Why GTIA Matters For MSPs (EP 1034)

[0:16] Hello, friends. Uncle Marv here with another episode of the IT Business Podcast,

[0:21] coming at you live from Salt Lake City, home of PAX 8 Beyond 2026. We are in the midst of day two and having a good old time here. And joined by the GTIA folks, Dan Wensley and MJ Shoer. Guys, welcome to the show. Thank you for the conversation. All right.

[0:50] So, tell me guys, how are we enjoying PAX 8 so far? Great. It's been incredible. Yeah. The kickoff to the event, to be in that room last night with all of the vendors and the community that PAX 8 has brought to Salt Lake City was certainly inspiring. And I think Nick and Scott, with their keynotes this morning, really set a great tone for the conversations that continue throughout the event. Agreed. Right. Very much so. So I did my swag run, got to your booth, got stuck for a few minutes, got some good swag there. Got a nice Yeti mug for.

[1:29] Qualified prospects, right? Right, right. For those who registered to come to ChannelCon in August. Right. Exactly.

[1:36] Yeah, we'll talk about PAX 8 Beyond a little bit. Talk about ChannelCon. Big push out there. It's a little further west. It is. It is. San Diego in August. It is. We're excited. So August 3 to 5 in San Diego, I think, you know, as MJ and the team prepared us for our first ever ChannelCon last year in Nashville, I think we set a new foundation for what ChannelCon can be, will be, and is last year in Nashville. And I think we're doing even greater things here coming up in San Diego, both the size of the event, certainly with what's going on in the industry, there's no more important time for us to come together. And GTIA members i know are looking forward to it as are we yeah yeah yeah.

[2:21] Were you going to add something? No, I was just going to say, you know, it's, it's, it's, I will confess it is my favorite location in the country. It's, yep. We had our event there 22 years ago. So it's kind of cool to be back. It's, it's a terrific venue, but more importantly, I think, you know, the value and the, the, the quality of education in the sessions that's offered this year, definitely, excuse me, definitely up a notch. Okay. And, and that's what it's all about. It's all about doing, doing more, more value for more members. Right. Have you guys talked to Rob about making his announcement to take beyond there next year? Yeah. Following your lead? Yes, exactly. It is a great city to host an event at. Salt Lake City has certainly paid off for them this year.

[3:06] So, yeah, San Diego is a great location. We have the opportunity to not only, you know, be in the center there at the Marriott Marquis, but also to rent out the bandshell right across the street. There's the Gaslamp District right there. We're going to, as MJ alluded to, it was 20 years ago, which was a pretty significant channel con. I guess it was then breakaway. It was breakaway way back then, yeah. That meant a lot to a lot of people. And as we've started talking about this year, we're going to showcase some of those outcomes from that event 20 years ago. We've got some special announcements, some special awards to give away that we'll be doing this year that were really the genesis of those relationships, those activity, and those initiatives started 20 years ago at that very event.

[3:52] So I know we talked last year, last time we spoke, we talked about, you know, GTIA and the growth you guys experienced after the rebranding and all of that stuff. Everybody kind of always had a sense of what channel con was in the past or if you go back even 2015 2016 that sort of thing channel con was this event, would be nice if you come back to Florida but you know we'll talk about that later.

[4:17] What can people expect this year because Nashville last year was a, Pretty big deal, a pretty big change. So any big major changes this year? Yeah. Besides the lineup of the entertainment? Yeah, the entertainment is going to be good. But obviously, member value is paramount to everything we're doing. Our mantra at GTIA since inception has been to deliver more value to more members. And as a 30-year veteran of the industry on the vendor side myself and going to ChannelCon for most of those years, We know that when the community comes together, what great things come out of it.

