Building Better MSPs with Bret Erickson (EP 902)

Hello friends, Uncle Marv here with another episode of the IT Business Podcast, the show for IT professionals and managed service providers, where we help you run your business better, smarter and faster. We are continuing with the Member Spotlight Series for the NSITSP, the National Society of IT Service Providers, the organization that is going to help us, you know, kind of figure ourselves out in the world, get ourselves a little bit more professional, get some seats at the table when it comes to people trying to run our industry and tell us how we should be. And one of the ways that we're helping to spread the word is talking to some of the members in the group, asking them what got them started and talking about their business and hopefully encouraging others to up their game.

In other words, step your game up when it comes to being a managed service provider. Today we are talking with Brett Erickson with Passkey Technology. Brett, welcome to the show.

Hey, thanks Marv, glad to be here. All right. Passkey Technology based out of Golden Valley, Minnesota.

Yes. First ring suburb, basically Twin Cities, Minneapolis-St. Paul.

Is it still cold up there? No, it's beautiful. Nice. This is our three months of the year where this is why we live here.

Very nice. Very nice. So, Brett, I know that, you know, Passkey Technology has been around a while.

I know that it started in the late nineties. You guys came in and took over from what I understand. Is that a correct way to summarize it? That's correct.

Started in 1991. And I started here in 98 and my wife and I bought it in 2007. So 18 years of fearless business ownership.

So usually techs are starting the business to get away from their previous owner and business. You joined the business and decided to take it over or did your owner retire? Well, kind of a little bit, but he did not retire. He retired from this business, but he did not retire.

In fact, I think he's still working a little bit. I don't think he'll ever stop. One of us who doesn't want to retire, right, fully, what would we do? It's kind of a fun story, you know, kind of second career for me.

I was a professional musician for the first, you know, 10 years out of high school or right out of college and I traveled the country and recorded CDs and got signed to an independent label and kind of did the follow the dream thing. And then, you know, all of us, you know, our friends are all buying Suburban s and houses and having kids and we're traveling the country for a couple hundred bucks a week. Right.

So it was time to kind of put a pause on that. And we all, you know, got jobs or what had you. And I was lucky enough to be able to go to school.

So I went to a local trade school, went for a year of PC land. So networking and then a year of programming and my uncle who owned PASC, he caught wind of that and said, Hey, you should come intern for me. And I didn't even know what he did.

Right. And so in 98, I started interning for him. It was school in the morning and work for PASC in the afternoon and fully intending to leave once I graduated.

I decided pretty early on, I didn't want to be a programmer, actually pretty late in my year, but I was dreaming about four loops and I was waking up and like thinking I was just dreaming about code, you know, and that whole, like I can work for five. Five hours on something and discover it was a period that I was missing. I was like, you know, I, I really liked being with people and I, so I ended up staying at PASC.

He said, you know, I can pay it competitively and I'll give you a first right to buy it if I ever sell. Nice. So on we go.

So I started working for him full-time and then in 2006, probably he started to get a whisper of somebody looking to possibly acquire him. And I put my hand up and said, Hey, wait a minute. You talked about, uh, me having first right to buy it.

And he said, really, are you really serious? Could you buy this thing? And I said, well, yeah, yeah, exactly. Are you serious? Let's talk numbers. Yeah.

So, you know, banks and business plans and lawyers and next thing you know, my wife and I, uh, owned it in 2007. So, it was a hard cut too. He was just out.

It wasn't like the I'll stay for a year. It was like, here you go. Good luck.

A little risky, but here we are. Let me ask you this. Were you employee number two? So funny.

He had 14 people, I think 11 or 14 people or something. They were a database development company. He worked at a place called control data, which is a Minneapolis based, but they were international really.

And he left and put up a shingle to do database programming. And then, you know what, this is 1991, two, three, four, these clients that have started getting computers. Hey Kevin.

That was my uncle. Hey Kevin, can you set this computer up? Hey Kevin, they sent us this thing with all this, you know, uh, what do they used to call that? BNC or, uh, you know, all the old, all the token ring token ring. You got it.

Uh, I saw some of that when I first started and, uh, yeah, it's just all of a sudden we're, we're no data database development. We're all networking. So, um, and he, they dropped down to just himself and our assistant.

So yes, when I started, it was myself, my uncle, and it was an assistant. Okay. And he doesn't remember extending the offer to you because he thought, yeah, that'll never happen.

Yeah. I think he remembered. I think he remembered.

We have a great relationship. I grew up with, uh, him, we were fairly tight family. So I think he remembered, I just think, you know, it was a big deal and I figured, you know, he's going to have to get financing.

