From Department of IT to Strategic Business Voice

IT leaders often have a seat at the executive table. But are they truly being heard?

In this episode of Edge of Excellence, Jess DeForge and Bryon Beilman speak with Phil Howard about what it takes for CIOs, CTOs, IT Directors, VPs of IT, and technology leaders to move from being treated like the “Department of IT” to becoming strategic business voices.

Phil brings experience across sales training, telecom, consulting, vendor-neutral advisory, podcasting, and hundreds of conversations with IT leaders. Together, the group explores why technical leaders can understand the full complexity of the business and still struggle to communicate value in a way executives understand.

The conversation covers executive buy-in, vendor pressure, cost control, mid-market IT complexity, business communication, defensible technology decisions, and why IT is often invisible when things work but treated as a cost center when leadership does not understand the value behind the systems.

This episode is especially relevant for IT leaders, business executives, consultants, service providers, and mid-market organizations that want technology to be more strategically aligned with business outcomes.

At its core, this is a conversation about communication, trust, leadership maturity, and helping IT leaders become heard, respected, and involved before critical technology decisions are already made.

Learn more about iuvo by visiting www.iuvotech.com

Connect with Phil Howard 

Check out the You've Been Heard Podcast 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:03

This is the Edge of Excellence, empowering people to shape the future. Let's inspire, innovate, and explore together. Hello, and welcome to The Edge of Excellence. I'm Jesta Ford, and today we're talking about what it takes for IT leaders to be truly heard inside business.

SPEAKER_00 0:21

I'm Brian Beilman, and joining us today is Phil Howard. And I've known Phil for quite some time. And Phil has built a career around enterprise IT leadership, providing vendor neutral advice and real conversations with CIOs, CTOs, IT directors, and technology leaders. And through his podcast work and advisory model, he helps IT leaders cut through vendor noise, make better decisions, and communicate technology in a way that business can understand. Phil, welcome to the edge of excellence.

SPEAKER_02 0:49

Hey Brian, thank you. And uh yeah, we we have known each other for some time, so it's fun. Thank thanks for that bio. I I hope that uh we can live up to that for the next um 200 years.

SPEAKER_00 1:01

Yeah, you know what you I've you I mean we'll get into it a little bit throughout this segment, but uh I was, you know, we've worked together in many ways, and so I I think you uh have a bring a lot of value. And I was really excited to get you on this podcast because you're not only do uh a great businessman, but you are a really interesting person. So I I th I that's why I told Jeff, we gotta get Phil on. I really looking forward to Phil.

SPEAKER_02 1:23

It's no fun being like everybody else, I think, or just being whatever that whatever that thing is that they call normal, which I don't think anyone really knows anymore. I don't even know what normal is anymore. Yeah. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:34

All right. So diving into that, Phil, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do?

SPEAKER_02 1:41

Yeah. So I'm uh I graduated college creative writing major uh because I wasn't I didn't want to go pre-med or stick with the uh chemistry major. Just everyone in my family's a doctor. And you don't just become a doctor because everyone else in your family was a doctor. So you go creative writing. And then when you graduate with a creative writing degree, you know, what do you do? You go work for Starbucks. And then when you have your first two kids, you're like, uh, crap, I've got to make money. What am I gonna do? Uh so you leave and you go work for a Cisco startup, and that's how uh I got all of my experience or got started in in technology. So that happened, and then I ended up continuing to have children. Uh the goal, we goal planned it. My wife and I were we said we're gonna have five kids. And then when we got to four, I was like, honey, this is you know really wild and crazy. I don't think we need any more kids. And she's like, We said you always wanted to have five kids. You came from a family of five, and all right, and then uh we ended up having twins. So go figure, you go from four to six, and then at that point we're just like, all right, whatever, let's just run it now. See, you know, let's see what the Lord Above hands us, and then we just kept having kids, and yeah, so now I have eight kids, and when you have eight kids, you start to think, you know, you you're working in the corporate world. I'd been at you know, this Cisco startup, and then I was doing fix to wireless, and I moved back to Massachusetts and worked for a company called Broadview, which got purchased by Windstream. We don't need to say anything about how Windstream and what they do to companies, but um the uh at at and then uh I don't know what what do we have? Yeah, we're at eight kids now. Um it's at you know, when you make $220,000 a year, whatever they call it, the golden handcuffs, and but when you have eight kids, it's still it's still kind of paycheck to paycheck nowadays, sadly. Yeah. Um, so eventually, um uh when Broadview was getting ready to sell, um, a lot of my buddies at a company called Convergence Network Services Group said, Hey Phil, you gotta come uh you gotta come over and work with us and and do um, I guess you would call it consulting. I call it vendor neutral advisory work. Um, I always wanted to be able a solution provider, not just like a salesperson that sells someone one product and tries to fit a square peg into a round hole type of thing. I've always been a big believer that each company has a unique group of end users and has a unique, unique challenges, unique business challenges that technology can help solve. And there's never a one size fits all answer when it comes to uh technology. And uh technology never works perfect unless you have Brian and Iuva working with you guys, and we also know there's never problems, right? Um so yeah, so I left and that was kind of it. And I remember Dave Wilson at the time saying, Phil, just you know, just put your head down to work. I don't want you worrying about anything, and I don't want you to worry about where money's coming from or anything. Um, I was on food stamps for one month. The government did approve me because I had, you know, I went from having a job to not having a job. Yeah. Uh so I do like to say, like, yes, I was living off food stamps uh for one month. Um, but they quickly took those away when they realized that uh I could do what I do. And anywho, so uh yeah, that's how we kind of eventually left. And then it was um, how do we serve the people that we love? And the people that I love are um IT leaders. And I figured there's a bunch, there's a bunch of people that don't appreciate technology. Um at the time, small business owners can be or love small business owners, don't get me wrong, uh, but they can, I'm one of them. They can uh, you know what I mean? They can be very needy and they can expect a lot for their technology and they want to pay as little as as much uh for that. Whereas uh uh manufacturers, logistics companies, healthcare companies, larger enterprise companies really, you know, the IT leaders there really know that technology is a business force multiplier and how you use technology really makes a massive difference in um the world. And those are the people that I wanted to work with, and that's why we uh started a podcast back then. It was called dissecting popular IT nerds for years. And what we realized is that there is a significant problem that many IT leaders have, and that is they kind of started out in IT like I did, they were some other job. There you didn't go to school for becoming a VP of IT in the 80s. You you really didn't. You might go for computer science and this philosophy of computer stuff, but if you talk with most VPs of IT or CTOs, they were doing something else. They were in the army, they were an engineer, they were any, they were an English major, there were any number of things other than well, I went to school to be a VP of IT. And what we found is they got to the they got to their roles putting out fires, changing printer cables, fixing other people's computer problems, and then they kind of naturally fell into that technology role. And now here they are sitting at this executive round table after years of putting out fires, dealing with the the the IBM AS400 old server running whatever, and many of you still have that out there. And it's great that they have the seat at the executive round table, and when when everything's on fire and all kinds of problems are going on, you're the most valuable person in the company. But when everything's running like a well-oiled Tesla, you become a cost center. So we like to say, how nice is it? It's nice, right? It's nice to have a seat at the executive roundtable, but how much nicer would it be to actually be heard, to be brought in on technology conversations from the beginning, uh, to be re respected and understood, and not just that guy that's talking about hypervisors and other things to kind of gloss over the the the leadership and actually learn how to kind of speak the language of business and bridge that gap between IT speak and business and actually help um actually be heard. And the way that I IT leaders get heard is not by hiding in the server closet anymore where we slip slip pizza under the door to you. Um you actually have to learn the language of business, be able to translate that and apply it. And the the interesting thing about a lot of IT leaders is they're very curious individuals. Um, they aren't maybe like the natural business leaders, they're the they're the natural like tinkerers and stuff. And so somehow I've fallen into this, into this um, I don't know, IT leadership um whisperer role.