[4:56] But especially in this day and age and the evolutionary path that we are on now and the acceleration of it, there may be no more important time as an industry to come together. So our opportunity and our obligation as the trade association for the industry is to put more voices at the table. So our growth is really coming from making sure we have great representation across the vendor community. We'll have 145-plus vendors on site, as well as more IT service providers than we've ever had before. We doubled last year. We are doubling it again this year. We're excited to have more voices at the table and to talk about some of these themes that are so vitally important. And we're going to highlight some of the wins. One of the new initiatives that we're doing are around the AI awards and our innovation awards for best implementation of AI, both internally and one for externally out to a customer. And we've got three finalists in each of those categories who are going to tell their story because that's so vitally important for much of the market to hear about is what is happening? What are the results of AI and automation and managed intelligence? Right. Now, I've heard about those and I was wondering, you know, I'm assuming members, you know, have the inside track to that. It's going to be a member that will submit to you guys the stories. They're going to be vetted and stuff like that. Is there opportunities for people that are outside of GTIA to slip in and be a part of that? Or is it?

[6:23] Absolutely. Anybody who applied, obviously, we're typically a GTIA member because that's where they heard about it, where the submissions came from. But our obligation is to tell the story of the industry and being a member of GTIA helps facilitate that for sure. But we had dozens of applications in each of those categories. We had an incredible team who sat down, went through the applications, identified the three finalists. And as they'll present their solutions and their outcomes at ChannelCon, the audience will then vote who is the award winner of the $20,000 grand prize. Okay, so the audience is voting. Yes, after the presentation. Okay. Yeah, it's going to be a fully interactive program. And it's.

[7:04] You know, each of the entrants had to submit verifiable ROI. So they couldn't just say that they were making money. they had to verify for those that submitted. So there are two categories. One is the best implementation within an ITSP business, how they help their business, whether it's through efficiency, what have you. Again, they have to provide the verifiable results. And then the other is the best implementation for a customer, for an end user customer. So, you know, one of the things that we try very hard to do as a trade association is not get caught up in the hype cycle and focus on the reality of whatever that current hype cycle is and that's exactly what this will bring to the table and the audience will be fully involved which is terrific yeah that'll be nice it'll be nice we'll see if i can get there, yeah this is my trip west of the Mississippi well we might have good news for you Marvin 27 we might have good news for you 27 geographically right okay we move it around we try to we try to get close to everybody, It's always a challenge. So tell me this. I know that last year, again, huge change in the way people viewed GTIA, channel con aside you guys experienced a ton of growth a ton of interest and stuff usually there's a little dip year two how do you guys how do you guys see that i don't see it no.

[8:31] No we really got our feet under us and the foundational work that MJ and the team did in the first couple of quarters since the transition allowed us to make some real growth you know advancements last year we have doubled those growth, advancements already in 2026. So bringing on Nancy Hamervick in a full-time role and working with that growth team and allowing MJ to work with the community on even a more intimate level. We've opened up more opportunities and it's showing up in our member numbers.

[9:03] We're pretty excited with the announcements that we're going to be sharing at ChannelCon with what those growth numbers look. And we're not done. We really do understand that this needs to be a global community as a part of the conversation, and we're there to facilitate that and make sure

[9:18] everybody has the opportunity to speak. Okay.

[9:21] I also talked with Carolyn April last year, and I've talked about all the research and education and stuff that's been going on there. Any changes in that in the way that I know that she was hyped on what might be ahead? Yeah. There's a couple of areas that we really lean into, as MJ talked about, more value for more members, but the more value part means taking some of the assets that we produce and deliver and getting it into market and making sure it is being taken advantage of. Carolyn and her team have stepped up. They are the keynote speakers at the ASCII events this year, for example. That's something we'd never done before, where we're taking the content out to other members' programs and events, and we're excited to do that. And Carolyn and the team have done an excellent job there. We have our GTIA On Location that is going out to over 43 events this year to talk member stories and share those stories. We've launched a member podcast, which we'd love to have you on to talk about not only what you do in your podcast and your education of the industry, but having us cover you. Because you've got probably the greatest experience and the most number of conversations that are really interesting to all the members. And it needs to be heard from both your podcast and through GTIA. All right. I'll just say thank you and let's move on.

