Wired for Growth
Welcome to Wired for Growth a WinonaIT podcast. Located in the heart of Northern Indiana, WinonaIT is not just another IT support, consulting, and software development business. We're on a mission to reshape the very essence of how the world perceives partnering with an IT consulting group - from the lens of both dedicated employees and valued clients. Join us as we dive into a myriad of topics encompassing technology, the intricacies of the business world, and invaluable insights that aim to enrich and empower. Whether you're a tech enthusiast, an aspiring entrepreneur, or someone eager to gain knowledge, Wired for Growth has something for you. Listen in and be a part of our journey to redefine the IT consulting landscape!
Wired for Growth
Who We Are
What if you could transform a challenging experience into a thriving business? Join us as we flip the script in an exclusive takeover episode of the Winona IT Wired for Growth podcast. Michael Pahl, usually your host, becomes the guest, sharing his journey from Wilmington, Delaware to Landenburg, Pennsylvania, and all the way to Switzerland. Ever wondered how the summers spent in Winona Lake shaped his permanent home and business foundations? Tune in to discover the personal and professional milestones that led Michael to establish Winona IT in 2018, addressing a crucial market gap in reliable IT support.
Curious about the nitty-gritty of building a successful IT business from scratch? Michael opens up about his career evolution from a technical self-learner to a seasoned professional navigating corporate IT landscapes. Listen as he recounts the pivotal moments during his tenure at Silveus Insurance Group, including the bold move of transitioning from an employee to an entrepreneur, making Silveus his first client. Gain insights into the dynamics of team management, rapid customer onboarding, and the importance of maintaining integrity and respect in all business dealings.
Leadership, growth, and continuous learning form the cornerstone of this episode. Michael underscores the significance of employee development and the role of a supportive leadership team in fostering a strong company culture. Hear about the challenges of IT recruitment and retention, and why outsourcing might be the solution many companies need. Plus, Michael shares candid lessons from his entrepreneurial journey, including the value of transparency and perseverance. Whether you’re an IT professional, a budding entrepreneur, or simply interested in real-world business stories, this episode promises a wealth of knowledge and inspiration.
Hey everybody, welcome back to the Winona IT Wired for Growth podcast. As always, I'm your host, Matt Duhl, that's not true. I'm never your host. Michael Paul is the host. Hey Michael, how's it going?
Speaker 2:Good, good. How are you guys doing today?
Speaker 1:Doing great here with my business partner Mason Geiger.
Speaker 3:How's everybody doing?
Speaker 1:So we are from Dream On Studios and we have had the privilege of helping Michael to produce the Wired for Growth podcast for the last number of months. It's been a really, really cool experience for us. In fact, we loved hearing Michael and his golden tones, his rich voice. So much.
Speaker 1:We invited him on our podcast Stories that Move and just did an interview of him, his life, a little bit about the business, and got some amazing feedback about it and just kind of brought it to the place of saying, michael, we think you should share this story through your podcast. So Winona IT, wired for Growth listeners, it's a special episode for you. Today we're going to just take this thing over. Interview, michael how do you feel about the you know, kind of being on the hot seat today?
Speaker 2:No, it's good. It's good. I realized we went through I don't know how many episodes and really didn't talk a whole lot about what we're doing, so I think this is going to be good. Perfect, appreciate the opportunity. Yeah, absolutely Okay. So let's just start off at the baseline. So, for somebody who's showing up for the very first time, who are you and what is Winona IT? Quarter of 19. We're an IT group doing everything from custom software development to cybersecurity services, it support, it consulting a little bit of everything and we're a team of about. We're about 65 employees today and mostly located in Northern Indiana, although I do have some employees spread out, all US-based and serving about 125 customers Again, all spread out, but a pretty large number of those are here in the Warsaw and Winona Lake area and everything from school districts, colleges, you name it. We support a broad range of customers. So that's just a little bit about us.
Speaker 3:Amazing, so real quick, with all of that and the growth and the things you've seen over since 2018, when it founded. What's like, yeah, what drives you? What was the inspiration behind it all?
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is a long story, a good story. This is a long story, a good story, really. I would just summarize it in saying this when I worked in the IT industry, I had a really hard time hiring good help. I mean, I would bring in organizations, interview them, ask for references. There were a number of issues with all the companies that we brought in and, you know, fast forward several years into the future and none of those organizations really exist anymore. Even so, we just had a really hard time finding help and I figured, if we had a really hard time finding help, there must be a market, you know, for these services. That's the short version.
Speaker 1:Awesome, awesome. All right, we're going to get more into that and definitely more of the the Winona IT story. But let's rewind just a little bit and let's unpack you, michael Paul, so where are you originally from? I know you have a unique story and journey.
Speaker 2:We'd love to hear a little bit about. Yeah, born, born in Wilmington, delaware. Um only lived there for a few years, moved to Landenburg, pennsylvania. Um Landen um. Landenburg is gosh. Got to be just about an hour outside of philadelphia. Um ended up spending a lot of time in kennett square, pennsylvania, which is the mushroom capital of the world, don't, don't forget it it's really important annual mushroom festival. There is really cool do you like mushrooms?
Speaker 2:I do do. I love mushrooms Absolutely. So yeah, it's a fit Um how's that, compared to morels, is it like? Yeah, so morels are, are the, I think, the?
Speaker 3:best. I feel like that's like our best candy here in Indiana. Yeah, they are.
Speaker 2:They are. Um, I was probably 15 or so, moved overseas. I had a chance to live in Switzerland for a number of years. Um, really, my dad's job brought me over there, went to, so you weren't shipped off for boarding school.
Speaker 1:No, I wasn't All right. All right, Not that kind of story. I probably should have been. I probably should have been, yeah.
Speaker 2:Got to spend some time at the International School of Basel in Switzerland Great school. During that time we really spent our summers in Winona Lake. We had some family in La Porte, indiana. It seemed like a really nice town so we would come back in the summer and spend our summers here. And then when I graduated high school and it was time to move back to the States, winona Lake just seemed like a good fit. I was familiar with it, kind of done with moving I had moved several times in my life and just wanted to settle in a nice place and go to school and seemed like a great fit. So that's where I landed, here. That's cool.
Speaker 1:Talk to us about this. The cultural realities for you and just kind of how that shaped your worldview to kind of be born in the States, move, come back and forth.
Speaker 2:That's a complicated subject, you know. I'm still many years removed from living overseas, but I'm still contemplating like how that changed me and and how my perspective was was really influenced. I would say, you know, here we often feel like we're the center of the universe, and then, when I moved overseas, I personally felt like there's a big world out here full of really, really awesome things and, um, we're not the center of the universe, you know, it's the world's a little bit bigger.
Speaker 2:The world's a little bit bigger, there's a couple other perspectives that are worth considering you know, Um, but I, I in Switzerland in particular, and and things like the UN, you know that's that's held in Switzerland.
Speaker 2:It's, it's very international community. A lot of different perspectives, religions, nationalities are all respected and represented there Really and here's a good example of that my high school had something like 42 different mother tongues represented just in my high school. Wow, so very diverse. And I think, to summarize just one lesson was diversity in terms of background, thoughts, perspectives. It's really important and it contributes to a much better outcome than organizations or communities that really lack diversity. Yeah, no, I'm a huge proponent of that. Organizations or communities that really lack it lack diversity.
Speaker 1:So yeah, no, I'm a huge proponent of that, anytime you can get out of the community that you're in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, certainly.
Speaker 1:Experience other life. I mean everything from just food to people, to languages. Yeah, yeah, that's that's. That's. It's important, it is very important. That's awesome. Yeah, so inside of all of that, were you always like lugging around computers and wiring things up, like did you have that kind of technical thing going for you, or is that something you picked up along the way?