SPEAKER_00 8:17

You know, you said something that resonated with me uh just a moment ago of uh we had we have a phrase we used to say, uh you're in IT or either invisible or in trouble, right? And yeah, so you're you're everybody's like, what happened, you know, the printer's down, whatever's down, and you're in trouble, and then and then things are running so well, they like, is he doing anything? And so the thing that you're you're elucidating on here is that even when you're in invisible or you shouldn't be invisible, you should be be able to communicate all the things you're the value of providing to businesses. And uh I think that's uh and and I know that we it's we we try to we try to hire those type of people, uh people that have that that are not just nerds and technical, they they have a they have uh a sense about them to talk to people and find out real problems. So I I totally appreciate the kind of audience and the people that you resonate with because we we we also resonate with that.

SPEAKER_01 9:10

Yeah, I'm wondering if you have any advice that you could give to IT leaders who maybe know the right decision but are struggling to get that executive buy-in.

SPEAKER_02 9:21

Yeah, I think it depends. Well, first of all, a lot of them are gonna say, hey, it depends on the organization. Did I pick the right place to work at? Number one, pick a place to work at where you know you can make a difference. A lot of people just take a job because they need one, right? This sounds like like career advice 101. But um, other than that, make sure you sit with your CFO, make sure you sit with your CEO, make sure you're asking your CFO when it comes to technology, what's your single biggest frustration, problem, or concern here? Right. Um what am I doing right? What other people that have been in my position before, um, what have they done that you that's um what have they missed on? What do they not do? Right. And then if you don't have the business, you don't have to go out and get an MBA, right? It helps. I think it helps. We've had this this debate a lot, even on my show, which is like, do you need an MBA? Does it help? It's gonna matter at some companies. If you want to apply to certain companies, they're gonna require that. But I think you can get the equivalent and you can crash course your way to a business education pretty quickly. Um, you know, learn terms like EBITDA, um, understand things about key man risk, you know, look at these various different things, understand, you know, customer acquisition cost and these various different things that are like really, really important. And then make sure that you're sitting with each department in your in your company. Every, every CF, every CTO CIO is gonna say these type of things that are important, right? But make sure that you're applying technology in a way that helps them do their job better, faster, more and more efficient, et cetera. And don't be that if you can as much as possible, get away from that where the department of IT and I would even I don't see this a lot. I know it exists, but I think I would encourage people to um I don't what's the saying? Put their mouth where the money is or something like that. I would encourage people to to ask for an MBO or a management by business objectives and say, like, hey, I'm getting paid this right now, but if I'm able to drive X, Y, Z, KPIs by this percentage, then I would be entitled to this percentage of a bonus, right? So a results-oriented role. And I don't know how I would my my guess is that a lot of C that would make a lot of CTOs and a lot of CIOs nervous, is having a like a quota, right? Um like a salesperson would, right? Being under more pressure uh as opposed to the guy that's the technology guy and I love what I'm doing, and I'm you know, and I I definitely don't sleep at night thinking about ransomware and all these different things. Um, but how do you tie yourself to the business uh results-wise? And do you even understand how to do that? I think sometimes it's kind of like this like glossing over. I I wouldn't even know where to begin.

SPEAKER_00 12:32

You know, I want to, I want to uh talk about something you just said there, and some of the things I would think about that um seeing uh along to Jess's question about like help helping IT leaders get that level, is I think it's really a lot of IT people need to like I want to understand the business you're working in, right? They go, okay, I'm good at IT, I'll make sure you know viruses and so forth, but then they say, Well, well, how are you going to sell more? How are you gonna be more efficient? How are you like if you say I want to put you in you mentioned the zero trust or whatever me, if we're gonna do this, what impact does it have the business? Well, is it reputation that you're not gonna get in the papers for being hacked? Is it is it is it a requirement for being uh compliant for a certain thing? You're uh your biotech or your uh uh finance. Like we have to be compliant, or we or it's a customer, you get a big customer, some of the bigger if you're an enterprise to get a big customer, they say, Well, we need to make sure you're secure and you're this and that, and and be able for an executive to say, Yep, we're all set. My IT people did that, right? So these asking these questions, like, how can we, what's important to you, you know, a quota like, okay, you want to sell faster, okay? Let me help you with the CRM and all that. Because IT has right now, as you know, IT is in everything, right? And I think it's uh just asking that question, really understanding the business, I think goes it really helps them.

SPEAKER_02 13:58

Collaborating, working together. Like, how can I, you know, how can I help you do your job better, faster with technology? Like if there is, you know, uh yeah, really asking them what their biggest challenges are and helping fill those gaps. As far as selling the the zero trust thing and stuff like that, how to make that I don't know, exciting when it's announced. I mean, it got approved, right? Like it the money got approved. We know that we need it, we know these things, right? Like everything that you just said. Um, but then when it actually does get approved, how do we make it so that they're like, yes? Um it's it's it's a matter of really kind of being everyone's like friend. Maybe have a newsletter. I was thinking about this day. I'm gonna force people, I'm gonna force my integrator to write an AI, he's really good with AI. I mean, like he is way above everyone else. I think he could easily be recruited and paid $300,000 a year and stolen from me. Greg, that's Greg. Don't sell him stuff. Yeah, like I think it's like, but it's kind of but if I ask him to like start like doing like some kind of like post on social media, he's like using like AI to do it, and it comes out like really lame, right? Like, so I'm like, I'm I'm going to Greg, I'm just so you know, I'm gonna force you to do this every day next week, which is which is you have to write a post, and you're not allowed to use AI to write the post. But the post has to be about AI, right? And it's gotta be, it has to be. This is a little I um I used to write this eat this daily email all the time, and it was kind of crazy, and I want to kind of get back to that, but I want him to do this daily AI post, and it has to be entertaining, it has to be educational, and it has to elevate. It has to do these three things, right? So from that from the entertaining piece, it could be a meme, it could be some other stupid thing that we've seen about AI today. It could be the next screenshot of some guy on LinkedIn trying to sell me some AI transformation thing. It could be any number of these things that's like like, hey, look what um, look what this guy did with AI today to get him fired, right? Like that would be like the subject line, right? It's gotta be entertaining number one. Educational, because he knows more about this stuff than like anyone. It's like crazy. It's like, let's build a like, let's build a bot, like let's build an agent today. You know, something about like, hey, look what I did today. And you're like, oh my gosh, he's so far ahead of me. What do I do? But it's so, but I just learned a lot um of how to integrate with this and and build that. And then it's got to elevate. And you know what's really weird is that I noticed that the companies that were doing this spelled, you know, spent way too many tokens on this. And from what I see from that, it's like AI is not gonna really be anywhere in the next five years. Like whatever it is, right? I'm gonna make him do that post every day next week in the community, but it has to have those three things and it can't be written with AI. And what if the CTO or the CIO did that and had that kind of like fun relationship with his company, was kind of seen as like the company guy, like the guy, whatever it is. We have another guy that's like super hippie, he's like me, like from back in the day before like I got my life together. And we're gonna call him like hippie AI guy. I was thinking of adding him to the I was thinking of adding him. He's like so deep into AI, you know. It's just like, but he's like at the same time, like out in like the earth, and like he's knows so much about herbs and flowers, and like we'll be walking down the street together. I love working.

