Welcome back to The Panda Award Show, where we spotlight the real stories behind IT careers. I'm your co-host, Abhi, and I'm here with my friend.
My name's Ben.
And we're joined by our guest today, Brandon Pettit. How are you today, sir?
Good. Doing great. How are you guys?
Awesome. Awesome, awesome.
Doing well.
Yeah. This is an exciting one. You're gonna be our first guest that's not the two of us, so I, I'm super excited to finally-
All right
... try to talk to a real human out there-
[laughs]
... not just on a... You know, we're AI, so. [laughs] No, not really.
[laughs] Yeah. And you're someone in more of an education role, and that's something that I don't think a lot of IT people are really aware of. And I think that there's some opportunities for them to contribute in different ways to their companies. And so, I think you've probably got a pretty cool story to tell along the way. And even at the root of it, just helping the community with education is something everyone should do.
Yeah. Yeah. We'll see. We'll see how cool it is, huh? I'll let you guys be the judge of that.
[laughs] So, uh, so Brandon, why don't you introduce yourself? What do you do? We're, we're recording this on video as well, so for those that are watching, what's the story behind your beautiful background there?
Mm. Yes. So, okay, so professionally, uh, I am in training. I've been the director of education, so building up education teams, building content that's for live trainings that you may have attended or videos, certifications, different things like that. Um, if you're familiar with CluckU at Roost, I got to start that. I had the privilege of working with a bunch of awesome people and, and get that rolling.
That's awesome.
Yeah. So that's professional. Uh, love that team by the way. They're still awesome. Go check those guys out. They're the best. As far as my background, one of the cool things that I got to do at Roost was video creation and video editing. I had kind of tinkered with the idea for many years. And when I started at Roost, we had nothing, [laughs] so I was like, "Somebody get me a Camtasia." It's a video editing software. And, uh, I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna figure it out. And, uh, I went down this whole YouTube rabbit hole of, you know, what makes a good video, uh, how do you connect with people, how do you do engagement, you know, how do you increase retention, all this stuff. I really went down [laughs] that rabbit hole. And at some point I decided I wanted to kind of take a crack at doing some gaming YouTube stuff just to see if I could do it, taking kind of what I'm learning and experiment not with the Roost stuff because I didn't want to, like, screw it up. So I wanted to take some of the concepts and see if I could actually find success on my own and then pull some of that stuff into education again. And I've been continuing to do that. So I'm almost at 5,000 subs on YouTube right now. It's a channel called Retro Brandon, if anybody's interested. Uh, just dropped my, my latest video today on a game called Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, so it's a good one. Check that one out.
I did notice that. I gave you a view today, so. [laughs]
All right. Awes-
Uh, also, viewer-
Good, good
... we have a number of rock members that are, that are playing that game, so I know they'll be excited to see you again.
It's so good, dude. Yeah. Yeah. So that's, that's kind of where the background comes in. Um, I figured if I'm gonna do this, I gotta, I gotta look like I know what I'm talking about, right? So, you know, I gotta get one of those YouTuber backgrounds. So I have some newer stuff, but I got some old classics back here as well.
Now, if I can touch on something, I noticed that you did, and maybe skipping a little bit ahead, but it's okay, you know, we'll jump around a little bit, but you were saying that you did a lot of kind of YouTube investigation when you were learning content creation. Was there a standout YouTuber or two that really gave you a lot of direction in where you were going? Or was it just kind of a mishmash? Or was there one where you're like, "Man, that person brought me a ton of value"?
Yeah. It was kind of a mishmash. So if you, if you, like, look up, you know, like YouTube gurus, you'll find names, you know, vidIQ is a big one, different, different groups like that. And they get... They just get into a lot of the details of what makes it work and what mistakes people make and what you can learn from some of the bigger channels. Honestly, I'd say the, the best tools that I got from going down that rabbit hole was, was really just study. Study the big guys, right? Obviously you shouldn't expect that even if you've done studies and you start a channel that you're gonna suddenly get millions of views, but there is something to be said about how they craft their thumbnails, how they craft their titles, how they even write their descriptions, how they craft their first 10 to 15 seconds of their videos. Because now on YouTube, if you hover over a video, it'll start playing, right? So it's no longer just the thumbnail, it's how the thumbnail synergizes with the intro and how you can pull someone in to click. So there's a lot, there's a lot of psychology that goes into getting some of those videos created. And so there was a combination of those that sent me down a path of looking at some bigger YouTubers and getting a sense of, you know, how are they doing that intro? What are they doing for their storytelling portion? How are they presenting the information, et cetera. Actually, I don't know if you guys have... This is gonna be way off the beaten path here, but there's this YouTuber called MrBallen, uh, who does, like, strange, dark and mysterious storytelling, and I've become, I've become obsessed with this guy. But his storytelling, I'm like, "This guy's my muse." Like, one, one day when I grow up, I want to be like MrBallen. So-
We'll have to, uh, we'll have to throw his channel into the, uh, show notes for this episode.
Yeah. There you go. Yeah. So, so it's stuff like that where it's like, yes, look at your niche, right? So, so what are you doing? Who's your audience? In, in, in this sense, there's a lot of, um, applications, I would say, to starting up a business, right? You need to un- understand what, what product you're deliving- delivering in your videos. Who is your specific audience? And the more niche you can get, typically the better or more successful you'll be. Um, how are you presenting the information? What value are you giving them? How are you responding to their feedback in the comments? All of that stuff, right? You gotta do all of that. Looking at different niches and how they do it and how they present things can be really helpful to give you a broader view of how to effectively build a channel and make a video. So, there's... I, I could spend this entire podcast going into just pure YouTube strategy but-
[laughs]
... [laughs] yeah, it's a lot. It's a lot, but it's fun.
Really-
[laughs] No, I really appreciate the way you kind of broke that down and that makes a lot of sense. Like, I- I've watched a lot of content as well and, I mean, obviously, I pre- yeah, I've hovered over a video before, but I didn't think about making the 13, you know, the 15 seconds count like that before. That's something I hadn't really put thought into, for example.
