xAmplify: MSP Growth Engine (EP 860)

Hello friends, Uncle Marv here with another episode of the IT Business Podcast, the show for IT professionals, where we help you run your business better, smarter, and faster. And we are getting ramped up here. It is Pitch It season for the IT Nation incubator program, and we are right into it with these vendor profiles.

And today we have a returning vendor, X Amplify. They were last on the show for Pitch It back on July 8th of 2024. So almost a year to the date.

Well, close enough. We are back. And this time I am interviewing Dmitrius Garcia.

And Dmitrius, let me just start by saying welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. And are you ready for the ride? Absolutely. 

Locked and loaded. Let's ride. Okay.

So most people, you know, that I've heard of you know that you guys do a lot of, you know, you know, co-marketing and co-selling capabilities. You integrate with a lot of the CRMs, PSAs, white labeling, co-branding. Has much changed in the last year? Well, absolutely, right? How we're positioning ourselves in the market is a lot different.

I think initially we were really focused in on, to your point, the co-branding and co-selling and things of that nature. But when I came back into the fold, right, to rework strategy with Sudhir and Arvind, the other founders in the company, the one thing I wanted to focus on was the people, right, and being of service. So we took a step back and I said, you know, how can we communicate our value proposition from a service perspective, right, instead of throwing tools at people, right? How can we be more oriented in our community and focused and zeroing in on addressing the problems of the channel? So what we did is we start really looking at the world of- Dmitrius, hang on a second here.

I'm getting some real crackling in your voice there. I want to make sure you sound good. So is it- Maybe it was my chair.

Hmm. Or maybe there's still crackling. Yeah, a little bit.

It's almost as if, let's see, are you using a laptop and a webcam in the laptop? No, I'm using my phone because it has a more sensitive mic. Okay. Okay, now you sound better right there.

So I'll get closer. Maybe that's it. I'll leave it, right? Okay.

I'll probably calm my tone down a little bit. Okay. It's easier to, you know, receive.

All right. Yeah, I just, I don't want people to be like, oh, he's cutting in and out. So- Yeah.

All right, let's do this. I am- I'll have to go through and edit this. So we'll just kind of start over with me asking you how things have been in the last year, all right? So along with everything there, so XAmplify basically, you know, offering a centralized platform for MSPs to manage those vendor relationships and stuff.

So has that pretty much been the case for the last year? The last year we've taken a different approach to how we position ourselves in the marketplace. Before, it was trying to build a platform for the tools that we knew were appropriate for the marketplace. But however, we weren't telling the story of that was relevant to the audience.

So what we did is we took a step back and we really tried to focus on developing relationships, asking more questions, and being a service-first oriented company. So that means me talking to MSPs and vendors and just learning from their experiences, learning about their experiences, learning about their pain points. And instead of trying to sell them a tool, provide them a solution, which may incorporate our tools, may not, right? But sometimes I'm like, hey, we may not be a good fit for you, but you may want to go talk to this consultant, right? So we really took more of an advisory consulting approach to the marketplace and really just tried to focus on developing relationships and also building out applications within the platform that are designed to address the pain points that we feel or that we've heard exist in the market.

For example, we unveiled an AI agent, right, for a partner. So it helps partners synthesize and take product marketing collateral and put it into layman's terms for the recipients. Sometimes the recipient is not in the IT department. 

Sometimes the recipient is going to be, you know, an auto shop. It could be a dental office. It could be a law office or, you know, a medical office, right? And, you know, doctors, lawyers, mechanics, these are all intelligent people, but their core competency is in IT.

So sometimes we need to simplify our language, take out those acronyms, break things down into simple layman terms so the audience really understands your value proposition, especially through pitching a service. All right. I know that a lot of what you guys talked about last year was helping us to have this unified view of you know, the sales pipeline and stuff.

I don't think I asked too many questions about like how that looks in a dashboard or portal or if there was any API to go with that with other products. Tell me how that works. Yeah. 

So we have, of course, you know, we live in an API integration economy. So if you're a tech company, you're only as strong as your integrations. So, you know, we have integrated with ConnectWise. 

We have Salesforce integration, with HubSpot integration. So whatever your core tech stack is for the sales and marketing department, we're going to integrate with that. And even if they're just an MSP and you're using, you know, just a Salesforce, we're going to integrate with that as well.

