER_01 23:09

We did over time and and it was by having conversations understanding where the pain points were talking to the staff reporting back to the leadership team of the business what the feedback the staff are giving you.

SPEAKER_00 23:21

Understanding their core systems was a big thing. You know, when we had that conversation with him and said what's your number one core system that if it's down we need critical response and insurance broker it was their quoting system because if somebody rings, they've just bought a new car and they need to get it insured, they're going to ring around get three prices and if they can't do it instantly, they've lost that deal completely. So understanding the your core systems is a big part of that value that you add, our staff know that if a ticket comes in and it's about X client and X system, it is absolutely critical and it need we need to get on it straight away.

SPEAKER_01 24:03

And I think that goes back to this whole conversation is the difference between value and doing the commodity job, anyone can fix the tech problem. If your stats are we close, yeah. And I know I'm a coach and I harp on about reactive hours per end per month, which is it's a measure of the quality of the environment from my perspective. But I wouldn't go out to market and say oh on average we spend 10 minutes per month on each desktop.

SPEAKER_00 24:30

It's an internal measure it's not something you use to sell your services.

SPEAKER_01 24:33

But that extra value is is understanding not just doing the tickets sorry analysing the data afterwards and figuring out hang on Sarah logged 15 tickets last month for the same reporting issue with this database system. Yeah it's not a problem with us. Yes there might be some challenges with Sarah but there's a fundamental problem with this product and that's the value aid conversation when you go back with data because you've got the data right you've if your techs are logging the tickets properly and you're monitoring your networks properly, you've got the data. Take the time to analyze it and have a proper conversation with the client about it, not just give them a service SLA report because that's bullshit.

SPEAKER_00 25:11

Yeah. And again part of that value is you know this machine just keeps failing. We're getting four tickets a week from this particular machine. We need to replace it because the person using that mush machine must be getting really damn frustrated with it. So let's fix the problem rather than just fix it every day, do the same same old, same old and value. How do you sell that value? How do you put that into words so that it's just rolls off your tongue and when somebody says what do you bring you've got three or four dot points in your head that you just roll out every time and I think that's really where as your sales team, the owner of the business, whatever it may be, that's what you need to know so that you are naturally selling the value, not just selling a commodity. Okay. This is something that we've been through we talk a bit about it. We talk a lot about it. The mental challenge of the next chapter and Zorn in the industry he's now in talked about it as well. And it's I guess one of the more personal parts of being a business owner what's next? And a lot of MSP owners we see now when we go to conferences and things, you know, there's a lot of gray hair in those rooms now. Not that I have any. So Zorn talked about many owners struggling with burnout or stress that don't talk about it. And that planning that next chapter is just as important as the exit itself. So Nick, we've talked a bit about that feeling of cold sweat or for you it was just complete denial you just didn't even want to know about it. When we first looked at walking away selling DWM when we exited Otto because so much of our identity was tied to being Nick and Jenny from DWM Solutions. And you I know just really could not see yourself without DWM. So for people listening who are feeling that burnout or starting to think about an exit, what did you learn about managing that mental shift from being on 247 and in the business and part of that that excitement I guess of all all that's happening to finding a new purpose outside the business.

SPEAKER_01 27:29

Can I have an easier question? Nope this is the one you get in yeah I I think there's two there's two parts to that for me. One is coming to the realization that like you mentioned our identities are linked to the business. Yeah we put our heart and soul and our blood sweat tears money relationships friendships we've built and lost everything's been invested 100% in that business. And I'd say most of the time without a single clue of a strategy or a plan. It's really just doing what you do because you get the human condition is the need for you know love and connection and community and reward and all that kind of Tony Robin stuff which makes a whole lot of sense if you don't understand what I'm talking about. Go read unleash the power within or something. Yeah we do these things you know how one day you wake up and you can't do what you did yesterday. Why can't I do that today? What is wrong with me? It's the environment that you're in and it's the things going on in your head in your subconscious they control what your outsides are. So reflecting for me reflecting back on that and yeah I was doing what I was doing because the reward I got was solving the customer's problem. My core value, my core need as a person is a problem solver. That's my core thing. And I was getting that need met by working in a tech environment with customers that have technical problems where I can go solve the problem. And that manifests itself in lots and different ways solving problems becomes a subconscious habit, a subconscious way we operate. And in the end if we're not having enough problems to solve we end up creating our own problems to solve which is a different topic for another discussion later on.

SPEAKER_00 29:11

But it's all part of where I got to oh absolutely and it's a subconscious thing you create chaos and create problems to make yourself feel better because now you can go solve those problems. It's just what we do as humans and we don't do it sometimes we do it deliberately but often we have no idea we're doing it.