Yeah. Yeah. And I'm even seeing on my channel, uh... I, I have it up right now, uh, 'cause of course I do. But on my channel, there's some videos that I think are better videos than others that just didn't perform as well. And as much as it's hard to accept this, sometimes it is just... You dropped this at the wrong time. People were already moved on, they didn't really care about this. Or sometimes it's just how you present the information. Like, I, I can have the same type of video. One of them does very, very well because the intro is just solid, and then another one, I think it's the format that's working. But actually, it was the intro that brought people in. And so, it's not going to perform as well, even though it's pretty similar in, in style, right? So, there's a lot of experimenting that needs to be done and a lot of digging into those different types of details, which, again, a lot of that can be pulled into business. A lot of that can be pulled into education in particular. In education, it's always good to experiment. Uh, you always want to try out what works for your audience, figure out what they're jiving with. Make changes, uh, pivot quickly if you're finding that one thing is having more success than the other. So that, that experimentation piece I think is relevant, very relevant to a, a lot of what you're doing in business, almost in, in any department. And I think that's one of the things that I found really fascinating about YouTube. I feel like for a while there was this... How would I put it? This kind of stereotype that if you're a, if you're a YouTuber, you're kind of wasting your time or you're not, you know, you're not, you're not a real professional if you're doing YouTube. And since getting into YouTube and meeting other YouTubers and things like this, I'm like, "This is crazy." If you're a business, and I'm not just saying this for myself. If you're a business and you meet a YouTuber, hire that person because that person has had to start up a, an entire branded small business essentially. They've had to figure out a strategy for their content, and you can see how effective that is by looking at their stats. They've had to build an audience, they've had to build a community, they've had to respond to that community, continue bolstering it. They've had to figure out how to essentially deliver a product. They've had to learn how to video record. They've had to learn how to present on video. They've had to learn how to edit. Like, just every single part of running a YouTube channel effectively is... It's, it's everything. It's marketing, it's education, it's... Again, it's like building a product. There's just so much to it. And so, a lot of businesses that are like, "Oh, that's a YouTuber." [laughs] You are, you are missing out on someone who has had to do so many things to get this to be even moderately successful. Like, if you try starting a YouTube channel, it is so hard to get to 1,000 subscribers. So if you have someone who's surpassed that and they're still going and they're not dead, then that person's-
And that-
... someone you should look at. [laughs]
And that 1,000 mark, that's the bare minimum just to make, even try to make money on the platform, right?
Yep. Yep.
That's the threshold, and if you can get there, my God. I wanted to, I wanted to circle back a little bit to one of the things you said, um, in the beginning of your, your, your statement there, was how learning to pivot or experimentation or... Even though you tried your hardest and you thought you did a really great job, it didn't work out
because of just the way things are. And I'm curious, you know, how did that, how did that affect you in the very beginning of your career? You know, what were-
Mm
... you trying to do that just never worked, and what did you have to do to get that first job where you're like, "Okay, this is gonna be my career"?
Yeah. So that's a, that's a really interesting question and I, I feel like there's a lot, th- there's a lot that I can go into here. So, I'll, I'll go back to starting. When I... So, when I went to college, um, I have a very, very unusual path. Some people have a, you know, like, "I went to college, I got a sales degree, I was in sales and I'm successful in sales," and that's kind of it, right? I went to college for music. I found out that I had my... So, I played trumpet, for context here. I had my eye teeth stuck in my, in my gums. They had to surgically pull them down. If you know anything about playing a brass instrument, that totally screwed up my ability to play, which messed up my major, and I pivoted to a Bible degree. So, something that's, again, totally kind of out of left field. And I finished that, and when I finished college, there were no jobs because the economy was terrible and I lived in California, to the point where I'm like, like applying for, you know, Chipotle and I couldn't even get a job, right?
Tough.
So, I ended up taking a job selling security systems, or s- yeah, security software or whatever, right? Where you're knocking on people's doors and you're like, "Hey, your house isn't secure," and then they're cussing you out and shutting the door in your face, right?
I lo- I love the irony of those sales 'cause if you say, like, "Yeah, my house isn't secure," it's like, "Great, I'm gonna break in tomorrow."
Yeah. [laughs] Yeah, it was terrible. It was a terrible experience. And I didn't really know... I didn't know where, where to go from there. I had no idea what I was doing, right? Um, I was just trying to make money. I was like selling... At that time, I was selling my games to, you know, make rent and these kinds of things. And then I got into a car accident on the way to interviewing for another job. Obviously, didn't get there. And-
I did the same thing.
Really?
The one car accident I've been in has been on the way to an interview.
Bro, and we even have the same glasses. What's going on?
Yeah, yeah. Isn't tha- that's, that's crazy.
Anyways, please continue.
Yeah, so, so that, yeah, that kind of threw things even further off. And then I had a roommate of mine who was like, "Hey, there is this company I work for. He's looking for some interns to hire. Um, and his whole philosophy is I can teach anybody technology, but I can't teach you character. So, why don't you come in and, you know, do an interview and maybe it'll work out, right?" So I came in, it was a software company.... called Liferay. And they had like a, a DXP or like a portal, you know, that you can connect with your CMS and your document management system, and, and all of this other stuff, right? Your user management system, everything. And it was all in one. And I got the job. It was for a UI internship and, um-
And you've-
I-
... you were all over the place.
Yeah, man, I'm telling you, my journey is not... It's not, uh... It's not straightforward.
I thought I was bad.
Yeah, so I, I was a UI intern, and I was not great at it. I was not doing well diving right into Java and trying to figure out HTML, CSS, JavaScript, all this stuff. I- I... It's not like I wasn't learning anything, I just didn't have that kind of a technical mind. But there was a guy who came in after me named Rob. Shout outs to Rob. I don't know if he'll ever see this. [laughs] Um, he came in about three or four weeks after I started, and I was frustrated by that point. I had a mentor who was great. He knew a ton of stuff, but because of that, he was very busy. So, he was not much of a mentor, right? I didn't get a lot of time with him. Um, it was one of those, you know, he'd roll around and be like, "Hey, how's it going?" "Uh, okay," and that was it, right? Like, that'd be the extent of our conversation. So when Rob came on, I was like, "I'm gonna teach you everything I know so that you don't have this bad experience that I have." Um, and he got it, picked it up quickly, and then just took off. And this guy knew what he was doing, and he did great. The end of my internship, I got called in, uh, 'cause they were gonna let me go, and I was very upset. I thought I was doing okay. I clearly wasn't. And so I kind of made my case in front of the CEO. I'm like, "Hey, man, like I obviously knew enough to teach this guy, and is he not doing well?" And, and that got validated and everything. And so it went back to my desk and just kind of was gonna finish the week out. This is gonna be my last week. And, uh, he called me on the phone and was like, like, "You're serious about teaching that guy?" "Yeah." And he was like, "All right, go downstairs and meet this guy named Abhishek," who works at Roost now, by the way. Uh, I don't know if you guys know Abhishek. Um, and, "He's starting up as one of our trainers. So if you can convince him in a week that you have potential to be a trainer, I'll give you a job." I was like, "Okay, here we go." So I worked with Abhishek, and we, we did... We worked through some of the training materials they had, and turns out I had a knack for training, and I got the job. And that's what got me into training. This will all come back to your experimentation question, I promise you.
Now, had you, in high school or middle school, had you done tutoring or anything, or did you have any educational experiences? Or this is the first one and you just hit it out of the park, just uncovered talent?