I think he just thought that, uh, we weren't ready. We just had young kids and, you know, you were, you were out, you know, in the world doing the band thing. Yeah.

He's not ready. He's not mature. Right.

Right. Exactly. Uh, so you took over the business there in 2007, uh, still before managed services was really a thing.

Uh, so were you just doing break fix or were you doing, uh, businesses? How was the business back then? Yeah, you bet. It was all business. Um, we ended up, this is very common.

We ended up in some homes, but usually because it was a principal, a business owner, you know, something like that, or, you know, we started having people working remotely. I mean, remember PC anywhere? Oh yeah. Yeah.

Put the modem on the PC anywhere. I mean, so we had remote users, so we'd end up at houses with that, but no, no residential, no all B2B, you know? And uh, yeah. You know, the fact that I wasn't around for MSP for so many years, we all were, if we started back then, um, does shade my view of, of MSP and all you can eat and unlimited this and unlimited that because I didn't, uh, cut my teeth in that business model.

So I would say, you know, I don't like the term break fix. I'm like, don't we all fix stuff that breaks, you know? But uh, we, so pretty early on, I had, I mean, I was on hound dog. Do you remember hound dog? Oh, that's um, I was, I was after hound dog.

I was the GFI series. Yeah, sure, sure, sure. So like hound dog would bark at you.

I mean, I loved the idea of having a heartbeat on a customer. I just, that was huge to me. So we've been doing managed services since there was an RMM, since I jumped on my first hound dog, I suppose.

So, um, and we still don't do unlimited help desk. We don't do all you can eat. I've had a couple deals where I've done that for customers, but as a general rule, we offer the whole suite.

So I got a real nice stack. That's very comparable to what everybody in the industry is using. And we all have a little variation, but all the types of products and then, but for labor, we pretty much block our, you know, that's how you save money as you do a recurring block hour or a, or you just a la carte.

So it's just the whole, you know, you pay us for what you use and that's been working really well for us. Yeah. I don't, I am a hybrid model.

So I tell them that, you know, anything we can do remote as part of your monthly, but if we have to go on site, that's a charge. Or if it's an, if it's a new installation, you know, if a copier shows up that you didn't tell us about and we've got to work with them, that's a charge. So it's not unlimited.

So I think, I think our last agreement, we actually put in, um, remote support nine to five or limited remote support, nine to five money through Friday or something like that. Just to let them know that, you know, don't be calling it Saturday, 8 PM thinking that that's included. Yup.

Yup. I mean, and I always say we're going to, we could get pulled into it. I really try to embrace change.

I don't like change. Yeah. Just like most of us, I can't stand change, but boy, I tell you, it's, you just have to be ready to roll with the punches and be willing to change.

So I'm really, I try not to be a dinosaur, you know, I'm 55, so I'm still young, but I'm not young. So I always say, I just try not to be a dinosaur, trying to stay relevant and, uh, ready to, ready to pivot and change with the industry. So I mean, we're kind of talking MSP philosophy here, uh, in terms of the way that you do run your business versus what is, you know, perceived as the MSP standard, you know, for now, what do you think is, you know, going to be the way going forward for us over the, say the next three to five years? Boy, I tell you, there's some big factors to that.

I think Microsoft and Intune and how they're chasing the RMM tool and how pretty much I've always joked that Microsoft is, if you're making money, Microsoft's coming after you, you know, they're coming after that product set. So, you know, I mean, just like the SaaS alerts concept or the Hunter's concept or the Threat Locker, you know, locking down applications, the Zero Trust, those are some of the ones that they're not quite there yet, but I mean, obviously Defender for Endpoint is a done deal. You know, I mean, there's so many things that, uh, you know, the update rings and doing Windows updates and obviously monitoring and, and, uh, there's just so many things Microsoft is chasing.

So how does that affect how we bill? How does that affect how our packages sit? Are we, um, staying independent of Microsoft, which I'm a fan of, or are we jumping on ship and getting rid of our RMMs and literally just running everything off Intune? And I think it would take a long time for that to happen, mostly based on licensing costs and how you build your package. But I do see that as one thing coming down the road, how is that going to affect our industry? Yep. It'll be, it will be interesting.

That's the best of breed, best of suite. You know, like, uh, I'm a best of, I'm a best of breed guy, a hundred percent. You know, I'd rather have five different tools that do the job right.

I want the best of the best, but there is something to be said for best of suite and having everything in one bucket. And you, you also, yeah, go ahead. I was going to ask how you feel about the bundles because they're, they're out there.