Speaker 2:Oh, definitely something I picked up along the way. In fact, I don't really recall an interest in technology all that much until, um, you know for sure it was high school and and good friend of mine, um, gave me he actually was grounded and um, he gave me a box full of computer parts and he said, hey, I want to keep my case, but you can have all the rest.
Speaker 1:So, because he got, grounded his computer's off limits. Oh, it's off, it's gone.
Speaker 2:Okay, he had to give it away I think I paid paid him for it.
Speaker 3:What age is this?
Speaker 2:See, I want to say probably about 16 or so, okay, 16, 17. And I remember bringing home this cardboard box of parts and wiring it all up without a case and powering it on and it worked and I was totally amazed and I think the addiction started there, wow. And the reason I really wanted to build this computer was to play a video game that everybody at school played and I just got an interest for it there.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That interest just continued on learning about computers, how they work, computer parts. And then I remember a brief conversation with my dad going into school and trying to figure out what do I want to study and ended up, you know, pursuing a computer science degree, and part of that was very interested in how computers work and the different parts, and it all started there, in high school though that's cool.
Speaker 1:So this, I mean this is like pre-saturated YouTube days there right, oh, absolutely, I mean, you weren't able to just go on and YouTube how to build a computer.
Speaker 2:No, so this would have been roughly, I want to say roughly 2006, 2005.
Speaker 1:Okay, so definitely some internet out there to lean into. Yeah, you know.
Speaker 2:DSL maybe.
Speaker 1:Yeah right.
Speaker 2:I sort of remember having a laptop at one point. It was huge, weighed 10 pounds or whatever, but I sort of remember having a laptop, Um, so, absolutely though it was. Um, yeah, I'm 34. So it was. You know, I see these floppy disks and I don't remember using those at all.
Speaker 1:So those came from my childhood.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, pulled them right out of my dad's computer.
Speaker 3:Get like the big, like floppies. Yeah, we had those.
Speaker 2:We had those too, for sure.
Speaker 1:For sure. Okay, so an interest about 16 year old. 16 years old starting to wire things up. Where did it go from there?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah really my IT interest really developed when again it was really peaked in high school but in college just decided to go down that computer science path. Now some of my courses were related to hardware, networking the things that I still have an interest in today. Some of the courses I took on the computer programming side, database side, I was less interested in that route. I personally think some of my struggles with mathematics early in my you know education I think that impacted me in those areas. But I just I really liked networking and computer science, hardware that path, so just really decided to continue down that path.
Speaker 1:Awesome, Awesome. And that eventually led you to correct me if I'm wrong, but an internship at Silvius Crop Insurance.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I used to go say hi to my one of my professors almost every day and, just you know, five minute conversation. And one day when I popped in there he said, hey, I just got an email looking for an intern and, um, I think you could be a really good fit. So when interviewed, um interviewed with Sylvia's insurance group, I would have been a sophomore and I had worked a retail job at Staples selling computers and fixing computers, part of their what I think they called their easy tech or something like that.
Speaker 2:I don't remember, but I did that for about six months and then, yeah, I started this internship and you know I remember it really kind of rocked my world. I didn't have the understanding. I thought that internship was really good for me. I worked that internship until I graduated but just learned a tremendous amount there. So my job was mostly tech support at that time. So I was supporting about 100 employees 150 employees. My internship started in 2010.
Speaker 3:So first internship, biggest eye-opener for you.
Speaker 2:I would say a lot of my technical skills and abilities were just less than I really thought they were. You can read, study, mess with your own home lab, but then when you're in a corporate network it's a totally different situation. I think the biggest eye-opener was I thought I was kind of mid-range and I was entry-level 100%.
Speaker 1:Even after working at Staples.
Speaker 2:Especially after working at Staples. Absolutely.
Speaker 3:You didn't have that, that that it's easy button.
Speaker 2:No, no. Easy buttons no no.
Speaker 1:Okay, so hold on, cause, let's, let's hit that real quick Any any wild stories from Staples of just, oh, a million.
Speaker 2:Um, I remember one situation where somebody brought in this old computer and said it didn't work anymore and I opened it up, took the door off the case and just all this dust just poured out of that thing. It hadn't been cleaned in, honestly, I feel, like 10 years or more. It was just full of dust and dog hair and cat hair. It was disgusting it just poured out of there and I was like you know what?
Speaker 2:I I'm not getting paid enough to do this I gotta get out of here so, um, I mean, we found prescription drug bottles inside of computers that were like hidden in there um way. Wow yeah, wow yeah, I think I had a rattle.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I remember talking to one guy one time and I asked him what he did for work and and, um, he said he was a bounty hunter. And I was like really that's pretty dangerous, isn't it? And he goes, yep, and he pulls his pistol out of his waistband, shows it to me and sticks it back in his waistband. So there's there's a lot of stories I could tell. You know what I learned about that job, though? There's a couple of things. One was if I got to work and I just worked hard, that was better than the majority there, so I could differentiate myself by just putting my best foot forward. The other part of that job was I had a leader at one point in time there that pulled me aside and he said Michael, you're doing really good work here. Anything you decide to do in the future, I just feel like you're going to be really successful.
Speaker 2:And I still think about that to this day. So that was a job that I didn't love, obviously, but there were some big lessons that I kind of took with me from working that retail job Very cool, yeah, very cool, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:So coming back then to to Silvius, um, the internship led to what for you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely so. Um, right after I graduated, which was 2012, um, they brought full-time and I started off working a help desk job. Over several years there actually all the way to 2018, I did various roles network administrator, system administrator, help desk manager, worked several different roles there, but I started to see that market opportunity I was talking about earlier. There were a lot of nonprofits that were reaching out saying we need help, we don't know where to go. Again, I was, you know, trying to find help to bring in and help us with several things, having a really hard time doing that.
Speaker 2:So it was, you know, several really good years of learning the trade and learning the skills, and then ultimately talking to my boss and saying, hey, I really want to spin off and I really want to start our own thing here in town. There's a huge opportunity for this, and they fully endorsed it. So they let me spin off, service them as a customer, and it was really helpful to have a customer day one, you know, I had a customer willing to pay for our services day one, which really was helpful. I didn't have to go knock on doors just to, you know, pay the rent. It was that came, but right off the bat. I just I had some security. That was really helpful.
Speaker 1:So they allowed you to I mean truly fully launch into your own business.
Speaker 2:Correct, totally split off from them, form a new entity and just start selling services right away.
Speaker 1:What was the stress or tension in the relationship of? Yeah, just moving from the, you know I've got an ongoing paycheck with these guys as my employers to. Now I'm moving them into the client seat of I mean, that's a different relationship.
Speaker 2:It's certainly a different relationship and, when I look back, the task I was assigned was grow and build this business and be successful there, while ensuring that the way we took care of Sylvia's insurance group as a customer, that they didn't see any drop in the service we were providing to them. So that was kind of the expectation that was laid out and we pulled it off. But it was an immense challenge Myself, my other team, we were just enough to really service Sylvia's really well and yet we were quickly onboarding new customers. So it was a big challenge but, um, you know, really thankful for all the folks and all the leadership there at Sylvia's that really gave me the opportunity and and encouraged me to go give it my best shot really, and I've got so many questions in this like transition, because I could, only I mean and having spun off.
Speaker 3:And you know, as we launched dream, on like knowing that like yeah, it's a new new uh, new era that you're entering into. A lot of risk that's involved in that. But how? Starting about, how large was the team whenever you made that?
Speaker 2:transition Good question. So I believe it was myself and three, potentially four other people and we, like I said, we kind of we. We technically got started late 2018, but it was really Q1 of 19 that we got the ball rolling. We onboarded several big customers, you know, right off the bat. So I think we started hiring quickly, 2019, within probably a month or two of getting started, and it really hasn't stopped you know since then.