Yeah, this is the first-
Mom or dad were teachers?
Yeah, this... My... So my mom was a teacher, and-
Very good
... my dad... My dad was not a teacher, but my dad is an explainer. I don't wanna say like he's verbose. I don't want it to sound like I'm criticizing him for this. He just, when he gets excited about something, he explains things, and I inherited that skill, if you will.
I think verbose is a, is a good term to use in a tech podcast because we're used to dealing with verbosity, right? That's something that's important in our industry.
There you go.
It's a positive sign.
Yeah, that's what I meant-
[laughs]
... the whole time. Let's go. Yeah, so, so I think i- it's, it's always kind of been there. But this was the first formal context where it was like, "Oh, you fit here pretty well." So yeah, so from there, I did, I did trainings. And the, the funny thing was, I ended up doing the UI development training. So, I failed the UI internship, but here I was being the front man for our front end engineering training, right? But I, I realized that I had a knack for kind of understanding concepts well enough to explain them in a way that was digestible to people, even if I couldn't do the thing myself. So if you asked me to go build a theme on Liferay, I could probably do something, but it wouldn't look good. But I was pretty decent at teaching someone else how to do it, especially if they already had the fundamental skills to, to do the job. So, I did a lot of that training, ended up taking on building some of the materials myself, because at that time, the documentation team was creating the training materials and they were great. Nothing against them, they just couldn't react quickly to customer issues. And I was in front of the customers that would get frustrated if there was something broken in the materials, right? So I was feeling that heat, so I'm like, "Gi- give me the keys to the kingdom, and I'm gonna fix this, and then go and take it back to the customers and, and make sure that we're good to go." And so that got me into what's called curriculum development, and that's when I got to sort of stretch out my experimental powers a little bit, um,
start figuring out more effective ways to give customers hands-on exercises and learning how to do things, and using different examples. And sometimes I'd go off the beaten path, and even if it wasn't in the materials, I would just make it up anyway because I would learn from the customers that these certain things were important to them. This is what they wanted to build. And so I could walk in and ask that question, "Hey, do you guys have this use case?" And they'd say, "Why, yes, we do." And now I looked smarter, they were happier because I could talk to that use case, right, and then we could go from there. So, there was a lot of synergy in building the materials and delivering the training. That was, that was really cool, and getting to work with customers, and I loved it. I found at that point that helping people and working with people is something that I thrive in. That's something I enjoy doing the most. In fact, even the YouTube stuff, one of my favorite parts of it is not editing the video. That's like a slog for me. It's actually the community-building. When the video is posted, what are people saying? How are they reacting? How can I engage with them? I love that piece.
You get to continue your story in the co- in the comments.
Yeah, exactly. And even come back. Like, I've had a video recently reignite, and then people are coming in and commenting on it, and I posted that video like six months ago. [laughs] So I'm like, "Don't worry, guys, things change. I'm a real human being," right?So anyway, so I got into that, and then I started getting into project management and managing and then starting to manage the teams and figuring out some of the larger elements of an education program, like certification and videos and those kinds of things. But at that time, I was really inheriting an existing education program. And as you learn more in a profession, that can be difficult when you are coming up with good ideas and, and you want to experiment more and that's being blocked because so-and-so in the executive board doesn't think it's a good idea just because, right? Because maybe they don't think that way or something like that, right? And that's just normal business as you grow in your career, you're gonna find those kinds of frustrations and hit some of those walls. But that made it so that there was a lot of opportunity using experimentation to figure out what worked best for our customers that we didn't really get to pursue, and that eventually leads me to Roost, actually. So I was at Liferay for 10... And, uh, then they started doing a lot of cuts. There was, uh, yeah, there was a, a whole layoff and, and reformatting, refactoring that they needed to do, reorganization. And so I was looking for a job, and Roost was something I kind of stumbled upon. I, I applied on LinkedIn to what looked like a job for CyberCoders, and I found out later that CyberCoders is a recruiting company. And I was like, "So you're not even what you say you are?" And at that time, you know, that's when we started seeing the whole, like, watch out for sketchy practices on recruiting, right? So yeah, so I, I was interviewed for this job-
That, that alone could be a whole podcast episode.
Oh, totally. Yeah. Especially... Okay, but the funny thing with Roost is, so I, I, you know, go through this interview. Uh, I had this final interview with this guy named Aaron. You know, it was just random, random dude, right? Uh, and there was this whole, like, funny back and forth where I was trying to, like, spell his name, but it was auto-correcting to Sharon. And I was like, is this a woman? Like, am I getting this wrong? It was just very confusing. Get on a call with him and, you know, super chill. If you guys have... You, you know Aaron. Aaron's super cool. So he was super chill and he had this, you know, Skyline Chili sign in his background. And I was like, "Hey, I know Skyline. I'm in Cincinnati." And yeah, we had a good chat and ended up getting offered the job. But then when it came to actually starting the job, I was like, am I gonna get a computer? Is this real? Like, did I just get scammed? What's going on here? So funny side, side story here. You guys know what a Steam Deck is?
Yeah.
My first two and a half weeks at Roost, I was working on my Steam Deck. I put it in PC mode-
No way
... and I connected it to my monitor and everything, 'cause I didn't have a computer and I had to do something. So yeah, I was working on my Steam Deck. But the cool thing getting to Roost was, we, we had nothing. So I wasn't inheriting anything. What we had at the time was, uh, Tim Fournette and Andy... Oh shoot, I forget his last name.
Is it Mr. Howell?
Yes, Andy Howell. Thank you. They were, they were basically getting on a call with every single new customer and going over the same things over and over and over and over and over again. So what we got to do is we got to basically take a lot of what they were teaching and then turn it into a formal training. I had made the pitch that we should do self-serve training, which is videos, because I had a, a hunch that if you're an IT professional and your day-to-day is constantly fighting fires, you probably don't wanna sit through a multi-hour training. And a video might just be better for you, right? So we delivered on the live trainings. And, you know, if anybody here has gone through fundamentals or any of those kinds of things, uh, we started with those. Um, and then in parallel, that's when I started experimenting with Camtasia and building videos and trying to figure it out. And we got a lot of traction from doing that, and a lot of people were giving us some good feedback. We were able to pull some of that into documentation as well, so it kind of all worked together. Um, and then we started figuring out, okay, you know, in documentation, when does a video make sense? Do we need to have like a getting started section? How does this tie into onboarding? You know, you start asking all of these questions and getting to build it up and start getting validation metrics in place, which oftentimes is not something that early education teams do because it's hard, to be honest, right? When you don't have a lot of metrics or a lot of systems to give you those metrics in place, you wanna ask deep questions. And sometimes they're just hard to validate. Like, hey, is this training leading to retention? Are people actually staying or leaving, right, when they take training? So we needed other mechanisms in place like certification. If we can start saying, "Hey, those who are certified are, you know, are... This percentage of certified people are staying, versus this percentage that are leaving," that's gonna give us a better sense of the impact of training on our customers. And turns out once we started getting those metrics, it was a massive impact. Training was doing a lot for our customers, it turns out. This hypothesis that we have in the customer education space that, you know, if you're not learning, you're churning. Uh, if you're in education, you'll hear that all the time. It's true. You can see that in the metrics, right? The more educated people are in using your product, the better, the better they're gonna be, obviously, the more happy they're gonna be, and the longer they'll stay.
