437- Every Yes Is a No Somewhere Else w/Andres Ruz

Phil Howard: Welcome back to You've Been Heard everybody. And we've got Andy

Ruiz on today. And you tell me because you're like a big security guy. You know

way more than me in any of that stuff. So we're going to have fun talking about

that and making me look how much I don't know about everything that you know,

but how did you get started in this world and in the world of it at least?

Andres Ruz: So, the funniest thing is the way that I started is my sister, which

is ten years older than me. She started, her career in software engineering. So

we got our first two eighty six computer at the house. And as a kid, you start

playing, you start saying, hey, I will do this, I will do that. and I don't know

if you remember, but at that time, getting one of those games to actually work

with the sound and everything, it was.

Phil Howard: Yeah. Yeah man. Sound blaster Autoexec.bat. Got to go in and move

memory around. I could never get Ultima eight to play on my three eighty six,

let alone your two eighty six.

Andres Ruz: It was not plug and play. Let's say that it was not plug and play.

Right? So you have to understand how that stuff works. So at that time I started

saying, oh, this is pretty cool. I really like it. and I just start, saying, I

will probably do this for my career. I will study this. So I started, also the

same career that my sister started. But very quickly I realized that I was more

on the infrastructure side than the software development side. So my first job

was a help desk. And so I started doing, the help desk, pretty much

troubleshooting. Making sure things work. And at that time.

Phil Howard: What made you realize that though? I'm just curious, like, what

made you realize that you weren't an infrastructure guy or you were.

Andres Ruz: It was honestly a job opportunity. I got the job as a help desk. In

Argentina it's very normal that you will work while you are in university. So I

was eighteen and I already had an eight hour job. So, I did all my university

working and my first job was pretty much troubleshooting. I really love it,

which again, I had exposure to software development later and I did not like it

as much. And then of course, when you study in the university, there's not

really a career for infrastructure. You just do computer engineering, right?

Which is very software development based. So I was always kind of a little bit

the odd duck in the group of the people there, because I was doing something

that probably the rest of the people were not even touching, at that time, I

really got passionate about networking. Mhm. especially, I really like cabling

when I was young. I don't know if you remember when Cat6 came. of.

Phil Howard: Course. Cat5.

Andres Ruz: Do you remember the Cat6?

Phil Howard: Cat6? I mean, of course I remember RJ eleven, man. Come on. Yeah.

Andres Ruz: You You know what got me hooked? I don't know if you remember. There

was one exam, the first one for you to get all the certification to become a

windows guru. I don't remember what was the name. there was a networking exam

and that exam was super good. You know, it was like two or three books super

thick. And then you start understanding what you were doing every day, right? So

that got me hooked in trying to really understand, when something plugs in, what

happens, understanding how protocols work, how the network works in deep. And

honestly, that got me much more into now in twenty.

Phil Howard: Let me ask you a question there, because it just came to my mind.

if you were to suggest the best kind of entry level to get into technology today

anywhere from ten years old to sixteen year olds, would you say like still do

that old stuff, learn how old stuff works. It's kind of like, even when I get

into jiu jitsu, it's like, no, like you need to know the basics, but you got to

kind of jump ahead, like pretty quickly. Where would you have someone start from

a networking standpoint?

Andres Ruz: This is what I feel works better when I am interviewing someone who

has the experience and the knowledge of actually coming from the basics. Mhm.

The impact that that person can have is way greater than someone. Let me give

you an example. Someone who has a cybersecurity degree, right and came to me,

but they never have touched anything on the network side. On the server side,

not even developed a single line of code, So there's no basics. So how you apply

security is a very, very complex. It's very complex. Let's be honest. And you

have to know some of the basics. If you don't know any of the basics, the

ability for you to be able to do a good job, it's going to be very limited. So I

can tell you right now that I compare engineers and analysts with those career

paths. And I will tell you, the difference is brutal. someone who came and I'm

saying if you pick help desk, like, let's say you pick help desk or if you even

start software development side, it's the same. You come with a core concept of

where your career started. I'm not going to ask the guy who started, as a

software development to understand how protocols work. And then the layer four,

And that's not the guy. But that guy probably can do a very good job in the

application security side that the infrastructure guy cannot do, right? All that

builds up for you to become a better professional in security. I do not think

that the graduation that you get in a career is a replacement for your

experience, that you get in the field. So I have a kid that calls me, hey, where

should I start? I tell them, get the hell up, get something like that, get a

couple of years, and then find a company who is willing to sponsor your

training. Because, Phil, you and I know that this requires passion and study. If

you don't have that, you probably you and I talk about this, you probably face a

lot of, information security professionals that honestly, they have the title,

but they don't have any background. And that's sad because they are responsible

sometimes for very, very big organizations. But at the end, they really don't

know what they're doing. and the, bad part of that is because they have not

dedicated their life to the field.

