442- Listen, Understand, Execute: The IT Leadership Edge w/Farhan Zakir

Phil Howard: All right, so give me your background a little bit. How did you get
started in this whole thing? Kind of where are you at right now? And yeah, how
has the IT landscape career treated you?

Farhan Zakir: Simple words. Great. And I'm very grateful and I'm very thankful.
It was never my career path to begin with, I still remember having the
conversation with my father, he wanted me to be in medicine. Right. I gave that
a shot for a little bit, did not enjoy it at all. I mean, I started. And within
the first semester, I had this conversation with my dad. And that was the first
time, like, being an immigrant child, right? My brother was into stocks and he's
the older one. So I'm the second one in line. And my dad's dream has always
been, hey, I want a doctor in the family. Thankfully, my younger sister's taking
care of that. but, Ultimately like have this conversation with my dad. And it
was just like, hey, I can do this if you want me to. I'm just going to hate
life, right? And I still remember the conversation when they first got me into
this, I walked home. I came home and it was him and one of his best friends
who's a neurologist sitting there and they're like, what do you want to do? I'm
like, I don't know, something in business, right? And they're like, how many
business people do you know that aren't successful or struggling for a job? I'm
like probably a lot because how many doctors do you know that are struggling
financially? Right? So that was, how they kind of came at me. Right?

Phil Howard: Truthfully, a lot now it's flipped. It's not the same anymore.

Farhan Zakir: I mean, at the end of the day, you're right. Right. There's
demand. You're successful, you live a good life, etc., etc.. Right. But they
don't really truly talk about, So anyway, so I had this one on one conversation
with my dad. At that point. I was just like, look, I can do this if you want me
to, but I'm not going to be happy. And then still remember, like, because that
was the first like adult conversation I had with my dad, right? And he was just
like, well, what do you want to do? And please don't tell me you want to be
artist. But, like that was the first time I've actually seen him like, have this
conversation. I told him I was like, no, that's not what I want to do. And at
that time, I really liked numbers. And that's why I really liked accounting
because there's always a solution to it, right? You can always like it may take
you a while, but you get to that answer, right? And I told him that and he's
like, there's not a lot of money in it. And it's the first time, and as cliche
as this sounds and as like a movie line as this sounds, I was just like, dad, at
least I'll be happy. And if I'm happy doing what I'm happy doing, then I'll find
money in it.

Phil Howard: This is so wild. My dad literally. Same conversation. This is a
long story. But yeah.

Farhan Zakir: I mean, so I came back to Orlando, because in order for me to go
to med school, I was in Pakistan. because I wasn't going to get accepted here. I
was never prepared for it. Right. So the quickest way to get me in into that
drive was, hey, go to medical school in Pakistan. So I came back to Orlando. I
growing up in Orlando, it's hospitality driven, right? That's all you can think
of, right? Disney's there. Universal's their hotels. Right. So I got into the
hospitality side, worked almost every position there, then got into the
accounting side in hospitality and, built networking is like the biggest thing,
right? So and I felt like I was always good at that. I networked and joined a
company that owned fourteen different hotel properties. And then very quickly
kind of got into the accounting side from there.

Phil Howard: I want some like hero story or some pain story. we have to link
this to some kind of painful story. There's got to be some story.

Farhan Zakir: Yeah, the story is going to come up in just a little bit. So from
there, I got married, and, not making a lot of money because I didn't have any
degrees at that point. So no educational background. I was just kind of.

Phil Howard: A big.

Farhan Zakir: Motivator in my way. Yeah. So, had an opportunity come up with a
software company and with implementations, they were looking for somebody. It's
an ERP solution for the club industry, like golf club industry. And they were
looking for somebody with an accounting background interviewed with them. Man, I
wined and dined the CEO of that company when they came because they were driving
through Orlando. They were like, hey, come in for a remote interview. Did that,
met them at most awkward interview. And I tell the CEO I still have a great
relationship with him. He was having dinner with his family and I'm interviewing
next to him at that point, right? Like the most awkward interview for me. But,
and he's like, oh, bring your family too. So I'm there we're interviewing for
this position. Didn't hear back from them for like two or three months. And then
finally three months later, they called me like, okay, come join moved to
Atlanta, right? By myself, never left on my own outside of this whole med school
thing. And even there I was staying with family, moved to Atlanta on my own.
Still remember it driving in complete fog. So, started working for this ERP
company. And then from there, started doing some of the implementations was very
successful at it from the very beginning. One of the clients approached me and,
I went back and forth with them. They brought me on board them, and then I went
back to the ERP company. Now, here's where the kind of the hero story comes in.
My sister's wedding, the CEO of Concert Golf reached out to me and she was just
like, hey, do you want to just meet up for lunch real quick? And I'm like, sure.
And she's like, look, I know you've understood software. and, like you have a
good understanding of accounting. I need somebody to take over it for concert.
Can you do it? Yes or no? That's the question that she asked me. I'm like, do I
have to move back to because the corporate offices are in Florida, because I
didn't want to come back to Florida? She's like, no, you can work remotely. So
that's my hero story as far as like here from the success perspective, right?
Like nothing happened to the point where I was out on my feet, like I was
complete failure or anything like that. I've been really blessed in that, like
in that fact. Was it just the.