It doesn't really take a genius to understand that, 'cause if you just think about your regular life, right? If you know how to use a Microsoft product, even if you're frustrated with Microsoft, if presented with another option, you're s- you're gonna want to use Microsoft because you know how to use it, right? Like, if you know how to use an iPhone and someone says, "Here's an Android, it can do so much more." But you're like, "I don't get it," you're still gonna use an iPhone. Like, you know what I mean? Like, that's, that's just how it works. That's how we work. You know, we, we like what we're comfortable with, what we're used to. And education can be that bridge. So Roost is where I probably got to do the most experimentation with doing YouTubey style videos, trying to do experimentation with, you know, ag- again, engagement, retention, getting some of that feedback, building training, getting feedback from the community. And that was the best part about working with Roost, was the community, was, was you guys. Liferay was not...... in the MSP space. Well, Roost was the first time I was introduced to MSPs, and the MSP community is, it's something else, man. Uh, when you're in training, it is a, it is a dream setup to work in an environment where you have a community that is excited enough about what you're doing that they want to actually give you feedback and engage. Even if it's negative feedback, like they want to talk to you and tell you what they think. That's not always the case.
Absolutely.
That's not always the case. And in the MSP space, it is very much the case, and it's wonderful. It is, it is... Yeah, don't take that for granted, for anybody who is in IT working in the MSP space. Like the community and the communities that you have available are incredible and will absolutely help you grow and level up. So engage in communities.
I will say that is one of the things for me that helped me succeed in my internal IT position, was having some type of community. I was a huge proponent of Spiceworks, and they truly do a really good job of bringing together people to talk about a shared subject, whatever it might be. It doesn't matter what industry you're in. It doesn't matter what you're talking about. But if you can get a group of people together to talk about something, it just helps. It helps your mood. It helps you learn. It's amazing the positive benefits of humanity.
Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Yeah. And especially in a, in a world where, you know, we're all remote and we've gotten used to this sort of solitary work that we do. I, I, I gotta tell you, one of my favorite parts of the job at Roost was going to the events and talking with MSPs and hearing their successes, hearing how excited they were. But even hearing their challenges and what they were trying to solve. You know, people coming to the booth at Roost with questions, but then also just, you know, i- i- like Brian Simpson, right? Like, "Hey buddy, like what are you doing?" And he'd sh- you know, he'd be showing us things that he's doing or talking about things he's excited about and getting to meet people that way. Like that, that made it all worth it. And I think that's something, that's something in my career that I, I will just carry with me moving forward. Like I've been in leadership, and certainly there are a lot of aspects of business that are im- You know, you wanna get your strategy, you wanna get your metrics, all these kinds of things. But, and I don't mean this to sound cheesy at all. The people, man, the people are just what make the difference. Like I-
Absolutely.
I'm not at Roost anymore right now, but, but the team that I left there are amazing. And if I could ever work with them again, I'd do it in a heartbeat. And wherever I go next, I fully intend to build those kinds of relationships with the people I'm working with as well 'cause that's what makes it worth it, you know? When you lea- when you come and you go, and there's always gonna be changes in life, and there's always gonna be changes in your career. It's, it's those connections that you made that will ultimately give you kind of that foundation and help drive you forward as well as other people. So I think that's why the, the community element of the MSP space is so cool because that's almost like in your DNA, right? When, when I've met people in MSPs that have gone through different jobs since I've known them, they still know the same people, talk to the same people. They're still working out some of their problems. They're still building things together, and I love that. That's, that's what it's all about. That's good stuff.
Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. It's truly a superpower. I mean, I don't know where I'd be without the community, frankly. Like early on when I was in... within a year of my career, I got connected in IRC channels, and you know, y- you kinda watch the community evolve. It's IRC channels, it's forums, it's Slack, it's Discord, and it's been cool to see that evolve. Now-
I'm in like 82 Discord servers. I can't keep track.
[laughs]
Okay?
Yeah. At this point it's like-
I'm tired of Discord.
It's, it's almost too much to keep up with sometimes.
I know. I know. I feel that.
Uh, when you made kind of your transition from, you know, doing the work into leadership, what did that look like? Were there any... Was there anything that you didn't expect becoming a leader?
Hmm. Yeah. So moving from doing the work into leadership can be complicated. And I say that because in theory when you move into leadership, your goal is to move from doing all of the work directly to setting strategy, empowering the team, building the team, those kinds of things. And what I found is that depending on where you are, it's not, it's not really that clean cut. A lot of times everything needs to be done, right? You need to do some of it. You still need to do these like team building pieces. And what I found is that a lot of times it's the... some of the most fundamental pieces of leadership are the most overlooked. So what kind of culture are you building with your team? Who are you hiring? How are you building out your team? What's the strategy for your team? Where are you placing them? How are you empowering them to do their job better? What opportunities are you giving them so that they can shine and they can grow in their career? We talk about that stuff all the time on like link- LinkedIn, right? If you go to LinkedIn, everybody is gonna be like, "Oh yeah, people, people, people," and all this stuff. But in practice...
Yeah.
If you, if you do some of those things, you can, you can, I don't know, shoot yourself in the foot a little bit, right? There, there is incentive to be selfish.
Yeah.
And-
Yes
... that's, that's a hard thing to grapple with because at least for me, that's not the kind of leader I want to be. I want to be the kind of leader that, that fully invests in my team and gives them opportunities to shine. And if they can outshine me because of the energy that I put towards building them up, great. That should be the leader that I want to be. That should be the type of leader that I want to be.
I love that you're saying that 'cause, you know, one of the, one of the things that sets a good leader apart from a not so great leader is one that's willing to admit fault, one that's willing to admit they're not the best person in the room. Becoming... If you are a leader, yes, you are in charge of a group of people, but if you think of them as your peers, you will function better as a team. And that is just a huge, huge thing about w- what a lot... I think a lot of bosses don't understand.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, and I, I think that's, that's... It is a huge thing, and I think it's very important. I think it can be difficult, like I said, in practice for that to be seen for what it is. And I'm not saying this... Please don't hear this as me being like, [laughs] "I'm so great, but nobody understands." That's not, that's not at all what I'm saying.But-
I think we just got done saying you're not that great and you have fault.
