MSP Spotlight: Ron & Sydney of C Solutions IT (EP 900)

I'm going to be talking about the the the the the the the the Hello friends and welcome to another episode of the IT Business Podcast. I'm your host Uncle Marv coming at you live from Fort Lauderdale, Florida and yes this is me real live in the flesh. Thank you for everyone for commenting on last week's replay of an old PodNuts Pro episode with my buddy Matt Rainey and listen that was the very first time I had ever done a replay and I think it went pretty good.

I think I did a good job but I'll tell you why I did it. So last week I had a little bit of a scratchy throat and wasn't feeling so hot and last week was anniversary week for me and the wife and I needed to make sure that I was well so that we could go away for the weekend and that took priority over the show. So I figured let me do that.

We'll throw up a replay there. I thought it would be very interesting for some of you to see the roots of the show. A lot of listeners and watchers don't even know that the show had a different name and yeah that's what it was.

PodNuts Pro had everything to do with IT but that was the beginning. Matt Rainey was a great host with me and we'll have him back on at some time in the future. So that was last week.

Just to give you a little bit of idea some of you asked oh you went away for the weekend. Yes I did. I went to a place just a little north.

We didn't go like too far. It's about an hour north. We took a nice little drive up the coast to Singer Island and we went to the Hilton Singer Island Resort and basically it was for her.

It was right on the beach. We got a room with a view out to the ocean so the curtains were open so that when we woke up in the morning we were greeted by the Sun and she could run down and go to the semi-private beach because basically on either side of us were resorts or residences so there was no real public access to the beach there. So it was nice clean beach just north of the Riviera Beach Inlet so not a lot of waves, nice glassy water, cool breeze.

I slept and watched football. That was the weekend folks. Don't hate me or don't hate the game or don't complain, I don't know, don't do anything.

So for my opening segment tonight I was all set to talk about the fact that ConnectWise and other vendors in our space are doing away with their free tiers and for some reason that seems to have caused an uproar with some people that how dare they get rid of the free tier. But folks others are doing it as well. Microsoft is getting rid of some of their free stuff.

They're actually doing away with some of the not-for-profit stuff at the free level. Some other companies are also doing away with free stuff and I get why they're doing it. And as a disclaimer I don't use ConnectWise but I defend what they're doing.

They have been taking a beating over the last year or so with bad actors using their remote access tools for evil basically what it is and now I'm sure that it can still be done on a paid tier but why make it easy for them. So doing away with the free tier because of those reasons they wanted to just simply stop making it that easy for people to use their tool for evil. So I applaud that.

Now on the other side of that you've got MSP360 that all of a sudden is announcing a free RMM up to 50 units and we were just about ready to talk about all the companies getting rid of free MSP360 decides that we're gonna throw out a free RMM there. So what I did instead of talking about that tonight I reached out to somebody over at ConnectWise. I reached out to somebody at MSP360 and we're gonna try to tackle that in a future show.

I want to talk about that. I want to talk about all of the options that people have because free is taking a hit. I know that a lot of us in this space always talk about you know if you're using a free product you're really the product and then a secondary part of that is if you're using your free tool what does that say to your customers if you're supporting businesses but you're using a free tool that doesn't really give them support if if it stops working or whatever.

