596 Community - IT Business Owners Group

Transcript

00:07 - Marvin Bee (Host)

Hello friends, Uncle Marv here with another episode of the IT Business Podcast, the show for IT professionals. If you are supporting businesses, we are going to try to help you do that better, smarter and faster. This is our Wednesday live show and we've got a guest coming up. Scott Sanders, with the IT Business Owners Group, is running your great Facebook group as well as a website member site, and we're going to have a chat. We last spoke with him in 2019. So he'll be coming up in just a second. We are also going to be talking about the queue.

00:49

It is back, so I do want to go ahead and say that I think a lot of you were, in a kind and nice way, were sending me video clips or notices about Toby Keith, so we will talk about that a little bit later in the show. I have a new story that I was looking for that we are going to turn into a little mini topic and then, of course, coming up, Florida man, and we have two great Florida man stories to share with you tonight. The show is presented by Net Ally, your number one ally for handheld network diagnostics and tools, and our live stream is brought to you by Computers Done Right and the Drinking sponsored by our good friends over at Super Ops. So, with that said, let's go ahead and get on with the show. Let me go ahead and bring in Mr. Sanders and have a nice little chat. Scott, how are you, sir?

01:54 - Scott Sanders (Guest)

I am doing perfect. Thanks, Marv. How are you doing?

01:57 - Marvin Bee (Host)

I am doing pretty good myself. It's a little chilly down here in Florida this time of year, but probably not as chilly as where you are.

02:06 - Scott Sanders (Guest)

I think it's about 44 degrees right now. It was about 55 degrees where you are then. Oh, it's about 10 degrees difference, I find.

02:14 - Marvin Bee (Host)

Well, actually. So we had a warm day. So I woke up. It was like 52, 53. It got up to 70 something. It's 66 now. It'll be dropping back down to the 50s again. As you can see, I've got my lawn sleeves on, so it's been fun, and the iguanas came out today, so that was the one way we knew it was warm. The iguanas showed back up.

02:42 - Scott Sanders (Guest)

I got you.

02:45 - Marvin Bee (Host)

Hello to everyone out there in the chat and watching live. We are streaming on YouTube, LinkedIn, the Facebook or, if you head to itbusinesspodcast.com, I have an embedded stream right there. It'll be up there until next week and we will make the change for the next show. So if you missed the show by video and you want to watch, you can go to any of those places or you can just go to the website and find us right there on the home page. So, Scott, it has been four, well, three and a half Almost.

03:27 - Scott Sanders (Guest)

yeah, I was going to say 2019.

03:30 - Marvin Bee (Host)

2019,. Yes, it has Wow.

03:33 - Scott Sanders (Guest)

Time flies when you're having a good time right.

03:34 - Marvin Bee (Host)

It does, it does. So you got there. I pay attention on the Facebook group. I was trying to remember. I don't remember if I signed up for the website or not.

03:46 - Scott Sanders (Guest)

Well, we could definitely get you signed up for sure.

03:48 - Marvin Bee (Host)

Absolutely, We'll do that. But for folks that do not know, the IT Business Owners Group basically started by Scott as a way for people to hang out, chat network, help each other out and you also do some vendor stuff in. There, have some vendor live streams and basically a place for people to gain knowledge.

04:16 - Scott Sanders (Guest)

So absolutely so. You know IT Business Owners Group. I started it. Can you believe it? It will be going on pushing 10 years now. Nine years ago, I started it on LinkedIn and LinkedIn didn't move fast enough for me, so we decided. Somebody said, Scott, you need to move this over to Facebook. I didn't even have a Facebook account. I had to use my wife's Facebook.

04:42 - Marvin Bee (Host)

I was going to say remember, you hijacked her account.

04:44 - Scott Sanders (Guest)

I know I did so. I went on Facebook under her account and I created it and you know the rest is kind of history. I always tell everybody please don't judge us by our presence on LinkedIn. I never officially closed it, but we never do anything with it. It's virtually a ghost town. So all the action happens in the Facebook community. So the Facebook group is now eight years old. So you know it's been a long time in the making. We haven't paid for any, any, any, any advertisements to say to get Facebook to. You know, throw new members our way. It's all been organic; it's been word of mouth.

05:27

You know, that's one thing that I have found that I really enjoy and that I feel like I'm good at is community building, bringing people together with a common purpose. And that common purpose for me has always been being an IT business owner, trying to try to figure everything out about business ownership, trying to figure out what's the right thing to do. And you know, most people when they start out at a start of business, they don't have the luxury of having several employees and having staff that can handle things for you. So most people take care of it, and there are there are one, I think it's all often referred to as a one person show. So that's, that's what I was for 20 years and you know I have always struggled with finding the answers outside of Google or whatever. So it just made sense.

06:26

Because if you think about social media, Marvin, you think about this aspect, if social media is almost like a competition. So where, if you were to call your local competitor that you may not know up the street from you and say, hey, what do you do in this situation? How do you service this client? Or what happens when, when you have a client that does this, well then likely they would laugh at you and tell you to send your client to them. They'll take care of it, no problem, they're certainly not going to want to help you.

06:58

But social media was completely the opposite. What I found and what really intrigued me with social media was it was almost like a competition with who can come up with the right answer, and then everybody come in and say, yep, that's right, yep, they're right. So, yeah, it's kind of capitalized on that all this time. And you know I am blessed to have started when I started. You know it you can't have a social media community like this and not undergo drama. We've certainly had our fair share of drama in the community. I don't think anyone likes drama I certainly don't Um, you know but it depends.

