AI Profit Leaders
AI Profit Leaders is a strategy-driven podcast for business owners who want to turn AI into a competitive advantage. Hosted by Lindsey Badillo and Chris Wiser, each episode delivers real conversations and practical frameworks on how to use AI to grow revenue, sharpen messaging, build advisory authority, and scale smarter.
AI Profit Leaders
The Future of MSPs and AI Enablement for Small Businesses
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In this episode of the AI Profit Leaders Podcast, host Lindsey Badillo sits down with John Britt, founder of US Technical Services Group, to discuss the evolution of IT services, the rise of AI in business, and why balance is the key to successful AI adoption.
John shares his journey from running a traditional break-fix IT business to helping companies embrace managed services and AI enablement. He explains why AI is both the biggest opportunity and one of the greatest risks businesses face today, especially for companies resisting change or adopting tools too aggressively without proper guardrails.
The conversation dives into:
- Why AI is becoming essential for every business
- The dangers of AI hallucinations and misinformation
- AI policies, security, and employee usage guidelines
- How MSPs and tech leaders must evolve or risk becoming irrelevant
- The importance of measured AI implementation instead of chasing every shiny tool
- Using AI to reduce employee stress, improve operations, and increase profitability
- Why authentic leadership matters in the AI era
John also shares practical insights on helping business owners adopt AI without overwhelm and why technology leaders must guide clients through this transformation responsibly.
If you're a business owner, MSP, marketer, or leader trying to understand how AI fits into your business strategy, this episode delivers practical wisdom and a grounded perspective on navigating the future of technology.
Today we have John Britt. John Britt is based out of Austin, Texas. So he's right here with us local. We're so excited to have you here, John.
SPEAKER_00Thank you. I'm excited to be here.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah. And it was a long drive for you.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. About 45 minutes. It wasn't too bad.
SPEAKER_02Okay. So it is a little bit of a haul then.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Well, we're really excited to have John here. John, tell us a little bit about your background. I I know that you're in the IT and MSP industry. I'm kind of moving into AI space. Can you tell us about your background and a little bit about that transition for you?
SPEAKER_00Sure. So I honestly I've grown up doing tech. When I was five, had a computer that I started programming a game on that you saved to a cassette tape that probably dates myself a little bit for those.
SPEAKER_02It's a cassette tape.
SPEAKER_00But and I don't even remember what the game was. I I'm being told about that from third parties at this point. But it just I've always been involved in technology. I've always had it in my life. And so it just AI is the next logical step in that. You know, it it didn't take much convincing to get me to get excited about it and want to pursue learning everything I possibly can about it.
SPEAKER_02What was the first thing that you tried with like AI?
SPEAKER_00Oh, I mean, come on. Everybody, chat GPT, ask questions, right? Or rewrite this text message or email. I mean, those were those were definitely the the basics of of AI in the beginning. But really trying to, you know, then understand more. What more can I do with it? What more can it do for me? And and really gaining an understanding of the basics of it, how it works, so that I can safely use it, if that makes sense.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So I actually want to go back a little bit. Okay. Let's talk about the beginning of your tech journey, maybe when you started your business. When did you start your IT business?
SPEAKER_00So this business was started, US Technical Services Group was started back in 2010. I had been working for a bank locally, and unfortunately, they were shut down by the FDIC. They they became insolvent. And I started that was in 2009, and I started looking for a job elsewhere and wasn't really finding anything, but had a lot of connections in the area, and people kept referring me to hey, I know this person or that person, and they need these things done. And so that became the business.
SPEAKER_02So let's pause right there for a second. If someone doesn't know what break fix is, can you tell them in like 10 seconds what that is?
SPEAKER_00I mean, okay, break fix. Something's broken, they call me, I come fix it. That's it. I'm a repair man.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_00Right? And and in that model, it typically I was Superman or the hero the first time I came out, right? But the very next time, it could be the complete opposite response. It's it's almost like you came out and fixed it last time, so now somehow I'm magically responsible for it. Wow. And I would feel that in a in a very palpable way with my clients. Sometimes they they would be upset that their server broke down, and it's like, this is still your car.