Phil Howard: Ability to was it the ERP success?

Farhan Zakir: It was the ERP success that started it all for me, to be very
honest.

Phil Howard: It's such a difficult thing that anyone that's like a whiz bang at
that and somehow brings sanity to that and sanity, comfort coddling, like some
sort of streamlined anything that's anything other than a dumpster fire. Yeah,
it stands out.

Farhan Zakir: I would agree, and I think it really came down to my ability to be
able to understand the business aspect of things, right? Just listen. I think
that's what, like a lot of times people are not successful. I shouldn't say
fail, but not successful in any industry is they just don't listen or just try
to understand where the person's coming from. like me just hearing what the
problem is and then giving you a solution for it, it makes it much easier to
communicate that way. So.

Phil Howard: But okay, let's break that down though, because sometimes I think
people that do this naturally don't realize. It's like sometimes you don't
realize what you do naturally that other people just like they can't link the
blocks together. And you've said that being a CFO is one of the most underrated
advantages of an IT leader. Maybe it is. I think it's probably one of the
highest, because, it's, you're not the first CFO slash IT manager that I've had
on the show. And then the second piece of advice that I think over time that
we've had for IT leadership is make friends with the CFO. So if you're both the
CFO or you're the, CFO IT guy and you have a CFO, then you're going to get along
well. But I think there's this ability to, like you said, listen, communicate
with the language of business and translate it in a very simplistic way to this
is how we're going to make money, save money. And that's pretty much it. Make
money, save money. We're either making money with it or we're streamlining or
we're doing this or it's not hypervisors and this and that. It's like, this is
how we're helping the company make more money. And this is how we're making the
company save more money. And that's pretty much it. and to your point about it's
like the software piece, like if you're not thinking about it and you're using
it and it's helping you do your job better, like that's great.

Farhan Zakir: I think where we fail as IT executives is we're very
technical, right? Like you and I can probably have technical conversations, the
one thing I'm just so tired of in the IT world is acronyms, man, everything has
an acronym now, right? So, but I think, a lot of times where we fail to get our
point across is the fact that we get very technical very quickly with a lot of
people who may have a decent understanding of it or just technology in general,
but don't really fully understand what we're trying to convey to them. So I
think if we took the time to understand their language a little bit, and it
doesn't have to be numbers, it doesn't have to be dollars, right? It just has to
be understanding. Take the time to understand what the business operations are,
right? That helps us get our foot in the door, that helps us get the lead. And
okay, this is what they're trying to accomplish. This is what I'm trying to
accomplish. How do I help them get to that point? Right. And I've seen and you
generally, I see this at the low level, like tier one, tier two texts and things
like that, where they get really frustrated because somebody called them and
they said, oh, my computer is not turning on. Did you press the power button?
Right. It could be as simple as that. They're like, why did I get this call? And
just like, well, they're not IT experts, regardless of how silly the question
may be to us, they're not supposed to be it experts. Just like I'm not a sales
expert, just like I'm not a marketing expert, right? I'm not going to pretend to
know everything that I think I know about marketing or how to sell something or
how to operate a business, right? So it's our job to do it. And this may be a
very silly analogy, but I'm going back to this medical terminology again to or
medical world, right? Like doctors don't become doctors and then say, oh, I
don't want to see sick people, right? So we don't get into it and not think that
we don't want to help people, right? Ultimately, the goal is to be able to help
people. We're a service at the end of the day. Right? So how do we continue to.

Phil Howard: I also think. This is just something that I've been pondering over
a lot lately, and that is what do people think about you? What do they say about
you? When they're not with you? Yeah. What does someone think about your IT
department when they're not with you? Are they like, dude, I better check this
first. I better check this first because they're going to make me feel like an
idiot when I call in. Or they're thinking like, dude, I love these guys so much.
They help me do my job better. Whatever it is. I was thinking that today because
I was on a chat with a software application with their. And they don't know that
I know what I know, I'm just another dude, what I mean? So and I remember at one
point it dawned on me that I should have logged out and logged back in because
it might have reset my administrative privileges or something, because it was
like an admin role. It was like an admin type of like, I didn't have admin
position. I was like, oh crap, I'm gonna look like an idiot if they tell me to
log out and log back. So I logged back out and I logged back in real quick. But
that was the type of and it wasn't that it, it that ended up not fixing the
problem, right? But the fact that I felt like that with a third party vendor
means that there whatever Csat scores or whatever are probably pretty low, but
they have a product that's like one of a kind, so they probably don't give a
crap. So I don't know.

