Video: VXIT CXO Hopes New Book Will Demystify IT Managed Services

why I wanted to share my story was because my life was changed originally where how I found the personal growth stuff was just by somebody sharing their story so we all have stories and I think that it's important that we all share them because at some point somebody's going to hear that story and their life may change and that's worth it even if it's just one person hey Channel insiders I'm your host Katie boso and welcome back for part two of my interview with Chief experience officer of vxit Paul veter 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 we discuss Paul's new book which he published earlier this year in it he aims to help others be the best versions of themselves while navigating the it managed Services industry plus he doesn't hold back when challenging some industry Norms he wants to change I'm going to shift gears a little bit so I can talk about you a little bit more because you did something pretty exciting this year you published a book it's called vision and execution empowering personal growth and it Excellence which I did purchase with my own money so this podcast is not sponsored by that book so first of all why don't we dig into a little bit about what's in the book because like I said I've read it paid for it you get very personal you you use a lot of personal anecdotes from your own life to relate that to your job to the industry as a whole and to how you approach your work where did you see an opportunity to get a book like this out into the industry did you not see yourself in any of the ones that you were reading and who who exactly is this book designed to to help yeah that's a good question so first of all the process was it was interesting and um I I hired a company they helped me put the thing together so I did have some help I didn't like lock myself in a log cabin Stephen King style and a typewriter and type type this this thing out so I didn't do that but it was a cool experience to do it won't be the last one I I I do and uh yeah so I I don't know when that'll happen but definitely won't be the last one because I I'd always wanted to write a book and that was what initially drove me secondly and I'm I'm I have a copy right here that I'm looking at but one of the things that I wanted to do is I wanted to simplify what we do because a lot of the times it's hard to really have people understand what we do especially within within the sales process people are like you know businesses are like if especially if they don't have it help or they're not paying a managed service Prov they're spending thousands of dollars a month to onboard an IT provider and all they can see or all they think of it's just support so they're paying us thousands of dollars so that you know when my employees can't print or send an email like they have help now that's important but that is just a small piece of what we do in in managing a company's environment you know their likelihood because everything runs on technology so I wanted to kind of boil some very highlevel topics so that people would understand and let's be frank Frank it is not sexy it it's just not sexy like technology is not sexy waiting for somebody to say it yeah now it's sexy to us nerds and we find it sexy but nobody else finds it sexy so I needed to obviously tie in some personal stories and I'm huge into uh personal development and and the growth mindset um it's something that I found around eight years ago actually through the process of building the business and why I wanted to share my story was because my life was changed originally how I found the personal growth stuff was just by somebody sharing their story so we all have stories and I think that it's important that we all share them because at some point somebody's going to hear that story and their life may change and that's worth it even if it's just one person and it was not just sharing their story but with great transparency and that's why I lean into the transparency thing and I have no problem like I'm an open book let's let's talk about you know whatever we want to talk about we're all on this planet together we're all going to die one day we're all going to the same place like nobody is better than anybody else but we all have a have a story everybody has a story to tell I wanted to tell mine I wanted to get transparent because that's how my life was changed so that's that's basically why I did that hoping to be able to reach that next person who needs to hear a story that'll change their life essentially for you what is your what is your biggest takeaway that you hope people get from the book then do you want them to have that moment of saying I can change I can be different I can be happier I could be more put together healthier whatever or is there something that you're hoping that the majority of people take away when they when they read it I mean the reality is and and I'll just be frank the book is a sales tool most MSP owners write books like this but I wanted mine to be a little different that's why I threw that personal growth stuff in there as well because I didn't want it to be boring I didn't want it to just be about it so I had to boil the it Concepts down and you know and then I threw in the personal growth stuff so I wanted also the personal growth stuff for people you know friends like you who I knew would read somebody would read it so I wanted to throw that personal growth stuff for the people within our industry obviously like an MSP owner an IT person reading the concepts in that book are not helpful so that was that was for the you know prospects and people uh that don't understand what an MSP does that's kind of evangelizing that message to them and whether they go with us or or not I want