If you want to be an MSP if you're talking about a premier managed service provider business they always talk about well if you want to be able to charge you know three digits for your services whether it's a hundred or three hundred dollars an hour you're not going to do that using the free tools although some people are and but then they complain that you know I can't make my customers pay this or that and that's why I'm using the free. My opinion and it is just opinion as a matter of fact let me pull this up here do I have it yes I do Welcome Marv's IT business podcast is here for educational informational purposes only blah blah blah blah blah my opinion you do what you want and run your business how you will but we'll talk about all of that going forward I will give you one story from what I have been doing I am continuing the summer of Marv still haven't attended a conference still haven't gone anywhere outside for work except to visit clients and I know that I told you about the Ubiquity installations that I did well one of them turned into a full-blown client and they are going to pay for monthly services we inked the deal just last week right before I got sick and they're gonna be paying for monthly services we're taking over all of their internal IT stuff we're adding some cybersecurity we are replacing their internet and their phones and doing all of that stuff so at first I was excited I was happy until I started dealing with their provider that is giving them their internet they are giving them their phones they are also managing their email even though it is a 365 account this provider named Fusion Connect when I went to go you know start to do the off-boarding and get all their stuff well all their stuff is so badly documented that even the people at Fusion don't know what's in what account or where things are and it has been a nightmare and this is the one thing that I have to say that I found out today that they're using an old zip product that they acquired from somebody else and when I talked to the tech to try to find out some information the tech had the nerve to laugh and say this isn't even our product yeah that ain't right folks so Fusion Connect I need for them to get their act together because not only do they not know their their product this client has two locations and they don't know which phone numbers are assigned to which location because apparently some time ago they actually disconnected the customer by mistake and when they opened everything back you know turned everything back on they put things in the wrong place so one location is supposed to have the bulk of the phones while another location is supposed to be a satellite office well the satellite office has like 30 numbers and the main location has five so when I went to go do the port request it got rejected because the numbers were associated with the wrong service locations oh and there's no billing telephone number so if you've ever done an LOA to transfer voice services you know that you have to submit all the numbers with a billing telephone number and Fusion is like yeah we don't know which one is which we just assign the numbers and you guys do it there so it's it's gonna be fun it's gonna be a nightmare but I have the client we're replacing the internet throwing in some AT&T fiber we've already put in the Ubiquiti firewall replace the access points we're replacing another switch we're doing intermediate phones and some other stuff there but that'll be fun updates to come but right now let's bring on to the stage some guests that I have here the one gentleman you have seen him before on the show Ron Cervantes of C solutions IT and his company stands out as one of Orlando's trusted MSP specializing in efficient secure and client centered IT solutions with recognition as best of the best awarded two times that basically affirms their high standing among peers and clients let me welcome to the stage not only CEO Ron Cervantes but his cohort helpdesk manager no longer a Sydney branch thanks Marvin thanks Marvin sounds like you've been busy of course but not as busy as you guys I I'm not named best of the best in Fort Lauderdale you just need someone to come up with the contest that's all yeah I don't believe in stuff and ballots or anything but I will say this so I've seen the list so the list that they showed up on the one website has 15 solution providers do you guys know how they rank those or is it just here are the 15 I don't know so well that's all voted it's everything is voting okay because you're like you're number six on the list wait which list you talking about it's it's the best MSPs in Orlando for 2025 oh I don't know where you got that that's that's probably different jump factor net yeah oh here it is I'll take six you're listed in alphabetical order so there so I know two of these other firms or two of the other 15 just so that you know and I would rank you above those two see I'm first in my heart so that's all that matters we're gonna move on with the show I really should have yeah so let me ask not only are you best of the best for the last two years but Ron you have pretty much had your you know your head really focused on growing the business doing some stuff you guys are doing some some high-tech stuff I guess if you want to talk about it in terms of cyber stuff you're doing some HIPAA stuff too right we do yeah we do for obviously those that need it we have a few that we we take care of depending the compliance needs for sure yeah all right and how much of this has been a help to bring Sydney on board oh so much so much it's kind of worked out where I do a lot of the the field work and so she'll just kind of take the calls and knock out issues as they come along and the balance has kind of been that way where I'll do a lot of the site visits and then you know a lot of the like the administrative stuff getting to the point where I did have a like an assistant for a little while and then Sydney took so much off my plate from the tech side that I ended up just taking some of that stuff back that actually I don't totally mind it so I do a lot of administrative stuff that eventually be pawned off somewhere I think but yeah now Sydney is is this year two or three for you well I think it's only a little over a year working with him full-time I know I did part-time the whole deal you know you showed up you showed up to tech con so that's how we judge time and space okay gosh I don't know is it I think it'd be two two and a half then I only did part-time for a little bit I think you started in an August of your final year and then your official start date was I believe it was in July either June or July so you would have gone over that full year already so it's yeah we're putting two years on that at least for sure all right so I take it you haven't done an official anniversary you know employee you know assessment I have well we had a discussion we had a discussion no and I said I know precisely yeah I sat her down no I feel like there's not a whole lot of performance reviews that that happen you know anymore I don't know if people still do them or not what would I think the bigger ones do and I think if you're you know if you plan on growing you put those things in place but there's got to be some sort of annual assessment that you know look you know need you to pick up here this is great you've brought in this much revenue so we can give you a little bit more money maybe you're