EP217 - Grow your MSP with Apple…Or Get Left Behind with Ben Greiner & Ian Luckett

IAN: In this episode of the IT Experts podcast, we help you understand how you can grow your MSP using Apple.

INTRO: Welcome to the IT Experts podcast, the only podcast to help MSPs scale to 1 million and if already there, get to 5 and go fast. At the end of the day, isn't it all about building a business that works for you rather than you for it? I hope you enjoy the show.

IAN: So good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening. Welcome to the IT Experts podcast, wherever you are today, we are going to be talking to Ben Greiner from Addigy about how to grow your MSP with Apple, or Get left behind in 2025. So good afternoon. Morning to you, Ben. Welcome to the show. How are you doing today?

BEN: Yeah. Good morning, Ian. Thanks. Thanks for having me.

IAN: No problem whatsoever.

BEN: Good to be back in the UK.

IAN: Yes, even if it's just your voice.

BEN: Yeah, that's right.

IAN: And other parts of the world are available. Ben, we're talking today about the I don't know whether we call it a taboo subject. I've got two of the bloody things, MacBooks and Apple devices, right? A lot of people, a lot of the MSPs that we talk to don't support Apple devices. A lot of most of the people that I know have an apple device, in the UK market is, I know it's different as you go out, in the east of the world, it's very, it turns very androidy over there, which is fine. I, people can have different preferences. Some people decide to drive electric cars, but then that's my views on that, and we won't even go there today. But it's really interesting for me, being not terribly technical that the MSP to steer away from Apple. And yet this is the exact opposite side of the coin that we're going to be talking about today. Before we get into the show and this potentially contentious episode, tell everybody who you are, what you do, who do you help and what's your history in the MSP space?

BEN: Thank you. So my name is Ben Greiner and in 1998, I started an Apple focused. Tech company in Chicago, where I live. It was called Forget Computers, and it was focused on the creative market, because those were the people using Apple devices at the time. In fact, you mentioned something, Nia, and you said you have a couple Apple devices, and you see them. I don't know if you said you see them at coffee shops, but I'm thinking that's where I see them. And in 1998, I didn't see them at coffee shops, if I saw one, it was like, Ooh, Hey, I nudged my wife. There's someone over there with an Apple but today honestly, at least here in Chicago, if I go out to a coffee shop, that's almost all I see. Yeah. Apple devices. Yeah. And I would ask people listening to start taking a look around and see, see what because the world has changed, is definitely changing. And anyway, just to finish my story. So I started in 98. It was 2006 that I got started focused on MSP, which is pretty early. I learned about it in 2005 when I was working with a Windows company. And they were going in on the MSP concept and it was a rough transition to go from break fix to retainer, but I did it pretty aggressively in 2006 and built up my Apple company. And in 2020, it to a much larger windows focus team who, this was, we started talking in 2019. So right before the pandemic got a delayed a little bit because of the pandemic, the acquisition did, but basically they realized they needed to get better at Apple and they needed to either build a team or acquire a team and they ended up acquiring my team. I spent two years integrating my team into the larger ecosystem there and they continue to grow today. And then took some time off after two years there and ended up getting a call from Addigy who, for those who don't know, Addigy is an Apple focused MDM platform that I used when I was building my company. And they're like, Hey, could you come help us talk to other MSPs? Yeah. So that's what I do today.

IAN: That's where we are, a reformed MSP owner slash apple. I'm not sure if that's a double whammy or quite what I'm not quite sure today. What's the stigma behind apple in the MSP space? Because every it's really funny because you hear everybody moans about Microsoft other systems are available because they've potentially got a monopoly over everyone and it's if you want email and integration with your office, you haven't really got much choice, right? So you know, you got the windows crowd who will say, this is it. And then you've got most of them also saying, yeah, but we're not going to touch Apple, which is a bit of a contradiction, isn't it really? Cause you're saying I'm going to go all in over here on the left, but on the right hand side, I'm going to, ignore it. And the one thing that I suppose for me personally, I couldn't afford a MacBook in the early days, but when I did the blooming quality of the hardware. I could have sworn that my business would have been, so much more, so much quicker to get off the ground, rather than every time I picked the bloody laptop up, it was Windows Update, all the battery had gone flat. And it was just at that time when you could just do a little half an hour bit of work here or half an hour bit of work there. And it was just so frustrating. And I, the MacBook now it just lasts for bloody weeks and you just, and you don't think about it. What is the stigma in the MSP space? Why is it that there's this kind of cross that comes up when everyone talks about Apple?