07:36 - Marvin Bee (Host)

I mean if, if it's, if it's drama that's entertaining, I like to watch from afar.

07:41 - Scott Sanders (Guest)

But like, the meme is like, who's grabbing the popcorn? Yeah, um, but you're right.

07:47 - Marvin Bee (Host)

There. You don't want the group to be one of those groups where if you ask a question, you know people call you names and say, like what are you doing here? Um, you want it to be something where it's, it's welcoming and people are genuinely happy to help, because they were in the same situation once with you, so that's been good about your group. I think I've only been chastised once about one of my posts.

08:13 - Scott Sanders (Guest)

I don't think I've ever chastised you.

08:15 - Marvin Bee (Host)

No, you haven't. It was some. I forget even what it was. I put something on there and somebody's like, what does this have to do with it? Business ownership or something like that, and I'm like, all right, I'll take it off, but it was funny.

08:27 - Scott Sanders (Guest)

Well, run it by me next time. We'll, we'll, we'll make it stick. I know people high up yeah.

08:35 - Marvin Bee (Host)

So now your group is actually I think it's probably doubled in membership since we last spoke and you said it was all organic. Now is it truly word of mouth or do you actively, you know, go out and at least look for IT business owners, network with them? Maybe you meet them in other groups or stuff? How does the group grow?

08:57 - Scott Sanders (Guest)

So I am not a big events person. I'll let you know that I traditionally don't take the time to go to IT events. Now I have gone to a couple and, yes, absolutely, when I go to those events, you know everybody's like, hey, I know who you are. You're Scott Sanders with IT business owners group, you know. So of course, we get new members that way as well, but that, that, that, that doesn't account for very many at all. You know I haven't been to an IT event Well; other than our member crews we had last year. You know I have not been to an IT event probably since Lori Titian eyes event, it owners, compass and maybe 2019.

09:41 - Marvin Bee (Host)

That sounds about right yeah.

09:43 - Scott Sanders (Guest)

Yeah, it's been a while, so I need to get out and go do that. You know, I know that's something that that I need to do so. I had a great time. I enjoy networking and face to face with folks.

09:58 - Marvin Bee (Host)

There are events near you. You know there's a I have to look up. I think there's an ASCII event in SC. Is there one in Charlotte this year? Nope, no, that's not yeah.

10:11 - Scott Sanders (Guest)

Charlotte's not too far from me. It's about an hour drive.

10:14 - Marvin Bee (Host)

But yeah, there's been one there before, but not right now, so this time I think the closest to you is Newark, new Jersey.

10:23 - Scott Sanders (Guest)

Oh, wow, yep. Well, we'll have to. We'll have to get some. I have to look at um, what's the? What's the big IT site that has all the events?

10:34 - Marvin Bee (Host)

So. So there's a couple of different places. There's uh, so the channel E2E lists some sites every now and then, uh, the connect wise people uh, have been putting out events, uh, the channel company. So I don't have the links ready at my thing. But listen, sign up for a demo for one of them.

10:57

You'll start getting when all the events are um, but of course, all the IT nations, pax 8 beyond, ascii Techcon, uh, unplugged. Uh, this year's in the greater DC area, uh, if you want to go to that one's, that one's a good one, but uh, I heard that your, your cruise might be on again this year, so it might be a little too close. We're in September.

11:22 - Scott Sanders (Guest)

Well, so, um, yes, we are having the 2024 IT bog member crews November 8th through the 11th out of Port Canaveral, and we'll be on a brand new ship. It's not even, it's not even out yet. Uh, Royal Caribbean's Utopia of Decease, beautiful ship.

11:44 - Marvin Bee (Host)

So. So they just released icon of the seas down here last month, the biggest, the biggest cruise ship ever built. I have not signed up for that one, but earlier I was going to say earlier this year it was actually last year about this time one of our clients had an extra suite and said hey, why don't you come with us? And it was on the Royal Caribbean cruise there. So that was nice. I think it's very similar to what you do out of Canaveral you head over, spend a day over the Coco K.

12:19 - Scott Sanders (Guest)

That's right.

12:20 - Marvin Bee (Host)

And then by the way?

12:21 - Scott Sanders (Guest)

is it Coco key or Coco K? I've heard it both ways.

12:25 - Marvin Bee (Host)

It's spelled Coco K.

12:27 - Scott Sanders (Guest)

Yeah, c A Y, but I think they pronounce it Coco key, like a key for a lock. I think that's what the locals how the locals pronounce it. It does make sense a perfect day at Coco K. That certainly does rhyme, but I don't know if anybody knows if it's proper pronunciation is key or K. Let us know.

12:47 - Marvin Bee (Host)

I don't know, some of our island friends, maybe Andre or Stan can those folks from the Caribbean can enlighten us there, because “his momma called him Clay. I'm gonna call him Clay”.

13:00 - Scott Sanders (Guest)

There you go. Well, we had our inaugural cruise this past November. We had a very small outcome, but for the first event, I was super happy with the way it turned out. It was extremely, extremely. It was nice having a smaller crowd because there was no sponsors that we had. I had a lot of sponsors want to sponsor it, but I wanted to see how the first one went. We had been planning it since 2020 and COVID kind of squashed our plans. But one thing that this past event taught me and I will kind of hold true to this for every event in the future, every cruise is that no one wants to go on a cruise and sit in a conference room and listen to people talk about IT products in a conference room. Everybody wants to get out and do things. They want to enjoy the vacation. If you will, the next one is going to be much like the first one.

