Video: 3rdmill CEO on How New MSP Leaders Can Jumpstart Growth

hey Channel insiders I'm your host Katie boso and welcome back to part two of my interview with CEO of third Mill Natalia shy Digger if you haven't watched or listened to part one you know what to do head on over to Channel insider.com right now to catch up in this half of the interview Natalia explains what she wishes she did sooner as an MSP leader and how she went from knowing nothing about tech to more than doubling the size of third Mill I do have to ask your experience working at deoe prior to this did that set you up at all for how you wanted to come in I love that you talk about asking questions and just going ahead and asking them because I do find that ego sometimes steps in the way in the industry that we're in and people are afraid to ask the what they call silly questions quoting uh for people listening on the podcast version but for you was there anything from your previous career experience that sort of drove you in that direction and set you up for the way that you lead yeah it's interesting that you say that because I've been reflecting on that a little bit lately and so I was in I was in the strategy team at at deoe and they train you on on on that kind of first principles problem solving I was mentioning about like they core hypothesis driven strategy and you know I think there's a lot of debate now about how to approach strategy and like the design thinking style but I think there's still something in the the way that they train you to to be naturally curious and ask questions and they talked about it as boiling the ocean and boiling it again to kind of really get to the answer and so I kind of developed what I guess is a strategic way of problem solving which comes down to kind of those first principles and then kind of scratching and then kind of getting the data to back up that hypothesis whereas I think Engineers sometimes just troubleshoot and and follow steps without necessarily kind of understanding the bigger picture about what might be happening I've always been big picture and then sought the details to kind of support the big picture and it's a different it's a different mindset so I definitely do think that the lessons that I learned at deoe were different to what most other MSP owners certainly at the time a skill set had like what what they had and I definitely brought that to Bear early on I remember like first few months sitting in in my father's chair that was the skill set I had and so you know I ran what I can only describe as strategic workshops with the management team and sort of tried to tease out from them what are the challenges you're facing what you think the company should be doing questions that I think as owners we don't ask very often but that was the only tool I had and it's funny that we kind of through that built out couple of strategic pillars or things that we wanted to do and I remember looking back three or four years later and went oh with we did all those and it was kind of this this accidental strategy and actually one of those pillars was the software product Linda That Was Then born and grew and now has its own legs and it kind of came from those early strategic Workshop sess asking those question questions the Curiosity right why why and wanting to really understand and scratch at it so yes I think it has helped now when we first spoke uh a little bit about your journey you had mentioned in the beginning and you've mentioned it on this this recording in the beginning you were like what exactly am I doing here like which way do I go who do I speak to what do I want to do with third Mill when you started to travel and go to those industry events and really get your hands into the community was there any sort of a particular person or I mean you did mention that entrepreneurial group that you were encouraged to belong to was that the starting point or was there an event that you decided to go to as the first one and that sort of triggered your networking abilities after that probably about 5 sixes into kind of the 10e journey that I started the entrepreneurial group EO and that certainly helped to grow me as a leader in a person but I missed a trick on the industry front I still wasn't networking in the industry I didn't know a single other MSP owner and it was wasn't until seven years in I think I went to a uh connectwise event and I remember turning to one of the connectwise account managers and and I think he sensed the like just intense authentic vulnerability in me when I was like I have no idea what I'm doing I don't know a single MSP I don't know how is everyone else doing this and he looked at me and he went do you want to connect with other mspers there's lots of communities that do that let me introduce you to one and so I got involved through like the connectwise peer groups and so that was actually the first thing was this connectwise account manager who I had never met before I think sensing the desperate vulnerability in me who then introduced me and so I started going along and so that was the start of it was these peer groups which I know the industry is right for connectwise is just one of them but there are many out there and and I I started to network and it just set my business on fire it was it was a complete 180 I suddenly started being in rooms with other people who were solving all the same problems I been solving for seven years and they were doing it at a much faster rate and innovating at a much faster rate if there's one regret I have it's that I didn't clock on how critical the networking piece was in the industry