eligible for health benefits now you know but Sydney you're young you don't need those right now get her 401k right away yeah right away didn't have to wait the 90 days no nice no actually I think she would have but I just we just kind of backdated to when she started as an intern and so we just as soon as she started she was eligible for that since she went full-time for that but I think I guess my point I was gonna make is just like why wait a year to let someone know they're doing and you can let them know progressively as they're going along and have like you know corrections if you need to or you're doing an amazing job here and I think we do that all the time it's just a matter of when we came through that year part of you know just kind of summing up what we've been through already so yeah I don't have like a whole performance review or what's the whether they call that 360 review or I have a review me I do not want to hear what she has to say about me people some people do that they'll have their employees give like the manager a review of like what can I do better and what you know that type of that that 360 degree feedback if you will that's just silly I know it's a lot it's a lot of work to work I feel like I give my opinion of you Ron on a very regular basis sure yeah like you know how I feel about you where we are I was told I was a cool boomer so there's that yeah those were my exact words yes those were your exact words yeah you're a cool boomer yes that's a little insubordinate there that'd be ground for firing down here yeah I believe the word in your bio on the website actually references Ron's empathetic nature so yes yes I'd say we're both very empathetic I mean it's one of our core values yeah you got them all memorized no I can look them up if you want yeah no chance okay well Sydney let me ask you this because we've we've actually not had a nice formal sit-down chat of course you were rookie for a while so I didn't acknowledge that but here you are your official and everything but let me ask you about your journey because you're one of the I don't want to say few because now a lot of people joining our space are actually going to school I know that I don't know if Ron you actually didn't talk about you going to school and getting degree I came from the generation that we didn't need school to be in IT but everybody coming up now you know starts off with a you know a mission you know before they go to school where they're gonna get a degree they're gonna go into the IT field but I think most of them have the idea of going into corporate or whatever so Sydney how is that journey been for you that you're going to school you're looking for IT but then you find this little managed service space what do you think about that great question Marv um well with where I'm at currently I mean it was honestly a blessing truly because I'm getting to be just Ron and I I mean I have to put on a lot of different hats and cover a lot of different things I don't think I would do in the corporate world so I've been able to help with documentation and a lot of internal projects and taking on tickets answering phones having to be an expert communicator sometimes I have to read Ron's mind and know what I need to do next or how to help him out while he's in the field and I just feel like because of that I've learned a lot about a lot and quickly so I think that's really helped considering I you know was majoring in IT and just fresh out of college from that and it was really the best place for me to land and I've been very grateful for it now you talked about reading Ron's mind are you the one responsible now for taking stuff out of that mind and putting it into the documentation system where it belongs absolutely absolutely with as much as I can yeah she does an amazing job on that stuff and then will actually poke me when for things that she can't fill like I need you this she'll put the whole structure up there and say I just need you to fill that stuff which the onboarding process I don't know if I told you I started doing that so there's there is there is some stuff there there's one more one or two more are you telling that to her first time live yeah so but you know she does an amazing job of the processes and I love the way she thinks through everything and asks all the great questions when she was doing the stuff for intern which you know it was a very flexible because with between classes in school and and then if she had to study for things and we were just you know just kind of real flexible with the schedule on stuff but when it came time where I knew she was gonna be wrapping up I'm thinking in my mind like I really really really want her to to to not go anywhere I wanted to want to keep her and we talked about it figure it out we talked and then even talking about numbers we wrote down numbers we had the exact same number you know of what we're looking for so it's just a great experience working with her and she's just been an amazing you know partner for for going through all this stuff and picking up those things that she has and the questions that she asks and I yeah I can't imagine having to having someone else do any any better job than what she's done and picking up all the stuff that she does and and really all the communication the details the details are fantastic that she addresses nice nice now we talked about the fact that you know the documentation you know obviously has changed a little bit how has the stack changed because I think a lot of times when we're solo you know we get so kind of set and what we're doing it works for one but now you bring on another tech things may have to change has anything changed for you guys in the last year or so no I don't think so our stack has pretty much remained the pretty static for what it is you know we had adagy I'm sorry to interrupt that was rude how long have we had adagy newest yeah but again that was because of the need to manage Mac OS and iOS devices so we did bring that on to do that but in terms of having to you know I think we we tried augment for a while and didn't love it and so that kind of went away but anything else is pretty much static for all of the stack that we have I think yeah that changed a whole lot no are you not happy with adagy there Sydney oh no yeah no don't she was just saying because that would be the newest thing that we actually have okay yeah but no it works it works really well for us all right very nice who takes the vendor calls now that's still you Ron you know I never know if they slip through to Sydney or not she probably wouldn't tell me they will typically find me somehow I get yeah all the vendor calls I do get a lot of my cell and I actually kind of like it when I get when that happens because then I immediately sell I immediately tell them you just call the personal cell please take me off your list and don't call again okay and they're like is there another phone number I can reach but no it's okay so but yeah they usually slip through to me somehow and you know I do you ever get any vendor calls probably not huh I received you after a conference or two I can't remember which one yeah I was getting quite a few there and I'd either be like I'm not the person to talk to and then usually try to send them your way I don't know if they ever got to she went to MSP geek in the spring so that was a little bit larger for her that because we would obviously went to tech con and stuff but we