Phil Howard: Yeah, it's kind of wild. Yeah. No one's going to like, walk into a

telecom job with a college degree and know anything like really anything at all.

it's interesting. super awesome, so if we're going to learn on the job, we're

going to learn all these things this way from just your life experience in

general, it would be work while you're in college. Number one, have a full time

job. because not only that, it's probably going to prepare you for the onslaught

of crap in projects that are going to get thrown at you anyways in real life as

an IT guy, If you can't manage a full time job and your classes at the same

time, you know, don't get into it, don't get into it. Leadership. Do you think

it would make more sense if you are going to go to college and get a degree? My

assumption would be that one of the best degrees that you could get if you're

already a technology guy and getting the experience anyways, which you're not

going to learn in college, why not get a business degree?

Andres Ruz: I would agree with that. okay, so my experience, which I do not know

how is in US. My experience and this is more philosophical, if you wish. If

let's say that you have, I don't know, forty subjects that you studied through

college, this is forty. Really the only ones that are applicable to a job is

probably five to ten. I always said, hey, you know what? This is just creating a

ton of material that I have to learn that it doesn't really educate me at all.

it doesn't add any value for me to be a better professional. Yeah. there's two

areas that I don't feel college will give you. One is the hands on experience

that the show will give you, which I feel that honestly, universities, they

could give you some of that, but sometimes they have professors that they have

no work in the last ten years. And let's be honest, in technology, you cannot.

What are you going to teach? The second part, which is even more philosophical.

I feel my experience today with leadership and professionals is not the

technical capacity to deliver. So it's not the technical knowledge. That's what

I'm saying. So yeah, you have some people who is lazy, they don't want to learn

and all that stuff. But at the end, you know what I feel that today is super

broken is the human aspect is the ability to collaborate, the ability to have a

very mature disagreement, the ability to sit down with someone and being able to

just be aware of what you know versus you don't know and be willing to accept

what the other person have to add. And I feel that that's the part for you to

become successful in the job that is really, really not there. And I don't think

this is only technology. I think this is across the board. So the personal

aspects to me are the ones that honestly, I feel the university should work on

more with the kids to make sure that they are better prepared for the life in

the work environment, because I don't see that happening.

Phil Howard: From a philosophical standpoint. I think it's some of the things

that people that never really get taught and is kind of a point of this show is,

and one thing that we might not talk about enough, which is what you just said,

business collaboration or general collaboration that doesn't have a self-serving

or. Everything's kind of being done out of vain. I don't know how to say that

other than if a bunch of people got together and they had to work together and

they were kind of like close colleagues and friends, then I think they're going

to work together a lot better. As long as it's a diverse group, not everyone's

the same. even from a hiring philosophy? How do we get the right people on the

team and everyone working together towards the right vision? And these are the

things that are very difficult kind of business dynamics that don't necessarily

get taught. But we have very, very good examples of it in the world, like the

Jeff Bezos of the world, the two pizza meeting thing, these metaphors that sound

kind of funny, but they're it's like, it's not just the two pizzas. It's, it's

actually who's eating those two pizzas that's sitting in that room at that time?

And how do they all work together? And what's that dynamic? And you might have

some insight for us from your own team's dynamic. And how do you make sure that

you've got everyone in the right seat and that they're working together and that

you don't just have a bunch of people on their own island?

Andres Ruz: So first of all, I feel that you have to be very good about

self-awareness. That's the first thing. You need to know what you know, and you

need to accept what you don't know. And then surround yourself with people that

they know those things better than you. And don't be intimidated because they

they know more technically than you in those fields. Which again, is not my

experience in the normal leadership that I have seen around at least the people

that I know here. And I'm going to talk about CISOs in general, because that's

the people that I normally deal with more. I see that this is not happening.