Speaker 2:Um. So yeah, that time is a little bit of a blur to me, but I I remember needing to scale up very quickly.
Speaker 3:Wow, which, yeah, I mean just the, the excitement that's involved in that, but then also talk a little bit about the like. I mean you're having to learn how to run a business at this point, you're stepping into instead of technical like you're just servicing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, not just providing the service yeah.
Speaker 2:So I I kind of say this jokingly that we accidentally did a million dollars in revenue in our first year and I remember thinking we're onto something here and I need help bad in a bad way. So I hired an executive coach, will Ditzler, at the very end of 2019 or very beginning of 2020, he really helped us. Honestly, the way I describe it is hit the pause button a little bit to say, hey, you've had this success, you're growing rapidly, but what about your mission, vision, core values, what about a little bit of strategy here? And that was just unbelievably helpful for us. I remember thinking at the time we couldn't afford it, but in hindsight we could not have afforded to not do it. I mean, that was a really, really important thing for us Set a lot of the foundational work for us to be successful, moving forward.
Speaker 1:Wow, okay, so you didn't just launch a business to serve Sylvia's only? Right so there were other people out there. So take us back to the why. When you kind of had that moment of inside of Silvius thinking I think there's a bigger opportunity here, why was that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it really, and I can give you several really funny examples here. But I got to a spot when I worked at Silvius. I could not hire good help at all, and I'm talking about IT consulting and support organizations, and I'll give you a really good example here of what I mean by that. There was one organization in Fort Wayne that we actually thought was relatively competent and capable of servicing us. They sent us over their legal agreement and our attorney said there are 10 major issues with their legal agreement, including, you know, referencing documents that aren't attached to it, and it's like this thing is a mess. We went back to them and said we're not asking for any radical changes. We need clarification on these 10 items. And they responded with you don't pay enough monthly for us to consider changing our legal agreement.
Speaker 1:So that was immediately. Thank you, we're done.
Speaker 2:You know, without getting into like a whole messy conversation, I would say there were several businesses that we felt really lacked integrity, that we had attempted to do business with, and different things that just didn't add up with and different, different things I just didn't add up. Ultimately, what I decided was there's a market out there for an IT organization that really operates with integrity. If we can, at a minimum, if we can just do that, yeah, we can be successful and we've really built a business around operating with integrity, really truly taking care of the customer, making them feel like they're our only customer and, yeah, I mean, I think the results have been really solid there. So, wow, wow.
Speaker 1:No, and we've we've talked about this before. I mean, in in your space, you are helping people do things that they just cannot do, and so I think you said it the other day of it feels sometimes like going to the car mechanic, right, Sure Of like I'm trusting you as I roll my car into your garage, that you're going to tell me what's needed and be honest about it, and I would imagine you. That's a lot of your customer's experience.
Speaker 2:It is. And so actually let me let me use that analogy a little bit to demonstrate my point here In that industry of fixing cars and servicing vehicles, without any doubt there are lots of entities there and people there operating with integrity, servicing their customers well, charging fair rates, being transparent. That's out there, 100%. I think it's also indisputable that in that particular industry there's a lot of corruption. There's a lot of opportunity to take advantage. There's a lot of there's not a lot of checks and balances often.
Speaker 2:I feel, I think that's really, really, really similar to our industry.
Speaker 2:You know, we've seen I'll give you a really good example we've seen competitors where their invoice is one line item that basically says you know, platinum edition IT support, and what they're doing is they're kind of throwing everything they're offering into one line item to more or less disguise what they're charging for various services.
Speaker 2:You know, we don't feel like that's the right thing to do, and so we're very transparent in what we charge for each service and each product and each license and just try to do the right thing there. I'm not saying only one way is correct, but I'm just saying there's one way that lends itself to extra transparency and understanding, and that's the route that we're trying to go there. So, at the end of the day, what our hope is is to provide services in northern Indiana that change people's perception of what it means to do business with a business like Winona IT. The bar is pretty low today, and so we feel like if we conduct ourselves in a certain way, people's perception will change for the better and this entire industry will level up a little bit.
Speaker 1:Wow, wow, okay. So I feel like we've probably started to touch on it here a little bit Sure your core values yeah, unpack some of those for us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, four primary core values, you know. The first one is build meaningful relationships. The thing I love about this job the most is an opportunity to meet new people, learn about them, what makes people tick, what drives people? How can I impact my customer, how can I make their life better? So building meaningful relationships is our first core value.
Speaker 2:Second core value for us is create raving fans, and I did borrow elements of this from an article I was reading, but at the end of the day, we've operated to this point almost entirely in word of mouth and our customers refer us all the time and we just want people again to go back to changing perception. We can change people's perception if they walk away a raving fan of ours and the service that we've provided. So it's really important, even though it's much harder. It's important to clarify that the raving fan is not just a client. I want it to be partners that we deal with and vendors to be partners that we deal with, and vendors as well as employees that work for us. So I want raving fans of basically anybody who really comes in contact with us, and that's easier said than done.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, but that's the goal, matt. Another one of our core values is to always learn, improve and be curious, and what this is really talking about is I'm a big fan of continuous improvement, I think gathering feedback which lends itself to being curious, but gathering feedback, bringing it in, analyzing it, acting upon it, just always learning, always investigating something new, and our employees that are just really curious about new technologies, new services, ways to improve. We just try to incentivize that as much as possible. Matt, our fourth core value is to operate with integrity and respect, and so this goes back to you know, why did we form this business?
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So to act with integrity and respect, I mean arguably this is the most important one for me. They're all important, that's why they're core values. I mean, arguably this is the most important one for me. They're all important, that's why they're core values. But to operate with integrity, it means to make every situation whole. And so I like to give the example of you know, something happened in your life or in a relationship two, three years ago and it dawns on you oh, that thing is kind of unsettled, go settle it. You know um. You you said you're going to deliver this um to a client during a, during an early sales meeting. Deliver it.
Speaker 2:You know you have to make everything whole to the best of your ability. Sometimes, you know it takes two to tango and some things can be out of your control. But, um, to operate with integrity, a lot of people think it means telling the truth, and I think that obviously telling a lie is is not making something whole. You do need to tell the truth, you do need to do the right thing. I think a lot of people say integrity is doing the right thing when no one's looking and and it's all, it's all related. But it's bigger than that, it's, it's you know, the, the things that you're a part of are made whole and right in the end, and I just I feel like that's probably the most critical component of our businesses. We want to be people of integrity. Our employees want to be people of integrity. I want to be a leader with integrity and I want our organization to operate with extreme integrity. Organization to operate with extreme integrity. Wow, love that. There's a book I read, very influential book. Dr Henry Cloud has called integrity.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And he uses a metaphor I love to talk about and it's, you know, a boat kind of going over the water and there's, there's two sides to the wake and on one side are results and the other side are relationships. And he says that, um, you know, to operate with integrity is to get results. Again, if I'm the CEO, I can. I can make my obligations whole by delivering results. So I get that. You know, I have results on one side, but I need to do it in a way that builds and maintains relationships. I can't just run people over, I can't just get financial results but burn through clients. That doesn't work. Or burn through employees doesn't work.
Speaker 2:So you've got to respect both sides of the wake. You've got results on one side and relationships on the other, and I think our business does speak to that. We have only lost two to three customers in the last six years. We've got unbelievably low turnover for our industry as well, generally losing, you know, let's say, two to three jobs, two to three people a year, and when you're at 65 people, it's really solid. So I think our business speaks to the fact that we really focus on integrity.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so with the, because you were also named to the best place, one of the best places to work in Indiana correct we were, which is super.