14:13 - Marvin Bee (Host)

It's hard when you know you're on a ship and there's a thousand fun things to do. Why do we got to do this one thing In those conference rooms? It's not like they hide it away where you can't see what's happening. You can still see the water slides in the pools and it's a tough distraction there. Well, I'm glad you were able to get that. I know that. Yeah, it's been a struggle trying to get that thing kicked off with COVID. Of course you probably could have done it, because COVID didn't exist down here in Florida, even though we were in the top five every time they released the numbers in terms of infections and stuff like that. Florida was mass free for most of those three years. Funny, funny, funny.

15:05 - Scott Sanders (Guest)

I do not miss the mask. I can tell you I have enjoyed not wearing a mask.

15:13 - Marvin Bee (Host)

But I will say this if you plan on coming to Florida for a conference in Orlando, just plan on getting COVID. Every conference that I have heard of now I had been lucky I've been to, let's say I was at IT Nation, I was at Exchange, I was at Podfest and I got lucky each time. At every event, it seems that after the event about half the people there came down with something either a severe flu or COVID. So that’s what I will say if you're coming to Florida, if you're especially going to Orlando, just either plan on catching it or bring your mask.

15:57 - Scott Sanders (Guest)

Well, I've only had COVID once. I had it a year ago and surprisingly, I never lost my sense of taste or smell. And believe it or not, I am just getting over the flu B. I've had the flu for the past week and today is one of the best days I've had in a week, but I lost my sense of taste and smell with the flu. I've never had that before. That's more like COVID. But they tested me and they said no, you've got the flu B. So my son is in high school and he brought it home to his family.

16:38 - Marvin Bee (Host)

So I'm surprised they're just now coming out with a flu B. The flu's been around forever. I'm sure we would have been on you know, c, d or E by now.

16:48 - Scott Sanders (Guest)

I know I can't keep up and whatever. This RSV thing is too, oh my goodness. So when they tested me for the flu, they gave me one test. It was the swab up the nose and it was for COVID RSV flu A and flu B, and I'm thinking this one test for all of those. So they all must be very related of some sort.

17:15 - Marvin Bee (Host)

I think they're all basically a flu strain.

17:20 - Scott Sanders (Guest)

Right.

17:20 - Marvin Bee (Host)

I mean, I can't imagine. They're all very similar in symptoms, except COVID added these additional ones with the taste and smell. But I mean, it's, here's the thing, from the common cold to the worst flu, to COVID. The only real difference is that COVID had some people die. I mean that's really it. But people were dying from the flu before. It just wasn't in those massive numbers and whether it was you know complications or the migration into you know some of those complications, that it not the um, they were influenza related that turned into something more, whether it's sepsis or something like that. So I think it's just one big spectrum that we're realizing now that, look, it's all related you know it's got to be for them to do one test.

18:16 - Scott Sanders (Guest)

It's got to be.

18:17 - Marvin Bee (Host)

Yeah, so all right, Scott. So let's uh, let's see what I've asked you about. So how is the vendor engagement? That was a question I was going to ask. I know that it's not. I mean, I know you have a ton of vendors on the numbers of 40, 50, somewhere in there, but it's not 60, but it's not vendor driven. So it's not like. You know, vendors are in there, you know, pitching stuff every day, pumping ads in there and stuff. You have live streams where people can go and do either product demos or get you know news updates and stuff. But exactly how is the vendor engagement inside the group?

18:55 - Scott Sanders (Guest)

So it's not as it's not as much as I would actually like. You know, one of the things that I struggle with vendor engagement is getting the vendors. You know, I don't really struggle with getting vendors to sign up for the sponsorships, it's getting vendors to continue the sponsorship, getting them to see value and the biggest thing, that that, the biggest thing that I would tell any potential vendor looking to sponsor with our community is please be active. You know, if you want people to know who you are and know about your brand, you've got to promote yourself inside of the community. So be in Facebook. You know I came up let's talk about the whole idea behind sponsors, why I did sponsors. So you know it's Facebook. Let's be honest, who's going to pay for a Facebook group if you have a free account to Facebook? I'm not. I mean, I wouldn't pay for it.

19:53

So, but I realized that I've got a lot of time that I've been spending personally. I'm surprised I'm still married. I mean my wife, first. You know she did bless her, bless her heart. She's. You know, she is the best, absolute best. I married the right woman; I can tell you. But you know, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't know if she was going to Stay with me because for the first Ten years of our marriage We've been married 15 years now, so actually not the first 10 years, but I would say the last, the last eight years at least she sees this. She sees me in front of my phone all the time and if I'm not at my computer at my desk, I'm on my phone. At three o'clock in the morning. If I wake up, I grab my phone, I look. The first thing I do is go to Facebook, I look and see it. You know if there's anything I need to attend to, any questions I can answer anything that is happening, because our members are worldwide. So it might be three o'clock in the morning for me, but it's probably three o'clock in the afternoon for many members, so it's prime time for them. So Luckily, my wife is has grown into the position.

21:06

She's an admin and you know one of the things I like to do in the community. I am personal friends with 500 members and in our community. So we have 6500 plus members, but I'm not personal Facebook friends with all of them, although if you are a member and you're watching this and you would like for me to wish you happy birthday on your birthday In the group, send me a friend request, because that's honestly how I am notified every day that it's a member's birthday. But one of the things that I had gotten the idea a long time ago to do is, you know, just go in. And who doesn't like a happy birthday on their birthday?