Farhan Zakir: you hit the bullseye right there, right? What do people think
about you when you're not there? And then are they afraid to ask you the
question? And I'm sure even in your experience, right, you've met people where
they're like, oh, I like talking to so and so because it's easy for him to
understand what I'm saying. Right? Or I like talking to so and so because he
doesn't make me feel like an idiot. That's a reality.

Phil Howard: There's it guys that get fired that were the right guy for the job,
but the guy that kept the job was just the doofus that everyone loved.

Farhan Zakir: Yeah.

Phil Howard: That was just like, I mean, you know what I mean? It's like,

Farhan Zakir: I used to have in one of the MSPs that I worked with as a partner.
We used to have this one guy every single time he went on site with me
somewhere. I didn't even do this. He went and hugged everybody first. And
everybody loved talking to him. And on top of that, he knew what he was doing.
So, he was like, I think where it kind of affects you a little bit is if you're
trying to go into that leadership role, people expect some level of seriousness
from you, right? So if you can learn how to turn that on and off, then that's
great, right? But his was always on. But people love interacting with him.
Right? So. And I mean, I carry myself in that manner as well too. Like there are
times where I go up to someone, I'm like, look, I'm sorry, like, and I'll give
you my personal experience. Like when I would walk into one of our sites and
people would see me, oh Farhan's here. Don't do this in front of him. like
writing down a credit card number, for example, right? Because you know, that's
a.

Phil Howard: Quick pull down your passwords off the screen.

Farhan Zakir: Yeah. I'm literally taking pictures and sent it to people. I'm
like, okay, there's a Post-it note on here with all your passwords on there. I'm
like, guys, come on. Right. but how I go about it is what made the difference,
right? I didn't go in there and just yelling and throwing a fit and saying, oh
what are you doing? Are you putting our company at risk, etc., etc.. No, it's a
teaching moment, right? And a lot of times I'm dealing with either hourly wage
people and then all the way up to GM level people, and then sometimes they just
don't understand, or sometimes they just don't really fully realize the
importance of the safety nets that we're putting in. Right.

Phil Howard: So you brought up a really good point. So hourly wage people,
people that don't care, every company's got them the eighty over twenty rule.
you've got eighty percent of the people that don't give a crap, twenty percent
of the people that are like, bought in with it or whatever. Then you've got the
really bottom level of people that might be a completely deranged employee,
someone that doesn't care but doesn't care about sifting company data, whatever
it is. That's why we have like, lawyers that send out cease and desist letters.

Farhan Zakir: My favorite are the high school summer job kids. Those are my
favorites. Yeah, because they just don't care at all.

Phil Howard: is there a way and there probably is tips. Whatever. Let me just
ask this. What's the hardest thing, like for an entrepreneur, it's like, am I
ever going to be successful? Right. Or like, it's probably like numerous things.
What's the hardest thing that you have to deal with every day? That's kind of
like, I don't know, is this going to be successful or not? What's the hardest
thing that it people have to deal with?

Farhan Zakir: Getting people to understand how vital their data is at the lower
level, the higher level people, right? When you talk about the CFOs, the CEOs,
the VP's, they fully I think they capture that. But when we're talking about the
lower level people, they don't care, right? It's not their data.

Phil Howard: Well, let's explain this then. Then in the best way possible. How
valuable. First of all, what data is valuable.

Farhan Zakir: Right?

Phil Howard: Is it all and how valuable and why should I care?

Farhan Zakir: So the examples that I used to use is their data, right? So every
employee has their data incorporated into some payroll software that the company
is managing. Right.

Phil Howard: Mhm.