Speaker 1:I mean that, I mean it just proves that I thought about leaving here to come work for you. Yeah, I was like well, that sounds cool.
Speaker 2:I have an agreement with DreamMiner. That wouldn't work.
Speaker 1:Doesn't work, okay, shoot, all right.
Speaker 3:But so like, as you've developed these over, I mean really the last five or six years, yeah, yeah. Like who I mean? I know you talked about like hiring an executive coach.
Speaker 2:I mean who?
Speaker 3:is pouring into you through our like. How have you seen this letter? I mean, where did all this come from? To like realize, like the, these are the important. Like yeah. I mean the cores of who we are as a business and how we're going to operate.
Speaker 2:Yeah, really really good question. Um, I was really blessed to hire some really good people early on and I know every book I read or or you know everything I watch online about building a business, and it always talks about the people around you.
Speaker 2:And that's for a good reason. That's for a really good reason. I'll say two things to that. One is my experience leading up to starting my own business, solidified in my mind build a business with these principles and we'll be successful. Because I couldn't find them when I looked for them and again, those principles were just just taking care of us, just just being responsive and taking care of us and operating with integrity and the deception or sneakiness Like I'm a skeptic, I find that stuff pretty easy. So just nevermind all that stuff. It's all short-term gains, long-term losses. So just nevermind all that stuff. It's all short-term gains, long-term losses. So just nevermind all that stuff.
Speaker 2:But then, in addition to that, mason hired some really great people right off the bat. Brad Gutwein joined us after about a year. I brought in Scott Naveen to oversee leadership, development and company culture and Scott mentors me personally and professionally almost every day. So that's it's now. We have debates, disagreements. Our leadership team also comprised of Nate Reynolds who for the last probably two, two and a half years has been overseeing our software development team. Our leadership team is as solid as it gets and we have really good debate and disagreements and very healthy conflicts, but we're all I would honestly say, perfectly aligned on mission, vision and core values. So even if one of us gets off track a little bit, the others are saying, hey, we got to figure this out.
Speaker 3:Which that's good. I mean, that's what you want in a leadership team. You want the disagreements, because that just shows the care and the passion you have for what you're doing.
Speaker 1:Absolutely the I mean cause I'm thinking through with you bringing in Scott.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean that's, that's an investment into nothing that has anything to do with it. No Right, and so even just like as you talked about, like hey, bring it in a coach.
Speaker 2:That's a big expense, as you're starting a business to then hire a full-time person.
Speaker 1:Who's just on leadership development, what was the thing kind of pushing you towards that direction?
Speaker 2:I had seen. Okay, so this is a really good question, Matt. I had really seen some of the competitors in the market when we would interview their staff that were exiting. It was all the same exact thing. It was all we got started. It was a close group. We were doing the right thing and as we grew it all went away.
Speaker 2:All of it went away, and so I was like, wow, this is an easier trap to fall into, or I think these are incredibly strong convictions today. But what happens when you've got 250 people on your team? 500 people on your team?
Speaker 1:Right, you're not able to stay on top of everything that's happening. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I'm not saying that things don't change. You can't avoid some change. I don't want to be misunderstood, but I decided to hire that position early on because I was absolutely adamant that it was going to be a priority for us and that culture was critical, personal development critical, leadership development critical. So I remember bringing Scott in and he was employee number I don't know 12 maybe. And I remember thinking to myself this is really great. I don't know how it's going to work, because even at that point I was still a technical. I mean, you're just a startup, like everybody has to do whatever they have to do.
Speaker 2:And I remember telling Scott um Scott, I just don't know that we can afford to bring you in. I really want to. And, um, you know he was. He was in a good spot in his life where he just really wanted to change things up and he was leaving WCC and he had left just a few months prior and we brought him on, and since then he's been promoted a number of times, but he's he's one of the best hires that I've had. He hates when I talk about him, though.
Speaker 1:So keep asking questions.
Speaker 2:But the same for Brad. You know, brad came in we were about a year old and, like I jokingly mentioned earlier, we accidentally had a lot of success. But he was coming into an organization without a lot of process and procedure. He was coming from a local school district where he had been a leader over there for a number of years, done a great job, and Brad would tell you the same story, you same story. His story at 109T is one of persevering through some pretty intense times. Him and I had some major disagreements, lots of minor disagreements. We really wrestled through, um, some difficult times together and today, I would say again, our, our, our leadership team is, I honestly believe, perfectly aligned. But it wasn't an easy process to get there and I had to really adjust some of my approach. He, he learned a ton and adjusted some of his approach, um, but yeah, that's, that's just kind of a quick story there.
Speaker 1:No, that's cool. Well, and I, and I can, and I can vouch for both of these guys. We've gotten to interact with both of them. Brad was critical for us in this space here at the studio of helping us to design the IT infrastructure and installing the server and all those things.
Speaker 1:So amazing time connecting with him. And then Scott I'll never forget this. One day he reached out. I can't remember if he reached out to Mike or to me, but he basically said, hey, can I come in and meet with you guys? And I'm like, yeah, sure, I was convinced he was coming in to sell us something. I'm like all right here he comes.
Speaker 1:Michael has pushed sales over to Scott for some reason Scott's showing up to sell us something, but I love these guys so absolutely happy to give him an hour of time and we sit down and he just opens up this conversation of hey, how are you guys doing, how's business going, what's going on at dream on Um? Is there anything we could be doing? And it was not sales at all, it was truly just a checking in on us. And we just had this awesome, very cool, very relational conversation and he left and I just thought, who does that?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Who sends people out to just just just check up how you guys doing so I, I think the world of, of both of those guys and your, your team at large, um, and we've experienced that culture that you're talking about.
Speaker 2:You know that's great. Um, we call that a goodwill visit and the notion there is we just we just want to make sure we're doing a good job for you guys. I think we do two to three of those a week roughly. It's really fascinating. You know, talking about changing people's perception, yeah, 100% of our customers think that that is to sell them something additional. Yeah, and what it is at the end of the day, and what we talk about it at the leadership team meeting, is check in with the customer, make sure they're doing well, make sure to open up an invitation for feedback that's actionable and helps us improve, and that's that wow so, yeah, wow so, to keep the thread going on, scott yeah so for someone who comes in scott's.
Speaker 1:he's love it when he sees this. He's driven off the side of the road at this point. He's going to love this.
Speaker 3:He's like I'm out so someone comes to work at Winona IT.
Speaker 1:What does?
Speaker 3:that development look like from the inside.
Speaker 2:Yeah, certainly, like what can they?
Speaker 3:expect to be an employee at Winona IT.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I definitely want to answer this question, but I definitely want to state that this is something we're hoping to really improve upon.
Speaker 2:So, the way it is today and we have a vision for the future and we're working towards that, and we don't always get it right, but someone like Scott is available to really personally coach and mentor our employees, get them on the right development path. Scott hosts meetings about just hey, your first 90 days here at work. Here's some tips. You know meetings about just hey, your first 90 days here at work. Here's some tips. Um he's. We've even offered things like personal finance coaching and, um, you know, paid for counseling and and so, um, I think it varies depending on the role, but what we really want for our employees is to have an opportunity to grow here at our organization and to be constantly given little bits of info that really help them get on the right path and advance and grow.
Speaker 2:And we've had some really great success stories of individuals who've come in. One of them that just comes to mind immediately is Noah Pixton. You know he originally came in. He was doing a support role where he just provided support on a certain software that we develop. He moved over to a help desk position. Noah's trajectory is really to oversee maybe the entire support team today, and he's gone and done a lot of certifications. Outside of work, he's absorbed a ton of mentoring and coaching and you know that's what we really want to see those success stories. So love that.