SPEAKER_02That's right.
SPEAKER_00And in this model of business, I'm the mechanic and I'm fixing your car. That doesn't mean that you know, five days down the road, something else might not break, right? And it was it it took a while, and it took somebody actually pulling me aside and going, John, think about your business model and think about how you can't have a good day unless your client is having a bad day.
unknownWow.
SPEAKER_00And I'm like, that I realized how inauthentic that was and how it did not resonate with where I wanted to be or how I wanted to show up in the world. And that's why MSP, the managed services idea of things, the the the idea that myself and my clients can have a good day every day if we're doing if we're taking proactive steps along the way, right? So that the engine doesn't break down in the middle of the you know, push for whatever it is you're doing, right? At the worst pop because that's when it's gonna break down, it's the worst possible time.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So when you need things to work, when you need it to work, that's a different lens that you get to operate business through of okay, I am I'm happy when you're happy and when things are secure and when the business is running efficiently, and it's not it's it's almost like the medical system, right? The medical system stays rich because people say sick, they say sick, yeah, and you know, so you're in the business of keeping people healthy, essentially. Their business is healthy.
SPEAKER_00Yes, my job is to keep the business healthy.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I don't want you to be sick, I don't want your server to break down, right? So, how does AI tie into that?
SPEAKER_00So I I powerfully, actually. I the more I learn about AI, the more I understand that it's it it is going to be the thing that can grow the business the fastest, right? It's gonna move the needle the fastest, but it can also be the thing that slams it back the other direction if it's not used wisely, properly. I mean, it's great, it's creative, it can do a lot of creative things, and it doesn't remove the necessity for your creativity in that. You have to direct it, you have to tell it what it is you're looking for, you have to tell it how much honesty you want. There are times where in my prompting, I'm telling it, I need you to be a hundred percent honest, and I need you to cite your sources because you know, otherwise I could be dealing with I could be the lawyer that quoted a case that never actually happened, yeah, right in court. And and that's not where any of us want to end up. So having that understanding and and teaching my clients to have that understanding about how AI creates a lot of momentum in a positive direction, but it can also create gaps that if you don't fill those gaps with security or processes or policies, you know, that's where you can run the risk of getting in trouble.
SPEAKER_02Well, I think it's the catalyst. You know, it's like, okay, if we go back to the medical, let's just go back to like the medical industry analogy here. You know, you stay healthy by eating fruits and vegetables and by, you know, going for a walk and and staying active. Okay. Well, AI is like the supplement, you know, it's like, oh, this can like supercharge your health. This is the red light therapy, or like this is the thing that's gonna like help you just be like, it's it's a catalyst for the health of your business. So and it's funny that you say that about like the hallucinating, you know, the hallucinating or like the facts, like the things that are not true. So Chris and I were driving yesterday and we're we're testing out Grok inside of the Tesla. And you know, it'll talk back and forth to you now. And so we're like, oh, let's test it out. So he goes to press and he's like, Hey Grok, tell me, you know, what's going on? We're like world nudes right now. And it she says something and he's like, okay, but now tell me about the Packers, you know, and he's like, tell me about the football game. When she comes up with the score, it's like, oh, the score was such and such, and this happened with Jordan. Like he's like, that did not happen. He's like, that's not real. That is not what the score was. That did not happen. And so he responds back and she's like, Oh, you're right. Let me get you the updated. And it's like, whoa. So if you are just taking this stuff at face value and you don't have the context and you don't have somewhat of your own leadership, someone of your own compass, or you don't have the advisor that's there to help you with that, then you don't know what you're putting out there, whether it's factual or it's made up, or if it's going to mislead someone else.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_02Especially whenever you get into professional services and we're talking about lawyers or medical practices or you know, even marketing agencies and writing and all this stuff, it can be really dangerous. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And especially depending on what industry, like if you are in the health industry, even though if you're a marketer for the health industry, you still have to be very careful about what you say.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Right. And and how the information that you're putting out there needs to be factual. Otherwise, you're gonna get called out on it in in a second.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, 100%. So as you've started to roll this out to your clients, what have been like some of the most, like the most critical pieces of putting this into the hands of your clients? Is it the safety? Is it the security? Is it the speed? Like, what's the thing that you're like, no, this is where we have to double down?