Right. So they think that they can do everything. They think that they know

everything. And that's not true. and then what you just said about,

Phil Howard: The job in general, I don't mean you, but the CISO job in general,

is it filled with, a level of arrogant people that think they're kind of a big

deal is a complete stereotype, but I kind of get that feeling.

Andres Ruz: No, one hundred percent. And I will tell you, because I went to a

couple of roundtables that they don't know crap. So I go to these roundtables

and I sit down with fifty people that they have this issue for big companies,

and I will tell you, a lot of them, they don't know what they're talking about,

but they are very arrogant. And the problem is that, some people, and again, I

don't know if this is only the CISO, this is my experience. So this is what I

see. I think the problem is, the insecurity and surrounding yourself with people

that they will tell you whatever you want to hear. So you should say something

about, making sure that you have a diverse team. If you are not able to confront

someone who thinks different from you, there's no place for growth. There's just

no place for growth. You're going to have a lot of ships, that are going to tell

you whatever you want to hear, and then you will not be able to make a

successful impact in the company. And let's be honest, this is a problem that

the leadership level, I think the CEOs in general, they are the main people that

they do this, they surrounded themselves with people that they just want to hear

what they have to say is true, and they do not deal very well with people, which

deals with disagreements. and then there's all this passive aggressive, right?

So I disagree, but then I don't say anything, but then I talk back in the back,

right? I have an expression. My expression is bitching is not free. If you're

going to complain about something, you need to own it. And meaning that because

if you're going to complain about something, you need to own it, and you need to

make sure that you're making the progress, not for you only, but for your team

to serve better at the company. When you lose that, you lose that service

mentality that you're working for your team, you're working for an organization

and you become the center, as you were saying, ego centric center. the

organization or you should not be leading a group of people. that's not how

these things should work. But I see a lot of that.

Phil Howard: the main thought that came to my mind there was once you're aware

that you have problems and you know what your problems are, probably as a

leader, as a person, and you then surround yourself with people to counteract

those problems. And then, you guys get dialed in on whatever your vision is and

everything and you're still overloaded with crap. How do you deal with that? How

do you make progress and this is kind of some deep stuff. A lot of people deal

with it differently. But how do you deal with that overwhelm?

Andres Ruz: So I am very, very, strong about this. I believe in prioritization

and focus. So there's no other way around. So you and I have suffered this for a

long, long time, especially in technology. People want you to do pretty much

everything. I believe in a service oriented organization where you say, hey,

these are the services I provide. These are the priority for those services. If

you want me to do more services, we have two options. We get more FTE, more

budget and more resources to deliver those services. Let's say that we are

operating already full capacity, or we move the priority of some of these. We

delay them. we do not operate them however you want to do. But I believe in

quality. I believe in quality of service. I cannot tell you how many times I go

to an organization that they have system admin, server managers, network admins,

and I look at the infrastructure and it's a disaster. And why is that? It's

because people do not spend time in delivering services the right way. And when

that happens, you are having an infrastructure that is really unsustainable. And

then you start spending all your time in reactive work versus proactive work. So

things start to break. Why? Well, because you never maintain them, right? So

prioritizing focus for me is the only way. I do not like if someone comes with

me with a plan like, oh, I want to do this. And then I said, okay. I said, okay,

tell me what are the key things that we need to do? And then we're going to work

on those three things. And then the rest will have to wait. I used to work for a

guy who was very ad very people pleaser. And I told them, what you do not

understand is when you're saying yes to these people that are calling you,

you're saying no to another ten that are waiting for you. So it's not so much

about you pleasing the one that's calling you right now. It's about all these

people that have been waiting for you to do the work that you promised, that

you're going to deliver, that you're not going to deliver, or you are going to

deliver half hand and doing a poor job. So, I will be honest with you, it's not

very popular. People don't like me being like that a lot of times. but I tell

you, that puts things in perspective. and I do not allow kind of the nonsense

come to me like, because there are priorities and their priorities changes, and

there are emergencies and those things have to be considered, but not everything

is an emergency. If you call me and your word doesn't work, it's not the same

thing. If I have a server that is down and I cannot provide that service to all

the clients, right, there is a difference in priority. And I'm sorry if you

don't understand it, but the way that we manage resources and teams is should be

oriented to making sure that we better serve the organization overall, not just

one individual.