them to look at our industry and go this is important and it's worth the investment like I said whether they work with vxit or another MSP it doesn't matter you know and I also wanted to help save business owners from msps because there's a lot of D msps out there in my opinion and I want to help protect them and I want to raise the standard again for our industry that that's kind of what I'm looking to do and hope to do and and do it together I'm not doing this because I think I'm better than anyone in any way shape or form that is not what I'm saying but you know we we do this all together and again that's why I think it's important that we share our stories and that brings me to thinking about some of that personal stuff as you put it in inside the book where you really like to talk about designing your life and taking back that control I mean you're no stranger to this you're very intentional when it it comes to saying like I'm going to get up at the time I designate I'm going to cold plunge I'm G to make Katie feel bad about it and then I'm going to go SAA uh so for you I mean how has that allowed you since you started that Journey like you said eight years ago how has that allowed you to become a better leader in your opinion it's because I'm putting in the work that's required to live the life that I want and I I'm putting my money where my mouth is like I'm doing the work I'm not I'm not sitting on some Throne somewhere going you know do my bidding that's not how I I I run my organization again our our success is found in little things that happen throughout the day I heard this on a podcast the other day like it takes 10 years to become an overnight success like you you see the rocky cut scene where you know it's 30 seconds of him running and you know preparing for this fight that the reality is that that wasn't 30 seconds that was 10 20 years and back to what you said kind of about the conference thing before I found the personal development stuff I wasn't happppy with my life and I I just felt like I was on this Carousel like I'm like this is this is life like this this is it like I was just I was kind of disillusioned by it and then I realized that I had the power to change the things that I didn't like about my life and it sounds like such a stupid thing to say out loud kind of because you're like well duh of course you have the power but most people don't realize the amount of work it takes to change the things that you want changed you know we sit and we wallow in those things and again I'm not I'm not where I want to be Fitness wise I'm not where I want to be financially you know my relationship with my wife my kids I'm not perfect but I get up most days I kind of use the EOS Mantra of like you're never going to get 100% so anything above 80% is is good um and that's kind of how they look at success because if you you're you're shooting for 100 and you land between 80 and 100 like that's most people won't do that so if 80% of my week is is structured again nutrition working out all that stuff if if I'm following that plan and putting in that work like I know that I'm going to have success over time and it it and it's going to just take me putting in the work and the Reps and continuing to to do what I want to do to craft the life that I want you've been obviously very vocal during this interview itself just in the 20 30-ish minutes that we've been talking so I I'd like to know you're outspoken in the industry and whenever people are I see Paul on LinkedIn or hear Paul on a podcast like this one I think people know what they're getting with you because you're very transparent how have you applied that to letting the industry know and when I say the industry I guess the vendors know that you're a voice that should be listened to because you do represent the viewpoints of so many people I mean how does that outspokenness kind of come into play when you're trying to better the industry as a whole like I said earlier the more I learn the more I realize I don't know anything like and I'm never ever the smartest one in the room and I'm okay with that so the one thing that I'm willing to do that some people aren't and I've made it a habit because I wasn't like this but it it's asking the questions that everyone's thinking and just getting it out there and let's have a conversation about that because everybody's wondering it but nobody's going to speak up so I've conditioned myself to to be brave in that manner to ask the questions that most people are thinking and you know the second I start to ask those questions everybody jumps in they're like yes you know they get on board with that so that's how I'm leading right now it's just by asking those questions and you know and sometimes it might not be a question sometimes it's it's an opinion about something and it lends itself more towards questions than anything because I don't want to walk around talking because that's not constructive either it's just asking the right questions and then collaborating as human beings is there a question that you've asked lately that you can give an example of that for one of the things that that popped up recently um that that comes to mind is like connectwise they're like a necessary evil in my life I've been using their PSA since 2009 when I first started in this industry that PSA needs help but it's like it's the Behemoth like it's the kind of one of the gold standards of of our industry like it's a good system it looks like it was built by nerds and it's not been refreshed since 2009 and they need to stop they need to fix that but when we talk about it they're like yeah yeah yeah we hear you but here's a new rmm and we're like we don't want that we want you to fix the PSA like so anyway that's like a a good example of questions and