SPEAKER_00I think it's balance. I think that's the thing that I I try to communicate the most because I typically have you know clients one of two ways. Either they are absolutely opposed to AI or want to bury their head in the sand, they want to pretend it's not happening, they want to, you know, imagine that business can go on doing what it's been doing for the last 20, 30 years if they just keep doing the same thing, right? The whole like steady on course kind of mentality. And then you've got other businesses and other business owners or leaders that are so gung-ho, right? They're so excited about what it can and and they're throwing money away or throwing money at it. And so I like to think that I bring people in somewhere in the middle. Like, let's take a little bit of cautious and let's take a little bit of just out there and let's create, you know, a middle of the road, someplace where we're not trying to turn, you know, the analogy here is changing the tire on a car, right? We're not trying to turn just one bolt until it's fully seated because you can bend the rim, right? Bad things happen if you're just working on that one thing. But if you're turning all of them a little bit and tightening up over time, yeah, you are going to end up with a tire that's gonna stay on the car, and the car is gonna stay on the road and it's gonna work well. And I think that's the thing, bring in those little changes in multiple different areas of the business, so in marketing, so in human resources, in just in technology, bring those different or the AI changes into each one of those, and and you'll end up with the business going down the road.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, no, that's so good. I like to think of everything in a business in four quadrants. Now, is it always black and white? No, but I like to think about marketing, sales, right, operations, okay, and then customer delivery, service delivery. Yeah. And so whenever we're like even whenever Chris and I are having conversations about this project for this quarter or using this for AI, it's like, okay, wait a minute, or even rolling stuff out to our profit leaders, you know, rolling stuff out to our clients, it's like, wait a minute, which quadrant does this fit into? Is it a distraction? Is it something that's really cool? It's like, oh, there's this new AI tool, you know, you've got Sora and there's all these cool video things. And it's like, well, wait a minute. Okay, does this actually help them in marketing? Or is it like a shiny rabbit, you know, shiny object? So I like those guardrails where I can think, okay, which quadrant does it belong in? How is this actually gonna help the business move forward? Does this add to the bottom line? Does this increase their profit margins? Does this help them deliver better? Does this help them get in front of more people? And really just giving it, like you said, the balance. It's like, okay, which lug nut is this gonna tighten up in the mix, you know?
SPEAKER_00Absolutely, yeah. And and and like I said, moving it around and making little changes and seeing the results before you go, you know, making big changes.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, right. Yeah, exactly. Have your clients responded to that well?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think so. I mean, I really do. They understand it as business strategy, yeah, right? They the speak the language of business, right? And so having that conversation with them where I go, okay, I we can get really excited, and I want to get excited. I want to know about the new things that it's doing. But in actually implementing, I want to be careful about making small changes that we can measure the outcome and see what the results are. And then if they're good, great, then we'll we'll ramp that up. But we're not gonna focus on that one thing. We're gonna then ramp up something else, start small, move forward, and just continually reiterate what we're doing. What doesn't work, we get rid of. What works, we enhance, we continue to improve upon.
SPEAKER_02How do you measure that?