BEN: Yeah, that's a great question. And I've been talking to a lot of MSPs about this. And I think there's a little bit of therapy that we have to go through to uncover it because they don't want to admit it, but there, let's agree if we can, that there are a lot of financial incentives to staying in the Microsoft ecosystem for an MSP. They've built up a channel that they've refined over the years and it works relatively well. Yes, we complain about it every time they change their rates, quick aside, but related when I needed to move my MSP company from an in house email server, remember those days to hosted one there was pretty much, there were two options, Google or Microsoft, and I decided I needed to align best with my customers. So I looked at what my customers were using at the time and overwhelmingly they were Microsoft. So I went to Microsoft. So I'm an Apple focused company running on Microsoft office 365 and, Microsoft to their credit has done an excellent job of embracing the apple platform.

IAN: Yes. Very different in the early days. It was not.

BEN: Yeah, it was, I think it was after I can't, I can never get his name right. The new CEO new, it's not new anymore. It was after Balmer, basically when he came in he built great iOS apps for starters. And then I had the product lead from Microsoft the Apple team, basically from Microsoft on a podcast I did several years ago. And, they do some great stuff, but they have a challenge, they have to create. Something that feels like Apple and windows at the same time, that's hard to do. But my point being I embrace the Microsoft platform from an Apple perspective, but surprisingly I still run into very smart people, including MSP owners, who still think there's some Apple versus Microsoft. I don't see that it's Apple and Microsoft working together. And anyway that's a long winded answer to what you just asked me.

IAN: I think it's interesting, isn't it? Because if an MSP. Should they expand their devices so that they then start to look after Apple? It's I just don't deal with Apple. Now, in your view, this is, you're cutting your nose off to spite your face potentially, aren't you here. How can the world of tech and the systems make it easy. Why?... Let's start with why to start with, if an MSP is running along quite nicely, good referral business each year on year, we've got new clients coming in. But why do they need to bother? Bearing in mind, they are probably one of the most shiny ball syndrome affected industries in the whole wide world. But why are they? Why do they need to bother with Apple when they're happy trundling along doing what they're doing buying their Windows PCs and Running quite happily.

BEN: Yeah. And before I answer that, I remembered one thing, I wanted to finish with from the previous question, which is, I mentioned that there's a strong channel program for Microsoft, Apple does not play well in the channel and that's, that I don't think they either, they don't understand it or they're just too cocky and confident and thinking that they don't need it, which is frustrating if they were to participate in the channel and start talking to MSPs, I think they would grow much faster than they are today.

IAN: Interesting. Yeah.

BEN: Despite that fact, they are growing and that's why I think MSPs need to wake up and consider it. But it is a challenge. It's a challenge and an opportunity. It's a challenge because it's a very small part of their business, Apple, right? It's probably there and they're ignoring it. So you could look at it as an opportunity, low hanging fruit. Let's go out, let's get serious about Apple. Let's start managing these Apple devices that we've been ignoring and let's start building an additional pipeline of business from it. And that's the opportunity, but I know it's a challenge because it's such a small portion that we think we can ignore it. But what I find interesting is an MSP is really about standards, and I think you probably know this better than anyone because you built a program where you walk people through, building standards and having procedure and best practices. And a lot of MSPs will have those standards on the Windows side, but on the Apple side, it's the Wild West. They let the client dictate what's happening and that's not a managed service. Is it?

IAN: This is the thing, wasn't it? Because that was, back in the day you couldn't do anything, to an iPhone, or a Mac book. You just couldn't get anywhere near it. But now I believe, they're starting to open it up a little bit more so that, maybe this was the way that the original developer, techies, it was I can't get in there and do what I want to do with it. So I'm not going to use it. And maybe that's something that's starting , to open up with some...

BEN: I think that's, you just hit on one of the frustrations and that is you do not manage an Apple device, like you do a windows device,

IAN: Right?