Phil Howard: Yeah. How do you make sure that you're aligned with the overall

organization?

Andres Ruz: Well, we have constantly meetings because as you as you can imagine,

these things also change, right? So you go one meeting and then we have a new

group executive team, and then we go and say, okay, tell me what are the vision

and the strategy? And then we align our tasks against those things.

Phil Howard: Right?

Andres Ruz: I will be honest with you, next week, the same leadership can come

and tell them, no time outs. We have to wait on this. And I don't have any

problems to realign. Right. But at the end, we all have to play the same game.

We have to realign to what the company needs to be delivering.

Phil Howard: Does it or technology have any spot advising leadership on where

the business should be moving or where they could be making the biggest impact?

Or is it pretty much just delivering on the how things get delivered?

Andres Ruz: No, I believe in business partnership. I believe in the conversation

that it can have with the leaders in the organization to make sure that we can

progress and help progress the business.

Phil Howard: How do you deal with the old stuff, the silos that people are stuck

in that don't want to change? I love the old ERP system.

Andres Ruz: It's difficult. You know what is the difficult part to me for the

silos is not so much the people that don't want to change. This is the silo

problem that I normally see people with great ideas, very good intentions, doing

something on the side without alignment or without help from technology. And

they spend all this time and all this money in something that maybe someone else

was doing or something that at the end you will not be able to integrate for

whatever reason. I see a lot of that. A lot of, these pilot projects honestly, a

lot of time comes from a really smart person with really good intentions, but no

alignment, no strategic direction from the leader of that department. And no

kind of really conversation about saying, hey, if you want to do this, you need

to collaborate, you need to sit down and review how that aligns with the overall

picture. But I see a lot of that silo type of work.

Phil Howard: I can think of a few examples in my head, but I'd rather have you

give me a solid concrete example of that.

Andres Ruz: Well, AI is a great example. You are an expert in AI? More than me.

How many AI projects you know people that are doing without even involving

information technology?

Phil Howard: By the way we have Trevor Sinclair in the chat and Trevor, if

you've got anything like, mind blowing or something that popped to mind, please

chat away or say something. Okay, let's keep going.

Andres Ruz: Know I get kind of upset, let's put the right word there when I see

those things happening. But honestly, that is probably the first five seconds,

then this is what happened. I honestly with you, I start asking myself why this

person is doing this. I start asking myself honestly that question, why this

person is doing this? And I will tell you one hundred percent of the times, no

one hundred and ninety percent of the times. I normally found that the person

who is doing this is coming from a good place.

Phil Howard: Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Andres Ruz: So that calms me down and then say, okay, so if we have this

situation, we have two problems. First one is we're not taking advantage of this

person's creativity and then just using them in the right way. That's the first

problem. But the second problem is clearly a lack of good leadership under the

department, because that leader should be the one who needs to put that energy

in the right guardrails to help the organization to grow. And this person,

entrepreneur tried to do something to help the organization without realizing

what he was actually impacting in the wrong way.

Phil Howard: It's a lack of communication, probably a lack of alignment. it's

kind of us, we need to take this extreme responsibility.

Andres Ruz: Yeah, but, that's where you say, okay, what do I do? Do I block

everything? No, you don't block everything. What you do is you go around, you

identify. And this is very technology driven, right? You identify the problem.

The problem is not the technology. The problem is not the use of the solution.

The problem is the people, how they are communicating, how they're aligning and

how they're collaborating. Again, one more time to the original conversation

that you have, sometimes not the technical capacity. It's about having the right

individuals with the right decision, making the right roles. And that is hard.

That's very hard.

Phil Howard: Okay. So you've got a bunch of people that were used to like, let's

call them salespeople. Okay, really good sales people that talk fast, that make

sales happen fast, so fast that they each have to have multiple phones on their

desk. I mean, literally one receiver on one ear, another receiver on the other

ear. Okay. What's the problem with that? Right. It's like the problem is

probably a lot numerous, right? However, to them, no, there's no problem.