So you have full visibility on both sides of your operations. But for the MSP and most practitioners, our platform, it is a PR run. It is a marketing automation.

It does have AI in it. It does have the analytics. You can see your metrics across the board.

If a vendor is working with a partner, you can see what the partner is doing from the emails going out to phone calls. And the vendor can even see if the partner must provide a summary of phone call conversations that that partner has had with the customer. So that vendor can better service that partner and help them go to market and get that deal done.

All right. And I see that Halo PSA is on that list. So a lot of MSPs will love that.

Let me now go back. Let's shift gears and go back to last year. What was the biggest feedback that you received during last year's Pitch It? And how has that made you pivot for this year? I think the biggest feedback that was received, right, or the most important feedback was, I think the company was so focused on communicating the product that they lost sight of how valuable the story of the company is and why they were doing what they did or what they're doing.

One of the most great questions I've ever been asked, Martin, right, was by this management partner at this law firm. I have a legal background and I was meeting with this firm in L.A. when I was younger. And I asked them, what makes you so successful? What made you so successful? What did you do? He said, well, I got a question for you. 

Why do you do what you do? If you understand why you do what you do, you'll be successful. Right. So what that did, it forced us to sort of pivot, right, as a culture.

But why are we doing what we're doing? And a lot of it was to be of service, to help these partners be more effective, be more efficient, and get more deals done in the channel. And what does that look like in real time? Well, it looks like a lot of conversations. It looks like it looks like it's us asking more questions and listening.

Right. And trying to craft solutions around what our respective prospects problems were. Right. 

Instead of just trying to shove a product down their throat. Yeah. I know that in our industry, you know, the question that we're told to ask is, you know, what makes your solution the best option to solve which problem? You know, because that's always the thing. 

What problem are you really trying to solve? And, you know, now it's you know, what is the biggest promise that you're making to MSPs? Because now that's the thing that we want to hear is, you know, what do you know? Yes, you can help me with my clients. Yes, it's another tool. But, you know what promise are you going to make to me? And what can you do to help me solve my biggest problems? You know, I like to consider us an extension of your sales and marketing and strategy operation.

Right. We're going to be in the trenches with you. Right. 

We're here to work with you as a strategic partner, not a vendor. We're a strategic partner. We're not trying to sell you. 

We're trying to help you go to war. Right. Preferably. 

And get deals done, because if you're successful using our platform, you're going to evangelize. You're going to, you know, it's word of mouth. They're going to tell people, hey, this is a really good company.

And, you know, yes, our tools and our applications are amazing. But what makes them amazing is the people behind them. Right.

The people who are there providing the service, the people who are there listening, coaching you, holding your hands, helping you get the most out of those applications. I mean, I've used a lot of technology in my career and I've never usually, you know, you'll have a CSM do this, do that. But you don't really have CSMs that are highly engaged and trying to help you be successful day in and day out.

And that's what we do at the company. All right. So now I want to go back to that question that you got asked.

You know, why do you do what you do? Did you come up with an aha moment when you sat down to figure that out? Yeah. So a lot of it was, you know, Sudhir comes from the MSP space. And Sudhir, when working as a, you know, running his own MSP company years ago, he found himself very frustrated by how fragmented the market was and how sort of unpredictable it was.

And, you know, there was no metrics or analytics that came that were really present then that could help facilitate bringing clarity to the channel. Right. It's like you're shooting in the dark half the time, hoping you got a deal done. 

Right. Or hoping that the customer went to you, but you're always in first competition when you didn't even know who asked half the time. Right. 

Because there's so many different service providers out there. So why they built the platform was to provide that visibility, to take, to start to address that issue of data fragmentation, provide metrics and analytics so that MSP can say, hey, listen, I've been working with this customer for, you know, so many days, look at my data points, look at the data, let the data talk. You know, that's it. 

That's the same. I love it. Let the data talk. 

Right. So we want to let the data talk to both the vendor and also the partner. Right.

And because the partner now in our platform, they can pull, you know, quarterly business reviews, what they've been doing in the channel, how many campaigns they've run on behalf of the vendor and show the vendor, hey, listen, I've been going to back for you for like the last 90 days. Right. And out of all these 16 marketing campaigns I've read, I've brought in 109 leads. 