Speaker 1:That's cool, no, and another thing is you say that, just thinking about your, your help desk, it's another service that we utilize. And again, just something that's so amazing to me is you know you write this email, help at WinonaITcom and within minutes, almost every single time there's a response back and it's like, a lot of times you reach out to those support emails and you're thinking like, well, there that goes Like.
Speaker 2:let me start searching Google to figure it out from here.
Speaker 1:You guys are within minutes. Is that by design?
Speaker 2:Well, it certainly is. I mean, it's mean again. It speaks to the goal of changing people's perception, which I think responsiveness is one of the easiest, most impactful ways to change people's perception. Because you're exactly right, you know? Look, I'm not trying to pick on them, but support at Verizoncom. I think my response time was seven days or something like that. That's crazy.
Speaker 2:So we want to be totally radically different than that. We want them to feel like they're our only customer. 99.9% of the tickets submitted to Winona IT are answered, not by a bot, by a real person, answered within 20 minutes. So we just really want to take care of the customer, make them more efficient, make them feel really well taken care of, make them more efficient, make them feel really well taken care of.
Speaker 1:No, so recently Mason was doing a shoot um down in Mexico and he shot me a text and he's like I have no access to my Microsoft stuff. I forgot to let Winona IT know that we were, that I was traveling, and so, um, I quickly wrote the email and when I sent it I was like ah, I think it was like 6 PM at that point I'm like they're not open.
Speaker 1:I get the email back. So sorry After hours if this is an emergency reply with urgent in the subject line, and I was, like you know what Mason needs to get into his email. So I went ahead and did it Sure.
Speaker 3:And again I want to say it was in less than 10 minutes when your guys was back on it and had it locked, you literally texted me and you're like, hey, you should be good.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And there my calendar was.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so even that, even the after hours thing, it's like you guys are on top of that in a really cool way.
Speaker 2:Definitely. I mean a big piece of our value proposition is look if we're really efficient on our side and you can be efficient on your side. So it's a big piece of it and we feel like it speaks to the building meaningful relationships and creating raving fans and it's a big piece of what we do is we want to be responsive? Cool, absolutely.
Speaker 1:All right. So just talking about help, desk security, some of those things what are some of the big things that are happening right now in IT that you guys are just well suited to help clients with?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely so. One of the big things we've been seeing for a long time but we're seeing a lot of today is social engineering.
Speaker 2:So social engineering it can be automated, but sometimes it's an individual attacker who is able to really trick somebody into doing a certain action, and so just one small example that I've seen is somebody went onto LinkedIn, found two businesses working together and then they targeted one of those businesses with a fake invoice, you know, appearing to be the other business.
Speaker 2:So the social engineering aspect was they did their research and they found out online what was going on and they tricked the business into sending a check, and it was a check for a massive amount of money. We have a security operations service that we provide today that's really growing rapidly and it's serving customers extremely well, but we tackle security in two very distinct ways. Extremely well, but we tackle security in two very distinct ways. On the front end is training, and we provide very in-depth security training, and on the back end is the systems and processes and procedures. So nothing is completely bulletproof, obviously, but we feel like, if we can educate people and provide the systems and processes as well, that this is really about as good as it gets, and it's very affordable service too. We support businesses that have two employees all the way up to entire school districts, and that's just one example of some trending services, right now.
Speaker 1:So with that I mean, I think for a lot of business owners, um, you know, we're all kind of in our area of expertise, thinking about our issues, thinking about our things it can be insanely nerve wracking to have to think about that side of our business, right, the it, the security, um, and I think there's maybe a couple of camps in that where some people just push it to the side, sure, sure, and then there's just some people are just like I can't handle this, I need. What would you say to people who are just kind of living in that tension of I'm busy, I have a business, what do I do with all this stuff?
Speaker 2:You know it's tough. I think a lot, of, a lot of businesses like Winona IT will use fear mongering to sell security services, and so I, I walk this fine line of hey, I see this stuff every single day. Yeah, I, I don't want to use fear to sell you on something. How can we collaborate and right-size something that truly is appropriate and fixes a real issue? And it can be tricky, and what I would just say is the number one misconception that I hear regarding the question you just posed is we won't be targeted, we're too small.
Speaker 2:And the reality is, sometimes businesses are targeted by a specific individual or a group and it's a very sophisticated social engineering attack. Many, many, many times it's a totally automated system that somebody wrote and it's just out there scanning the internet, scanning LinkedIn, and so you don't have to be important to be targeted by an automated system. I mean it can just scan your website, scan your domain, find holes, and I think what I would say is you really need to have both the cybersecurity insurance as well as the cybersecurity protection, and that's again, that's the education and the systems in place. And that's again that's the education and the systems in place. I think in today's world if you don't have those two things. Really, I think you're operating in a relatively negligent way, and it's just a matter of time before these things do catch up.
Speaker 1:Michael, talk to me about some of the themes that you see in companies who are struggling with IT, like just different things that kind of come up on a day-to-day basis.
Speaker 2:Yeah, certainly. I mean, a lot of organizations really struggle with IT recruiting and just keeping staff employed. Really good folks in IT, they want to grow, they want to see a path in front of them. So a lot of organizations just really struggle to retain a team. A lot of organizations just really struggle to retain a team. A lot of customers that really need our services might have one IT person, maybe two. Generally, they're not feeling super well taken care of. Generally, they're not feeling like there's a lot of room for advancement and, quite frankly, sometimes they're checked out and they're just there kind of punching in and things kind of sneak up on them. Honestly, and again, we like to work with people like that, though, and we like to provide resources and encouragement for folks like that, but, without a doubt, folks really have a hard time recruiting IT talent, and one of our value propositions is don't spend time on that, let us provide these services, let us worry about that. Let us attract and retain top talent.
Speaker 1:And you do what you do best and what makes you money.
Speaker 2:And that's a really big theme. Another related theme is I think some customers get so frustrated with IT whether it's the problems, the expense I mean it can be anything really they get so frustrated with it. They kind of just put it away and don't really revisit, and a year is two, years is three, years is four years and before you know it they're way behind. And that's a common theme as well. Just, I don't understand this so I don't want to talk about it. That's a perfect customer for us especially if outside of IT.
Speaker 2:They're running a relatively good business with a relatively aligned leadership team. We can come in and be a tremendous resource for them team, you know we can come in and be a tremendous resource for them. So we, you know, try to make it easy, try to explain it the right way and make progress. So those are a couple of themes. Another theme is just, there's a lot of businesses out there that are very, very risk adverse. It falls into the realm, in my opinion, of you're making an investment and the return is not always a dollar spent, two dollars back, you know, sometimes it's a dollar spent and an employee has a much better experience, or a dollar spent and we're much better protected against a threat.
Speaker 2:And so I think a dollar spent, not a million dollars having to be spent later to get us out of trouble, that's right, yeah, and so there are certainly businesses that we interact with that have a really hard time getting out of the mindset that it's not going to be a dollar spent in IT, two dollars returned. I want to clarify that can be the case, like certainly there are financial ROI opportunities on many, many IT initiatives, but it's not always the case, and so some of these risk adverse organizations are just kind of stalled out in. Even just taking a look at opportunities related to various IT initiatives, I would say those are really the common trends that I see the most.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's great. What would you say to you know, an organization who has maybe had some pains with IT in the past, and they are those ones who have kind of like tucked it away of like hey, I know, this wasn't a great experience, I'm not going to mess with that anymore, or it's like, or maybe they're in a relationship right now that they know doesn't feel right, but they just like hey, this is what it is is yeah, that's it.