[10:40] And there's also, you know, I think the other piece to that is our member education team has really stepped up their game. And they've there they've gone out and they've met with our members and listen to them about what they need. And so they're realigning and repackaging some of the existing education, tuning it to really address what members are asking for. So you'll see a lot

[10:59] of good change there as well. And, you know, tying it back to this event, Pax8 Beyond, you know, Nick made a great announcement from the main stage during his keynote this morning about an initiative that Pax8 is committed to, which is a.

[11:14] It's called the Consortium for Responsible IT Services. And this is an initiative being led by Texas A&M University, and we, GTIA, have partnered with them on this. And this initiative over the next couple of years will define the standards and frameworks of what it means to deliver professional IT services to end-user customers. And the result of this will be a self-regulation model where the industry will police itself and accredit the right organizations who are doing things the right way to assure end users that they're getting the right type of qualified services that they are subscribing to from, ITSP's managed service providers. You have it. So this is something the industry has been talking about for a long time. It's needed. And if we don't step forward and be proactive about this, it'll be dictated to us. So this is an opportunity for PAX 8 partners, GTIA members, anyone who's in the ecosystem to have a role and input on what that looks like. So that is a game-changing initiative, and there'll be a lot more to say about it at Channel Con. So I'm going to ask question. I'm going to try to ask it as gingerly as possible because I know that there are other groups in our space that are trying to do that, have tried to do that. There's the NSITSP that's trying to do that. There's some other MSP organizations that are trying to do that.

[12:43] Have either they reached out to you or you reached out to them to figure out a way to make this partnership work? Because I feel like there's segments of our channel that are all trying to do things on their own. But yet, as you mentioned, we kind of need to come together. Has that happened at all? It has not yet, but I will also be quite candid. You know, we haven't had the time to explore that yet. If any other organization I m familiar with one you mentioned I m not familiar with others you know certainly the door is open, we are the big open tent we are the only truly neutral open tent in the industry and so it would only make sense if we align together and we will certainly reach out to them as we learn about them and invite them in if they want to participate But what I will say is the strength of Texas A&M as one of the largest public universities in the country and their experience doing this in other industries.

[13:46] They have a proven model for this. And it will work and it will accomplish something very positive. It's not going to happen overnight. There's going to be some patience required here. But this will be game changing and this will go global. That's our commitment as a, you know, as the Global Trade Association representing the industry, we need to take a lead on this and we need to be open to bringing all of the constituent groups in and we are. Well, I was going to ask because some MSPs might hear Texas A&M, what do they know about managed services and stuff?

[14:25] Our channel is really only a subset of a lot of other managed services that are out there. The unique opportunity that Texas A&M has brought to the table is they have done this before. They have set up regulatory authorities and self-regulatory authorities for other industries. And when they came to us with this need and they understood it themselves through an endowment that they'd received, And what was required to really execute on it was an industry trade association, not-for-profit, of which GTIA is checkbox, checkbox on both of those things. So this is one of the good opportunities to really have an impact and deliver this with their expertise, on this kind of operation and having done it in other industries with our expertise, our size of our endowment, our scope and breadth of our membership. And that can include others who are looking to do this kind of thing as well, as MJ said. I think we're best positioned to be able to do this methodically with the commitment to do it in a very open ecosystem that I think only GTIA can really do at this scale. All right.

[15:38] So with all the stuff that has been great, all the growth, all of the, you know, wonderful things, there's usually some growing pains in there that we all have to deal with. Have you had any of those that, you know...

[15:54] You've dealt with can share or not listen, the one of the things that our members understood from day one when the CompTIA asset was sold to private equity and GTIA was formed, every asset every infrastructure every application went with the sale MJ Kelly and the rest of the team were literally left with a, uh, huge endowments, but a, got an organization. Why are you shaking your head like that? Because he went through it. I didn't come on until later. Dan rode in on his white horse after all the, uh, after, after all the blood had been, been spick and spanned off the floor. So I never, I never want to underestimate the incredible result to, to continue on the communities, the membership, to, to put the foundation that we can grow on. And so, and what's been, you know, you talk about the challenge that we just want to grow more and faster. That's been really our only challenge. I know, but the reason I ask, because while there's a huge part of the community that's all for it, there's also a part of the community that's, okay, what's the end goal? What is this really going to do? And even though we've talked about bringing the community together, making better opportunities.