to Growing your business like you just cannot grow these things in isolation the technology is moving too fast industry is moving too fast the customers are moving too fast and unless you're colluding in the background which is quite blatantly what we do there's just no way and there's this kind of sense of the rising tide lifts all boats because we make each other better and that lifts the industry and the perception of msps from customers as well so I think there are and I think we intellectually understand the advantages of it but I just didn't realize how rif it was and how critical it was and since that initial peer group introduction I have now been to many other industry conferences with many other vendors met an incredible wealth of people and my number track the growth has tracked to that Journey it's it's almost like it was it's a onetoone correlation so yeah it was I I kicked myself I didn't do it sooner but it has been huge and there are certainly a handful of individuals I've met through those networks who have been the game changers for me you guys know who you are just saying yes it's interesting how your perspective can change from competition to community and really see those people around you as as excelling your business and not trying to hold you back and I love that story I I love the vulnerability uh underlying everything here because it's gotten you this far it's gotten you this far to be able to ask for help to ask the questions that nobody else is asking because they might be nervous and with that in mind knowing that there are going to be people who are just starting out watching or listening to this interview is there anything that you would tell them to do immediately whether it be go to this event join this peer group reach out to this person ask that question anything that you would tell them actionably that they can get on top of now to to change and accelerate their growth I mean the vulnerability piece is is is really part of it right like I mean you say that yeah that that that's what I did but it took me too long and so I think the piece of advice is this isn't a Shameless plug at all ask your vendors just sit down with your vendors and and honestly say to them I don't know what I'm doing what help me out and just see what they say and most of the time they'll reach into their back pocket and through their networks through all even the vendor itself will have a program PE groups is definitely the the one that that I needs to get like bubbled to the top because it's such an obvious one and it's so clearly a good model that most vendors will have a version of a peer group personally am part of the connect wise evolved Community but I now know other msps in other ways through other vendor relationships who are equally as strong in my in my network so I think the vendor piece is big and then through that go to the conferences go to the networking days even if you are introverted and hate it and hate Small Talk which I know is odd but is me like I didn't like the small talk thing practice the muscle and and you'll get out there and it'll become easier and easier and easier until suddenly you're actually just going to these conferences and hang out with your friends and that's easy I love that and I think that's so important to talk about and it's it's true I can tell you you start going to these events and you see more and more familiar faces and you're like wait a minute we're friends aren't we we do this now and you you help me so it's such a great feeling and I'm so excited that you got to experience that and can encourage others now to to do it faster than those first seven years so really wonderful to hear hopefully someone out there can do it faster than I did cuz my goodness too slow I'd love to be able to talk more about third Mill and your your progress and just the success that you've experienced in that time that you've really fought hard to to make happen is there a success story with a particular client that you can speak to uh even if you can't say the client's name because Financial Services obviously but is there one that you might be able to point to to kind of walk me through how you were able to be a differentiator for their business and help Drive success for them yeah no absolutely there's there's lots of little stories but I think the biggest stories are certainly where we've sort of come in with the client and they've had very little to do with technology and or technology has always just been sort of this sort of noise in the background right and we've sort of come in and totally transformed and and so one of the things we do is cloud Transformations is a big one so this one customer we got we inherited many years ago that had you know on Prem servers everything was everything was there you know they were being servers by oneman band and like technology was just noise for them right like it was it it worked or it didn't and you know we kind of set the vision and the strategy of where they needed to be that the file the SharePoint migrations that you know getting rid of the server the Microsoft InTune getting rid of the domain controller and then we got close to working with them and actually the conversation evolved through to what actually can you help us with our workflow system too because we're actually string a little bit some with some internal processes and we worked with them to build out that and like we transformed that business and I know we did and that journey is a blueprint that we've repeated in many other customers where it's not just that we came in and we put in our cookie cutter technical