Farhan Zakir: So that's how I help them understand and say, look, just like
we're working again, clients, customers, vendors, however you look at it,
whatever data you have in there, right? If you're in the medical world and you
got HIPAA data as well too, but like, if we're talking about this, like, how
would you like it if I just put all of your personal information on this table
and just let everybody have it, right? And a coaching and a teaching manner,
right? When you get them to understand that and see that value in there, you
kind of almost see that light bulb just go off that click like, oh crap, I get
it right. Even high school kids, that one that are my favorite, right? Because
they're just sharing passwords and all this stuff, right? But once you have that
conversation with them, I think they, it's almost a good click, a light bulb
going off and saying, hey, this makes sense. That's probably the biggest
challenge that's coming in, right? and I use their personal information rather
than credit card information because everybody's using Apple Pay now they're
using their watches to pay and things like that. So they're not really, if you
don't hold it in your hand physically, right? Like physical credit card. So
they're not worried about losing it. But when you start thinking about, hey,
your social security numbers, right, all your payroll information, that can be
utilized and explaining to them what the dangers of that are. And yeah, like, so
I used to do these annual, training for every one of our sites and I would be
the one to go and conduct them. And I would have all the way from the general
manager of the property all the way until the lowest, paid hourly staff member
as well too. And I had to do the training where it affects everybody in that
sense. Right. So it wasn't just about telling them and teaching them, oh,
protect the company data. It's also about protect your data, right? Something as
simple as turn on notifications for every credit card transaction that happens,
right? So that way anytime your credit card is charged, you get an alert
notification. And I can't tell you how many people. And that's usually on the
older side of people that are like, oh yeah, that is a smart idea, Right. Don't
put your passwords all in one notebook or on all on one Excel spreadsheet.
Right. So. For me, it all comes down to one thing communication, communication,
communication, right. And we as IT leaders need to consistently and constantly
keep communicating to all of our staff members the importance of not just
cybersecurity, but also how we can help them be more efficient using technology
because everything has technology in there.

Phil Howard: We should try to like put together the worst case data narrative
right now. Think of it this way you've paid your taxes for the last seven years.
how far back can the US government audit your taxes? You don't care if someone
erased all your data. Doge comes in and, you don't have your taxes, you're gonna
have to pay if you don't have that. whatever back taxes above whatever you
didn't pay or what else? Let's see, there was like another one in here. Oh,
well, I think if you're, if you're a small business owner and you lose all of
your payroll and complete customer database, then trying to rebuild that and get
accounts receivable paid would be a nightmare. what other nightmare things could
happen?

Farhan Zakir: What the example you just used is more of a reality than even as a
hypothetical scenario. Yeah.

Phil Howard: Just straight up bills not getting paid.

Farhan Zakir: Yeah. Yeah. It's it's, I mean, it's like, especially when you're
talking about payroll data, right? How many times you see companies switch from
one payroll vendor to another payroll vendor and not even put into
consideration, hey, do I need my historic data? What do I do with that? Yeah,
like, and this is where it's our job to ask those questions, to talk about those
things, to inform the people, right? Like this is where we become vital as
business partners, right? When you're doing a payroll software migration as an
example, right? You're going from one software to another software. Have you
talked about history? Right. Email retentions.

Phil Howard: Yeah. Like a twenty percent loss in any category would be just
devastating. But complete change of subject. what are people going to be talking
about eighteen months from now that we're not talking about today? Yeah. what's
your prediction?

Farhan Zakir: Yeah. So I think the AI is a hot topic in everybody's mindset,
right? As much as we hate talking about it sometimes in the IT world, but it's
on everybody's tip of the tongue, right? a I a I a I I think, eighteen months
from now and maybe a little bit longer, I'll say twenty four months, right. I
think what we're going to realize is that while AI is bringing so much
efficiency, it's also going to eliminate a lot of the service standards that
we're used to. I use the example of iPads at restaurants, right? I remember
specifically, I was flying through Detroit, walked into a restaurant. My flight
was delayed. Completely empty. Like not a single person in this restaurant. I
just walked up to the bar. I sat down at the bar, and I was like, let me just
order an appetizer and I'll be good to go. So I'm waiting, I'm waiting, I'm
waiting. Right at this point, I was like, okay, I'm going to appetizer and an
entree, right? Like I got a chance to look at the menu. Still waiting. Nothing
happens. So finally I flagged the bartender down. And I'm like, hey, are you
going to take my order? He literally looked at me and he apologized and he's
like, I'm so sorry, man. You see this iPad in front of you? You gotta order
through their efficient, right? Because now I don't have to wait on somebody to
come take my order. I can just quickly go in and put my order in and go from
there. Right. But I lose that human touch and you lose that service. Everything
is going through this technology. So I think technology is something that we
cannot survive without anymore. We're at that point. We're way past that. Right?
But I think what the AI craze that's happening is a lot of systems are coming
into, hey, you don't have to call anybody, which I'm one hundred percent sure if
I have to call, big cell phone companies and be on hold for like thirty eight
minutes and stuff like that. But the example that I would use on that is, and
I'll go back to the golf industry, is a lot of these software companies are
coming out with, hey, use AI to book a tee time. Great, right? But what ends up
happening is that you say, hey, give it a name, Hey, Jenny, make a tee time for
me for Tuesday at eight o'clock in the morning. And if eight o'clock is not
available, AI is smart enough to say, hey, these times are available and things
like that. But that human interaction of me saying, hey, I don't like playing in
the afternoon, etcetera, etcetera. Just having that interaction and going from
talking to that person and saying, okay, well, let me see what else I can find
for you that's going to work more towards you. That service aspect is, I think
what we're going to be kind of giving up on a little bit.