21:46

So you know, I always go in and I like to wish the members when Facebook tells me it's their birthday. Some days we might not have any, but some days we might have three or four, and you know, I just like to go in at this thing it's a personal touch and just wish I'm a happy birthday. I just put a little funny gift with it and you know, just say happy birthday from all your friends. At ITBOG, but it's little things like that. I think that, you know, help build the community up, make people want to come back, because my chief Responsibility and run in the group is creating engagement, giving people a reason to want to come back, and I think that's really what it's all about.

22:28 - Marvin Bee (Host)

Well, definitely, and that's one of the reasons why, when I decided and I didn't announce this to anybody I didn't say I'm going to do this, but I kind of designated February as Facebook community month, where I was going to reach out to all the Facebook groups that I'm a part of Okay, the ones that are active and Say, hey, why don't you guys come on the show and let's talk about the groups? Vendors have been really talking about community lately and We've tried to, you know, have them change their shift in how they do their Conferences, instead of getting up on the stage and you know preaching at us or you know pitching us their product all the time. Why don't you join hands with us and help us on this journey?

23:18

Sure and I thought oh, you know what? There's Facebook groups, that that's what, that's what they're doing every day. Yep, and yours. And it's funny enough that not only Do I see yours as the most active of the ones that I'm a part of, but you were the first to jump on and commit to doing the show. So it definitely shows that your involvement, not only in your group but your community, you've, you've. When I've asked you to do stuff, you've not said no.

23:46 - Scott Sanders (Guest)

I don't ask very often. No, I try to be available for everyone. You know you can't, you can't, you can't run a community and not I mean, it's just right got to be there, but so, but the vendor thing.

24:01

Getting back to the vendor thing, you know it, nobody wants to pay to be a member of a Facebook group. So you know, it just kind of made sense because I have always, with the name it business owners group, we are sticklers for who we allow in. We don't want the text, we want the business owner, we want the king decision-maker. So Basically, you know, I Got the idea a couple of years ago, because it was eight years ago I didn't think, okay, I'm going to do this and get sponsors and all this kind of stuff. So you know, it got to a point where I'm spending more time Running the community than I am my own IT business. So I realized that and I said, you know, I've got to figure out how to monetize it without killing it.

24:51

Right like I don't want to kill the group, I don't want to spam it, I don't want to do anything like that. I don't want to ask the members, you know, for a monthly fee Because, frankly, I mean you can't sell somebody something that you wouldn't buy yourself and so I mean I wouldn't, I wouldn't pay it. Be a member of a Facebook group, so why would I expect anyone else to? But I got the idea said, you know, if you, if we've got all these IT business owners Right there as an audience. And when we started doing sponsorships, you know, ninja RMM, ninja one now Was my very first sponsor, number one. They've got the number one spot. They have stayed with me the whole time and I am thankful for that. I've had several sponsors who have done that as well.

25:38

So I just like to give ninja, ninja one a shout out for, you know, being committed and staying with us and in this partnership together. But you know the it just it just made sense to me to allow only our sponsors to promote their content and brand to our members. And you know we just started putting things together and it just kind of took off. And here now I'll see, three or four years later, of running sponsorships. You know, maybe going on close to five, we've got 60. Well, we got 60 sponsors and if you've heard of total to do, I tell I just got a verbal commitment on email this afternoon that they were joining us. So I have been courting them and they are going to be our very next sponsor.

26:28 - Marvin Bee (Host)

So I just Saw this this morning. It wasn't going to be part of the news segment, but We'll see if this has any influence on the sponsorship package that ninja one gives you. Because they just landed a, let's see two billion yeah 231 point five million at a one point nine billion dollar valuation.

26:54 - Scott Sanders (Guest)

Yep. Congrats to them.

26:57 - Marvin Bee (Host)

Yeah.

26:58 - Scott Sanders (Guest)

They are certainly a force to be reckoned with in the IT industry.

27:02 - Marvin Bee (Host)

Yeah, so they just got the additional 230 million in a series C funding round led by iconic growth. So that should be pretty interesting to see what happens with them. They've, they've, come a long way, baby, have a thing, yep absolutely Mark.

27:18 - Scott Sanders (Guest)

I gotta ask you a funny question. I know when I do it. I do a lot of live streams and I don't know what it is, but does your nose ever itch in the middle of the live stream? I have a lot of stuff that happens in the middle of the screen, just.

27:31 - Marvin Bee (Host)

But I'm at the point now where I just you see me bend and over you see me bend and over doing stuff. I'm moving stuff around. I got a. I got a whole stuff here I almost thought you know I should have my wife come in here and be my little production studio person, but there you go, this works. I got it working up here. As a matter of fact, let me listen here, looky, here, Dianna Giles love total. So there you go Awesome. So I don't know very much about them.

28:00 - Scott Sanders (Guest)

But we're going to certainly learn as a community about them.

28:02 - Marvin Bee (Host)

They are they are good. I've seen them out on the trail and had chats with them myself. I'm not using their product but Might be someday. So, all right, let's take a quick break and recognize our partners here, the people that sponsor this show I mentioned above. Net Ally is the presenting sponsor, providing me great products Over the years and, by the way, our last show I mentioned that it was the first time that I had used their EtherScope product To do a wireless survey. I had literally done that just before our last show. So that's so. We talked about the. So we talked about 2019 being a long time. That's what we've been doing with net ally, so kudos on that there.