Right. Out of those 109 leads, you know, 40 of them are qualified. Right.

I still have 16 in the pipeline. Right. And that's value that the platform enables the partner to bring to the event because now the vendor can say, oh, wow, like, look at how enabled my partner is.

Hey, you know, CRO, this platform is yielding results. Right. But most importantly, we have something here with this partner. 

Maybe we should invest more in the relationship. Right. And maybe we should, you know, lean in more on our other partners and try to find out what we're doing right with this one and try to get that across the board with the others. 

Right. And just strengthen those channel relationships. But it starts with the data. 

Right. It starts with being able to make data driven decisions. And that goes back to, you know, just answering the question, you know, why we do what we do is, you know, we want there to be efficiency, want there to be accuracy, want people to get deals done.

And I mean, whenever I sometimes I look at the numbers of the channels at 10 percent close rate, that's atrocious. Right. Yeah, that's atrocious. 

But because there's nothing like you're missing something, the data is fragmented. But I think so far we're addressing that problem, that pain point, the channel by providing clarity, visibility, you know, through our metrics and analytics. So you made the comment that, you know, let the data talk made me think of in the forensic world, the phrase is the evidence doesn't lie.

And in the I.T. world, we need to think that, you know, the data doesn't lie either. So it's. And while there's a saying, see, listen, everyone's entitled to their opinion, but you're not entitled to your own facts.

I understand the platform does a lot with, you know, lead in deal registrations. And I think one of the questions that came up that somebody I don't know why they asked me because I don't do your product. But they said, well, can it help with lead gen? So that's probably the one thing that, yeah, people would love it to have a management system and to be able to follow the campaigns and all of that stuff.

Have you been asked about the lead gen side of it? Well, yeah, you know, I think whenever you're able to incorporate A.I. and so our chat, our GPT that sits behind our platform. Right. It's specifically designed to create more leads.

Right. By, you know, taking very sophisticated product marketing material, put it in layman's terms so the recipient is more receptive of it. If a recipient understands what you're communicating. 

Right. They're going to say, tell me more if they don't. They're going to say, you obviously don't know who you're talking to because I don't know what any of that stuff means.

Right. Like, like I said, you know, I have, you know, an illustrious, you know, I have a pretty in-depth academic profile. I have a lot of education under my belt, but I.T. is not my wheelhouse.

So if you're going to throw up, I mean, like all these acronyms, you know, like, listen, I'm not trying to be the smartest man in the room. I'm trying to solve problems. Right. 

Yeah. Tell me what it is that you do and put it in very simplistic terms. And that's what our A.I. does.

It does. It puts very sophisticated product marketing into very simplistic terms. So the recipient, no matter what their background is, is receptive of it and understands the value proposition.

And that helps create leads. Right. Yep. 

All right. I want to I want to expand on the fact that you were trying to say you have this illustrious career. You know, I was going to say, go ahead and say it. 

Go ahead and talk about it. You've got a Juris Doctor. I don't want to make it about me. 

You've got a Juris Doctor. You've got postgraduate degrees from Columbia Business School, University of Cal, you know, political science, social science. It's a lot of smarts up there. 

You know, I'm a lifelong learner. I love learning. Right. 

And I'm always looking at programs just to do, you know, on the side. I just I love just putting tools in my toolbox. And for me, it's not about being the smartest person in the room.

I just like to be of service. And if I hear or, you know, come across a problem, if I want to know how to find the solution, even if I can't do it myself, right, point someone in the right direction. So I want to be of service to my community. 

Ultimately, that's what I'm called to do in this lifetime. All right. So I'm going to go off script again and ask you this question, because I think one of the hardest things that our industry struggles with is that a lot of us that end up running MSPs, we started out as technicians. 

So we're technical, but we're not business minded. You obviously have a lot of, you know, education from the business side. What is the thing that you think would help the MSP industry in, you know, learning to run businesses better? You know, I think it really starts with asking questions and approaching the market with a sense of humility.

You know, when you're when you have a specialty, you're the hero. Right. You're an IT professional. 

You go into a dental office and their comps are down, their computers are down. You go and solve the problem. You're the hero. 

You're always the hero. Right. Right. 

You got rid of someone's, you know, virus on their computer. You're the hero. You restore someone's data. 

You're the hero. Right. And, you know, they couldn't do it on their own and they needed you.