SPEAKER_00Typically in profit, right? That's right.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, bottom line typically in profit leaders.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, surprise, surprise, business uh measures things in profit, and not everything, not every AI change that you make is going to be directly measurable by amount of money coming in, right? Some of it might be measurable by amount of money saved. I mean, if last year you spent $100,000 doing creating video content and you know doing commercials and that that kind of thing, and this year you only had to spend $10,000 to get the same amount of output, that's massive, right? But there are other things that won't be measured in either one of those, either in savings or in profit. There they're gonna be those sort of things that are unmeasurable, but but still measurable. So, like for instance, maybe over the last five years you were losing two to three employees per year. And this year and they're stressed out, right? They were stressed out, they were overworked, they're complaining of different things. And this year, because of the things that you have brought in through AI, the innovations, now all of a sudden their stress level has come down, and you didn't lose anybody this year. And is that measurable? Yeah, if you're looking for it.
SPEAKER_02That's right. But do you know what you're looking for?
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Do you have someone there to help guide you through this? So I have a question. Why not chase software development? Why not chase building out a tool? Why not chase, you know, um as someone that's a a leader in the AI space and you know, you're out here talking about it to your clients. Why, why wouldn't you just go build like your own version of like Chat GPT or your own version of some type of tool that you can pedal out to the mass market?
SPEAKER_00Honestly, I try to stay away from the idea of building out a tool because I build a tool today and it may be the most amazing, the greatest of all, right? But tomorrow, somebody's gonna build one that's just a little bit better, right? And and that is gonna happen day after day, especially in the world that we live in now, with how fast things are changing. And so I would much rather help businesses, and specifically the ones that are trying to bury their head in the sand that I talked about earlier, help them understand that you we need to transform, we need to change. I understand that business has been done this way for 30 years, 50 years, whatever it's been, you're not gonna be able to stay that course and be successful in the next 30 years, right? So we have to, and probably not even in the next five to 10. Yeah, right, is is the reality of what we're seeing because things are changing so fast and somebody can get a leg up on you that if you're not if you're not innovating, if you're not transforming, then you're dying.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, if you're not growing, you're dying. Exactly. It's been really interesting, even to speak with other technology business owners and MSPs who are like, I don't want to learn AI. Like they're just like, I I just want to do tech.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_02And that it actually kind of breaks my heart a little bit because I know where the industry is going and I know that it's not, there's not going to be a choice eventually. And it's it's hard to see that. And I think some of that's fear. I think it's the fear of change. I think it's the fear of how, oh, it's more work. It's like, oh, something else I have to do. And it reminds me, truly, it reminds me of the heavy burden that business owners carry. It is heavy. Like heavy is the head that wears the crown. Yeah. And it's like, wow, it's a lot. And so I think that at the core of this, we have to come to business owners and to C-suites. We have to say, you know what, this is not extra stuff for you to learn and do and have to take on to make it's not a burden. It's meant to lighten the burden. And it could be something as simple as just learning how to prompt Chat GPT the right way.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_02It could be something as simple as like cleaning up your email inbox. It could be something as simple as having a policy for your employees using Chat GPT and plugging in company information and then keeping it secure. So it doesn't have to be this huge undertaking. It can be just one tiny shift.
SPEAKER_00That's exactly right. I've had plenty of conversations over the last year with my peers. I'm I'm good friends with multiple managed service provider owners in the area. And I've asked them, had the conversation around what are you doing around AI? What how are you going to bring this in to your clients? And a lot of them, like you said, are just opposed to looking at that. And I don't understand that mentality. And I've I've told them that I don't understand this because to your clients, it's just tech, it's just another iteration of tech. And they're going to be looking to you to help them figure out how to take this tech and do something with it, right? The new technology and do something with it. And if you're not providing for them that, then they're going to go find it from somewhere else. And hopefully that's me. To be honest, I'm like, great, come, you know. And I've told them if you don't want to get involved in AI, but your client is interested in having a conversation around AI enablement for their business, send them my way.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Right? Because genuinely, so I can have that conversation with them so that they they can still be a business in 10, 15, 20, 30 years.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, 100%. Wow. That's that's so good, John. And I want to go back to what you said um in the beginning of the conversation around it wasn't authentic to you to only profit when someone is in pain. And I don't think I've ever heard anyone say it in that way in this industry, you know. Like I and I've worked with hundreds of managed service providers, and that was just, it's like, yes, like that was my transformation moment.