28:55

Our live stream, as I mentioned, computers done right, and our mug and Florida man sponsor super ops. Head over to it business podcast calm. Click on sponsor and anybody that has sponsored Current or pass is going to be there. So all of our sponsors. Um, instant house call fab's auto backup. Uh, some other people are there. Go on and check out the page there and support the people that support us.

29:24

As I mentioned earlier, the queue is back. So if you head over to the it business podcast calm website, click on the queue. A new question is there that will be up for the month of February. The last day to answer the question will be the 27th and I will pick a winner on the 28th to Get themselves an amazon gift card. And they're simple questions, folks. They're not really anything big. But of course I've got two questions in the queue In honor of toby keys passing, who passed yesterday and losing to you there, losing his battle with his stomach cancer. Um, I mentioned that people were sending me videos. I thought you know what. I'll just throw the question in in toby keys. I've already got a couple of responses. Uh, what's your favorite toby keys on?

30:20 - Scott Sanders (Guest)

And are you asking me?

30:21 - Marvin Bee (Host)

No, that's then. That's on the, that's on the queue.

30:24 - Scott Sanders (Guest)

Okay.

30:26 - Marvin Bee (Host)

But then I had a second question and the one I was going to throw on there. I've mentioned Jr, I've mentioned CJ, and if you don't know who those are, we'll explain those a little bit later. Those are just, uh, co-managed people that I work with and I'm just getting frustrated because CJ is sending me emails and literally every single email Is literally just a one line statement and I'm going to pull one up here just so you guys can understand what it is that I deal with, because it just frustrates the actual and I'm going to curse living hell out of me. So here's one where he goes Hello, Robert has a Windows 11 update notification on his workstation, please advise. Those are the emails that I get from Junior and in this case CJ, who is supposedly certified and has been working as a desktop technician for three years, and some of these questions.

31:39

Now I'm not going to say how I answered that one or whatever, but just it annoys me that at the end of everything, please advise. So I'm asking in the queue folks, I'm thinking of sending him a response, but I'd like to get some ideas on what the proper way on I would be how should address CJ, because technically, what he's not doing is wrong, but it can be misconstrued as rude or inappropriate. It's a tech asking a question or asking for help, but he's not really asking for help. He's just being annoying and, in my opinion, passive aggressive.

32:25

So on the queue on the queue, folks answer those two questions. What's your favorite Toby Keith song? How would you respond to CJ with his? Please advise. And on February 28th I'll pick one of the responders for an Amazon gift card and maybe I'll read some of the answers and tell you guys about how I responded to him. All right, and let's see here. Let me go ahead and play a quick little commercial for our presenting sponsor.

32:58 - Speaker 3 (Host)

The new EtherScope NXG is here, the first all-in-one network analyzer to fully support Wi-Fi 6 and 6E. Evaluate Ethernet and wireless networks with a simple but powerful auto test, delivering in-depth network visibility fast, with minimal training. EtherScope NXG, your portable network expert from NetAlly, has got you covered 100%. Visit NetAlly.com/EtherScope today to request a demo.

33:29 - Marvin Bee (Host)

All right.

33:30 - Scott Sanders (Guest)

I've got a question about the EtherScope.

33:32 - Marvin Bee (Host)

Yes.

33:32 - Scott Sanders (Guest)

It said Wi-Fi 6. Yes, I understand there's a Wi-Fi 7 out now.

33:38 - Marvin Bee (Host)

Did you get that? So Wi-Fi 7, it's sort of out, but it is not universally adopted yet. So the latest appliance that I got from them, which is the CyberScope so it's an upgrade to the EtherScope it is still Wi-Fi 6.

34:00 - Scott Sanders (Guest)

Awesome. So, yeah, those are really nice machines. I'd love to have one of those.

34:07 - Marvin Bee (Host)

Well, let's chat afterwards, maybe we can get you one.

34:10 - Scott Sanders (Guest)

All right.

34:12 - Marvin Bee (Host)

They are nice. I have the whole fleet, from the Link Sprinter up to the EtherScope actually the CyberScope and I'll be honest, I don't know that there's a day that if I leave this office and go somewhere, of course it's part of the go bag, sure, and I just plug it in, no matter how long I'm there, just to see what changes. Well, especially now because the CyberScope they just added a feature with the last firmware update where you can actually do a comparison between visits, so you do a scan and save it. The next time you go you can do another scan and you can see what changes have happened, what's new on the network, what's not on the network that was in the past. You can actually go back and do a comparison in time to see what changes have happened on the network. I haven't used it yet, but I will be soon.

35:12 - Scott Sanders (Guest)

Very, very nice.

35:14 - Marvin Bee (Host)

Yeah, I've got an old validator.

35:16 - Scott Sanders (Guest)

It's not made by NetAlly.

35:17 - Marvin Bee (Host)

NT validator.

35:19 - Scott Sanders (Guest)

Yeah, the old yellow one.

35:21 - Marvin Bee (Host)

I know that.

35:23 - Scott Sanders (Guest)

I was assumed that that device does everything the validator would do.

35:27 - Marvin Bee (Host)

Yeah, so Alan in the chat responded to your question. Yes, Wi-Fi 7 is out, but not many devices are out there yet.

35:38 - Scott Sanders (Guest)

So I got you. Yeah, I think I saw it on Unifi’s website. They had some Wi-Fi 7 APs already out.

