EP145 – Break Fix Edition –
You Are Not Alone with Ian Luckett

INTRO

In this episode of the IT Experts Podcast, we'll let you know, do you know what, you're not alone.

Welcome to the IT Experts Podcast, the only podcast to help MSP scale to 1,000,000, 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. Bit of a break fix edition. A quick, short, sharp blast for you today. And we're going talk about, you know, being alone been a bit isolated, been a bit, you know, disconnected from everything else as an MSP business owner. And I want to just share with you a little bit of a story on something that happened this week in the growth hub, uh, we have one of our accountability pods and where we come and share wins and remove blockers and help people move forwards and progress and grow and scale their MSP's and one of the guys had been going through quite a bit of business change. Quite a bit of organizational change, quite a bit of client change. Chucking a couple of holidays, a few bank holidays, a bit of staff leaving as well and it gets to a point where sometimes you're just kind of like had enough, so Stuart asked this this particular guy said, hey, how are you? And he replied. Yeah, I'm fine now. If anybody knows Stuart of old, you would have known that he wouldn't have accepted that. So he asked a question in a different way. And he said, hey, you know, how are you? The guy who he was talking to knew what Stuart really meant and he basically the floodgates opened. He just said, do you know what I was just getting a bit fed up with this. I've had this change. I've had this client change. I don't really know which way to turn. I've had a holiday, I've had some great time with the family. I'm not really feeling very motivated about it at the minute and pretty much this guy just opened up his heart and, you know, threw up, metaphorically speaking, all over the zoom call and what then pursued was something that I've never ever seen in my life. There's about eight guys on the call. And every single one of them put their hand up, and I'd I've never seen this wave of support come over before because the reason that happened was because everybody resonated with what was going on in this guys head.

And the purpose of this podcast is to share with you if you're feeling alone and you're feeling isolated and you're feeling like everything's on top of you and you're not really moving any forwards, we've got some things to help you out and to help you move forward and to get these blockers out of the way and really really simple, really really, you know, we see this, we see this quite a lot because it can be an isolated place. Many MSP business owners are accidental business owners and you know you don't like to ask for help a lot of the time, because whether it's a man thing, whether it's a a culture thing, whatever it is, the fear of failure don't want to be embarrassed or anything like that. You just don't do it, and that's fine. And that's cool. You know that's absolutely fine. But you know, the things I just want to share with you today is that everybody in the IT channel and MSP business owner at some point has been where you are. Right. We talk with MSP business owners who are low multi 6 figures. Yesterday I was having a conversation with the £7 million MSP just sold his business for £7 million and he didn't kind of know where he was going. He didn't know what he wanted to do but the things that he done and learned, as he grew from six to six, you know, to one to two, three to four to five, six, seven million, the businesses change rapidly. So everyone in the channel has been where you've been. You are not alone. But if you sit in a darkened room, thinking that the world's going to get better and thinking that the problems that you've got scuttling around in your head are going to disappear, I'm afraid to say. It's going to take a long time, so you know there are people out there, have done it and this is the wonderful thing that happens every single day, you know, with the work that that, that Stuart and I are doing. Because you know, someone will come up with some random comment or some random tactic in the way that they consume some of our training, or they consume part of what they should be doing, or something they've learned in the community. And it will be completely obscure, but it worked for them and that's the really key thing. There's so much learning out there that you could be getting. And when the chips are down and when you feel like everything is just on your shoulders, that is not the time to, you know, to, to go into yourself, to be unpleasant from events from you know to be hiding away now is the time, you know, to ask for help and ask for support because. It's all about having fun, isn't it? All about having fun making memories with the family, making a nice sustainable business to secure your future financially Independence, if that's what floats your boat, it's about having a great time. So you know you're not gonna have a great time if you isolate yourself away.