BEN: Because Apple has developed these mobile device management frameworks to manage these devices that are really foreign to the Windows world. It's not Active Directory, you can't just take over Active Directory and own all the Apple devices. It doesn't work. You have to go through the process of Apple Business Manager and MDM, and now Apple's rolling out DDM, Declarative Device Management, which is a more modern variation of MDM. So that, that can be frustrating to a Windows team. And they're doing well, they're making money on windows. To your point, why do they need to worry about Apple? And my pushback to that is if you ignore it, what is your competition doing?

IAN YEAH: Yeah.

BEN: We know there are people out there, there are people that for example, we talked earlier about the company that acquired my Apple business. They saw the tea leaves and, probably 2018, 2019. And they're working toward that, building their Apple business. And there are plenty of great stories, success stories about Apple in business. And two of them I'll be curious to hear if you've heard of them. Have you heard of Fletcher Previn, former CIO at IBM, now CIO at Cisco?

IAN: No, I haven't.

BEN: I would encourage you and your listeners to look him up, but he has some amazing success stories with Apple. And it started at IBM where I don't know exactly how this originated, but he wanted to get an Apple program started specifically max in the workplace. And he decided to go to Apple because he's works at IBM. Of course, you can get Apple's attention and say, hey, how could we, how should we do this? And he built not just an amazing Apple at work program, but he documented it and showed the return on investment and the value that the Apple devices are bringing. And now he's out there saying that Apple is saving. First, they saved IBM money. Now they're saving Cisco money and when given the choice up to 60 percent of employees are choosing Apple devices at these organizations. Wow. So if we extrapolate that out and I think the challenge is that story is great for Apple, but it doesn't resonate with MSPs because they immediately discount it by saying I'm not IBM. I'm not Cisco. But guess what? You have access to the same devices and the same tools. That IBM and Cisco have. So why couldn't you have those same standards and deliver that same, service or delivery to your customers. And there is a ton of pent up demand for this. Even back in the late nineties, when I started my business and there were only a handful of Apple devices at any of these organizations, anyone who worked there, who saw one of those devices. They were like, how can I get one, and of course, the C level people got them or the creative team got them but everyone wanted them. So I don't think that's changed.

IAN: Much of it must be around budget because they are, a lot more money, than anything, you got your IBMs and Cisco's and all those guys, if they're going to be, shelling out. A lot of money. You're talking, I don't know, typically like probably twice the price of a decent standard sized laptop, isn't it? And everyone kind of jokes, isn't it? Because you get your iPhone and this is where, this is really interesting for me because okay, they've moved a lot of the power away from rather than it being at the server to be, or rather than be on your machine to be like on the server. So that's where, where the air book and all of that sort of stuff's come from. But I have got no, there's no real reason at the moment for me to change my phone. And it's probably about four years old because it does exactly what I want it to do. But then that's for me. I don't, I'm not really too fussed about having too much AI on it, unless they're going to create something that I have a function that I don't know about yet, you've got work to do. And as soon as you get your new iPhone, everyone says all the Samsung people go, yeah, we've had that feature for years, and it's like now you've come up with it. But let's talk about the security side of things because early in the day, back in the day, it was very much, yeah, you've got a Mac, but like you, yeah, you won't, they won't get hacked for that. The hackers don't write code to hack into MacBooks and to, into the Apple network. But that is must be absolute. Rubbish now, isn't it?

BEN: Yeah. Yeah, I would think so. Obviously it's still a smaller target, but it's still a target and we all know from working in the business that the old days of defending the castle, where we all went into to work is gone and it almost doesn't matter what platform you're on these days. If you're going to get, yeah, click the wrong link or enter the wrong information online. It doesn't matter what device you're on. And this is where if I were an MSP owner today, ignoring the Apple devices that are out there, I would be very concerned that one day a client's going to come to me and say, hey, I just got hacked or compromised and. I thought you said you were protecting me and it turns out you're not doing anything on my device. Because we all know when want to say when hits the fan, but that I suppose we shouldn't say that. We all know when the level of scrutiny, goes. through the roof when things go wrong. And so people are looking to blame and prove that you did this, prove that you did that. And my fear is that a lot of MSPs cannot prove that they're doing anything for their clients on their Apple devices. Yet those Apple devices are out there. And I've had too many conversations where I've heard companies say, oh yeah, our RMM of choice does that on Apple. Okay. I don't believe that show it, please show it to me. And they've almost like they've convinced themselves that it is doing it. So they don't have to deal with it. But if they have to prove that they're doing anything other than, I don't know, collecting a a basic inventory of a device. They often can't do it and that's the other challenge is these tools that are focused exclusively on Windows devices. They don't often do well when they transition to an Apple device to your point bringing it back to security and compliance, that's another big word that everyone's talking about, is, we can't, we can no longer ignore a platform. I think there was a time when a lot of these internal IT teams and MSPs thought that, oh, if I ignore Apple long enough, they'll go away, we're beyond that now, they're not going away. In fact, they're growing. And the only roadblock to growth, in my view, are these IT teams who are still trying to keep them out of the infrastructure.