35:47 - Marvin Bee (Host)

Yeah, there's some out there. Another question Could you do the same day morning and then the afternoon? I'm assuming you're referring to the changes in discovery. Yes, the way that the EtherScope or any of the tools work is you can run your discovery and let it find all the devices on the network and then you can upload what they call an analysis, so you can upload everything that the device has found, all the devices, which will include their IP address, mac address, if they. If you have DNS properly running, it'll get all the DNS names, the NetBIOS names. If you've got managed switches, you'll get all the port information, all of that stuff. And then of course, you can, you know, go back, you know, later that day run another scan and upload that as well and you can do. The comparison between each snapshot is basically what it is, so very nice.

36:47

And, of course, yes, Jeremy, we read the chat. That's how I'm actually getting the questions that we're chatting about here. So we don't do absolutely every response, but yes, we're reading the chat. I do it all. I try to cover all bases here, so let's see here. So I think we've talked enough about the IT Business Owners Group. Of course we'll have links in the show notes that you can not only go to the Facebook group but to the website itself. Do you have different things on the website that are not in the group?

37:22 - Scott Sanders (Guest)

Yeah, so we have a member map and I have not promoted that lately in the community. I was. I need to put a post reminding members that we do have a member map there. So we have about a little over a thousand members on the website, where we have about 6,500 members on the Facebook group. So I would love to get more members onto the website, the membership site, but we have our vendor discounts there as well. So if you're an IT business owner and you are trying to get some vendor discounts or you'd like to just join the community on the website, just go over to ITBOG.org and you can sign up for an account there.

38:08 - Marvin Bee (Host)

Alright, we'll have links to all of that. So you mentioned the business. I imagine that, since you said that your wife has not left you yet, I guess is the best way to say it my wife is the same way. It's pretty much all business or all podcast or at a conference, so there's a lot that she has to do. How is your business itself actually doing?

38:39 - Scott Sanders (Guest)

Yeah. So you know my business is. We just celebrated our 20th anniversary, so I'm really excited about that. But you know, I don't mind telling you more of it. I run a very small MSP, but I will let you know that up until about three years ago we were 100% break fix. So, and a lot of the members four and five years ago, I would say the majority of our members were break fix and now it's like I would say, the majority of our members are MSP managed service providers. So it's great to watch my own company grow and evolve, but it's also, you know, fantastic to watch our members evolve into managed service providers from break fix repair shop owners, like I was for the longest time.

39:34 - Marvin Bee (Host)

So I get hammered from both sides because for all practical purposes I still call myself the man in the van. It's me as the primary tech in terms of full time techs in the business. It's me. My wife also works in the business. She's technically full time, but she works just the minimum amount of hours to qualify for insurance. I got you, if that makes sense. For a while I did have my nephew working here with us in the business, but since 2012, back when I did have two techs, since then I got rid of the techs and it's been me and I have subcontractors and my business, of course in the beginning was break fix. But I had, early on in my business, made the focus to be only business, so I did not do residential unless they were an existing client from my computer store days or they were the owner of the business or the writer of the check and do that. And then, of course, the slow transition. Most of my clients are attorneys, so we operated under the term retainer, not managed services, but very similar.

40:55

I got you, but I call myself a boutique, MSP or hybrid. A lot of people don't like that term, but that's what we are and I think that there's still room in our industry for both. There's tons of people that need break-fix work.

41:11 - Scott Sanders (Guest)

Yeah, absolutely, I don't want to do a little bit of break fix. We certainly are trying to get all of our clients on to our managed platform but certainly and you mentioned that you support a lot of attorneys we have a few attorneys that we support but, surprisingly, 20 years ago when I first started this, it was all residential. I didn't have any commercial clients. We started getting commercial clients because a lot of the residential clients we supported we would go support them and then they would say, god, you know more than the guy we got or the person we have working at our office. We want you to come in and help us. So sure, we started taking on business, but I got a lot of my background, if you will.

42:05

I worked in a family-owned business with my father when I got out of college. My father had a business. He was still taking all of the assignments from clients that they had all on paper. We're putting them in a spiral binder. I was like Dad, we got to get you into the computer at a digital age. We got some Windows 2000 Pro workstations. I set up a little LAN, a simple Windows workgroup, and we had a little small file server. I taught myself a lot there. Then I just kind of applied it into my business the business. Since I had learned working from my father, I just applied it to other people. I don't know who we are today, but we still support a fair number of residential clients as well, even under our managed care. They seem to like it. We just treat them like a business, nothing wrong with that.

43:08 - Marvin Bee (Host)

Nothing wrong with that at all. One of the news stories that I was going to bring up was a story that for some reason disappeared on the Internet. I tried to go back to it to grab it, and it comes up to a 404 error. I do remember the title of it was the Seven Types of Managed Services Essential for Business Success. The reason I wanted to bring that up is a lot of articles that I'm finding are like para-organizations. They're not our vendors, they're not our competitors, they're not other MSPs, but they're organizations that are trying to tell businesses here's what you need to look for and here's what you need to avoid when selecting your service provider. I wanted to grab that article Now. Not only did it list the seven areas which were your typical areas, I remember. Of course they had the network monitoring management, they had the backup and disaster, they had its cybersecurity, but there was a whole section that they had on billing and how MSPs charge. They were saying the good and the gotchas of the billing practices.