are both signed up to go to it nation so we'll stop by and see you see you there isn't there one next week in Orlando what's that MS I don't know let me check well it's not scale con is it no that's in New Orleans it's a new one that's two weeks from now yeah that sounds pretty cool I mean that would be one I would be interested in the future we've talked about that before yeah MSP summit oh yes we I did see that one that one's going around the country because I saw one in Chicago and other cities I don't know exactly what that is it's at Lowe's universal so yeah MSP summit is next week and then ask the edge is in Dallas I won't be going to either either of those we both went to the Tampa one right is that what the one we did so that was that's the last yeah yeah the last ask in what was it was November or last October was the the ASCII Tampa really yeah no way that long ago yeah cuz this the earlier one this year was in Orlando and you weren't there no that's not right is that's not right the March one was at the Orlando airport oh no I'm sorry we went to that one nevermind sorry sorry yes that's the one we went to okay that was the last one yeah yes yeah I got lost on the way trying to find a venue at the airport Jim lost I don't you know I managed to get myself in situations I asked a nice security guard he had a very big gun but he walked me walked me through the crowd like I was a toddler and was like yeah it's right there I will refrain from saying what just popped in my head but are you not from Florida I mean do you have you never gone to the airport before I live in Orlando I had never really that's all that that's all that matters to you I know I know it's rough I should have known and in her defense she's actually because you're from the Jacksonville in st. Augustine area so yeah I came here for school and in fact isn't just fairly recently you flew out for the first time from Orlando I believe so you don't know it's you I did yes I did miss my my flight okay that was totally my fault it was a timing issue I didn't get lost on that one it was just timing yeah daylight savings there's some sort of excuse I just can't think of it right now all right so let me let's see what's our time here we've got a couple minutes so what I will do is ask real quick do you guys have any stories similar to my melee that I mentioned at the top of the show where I've got a current provider that is just bonkers and doesn't even understand their own stuff I mean I'm telling them how we have to off board unbelievable that that there are still providers like this out there any similar stories that you guys have dealt with recently I had a really just silly one of where I had a client not like a managed one more of a networking partner and stuff but they just kind of reached their wits end where they're like you know something's just not right with our internet that's so it's a tough thing when it's it's kind of working but not really and you have to just argue with what's going on with it and I also may went there they had a lot of old ubiquity equipment and but I ended up testing straight from the equipment itself from the the modem itself and I wasn't getting the speeds that I would expect and I think it was only getting like 80 when I should have been getting like 600 you know so then I had to contact the provider in this case I think it was spectrum and part of it was just trying to get the account number and the pin to verify the account and all that stuff and say to go through like five different people and they're all you know try this password try this password try this password instead of just resetting it but then they had to just roll a truck out there and when I arrived there originally they just had a tech out the previous day who replaced the modem so he replaced the modem and then I went back and I'm still not getting that right speed out of it so basically that the previous tech never tested the speed before he walked out the door he just connected it and walked out the door you know and so the other tech I got the next day he goes yeah I'm only getting 14 out of here you know and he went out got another modem put a different one in and everything worked as expected so he just basically put in a bad modem and it was just you know people that would just they don't check you know nobody checks their work anymore man they just it's it's maddening it's yeah I've dealt with spectrum that's why I laugh they are spectrum and Comcast I used to yeah when I am right when I did work in corporate for example if you worked with like AT&T because they were so departmentalized and compartmentalized if you will like between every single role I joked where I would have a guy come you know a tech there to do something and I'd ask him to do something else or something wasn't quite right he was well I'm the guy that turns the screws right you know you need a guy that turns the screws left so you're gonna have to call for another service call and I cuz I can't do that I'm not allowed to do that I got to call the guy that turns him left I only turn him right you know you'd always get that type of thing where you know I can't do that type of thing just gets maddening so let me ask you this because part of the reason the client that I mentioned part of the reason I got them is because this provider Fusion Connect they had been having internet issues for a while but actually it turned out it was complete network issue when I got there they had a very old now very nice Cisco switch but it was old and they originally wanted me to like run new wires because they thought it was the wiring they wanted you know they weren't gonna use the wife I'm like you don't need all that stuff you just need a new switch and they said well they they just sent us that one oh so I'm like they didn't send you a new one so they must have just something out of the back and that's what I feel like those spectrum guys are they just modems they just pull out and throw them in the truck yeah and just assume well you know we'll pass it on to the next client yeah for sure yeah yeah so you haven't dealt with any of that yet have you not entirely no I feel like a lot of things happen when you're on site and you find out people are kind of just pulling things out where they shouldn't yeah that was a good one yeah that was a good one there was one there was a story where again they were not quite not really a client another networking partner but they shared an office space like there was two two companies that shared an office space and so it was like one office in Iraq and then below there's another the other business if you like they're like split left and right but they shared a rack and so one out one company was up top one company was at the bottom well company B they had their own IT department and we're changing providers and sent one of their old MSP said well there's some equipment in your rack that's ours we need to get it back so they just walk right into the rack and rip out the other company's equipment not the one that they were supposed to and brought the other side down and then called me in a panic you know if you touch one cable you're the guy ever you know and that's basically what it was in that instance and because I wouldn't drop everything in that instance and run over there for that not-so-smart mistake I was they were you know they were quite unhappy and you know it kind of soured a relationship there a hundred percent.