IAN: Interesting. Interesting. MSP's listening to this and going, yeah, I see what you're saying. I know what you're yeah, there is an opportunity there. How do they start to embrace it without a, having to go and relearn and rewire their brains and their teams on the Mac OS or whatever they, whatever it's technically called the operating systems reeducating their clients on the security elements and things like that. Where does an MSP start? Then if they get an opportunity and rather than just going now, I'm going to give it to an apple house. Because, clearly somebody and. I don't know any of the numbers at all, but somebody saw your business as a opportunity to create an Apple department within a larger MSP, which I would imagine that your MSP, or I would not be too surprised if you could have, or you may have commanded a slightly higher price because no one else is doing what you're doing. So therefore it could be, if there was a business of exactly the same size, same numbers, but they were windows, I would imagine that the valuation would be lower. You've got a plug and play Apple team that's just gone in. So if an MSP wanted to start to build a, their own Apple team, where would they start with? I guess building confidence in their ability to service it, understand it, learn the technology. What would they do? Go and buy someone, go and buy an individual, go and buy another MSP or what's the, what's, what would you recommend? Yeah.

BEN: I think we've talked a little bit about this earlier and the idea that if you, once you decide to embrace Apple, it's not just putting an Apple logo or mention on your website and saying, hey, we do Apple. Where's all the business, there, there's a cultural change that needs to happen because so many of these organizations have shunned Apple for so long, they don't even realize. The vibe they're putting out there and which is anti Apple, right? So they have to change that. They have to change their perception and they have to get comfortable and build confidence. And I wouldn't rule out if you're, if you really early days in this and you don't have a lot of Apple devices amongst your customers. And by the way, you should ask your customers if they have Apple devices.

IAN YEAH: Yeah.

BEN: When my business got acquired, I think the estimate was they had a few hundred Apple devices out there and we found a nearly 1500. When we started asking they're out there. You just need to do some start embracing the Apple platform. But I wouldn't rule out partnering with a company who can do it well. And I don't mean giving it away to them building a relationship. That's what I did. I, when I was Apple focused, I still had a handful of Windows devices. There were still the accountants who didn't want to run Apple, rightfully they needed their power, their Excel powerhouse machine. And so I partnered with the Windows, a windows company to help me deliver that what I found interesting. And I tried to be a service provider as an MSP, an Apple MSP to other windows MSPs, but I found there was a disconnect again, probably going back to the culture, but a lot of times, for example, when I paid that windows company to take those windows devices off my hands, I was still making money. Was it a lot of money? No. Would I have built a business around it? Probably not, but I covered my costs. I made a little bit of margin. And everybody was happy, but I paid a premium for that when I tried to flip it around and offer those services to windows teams, I, they wanted to beat me up on price constantly. Can you do it cheaper? Can you do it? It's guys, you don't have a solution right now on the Apple platform. Pay the fair rate, make a little bit of money, build the confidence, as you said, and eventually you can bring it in house. But. I'm sure Addigy doesn't want me saying that because I'm representing Addigy now. They're like, hey, just come buy it directly from us. So yes, there, the other issue is a lot of times you need the right solution. We don't like to call it a tool. It's a solution. And I do think in building the confidence and doing the research, think outside the box. Don't think that you're going to do it the Windows way with the Windows tools you have today. Look at Apple focused tools. And the other thing I just again I don't want to, I know I don't want to plug Addigy, but the support that you're going to get from an Apple focus tool and around the Apple ecosystem is so much greater than you're going to get, say from Microsoft. We know Microsoft Intune can do basic Apple management on their devices. But if you're starting out in the Apple platform, you're going to need a lot more than just. A tool, you're going to need some advice and guidance and support. And that's, I never got that from Microsoft. Maybe you guys have a way to get that. But that's where a company like Addigy and of course, services like mine, where I try to advise MSPs on how to get better at Apple can help when I say services, I'm doing this through Addigy. Start me from talking, Ian.