SPEAKER_01 17:40

Well, that's a very healthy balance so insane repeater.

SPEAKER_02 17:46

Yeah, he's like if you take that leaf and you put it in here and you make a tea out of it, and then you mix this in, but don't eat the berry because that's bad. Like, you know, it's very good for like you know, this, you know, he'll like he has like a like a natural remedy for everything. Anywho, but he's like really, really good at AI and he's in all these groups. I was gonna add hippie. So if I one thing would be is have a newsletter, I would think like an internal company newsletter, other things that have come up on the show before. People had an IT, like an IT tech bar, like a little lounge area in the company where someone, one of the staff had to work every week, and people could come in and ask questions and sit down and chill out and drink coffee or something like that. Something to really kind of like connect and be like, dude, I love you. There's no way we're ever getting rid of you, and like we need you, and like look at what you helped me do. You know, so if it's if it's entertaining, you give someone to help do their job better, and then you actually kind of like make them like think deeply about life. And it came from the IT guy. It wasn't an idea. I don't know, we're just making this up as we do as we go here right now.

SPEAKER_01 18:46

It's so interesting to me that your solution really sounds so much like marketing.

SPEAKER_02 18:51

And like creative writer, like a creative writer that works.

SPEAKER_01 18:59

A lot of what you're talking about is like marketing strategy, and that may be a hat that you know is not possible.

SPEAKER_02 19:06

IT guys have to sell. So the answer is yeah, you gotta learn the same. I'm a secret, I'm a secret sales guy that's like pretends to be like an IT guy. That's really what I mean. But it's very obvious. It's very obvious.

SPEAKER_01 19:16

Yeah, that's interesting. Now, you I want to go back to something you had said before. You you gave an example. Um, I don't know if it was hypothetical or if this is like a real person that you worked with who did a stellar job at their company, everything was going so great, and then all of a sudden they're let go. Now that's a real story. So sad, and I'm sure it happens a lot. Do you think because if I were in the position of someone looking for a role like that, that would be really discouraging to think if I do too well, if I make everything happy, I may lose my job. You know, I'm I'm just curious, is it from your perspective, more about everything's going so well? So from a budget standpoint, we want to cut that makes like is IT always the first place you feel like they look to cut from a budget perspective, or is it something else? Like, what would make that decision?

SPEAKER_02 20:12

The statistics definitely don't show that. Um, because I think the average company spends 27% more in IT every year.

SPEAKER_01 20:25

So it's just so interesting to me to let someone go that seems to have done such a stellar job. And if that is something that happens so often, I'm curious as to why. And is it just a lack of relationship building? There wasn't that.

SPEAKER_02 20:37

If you want, I'll pull up the actual text that I got in a message. I was gonna see if I could find the actual I have let's let's actually because when I say it as skeptical because it's just another guy saying it, when when you hear the actual words um of a human, right? Um just stand just standard corporate boilerplate stuff. We're going in a different direction, looking for new leadership, cultural changes. They provided some context about how I push back on their decisions, but that's the radical candor required from leaders. So not sure if that's a bad thing. Um other stuff that's not important. Um but yeah. And happen to know for a fact um that this person made a massive difference and helped grow the company significantly. Of course, he got hired like immediately right away, somewhere else, and is making a massive difference over there. Um, but you know, that could be anyone. That could be any corporate, who knows? That could be any corporate politics or something like that. But the feedback was pushed back too much. So there's this dynamic a lot of times in IT. We you know they do need to learn to sell. They need to learn to sell. And that could be who knows? Need to learn to sell. Overcome objections properly. Uh, because if you can't overcome objections and make people see things or understand or you know tie things together to the dream um and the vision of the company, then you're just gonna come off as um yeah, pushy or jerky or not like you know, not part of the team, or like who knows? Like who knows, right? But at the end of the day, CEOs and people are still getting sold by sales reps and Gartner Magic Quadrant and Insight this and insight that and AI this and AI that. And one of the things that IT leaders have to deal with a lot is hey, we just signed for this new ERP. We need that implemented in uh by March, please. Uh, where was I on that decision? And that's impossible, and this doesn't implement with any of the things that we do. This is a disaster. Um, well, then you're not part of the team. Um, I think we need to go another direction. And then you know, like who knows where the company and then like the company really experiences something that does happen like every day. So again, this is not about IT versus the business or business versus IT. It's about IT not being a separate entity, having a seat at the executive round table, and actually being heard. And if we're not being, and if we don't know how to be heard, or we don't know how to sell ourselves or market ourselves to your point. Um, and again, humans, you know, make decisions based on emotion and then back it up with logic, right? Um, we need to understand all these things. And IT people tend to be very, very logical. That doesn't make sense. He's an idiot. You know, like I'm not saying, like, you know, I'm not saying that's what it is because, you know, Brian, you're a very kind person, and I happen to know that you're very logical and like uh technical. I mean, what do you run into? I mean, you have the idea, you have the dynamic in your company, you're all IT guys.

SPEAKER_00 24:05

Right.

SPEAKER_02 24:06

Well, the thing that That's gotta be very interesting.

SPEAKER_00 24:09

That came to my mind when you were telling a story was that the culture of that company may have a problem, right? Because I think that uh, like you mentioned, oh, just get this ERP. I mean, I we've seen that with with some of our customers. Like you walk in and it's a disaster. What happened? Well, we you know, so and so signed this contract and we and and the IT, everyone left an IT and they need that, we come in to try to solve problems. But I think that really that that's amazing. I mean, yeah, well, we we but I I didn't uh we have a thing called chaos to clarity, and like people say, Hey, we're in chaos, can you help us? And so we like, yeah, we're jumping and with our fire suits, and and but uh but I think the the culture element, which I think when you're interviewing, sure you want a job, but maybe it's a company's cool, but effective leaders are going to hopefully hire you because you know what you're doing, and they they realize that uh everybody should have be empowered to make these decisions, right? And that's not always the case in businesses.