solution and then charge a monthly service case you know thanks thanks thanks for playing we come in and we've transformed the business not just from a solution Tech perspective but in how they work you know SharePoint training sessions have been a big one when we work with customers to build SharePoint we actually we train their team and we we actually architect out the you know the internet and the SharePoint sites in a way that works for them there's one customer who's going on the co-pilot journey and they've bought co-pilot licenses for all their staff so we've got a co-pilot training session with them in a couple of weeks where you know again we're Le bringing a vendor to Bear to help run that session to uplift their capability because you know they bought the licenses and we're struggling to kind of get the maximum use out of it so it's kind of lots of little things but for me it's always been about the customer first lens in the solution and Technology second so what does the customer want what are the pain points that they have and then what is the right technical solution stack to bring that to life so recently we kind of redid our business mission statement and and now it is very much about radically transforming I think 500 businesses um with technology is is the mission statement the 10 year big big hairy goals and and I think we're there I think we're on the journey I think we've already knocked a couple of pegs off that 500 just from the way that we approach technology and problem solving with them speaking of approaching problem solving with technology how are you implementing some new trends like AI or any anything else that you're following that maybe I'm not even bringing up right now how are you implementing new trends for your your customers into your business into their business to again Drive success there yeah lots of lots of little things that we've been doing one of my one of my favorite ones is certainly yeah um pre which I I'll talk to in a second but you know the the the Power Platform and and automate flows and things like that and just kind of we did a couple of Consulting engagements with customers where we sort of help them build out some really really really Innovative flows to help with contracts or support ticket requests and things like that and just automate in you know automate something that was a pain point in their business which they already had the tools to so for they just didn't know how to put it all together and so you know something as simple as yeah working with a customer on on a flow automate flow you'd be surprised at how much value that brings to them but on the AI side that's been that's been a really really good journey so I I sort of see the AI journey is kind of two- paced there's this sort of General uplift in productivity that comes from Ai and that's really primarily in the Microsoft space driven by co-pilot and so that Journey there has been around kind of as soon as the announcement came out we could buy the license I was like givee givee giveme I would bought bought a couple of licenses and started to use that internally in the team and trying to upskill my team on that and then take that to customers and then have them start to pick out AI Champions within their business give them a co-pilot license and have them experiment as well to try and get that 10% productivity uplift 10 sometimes more percent that you can get from just having your co-pilot help you with your day and so obviously that co-pilot training session with that customer in a couple of weeks is just the next step on that journey of co-pilot uplift and I see that as just giving you that little kicker from a product it perspective but it's not it's not the the gamechanging AI it's just at the margins and I think a lot of customers are struggling a little bit with that because they're sort of like well hang on we should be doing more and I think that's where the other part of AI is coming in which is the specific use case and that needs to come from the problem first solution second not just we'll view some Ai and see how it goes but what is the pain point that you have around large areas of documentation finding information whatever the case might be and how can we leverage Azure open AI in this instance to plug into that data and create a tool a chat or automate a process that is labor intensive using some of the generative AI tools that are now available and that's a longer Journey internally we've started to experiment that with pointing Azure open AI at some of our kind of ticketing systems to try and get knowledge based information out and that's still very very early proof of concept phases and we are by no means experts in that but then similarly looking at pointing that same technology at kind of the data sets we have like in Lucinda in our SAS product to try and kind of give Brokers an edge around how they can access and M their information as well which again once again is still an early proof of concept phases but my kind of call out at the moment to customers has been well let's talk about use cases like let's work together and get a proof of concept together because that's the only way we're going to start to kind of see and drive Traction in this space and so we're already starting to have those conversations but what what's interesting is that those conversations are less about the technology it's an AI strategy conversation what are the problems you're trying to solve what are the different use cases what are the ROI and effort of those use cases prioritize them put them on a matrix pluck one out and go for that and that's