IAN: Oh no. I was quite interested. I'm just really interested in it because , I mean, but I am a MacBook user with a Windows brain, right? So I am this person who's taken the piss out of people for years going, Oh, I don't know why you've got a MacBook. It hasn't even got a delete key, and all of this sort of stuff. And now it just works. But what's really interesting about this conversation is that you're from what you're saying is it's, to embrace this opportunity, you can't just say, yes, we do it. It's a different cultural way of working because of Apple's attitude to the channel and Apple's attitude to their systems and their processes and their solutions and tools as it would be, the interesting thing that you just mentioned there is that if somebody, if an architect or design house came to you and said, Oh, you do Apple, do you, and you've only just started doing it, they're going to, no one does that when you're with windows. They just say, oh, you're an MSP. Yep. Great. You do, you must do this stuff, they're probably going to ask you by the sounds of things, a bit of a deeper CV on your expert experience of your relationship with apple devices. And massive change that's taken place with their operating systems and things like that. So partnering and building relationships within the apple ecosystem within the channel is it sounds like a, yeah, a good way to do just that.

BEN: And I want to mention play off of that and something you said earlier, because you mentioned, as a lot of people say apple. Devices are too expensive. I can't afford them. But some of those stories I mentioned from Fletcher Previn and the data he has shows that it's the long game. So the entire lifetime of that device is a much greater value. And yeah, you pay a little bit more upfront. But it's going to last longer. It's going to be a better experience. Can we get more value out of it? And so I think that's where MSPs need to consider. This is not a sign me up. I'll sell a few licenses and make some money. This is the long game. You're building a new pipeline of opportunity. And for those that want to grow, it's great for those that want to grow. And I think you, you've probably been in this business long enough to know there are some companies who they don't want to grow.

IAN: No, that's fine. And that's fine. That's cool. You crack on. You want to do whatever makes you happy. Isn't that what that's what life's about? You build a business that works for you rather than you for it. But if you want to work for the business and have a lifestyle business, that's absolutely fine as well. There's many different ways you can cut this cake.

BEN: Yeah, but if you want to grow, I would start looking at investing in growing with Apple because if Cisco and IBM, I don't know if IBM's quite at the level of Cisco, but if they're having over 60 percent of their employees choose Apple, then what's to say in the next 10 years, the business ecosystem isn't more of an equal 50, 50 windows and Apple devices. In business, if you're solely focused on windows, how are you going to compete in that market? You're going to become the niche like I was for years, doing just this little thing. And maybe not having a seat at the table, which for years and years, the apple guy didn't have a seat at the table.

IAN: It'd be interesting because knowing Apple, like many of these other innovators, like Tesla and stuff like that, it wouldn't take anything for them just to press a button to go we're going deep in the channel. This is what we're going to get. We're going to go and chuck a couple of billion dollars at really extracting out of the channel and really working into there. Someone will wake up one day and realize what the size of that opportunity is because either individual mobile phones or, whatever it might be started to slow down in price. I think naturally, the iPhones are, it's a, it does what it says on the tin, of late, they don't do much more than what the last one said on the tin. And if you still want me to pay double again, then that must be petering off. People must do that. I think I've actually got about three iPhones in the office myself, and we're still using an iPhone 10 for some of the videos, which is brilliant because it does what it says on the tin, right? You need a 4k screen and I send it over to our team to do the edits and they go, we don't need this the size of an office block. I just need it in 1080 because most people are watching anything maximum. On a 22 inch monitor, most of them it's on a three inch monitor on their phone. So it's, you don't need all of this kind of So just before we wrap up Ben, been a great, very interesting, thought provoking a show. What's your final thoughts before we bring this one in for a close?