There's like, why would we ever touch this? Like, why would we ever stop using a

wooden tennis racket when I've been winning Wimbledon for the last ten years?

it's like that type of thing. So this type of thing is like, how do you overcome

this? Like the tennis racket is not a good example. there's a better way to do

this. But the amount of change that has to happen that you have to go through

the step back to take two steps forward is, very painful, I think. I try to

imagine it like you had a whole company back in nineteen hundred and then the

the sewing machine came out. Right. And they've been producing stuff. And now

you're going to put this machine in there and they're going to be like, dude,

what the heck is this? Like, I don't know what. No, man. Get this thing out of

here. because this is killing business and slowing us down. We gotta learn all

this. It's a different way. It's killing production.

Andres Ruz: I

Andres Ruz: the traditional response to this would be, oh, you need a top down

approach. You go to a leader and the leader buys in and then you make the

change. Yeah, I do not feel that that's the most effective way. To me, it's both

ways. You have to do the top down, but you also have to do the down top, meaning

whoever is going to be impacted most by, your group of stakeholders, you need

their buy in if you're going to make a big change. And then the other thing that

at least I have to negotiate every time about this. I don't know you, but this

is every time for me is the speed of the change. Sometimes the speed of the

change is not as fast as we would like it to be. Not even close. And that is

even sometimes super expensive for the company to go the way that they go. But

sometimes you have to learn the speed of the change that the company can

tolerate. And that is the question. Honestly, one hundred percent. Sometimes

with me, I say, okay, let's give a very simple example. You want to, upgrade, I

don't know, a windows server, right? So you say, oh, this server is used by one

hundred people. Okay, so this, if you want to upgrade this windows server, okay,

we want to upgrade the server. Let's talk about what services that server has.

Okay, this is okay. Can we change one of those services? Can we get another

server and move that service over and start one by one? Is that expensive? Way

more expensive, sometimes more chewable for the Modernization. So sometimes the

fastest way is not the ideal way. It's not the cheapest way, but it's the only

way that you will be able to be successful. Because the change management

process of making everyone to be on the same page is extremely hard. I learned

that people don't hate what they create. So if you involve the stakeholder

group, that is going to be one hundred percent using this from a vulnerable

place, not a technology. So I know everything that you don't know everything.

And then I will tell you what you have to do. But yeah, but from the honest

place, because these are the people who do the job every day from you to learn

to be honest, to be there as a service leader, right? A servant leader that you

want to learn from them. They will tell you things that you and I don't know

that you just don't know. That's again, the self-aware. So you go there as a

partner and you want to really help these people, and then you learn from them

and you apply what they tell you to deploy the changes because you cannot ignore

what they are telling you. And then at the end, that is much more to me, an

easier transition. Is that faster? No. Is that more expensive? Yes. But

honestly, it's the only way that I learned that they can. Those changes can

happen.

Phil Howard: So Trevor's asking in the chat, how do you handle resistance to

change? I think you partially answered that, but when's the last biggest

resistance to a change over project you've had, whether it be ERP or Covid hits

and we have to work from home, I don't know what is it? When's the last time

you've had the most resistance to change project that you guys still went

through with? In other words, you didn't pull the plug on it and you grinded

through it. What did you learn from that?

Andres Ruz: Okay, I will tell you, email protection change. there's no such a

most hated protection in the company that the protection that's the most hated

protection that you will deploy always. Right. Company. Think of this company

without protection to company with email protection. Right. People working. And

this didn't happen twenty years ago. It happened four years ago. So people with

no protection at all for five years. And then I come there and tell them, hey,

you should put the email protection, right?

Phil Howard: Yeah. And this is back just to reframe your example earlier, you

don't come with email protection, dual factor authentication, and then layer in

all these things at the same time, kind of go one at a time to your previous

point, okay, I think, and this is just me because I was a sales trainer for

years. I still am kind of. I'm still a sales trainer. And when I say sales

trainer, I mean teaching people how to speak like humans, teaching people how to

help other people ultimately get what they want. That selling is about a

solution to a problem. and I think that we need to do a better job selling as I

t leaders. make sure we listen fully, make sure we repeat back and then feed it

back to them and then explain the benefit to them, explain the benefit, feed it

back to them. Ask them if that's okay. And if not, and this is how I would have

taken care of scenario like, I completely understand, right? Like how you feel.