comments and things that I think that came up like last week when I was talking with somebody and uh it's it's frustrating because the vendors are they're big sales engines like they're sales machines and they're they're outpacing our ability to sell back to our clients and all they're doing is is taking our margins down and our margins are not that high to begin with in our industry Best in Class I think is 15 to 20% something like that and we're not even we're we're barely there you know and especially over the last couple years because of you know what happened with covid and employment and wages and inflation and all that stuff like it piles on and it piles on and when I've got a vendor calling me trying to upsell me on things that may or may not need it kind of drives me nuts is there anything they could take away right now pretend they had no idea of what they were doing or what their actions were leading to what would you say to the vendors at large that serve the channel That partner with you what they can do to just be a better partner in this situation one of the things that I've I've loved so like enables really good at this so when I go to like a channel company event we have like the boardrooms enable will come into a boardroom and they'll help us work on a business problem Dave weeks does this really really good or anybody they I I think I think a few people have done this from enable but they'll come in and they'll talk about something completely unrelated to a product that they're actually selling and they'll be like oh and by the way we also sell a Backup Tool um so it was like they kind of took a roundabout and they're still trying to sell us something at the end of the day let's not get that twisted and that's totally fine but they're also adding value by helping us solve like a business operational problem so I think that that there's value in that when we're able to Benchmark against peers and and things like that you know that's super helpful being able to collaborate you know whenever these we go to these conferences we always say that the the biggest value is when we get around as business owners or you know employees and talk about the problems that we're facing on a day-to-day basis it's not the boardrooms it's not the vendor presentations this industry is like there's so many conferences and I've joked around with people that I was going to make one more conference but I was going to call it anticon and it was going to be the exact opposite of every conference that exists right now we could sleep in you know the first meal is brunch it's going to be a lot of collaboration time we don't have to get up at six o'clock in the morning oh and no more there would be no more vendor pitches and like we'd all just vendors could show up msps could show up we'd all we'd all do things together like we're not eating separately there's no we're all doing things together and I don't no more pitches no more sales pitches so I don't know it's just it would be the exact opposite of every conference out there I want to go well I I will definitely register you mentioned enable there but are there any other uh vendors that are actually doing right by you right now that you would shout out in addition to enable you know I'm a huge fan of pa8 and to be frank I'm on the advisory Council for pax8 and enable one of the interesting problems with I think with business in general is when PE gets involved it it it all goes back to Money Money causes problems it's also a solution to many problems but it does cause problems because the second that PE steps in they start to squeeze everything and that doesn't end well for most people it ends well for them because they get you know they get paid but that's that's something that's that's tough on us honestly is the the PE industry you know squeezing just trying to squeeze whatever margin they can out of something something that started probably out of a Grassroots movement you know something that was trying to solve a problem originally it's like going back to Google when they first started they're like don't be evil they're now evil so it's like they they've become the thing that they didn't want to become yeah I think that that's that that's tough for us sometimes but you know PX eight great people over there I'm always rooting for enable their backup products are are awesome we love we love their backup products and we've been on different versions of their rmm because we were in back in the max focus in days uh before they acquired them as far as uh advice that you would give to end user business owners because we talked a little bit about that you talk about how when PE sort of squeezes everything the message gets lost and I can imagine that would impact the end users the hardest in this situation what do you want enduser business buiness owners to know as we move into 2025 what should they be looking for when they're going out to get an MSP to have that third party managed service provider involved in their it is there anything they should keep in mind and look for I think one of the things that stands out is that they need a partner with an MSP that's willing to protect themselves even from the MSP themselves like the MSP always needs to do what's in the best interest of that business and again because these business owners hand us the keys to the kingdom they're livelihood like we miss on a backup or we take down a critical you know thing um you know they have employees it's literally costing money when they're down so protecting them at all cost like I said even from the MSP themselves that's why you know we don't lock anybody into contracts you know if if you don't want to be in a relationship with us you can leave at any time think we require 60 days as far as our contracts