SPEAKER_02 25:06

Uh what's interesting is that actually was the scenario here. That was the scenario. That was like, hey, I've known you for years. Um we need help over here. I know you're the right guy. We've I mean, so like for I I think it actually started off that way. So we who knows? I mean, there's like a thousand reasons as to why things don't work out in life, you know what I mean? It's like it's like why people go through divorces and like after 30 years and like all this different stuff, and people change and things change and everything morphs, and that's fine. Uh, but for the you know, for the sake of you know, IT leadership, getting a seat at the executive round table and being heard, we're trying to move the, we're trying to um like yeah, move the bar and bring in this the missing skill set, right? Which is I I think at the end of the day, yeah, learning to sell yourself, market yourself, executive brand yourself, and really connect um with other people in the company and help them do their job better and drive the business forward. Don't just be the guys that keep the blinky lights on and don't just like make the excuse of we've always been a cost center, we will be a cost center. That's just the nature of the business. You know, and it is probably and it does depend on the organization. Oil and gas, for example, very, very hard to move the bar on technologies of business force multiplier there because the margins are so small and everything when it comes to like commodity stuff. Um, but yeah, you could, I mean, you could potentially have trucks be a lot more efficient on the road and you know, and all kinds of different things.

SPEAKER_01 26:46

So you've had hundreds probably, if not more, conversations with different IT leaders. Are there any major takeaways or themes that you would say you've, you know, taken from those conversations that you could share?

SPEAKER_02 27:00

Yeah, that's kind of how we got where we were, right? That was like obviously, first of all, the the number one, the number one thing after is that you've been putting out fires, you know, forever. When everything's on fire, you're the most valuable person. When everything's running like a well-oiled Tesla, you're a cost center. That's that's one. Um and uh obviously selling security is a is a big thing. It's easier nowadays when there's more problems and everything. I think that's people are coming around to that one. Um understanding that AI is not like Terminator 2 or something like that. The big thing right now is is AI and how are we going to implement AI and and where do we start? And I think some of the themes that come up there is like what's your what's your AI roadmap and AI journey? And I think that's we've got that one nailed down, I think, pretty quick, which is uh it's five steps. Number one is what's your AI steering committee, right? Bringing in all the stakeholders. Make sure we have all the stakeholders in the company for your AI steering committee. And this might be an opportunity to really to do what we were just talking about, which is be heard and get, you know, and really be kind of like that leader in the company. Put together an AI steering committee to educate and help people understand the reality kind of of AI and what it is. Number two, oh, what was number two on the roadmap? Um, what challenges are we trying to solve with AI? What's the actual challenge? Is it worth? Is it even a number one challenge, right? What are the number one challenges of the business right now? So we don't end up using AI as like the hammer, and we're just going around hammering walls and putting holes in everywhere, right? Making sure that we really know that there's like it's business first, it's not AI first. Like we've got AI, we have to have it. We gotta have it. What are we gonna use it for? I have no clue. You know, it's like, no, like we need to know what our major challenges are first. And is there something in AI that can help implement that challenge? Number three would be data, I think. Do we even have the data cleaned up to be able to even do this, right? Uh, data management to help us solve this problem. Four is guardrails and security. Um, is this gonna be leaking valuable company data to the public? Number five is uh ROI. If we do all of this, after we've paid for it all, done all the developing, we got the RO, is there ROI? We're paying for tokens and we're doing all this. We've got these agents doing this. Is it gonna screw up customer service? Is it gonna do all this? And is it is it even worth it? Um at the end. So um that was uh like that's a common theme coming up a lot. I can imagine, yeah, lately. Like everyone wants to talk about like, what are you doing? What are we doing? What are people hearing? Um, other themes, like old themes that I think are just always gonna flow through the industry in general, are like the top themes and struggles that every IT leader is ever gonna deal with. Um, if you ask every single IT leader when it comes to uh IT leadership in your organization, what's your single biggest frustrate, frustration, problem, or concern? I love this because it's just like it allows people to just think and be like, ah, this. Uh, I would say that one out of four people will say training, we don't want to say end users, but training customers. Customers for the IT guys, the internal employees, right? So training their customers, showing people how to use technology, right? Every time you replace a piece of technology, you're gonna have the metaphorical Sally that sat up front that's like, this is not the old key system that I used to use. This is like, or now I've got to use a mouse and click on this, or I've got to use a tablet for truckers out in the industry that we're always used to using paper. Uh, you know, it's like training end users is going to be that and training and understanding how your end users actually use the technologies because you'll find that they use technology in a way that it wasn't meant to be used, and then you'll be like, wow, that's too many. You know, uh two would be um silos, technology silos. Every company has them. Um, what is stopping us from upgrading the silos? Time, problems, issues. If an A broke, don't fix it. Our old ERP has been that way, all the new ones are terrible. There's no way we could go to Salesforce, blah blah blah. It's it's silos. I'm sure you see that a lot, uh, Brian. Um three is just taking decision direction in this crazy, fast-changing world. How do we take how do we take a decision direction? And and that can we have projects, right? Like every IT department might have 25, 50 projects going on. There's no way they can finish them all. If they finished every project, it's like 2050, and then half those projects are already like uh obsolete. Like, is it it's like how do we manage, how do we kind of like that's an operational, like business-minded thing. It's like you're you are an IT guy, you're now the IT director, you're that you're the CTO, and maybe you never had any business experience, you have no clue about you know project management, you've got a Kanban board, you're doing this thing. It's like that's taking decision direction can be difficult for anyone, even that is like a you know, super agile nerd, right? Um, so that's another one. What is the fourth one? There's a there's a fourth one that I'll I'll think of here in a second, but those are some of the themes that that come up. You know, how do you deal with that? Um, you know, hiring the right people, keeping the right, you know, hiring and keeping the right people on your team. How do you hold on to really, really good people? How do you develop them, not make sure that they feel stock? Um, am I answering your question?

SPEAKER_01 32:28

I yeah, no, you are, and it's interesting because a lot of what you're talking about are things that Brian often talks about with hiring the right people and creating a culture where people want to stay. And um, so I'm curious, Brian, you know, what what you might have to add to that conversation.

SPEAKER_00 32:45

Well, I I I love that feel fill's uh like you have field experience without being in the like you're not in the trenches with these people, you're talking to all these people and you're absorbing their their pains. And there's some common ones there.

SPEAKER_02 32:59

And I uh well, my job is to help make those go away. And I think one of the problems with IT leadership as well is they don't want to let go. How many companies do you know that are like okay with like someone else managing their cybersecurity? The ones that are like overloaded and only have one, they're only a team of two, but they got 1,500 end users. Like I don't really have the I would love to do my own cybersecurity, but I can. I don't care. So please help me, help me, help me. So the team that does have all the right people, how do we, you know, some people don't want to let go or let other people help them.

SPEAKER_00 33:33

Yeah, well, that's that's uh that is a real challenge. And I and I can I from for me firsthand, even you know, 19 years ago starting the company and did everything, and like just letting hiring people like, oh, this person has a good idea, let them go. And and but, but I like this idea better. I'm really and I and I've I've struggled with that myself. And uh boy, you you don't want to ask me to do any IT stuff in our company anymore because uh these guys know way better than me. But if I were like, you know, I think we should get let's go back to Unix and this and whatever, and they're gonna say, Thank you, thank you, Brian. That's that's nice.