Speaker 2:That's a really common issue. Hence, you know, our desire to really change the the entire region's perception. I mean, it's often the case that we get called in. A client is eager to fire their existing IT staff, it provider, horrible experiences and we've built a brand and our entire brand identity is really centered around the fact that we operate different. You know, we don't burn through customers. Like I mentioned earlier, we've only lost a handful in six years and we're one of the very few IT organizations that doesn't require a long-term contract. So we really feel like the service we deliver speaks for itself and leads to long-term engagements.
Speaker 2:We're not going to lock you into an agreement Many other competitors. It's the opposite. I want to get you signed on for five years. First, six months are going to be great, but then we'll kind of tuck you away and there's a lot of frustration regarding that, tons of frustration regarding that. So I would say you know, what would I say to somebody who's really frustrated? I'd say our entire brand and and success has been built around breaking through um, those misconceptions on. That's everybody, that's not us. So we deliver a very different experience, very dedicated to delivering a different experience, and the proof is is in the results. That's been our major differentiator.
Speaker 1:So if I'm a business owner and I'm listening to this and I'm thinking, I don't even know where we're at in this whole conversation. I don't know if we are secure, sure, sure, what would you recommend?
Speaker 2:And can you? I know every job is different, Every business is different. Sure, sure, many assessments over the years, and frequently we're able to find significant changes that need to be made. I would say every assessment is different.
Speaker 2:And so it's hard to just kind of generalize what an assessment looks like, but we've conducted many cybersecurity assessments just general assessments too on what are your IT processes and procedures, how's your help desk running and supporting your business, how efficient is your IT team? You know these are these are things that we can do very easily, very effective as well awesome.
Speaker 3:So, with your like going back to one of your core values of like, always learning, innovating, yeah, how do you? I mean, there's always a new attack out there. There's new things like how do you? I mean, there's always a new attack out there. There's new things Like how do you stay ahead?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's. It is really really hard to do.
Speaker 2:It's hard to stay ahead when you have so much work in front of you, you know we we find ourselves with um a pretty significant roadmap of projects and work to do. I'm sure you guys are in the same boat. Roadmap of projects and work to do. I'm sure you guys are in the same boat. I would say that you know our team is really, really good at staying up to date and participating in various communities where this information is shared freely, and I think we do a really good job with this overall.
Speaker 2:One of the things that's really interesting that I've observed no matter what the latest threat is, it does tend to go back to the basics a lot of times. So you know, I'm not saying there aren't sophisticated attacks that are exceptions, but things like are we protecting identity, two-factor authentication, conditional access, single sign-on? Are we providing education, education, you know, monthly or quarterly trainings? Are we reporting on the trainings to the managers? Are we doing fishing simulations? That's a big thing. We love to do fishing simulations, report that to the managers, and and so when you say fishing simulations yeah, yeah, yeah yeah are we fishing bass?
Speaker 1:Are we fishing? What are we talking about? Okay, walleye, all right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so just to wrap up that question. So I think a lot of these trends do have similar remedies at the end of the day, which is helpful for us. But to go back to your point about phishing emails, elliot on my team really, really strong in this is really pioneered this for us. We send an email that hits, you know, our customer's inbox and it tries to convince them to open up an attachment or click on a link, enter their credentials. So we call it a phishing email or a simulation of a phishing email, because we're looking to see if we can steal credentials.
Speaker 2:But the entire point of us doing it is to identify high risk employees. That just need additional education. You know, it looked like an Amazon email, but here's the five things you could have done to identify this wasn't a real Amazon email, right? So what we've seen is, you know, when we start these exercises, 25, 30 percent of the client's employees fail for our simulation. Over time and through training, we can get that down into single digits. So very effective part of how we tackle cybersecurity.
Speaker 1:But the Prince of Nigeria promised me, like many, thousands of dollars.
Speaker 2:So it felt legit. You know I get asked a lot about this.
Speaker 3:Michael Scott, is like when the prince of nigeria emails you directly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the scary. The scary truth about those what I would obviously call completely unbelievable emails is their intent is to trick the most gullible segment of our population. Wow, and the people who respond and fell for the Prince of Nigeria has a million dollars waiting for you. Yeah, the sad truth is those attackers can get really, really deep and successful with those. That gullible portion of our population.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, yeah Well, and I'd say we're we're entering a new era of some of those things getting a little bit smarter. I mean, I'll tell a story that happened to me recently, so I get an email from a woman, um, who says um, I found dream on studios online. My husband was a videographer. He just passed away. I would like to gift his equipment to someone who would make good use of it and I was like okay, interesting.
Speaker 1:And so, you know, I show it to Mason and my first response was this feels like a scam. It does, but I was like I'm going to email her back and just see where this goes. She and so she then lists out the equipment. It was an $8,000 camera, like a really nice that we would love to have. This camera Like this is great, and I say okay, really cool. And so it just turns into the whole thing of like I'm waiting for the moment that she asked for money, right, and so she did it and it just kind of kept going going. So she's like, hey, I've decided I do want to give to the camera. Um, you know, let me get your address and I'll ship it to you. And um, then there was something about um, I just need to get money to pay for the shipping and I go.
Speaker 2:Okay, here it is.
Speaker 1:Here it is. So I've just again kind of going along with it. I said could you uh send me a picture of the equipment so I could see it? Within minutes she emails me back a picture of it, of the camera, and in the picture there was a Post-it note that what did it have? My name.
Speaker 3:Or it had something she had written. It was something that identified it for the day and time and stuff.
Speaker 1:Right like holding up the newspaper, right the hostage thing. And I'm looking at this picture and I went wait a second and so I printed out and look at and our whole team were like looking at the whole thing and we decide it's an AI generated image, because we can see the photoshopped elements of it where they had photoshopped, or AI where they had kind of created this whole thing.
Speaker 1:So then at that point I'm just like, okay, it's definitely a scam and you know I pushed aside. But I'm like, wow, that's the new generation of this thing. Where, to your point again on the social engineering thing people are looking and finding let me target this person because they are have this interest, this business, that thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think we do a really good job accounting for scenarios like that, because there's no look, there's no email filter that is going to account for that. I mean, potentially we could our filter, for example, might say first time sender, you know, be careful, unverified address, you know, something like that. But overall that's not a systems job. For that that would be education, Education.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, right, okay. So we've gotten in the weeds a little bit talked about some scary security things. Now that everyone's feeling warm and fuzzy, talk to us about some of just the clients that you've loved working with who have really just bought in and trusted you to just own this area of their business.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, there's a number of relationships that I feel like have been real big win-wins. I mean, obviously we talked about the Silvius insurance group. One really love working with them to this day, provide a lot of services to them. Um, grace college um is is a big one for us. You know we've been working with them for a number of years now. Work with with Don over there and a couple members of his IT team.
Speaker 2:We've been servicing Grace, I think, very well for a number of years and we've got folks over there every day and we've been able to deliver really quality service for all the folks over there at Grace College. Been working with Wildman Business Group for a number of years. Really enjoyed working with Adam and Patrick Chris Moore over there Really good team over there. Grace Village, actually one of my favorite customers. Their CEO, justin, is a great guy. We've been able to provide really solid services for them over the last couple of years. They're thrilled to death. We just sponsored their golf outing Monday. But you know these are a couple of examples of the organizations that we have just developed a real win-win relationship with and long-term customers.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. I have the privilege of serving on the school board and so know that you know, in the last year or so you've developed a growing relationship with Warsaw Schools.
Speaker 2:Warsaw Schools great customer.
Speaker 1:You know Kyle and his team and you know they just speak nothing but the best of you guys in the way that you've come in, because they have an existing team of people that are working on things. And so for you to shoulder up with them has been really cool. So. So I mean, is that kind of the, the, the norm for you of there's a variety of? Hey, there may be an internal team, but you can come in and kind of create some assists?