Phil Howard: So I think we'll nail that. I think we'll nail that. I don't think
we will nail the creative, like you said, human side aspect. I don't think that
we can. I think AI has to be the assist tool. I don't think it can replace
creativity. I don't think it should replace, a big kind of like fall out with
the kids the other night because I was like, look. If you can show me how you
did this with AI. I will be very proud of you. if you can. I was like, but if
you show me that all you did was be completely lazy, like, with it and you just
not not think, right. That's a problem, right?

Farhan Zakir: The I'll give you one thing where I, this is why I really relate
to the human interaction, right? Because I've spent so much time in the
hospitality industry to make a payment on a bill that you get on a monthly bill.
Let's just say your cell phone bill. You have so many options. You can send a
check in, you can do an auto payment, you can pay with a credit card, right? You
can even call someone and make a payment. In the hospitality industry, when
we're especially talking about memberships, an average age of a club, maybe like
sixty, seventy, right? Or fifty, sixty, seventy somewhere in there. How many
people still walk in to that office and write a physical check and hand it to
them? Not because they can't make a payment through a draft or online or
anything like that, but they want that human interaction, right? that's the
highlight of their day sometimes, right? They're getting a chance to talk to
someone. going, I'm sure you watched the movie Wall-E.

Phil Howard: the robot one a long time ago.

Farhan Zakir: Yes, a long time ago. I just rewatched it again a few few days ago
with my kids.

Phil Howard: Okay.

Farhan Zakir: I mean, like, being in the IT world, like that kind of scares me a
little bit, man. Right. Like, everybody's just sitting on a lounge chair.
Everything is being done by robots and things like that. Like you lose that
human interaction where just all getting.

Phil Howard: the dumbing down of America is a real concern. It's a real thing,
Well, but at the same time, that's also the same reason why people aren't using
AI. And I heard a very, very interesting, it was a very, I think, very
intelligent, very real perspective of what's going on in our world as IT
leaders.

Farhan Zakir: Mhm.

Phil Howard: It was direct from Mr. Alex Moses mouth, who I've been, like,
obsessed with lately. and I'm not really kind of like a guru guy, but I just,
for whatever reason, like, really connect with him. And, this is what he said.
He said there's a over whelming amount of AI guilt and overwhelm. And basically
what he's saying that's from in this immense feeling of guilt is coming from not
learning how to use every new AI tool and not implementing it in the business.
Meaning it's something like it's to become proficient in AI is surpassing about
ninety percent of people. So that means there's ten percent of the people out
there that really like, will get into Claude and go to like, not just prompt
engineering, not just agent engineering, but we'll really have multiple agents
mapped out. We'll be using, Claude code and we'll really be coding and kind of
like understanding how to have multiple agents communicating with each other
like, really using it the way it should be. And there's this immense amount of
AI guilt. And I think that's very accurate and true. And I think I agree.

Farhan Zakir: Yeah, I would agree one hundred percent. And we don't I don't
think there's a need for any of that guilt though. Right. I think we purposely.

Phil Howard: The point.

Farhan Zakir: Is.

Phil Howard: I think the point is, it's a huge opportunity to not feel guilty.
And like, if there's only ten percent of the people that actually know what
they're doing, what opportunity does that give for all the IT guys that are
worried that it's going to take over their job or anyone else? We're the most I
mean, the technical IT people are the people sitting in the position best to
learn and implement said technology.

Farhan Zakir: I agree that whole scare of, oh, AI is going to replace
everybody's job. I don't think that's like, I don't think that's any like we're
missing on. If you're in it and you're not learning AI, you're missing an
opportunity and you will fail, right? Like I think the person who thinks they
know everything already is the immediate moment that you start failing, right?
You have to constantly keep learning. And it is an industry where every day
there's something new out there, right? So if you're not learning it and you're
not taking the opportunity, and here's the other part, right? When we're talking
about the guilt, especially for us, we have in our IT side, we have the best
opportunity available to us in comparison to somebody else who's not an expert
in our area. Right. We have the resources readily available to us. Somebody may
not even know some of this information. Right? So if you're not there learning,
if you're not following all the things that are happening in the technology
world, and I think that's a failure on you as an individual, right? Like, and I
think technology is evolutionizing if it already has it, like it has internet
cane, right? I was there for that. Cell phones came, I was there for that. This
is going to be another evolution and we can either fall behind or we can grow
with it. You know, you use your kids as an example. I'll give you a prime
example that I shared with my kids because my son asked me, my thirteen year
old, he had a little paper to do for school and he's like, hey, can I use AI
explain to him what we have to do and we have to do research, right? Whenever an
assignment was given to us, what was the first thing we did? We went to the
school library. Whoever got to that Britannica encyclopedia first, you're
golden, right? If you didn't get there in time, you got to wait until that book
comes back or go to the public library. I told him, like, utilize AI, it's a
resource. Why wouldn't you utilize it? It's a resource that's there for you to
use. However, don't have it do all the work for you, right? So same exact
scenario. What you did with your kids, right? So same exact concept. I think a
lot of times even and I'll go back, a year ago right there, if I got stuck on
something, I would have to go talk to three or four different people. Now I can
learn it on my own. It the answers are readily available, complex.