SPEAKER_02 34:06

Yeah, so if I was gonna ask you though, so as an old, you know, an old hat um that's run a it's it's not easy to run a successful MSP, right? It's not. I I I was in that world for a very, very long time. Um, you know, and one of the problems that a lot of MSP owners is like, they're just I want to be out on my own, right? Are you sure? Are you sure they won't charge enough? Uh they'll be the first, they'll be the race to the bottom on pricing that try to beat somebody else. Uh then they'll be miserable and working a ton. Um, I think you might have some insight into you've had a lot of very, very smart people work for you. And this is for like, you know, maybe some because we're gonna share this episode as well, and some CTOs are gonna listen to maybe they're thinking I want to start an MSP. Maybe they got you know, um but it's this app this applies to um any company internally. How do you deal with losing or you might have to lose, meaning get rid of a really, really talented person?

SPEAKER_00 35:09

Yeah, well I have uh yes. Uh we've had, I think of I could think of two specific examples um that we where we had this happen to us.

SPEAKER_02 35:19

Uh one of them But not only that, but someone that's like close, like you've been working for a long time. There's like, you know, I know you're talented, but it's not the job, it's not there anymore. The vibe's not there anymore. It's like, what is it? You know, what do you think?

SPEAKER_00 35:31

Yeah, well, we we've we've have some people, we've had uh at least a person that was I call them a uh high performing jerk, essentially like, but they're they're high performing, but they're they don't they don't mesh with the culture. They they think you think they do. So sometimes partying with them, like you realize, oh gosh, they're doing so much for the company, but they're the the the challenges around the cultural element is causing so you when they when they go and you like you're surprised, wow, it's better. Sometimes, like we're a small company, right? We're 24 people. Uh we've had somebody who leave left and they like you know, they were so ambitious, they just wanted to rise up the ladder and like we don't have those positions for you yet. Like we'll we'll grow into them, we want to try to give you growth opportunities. And and so sometimes you lose those people that are like rock stars and and they they just have to jump to the bigger thing, and you have to let them go and just part ways nicely. But I think uh what we've learned out of that is that um in a typical corporation, like uh you're an MSP and a lot of people are consultants and they're doing customer-level work. Not everybody has to go up the typical, they think of the typical management chain. Well, I'm gonna go up to manager and VP and this and that. Like you've got to make a really awesome technical track for them so they can go, you know what, I want to be the the killer, I want to be a senior or advisory or like make some levels for them so they they have a they still have a really good impact on the business. So I don't know if I answered your question, but that was a great question. I just think that yeah, running MSP is difficult. And I think if somebody wants to do that, if you have a CTO's like I could do this, just just uh as they grow in their business, make sure that they're not the most, they're not the best technical person on the team. If you want to grow the team, you've got to become the sales and leadership and empowerment and so forth. I if you would talk to a number of your MSPs and you say, who's the best person on your team? And they're and they have like 10, 15 people and they say, I'm the best technical person on the team, that's a problem.

SPEAKER_02 37:28

That's what we're trying to get at. And um, it's like yeah, I think you'd find that a lot of the good IT leaders out there are not the best um Fortinet network program or I don't know, Fortin manager, something like that. I don't know. GUI just throwing some random terms.

SPEAKER_00 37:55

LOM, I don't know, some other act.

SPEAKER_02 38:00

Uh D Dock effect. Yeah. Um I don't I don't know if this is, I hope this is enlightening for you guys. I could talk all day, whatever you want to do.

SPEAKER_01 38:10

No, it is. I I'm actually curious. I want to, and this can be for both of you, but I'll start with you, Phil. You know, a lot of what you're we've just kind of started talking about is, you know, hiring the right people and having, you know, great people that are super smart and add a lot of value to your business and to your clients. A lot of that I think comes back to leadership and how you lead and the culture that you're creating. And so in our, you know, pre-call, because I I don't know you, you know, before this, um you were sharing just a lot about your life, your eight children, your grandchildren, you're into health and surfing, jujitsu, and all while building businesses. And so I'm curious how all these different aspects of your life kind of contribute to how you lead and build culture yourself.

SPEAKER_02 38:54

I have found miraculously enough, and I've I'm kind of going back, I I go through um I go through waves of work and non-work, and I go through waves of like creative waves where I'll have like a month out of the year where I'm just like really deep into like learning a certain aspect of the business, or I'm back into like, you know, finding a new coach or reading or something. And right now I'm reading it. Clockworks, this book has sat on my shelf forever. I've like I'll go and buy like a ton of books, right? And then I'm like, I'm gonna read all these, and I'll be on Amazon, buy this, this, this. And then um, and what I've kind of realized is that when you restrict your time and you make sure, because I'm like notoriously an imbalanced person, I'll be like, I'm a roller coaster with with health and wellness as well. Like right now, I'm on a gain. Um, like, but I'll be down to like 9% body fat, like 160 pounds. But right now I'm trying to get up to like 205 or something, you know, and I'll be like, I'm a notorious roller coaster for various different reasons. Same thing with this other stuff. And what I've found is that balance is important in the things that are really important to you, you have to make time for. And when you're running a business, you're running uh or you're a big-time CTO or something, the harder you work, like time will always give it to you. Like, I think the hard, like if you keep working, like there'll be more to do. There's never a there's never like an end to it, right? Um, and I don't know if I agree with this like hormosey thing. Like he has this thing called like a 12 by 30. He's like, do a 12 by 30, work 12 hours a day for 30 days straight. He's like, I've done like a you know, like a 12 by 100 and and and stuff like this, and he does these different things, and you'll have other business, and I think that would work if I knew what I was doing all the time, but a lot of times you need to make time for strategy or learning or these different things. And maybe he's saying that's part of the time as well. But what's really crazy is I've noticed that sometimes where I've just said, screw it, I'm just gonna work from the beach for this month, and I'm gonna put in as much surfing time and time with my family as I want. But some of those months have been my most productive months. That's really cool. And I think it's because instinctively I know what I know what I know and I know what I need to do when I only have four hours in the day to work. And those four hours are very productive. I get done exactly what I need to get done. I'm delegating properly, I'm, you know, like dialed in. But when I go to, all right, we're gonna work really hard for like three months, there's an exhaust, a point of exhaustion where you're not really, you're kind of just mentally drained in not being effective. And then all the people around you see it and you lash out at other people and you're like, ah, I need to get this done. You know, it's just like you're just not as effective. So I don't know. That's me. I left the I had the idea of leaving the corporate world years ago when I read the four-hour work week by Tim Ferris. Um, I was getting up, I was working in outside of DC at the time. Um, I had the twins had just been born. So I had two, it was funny. I was talking about the stay because I kind of remember holding my two kids like like in the hand like this, like crazy small, like four pounds each, you know. And um, and then I think they lost, you know how like after well, I don't know, after you have a child, like they lose that, they lose weight like the first week. So they got down to like actually under four pounds. And I remember like holding my two kids like freaking out, like I'm holding two lives in my hands, you know. Um, and so that was the time in my life where I was getting up at 5 30 in the morning and getting home at 7 30 or 8 o'clock at night as a sales manager for this that Cisco startup. And I was I remember I got promoted, I left Colorado, flew overnight. I was flying in the airplane with like two cats in these bags, and they're like I was like really embarrassed on the plane, and I tried to open up the bag to like kind of like pet one of the cats, and I was like, I was like scratching my like, you know, I'm gonna get back in the bag, you know. I'm like, it's gonna get loose. And then, like, I remember I landed in this place that I didn't know where I was in Washington, DC, and we had temporary housing, and my wife was in Texas with her mom, and I was by myself with the cats, and I had to find this place in McLean, Virginia, like two o'clock in the morning. It was raining like crazy, and DC is super crowded, and I'm in a rental car, and I got to this place, and I just remember going to bed. I don't know how we got in this story, but it's I'm gonna keep going. I love it. Um, I got you know, I got into this apartment at two o'clock in the morning, it's raining, and I knew I had to go in to this new office that had been opened up because I got moved to we're opening up a new market, and I had to go into this office the next day, meet the general manager. The director of HR. And I had to run a sales meeting with a brand new sales team of 12 people that had already been there for a couple months, but they were consolidating teams. And now there's this new boss coming in. Me. And I've been on a plane getting scratched up by some cats. And it's two o'clock in the morning. And I don't even know how to get there the next day. And I just remember calling my wife. I'm like, I don't know what I'm gonna do. I'm like on the verge of tears, yelling, I don't know, the cats are in the apartment, and they're like all night long. And you're like trying to sleep, and you've got all this on your mind, and you're like, holy crap. Um somehow I went into that meeting and like nailed it, and like we were the number one team for like ever. No one ever broke our records, and then the company sold. Um, no, it's to this day, no one broke any of those records we did. It was like we called it Teams Bites Out. And I remember telling people, if you like, you know, like if you just go help enough other people get what they want, you'll get what you want. And like if you can just learn to do this job, you'll never learn, you'll never have to worry about money again. Um what was the question? How am I getting to where we were? I was like, oh, talking about it.