Yeah, exactly. Great. Thank you. Let's keep the humility here, right?
Me too.
But I do think that's something that I would like to see more leadership teams shine a light on some of that stuff and view it as, as valuable as it is. And that's not always the case, right? So I think that was... That's something, that's something about stepping into leadership that I was a little bit surprised by because I think those are good things and I assumed that those good elements of being a leader would be more rewarded but oftentimes it can come off as like, "Well, well, what are... But what are you doing?" It's like, "Well, I'm... Well, we're doing all these things, right? The- these things that are about leadership and building up the team and all these kinds of things." It's like, "Okay, but what are you getting done?" And it's, it's harder to put... And I'm not blaming anybody for this by the way. It's, it can be harder to put a, a metric on those things, right? And because of that, it can be harder to track and then when you start getting through the hierarchy of whoever's in leadership, if they're not getting that visibility, then it just looks like, "Oh, well, do we, do we really need this person," right?
So that's... I think that's the thing that surprised me the most, but it's also not something that I regret at all and it's something that I will continue to do. Certainly I can learn from it, right? And I can find opportunities to make that visible and, and demonstrate, you know, value in different ways as I move forward in my career. But is... I guess it was surprising to me seeing how these, these un-...
They're not, like, invisible, but these harder-to-see incentives can be the things that actually move the business forward. And it, it made me realize that your, your incentive structures in a business are gonna drive everything, including culture, whether you like it or not. I think there's a lot of leaders who have a lot of good intent with how they build their culture, but if they are not careful to address those kinds of incentives, that's where you can get into a situation where maybe you have someone who is a great performer but they're a jerk. And you can't do anything about it 'cause they're a great performer, right? Or vice versa, maybe you have a great leader who's doing really good things for the business, but, but that's not very visible, right? So they're gonna be the first one to get cut. And I'm not... I'm just giving examples, right?
Sure [laughs].
It's just, it's just interesting... It's interesting seeing some of that stuff play out in real time and, and I think I've learned a lot from that, actually.
Yeah. I think, you know, kind of relating it a little bit to the IT side too. What I see commonly in IT and MSP leadership is, you know, I, I think the industry's getting better, but oftentimes the most technical person becomes a leadership member. And, you know, just because someone has the technical acumen doesn't necessarily mean that they're the best leader. And I think they can fall into those traps where, you know, maybe they don't understand how to train up their people, so, you know, they're like, "Ah, I'm managing their guys and I have to do all the work," instead of empowering their team. And to your point, like, the guys that do know how to do that, sometimes they don't know how to internally kind of market themselves, i- is a term that I've heard, is kind of internal marketing. Like, making sure-
Yeah, yeah
... that you're building up your team and kind of marketing yourself at the same time sometimes.
Yeah.
It can be really tricky to balance.
Yeah. And I've also... I had a, I had a conversation with... I won't, I won't shout out his name 'cause I don't know if he wants to be shouted out, but I had a conversation with a CEO in the MSP community who saw... When I had my, like, farewell post for, for Roost, he saw all of the responses and he reached out and he was just like, "What, like, what, uh, what did you do different as a leader, like, to, to get this kind of a response?" And I thought it was interesting. First of all, I was like, "Well, uh, I don't know. [laughs] I don't, like, this... I've never been asked that question before." [laughs] Yeah. Um, but I thought about it and I, I was just like, you know, I think, I think one of the things, just fundamental things that sets apart someone in leadership is their, their genuine care for other people. Like, it's not, it's not that complicated. It really isn't. If you are working with someone and it could be frustrating because you don't know why they're not acting a certain way or they're not doing a certain thing the way you want them to do it, oftentimes if you are willing to just investigate and ask questions and try to understand them better and try to put yourself in a position where you are asking yourself the question, "How can I, how can I put them in a position where they will have the most success based on what I know about them?" That, that makes a difference and people pick up on that. And you will build loyalty, like true, genuine friends who will stick with you if you are that kind of leader, where you're not only treating them like peers, like you said, Abhi, but, um, but you're also genuinely interested in their well-being, whether that's professional or pers- personal, right? That, that... It just goes such a long way where you stop seeing people as, you know, someone to just get the job done. Of course they need to get the job done. That's why you hired them. But are you trusting them to get the job done? Are you empowering them? Are you asking them how they're doing? Maybe their dog died. Like, how would that affect you? Have you wondered how it affects them? Uh, you know, like, maybe they're going through some hard time. Maybe the job that they're doing is not what they're most effective at and there is an opportunity to move things around if you can understand them better. Yeah. I see posts on Reddit all the time on, uh, some of the personal finance forums, like, "Oh, just, you know, I'm, I'm looking for a new job," or, like, "I don't like this," like, "I can't find a job," whatever it might be. So often people say, "It's because you're not paying enough," or, "It's because the wages aren't enough," or this and that. I'm like, "Yeah, that's true, but you can pay me a million dollars if you want me to work for you and you're gonna treat me like crap." You know? Like, I, I, I wanna-
You're gonna check out at some point.
Yeah, exactly. Or I'll continue working and just no work will get done. It's gonna be really-
Yeah, yeah
... bad quality and everything, right? There's a... There's so much nuance that goes into being a leader and raising a team or a group that can actually produce quality work, not just getting the job done but getting it done really well. If you can succeed in that-Well, a- and I think- I think that's where that- that loyalty has its benefit. And I'm not- I'm not at all saying, "Do these things for the express purpose of getting the best output," right? Because then, like, maybe your- your intentions might be a little bit mixed up. However, there is fruit here when you have people that you invest in because that- that loyalty, that care for the team and the job and that feeling cared for, it has an impact. One of- one of the people that I worked with, and she was amazing to work with. Again, I won't say her name 'cause I- I don't know if she wants to be called out on a podcast. But she- if she sees this, she'll know who she is. We had a conversation where she was like, "You know, I- I have been fired before because, uh, I wasn't producing. And I wasn't producing because they just killed the morale in the team, and the culture was terrible, and I just hated being there. And I was only doing, you know, doing what I thought I could get out, but I had no motivation to- to get stuff done, and I ended up getting cut for- for performance issues." But, and this is one of the sweetest things that I've ever heard in my life, and it encourages me to continue down this path. She essentially said that her productivity and her opportunity and her willingness to do such a good job while she was working with me was because of the way the team was run and the way the team was built. And that was very, very meaningful to me because had she not told me that, I never would have guessed that she would have had performance issues in any job, because she was killing it. Like, she was just going out there. She was building stuff quickly. She was building out, like, good strategy. She was asking great questions. She was super engaged, and I loved it. And we had a great time, and she was awesome. Um, so it just really stood out to me
how much of an impact that care can have on someone's- someone's ability to- to do the job. People- people oftentimes will kind of look at people and be like, "Are you an A player or a B player?" And there's like no factors in between. I literally had someone on my team who would have been considered, you know, a C player at another place but was a- was absolutely an A or a double A here, right? Like, sh- she was killing it. So...