Phil Howard: Like I'm wondering if it can solve like, I mean, would you let it
help you solve cleaning up Active Directory or something like that? I mean, I
know there's some very complex GUIs that I don't like getting into and some of
the CRM we use and back to your back to all the way full circle, back to the
beginning of it's not the software and there can be bad software. Well, let's
just say we've had some technology stack overlap that we just don't want to take
the time to say, I don't know, migrate everyone to E5 or something like that.
But for some of the really annoying technology stacks and annoying GUIs and
stuff, I've definitely used like, Claude desktop to help me like go in and,
clean up this or help me put together write up a seven step campaign because I
don't want to like do the whole mapping process. And if yes, if then, and if
they open the email and if they don't open the email, then do this, that a task
like that would normally take me hours with all this.

Farhan Zakir: Sorry to cut you off here. Let me ask you this question and then
I'm going to reverse the roles just a little bit. But do you your personal
stuff, do you consider that cheating? I don't.

Phil Howard: I think that would be stupid not to.

Farhan Zakir: Write.

Phil Howard: Like, however, the only thing I'm thinking is, is like, well, I
should have delegated that.

Farhan Zakir: Yes. If you had the.

Phil Howard: Whoever I delegated it to should have done that. I mean, like, I
find myself saying my I find myself saying to my team now like, hey, we really
want to get the community going. I want people reaching out. I want them asking
in the community, hey, when it comes to a rolling out AI in your organization,
your organization, what's your single biggest frustration, problem or concern?
And I just want them to take notes. And then I want you to, I want you to ask
people, I just want to get that. And then I want you to say, hey, do you mind if
we share that in the community? It's kind of a manual one on one human belly to
belly interaction. And then, hey, if are you doing anything in AI in your
organization right now that's been very successful because we want people to
share. And if you don't do that and you don't get people involved, and you don't
bring people together and connect people together, then we're just going to sit
there dead. So like I've brought on AI granola guy Doud, he's in the community
but I was like, you're a granola guy. Like, why are you reaching out to everyone
manually? Like, we should have just like thrown that into AI, at least gotten
the first question out to everybody and then hop in with the human factor after
someone actually raises their hand. Like that's the type of thing. That's the
guilt, AI guilt. Not everyone's using it.

Farhan Zakir: I think that's a legitimate guilt that not everyone's using it
right. But to feel guilty for using it. I think that's absurd.

Phil Howard: Right? Oh, no. Absolutely not. Yeah. Feel guilty for not using it.
Feel guilty for not knowing it and feel guilty for being behind. And that's
real. And if you can use that as motivation to do, to take action, because most
people think about things and then actually do nothing. then, great. That's kind
of our job.

Farhan Zakir: I also do feel like that, with this craze of AI, it's also
bringing the world together to a certain degree from that perspective, right?
Like there's a lot more opportunities available. Like, I think we're at a time
right now where, the imagination is really just what's guiding us. It's whatever
you can imagine. I think it's possible that technology perspective and the best
part is, is we're all so reliant on technology now, like nobody can survive
without their cell phone, like, so I think I read this a long time ago where you
can have the cell phone chip embedded into you, where all the phone calls are
directly happening. I. I don't know if that was how realistic that was, but I
remember reading something about this a long, long time ago. So where like, say
you're talking like this, right? Essentially. But it's a fun time to be in, I
think,

Phil Howard: And then back to the cost center days. could you please just make
sure that, I know the reality is, the reality is we're still a cost center and,
I gotta pay taxes so we can play around brain chips. here's last question. It's
been a pleasure, by the way. If you could go back in time and give yourself a
piece of advice that, now that you didn't know back in your younger days as an
IT leader, what would that piece of advice be?

Farhan Zakir: man, break things and fix them.

Phil Howard: Mhm.

Farhan Zakir: I mean, a lot of people, I bet, probably go back and say, focus on
education and things like that, right? Like, I think college is not for
everybody necessarily in certain aspects. Yeah. I think college, you can't do it
without college. But I think learning at a very early age that failure is part
of growing up, right? So when I say break things and fix them, I mean that in a
very open ended way, right? It's okay to fail.