How hard was it for the person that ripped the stuff out to put it back? Not hard but they didn't know they claimed they were putting it back and claimed that they did but that it still wouldn't come up online and so by that time that the damage was done. They just plugged cables in their own spot. Yes.

Yeah but I just I didn't bend over backwards for it. Don't do that ever. But what you can do is pay attention to commercial I'm about to play for our sponsors here so we'll take a quick break and be right back after this.

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All right and what I want to do now is I have made it a point to try to feature some of the recent Amazon purchases normally by our listeners but today I'm going to actually show you something that I purchased myself and it's just a nice little USB hub and what's it say on the front there got cleared out what's it say right there yeah 300 GAN 3 W or something whatever I don't know so I was a little nervous because it's not one of the name brands and that's usually a thing that I'm afraid to do but after doing all of the research and stuff I said you know what let me give this a try I had one on my desk before and I would say this has been one of the best purchases when it comes to decluttering the desk it's being able to plug all the stuff in plug in my tablet my phone a couple of other devices and stuff like that so having all of those were huge so let me bring up real quick the Amazon page here and here's a bigger picture of it this one is 285 but the one that I got is 300 so as you can see the USB C ports will put out up to 40 watts of power and then the USB regular just the 2.4 and stuff and that's how it would look on the desk and I actually did get the stand for that was another reason that I got it was because the one that I had before just laid flat on the desk and when I picked it up to clean my desk it was icky at the bottom so that was the whole reason that I ended up getting this all the stuff there so there's the you Amazon page for that and again the wattage there this one seems to be pretty good the old ones you know they always got a little hot themed to overheat this one does not but it has been cool when I've touched it even when I loaded it up and everything so that is what I purchased USB C fast charger and I am going to put a link in the chat here as well as the show notes so that you can go and check that out for yourself nice you guys use any use it use those over at C solutions no I think I have plenty I have a like a whole desktop PC that I have a Dell precision on the floor and I plug everything I need to in there and it holds everything you buy an extra PCI card to throw in there to get you know extra USB ports no I don't have a lot plugged into it really really yeah no not really I've got like 10 things plugged into mine I actually just upgraded mine really just did my Windows 11 upgrade I've got like my wireless keyboard and mouse is just one receiver I got a webcam and then a headset that I actually just plug it when I need it I have a slot for I have a YubiKey plugged into it that's it that's all I got it that's it no printer no it's Wi-Fi no other USB mic no no no hard drive toaster yes I do have that okay yes I'm not toast I mean I do have like a where I'll have like a backup on it if I and then I would pull those out and just have to plug them in and plug them off if I don't have it all set up all over the place and stuff oh I have to I have a toaster anyway I leave it plugged in and I actually got an NV me hardtop as well so I keep that out there as well so those are both plugged in do you do that much cloning yeah really yeah so the toaster though I use it mostly now just to read drives real quick and to run the crystal disk info on them and I will use it to do the active disk wipe so I get the certificate most of the cloning now that I do is the NV me so I've got the one on my desk that's just it'll just clone one yeah I've got the big boy where it will clone seven SSDs on my rack I use the the active disk kill for a while but then what it would encounter and it's time it was like spinning hard drives if you encounter any blocks it would just stop on those it wouldn't continue and and then it wouldn't give me a certificate after it like you wouldn't fail so kind of stopped using it for that because it and then we just sit there and wait for it to do its thing and I ended up getting one of those hard drive crushers yeah I have one of those yeah so but lately I had a client request a certificate destruction and so I just generated one off a copilot and and put in the serial number manufacturer how it was destroyed and all that stuff and it just kicked it out a PDF form for me yeah I'm trying to remember I think I like only had one or two fail with the the active kill disk so what I'll do is I'll just keep that certificate the failed certificate across the drive and then create a separate like you did a separate certificate so that I can show them look it's you know we tried to do it the regular way we crushed it now here you go but I have found so I still have my sister four bay copier for the old two and a half and three and a half so if the active killed this won't wipe it I'll throw it into that and sometimes that'll that'll wipe it it won't give a certificate so like still got to do a manual now like how long do you want to take you to wipe wipe something in an active kill disk um they usually three to four hours yeah I can crush it 30 seconds yeah I know but I to get a certificate you're not gonna do that no no correct yeah but I'll let it run but I run them overnight so I'll just throw four in and leave for the night so in the morning it's done yeah Sydney look bored no not at all I'm trying to keep my cat from being participant number four I saw like a furry monster yeah she wants to be part of the show all right so what else is happening over there at these solutions oh I mean I hear you're rolling in the dough oh yeah right right yeah without all the money you're making yeah it's crazy let's see oh yeah we were talking about we we bought into there's a little program that was done by the local chamber that was offering tickets to the women's protein the Orlando pride here and so you buy like a pack of tickets I bought like 25 and then it was matched by a another third-party business in the community so I have 50 tickets and so we just thought it did a fun little program of sending out an invite to people that you know if you want tickets let us know we can transfer these tickets to you as you want them and just send them out just as free tickets just as a thank you and now are you doing that for clients or are you using it as marketing for prospects just for clients okay just for clients yeah I still have some left to give and the today's the 10th is actually next Friday I guess right is that the 19th yeah so it's next Friday is the game that we actually have so I gotta get rid of that somehow so I might open it up a little bit to like networking partners I don't say I don't have a whole lot of prospects I do have a call tomorrow with one but yeah it's really I don't chase down a whole lot of work and I think you can kind of relate to that it does come to me you know here and there and some opportunities pop up I'd like to find a way to drum up more but scale count would have been good for that I suppose well I was gonna say I know a guy who's not far from you in Lakeland that could help with that he won't help me he won't help you no have you asked yes oh really oh well I'm in the area like he has it locked up like in and I that's because he's in this area and I think there's someone that he works with so I am out of I'm out of his area yeah okay I get you yeah I don't I get it I don't like it but I get it no no I get it I get it too and and he still has plenty to offer for sure it's not like and that and that wasn't like a burner