SPEAKER_01 45:09

I thought I was going a different direction because Oh, I know what it was.

SPEAKER_02 45:13

I know what it was. It was like, so I was going in at 5 30 in the morning every day and coming home at eight o'clock, like exhausted, and just doing that over and over again. But for some reason, like I had the energy and it was great, and I knew exactly what to do, and I knew exactly what to execute on every day. Like we had like a model, I knew how to train people, I knew how to bring people up. And like when you have everything in place, when you have like you know what to do, then you can execute on that like very, very, very well all the time. So I guess the moral of that story is um get all your systems in place, and um, then you'll really, really, you know, kick butt. Um, but you don't have to, and then oh, I read the four-hour work week. Oh, and the four-hour work weeks, like I was like, what do you mean there's a guy that can work four hours a week? Like I'm getting up at 5 30 and coming home at eight o'clock. And one of the little lines in the book was, you know, you start by asking your boss if you can work from home like, you know, like one day. And that was at the point where then I left direct, I left the sales director, sales management role, and I end went over to the channel, which is looked upon as like the dark side in sales, right? Because you got to work with people like Brian and all the vendors that are stealing all the direct person's deals when in reality they're the dark side, you know what I mean? So I I learned to work with like uh then I was working with people that owned their own businesses, uh, people like Brian. And uh I learned a ton more, and I was able to realize at that point, oh, you don't need to go into the office and sit in two hours of traffic every day. You can actually work on Zoom and various different products like that. Um, so I'm a big proponent of work from home stuff. And then I kind of just like, I don't know, bit by bit, realized started to optimize my life for uh the family. And so now, because I believe it's really, really important to be able to spend time with your family. I did not want to be going into work at 4:30 in the morning, coming home at 8 o'clock at night with um, it was six kids at the time, not then eight kids. And I just kind of kept going from there. Optimize, optimize, optimize. How much more can I not go into the office yet still deliver even better? So, like my thing was like to my boss, I said, Hey, look, I did exactly what Tim Ferriss said. He said, I said, Hey, how about this? I want to try a little something. I um don't come into the office anymore, or I'm just gonna come into the office half the time, but I will deliver 10% more. Literal, like dollar figures to the bottom line. Sure, let's try it. I delivered like 20% more. I was like, how about I never come into the office ever again and I continue to deliver 20% more? Sure, don't give a crap what you do, Phil. Keep doing that. You know what I mean? It was so yeah, I don't know what the moral of the story is there. It's like, yeah, you asked me about like balance and doing all that. And I think I learned somehow how to be highly efficient, but there's still this idea, this disease in uh people's minds that if I just sit down and grind in front of a computer screen all day, like something's gonna happen. No, you need to be smart about things.

SPEAKER_00 48:26

Well, you know, you're you're a high performer, you still are, and that you you're you basically asked your boss be to be empowered to deliver results at however you want to deliver them, right? And you know your objectives, and so you know, if you were super efficient, it's like you know, and he said, Oh, I could do this in four hours of super focused work. And at the end, I I would also say that you know, the surfing and the spending time with the family. I might have some of my greatest thoughts, but I call them shower thoughts. I'm like, I'm like just chilling in the shower, and you go, Oh, that's the that's all I should do. When you're grinding all day, you don't you don't you don't take a step back and go, wait, what am I doing? It's insane, or whatever. So that I think that cut off.

SPEAKER_02 49:05

I want the shower recorder. I really want a button on the wall in the shower. I figured out how to do it on my on my iPhone uh watch or whatever you call this thing. Like I pushed the little the new button is like the recorder.

SPEAKER_00 49:15

Okay, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 49:16

So these it's like why I think about you in the shower. That's like a famous Ben Ben Settle subject line. No, it's a really good email subject line. Why I think about you in a shower. Someone's gonna read that. It's like okay. I was talking about you, I was in the shower today, I was thinking about you, and then the subject of AI came up.

SPEAKER_01 49:31

I mean, I'd be curious, yeah. I'd click on that for sure.

SPEAKER_02 49:34

It's a good like that's a good everybody. That's your that's a good email to send out from the IT guy. From the IT guy. Why I was thinking about you in the shower this morning, everyone would be like, what? HR will be like, oh, I want to see what this is.

SPEAKER_00 49:48

I was gonna say approved.

SPEAKER_01 49:52

It's interesting. We had a guest on uh Dora Farkas who um was actually talking about the science behind a lot of what you're talking about, Phil, but this balance and this ability to step away and have, you know, being able to pour into things that pour back into you, which is your life. And it's this, you know, going from living to work to the opposite. And I think that in my opinion, there's a big wave that has been happening that's shifting, you know, in that direction more, where more people are starting to be more aware and not wanting to feel like it's just that they're living to work and they're wanting to have more balance. But I think it does require leadership and culture that supports that, which can be tricky.

SPEAKER_02 50:36

I work to live. Yeah, I work to live, not live to work.

SPEAKER_01 50:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 50:39

Uh famous line. Yeah. And if we want to go down the the um predictions of where AI is gonna take us, um it could be the ultimate utopia. Like if AI becomes so efficient, it might be to the point where it's just like money might not be a thing.

SPEAKER_01 51:01

I've heard that. It's a possibility. There's like there's different projections, right?