a very intrinsically strategic conversation that I guess I'm from my Del day reasonably well trained at but isn't necessarily something the MSP Community naturally has as a skill set and so I think the journey around AI for us as an industry is going to be how do we Flex that Consulting muscle more to tease out these use cases from our customers and help them deliver on them and I'm not sure if there's a solution or that I have yet but I think that's the problem and I'm interested to see who how how we solve it I think the word editing comes to mind because you think about we have this great new technology but what are we going to use it for do we really want to spend the money and the time just throwing it around and seeing what it might stick to or should we come up with the actual problem we want to solve and see if this is the tool that it would work for I think presenting presenting Solutions is only so great if there's actually a problem that it can solve instead of just being cool correct first few months of of of the the AI wave was very much us just throwing at AI throwing AI at a problems seeing what's stuck right we ran an AI event recently and I talked about the kind of the trough of Despair in the The Gardener um Trend way you know like every time Trends happen there's this huge Peak and then there's this trough of disillusionment and that I sort of talked about at this event actually this idea that we're sort of hurling down the trough a little bit in some cases because everyone's sort of going ah well like ai's not really changed my job yet right and so there's this sort of sense of like well what what's going to happen and a little bit of fear I guess as well what is going to happen like is it going to take jobs and things and and I think that the answer here is to flip the conversation and actually start to look problems and then experiment with AI solving them rather than just saying I need to use AI throw it at it and see what sticks so and I think that's what's going to get us over the AI hangover a little bit so earlier we were talking a little bit about vendors we've obviously talked about connectwise and Microsoft but are there any other vendors whether they be bigger smaller Distributors anybody in the tech partner field that you're working with right now that is just done really right by you and you're enjoying working with and they're adding to your Tech stack in a really exponential way yeah I mean it goes without saying that kind of think Pate is on that list we obviously met at the Pate conference in Denver and they have really been instrumental to us around kind of opening up a huge number of opportunities and connecting us with vendors and the conferences and enabling us with that AI event that was actually something that pax8 kind of came to us and sort of said hey do you want to do something like this that's been an incredible journey so yeah I definitely think to all msps out there there tap into the your Distributors like that that relationship is so key obviously we're with pa8 but you can build the relationship and it's really what you get out of it what you get out of it is really what you put into it and and dedicating that time again going to those conferences go to those events that sometimes vendors are handing you to go to there is actually value there so I think pite's the main one certainly the connectwise community you know we also work a lot with enval and and and there's probably the primary ones we use but I always open and love talking to vendors and a lot of great relationships with vendors themselves who I now consider friends as well not just other MSP owners and sometimes I even tap into them and word vomit my business problems because they're often very insightful in their perspective around how to solve it because they see things at a cross-section across sever several msps so to this day I still talk talk to many vendors even in that sense as well and give them and and use them as mentors and guides no small talk anymore just word vomiting business problems and saying how do you help me well I already told you I hate SCH talk right how was the weather today I need you to solve this issue for me please which I'm pretty sure I've started a conversation not dis similar to that well my last question for you today Natalia would just be how can we get in touch with you get in touch with third Mill if we're in Australia and anywhere that you service to seek out your services as an end user we're based in Australia Sydney Melbourne are our homes reach out to me on LinkedIn it's it's the best place to grab me or or jump on our website I'd love to have a chat regardless of Industry even if you're another MSP owner because yeah always up for a coffee and a chat as long as you bring your your vulnerability and your business problems with you no small talk just vulnerability and business problems and coffee it's truly been a pleasure getting to catch up with you and speak with you again Natalia thank you so much for your time and I hope you have a wonderful rest of your 2024 thanks Katie you too thanks again to Natalia for joining me today and thank you for watching or listening you can check out all episodes of Channel Insider partner POV on Channel insider.com or watch on our YouTube page at Channel inssider newws and Trends you can also listen to the podcast version of every episode on your favorite podcast listening platform don't forget to like subscribe and follow wherever possible so you never miss an episode once again I'm Katie B so and I'll see you next time

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