like that but it was like it was just here's a question can you still be a part of this program even though you don't be a part of like the campaigns and stuff I mean there's I should have asked him that I had on the show the other day I don't I don't know the answer to that actually I don't know yeah if you're listening answer my question it doesn't make I mean I I do talk smack for him not helping me no maybe it's changed I don't know last night I mean we we spoke we I mean they're a great guy we spent time talking at the last tech con when everybody's flight got canceled and we were all stuck but I remember talking there so yeah yeah just I'm just unfortunate to be in the same area that he is so I mean you mentioned networking so I assume that's your primary source of marketing and leads and stuff or do you do anything else that's targeted no I'd say nothing that's really targeted I I'm still a big proponent user of tech marketing engine so for the the blog posts newsletters but those go so if I go to a networking event I'll input people's contact information in there and they become a part of my newsletter whether they like it or not but they can always unsubscribe but a lot I do a lot of networking for you know throughout the week consistently a lot of it is is chamber related some other professional groups I am not in any B&I at the moment I haven't been for a few years and a lot of it's just getting out there and and meeting people over and over and over and over again and actually it's become become kind of social actually social experience of just going out and and even at night of networking where it doesn't quite feel like work and networking and just kind of you know become friends with people and they just kind of trust you Sydney has become active in another element of the chamber that's new which is called the young professionals so she's been going to uh is it monthly get togethers yes those are the hip kids yes yeah yeah oh I one thing I could share too is that I uh I'm there's something and you might know that this does they do things like this by you and maybe other places as well um but it's in this area it's called leadership west orange and it is a monthly like a monthly kind of class thing where you will go visit businesses in the area um and then we'll take you kind of like behind the scenes um and you learn about and it could be municipalities government big businesses so um on the 28th I think we're going to NASA um we'll be visiting Tallahassee at some point we'll go to the background of Disney um and a lot of other businesses in the area um throughout the year all the way up until June so there's like one visit a month and um so it's a it's a it's an annual class it's they call it a class it's if you can um and we've got like close to 40 people in this cohort and so we get together and so it'll be a good networking opportunity from that standpoint um and just getting you know getting a little active in the community yep that exists down here it's called leadership Broward that that's it yeah same stuff yep I thought so because I remember I talked to someone who was in the like like um they're like the Palm Beach area I think that you're Fort Lauderdale right yep yeah and they were in the Palm Beach and they were talking about something it was it was leadership something so I think they do a lot of different areas do you know where they go for that um so I haven't talked to them a long time I actually ran into them back when I first got to Fort Lauderdale and I was doing the marketing for a junior team a junior achievement and they did a lot of stuff but the program has changed because they now do I know they added a youth leadership program down here and then they have uh a women's women leading Broward or something like that so they've actually branched off and done a whole bunch of stuff um but I do know this I know that the application process down here is pretty tight like you just don't get in oh really yeah the the gem I talked about it was and I thought he was said was around the Palm Beach area or whatever but he was saying that they did like for one one thing one outing they did that they had to go into um it was like a fire rescue type of a thing and so they actually got them geared up and they had to go into a simulation and pull out a dummy in smoke you know and they did one of those activities and stuff um yeah I think uh they like the money they'll take the money if you have it and so the application isn't that much of a thing um uh if you've you know signed up for it uh but maybe maybe they didn't have the money but people rave about the experience of it so I'm excited to do um and um yeah my involvement the chamber is helpful I like um so my my wife works for the chamber itself and um and uh you would think that would get me like um extra business but it doesn't she probably goes out of her way not to refer business to me to seem you know impartial yeah she doesn't want that stain on her right that's right so uh but I do get introduced a lot of new businesses and stuff and they'll recognize my name because they talk to her first when they're new it's like oh I know who that is um so uh but we we actually so which is nice because we actually end up you know networking in the same circles together so it's it's kind of a bonus that you go out and you know network with your spouse and go hang out and stuff all right well uh Sydney I want to give you a little bit more time here before we end off so let's ask you a specific question in terms of you know what do you think has been I don't know the most exciting thing that you've either learned or or done now that you were full-time working with Ron um gosh I mean to me every day is full of excitement I know my my blood pressure goes through the roof my heart rate goes up when like five tickets come in at once but um no I think really the biggest value I have is kind of when Ron hands me like a mini project and he's like go look into that go go figure it out and um kind of leaves me to my own devices to tinker around with that I know I've done quite a few things with Intune and policies there and rolling them out for all of our tenants that are licensed for it so um to me when I'm somehow have a few hours to spare and can kind of just put my head in the sand and focus on that or um really just give that my my all that's when I learn the most and can kind of make leaps and bounds and do things that make me excited yeah like I'm I'm helping and I'm being a productive member of the workforce. So what would be like a typical day of tickets do you do you have you know those recurring tickets that you're just tired of or what's a typical day like? Every day is different I I never know what I'm gonna get whether it's printers or scanners or just questions because someone's frustrated with something um or dealing with iPads or Macs I mean I just never know what the day is going to entail um I have found I have been able to kind of take on more tickets than I used to which is to be expected but I'm able to take on more and kind of close them out faster because able to identify if the issues happened before um what the culprit could be and um that's I mean I wish I could say every day is the same but it's really definitely not and that's where I learned the most so. All right has there been one project that stands out as in one you are most proud of that you were able to do without calling and run? That is a good question um it would have to be enrolling devices in Intune for tenants that were originally on standard that were upgraded to premium licensing after after the fact so they were already registered or joined to Entra ID but not enrolled in Intune and so I didn't want to go through and manually unenroll and re-enroll or anything like that so I found a way to hop backstage and run some commands and get them to check in properly now that they're licensed for it.