[17:08] You know, self-governing our, our industry, which, you know, instead of having it forced upon us and stuff. You know, I think, I think the answer to that, Marv, is we've been very clear from the get-go. Well, really, I mean, Dan, Dan really gelled this because, you know, to, to his point, you know, from, from January 5th of 25 until Dan came on board first of May, you know, we were heads down. We had; we had an existing healthy membership. We needed to keep serving while we basically built a startup from ground zero. That was no easy task.

[17:44] And I've got a great slide that I put together that I showed at one of our first meetings under GTIA. And I said, you know, if a business school professor ever showed you this timeline and this list of what was done and said, here's a case study in rebranding and relaunching, you'd look at it and go, wow, what a great work of fiction. There's no way that happened. You know, we lived through it. And, and, and it was, it was tough. It was energizing. It was fun. It was awful all at once, but the, but, but we kept our eye on the prize and the prize was serving our members with no interruption whatsoever. And then Dan came in and really gelled the organization around four key pillars.

[18:30] It's people, resources, community, and advancement. And that's what GTIA is all about. We have so many incredible success stories. There's a phenomenal success story here. A woman, young woman who's at PAX 8, she was a highly engaged member of ours with another vendor company, and she credits GTIA and the community and what she had access to in terms of mentors and resources to help her develop up her career and her confidence that she then went for this new role with PAX 8 and she is happy. She is on cloud nine. It was so great to talk to her yesterday.

[19:11] You know, we help people craft their careers and craft their trajectory in a way that no one else can do. We're not trying to replace or compete with any of the other communities. You know, when I had my MSP, I was a ConnectWise partner. ConnectWise was my tech stack. I lived in the ConnectWise community. The other community I lived in was our former CompTIA community. And that gave me everything I needed between those two, between being close to my vendor community, because that was so critical to our service delivery. But then how did we grow our business? How did we make our business more professional? How did we deliver more value to our clients? It was the tools and resources that this association brought to the table that I wasn't finding anywhere else. So we invest over $5 million a year in resources. I mean, whether it's a guide to doing tabletop exercises, a guide to hiring, practical AI considerations you need, And just all the different tools, white papers, our research that we've talked about, our education that we've talked about, our ISAO, I mean, the cyber threat information that we provide to our members, which is worth sharing.

[20:23] 10, 20, 30 X on what their dues are is game changing. I talked to, I talked to a member yesterday who said it has absolutely changed their business for the better and their credibility with their customers. And then, you know, the community, this is where the communities all come together as equals where, you know, competitors come together and work on initiatives to help members, whether they're competitors or partners or whatever. We are that big open tent that we are the community of communities, no question about it. And it all just rolls up. And then you take the strength of our endowment and what our board is committed to in charitable giving. And that's the icing on the cake, man. If you're not proud to be part of an association that puts millions of dollars into charitable initiatives a year to help underprivileged youth career change that the member yeah yeah that the members direct to help this industry.

[21:22] I it's yeah i mean obviously I m biased as all heck but I m also but I m also biased from the standpoint of having been a member yeah, so i think i asked you guys this last time sure and I m going to ask it again just to see if there's any change in the answer for somebody that was maybe a part of, the organization pre-transition, I'll say, let's say pre-COVID, for instance, and they're sitting here on the sidelines looking at GTIA now, haven't made the decision yet to jump in. What do you tell them in terms of why are you sitting on the sidelines? When's the time to get in? Why get in? What do you tell people that are sitting on the sidelines?