I would lose my mind because I've been in situations before. I've needed

something last minute and it was really, really important. Now, with that being

said, we have this insurance thing over here. We have to meet this security

checkbox on this thing. Me personally, I would used it as an opportunity to

highlight how important we treat our customers, sensitive information on that

call with them. And I actually would have said, give me a few minutes because we

have a high level of security because we take very seriously over here, our

customer's sensitive data. And I don't know if you know this, but a lot of

companies don't play around with that. And this is how your data gets leaked to

the company. We take that very, very seriously with you. So please bear with me

for a minute, because that attachment is going to take a few minutes to come in.

In the meantime, let's talk about X, and I would have used that as an

opportunity for it to learn to sell the benefit of it to the executive, to sell

the company better, and how our IT and our security department is actually an

asset to the customers that we serve. And I don't think we do a good enough job

doing that.

Andres Ruz: I agree, I agree, I don't think we do a very good job. My experience

is sometimes when you want to reinforce the message about the why is important

or, explaining the reasoning of how this comes to our. Mhm. What you're trying

to accomplish, to protect the client.

Phil Howard: Yeah.

Andres Ruz: That's not very well taken. And let me explain why the why is

because the frustration is so high that there is a little bit of inability to

listen. So my experience, I have to let that cold.

Phil Howard: Yeah.

Andres Ruz: And with that email, sometimes you get that. And sometimes, to be

honest with you, you don't.

Phil Howard: And they might just get more pissed off at you. It's very, very

it's about really understanding.

Andres Ruz: That because that happened to me. So someone told me that I was

fathering him when I was explaining why it was important, the controls. And I

was like, dude, I'm not trying to fathering you, but I feel I know a little bit

more about this than you. And I'm trying to explain what we're trying to do for

your company, not mine. But at the end, you know what I think? I think you like

this. I was talking with one of my friends about this long time ago. I said, can

you imagine what a doctor goes through when a person goes to their annual

checkup and they are like three hundred pounds and the doctor tells you, hey,

dude, you need to do exercise, eat better, right? That's your health of your

life, right? And the next year the guy comes and he didn't do anything. I told

him, can you imagine that poor guy? The frustration level. And I'm getting

frustrated because someone doesn't want to do cybersecurity recommendations,

right? There's a level there. So I always say I need to learn from doctors on

how they deal with this, because you are having a patience that goes every year

to you and you are not doing anything that the doctor tells you. the interesting

part of everything is, let's be honest, you can take that to business and that

applies. And the problems that we normally have at the business level is the

same thing. You make a decision, you give the trust to that person to say, hey,

I will trust that what you are telling me is the best for me. Mhm. Going back to

your comment about sales, sometimes we do not position ourselves as that trusted

advisor. There's multiple reasons why we cannot. There's multiple reasons why we

would.

Phil Howard: Fear insecurity, job security, money, blah, blah, blah, life.

Andres Ruz: But at the end, that's what we want to become. We want to become

that person that the leadership or the client. If you're an MSP, they will

honestly trust you and you will make mistakes. This is not about not making

mistakes. It's about being honest and giving some feedback to the other end.

That's going to really help them and help you. That's why, MSP, they struggle

because MSP when they give advices, they're always see in the back pocket to see

how that advice can help them out. And that is where you lose trust because

sooner or later the client will realize about that sooner or later and you will

lose that position. You will lose your trust advisor position. What's happened

then you're gone.

Phil Howard: I guess from an IT leadership perspective, when you get hired at a

role like, hey, look, I'm willing to come in and help you guys and do this. And

this is what I see and this is what I see, but only if you allow me to make

those changes and support those changes. Otherwise, I'm not coming in to just be

the guy that holds the keys to the network castle again, because it looks like

you've had that in the past. And if you're unwilling to give me that level of

whatever, then I'm not the guy for you. you got to set some expectations to

begin with to your vendor point. I just want to ask you this question. When it

does come to vendors, vars, MSPs, mssps, all that stuff. What's your single

biggest frustration, problem or concern with that? Because it sounds like one of

them is they're making decisions based on bottom line decisions or where they're

going to get paid a few extra points before they actually make a decision that's

best for you. That's what I heard, but I would rather hear from you. What's your

single biggest frustration, problem or concern when it comes to managing vendors

and all that?