are concerned because it usually takes a little time to unwind everything but um we're not going to hold anybody into a relationship that they don't they don't want to be in and again I I'm I'm willing to do whatever possible to you know help protect businesses and business owners and help them Thrive our motives are aligned too because when they grow we grow so I want our clients to grow and when it comes to Tech Trends these days I feel like we're in a a prime example of a year where people are just throwing AI at things and seeing like oh is that going to make any measurable difference even if it's just cool looking are there any Tech Trends whether it be AI or not that you're following implementing or absolutely avoiding right now and why I'm not going to any extremes on either one of them I'm I'm keeping an eye on all of the things obviously AI is the hot thing right now but you know cryptocurrency was the hot thing and you know it's not it's it's it's always it's always a thing that's just a distraction now ai is great I use it every day is it coming to save us no that's like one of my favorite sayings I learned this early on in our business my business partner and I were doing an off-site planning session for that coming year and we had at our at the time basically our Outsource CFO uh our CPA guy he showed up and I was like hey you know this is what we're thinking you know help us kind of map this out and he sat with us for an hour there was not really a lot of value in the meeting and when he left I literally I went up to the Whiteboard and I just rode across all of our all the stuff that we had I was like no one is coming to save us and I realized that it was up to me to get myself where I wanted to be like nobody cares about my business as much as me as much as I'd like to say you know I love for my employees to care as like they're not it's not their business and my business partner he's good and and is focused on certain things I'm good and focused on other things and that's actually why we make great partners because we're good at different things but no one's coming to save you again it goes back to that work that you have to put in to craft the life the business whatever it is that you want like you have to put in the work and you have to write the goals the objectives and understand the little tasks that are going to get you to being able to fulfill those goals if you had one blanket piece of advice for anyone listening to this or watching this video whether they be in the channel or not as again as where we're in Q4 now we're staring down the barrel of 2025 what do you think people should be doing to improve their lives going into this new year just find whatever you need to find to win the day because your success next year is going to be made up like I said of of you winning as many days as humanly possible and I I have I have that tattooed on my arm win the day like it's it's a constant reminder um and it and the the A and day uh for those in video you can see it but for those on audio you can't the a is a spade and a spade is a shovel and it means work like you have to put in the work on a daily basis to win the day so that you can win the week so that you can win the month so that you can win the quarter so that you can win the year and you can look back and go okay I did it you know was it perfect no you know and tracking those metrics along the way again we have a rule at vxit where we're not allowed to say oh we have a process for that unless we actually have a written process like if you say oh we have a process for that I'm like show me that process document show it to me because if you say that we have a process for that and it's not written down like we don't have a process it's if you know it goes back to the old saying if it wasn't in connectwise it didn't happen like that was one of their things that they that they used to say all the time and we we say that still tracking the metrics you know if you're trying to lose weight okay set a goal I want to lose 20 PBS next year great reverse engineer that what does that look like lose four pounds or once once a quarter what however it is just you always have to reverse back and and just do the math cuz it's simple like life is very simple it doesn't make mean it's easy life is very hard but it is very simple so I think that that's a good reminder too I love that some really really good advice and I I know it's a big deal coming from you Paul so thank you so much for just taking the time to to share that with me today and for being here and I just want to know if we want to get in touch with you whether it be about how to get your book or we want some lifestyle design advice or we just want to figure out how we can get the best from vxit where can we go if you want to learn more about vxit you can go to vx. if you want you can look me up on LinkedIn I do Post there and talk with people there um I'm also on Instagram that's the only other social platform that I'm on so my my username is Paul veter Jr so p l v d d e RJR and I will post things there from time to time awesome well Paul thank you so much I'm still not going to cold plunge but I am much more motivated to learn more about it after talking to you but thank you so much for taking the time today of course thanks again to Paul for for joining me and thank you for watching or listening you can check out all episodes of Channel Insider partner POV on Channel insider.com or at youtube.com/ Chanel inssider newsand Trends you can also listen to this episode and every episode as a podcast on your favorite podcast listening platform don't forget to like subscribe and follow to never miss an episode once again I'm Katie boso and I'll see you next time n

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