Speaker 2:Yeah, certainly. So we just mentioned a couple of bigger customers and and certainly the bigger customers tend to have some existing IT staff, and so we can absolutely come in, augment their capabilities, increase their capabilities. One of the things we've chosen to do is really pour into those folks and help them come along in their IT journey as well, and I think a lot of my competition would probably steer away from that or consider that a threat. And you know, sometimes, yeah, sometimes it can be, but I think if really our mission is to enrich people's lives, then we would take that opportunity to do the best we can to pour into them as well, as if they worked on our team.
Speaker 3:So yeah, it's all about the long term.
Speaker 2:Yeah, certainly, it's all about the long term, so speaking certainly it's all about the longterm, so speaking, of longterm.
Speaker 3:What's the future look like for NIT? What are you excited about?
Speaker 2:What's continued growth look like. Yeah, yeah, the. I think the future is looking really bright. I mean, we've got a really great team and we've been able to have some pretty big wins recently. Matt, you mentioned Warsaw community schools, but we're also now partnering up with Whitco Community Schools as well. So a lot of really awesome things on the horizon.
Speaker 2:One of the things that we're working on here in just the next couple months is expanding over to Fort Wayne. So we look at that as a great market, a market that, honestly, is really in need of what we're out here to do, which is change people's perception and deliver really quality services, and a lot of the organizations that we brought on from Fort Wayne are signaling to us that they're just tired of what's there and not a whole lot of options for again, that integrity piece that we're looking for. So really big opportunity for us, and we're going to continue to invest on our software development side of the business. We we service our customers really well over there, have some tremendous capabilities and looking to grow and expand that as well. So that's just the next probably three to six months. That's amazing.
Speaker 3:Awesome, awesome.
Speaker 1:Okay, so I want to shift gears just a little bit. You know, getting to know you, you have a real passion for leadership, leadership development and I would say, it comes out in your Wired for Growth podcast where we're like, hey, let's do a podcast about all the IT stuff and everything. And you're like, yeah, now.
Speaker 3:I want to talk about leadership.
Speaker 1:But, no, and and and. For us, you know, I think we consider you like our big brother in business. Right, I'm older than you, but you guys, you're ahead of us in terms of your entrepreneurial journey, and so we've come to you a number of times to say hey, michael, can you help us think about this?
Speaker 2:or unpack this or hey what are you using for?
Speaker 1:you know payroll and HR things and those things, and you've been amazing to us, so thank you for that number one. For other entrepreneurs out there, uh, people just kind of getting things started. What are things you've learned along the way? Just advice that you would provide?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I just I really love learning. I mean, I've always loved to learn new things and, um, this job, you can't help but learn something every day. I mean you'd really have to go hide in a corner to avoid learning big lessons all the time. I recently posted something on my LinkedIn talking about when you make a mistake with a client, you know how do you approach that. This is something I'm really passionate about. In that post, I had a couple people message me and say that was helpful. I was wrestling with what to do One of the things I learned early in my career and, honestly, I failed a project.
Speaker 2:Simply put, we missed the mark on execution. It was a difficult project, but that it doesn't matter. We, we failed and the customer said we need to have a meeting and discuss this. And I re jotted down a couple of points on a piece of paper, and you know my agenda was I know we failed and I'm really sorry. I'm genuinely sorry about this.
Speaker 2:And my second point was you know more or less here's what happened. Here's the factors inside of our control that led to this failure. Here's a couple factors that were outside of our control but nevertheless, you know here's some of those and led to this failure. Here's what my team talked about and concluded after a retro that we did after failing at this project. And then the last point, and probably the most important here's what we learned and here's how we got better. Those were my agenda points for the meeting and that was an accumulation of really good mentorship. I didn't, by the way, I didn't come up with that. That was people speaking into me saying approach it this way, approach it this way and then they were.
Speaker 2:it was great advice. And so when I had the meeting with the client and I honestly I shocked them a little bit, like I believe they were likely thinking I was going to be defensive or blame other people or throw my team under the bus. You know, none of that occurred at all and I think they were a little bit taken back and the meeting actually went well.
Speaker 2:When I say went well, I don't mean they told me, don't worry about it because they didn't, they didn't say that but I think it went well in the sense that I genuinely laid out what had happened and I'm sorry and we're you know, we're gonna make sure that we're better because of this and you are better because of this, and they believed me and that was the truth and and I left that meeting and reported back to the team hey, all things considering, it was a good meeting and they were shocked and I was a bit shocked. But I guess, to sum it up, Matt, what did I learn? I learned that transparency and honesty will buy you grace with a customer or an employee or spouse or a friend.
Speaker 2:It's like an indefinite. It applies to so many different things, but transparency and honesty are the only ways to handle the times where you mess up and trying to bury it, trying to move on, trying to throw someone under the bus, those are really short-sighted, really short-sighted, and you might feel like you won in that moment. But an accumulation of that is not good, it's not healthy. It's toxic culture. So one of the biggest things I learned is you're going to screw up often. Be transparent and honest about it.
Speaker 3:So good Because, yeah, that's the only way that you truly grow through it as you have said Okay, there was a mistake, there was a failure. How do we learn from it and grow forward?
Speaker 2:On a related note, another thing that I reflect on all the time is you know, Winona IT, we're an IT consulting, software development shop. You have to have IT skills. Depending on what the role is, You've got to know how to program, how to troubleshoot a problem, how to administer a server. Totally get that, that's absolutely true. But when we tailored our interview process to finding people with the right soft skills and the right demeanor, personality, the right drive, the right you know bought into our vision and mission, when we really tailored our interview process to people that are collaborative, humble, team players, team focused, we felt like we really upped our hiring game big time.
Speaker 2:And it really improved our entire organization. So another big lesson I learned is skills are important. You have to have them. We can develop them in-house. Things like humility and things like collaboration those are much harder to build upon in-house, and so just tailoring our organization around people that are like-minded and have those skills was really, really big for us. That's awesome.
Speaker 3:So over the last five, six years, we're looking at some of the learnings that you've had. What is something, as you kind of made that transition and honestly took the risk to jump out and kind of go on your own. What was something that maybe you thought was a really big deal at the time? But now, looking back, wasn't that big of a deal. What was something that you thought, hey, this probably isn't a really big deal and you're like, oh, that was super important.
Speaker 2:Really good question here, mason. I remember very clearly losing one of my best employees early on and, man, that shook me so hard and I remember days of I actually kind of get a little bit emotional about it I remember days of thinking that that was my fault and that I failed them. Man, I really internalized that in a really unhealthy way. Now I think it's linked to the passion that I had. I wanted them to have a fulfilling career, I wanted them to feel satisfied at work, I wanted to support them and I wanted it all to be here. But I'll never forget this at all.
Speaker 2:My dad said to me. He said you know, I've lost some good people working for me over the years, some really good people, and every now and then all you do is outsource their learning for a little bit. And you know, don't burn any bridges. You never know they might come back. You know there's an opportunity for them to come back. And this employee I'm referencing he did come back and it was about a year I think it was a year, year and a half later. I'm referencing it did come back and it was about a year I think it was a year, year and a half later and I just outsourced to their learning for a year and a half.
Speaker 2:So I, you know, it felt like a the end of the world. Um, it ended up just we needed to grow up in some ways and we needed uh, we needed to change in some major ways, and it ended up not being that big of a deal and I would say I'm very, very glad they came back. But even to just apply this lesson across the board, every exit can feel personal. It can feel like a big deal. You'll keep moving on If your mission is there, if your leadership team is aligned, if you're doing the right thing, if you're doing what you're called to do, uh, you'll, you'll keep moving on. So, and then what didn't feel like a big deal, that ended up being a huge deal, you know? Um, that's a great question. I would say one thing that comes to mind early on is I had some, some really great, really great support on the HR and legal side and early in my entrepreneurship journey I almost viewed those things as barriers in a way.