SPEAKER_00Like, absolutely. I was stuck on the idea. Like, I thought managed services and cybersecurity, I thought all of that was a money grab. I mean, literally, I had that conversation with multiple people. I just I think this is a money grab, you know, tech people just wanting more money. And once I it was presented to me in that way, same thing as you said, it was so I hadn't heard it presented that way. I hadn't didn't understand it from that that aspect, but the moment it was said and I understood it, it changed everything. I couldn't imagine a world where I wasn't going to move into managed services, and and and mostly because I I want my clients to have good days, I want them to have nothing but good profit building, you know, employee generating, like the the small business owner in the United States is the heartbeat of this country. And if they aren't able to stay in business because they have a few too many bad days, right, then and the bad days are getting worse. I mean, you fast forward to now, it's been five or six years since I went in that direction. And the opportunity for your business to be shut down overnight because of a cyber attack, because of you know, any number of things is much higher than it was even seven years ago. And so I I feel like it's definitely more important to help people understand what they need to put the places that they need to fill the gaps within their business to maintain the business, just to keep moving.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I think that that's what AI is becoming now. It's it's going to become, it's like imagine telling your clients, no, we're not gonna install internet, right? It's like what you're not gonna what?
SPEAKER_00I refuse. I refuse to hook up that T1 line. Yeah, I mean, that's exactly right. I I can't I cannot fathom where, as technology leaders, MSP owners, uh, whatever we are in that space, I cannot imagine saying, no, we're not gonna bring this life changing, world changing technology into your business. I think do we need to go to the complete opposite side and go, we're gonna do everything. Everything all at once? No, absolutely not. But finding a balance between the two, and and like you said, putting the the guardrails in place so that you know, again, your company, your your employee isn't putting a spreadsheet with their clients' data, your client's data out into the ether, right? Like that's not good. But they don't know that that's not good. Did you tell them? Do you have a policy that says how they can and cannot interact with AI? Right? Those are questions. Do you have then if you have a policy, have you actually put anything in place to monitor the use of it or block the use of it in the ways that you don't want somebody using it? All of those are questions that you have to answer, and that is the conversation of AI enablement, right? That's the conversation that I want to have with businesses.
SPEAKER_02Wow. And if someone wants to have that conversation with you, where can they continue that conversation?
SPEAKER_00I would go to our website, ustsg.com, or find me on Facebook or LinkedIn, follow me there. I'm I'm ramping it up. It's going to be daily AI thought leadership. There are days where I'll miss, but it's authentic. It is me. It's my voice. I'm not just, you know, uh moving that off or putting that off on some AI agent. It is something that I am doing. And it's typically coming from something I'm recently learning. So if I'm, you know, learning something about how AI is is strategy, is business strategy. If I'm doing that, then that's what the post is going to be about, right? And so it will get there, it'll get to the point where it's it's daily. But for right now, it's it's you know, every couple of days you'll see something from me. And I already know, I've already gotten feedback from several people that have said, John, I really appreciate you saying something about this, because now we have instituted a we've put a committee together and we're talking about what our AI use policy is for our bank. Wow. And and it's all because you brought that conversation up. And I'm like, good. I that it I always wanted to help people. And so it's always good to me to hear feedback that some something I said, something I did is helping someone.
SPEAKER_02That's what it's about. Yeah. Yeah. Helping people. Well, thank you so much for coming on to our AI Profit Leaders podcast. This was great. Your your connection to just like what's authentic, what's true, what's gonna actually be a genuine service. It's so it is truly like you can just see it in how you talk and how you speak and in your message. So thank you so much for sharing that with us. I think it's a breath of fresh air to the technology space. I think that other technology leaders will hear this and they will see themselves in a lot of your story. And business leaders will also find some clarity in what they need to start focusing on and where they can have a conversation with you.
SPEAKER_00Thank you. This has been great.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, awesome. Thank you so much, John.