Phil Howard: Fail forward, fall down, get back up.

Farhan Zakir: Yeah. I mean, like, I've always been okay with talking to people.
I'm sure you can tell, right? Like I don't have any issues going up to someone
and saying, hey, can I interest you in this? And what's the worst that's going
to happen? They're going to say no. Okay, cool. No problem. I'll move on. Right.
I mean, like, I have faith in your abilities. Have confidence in your ability to
be able to know that you can be successful in whatever you set out to do. And
that sounds so horrible and cliché thing to say, but yeah, it's okay to fail,
right? Open something up. Let it break. if something doesn't work out, it's
fine. There's going to be another opportunity that comes up. But do not, do not,
not take the opportunity.

Phil Howard: Like every black belt will tell you like, just go get tapped.

Farhan Zakir: Yeah.

Phil Howard: Right. No one wants to go like, succumb and be, submitted by
another man or woman. but that's just the reality. There's always going to be
someone that can defeat you. Like in the jiu jitsu city, there was like, every
dog has his day. Like, even if you're like the best guy there, like, everyone.
so that's one way of looking at it. And then there was like, you're never going
to get better without like falling off a surfboard. You're not going to like,
every kid fell down, get back up. So yeah, like I'm a big fan of, fail forward.
I started out as a Cisco startup. I had to go start out at the very bottom when
I left Starbucks in college because I wasn't pre-med. So what is it? I ended up
going creative writing. What is it creative writing guy going to do? Yeah, it
has been an absolute pleasure having you on the podcast. Any final words of
wisdom for your fellow I.t colleagues?

Farhan Zakir: there's so many things we can all say. But like one wisdom that I
would go to everybody, especially for the younger generation coming up in the IT
world, right? One is, or at least my most important one is communication. Learn
to do three things of the following, right? Listen, understand, execute right.
And if you get that pack down the road to success is just. It's wide open for
you. that would be my word of wisdom for anybody coming up in the IT side of
things.

Phil Howard: Yes, you can learn to be an active listener. You can learn to be a
good communicator. You just need some tools to do that. And I try to tell, and
unfortunately, with a lot of the kids growing up nowadays, there's so much
social media and so much kind of just going off into this weird, weird world.
Like really weird world of Instagram and social media and kind of this alternate
universe, which really, really bothers me. It's just really disturbing. And kids
have this inability or high levels of insecurity now to go out into public and
actually interact face to face with different people. And maybe it people have
that as well, but there's tools that we can learn. And I don't mean like the IT
leaders that listen to the show, but there's tools that we should probably be
sharing on like, what are some of the ways that you connect with people? Because
like talking about the weather gets old and it's lame, right? I do think what's
your favorite food doesn't work like I like tacos to you. So, you teach your
kids when you're growing up, it's like, hi, my name is Phil. What's yours? I
mean, like, we have to like teach some of us like.

Farhan Zakir: Yeah. And I think the best way to learn is putting yourself in an
uncomfortable position. And I agree with you one hundred percent. Like the
generation up today is looking for that instant gratification, right? The 30s,
the six second videos, the thirty second of just getting to it. And I find
myself in it too, right? Sometimes I'm watching a video on Instagram and
then 20s into it. There's a commercial reel that comes up and ad that starts
playing and I'm like, I'm not waiting for this. I'm just going to go to the next
video. Like, I think we're all at fault to a certain degree on that. But I think
where we have the benefit is we were put into these awkward positions at an
early age growing up, right? Because you and I did not grow up in the same AI
world or the social media world that these kids are growing up into. So we were
the outdoors kids, right? Come home at sundown, right?

Phil Howard: So just real quick, like. Like tricks of the trade. I would imagine
that. At least eighty five percent of the people listening to this podcast and
people in our group do not give a presentation to executive management that just
has absolutely everybody so enamored and enjoying this presentation so much. And
I think that if we got up and we said, I have one promise for you today, and
that is that this is going to be the absolute best, most enjoyable presentation
you have ever had in your entire life from it. So you better strap yourself in
and be prepared to be wowed. And I think people right away just be like, what?

Farhan Zakir: Yeah.