Speaker 2:Fast paced, make quick decisions Let me crank out a job offer on a napkin.
Speaker 1:Who cares?
Speaker 2:And no, those are really critical things, those are unbelievably important things to have as you mature and grow is to have really sound resources that can speak into you and say here's where you do need to slow down. You know that contract, the NDA that whatever, no, it needs revised, it really does. And and that's just a tiny example, that contract, that NDA, that whatever, no, it needs revised, it really does. And that's just a tiny example, I mean there's really meaningful examples that I couldn't get into.
Speaker 2:But I would say, yeah, I undervalued that early in my career and I do not undervalue that anymore, so good.
Speaker 1:If you could go back and tell yourself one thing, like back from the early days of starting the business.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what would you? Say to yourself you know, this is a really good question. I think I have a great, great situation. I think our business is thriving and we have a lot of opportunities, but I definitely was not braced for how much work it was going to be, and I don't just mean hours or any one thing, it's just how this is really difficult.
Speaker 1:I think you know it's all consuming.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know you guys, I'm speaking, I'm preaching to the choir here completely, um, but there's it's just really challenging, really challenging and and there's this cliche that it's really lonely at the top, referencing, you know, ceo positions and what have you, and I definitely think that that can be really true. I feel like sometimes people can make that decision for themselves that really lend itself to be extra lonely and, um, I don't think I could have done it any sooner. But to ultimately decide to get a leadership team that really supports me, really drives the business. People say you know, replace yourself as soon as you can, and you know that's easier said than done but, it's going to be really tough.
Speaker 2:I would tell myself it's going to be really tough. You really need a ton of support. You need to reach out to as many people as you can, have good mentors, have a good board, have have people speaking the truth into you and supporting you all along the way, because it's it's just a lot of work. It's really tough and I know maybe you guys can speak a little bit to that too, because you you've experienced same thing yeah, no, I mean, I think it is very easy, when you say it's lonely at the top, to to silo yourself and to think that it's like oh, like this is the first time someone's gone through this or like this is a unique situation.
Speaker 3:But as soon as you get lead with that transparency, vulnerability and reach out to someone, the next thing you know you've got five people in your corner who are like I went through that same thing you know, six months ago, two years ago, and here's how I got through it. And it's just, yeah, leading with transparency and like opening up, and it's yeah, I don't want to go into mine, yeah, no, I mean, I think it's as you guys are both talking.
Speaker 1:You know I'm thinking of the. You know the very classic parenting principle of the days are long, the years are short.
Speaker 2:Yeah, certainly.
Speaker 1:Right and we talk about that with our kids and I think it's true of businesses, of there are these days that just feel like when is this day going?
Speaker 1:to end Like how are we going to get through this? Like I don't know if I can sustain this or carry this much longer. And then you do, and you get up and you do the next day and then, all of a sudden, you're looking back. We just celebrated our three-year anniversary back at the beginning of May and it's like I can't believe this has been three years. We have team members coming up on their three-, anniversary, two year anniversary. It's like I can't believe that it's already been this this quick. And so, yeah, I just I think it's the, and the other piece I lean into is the um, you just don't know how close you are to succeeding.
Speaker 1:Oh sure, Sure Right and how many businesses have just thrown in the towel, and they were so close to turning that corner. And you don't know when that's going to be.
Speaker 2:No, that's so hard? Yeah, it's so hard. It's hard because, on the one hand, you're absolutely right. I think there's this graphic floating around LinkedIn where somebody's trying to dig to gold and they quit and they're like one foot away despite digging this huge tunnel right. And it's tough because, while that's true a lot, it's also really hard to tell somebody to keep going when they feel like they've dug every inch that they possibly can.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so totally get that, and that's, that's a huge conundrum. I think something that the three of us have done really well is and I'll speak for myself in particular, is and I'll speak for myself in particular- there's people in my life that I can just vent to or just, hey, look like don't, I'm not going to quit, but let me tell you I'm about to quit anyway, because it makes me feel better you know, or or um, yeah, you know I.
Speaker 2:I had lunch with somebody the other day who ran a very successful startup and they ran it for 30 years and they said I drafted my resignation letter 15 times.
Speaker 2:And I was like, wow, ok, yeah, that's tough, that's, that's really tough. So I think just having those people in our lives my wife, you know I've already mentioned a number of people at work where, yeah, you're, you're a human being, you're a human being, you're not bulletproof Um, it's too much work to try to seem bulletproof and people can see through it anyway, so it doesn't really matter there.
Speaker 2:Um, but yeah, I would tell my side, go back and just say it's going to be a bumpy ride and um, and that's okay okay, yeah, I look at those as like seasons, yeah, and you know you're gonna have seasons where it's really good and times are great yeah and you're gonna have seasons whenever it's really low and it's dark, sure, but knowing it's like that season is never forever yeah, yeah, certainly, and and I think a hard thing that I'm I don't have figured out, I'm trying to figure out a little bit better is when you're going through those seasons, it is important not to be a roller coaster to your team. Now I'm definitely not saying don't be transparent or or hide it, but I think you know, as an owner or founder, you can.
Speaker 2:You can really have those ups and downs and I think your team needs to view you as relatively consistent relatively confident and and, and. That's a challenge, that's a big challenge. Yeah, yeah, no we've.
Speaker 1:We've talked about that. I mean, it's like when there's days where it's like there's a big win, it's like you want to celebrate it, but not too much. Right and it's like when there's a big hit, it's like, oh, that hurt, and it's like, yeah, just kind of absorbing some of the devastation in the moment, but then we're going to just move forward.
Speaker 2:One of my favorite football coaches in history, bill Walsh. He talks a lot about that. Hey, we won NFC Championship game. We're going to celebrate for a day, and we're going to celebrate hard for a day, but it's for one day. And then we're, we're back to neutral. Lose a game Same thing, fine. Feel terrible for a day, that's fine we lost. So I get it back to neutral the next day. And those, those are that's easier said than done too.
Speaker 1:All right. So, as we're kind of wrapping this thing up here, what else would you love for people to know about Winona IT as they are coming across you or your company? What's something that you're saying like, hey, I just hope that you can take this piece away.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know we really exist. We're really here to enrich people's lives. At the end of the day and when I say people again I do mean employees, vendors, partners, customers we're here to enrich people's lives. It's top priority for us, and if you're running a business that's really not about the people, I think you can really struggle. It's hard to get people behind the why our business is really about enriching people's lives. We're not perfect. We definitely don't do it right A hundred percent of the time, but we really really strive for this, and I think what I want people to know is choosing to do business with us, or affiliate with us, or or work for us Um, you know with us or or work for us Um, you know our, our hopes, and what we just really try hard to do is is to enrich enrich people's lives. It's a big, big piece for us. That's awesome.
Speaker 1:Well, we've been firsthand recipients of that Um. We appreciate you and your team, the ways that you've come alongside us at dream on studios and helped our business and many of our friends' businesses here in the community. So appreciate the service that you provide. Thanks for this opportunity to come in and take over your podcast.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you guys.
Speaker 1:While we're here, can I get you to sign for season two?
Speaker 3:like 40 more episodes, absolutely 40?
Speaker 1:You know just, let's bump this thing up. I think people are needing more Sure episodes, absolutely.
Speaker 3:You know just just let's bump this thing up, as people are needing more Sure, sure yeah.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Well, I want to thank everybody for tuning in to Winona IT's Wired for Growth. Make sure to come back next time to hear some amazing things from Michael when he takes back over the reins and his future guests. Thanks for joining us today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you guys very much, really appreciate for joining us today.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thank you guys very much, really appreciate it. Our pleasure yeah.