Andres Ruz: I think, I see two problems. one is they are not able to get away

from their stack to make a recommendation whenever the best for the company may

not be in their stack. That's the biggest one. And the second one is, Because of

how MSPs are normally the game of service, the service quality gets diluted with

time. so what happened is you provide a service or you receive a service. And if

the MSP gets to grow, you will get that service being diluted. you're not going

to get a very good service. That's it. Because the way that the MSPs make money

is to over selling. So, I will tell you that my experience after working in MSPs

is very difficult to keep up the level of service that you want to achieve per

client, and not get greedy overselling kind of methodology. and that's something

again, is going back to that trusted advisor. If I go back to you and tell you

I'm doing, let's go back to email protection, how I'm keeping up with your email

protection. that's not the solution that you deploy once and then you never

touch it again. You have to maintain it. So how are you going to do it? And the

other question is who is going to do it? Because if you tell me that the

helpdesk is doing that, I'll tell you. No, no thank you, I need it. Cyber

security analyst doing that job, not the helpdesk. Right. So the incorrect

people alignment, they save money because they put the healthiest person who is

out of college to do email protection features, updates. And then you see, well,

this guy doesn't know anything. What are you doing here? He's like, I bought

this service. You sold me this, and now you're giving me this service. It's

super difference in the quality.

Phil Howard: Yeah. I think if you're going to do something, really do it like

amazing. I, really go above and beyond. that's our mission here. That's what

we're trying to do is really support the IT leader in every possible way ever.

Make sure they have a voice, make sure that we're collaborating, make sure that

we have round tables, making sure that we're promoting them all of that. and.

Here's the example. And then I have one more question for you. I pay a thousand

dollars a month for Alex Ramos's AI app. I pay a thousand dollars a month. Does

that sound crazy? and the reason why I pay that thousand dollars a month is I

sign up for the app. I get immediately, like an email every day from his team,

get on a call with us, book your onboarding. They take me through a full one

hour onboarding session on how to use an app, how to enter in all of my business

information, how I need to have like all of this, like basically instructions in

an LLM, right in the app. Then they say, by the way, you've got to join our

community. I'm in the community. I get an email every day for an onboarding call

for the guy in the community. And I think I'm going to get this onboarding call

and it's going to be, like, here's how to click this. Here's how the guy sits

down and is a legitimate business. Like professional coach asked me a ton of

questions about my business, says, hey, go to the app, type this in, try this

and provides me like a level of value that's just unbelievable. So much so that

I'm like, dude, this is like three employees that I'm paying one thousand

dollars a month for. So it's not an app anymore. It's like this whole entity.

Andres Ruz: you and I are talking about this because there's so little examples

about that, right?

Phil Howard: Yeah.

Andres Ruz: They don't care about your churn because there's another guy who's

willing to pay thirty bucks. And that's the same thing happened with MSP, right?

And then what happens is you end up with a poor service. Everyone complaining

about the services. And then if they churn, they don't care. They get another

one who's willing to pay the minimum. And the eighty people doesn't want to do

anything related to the change.

Phil Howard: And they could solve so much cash flow and problems if they just

did better and didn't have that churn, because then you got to bring that

onboarding and all. Last question. If you could go back in time and tell your

younger self one piece of advice what would that piece of advice be?

Andres Ruz: I would say spend more time with your friends and family. That would

be my advice because I think you learn more. For you to become a very effective

leader from the relationships that you have. And I spend a lot of time in my

technical, development without realizing that I was probably missing something

from my relationship portion that was going to be very important for me to.

Phil Howard: Yeah. It's very true. And so I've found that I've been more

successful when I take a month off with my family traveling not a month off, but

I'm like traveling with my family for a month. I still have podcasts. I still

have all this other stuff that I've got to do in between. And what I find is

that I've really got to block and tackle my tasks much better, and I end up

focusing on what's really, really important. A when you focus on what's the most

important, which is your family and your friends and your colleagues. Then

you'll notice that in your business, you also focus on what's most important,

and you don't end up spending the whole day just spinning wheels and blinky

lights and objects and all that type of stuff. it has been an absolute pleasure

having you on.

Andres Ruz: Thank you has been awesome.