BEN: This is something that we touched on a bit earlier, and that is the cultural difference between Apple and Windows. Ian, I want to mention one thing. I heard on a, I think I heard it on your podcast, but I've heard it on many others, someone arguing that. A car with wheels is good enough and a computer that does what it says it will do is good enough and it can be the cheapest black box available on the market and that I don't agree with that because that is not what people want. People want nice cars. People want to drive around and feeling premium and luxury, not everybody, maybe not a lot of tech geeks, but I think deep down, they still probably would appreciate a nice car. So my point is that when you're making the transition from windows to apple. You have to think less about the box and more about the person sitting in front of the box and what value you can deliver to them.

IAN: And you know what, just to completely steal your thunder and it's a bit about the brand as well. And I, what you've just said there is really struck a chord with me. I remember vividly the first day I got an Apple device and it was an iPod. Airpods Airpod, the MP3 player. They were in Airpods, weren't they?

BEN: Yeah, they're just the...

IAN: Airpod, wasn't it? It was the MP3 player back in the day. Anyway, I had an MP3 player that was 25 pound. And then all of a sudden for my birthday, I got this 150 pound. Apple products and it was like you open it up and you what exactly what you're saying about the experience of this product. And do you know what the funniest thing was? I absolutely fell in love with it, but it's not the funniest thing at the whole story was it was faulty. It didn't work. Oh really? Yeah. So you weren't expecting that way. So anyway, so it sends it back and I literally like within a day or two, the new one arrives and I was so blown away with it. I just sat there and goes. I've got to buy something else from this brand because this is such an incredible product. And that's the experience that I, was it playing the same music that my 25 pound MP3 player was? Yes. Did it look as good? No. Was it, in all of those sorts of things. And it was just really interesting that's the feeling that you've had from this particular product and that brand. So I think, we're coming to the end of the show, but we've but there's time. Bye. Bye. Bye.

BEN: It was iPod.

IAN: It’s also, the brand is also important for this and what people in it, it'll either bother you or it won't. But it's interesting, isn't it? About the person sitting in front of the machine is what Apple are going to be focusing on rather than the machine itself. Very interesting. Thoughts provoking. Anything else to add into the summary?

BEN: So yes if I would just summarize by saying that supporting Apple devices isn't just a technical challenge. It's something that it's an opportunity. Yeah. And if you're willing to commit some time and effort into the long game, it's, it can be a very profitable opportunity for you. And if you don't do it, your competition will.

IAN: Tell us a little bit about what Addigy do Ben, and if people want to continue the conversation with you, how do they get in contact with you?

BEN: Yeah, the best place to reach me is probably linked in my LinkedIn profile, because I try not to check the email very often, but I do go into LinkedIn periodically. And Addigy is a d d i g y dot com. And I would visit the website to get either a free trial or a demo. The sales team, they don't let me near sales opportunities. You can reach out to me, but I'll probably defer you to the sales team. But if you do get into Addigy, I do run an MSP focused program where I try to help MSPs grow with Apple.

IAN: Fantastic. That's brilliant. Ben, thank you very much for your time with the show today. It took a couple of times to get this one off the ground due to. My illness before Christmas, but nevermind, we did it and we've got it all out of the way. Wishing you and the team, all the success for 2025 and yeah, hopefully see some more Apple products. Bumbling around the channel. That'd be an interesting one. If they might be listening to the show today, so there's an opportunity there for you.

BEN: I hope people reach out to me on LinkedIn in. Thank you very much. I'm glad you're healthy and I really appreciate the opportunity. No problem at all.

IAN: Great stuff. Lovely. Look after yourself. Take care. Catch up with you soon.

BEN: See you soon. Thanks.

OUTRO: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, just before you go. And if you're curious about how this episode links with the ability to scale your MSP to a million or, or if you're already there, accelerate to five, then we want to invite you to come and take the MSP mastery quiz. And in just three minutes, you're going to get a 360 degree scan of your business where you can identify the one or two tactics that can help you find more time engaging along your people and help generate more leads in your MSP. It's really simple. Just click on the link in the show notes. And if you have enjoyed this episode, we'd love to get some feedback from you by means of a rating review on Spotify your podcast platform of choice. We really appreciate every single one of them. Now you can go and enjoy the rest of your day and we look forward to catching up and connecting with you soon. All the best.