Okay a couple of PowerShell scripts. Yeah yeah yeah she's she's exposed herself to some of that um and I would that's exactly the that's the exact same answer I would give as well. All right uh did you blow anything up yet? Oh boy I try to quickly forget those and move on.

I make a big note in all caps don't do this again um but I don't I don't think there's been any massive life-changing mistakes I've made for anyone uh knock on wood. Yeah I don't know I think that if there there have been times where she's called me in a panic you know and said I think I might have messed something up you know um and it's never been anything major and we will always work through and stuff but um you know I what we do can be hectic and stressful and all that stuff and and I'll always like that I'll tell her look this is fixable we can fix it we you know um I think like one instance remember when a profile was deleted on accident of some sort right I'm like we can we can redo it we can we can fix it and um it's all fixable and stuff so but yeah um it's always fixable we can always figure out a way to do it but her troubleshooting skills have have just it's fun to watch them progress um where I can see her going through the the steps of um what can I try here what can I try here and then learning from those experiences and always taking them to the next problem it's just it's it's nice to watch. Right um you don't have a full-time office do you? No I do well I'm standing I'm standing in it not like you not like you no.

Okay yeah Sidney what's your uh what's your command center like how many how many screens you got up there? I have my laptop and then two external monitors but that's it so three screens. Okay what size? 24 I have no idea. It's written in the corner in the left corner if you look.

Yeah let me see yeah. Gotta brag about those things 224. When I was hoping to bring her on and when I was hoping to bring her on I said you know all these like like there's certain things that I can't offer you know when there's a small organization like you know full benefits and um but you know uh I told her you can work in your pajamas you know it's like it's like sold so it's funny when there are times where we do have to like if we're going to go somewhere or sometimes we'll visit a client together or something she's like you're gonna make me shower.

I have to get dressed normally. I have to get shirt you got right yeah I wear all the time and multi-colors there's multiple colors. Oh you do you did go the multi-color route well we have uh we have gray blue and black right? We have blue light blue gray black yeah yes.

We have different colors and blue and t-shirts. Yeah okay all right well um Not so bad, eh, Sydney? I did it. I made it out alive.

I'm no longer a rookie, so I've got that going for me. That's true. That is true.

I hear there might be a rumor of a joined TechCon single event next year. You guys going to go? I didn't hear anything about that. What's that rumor? It's a rumor.

I just made it up. You're just making it up? I'm just making it up right now. A joined, what'd you call it? A recombined TechCon, a single event.

Oh, I see. I got you. Yes.

Okay. I see. I see.

Instead of the city by city. Right, yeah. Yeah, I got you.

Okay. I've not heard that. Nobody has.

Sydney? I'm just saying, if they do, if they bring it back into a single event, will you guys be there? Oh, I expect to be, yeah. I'd like to think so. All right.

Sydney, you can't win anything. It was a foldable keyboard, wireless, I believe. You don't have it anymore? It was that cheap? Maybe this is a sick brag, but my boyfriend made me a custom keyboard.

So, it's all cute and customized. Oh. Now you gotta hold it up.

Yes, let us see. Oh, great. Let everyone see the keyboard.

It made you a custom keyboard. I don't know if anyone's going to be able to see. Hang on, let me, oh, you need a better camera.

Well, I've blurred my background. Yeah, it's blurring your thing. Yeah, that's a little better.

Yeah, that's a little better. I see. Okay.

Yeah, nice. Yeah. And they got you some little skins to put over keys there? Yeah, I've got cute little key caps and extras if I want to switch them out.

So, there's my sick brag of the night. Yeah. Custom keyboard, everyone.

What am I, I always, she doesn't think it's very funny, but I think it's funny. We talked about traveling at some point, whatever, and she talked about something, was it a cathedral in Germany? Is that correct? It's a castle in Germany. I knew you were going to share this story.

I know. So, it's a castle in Germany, you know, and she's like, I always wanted to visit it. And she goes, it was in a video game that I played and I thought it was pretty and I wanted to go visit it.

And I said, well, what video game was it? She goes, Call of Duty. It wasn't that it was pretty, it's just they based a zombie map off of the castle and it was a real thing and I wanted to go to Germany, might as well have a reason, I think. Minus the zombies, but yeah.

Yeah, we ignore the video game zombie part. So here's, you know, sweet Sydney just obliterating zombies in Call of Duty, yes. Yeah.

I don't think I ever mentioned you, pictured you as a first person shooter. Oh yeah. Full of surprises.

Interesting. Yeah. Wait till I tell you about my music taste.

Does it include Celtic woman? What's that? No. Definitely not. No.