Phil Howard: because usually it's the opposite. And then you make that
presentation. I don't know, whatever it is, you've got to deliver on that,
right? But if you make it, I don't know. I saw a presentation today and I have
yet to get on many webinars where I was actually like pressing the little crying
face, like laughing thing and hearts and thumbs up. I've never like been on such
a really, really good presentation. Yeah, I should probably give a shout out to
this guy. It's the dude that like, it's the sales guy for Apollo, which is
basically like a data. It's like, Zoominfo basically. I don't know, Apollo and I
should give this guy a shout out because I have yet to be in a presentation that
was that good. James a o. Sullivan he only has one one tagline on LinkedIn.
Number one sales hero. And dude, this guy gave a presentation that just was
like, it was it was amazing. It was just like absolutely fun and engaging. And
if as it guys, we could learn to sell. If we could learn to sell our
presentations and give presentations like that to the board, I'm going to make
this zero trust presentation today the most exciting thing you have ever seen,
because let me show you what happened to Joe Bob, who got the entire company
hacked because they weren't zero trust. And he's an absolute devastation right
now. He has to hide his head somewhere immediately. People would be hilarious.
And now let's look at, whatever. Chris Smith, second most used name in the
United States, who brought his company to their knees and they're out of
business now. Why? Because of zero trust. What does that mean? Who cares? Like
we need it. Okay? Because you don't want to be like this guy. End of
presentation. Everyone gives him a standing ovation. And people love it because
we're not the guys that hide in the server room and we slide pizzas under the
door to them. So as another guy put it on the show. Gnomes that hide under the
stairs or any of these other like, things that we could really be like kind of
funny and like engaging with people. And we got to be salespeople and minor
comedians and that type of thing.

Farhan Zakir: Oh man. Right there. We gotta be salespeople, right? Like, I think
that's what if anybody walks away with anything on this, it's we got to be
salespeople. Like it doesn't stop. we have to constantly sale salespeople. And
like, what I'm getting out of this conversation as well, too, is like my
presentations from now on, need to be suspenseful, need to have drama, a climax
and a plot. So I need to start doing going forward where people are like, dude,
we got to get popcorn ready for this presentation. I mean, it's going to be a
tear jerker here.

Phil Howard: Oh, like they have to. and that goes back to What will people say
about you? What will they think about you? What will they tell their friends and
family about you when you're not in the room?

Farhan Zakir: when you mentioned that earlier immediate thought that goes into
my mind if I'm not there and somebody's talking about me, the one sentence I
want them to say, he gets it.

Phil Howard: Yeah, yeah. That's it. Fixed my crap. Saved us money. Awesome,
dude. Wicked funny. I would sacrifice any other employee for him.

Farhan Zakir: I mean, like, if I can walk away from having a conversation with a
non-tech person in my field or in my, within my company, and they get the
impression when they're done talking to me and say, he gets it. I feel like
that's a mission accomplished.

Phil Howard: Great. And then just build on that every single day. That's it.
Every single day. How are we think when we go into work? How have we made
someone's life better? Memorable? How have we really freaking delivered? So much
so that people are just like, yeah, just they just cannot stop talking about
you. that's how people really grow, I think. And that's how they really do it.
So anyways.

Farhan Zakir: It's all about building relationships. But now for me, it's going
to be all about creating that suspense, that presentation. Man, I'm.

Phil Howard: We should do it. We should figure out, we should put together like
a really good, like the most best cheat sheet in the world. This is it. I'm
going to write this down.

Farhan Zakir: Yeah. One thing I got out of it too is like, sell it like a sales
pitch, man. Like why not? What stops us from doing well,

Phil Howard: It starts by if I could remove the word pitch from the world, I
would because and I'm a strong believer in this because I'm. Yeah. when I first
got started, I used to listen to a lot of Zig Ziglar because I had no idea how
to sell coffee and coffee machines when I was at Starbucks. Okay. I listened to
this guy, Zig Ziglar, who wrote this book called Secrets of Closing the Sales
and I had to sell a bunch of espresso machines. So I went to Barnes and Noble
and bought it on compact disc. Okay. So just to age me a little bit. and, he
said, I can't remember. There's some other like famous like real estate lady
that's like super good at like sales or something. And she said pitch was a
dirty word. And he's like, and I happen to agree with her. And so now I'm on a
mission to remove that because pitch is something that you do to someone, not
something that yeah, it's not something that you do for them. Selling is really
something that you should be doing for them. Everyone should be enjoying it.
Yeah. We love this solution. You're fixing a problem. Solving a need and pitch
is something that, like The Wolf of Wall Street, does some weird psychological,
messed up thing where you rob a bunch of old people of money, and then you make
the whole world think salespeople are the most awful people in the world. And
then all these other people have you come around and talk at their conferences,
and the next thing you know, we've got some sleazeball trying vendor guy that
makes it bad for everybody else trying to like push something because you get a
couple extra points in quota relief. And then every I.T. guy in the world hates
salespeople, when in reality, they themselves need to be a really good
salesperson. And so it's all screwed up because someone decided to start using
the word pitch, and now everyone's using it and we need to fix that problem.

Farhan Zakir: Yeah.

Phil Howard: Farhan has been an absolute pleasure having you on. You've been
heard and you've been heard. Thank you very much.

Farhan Zakir: It's been an absolute pleasure here.