44:32

Of course there's a segment of the MSP market that is saying you should do one price billing. Everything is one price. It's one line on the invoice. Don't let your customers see what all is included in there. Then there's others that are like well, you do your bundles, you do your Gold, silver, bronze packages and you have different levels. We'll support you at this, which is our minimum. Then you can add these and add these.

45:01

I do a little bit of a hybrid of all of that. I have a baseline that I have when it comes to the endpoint securities and then I build differently based on the services. Then I do have a little A-la-carte section where remote support is not included. If anybody does remote support, I'm not going to remote support. I'm sorry. Remote access If somebody needs to remote into their system. True grid is what I use. It's a separate line per item. Price Backup is separate because of the way that I do. The storage costs and some other things are separate. How do you do your billing? Are you doing packages, are you doing bundles? Are you doing hourly?

45:47 - Scott Sanders (Guest)

We don't do any hourly, unless it's a break-fix. We'll call that project work. What we have found is we don't offer levels and all that, we just have a flat fee. We do the all you can eat. It really isn't that difficult to manage the level that we have. We only have a couple of hundred endpoints that we support. We're not dealing with 3,000 endpoints or anything. It's really not that difficult for us to offer all you can eat services for one flat fee. Flat fee IT, if you will.

46:32 - Marvin Bee (Host)

That was my question there. Let's see what other news was out there. Some news about our Cronus. We'll talk about that later. My friend, are you ready for Florida man or Random Question?

46:51 - Scott Sanders (Guest)

What do you do? Random Question.

46:56 - Marvin Bee (Host)

Alright, let's see here. Let's pull up the Random Question page and your Random Question is Wow; this is a very interesting one. In your opinion, what is the most important factor to consider when making business decisions?

47:30 - Scott Sanders (Guest)

Your client, the most important decision is the client. I mean, that just came right to my head immediately.

47:39 - Marvin Bee (Host)

Nothing wrong with that.

47:43 - Scott Sanders (Guest)

I feel like we should get another Random Question.

47:47 - Marvin Bee (Host)

I can do another one. Let's do this Random Question here. Interesting question what do you enjoy most about the holidays?

48:03 - Scott Sanders (Guest)

everybody getting together. You know I'm the kind of guy that if, if we could have Christmas year-round, I would completely love that. I love how the house gets decorated. It's just everybody's in such a giving, caring, wonderful mood all the time. You know, and I know, the holidays a lot of times for people can be a very sad time and that's unfortunate. But for me I really love the holidays. I love the coming together of family, the sharing of gifts, just letting everyone know how appreciated they are. I just love the season. Typically I would leave Christmas up year-round if my neighbors wouldn't get mad at me.

48:52 - Marvin Bee (Host)

Alright, I know that I should feel that way about the holidays, but I don't.

48:58 - Scott Sanders (Guest)

I got you.

48:59 - Marvin Bee (Host)

For me, it is just time to rest. There you go. I mean, that's, that's pretty much it. I mean I don't, you know, we live in one of those businesses where, yeah, we take time off during the year, we try to do the long weekends and stuff, but for me, I just, I just want to rest. I don't want to be bothered yet. Yeah, nice to see the family. Here's a gift. Let me go watch the game.

49:23 - Scott Sanders (Guest)

Well, I am like that too. I definitely enjoy the rest and relaxation, because it's like the whole business world kind of shuts down the week of Christmas. Yeah, you know, and it's, it's a welcome change, for sure it is.

49:38 - Marvin Bee (Host)

Alright, so the for the Florida man. I'm not even going to give you a choice. Basically, I have two Florida man stories that when I read to them, when I read them to you, they will be self-explanatory as to why I chose them. So the first one here. Deputies arrested a Florida man Sunday who was running naked down Highway 98. The Oka Lusa County Sheriff's Office said that the man in his 30s is facing your charge of indecent exposure. His name has not been released.

50:15

The incident happened shortly before 1 pm in the afternoon. Deputies received multiple calls about a man running down the highway. He appeared to be under the influence of narcotics and he was taken to Fort Walton Destin Hospital for evaluation. No other details were released. So that was the first story that I saw. I shouldn't say that that was the first story that caught my attention. And then I saw this story and I said I got to read them both. Florida man arrested after running into thrift store fully naked, stealing merchandise. So what, I got to join Fox News to read this. Come on, I don't you hate those paywalls.

51:07 - Scott Sanders (Guest)

I hate that but it's.

51:08 - Marvin Bee (Host)

But here's the quote that an employee said the suspect made no effort to cover his genitalia. It's funny enough. It was a church run thrift store.

51:23 - Scott Sanders (Guest)

No, goodness man.

51:24 - Marvin Bee (Host)

I got to find the rest of that story. So, yep, so of course. Why have one naked Florida man when you can have two?

51:35 - Scott Sanders (Guest)

There you go.

51:36 - Marvin Bee (Host)

So it looks like let me go back and say Allen had I think it was the first question that when you answered the client has to what is the most important factor to consider when making decisions? Allen writes are we a good fit for each other?

51:57 - Scott Sanders (Guest)

Very true.

51:59 - Marvin Bee (Host)

Which is interesting. I'll say this as a story. We've got a couple of minutes here. I was talking to you before the show about a client visit that I had yesterday. Some people have heard the story. This is a client that started a relationship about three years ago when one of my clients got acquired by them, wanted to bring me in, and at the time there was no, no way that they were going to use me. I knew that and then about a year and a half ago they reached out and said yeah, we think we're ready to have some help. They had a junior on staff as well, okay, who was their full time but wasn't actually a tech and was googling his way through stuff. But they needed somebody who could actually do true networking and stuff like that. The first problem that I solved for them was that they kept running out of IP addresses every day.