There's
... uh...
... who will shout out somebody. So, th- this kind of like relates to a couple things you said. Dean Trempelas over at Empath. First off, you know, a company that embodies empathy and the teaching that I think, you know, you're shouting out a lot of today, which I love 'cause for us over at Barium Networks, empathy is a core value to how we run our MSP. And it's... Without it, I don't want to do anything.
[laughs]
Um, but he- he had a post recently on LinkedIn and I think Reddit, a few other, YouTube. I don't know, he's everywhere.
Sure. [laughs]
But it was about hiring, and when you're- when you're interviewing someone and you're looking to hire an individual, if they... If you can't mesh with that person, don't force yourself to hire them and force them to be under your reign. Because then you're trying to shoehorn that person into a mold that just doesn't fit, and if you let them... If you deny the job to them, it sucks, and as that individual, you don't want to not get the job-
Of course
... but it gives them an opportunity to go work for somebody who is gonna mesh with them better. And even though you might be a great boss and their other person might be a great boss, you can't switch places because the teams are just different. And so you have to lead-
Yeah
... the people that mesh with you, and you have to let the people that don't go find someone that meshes with them.
Yeah. No.
But-
Go ahead.
No, as I said, I think the way that I've put it before is sometimes there's- there's a talented person that's not a fit, and it can be unkind to hold them down, you know? And- and there's ways to transition that are, you know, you don't... Obviously, like, firing them with no severance and just like, uh, you know, dropping them would be, like, rude. But, you know, there's ways, like, "Hey, you know, this isn't working out. Do you want to be here?" Uh, 'cause, you know, you might be an A- you know, a rock star somewhere else.
Yeah. Yeah, hiring- hiring is an interesting thing, experiencing that. So, Roost, I was part of the hiring process in my previous roles, but Roost was the first time where I- I essentially got to build the team from scratch. Early on, Ash was heavily involved in that. Ash Cooper, if you guys are familiar with her. She's great. But even Ash was like, "I want- I want you to choose," which I'm very grateful for the way she kind of handed some of that stuff off to me.
I also, a- and maybe this isn't unique. I certainly hope it's not. That'd be great. But I found myself feeling like I had kind of a different way of approaching or looking at hiring than at least I've seen from managers in the past. A lot of managers in the past were- were highly focused on the technical aptitude of a particular individual, uh, and that was kind of it. Like, technical over everything else, right? And, um, I was way more focused on soft skills and culture and [laughs]... I hate using this term because it's so ambiguous, but like vibe. [laughs] And...
I use that term with vendors sometimes. They're like, "Do... So, do you want the product?" I'm like, "I ha- I don't know yet."
[laughs]
"Like, I need to- I need to figure out the vibe."
Yeah, yeah.
And then they just look at me like, "What do you mean? Why does the vibe matter?" I'm like, "It just does. It just matters."
Yeah. Yeah, and so when- when I was doing my hiring, it- it came down to a lot of that. There was a lot of amazing applicants. You start looking... Uh, at some point, and I mean, to be fair, we're in a world now where if I post something on LinkedIn for a job, we're all gonna get like a thousand applications for it. Um, so at some point, the variation on the actual skillset might be, uh,
pretty small, right? Uh, they- they basically have the same skills. Like, maybe there's one thing that stands out here or the other. You know, maybe they did something specific that stands out to you. But a lot of times, you will get on a call with these folks and- and you just- you just know or you're just not- you're not feeling it. Like, it... And it's... I don't know. Maybe I shouldn't be admitting this as like a hiring manager, you know, on a podcast or something, but I did find that...... focusing on some of those things, again, and building a team where I wanted the culture to be, "We're all in this together. We're gonna help each other out. I'm gonna do everything I can to unblock you. I'll stand up for you. I will help build you up and empower you." With those things combined, I didn't h- I didn't hire a single person that I regretted, which is great because-
That's amazing
... one of the worst parts of being a hiring manager is being in a position where you have to fire somebody, at least in my opinion. Like, I, I can do it. I, I would hate having to be in that position. And fortunately, I didn't need to be in that position. So I, I... Yeah, it's, it is interesting because there's so much about hiring. You're like, "Okay, we wanna be careful. We don't wanna be like..." I don't know. At, at some, some sense, you wanna be open and you don't wanna be too whatever, judgmental or something. But at the same time, you know, some of that stuff just naturally comes up.
So, uh, I was, I was gonna ask you a question about, like, what... Did you ever regret something in your hiring process? But apparently, you know, you, you didn't. [laughs]
[laughs]
So I'll ask you this instead. Did you, did you notice any mistakes that you made,
that as soon as you made them or a couple weeks later, something where you're like, "Huh, I shouldn't do that again." Like, you actually constantly re- realized that something you did had a detrimental effect on the team or the business, whatever it might be, or yourself?
Always. Yeah. Uh, I mean, when it com- when it comes to hiring, the way, the way I ran the hiring process was I always brought in, um, somebody else to be there with me. And then I had a stage in the process where they would go and interview without me because I wanted to check myself. I can very... I have the type of mind where I can come to a conclusion very quickly. I can assemble the information and then be like, "Okay, this is it."
Interesting.
I have decent instincts, so a lot of times, my initial impression ends up being correct. I'm gonna sound so arrogant in this. Uh, I'm gonna be like, "Man, I'm really awesome. Like, I just want you all to know that." [coughs]
[laughs]
But I... Usually, my instincts-
Anyone who's actually arrogant realizes that they sound arrogant, so. At least, so like, I'll, I'll interject real quick. One of the things that happened to me early on in my, my adult, my early adulthood, late childhood, I was told that I was condescendingly arrogant.
Hmm.
And that hit me hard. Like, it changed how I was as a person because to have that person tell me that, they were somebody that I needed to have the respect of, someone that needed to like me and they didn't. Yeah. So-
Yeah. That'll do it
... as a kid, I didn't know that I was arrogant. And if you think you are, you're probably not. [laughs]
Well, I appreciate that. Uh, we can always work on our humility. [laughs] Anyway, um, yeah. So anyway, I, I, I had good enough instincts, but I would, I would always make sure that there was a check and that we would have a conversation about it. I would play devil's advocate sometimes in those conversations and really press them on their opinions to make sure that we're, we're really on the same page and that, that pretty much always worked out. Um-
I love it. Yeah.