But that still doesn't mean that it isn't important to always ask questions and get to know your audience. Right. Get to know the people in the industry around you.

Try to identify where you have synergy with other industry professionals. Right. And try to leverage those synergies to go to market with greater efficiency.

Right. Do partnerships. Right. 

There is a value chain in every industry, just like there's a supply chain. But that but that value chain, people have different expertise that brings different things to the table as a practitioner. Right. 

It's equally important to understand where you sit within the market structure and that value chain and identify strategic partners that you have synergy with, that you can stack on top of and go to market with and partner with, you know, co-sell with. Right. But that starts relationship building and asking questions and getting to know not only your audience, the people in your community and the people in your ecosystem.

So, you know, if you want to get better at running business as a technician. Right. Start asking questions, developing relationships within your community, but also with the audience that you're servicing.

All right. Dmitrius, thank you for letting us go off road there for a moment. But I had a business mind in front of me and thought, let me get that in there as well.

Was that a sufficient response? Yes, it was. All right. So let's go ahead and end this.

And let me give you, you know, a little bit of runway and, you know, get your first practice in for the pitch of competition. I'm going to give you two to three minutes to just, you know, hit us with your best pitch. OK. 

Want to now? Yeah. Well, here I'm pitching right within the pitch of competition. You have a lot of really great products that, you know, that definitely have the capability of being innovative and addressing problems within industry.

However, what sets exemplify apart from the other vendors is that we're specifically trying to solve a problem for the very audience itself, the MSP. Right. Our quarterly business review that we recently released is designed to help the MSP communicate their value proposition to their vendors.

Right. So what they're doing within the channel on their behalf. Right. 

All right. Agentic AI. Right. 

Is also designed to help that technician. Right. Not have to worry about writing an email, not to worry about trying to, you know, produce a one page.

No, that is going to do it for you. So you can get in front of that client or that potential partner within a matter of seconds. And, you know, you don't have to worry about being, you know, the best writer in the world.

That's how we have the agentic AI within our platform. So we're specifically looking at how we can help the MSP go to market with more efficiency, accuracy and competency and get more transactions done. Our goal is to take that 10 percent success rate and boost it to 20, 25 percent by providing also the visibility for the vendor and the partner.

Right. Addressing the issue of fragmentation in the channel. Right. 

Creating an ecosystem where not only is there a visibility, visibility, but now you're able to facilitate trust. You're able to facilitate strong relationships because of the visibility. Right. 

You're able to deepen the relationships in the channel and overall just bring greater success to practitioners who are active and looking to do things the right way in business. All right. There you have it, folks. 

I don't know if it's the first unofficial or official pitch from Dmitrius, but I appreciate that. Thank you, Dmitrius. You are the president and I believe you're one of the three co-founders, right? We launched it. 

Yeah, I helped them launch it back in 2019. And it was just a TCMA platform not to minimize the TCMA components of the platform. But we have so much work to do from a development standpoint. 

And at that time, they went back to the lab. Arvind and Sandeer back to the lab, continue to build our product for the platform. And in 2023, you know, my office is like a mile away from XAmplify’ S office.

I also had an M&A practice. So, you know, I was traveling, you know, trying to do some mergers and acquisitions. Not trying but executing mergers and acquisitions with my other partners.

But Sandeer coming off was like, come back, come back. And like, it's built, it's ready. And when I saw the platform, you know, I put, you know, Sandeer was my friend. 

So I was like, let's go. Right. I left the practice and I came back to help evangelize Exemplify and reposition its brand and help people understand the story behind it.

Right. These are some really, really hardworking, good people who are honestly trying to just solve a problem in the channel and help MSPs be better at what they do. All right. 

There you have it, folks. Dmitrius, thank you very much. And I will wish you luck on the road to IT Nation Connect in November and see if you can be one of the three on the stage and getting that first or second place cash prize.

I'm just here for the steak knives, Marvin. I heard the rumor there may not be steak knives this year. I got to get that confirmed. 

So I'll get back to you and let you know. All right. All right, folks. 

Thank you for listening in. Be sure to check the show notes. Check out Exemplify and follow them throughout the pitch of competition this summer. 

Root for them to be on stage November at IT Nation Connect in Orlando. That's going to do it, folks. We'll see you soon. 

And until next time, Hholla!