Well, they are out there. And, uh, Kaseya, I mean, uh, you obviously got the Kaseya s and other people chasing that. And, uh, obviously Microsoft is a big, uh, bundler.

Um, right. Locker's starting to do a bundle. Yup.

Oh, there's so much overlap. Yeah. It's just crazy.

We do demos and especially with this new Kaseya ops thing, we're kind of looking at, uh, it's almost too good to be true, the deal. So we're really looking at that hard. And, uh, I just, in looking at competitive, there's just so much overlap, you know, this does that, and this does that, and this kind of does that.

And it's just like, you know, so, so the one thing to said to, to have everything overlap and have one tool that's kind of best of suite, right. Do we, do we have a provider who will give us everything? Um, I, the one point I was going to make is you really, you kind of have to follow your customers too, because they'll give you their opinion. I've got one customer who's just like, we just want to be Microsoft.

We've found they, they also are owned, own a bank and there's some other big, uh, industries that have compliance needs. And they, I was in a meeting and they're like, no, all Microsoft. It's just easier.

I know they're not the best at everything, but I just want everything. So sometimes you get, your decisions are made, um, by where your customer wants to go, you know, unless you want to drop that customer. Uh, that is true.

And, uh, our customers are getting smarter and they're starting to see, well, I'll say it gently advertisements out there for the products and tools that, uh, are either similar to the ones that we use or are in fact, the ones that we use. And they'll start, uh, doing their own inquiries and then coming to us after the fact, so that'll be fun. I really try, just had a prospect yesterday and I really try and say, we really want to be on your team.

I want to be on your side of the table. I want to be sitting there evaluating products. I want to, we want to be an extended employee of yours.

I don't want to be that vendor on the other side of the table trying to sell you stuff. So I think as long as you stay the trusted advisor, that you're probably going to be safe as long as you're like, Hey, I just want to work for you. We want to be part of your business, you know? And so I'm not trying to sell you products.

I'm trying to help you decide what we should, what you do now. It's much easier if I manage them as much better. If you go with our recommendations, whatever, but I really don't want to, uh, I feel like they're not going to go running off looking for other products if they feel like you're in every meeting where they discuss that.

Right. And as long as they want you in the meeting, that's as well. That's important.

And sometimes you're not, you know, we've all had that customer tells you, Oh yeah, we're going to do this. And you're like, um, shouldn't I have been involved in that? You know, it's a cost between hurting your feelings and being just downright frustrated that you're not brought into the loop. Yeah.

Yeah. Uh, you mentioned a seat at the table and I mentioned that at the start of this, broadcast that the NSI TSP, you know, is trying to help us get a seat at the table when it comes to, you know, possible, you know, intervention is the way I like to look at it, um, regulations and stuff like that. Um, you are one of the founding committee members for NSI TSP, correct? Yeah.

I'm not sure where, where I got in as far as the numbers. I don't, it's certainly, uh, Carl and Amy and ran and all those guys. I'm sure I was months past when, when the start, but I was pretty quick.

I mean, I think it was between those three. I'm not sure who's at, I saw her probably all three is LinkedIn. And I said, I love it.

And I signed up right away and I got on the foundation committee. So we did a whole bunch of work with, you know, Larry Mandelberg. I know the name, I know the name.

Yeah. We did a lot of work with some people way smarter than I was committee. Uh, chair.

So we just meant that I kind of herded cats, right? I mean, these people were way smarter than me and, uh, kind of built like what committees do we need, what kind of things do we need to look out for? So it was a lot of fun. And, uh, now I'm on governance committee. So, which is also fun, but I mean, my true, uh, interest and benefits is the education it's the content, but it's also legislation.

That's a big piece of professionalism. I liability to, I worry that kind of goes with legislation. I worry about a little bit about our responsibility when a lot of times the customer who's doesn't want to pay attention, doesn't want to listen, doesn't want to spend the money.

So a little bit of that liability, but yeah, like you opened your, like your opening statement there, Marv, like being told what we're going to do by legislators, you know, and, and try to have a seat at the table. And then, you know, I mean, you, it's pretty easy to hang up a shingle and open up an MSP nowadays, and there's just decent money. I mean, it's, it's a decent, it's a pretty low cost to entry and it's a decent living.

And so you've got a lot of people in this industry who, um, may, may not be super qualified, or you've got some people that don't care about their customers, so I'm really concerned about. Our reputation. And I love what the society is doing to try and I love that mission.