We'll talk about that after the show. Well, guys, thank you very much for coming on. Let us real quick finish out with a Florida man story.

And our Florida man story this year actually is a multi state story. Because the Georgia Bureau of Investigation recently arrested a Florida man involved in a multi state cyber fraud operation that targeted elderly victims using timeshare scams, resulting in over $1 million in losses. So the tactics were that he would impersonate legitimate brokers, contact owners with unsolicited offers, demand upfront fees using high pressure tactics and promising high profits or guaranteed sales that never materialized.

And so I mentioned this because it actually falls under the cyber fraud law inside of Georgia. And this person may be prosecuted with felonies and punishments that may include one to 20 years in prison. And the guy's name is Charles Henry Williams.

He is age 63 of a place called Trinity, Florida. Now, I do not even know where Trinity, Florida is, but he was just arrested a little while ago, August 29th. The details are just coming out now.

And $1 million at age 63 scamming people. And the charges are theft by deception, exploitation of an elderly person and business email compromise. So at age 63, whoops, there's a boomer actually using technology.

I know you said that you weren't going to share, but I actually did think of a Florida man story in a sense that – so did you ever hear about the story about the guy? It was a Seminole County tax collector named Joel Greenberg. Oh, yeah. He's on – they did a – what's it? American Greed.

They did American Greed with him, yes. And so there is some connection between him and that congressman, Matt Gates. Did you know that? What's that? I said that guy.

Yeah, that guy. And so there's a guy that I knew personally. He was always a little quirky.

He did mortgages here, and he actually did my mortgage when I first moved here back in 2002 or something like that. And he always had weird hair. He always looked fake or whatever.

He just had a weird look to him. So anyways, I was wondering what happened to him. And I looked him up, and he was in cahoots with Greenberg with a lot of the scams that he did with the SBA loan frauds.

He hired a bunch of people to create fake companies and all that stuff. And he was also arrested for transportation of minors for prostitution over state lines. I'm not sure what to say for Epstein.

No, no. But they all knew each other between Gates, Greenberg, and then this other guy that I actually knew personally. Not a friend, but it was just an interesting thing.

I'm like, God, I know that guy. And he's in jail. I just remembered that I never announced the winners of the 2025 Python Challenge that happened.

So many of you are like, what are you talking about? Yes, we have not only do we have Gators, we have a Python Challenge. It happened back in July, but the results take a while to be announced. There were 934 participants this year from 30 states and Canada.

And the winner this year. Well, let me first say. Is the contest how many or the biggest? Well, let me tell you.

So again, 934 hunters. There were a record number of pythons removed this year. 294 pythons were removed.

A person by the name of Taylor Stanbury won the top prize by removing 60 pythons, nearly tripling the previous record. So it goes by the number that you get. The top prize is $10,000.

And they have prize categories for longest python, most pythons removed, and separate recognition for military and professional competitors. So there are people that, you know, do this as a job as part of the Wildlife Commission. And then, of course.

The Yahoo's that think I'm gonna get me a python and just join for the fun of it. So. That is how it was.

I think the longest one was 18 feet. That got removed. My goodness.

And 234 sounds 294 sounds like a lot. But the state has been trying to count the number of pythons in the Everglades. They are estimating that there is 16,000 pythons in our Everglades, and that they will at some point start to eat out the others in the area, including gators pythons eat gators.

Smaller ones usually right. Yeah. So, here we go.

Alright folks, that's it. Thank you very much. When you're at the Florida games that Sydney was there at the same time.

I was, I didn't want to embarrass her like that. She loves it. All I wanted to say is how did you not see me.

I did what you were taking a video of someone on the American Ninja Warrior obstacle course, and I didn't want to disrupt your video, nor did I want to stand around and be creepy waiting for you to finish. Nice. Oh, you know this year it's closer to you.

Is it. Yeah, it's over. Where is it it's over.

Like north of Lakeland it's over on that side. Oh, interesting. The other side.

Okay. It is. I'll have to look into that figure out when it is.

So, the actual games are February 21st, 2026. They are going to of course have the customary games the evading arrest obstacle course hurricane party prep grocery island rumble. The Florida sumo cage match.

And this year. If they not listed here, here we go location. It is that the freedom factory, which is off of Florida State Road 64 in Bradenton.

Okay, so complete the other side. Yeah. It's no.

We'll see you there. Right before we did that, Sidney I was going to ask if you want to have the last words for today's show. Oh boy what an honor.

I really just want to thank you for having us and letting the no longer rookie, come on and have some time here since I wasn't able to join last time and it was really I had a good time I'm just happy to be here. Always with you guys I mean, I learned so much from surrounding myself by people who know more than I do and I really just had a great time so thank you. All right.

Ron you must be so proud. I am. She's great.

Folks, thank you very much for tuning in. If you watch the video. If you're listening.

Thank you very much for downloading and subscribing to the show. If you're just tuning in for the first time. Be sure to save this in your favorite pod catcher head over to it business podcast dot com support the show support the sponsors.

That'll do it. We'll see you soon. And until next time.

Holla!