SPEAKER_02 51:05

And I've heard that in the positive side, and that could be very appealing to just I mean, if it's producing food and automated farming and like all kinds of stuff like that, like what are humans gonna do? Like live create creative mind. I mean, it's just like um yeah, I just I think it's a possibility. I think that could be the key to I think that could be the key to the future. Now, in the meantime, all of us have to like work hard. But if you think about it, like when I talk with my father, I talk with some other people that lived through like the World War II or World War I era, you know, it was just like some things were so grudgingly hard. Like my grandfather was a he's a P he was a pediatrician before the age of penicillin. Whoa. Like, think about that. Like it's not that old long ago, like penicillin. I mean, we were around before the dawn of the internet. Like, I try to like explain some of that stuff to my kids when I talk about why I think we didn't really land on the moon, and everyone gets all worked up about that. We didn't land on the moon, you know. Like, did you see the computers we were using back then? It's 220,000 miles away. And you think like we couldn't even make an iPhone work back then, let alone fly some tinfoil to the moon and land it with a joystick. Um I just like saying that because all kinds of people worked up in science.

SPEAKER_01 52:26

My nephew talks about vintage technology and it breaks my heart because it's like VHS. So, like, oh gosh, vintage. Um, Phil, I feel like you are such a fascinating person. I am so curious if there is something interesting or surprising about you that you could share with listeners.

SPEAKER_02 52:49

I um I'm nothing, to be honest with you. Like, I'm just I'm just another man. I'm just like another man on the face of this earth trying to figure it out. We're all working hard. Um, there is no uh I think anyone's lying to you that says like life's not hard. That's like kind of like the thing. And I was I was um we remember we remember the pain that we went through more than we remember like a lot. I mean, there's like I remember my kids being born, like I remember getting married, like I'm like those things, right? But for the majority of us, like a lot of our meaning in life comes from overcoming a lot of obstacles and and and difficulties. And I don't think that that's there's not me saying that's nothing special, right? I'm just like everyone else from that standpoint. Um, I was a dork in high school. I walked with my head down, I couldn't talk to a single person, and I was terrified to talk to anyone. Girls scared the crap out of me. Um, I was literally like, you know, just like a frozen individual. Um, so I think a lot of people would find that um like a like I try to tell my kids. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 53:53

You're a very out, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 53:54

Yeah, yeah, like no for real. Like I could not like up until junior year, like I didn't like until yeah, it was just like that that was my high school life. Um it was I don't, you know, I think when I was up until high school, I was kind of like this like kind of like hyperactive kid that maybe wasn't like that much that like people are like, oh my god, shut up. Um that's still the truth. Um, and then how did I overcome that in high school? I think I just like I just think for teenagers and stuff, it's just difficult growing up. I think you just grow up, to be honest with you. Um I you know, working at tech, you know, I got a job at a contact center in in um in uh college, quest wireless. And I remember every time you force yourself to kind of do something that's like difficult, like, oh my god, I gotta answer all these phone calls now and talk with people. I got really good at that, and uh I enjoyed it. So then I started like talking with people on the phone. Like I like I'm a huge proponent of the phone. I think we do not use the phone much anymore. Like the phone is like um so I got good talking on the phone, then I got married, and like somehow I got conned into thinking like a salary position at Starbucks is like so much better than making $12 an hour at the call center. I loved the contact center. Starbucks was so difficult. But I learned how to hire people, I learned how to fire people, I learned how to manage a PL. I learned flow through profit, I learned all the pain and suffering of a small business owner. And I think that that's what um and I learned to like how to drive sales there too. And that was kind of like my first inkling that maybe like sales is the key, right? Like I think uh Mark, whatever, who's the Mark, uh, whatever the dude from Shark Tank, Mark uh the the Cuban. Like Mark Cuban says sales fix all problems. He's right. Just drive sales, you know what I mean? Like you've got a bunch of like customers leaving. Okay, like don't chase replace, like replace it. You know what I mean? Like sales fix all problems. Like I got like this inkling into that. Um, and when you work at Starbucks, you're like everyone's local psychologist. You literally know everything about everyone, you know who's married to who, who's got this problem, who just got out of jail. And then um I had to move to that Cisco startup, and I remember going, don't do it, don't do it. It's like it's gonna be a fishing net approach. Like they hire a bunch of people and they just see who will stick. It's a total churn and burn, it's a boiler, boiler room, this, that. I was like, I already took the job, man. Like, no, man, I've got to move forward. Like, you know, like I was like listening to Tony Robbins at the time or something, you know. I was like, that's what like kind of like made me and like you gave me the inkling. And when I got there, it was like totally a churn and burn. It was totally a boiler room. It was totally like we hire 70 people, let's see if three stick. And I was like, dude, I've got two kids right now, like my wife's pregnant. Like, I've got to be the guy. That's it. And I remember being we had to hit, we had to go cold call. So for everyone out there getting cold called, they're like, Yeah, don't ever call back again. No soliciting, click, click, click, right? Like that was it, like getting kicked in the teeth, gatekeepers. Oh, I was just so like I remember the first week I was just like putting my head down on the steering wheel. I was like, dude, this model doesn't work. What are they talking about? You know, like all the old stupid sales tricks, like going to give them the Heisman. Yeah, I need to speak to the president owner, give them the Heisman, the hand in the face, but could you grab them for me, please? Thank you. And then you'll turn around and sit down, like, oh, Karen up front's like, get the hell out of here. We shoot every last third sales rep, right? I was like, you know, I had to figure out how to be successful doing that. And I was like, you just got to help other people make their day. You've got to get people smiling, you've got to ask five really good questions, and you've got to help other people solve a problem. And then I ended up getting the nickname Fill the Need. Um but uh the but it was like really like you know, that like really embracing the getting comfortable being uncomfortable. I think is like the I think was like what got me out of that. Embracing getting comfortable being uncomfortable because the otherwise you just get you you go deeper into this anxiety hole, and then the next thing you know, you're like that guy that's like hiding never comes out of his house and is just sitting in front of like the TV or something. There's a lot of people like that, yeah. Terrified of their own shatter, right? Like so scared, like just embrace it. Like, just go out and just like don't give a crap, care about others. I used to like always say, like, tell say to everybody like before you talk with anyone, like it's all about them, it's all about them. Help them, help them, help them. It's all about them. And then that takes all the anxiety away. Same with public speaking, I noticed. People are terrified of public speaking, right? Go out there and make it all about them. It's not about you, like the more terrified you are, that's like very selfish, right? But the more you make it about them, it's less selfish. What can you give back to them? And then if you really want, just put them on the spot. Because who's more terrified? The guy on stage or the person in the audience getting called out by the guy on stage. Sure. You right there. Yes, you with the red jacket on. Uh, stand up, please. Like, you know, it's like, uh so I don't, I don't know. Just it's make it all about other people, and then I think your life gets a lot better. Don't care about, you know, be be generous. The the more you give away, the more like that stuff. You'll just realize like that's it's just uh that's kind of like the key. The less you care about money, the more you find that it attracts you. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 59:27

That's uh that's a great, I mean, so it was it was it was uh a journey there in that question. But that was it was really, I think the the end really is uh I mean when you first started like having to make all this money to sort of work your family, and at the end it's like just uh be good to people. And uh I think seem that that seems to run through this entire conversation, right? Is is helping other people, being uh helping IT people helping your family and so forth.