Second thing, I want to just share with you, just get yourself an accountability buddy, whoever it might be, preferably no one in the family, but it will be someone there, you know, because as the guys were mentioning yesterday, a problem shared is a problem halved. You know, so don't isolate yourself, you know, and we're here all the time. I haven't got time to turn up to the call today. I'm too busy. I'm busy. Busy being busy. I'm doing this, but now is the time when you need that support around you, you know, on the call that we had, this guy came off the call and he was like, so motivated and, you know, really had some really deep thinking on what to do and how to approach the situation and how to drive himself out of this hole that he got himself in. Because remember, you know, if you think you're right, you think you're on, you're probably right because it's the way that we think about things that that make us, you know, the people that we are and it changes our and shapes our future as it would be. So look at the people around. Get yourself an accountability buddy. Go and have a good old blooming cry if you need to. You know, with them on a on a whenever it is on a, you know, whatever day you're going to talk to him and just make sure you got somewhere he's got your back. Got your ears and know what you're going through and you know it can be great to have those little relationships, you know, with somebody there, who's going to, you know, keep you to account. You can have a check in. They can make sure you're OK and all of that kind of great stuff.

The next one is join a blooming community, the IT channel, MSP channel is absolutely full of communities. Yes, of course we'd love you to come and join the growth hub, but if that's not right for you, you've got the Tech Tribe amazing community, thousands of MSP's all over the world all doing the same thing, cutting the same cloth, having the same mistakes, having the same meltdown. And coming up with the same challenges, et cetera, et cetera, same with CompTIA. You know again that's an amazing community, brilliant events we've got running up there and there's also other vendor groups that that have got their own peer groups as well. So I don't really care which community you join to a point, but get yourself in a community you know, get yourself amongst like minded people who are ambitious to grow, who are going to be going through those challenges, who are going to be going to, you know, go through those bits and pieces that you're going through everyday, stuff that's going through your head. They're ****** little voices that are going, and I can't do this. I'm not worthy. I'm not worthy. I'm, you know, I can't lead people. I can't manage people. Yes, you. Can you know, and if you take the tea off, then you certainly can, if you're saying all the time that you can't.

And once you've got that, once you've understood and once you're learning and you kind of got yourself in a place, you've got someone there to hold you to account. You joined a great community. You're asking great questions in those communities, by the way, that is the most important thing. Don't just go into a community and skulk about, go in and ask some great questions. Set up your new direction. Where do you want to go. And I want you to decide where you want to go. I want you to commit about how you're going to get there and start to move forwards, execute on a task that you set yourself, take actions with your team. Make some mistakes. That's absolutely cool. But I want you to learn from those mistakes. And then I want you to reset. Retest and review as you're moving forwards. And the last thing is, oh, I want you to enjoy yourself and have some fun. So decide what you're going to do. Commit how you're going to do it. Execute on the plan. Take action every single day to move yourself nearer, because really, what this is all about is where you are today, where you think you are today and the reality and look at it from a data point of view, where do you want to be, what does success look like, What does winning look like for you, and what's all the interference and all the crap in the middle, And how do you reduce it and how do you reduce it so much that you actually remove it so that that turns into a plan that you believe in and that turns into a plan that you can move forwards. And then take that action.

Make those mistakes. Learn from those mistakes. So don't repeat them, reset, and then enjoy yourself. And that is pretty much the message that I wanted to get across with you today and when you do this, you will build confidence the fog will clear from your head. All the crap will get out of your head and you'll see you'll be more productive. You'll enjoy what you're doing. You'll feel better. You'll feel happier, you'll feel more energized. And isn't that what this is all about at the end of the day?

And just before we go, I just want to share. A couple of things with you. Number one, please go back and listen to episode 120 of this podcast. I'll put a link in the show notes. It was with our great friend Nigel Moore from the tech tribe and it's around, It's OK not to be OK and this is where he had a really vulnerable chat with Nigel about his own story. About you know what to do to get out your own way and absolutely fella tales into this episode a hundred percent.

And the second thing, if you need to talk, if you wanna have a chat, look me up on LinkedIn. Hit the message bit. Send me a message. Let's have a chat. Simple as that really. So really this this podcast has been driven by some wonderful, wonderful, you know, people and some wonderful questioning that we've had in the growth hub. And some great results at the back of it. And I just wanted to share that with you today and get this message out there. You are not alone. You are not on your own. Listen to this again. Then take some notes if you need a hand, give us a shout. Have a great day.

OUTRO

So I hope you enjoyed the show. If you did, I'd love it if you could leave a rating and review on your favorite podcast platform. If you want to learn more about how to take your MSP to a million, or if you're already there, go faster then come and join Stuart Warwick and myself in the Scale of Confidence. Facebook group. Link’s on the Show Notes. You go and enjoy the rest of your day and. I look forward to connecting with you soon.