Oh, and, and again, it wasn't just for checking me. It was getting the whole team involved. Made it so that when we brought someone in, they were being, like, brought into the fold and the whole team was surrounding them. It wasn't just like, "Oh, Brandon brought in someone new and we have to deal with it." Like, we all made this decision, even if I was leading the, you know, the final say, right? So that, that helped me there. But yeah, in regards, in regards to the, just the job in general, there were, there were plenty of things that I didn't do well or I regretted. There was, there was definitely a learning curve for me. Even with wanting to empower my team, there, there is a fine line between
empowering your team and having them do your work for you,
right?
Yeah.
There's, there is this fine line there. So-
Delegate everything.
And... Yeah. So sometimes, I would fall into one ditch or the other, right? Sometimes, I would be taking too much on and I was trying to control too much because I felt like I needed to get something done. And then sometimes, I was like, "Hey, you know what? I shouldn't be doing that." And I would do this, like, pendulum swing where I'd be like, "Okay, you guys do all of these things," and I should've been keeping some of those things to myself, right? Um, and I feel like that's just part of the process of learning how to do leadership effectively is finding that balance. But the reason I would say that I have regretted falling into either of those ditches is because ultimately, I want to build trust with the team and I wanna build them up. And if you fall into the ditch of doing too much, then you're making people too reliant on you. And then if you're gone for some reason, suddenly the team is in a panic. They don't know what to do and it looks bad on everybody, especially you. But on the flip side, if you're delegating everything and you're not supporting them in e- an effective way and finding that, finding that line, then it makes them feel like you don't wanna do any work and you just want them to do your job. And you're kind of suddenly becoming the overlord, right? I mean, you don't want that either, right? That's, that's certainly never what I would've intended.
Right.
But I had an amazing team. I asked them those questions to keep me in check, and they would tell me if I was falling into one of those ditches and we would have a conversation about it. And that's... Again, that's, that's all kind of organically how you figure out. If you, if you assume as a leader that you're just gonna figure stuff out on your own, you're kind of just forgetting how being a human being works. Like, we, we learn through community. That's just fundamental to our very being. We're social beings. And so when you're in a leadership role, you have people you work with. You have peers, other leaders, but you also have your team. And if you build a culture where you say, "Listen, I have blind spots. I'm gonna miss things. I'm gonna make you upset, and I really, really want you to feel like you have enough rapport with me that you can call me out on my crap, because I need you to do that. I need you to do that and you need you to do that." Right? [laughs] Um, and so building that kind of foundation upfront is what helps balance some of those things. And that-... also is what builds that bond with the team. And again, these people that I've worked with, I would work with them all again in a heartbeat. No questions. So... And I- I'd hope that they feel the same way about me.
That is... That's a... The, the fact that you feel that way even though you're not currently at Roost, I think that speaks to volumes as to... That they're lead- doing things well internally, right? That it's not just... It's not just to make money, right? It's a business. Your goal is to make money, sure, but there's more than just one thing.
Yeah. Well, I think, I think it's silly personally to have a goal of making money that does not include those things, because I feel like you're gonna make more money if your people are happy and your customers are happy, right? Like, that's just... It's just part of education and community, and-
Uh-
... and the reason we have efforts like customer experience or customer success or whatever, right?
The- the VC firm that bought Toys"R"Us would be a lot richer if Toys"R"Us was still around.
That's right.
I know I would shop there.
And when I... I guess, you know, kind of relating to this too, when I look at IT hiring, I think it's so common. I- I- I think we're... Another one where we're getting better as an industry, but IT providers, MSP providers, to f- like, really drill down on that technical aspect and not zoom out and think about, "Will this person get along with my team and how will they interact with my customer?"
Right. There's a- there's a saying out there like, "I can- I can teach people tech, but I can't teach them to be nice."
Yeah.
Right? And that's something you have to learn yourself.
Yeah. And- and too- too often in these IT kind of job interviews, you'll have like a five-page, like, quiz on all these technical aspects-
[laughs]
... and stuff. And you know, a lot of times it comes down to, "How will they interact with my customer and team?" And then, "Do they have, like, more of the critical thinking and aptitude to figure something out that they don't know?"
Yeah.
Yep.
Exactly.
Yeah.
You know what-
Yeah, those- those instincts and the critical thinking, that's- that's a good way of- of putting some of what I was trying to get at earlier when I was rambling on about hiring, right? That is something- that is something that I watch out for. If I ask you questions... In fact, in our- in our interview process we used to have a section called the hot take section which, number one, made interviews very fun because we'd be like, "Now we've entered the hot take section and we're gonna ask you some crazy questions. There's no right answer and we just wanna hear how your brain works." And they'd be like-
"What do you mean?"
... "Okay." [laughs] So we had- we had fun with that, uh, which was good for the interview process itself, but it really- it really helped us to see very clearly, if- if I present you with a challenge, what are you gonna do with it? How are you gonna think about it? How are you gonna resolve? And that goes a long way. Even if they didn't have the specific experience we're looking for, if I could fire some of those questions away and you can handle them effectively, I'd be like, "You're a good candidate."
Yeah. Yeah.
Plain and simple.
I- I see that a lot in my- in my day-to-day life when I'm interacting with anybody in a customer service role, whether it be the cashier at the grocery store or the person handing you your food through a drive through. You can tell just from that ten-second interaction whether or not that person might be a good fit for a certain type of role. Just the way that they present themselves, the way that they talk, the way that they handle themselves, the way that they interact with strangers,
right? And they're... Being a cashier is not easy, right? You're seeing a new person every few minutes or every few seconds sometimes, and you see them. You have to be the nicest person. They're all of a sudden your friend. Ten seconds later they're gone and you never see them ever again, right? It's- it's not an easy job.
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, those- those aspects of a person can go a really, really long way, and I think that's a good- that's a good framework to work with. You know? You can teach someone technology. You can teach someone processes and those kinds of things. Obviously every job is gonna need to have some level of skills, right? You can't just always hire the nice person and- and that's just... It is what it is.
That's a lot of training. [laughs]
Yeah. But if they have the requisite tool set... Now, if I- if I'm looking at two applicants, one is vastly overqualified, but they don't handle themselves well while I'm asking those kinds of questions or they're a jerk, I'm gonna take someone who is less qualified and say, "This is- this is someone who can be built up," right? This is someone who can- who can grow into the type of person we want for this role and exceed what our expectations are right now. So I think- I think a lot of that in the hiring process goes a long way.