SPEAKER_01 29:27

No that's right. Exactly 99% of people are good people and they don't wake up in the morning think who can I fuck up today. But you do subconsciously do things because of your environment your history your background because you're trying to meet some need that you're not getting out of the current activity. So when we first had that discussion with a potential person acquiring our business DWM which was not on my radar at all I really had this conflict of crisis of like hang on how can I do that like that's me. I'm giving half of me away or 90% of me away and I just had to do a lot of soul searching and coaching with people and talking and and discussion and eventually I decided that I am me. The business is separate the business will go on after me. Because I didn't have a strategy right I didn't have a strategy to sell the business a strategy to retire from the business. I got really frustrated because I could only see that I would still be doing this when I'm freaking 80 and dead you know I'm going to die at a keyboard under a server or something you know and that was the big bloody wake up call because we were living the dream right we had two great kids we were traveling the world we went to conferences all over the place anything we wanted we pretty much did. There was no like well what's next because we were living the dream right we had our dream house we had everything and then the wake-up call and then you go well hang on this is not what it's all going to be and like you listen to a lot of stuff today and with the current technology and AI working in health and longevity everyone listening to this is going to live past a hundred. If you're under 70 now there's a better than average chance you're going to live past a hundred years old. So you better figure out what the health to do next. And how to fund it. And how to fund it then and yeah I don't know that you want to be sitting at a keyboard or doing QBRs with customers when you're 90 nine years old. Maybe I don't know. I mean I'm 60 nearly 63 now and I'm still feeling as fit as I was at 40 so it's it's not like the end of the world but it is something you need to start to think about. So that was probably the number one and then the second one was understanding that the business is it's a legacy. It doesn't have to end with you. It can keep going and you can still be proud of what was achieved and no one can ever take that away from you right even if the business shuts down as long as you didn't leave a giant dinking turd of a financial crisis and lots of hurt of lots of people as long as it shut down nicely and and cleanly and everyone was looked after you should still be super proud of that and of what you achieved. So there's not this fear of I had the fear of it just failing if I wasn't in it 100%. So yeah they're the kind of two things for me.

SPEAKER_00 31:57

And I think two things for me one was I remember you having a conversation with a fellow member of entrepreneurs organization when we had that approach out of the blue to buy our business by DWM. And when you spoke to her she said the people who struggle after leaving their business through an exit through a sale whatever it may be are the people who have know what's next. The people who thrive are the ones who have that clear path and whether it's playing golf five times a week or you're a pilot or whatever it is, they have a hobby, they have an interest they've got something that the time that's 50, 40, 60 hours a week whatever you've been investing into your business, you have to be able to invest that time in something else that is fulfilling that as you said, Nick meets those needs and that gives you a purpose to get up every day. One of the MSP owners we know puts a lot of time into giving back through counseling with one of the, I think Beyond Blue or one of those organizations. But what's your thing? What is it that is going to give you purpose?

SPEAKER_01 33:04

The thing that that I think changed for me during that period is the decision that we made to work remotely three months of the year. That decision that we made just before COVID happened I think it was in August 2019 we made that decision we want to work remotely three months of the year. And it's always been a dream of ours to be able to go and work live different parts of the world and live work remotely. So that's when we decided well Bali's a safe bet because we've been going there for holidays. So we were over here in December 2019, scoped it all out said yep we can do three months. So then COVID happened and then everything else changed.

SPEAKER_00 33:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:43

But we did eventually get to Bali but it wasn't until after we'd sold the business. So the dream was to do it while we still had the MSP and just prove to people that you can do this and you can set your business up to be remote managed and still have those quality conversations. So that was kind of just something that popped into my head then because that was definitely a catalyst of change and what was next. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:06

And the other thing I wanted to talk about was legacy and past episodes have had Nathan Gimel on Philip Reith who both worked in our businesses and looking back at the legacy and through that pride and the business does live on even if it does close down you know we did the merger it became Otto so the name DWM Solutions isn't around anymore. But having that I think that's part of that mental shift is those 26 years of our MSP, nobody can take that away from us. We've taken some people straight out of high school we've given them great opportunity they've worked through the industry you talk about Andy before we bought the business technia through a family situation that they found themselves in and he's now teaching and we caught up with him recently in Melbourne and you know he's just absolutely thriving and ended up working in his brother's business through his brother needed help and in his late 30s finally went to university to achieve his dream of becoming a primary school teacher. So all of that legacy and those people that we've helped and clients that we've taken through, you know, clients that have won government awards for innovation, there's just so much that we've done in those years to be proud of and that is I think part of the exit because you can look back and say we did pretty good in those 26 years. We've got some great memories and we had a great lifestyle and as you said we've raised two great kids and it's part of that evolution and that if you are sort of stuck in that day to day start to reflect back and say well what can I be proud of through those years of having the MSP or whatever your business may be.

SPEAKER_01 35:55

Yeah exactly okay let's wrap it for today Nick thank you thanks Jenny and thanks listeners if you've got any questions please reach out happy to share and there's a whole lot of uh stuff I won't say on podcasts that I'm happy to share.

SPEAKER_00 36:13

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