52:57 - Scott Sanders (Guest)

They had to change the subnet.

52:59 - Marvin Bee (Host)

Well, we subnet it and VLAN some stuff. But basically they were running everything flat between their computers, notebooks, personal Wi-Fi devices, phones, thermostats, ring cameras everything.

53:19 - Scott Sanders (Guest)

That's all right. It's typically if they don't go over 255 devices.

53:24 - Marvin Bee (Host)

Yeah, so they would come in every morning, literally would go in DHCP, wipe out all the addresses and hopefully they wouldn't run out before the end of the day. But that was what I did for them. So just to gloss over the fact that a year ago this, this tech died and then they thought, well, maybe you can come support us full time. When I give them the price, they're like maybe not. They had somebody that could work with them part-time and then I would continue to provide them. And what I consider and what I told them is I'll provide you help desk services. Your person is there on site and when you need help, you call. And I gave them a bucket of hours that they could use each month. It's basically 20 hours, which would include, if I needed to go there on site, an average of an hour a day. These were bucket hours. It wasn't hourly. The hours did not roll over to the next month. So that's how we did that. Well, they wanted us to do more for them and I gave them a contract to do full managed services and I walked out of a meeting in September where they said okay, we're good to go. Yeah, we'll do that. Never signed the contract, never sent over the on-boarding fee. And so since September I've just kept doing what I've been doing, providing them with help desk services.

54:52

And I was doing a notebook transfer for the operations manager yesterday and he, finally, he looked at me. He goes so, do you not want our business? And I'm like what are you talking about? We're doing business, you're paying my bills. I'm happy. No, no, no. They're like well, would you, would you be hurt if we left you? And I'm like what are you talking about? And he tried to explain that you know, well, if we decided to, you know no longer do business with you, are you going to be hurt? I'm like, no, I prefer that you guys did more. And I mean, if we lose you, I'm not going to cry at night. I mean, it's you know and you're not annoying enough for me to fire.

55:42

So and turns out they thought that I should have been doing more and I said, well, I'm not going to do more until you sign a contract to do more and pay me the initial on-boarding to do full managed services. And he's like, oh, we didn't do that. I'm like, no, in this whole concept of are we a good fit and expectations, and I'm like it's clearly laid out. I had, I had even rewritten, I put together a tablet of descriptions as to what each thing's meant what is remote monitoring and management, what are the backup services, what are the hours. It was a whole thing. I'm like how much more do you want me to give you? But it was. I think what it was is they wanted to see me doing stuff before they paid me and I'm like you see me doing stuff now. I don't, I don't get it, so we're going to rewrite something for them. But I told them I said that old, that old contracts gone, the prices have gone up. They're like, oh, please don't hurt us. I'm like it's not me, it's you.

56:56

I understand yeah, so that's fun. All right, my friend, are you ready for bed?

57:04 - Scott Sanders (Guest)

I've been ready. I'm just getting over the flu. So it is, it is. It is nighttime for me all right nighttime, who you?

57:16 - Marvin Bee (Host)

who you're riding on for the, the big game?

57:21 - Scott Sanders (Guest)

you know I am not too much of a sports person, I'm an IT guy. I know I couldn't even tell you who's playing. I was soon. You're talking about the Super Bowl, right? Yes okay, who's playing?

57:33 - Marvin Bee (Host)

the Kansas City Chiefs in the San Francisco 49ers all right?

57:37 - Scott Sanders (Guest)

well, I know both of those names pretty well, so I don't know who you are. Who are you rooting for?

57:44 - Marvin Bee (Host)

so I think I will not go against Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs okay not because not because of Taylor Swift, but because of the Chiefs awesome.

58:00 - Scott Sanders (Guest)

I will root for them as well all righty, sir.

58:02 - Marvin Bee (Host)

Well, thank you for hanging out. Thank you for those of you that have hopped in the show for us, watched us live. For those of you that are listening after the fact, thank you for downloading and subscribing if you like the show. You want to give us some suggestions, some questions answered. All of that, feel free to do that. Head over IT business podcast comm. Send me a question, throw something in one of the places where you can follow us here on LinkedIn, YouTube or the Facebook. And, if you're a business owner, once you head over to the IT business owners group and join that and be a part of group that. Listen. There's questions every day and discussions every day about how to run your business, what you should be doing, the questions that I asked about billing and stuff like that. That is a very, very active, very congenial group. You're not going to feel like an idiot and you're not going to be yelled at.

58:59 - Scott Sanders (Guest)

So we average about between 30 and 40 post every single day nice all right.

59:07 - Marvin Bee (Host)

Well, that is going to do it for our show this evening. Folks, next week I am going to be having an executive leadership coach come and chat with us. We're actually going to be doing a couple of series with her. We're going to be talking about conflict resolution and she has. This is the first guess that actually gave me homework, so I have to bring two to three examples of an interpersonal conflict between an IT business owner and one other person, and then she listed three a customer, a vendor, a contractor, etc. So that should be interesting a guess that gave me homework, so be looking forward to that.

59:55 - Scott Sanders (Guest)

I'll definitely tune in for that okay that's going to do it.

59:58 - Marvin Bee (Host)

Folks, thank you for hanging out. That's going to do it. We will see you next time and until then, Holla!

596 Community - IT Business Owners Group

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Scott Sanders