[22:05] There's no, well, first of all, I said it earlier. There's no more important time, in my opinion. I've been at this for 30 plus years and part of communities and a part of CompTIA and GTIA and other peer group organizations know the power of that. I truly believe there is no more important time for us to come together as an industry in these type of environments than there is today. So first and foremost, as the Global Trade Association non-for-profit, we are an organization that you can look to for the research. As MJ said, there's $5 million worth of bipartisan, agnostic research available to help navigate through these incredible times. As Nick called, the huge wave we're all riding. There is the cybersecurity and AI adoption rates. Our ISO, as MJ talked about, that's a $7,000 value. And we're focused on outcomes. We're not just focused on coming together in the community, have a good time, have a good conversation, but we're really focused on the outcomes. That's where our innovation awards come from. What are the outcomes and the results that our members are seeing and how can we share? So we're there working hard. Be a part of your community, whether it's Pax8 Beyond, whether it's IT Nation, whether it's the SAIA Connect, whether it's Enable Empower. But the one place you can count on to come to just be a part of this industry globally is GTIA. And, you know, as Pax8 members can get, it's 50% off as an MSP.

[23:33] That's $225 for an annual membership for access to $5 million worth of research, $7,200 ISAO, and free ChannelCon participation.

[23:45] $225, that's it? That's it. Our regular dues, $450. And with all of our vendor members, they all have discount capabilities. Pax8, being a premier member, can give their partners 50% off membership. $125 for the year, for all of that. Okay. It's the best ROI in the business. I always said it about when I was an MSP, I was happy to write that check every year. And we're spending more than that on one piece of our stack a month.

[24:14] Exactly all right so i know that you guys on your phones you had a list of topics and talking points i didn't have that list so is there anything we missed that we need to make sure i said i think you know the only thing I ll say is you'll see a lot of announcements coming from us between now and channel con that are really going to underscore the themes that dan and i have talked about we are investing in providing tremendous value to our members and there is truly.

[24:44] It may sound cliche, but there truly is no better time to get involved with GTIA and be part of this industry association. Things are moving, we all know things are moving faster than they ever have. This is a great way to help mitigate any of the fear or stress around that and come together with like-minded people facing the very same challenges. We know this industry thrives best when we learn from one another. I think Rob or Nick said it on stage. You know, if you're worried about something, someone else in this room is worried about it too, or even better, someone else in this room has solved for it and they can help you. And the reverse is often true. And that is 100% accurate. So yeah, it's, it's, it, it really is a no brainer. Okay. Sorry. I'm watching Scott there and taking our pictures. Yeah. Taking pictures there. Hi Scott. He's a fan. He's a fan boy. He can't help it. Scott, we got to have that conversation about August.

[25:42] All right, guys. Well, thank you very much for stopping by yet. You're having fun. You guys are in your, you know, you're in your suit and ties and stuff. And we're in our channel tuxedos. Did you go out and do anything on the town or anything? We have a little bit. Enjoyed Salt Lake City. We've got two more nights to go here. And you know, PAX 8 and Rob and the team put on a great show. So looking forward to the rest of the event. And thank you for having us and carrying the conversation. All right. Is that button for everybody? This is our walk around and show our little ChannelCon logo and encourage people to come have a great event. They're attracting attention. I keep getting poked.

[26:24] Yep. So we'll say it again. ChannelCon, 2026, August 3rd through the 5th. Yep. San Diego. Big event. Big entertainment lineup. Yep. Is it true? There was like four or five acts that I got listed last night. They're trying to get me to go. Yes. Yep. They're all true. We're going to have a great event where we've got some great entertainment coming, and more importantly, some great content. Okay. A tip to Rob Ray. Tell people about your entertainment before the event. Yeah, we've announced. We've got Dave Navarro of Royal Machine. Rick Springfield. Yeah, we've got some Rick Springfield and some special other announcements that we can talk about privately. I'm happy to share it with you. You know who they are. So if you're a fan of the 80s rock, you're going to enjoy the evening. Nice. All right. Dan Wensley, MJ Shoer, thank you for stopping by. Thank you. And we will be chatting for sure. Absolutely. All right. Thanks, Mark. All right, folks. That's going to do it. We'll be back. We've got plenty of more interviews coming from PAX 8 Beyond here in Salt Lake City. We'll see you soon. Holla!