SPEAKER_02 59:55

Yeah, yeah. I know I can tell you that's that's different about me, that uh everyone like I've literally had an insurance guy tell me, like, I can't talk to you anymore. I can never see you again because I feel responsible. Here's what's here's what here's what you can know about me. Um, I don't have a penny of debt. I believe within line living within your means. Uh I own every single thing I do. I will not take a loan. Um, I do not have home insurance, I do not have fire insurance. I only have insurance that I'm forced to have by law. And I realized that every time I had a kid, my family would be like, my dad's a urologist, okay? Um, my mom one time said at the dinner table, why don't you go in and see your dad on Friday? You know how awkward that is? For what, mom? Well, you've got so many kids, you know, you're gonna go broke, you're gonna be poor, and like that. Are you gonna keep having kids? You know, it was like this fear-mongering, you know. I do the opposite of what everyone tells me is like the idea of success. You've got to build a credit score. I have a zero credit score. I own two houses, I own all my cars. It's ridiculous that I don't have a credit score. Absolutely ridiculous. Um, what do I need it for, anyways? Um, the and a lot of people are like, oh, well, that's great for you, Phil. But I know, it's just like I used to live in a two-bedroom apartment with like on low income and low-income housing, and our only expenses are $90 a month. Um, just keep building this bit by bit because that relieves so much stress from your life. Like the less, you know what I mean? Like, I don't want to, I would, I can't imagine like some of my family members, like I'm living, like I know they're like triple over mortgaged, every car's bad. I'm like, dude, I'd be so stressed out. Um, so there's like something different about me that you might not know. But every time someone said, you know, don't have a kid, you're not gonna like this. Every time I had a kid, I had to get a job, a raise. Every time I had a kid, I got a raise, I got a promotion. Something else happened in my life because I feel that the Lord above provides for your children and provides for the people, not us. So every time I had a kid, it was like my life got better. So, and people, and I know we look like a crazy mob of people when we drive around with like a van, like a 15-passenger van, all the kids go out and we're in the supermarket. I know it looks crazy to us at um I know I was like, because I used to see people with five kids. I'm like, dude, how many kids do you have? Like I'd go over to their house, they had five kids, you know. It's like, I feel like there's people everywhere, and they're like, you know, and they're like, you know, if you ever go to a friend's house and they have five kids and they're serving you hors d'oeuvres or something like that, you know, you're like, dude, how many kids do you have? And you're like looking around, you know. And then I think, like, wait a second, I have eight. My family, my we must look crazy. And I got three grand. Now I have three grandchildren too, my oldest daughter. So like when they all come over, there's like a bunch of us.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:30

So I know it looks wild, but to us, it's it's only gonna be wilder because I have to add more grandchildren. You're gonna have a uh, you know, you're gonna go from a basketball team to an army, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:38

Like it's just a I hope so. That would be pretty crazy. I'm just hoping that, yeah, like all of this work, like I don't have to do anything, people just be taking care of me, like hey grandpa. Like, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:51

This is well, this is great, Phil.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:52

I and so it might be the other way around and be like, hey, can I get some help?

SPEAKER_00 1:02:56

Yeah, yeah. Well, Phil, like maybe this is a good uh a good end to this segment. It's uh or this this this podcast is really great. Um I've learned a lot and things that I've I've known you for a while, I learned some new things as well. I think our listeners really uh benefit from this. But uh for for listeners who um want to learn uh more about your podcast and your advisory work and and so forth, what where should they go?

SPEAKER_02 1:03:24

Uh you go to you've been heard.com. Literally, you've been heard.com. Uh Google it, it'll show up on uh iTunes as well, uh Spotify, all that type of stuff. Uh if you go to you've been heard.com, um all of our episodes are there. Um you can listen to all the episodes if you want. If you want to learn about the advisory, there's an advisory piece there too. Um, Gartner Level Insight without the six-figure price tag. Uh believe it or not, uh, there's a lot of CTOs and CIOs out there that pay anywhere from $80,000 to $120,000 for Gartner every year. And I've asked them, what do you get for that? Like, well, we get a few tickets to an event. Great, how are those events? Uh it's kind of a mixed bag of people. There's some noobs there. It's usually a sales presentation. Okay. Um, what else? We get the library of all their stuff, but I'm quite frankly, I'm a better Googler than that. Okay, well, what do you use them for then? Sanity checks, Phil. Every now and then I need a sanity check on a decision we're making. I'm like, well, we'll do a sanity check for you all day, all year long. We've got uh, you know, I don't know, 400 CTOs that have been on the show and have been through your problem probably three or four times, and we can sanity check all day long. And on top of that, um, we know we have our, you know, the the other pieces, like, well, what about the Gartner Magic Quadrant? Well, those are like little snapshots in time of a pay-to-play model of someone that's like, hey, look, Zoom is on the upper magic right hand quadrant of uh Gartner. Nothing against Zoom. I love Zoom. Uh we're a big partner with Zoom. Uh, but during COVID, you know, they're like upper right hand magic quadrant. But what will that not tell you? That will not tell you how overloaded their operations department is and how long it takes to get a deal installed, and who the secret people are behind the scenes that can help you, and who the VP of uh operations is on any particular department. And that's what we do and we do really, really well. So we keep our finger on the marketplace and what's really going on and help you find, buy, and manage one-stop shop, so to speak, uh, when it comes to all of your voice and data providers, internet providers, telecom, um Microsoft if you like. CSP is a little bit more of a, I'd actually rather send them to you and have you take care of them for the for the Microsoft licensing. Um, but you know, maybe Azure cost containment, stuff like that. Uh, but that's what we help people do is um really kind of sift sort and make the right decision when it comes to technology and have some sanity around that, without charging you a hundred and twenty thousand dollars a year to be a member of uh Gartner. Love you, Gartner. Um you're necessary. Um, but that's uh yeah, we're uh and then on top of all of that, we help CFOs and CTOs really grow their executive brand, get heard, and put them together in a room of their peers without a mixed bag of people, without sales reps in there, without um, you know, vendors or or um noobs or anything like that. Really put you together with your peers and collaborate, whether it be quarterly roundtable or just get on a podcast and talk. So if you guys go to the go to the website, um, you can certainly get a hold of us there. You can apply to be on the podcast. You can find me on LinkedIn as well, uh, Phil Howard. You've been heard. Uh DM me, reach out to me, and happy to um talk with anyone.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:39

Excellent. Thank you so much, Phil. I'll be linking your LinkedIn and your website in the show notes to make it a little easier for anyone listening to find you. Um today's conversation is a reminder that IT leadership is not just about tools, contracts, or infrastructure. It's about communication, trust, decision making, and helping the businesses understand the value behind the technology.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:02

And if you've enjoyed this episode and our awesome conversation with Phil, be sure to subscribe and visit ivotech.com for more conversations exploring leadership, culture, technology, and the human side of modern business. Thanks for listening. And until the next time, stay curious.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:18

Thank you for tuning in to the edge of excellence. We hope today's insights empower you to shape your future and rise to your full potential. Let's continue to grow, innovate, and lead, pushing the boundaries of excellence.