We're trying to protect our reputation. So having been somebody that was there from the beginning, I just got in recently, uh, are there any differences you think in the formation of the NS ITSP and where we are now? Has the, you know, the mission kind of been altered a little bit? Have people coming in kind of, you know, tried to steer some new waves into this? Uh, good question. I'm not sure if I have as much perspective on that, but I am, I would say, um, I'm amazed how it's taken on a life of its own, you know, it felt like a very small net group of people, and now we've got all these committees and so many people involved and right before, um, we joined, I logged into the site and I was just kind of browsing around in case I wanted to call anything out.

I can't believe the amount of content. I mean, go to that page of events and it's at least three, four, five pages of like, you know, CMMC, uh, CIS controls, um, you know, how to build a good MSP, just all kinds of great content out there. So yeah, I think it's grown, uh, from conception.

It's really blown up. So then the question I'll ask in this way is can the NS ITSP help us standardize MSP best practices? I don't know. That's, uh, I don't know.

It's, it's going to be a big job, you know, and it's going to take a lot of people and, uh, and then you got to have people, uh, listen and pay attention to it. Uh, we, we talk about it, you know, join a committee, join a committee. Cause that's a lot of the discussion.

Okay. And, uh, a lot of great people trying to answer that very question. And maybe, maybe the answer is yes.

The task is how we're going to do it. Yeah. I just thought I should have asked Carl that when I had him on, but it didn't pop in my head at the time.

So, uh, Brett, let me ask you this and we're going to go way off topic here. Um, not tech, not NS ITSP. Uh, you mentioned being in a band and I wanted to ask you mango jam.

Yeah. That was the name. Yeah.

Base players from Hawaii. Grew up there, uh, moved here when he was 15, had my mom for English, which was part of the reason that I knew him and, uh, his dad, he's the story goes that, uh, back in the day, his dad said, wouldn't mango jam be a great name for a band that's kind of, that's kind of how it happened and we're just kind of, uh, he was the sole right, not the sole writer, one of the key writers, uh, and then the other, uh, guitarist, John Herkert, but, um, just a lot of fun kind of tropical, um, but also just rock and roll. And we also all grew up, grew up, but listen to the grateful dead and the Allman brothers and the radiators and little feet.

And so, uh, my favorite quote from a writer was like, it'd be like you threw a, like you poured tropical oil all over your Allman brothers records. So I'll be honest. I have no idea what that means.

I know, I know the Allman brothers. Uh, I only knew a couple of those other names you mentioned, but, uh, that must have been an interesting, an interesting sound. Yeah.

I mean, a taste of Caribbean flavor, uh, or Caribbean flavor for as much as you could have from five guys from Minnesota. Uh, do you still play? Oh yeah. I'm playing on Saturday at a local club called bunkers.

Yeah. So playing a cover. So the original band mango jam still plays.

We were playing twice this, uh, three times this summer and fall. So that's really fun. Cause we get together and tell fish stories, if you will.

And then, uh, and then I'm in a really fun cover band, nine people, two girls, singers, a sax player, and we just played whatever we can play to get people dancing. So you gotta, you gotta find a way to get to relieve the stress of this MSP industry. Yes, that is true.

That is true. Um, I won't ask you about the, the, the selections you play. I was just at a reunion this past weekend and the DJ struggled, I will say with and, uh, that's a whole nother discussion, but, um, well, uh, have fun there, Brett.

It was nice to chat with you and learn a little bit more about past key technology. And, uh, yes, there is tech in Minnesota. Yes.

And I do need to tune into your podcast. This is just a pleasure to meet you. I, uh, there's so many podcasts and, uh, I definitely spend some time walking the dogs and listening.

So yeah, there's push on the list. There is a lot. Um, so I'll tell you this, this is, um, a little preview.

Uh, it's not going to be out for another week and a half, maybe two, but wait for one McKenzie Brown. Okay. Um, it was my last interview at the PAX eight beyond conference.

And that sounds familiar. It goes, it went off the rails really bad. Okay.

So that's the one you want to, you want to pay attention to. I love that so much. All right.

So, uh, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for listening. You've, uh, just heard me chat with Brett Erickson with past key technology and a golden Valley, Minnesota. And, uh, take heed to his comments on, uh, break, fix versus MSP and the, all you can eat model.

And then of course we were here promoting the nationals society of it service providers, it S I T S P join them, help us, uh, get ourselves a little more standardized, a little more professional and, uh, get ahead of whatever's coming down the road when it comes to legislation. Agreed. All right.

Great. Uh, great outro. Yeah.

Thanks a lot, Brett. Hey, thank you. And that'll do it folks.

Uh, we'll see you with another episode here soon. And until then, holla.