One of the- one of the metrics I used internally just, like, for myself... I feel like this might not be the nicest thing to say, but earlier in my career, my metric for being able to tell whether or not I did a good job at a job that I was leaving and, like, whether or not I performed well, was the amount of sad faces that I got and messages when I announced that I was leaving. So, like, the- the more sad I made my coworkers, the better. [laughs] And it sounds weird, but that just showed that I made an impact on the people and even though I may not have been the best technically, there were plenty of people at- probably in my, uh... My peers in the same position at a different location that could walk c- run circles around me. But the fact that my coworkers at my location loved me made me feel like I was doing a phenomenal job.
Yeah. Yeah. I remember- I remember hearing this story, and I'm not gonna tell it as well as he did, but, um... At, uh- at Liferay, uh, we had a VP of people, so basically the head of HR, that, uh, previously worked at Disney. And I don't- I don't know if these people were at Disney or if they were at a previous role, but I just remember him telling the story of these two executives that- that worked in some context where he worked. One of them was less technically apt, but he was well-loved. And the other was like a shark, uh, and he- he knew how to get stuff done and he made whatever company that was-... bajillions of dollars, and you know, like, he would come up with these strategies and they'd execute and they'd make lots of money, blah, blah, blah. But he was a jerk. He was, he was not kind. He was very competitive. He would often put himself above other people, et cetera. And the point of the story was essentially fast forward 10 years, and the first executive was,
you know, the CEO of a company and everybody loved him and was incredibly successful. And the successful jerk was out of the job and nobody would hire because nobody wanted to work with him. Like, at some point his technical expertise didn't matter anymore because he had burned enough bridges and he had pissed enough people off that they're like, "I don't care. We can find someone who can do just as good of a job. And even if it's not quite as good, we're still not gonna hate working with them," right? And that, that was a story that stuck with me years and years and years ago. Um, and I think it's true. The, the, the longer I work, the more I progress in my career, the more I see that, right? Maybe you have someone who is phenomenal at their job, and maybe they'll see short-term success and, and they'll stick around for a bit. But give it five, 10 years, and if you haven't smoothed out those rough edges and if you haven't learned to work with people and show some decency and respect,
then when... I'll pick on Roost because it's a startup, right? If the startup sells and someone starts a new startup, are they gonna hire you? Are they gonna hire you again? Like, they know what you did. They know your impact. Um, you know, maybe you do get hired at that startup, but you still have the same problems and you piss more people off. If that cycle happens again, are they gonna hire you the next time? Like, at some point it's gonna catch up to you, right? So it's... I think it's good for leaders to watch out for this kind of stuff and make sure the culture is not only defined but protected. And I think it's good for individual contributors or people who are growing in their career to ask themselves hard questions about what impact they're having on the people around them. If they leave, are people happy? [laughs] That's a bad sign.
You're, uh-
Something you might wanna think about.
You're telling me the, the one thing I should remember out of everything in life is just the golden rule.
Yep. That about sums it up. That's a good one. Yep.
[laughs] Kind of makes sense as to why it's the golden one.
Exactly. Yeah. Call it the platinum rule.
Does it have AI?
Good.
I can't even listen.
I think it's...
Like he s- said, people underestimate how much you'll encounter the people you work with, especially if, if you're in the MSP industry today, it's a lot smaller than you think. You're gonna encounter the same people. And the things that you do today are gonna affect you 10 and 15 years if you're the jerk or if you're someone who's willing to make a difference.
Absolutely. It, it really... It is, it is amazing how small and interconnected a massive industry like IT is. I, I go to a fair number of conferences, not because I like going to conferences necessarily, but because I- I love being able to learn in person and that-
Yeah. Sure
... people, right? The community is the reason I go. Shoot, I think I go to some more than vendors.
One thing that I learned... Uh, one thing that I learned at going to some of these conferences is that people talk in the MSP industry. And I- I don't mean that in a bad way. I just mean-
Yes
... if, if you have made a really bad impression on somebody, other people are gonna know, right? There, there are more far-reaching consequences to being a jerk. And this is true for vendors too, right? Vendors also have to be very careful about how they run their business because, I mean, you guys know how it is. Like, if you're a vendor who is very clearly showing that you're trying to gouge the community rather than caring for their concerns, that's gonna bite you in the butt. It's gonna come back on you and-
And it might not even be-
... you're not gonna like the consequences.
It might not even be the vendor as a whole. As a vendor, you need to look out for your salespeople because if one of-
Sure
... them says something wrong or does something wrong, the person they're doing it against is working in IT, and the one thing that we like to do as IT people is post rants. And so-
I mean, you see it on RMSP, like, there is an interaction-
All the time
... less than a month ago where a salesperson was really rude to an MSP and it shot up on RMSP and got a ton of viewership. And you know, I think that... I don't remember the circumstance. I think that vendor, the owner stepped in, but it, it would be better if that situation just didn't happen.
Right. Yeah. There's, there is a thing as bad PR is just plainly bad PR.
Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, everybody's got a bad day, right? But-
Of course
... if you are, are consistently demonstrating that kind of disrespect, it's gonna catch up to you. Sometimes it's, uh, it's quick and painful, and sometimes you think you're okay because everybody's just continuing to do what you want them to do for, for the time being, but it will catch up for you. I mentioned I have a, a Bible degree, and that's, that's something, that's something that Christians will often say is like, "Your sin will find you out." And a lot, a lot of times people will just kind of assume, "Well, it's been a week, it's been a month, it's been five years and, and it's fine." And so they kind of rest on their laurels and they don't, they don't do the hard work of dealing with that stuff. And it does, it does inevitably come out at some point. And that's absolutely applicable in this case, especially in a space like the MSP space. But I just say in general, right?
Yep. Yeah.
Yeah. Focus, focus on-
You
... focus on you.
Replicate yourself.
Yep. Yeah. We're just going with all the, all the rules this time. I like it. Let's go.
Well, Brandon, I really appreciate you coming on and, you know, being one of our first guests. I think, you know, if someone out there, even if you're not looking at education, there's a ton of takeaways from this, from this podcast and everything, and I really appreciate it. Uh, let's see, we've got Retro Brandon and on YouTube, you've got a podcast that... I'm gonna space on the name. What's your podcast name?
Uh, the podcast name is the, The Level Up Legacy Podcast.
Okay.
It's kind of a mouthful, but you can find that on YouTube as well. And your other podcast listening places-
Yeah
... Apple, Spotify, et cetera. Um-
Brandon, I really appreciate it. Um-
Yeah. This is a-
... was really enjoy having you come on.
... absolutely wonderful conversation.
Yeah. Thanks for having me, guys. I appreciate it.
Yeah. We'll, uh, we'll have to do it again one day, uh, about maybe, maybe we can talk about games on your podcast.
Now you're talking. Now you're talking. Always want guests, so love to do it.
Well, thanks everyone. We'll see you guys next week. And thanks again, Brandon.
Of course.
Take care.
See you, everybody.
Bye-bye.