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442- Listen, Understand, Execute: The IT Leadership Edge w/Farhan Zakir · You've Been Heard

• 0:00
  Speaker A: I think where we fail, as IT executives is we're very technical, right? 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, 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. Right? And I've seen, and you generally, I see this at the low level, like tier one text, tier two texts and things like that, where they get really frustrated because somebody called them and they said, oh, my computer's not turning on. Did you press the power button? Right? 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.
• 1:06
  Speaker B: After talking with IT leaders, I've come to discover one thing. And it's the same thing, you know, it's the same thing everyone else knows, whether they want to admit it out loud or not. Nothing gets done in any company without it touching it. Nothing. But here's the thing. When everything's on fire, when nothing's working, when the ransomware hits, when the whole business grinds to a halt, it is completely indispensable. You're the most valuable asset in the company. But when everything's running like a well oiled Tesla, you're a line item, a cost center on a spreadsheet. You've done the work, you, you've built the career, you've earned your seat at the executive roundtable. But having a seat at the table is one thing. How much nicer would it be to actually be heard? This is. You've been heard. 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?
• 2:13
  Speaker A: 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 a 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 sisters had taken care of that. But ultimately, like, had this conversation with my dad and it was just like, hey, I can do this if you want me to. I'm just gonna 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 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?
• 3:17
  Speaker B: Truthfully, a lot. Now it's flipped. It's not the same anymore.
• 3:20
  Speaker A: I mean, at the end of the day, you're right, right? There's a demand, you're successful, you live a good life, et cetera, et cetera, 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 smartest. But, like, that was the first time I've actually seen him like, 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 the first time, and as cliche as this sounds and as like a movie line as this sounds, I was just like, that, at least I'll be happy. And if I'm happy doing what I'm happy doing, then I'll. I'll find money in it.
• 4:17
  Speaker B: This is so wild. My dad, literally, same conversation. This is a long story. But, yeah, same thing.
• 4:23
  Speaker A: I mean, so 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 a medical school in Pakistan. So I came back to Orlando. I growing up in Orlando, it's hospital hospitality driven, right. Lives, that's all you can think of, right. Disney's there, Universal's there. 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, I felt like I was always good at that. I networked and joined a company that owned 14 different hotel properties. And then very quickly kind of got into the accounting side from there.
• 5:05
  Speaker B: I want some like hero story or some pains or we have to link this to some kind of painful story. There's gotta be some story.
• 5:12
  Speaker A: Yeah, the story's gonna 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 my any degrees at that point. So no educational background. And it's just kind of a big motivator in my way up. 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. Right. Golf club industry. And they were looking for somebody with an accounting background. Interviewed with them, Man, I wind and dined the CEO of that company. When they came, because they were driving through Orlando, they're 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, like the most awkward interview for me. But he's like, oh, bring your family too. So I'm there. We're interviewing for this position. Didn't hear back from him for like two, three months. And then finally three months later, they called me like, okay, come join me. 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 the CRP 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 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 COO 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 of this 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. Been really blessed in that. Like, in that fact.
• 7:16
  Speaker B: Was it just the ability to. Was it the ERP success?
• 7:19
  Speaker A: It was the ERP success that started it all for me, to be very honest.
• 7:23
  Speaker B: Such a difficult thing that anyone that's like a whiz bang at that and somehow brings sanity to that in sanity, comfort, coddling, like some sort of streamlined. Anything that's anything other than a dumpster fire. Yeah, it stands out.
• 7:44
  Speaker A: I. 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. 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.
• 8:11
  Speaker B: 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 you're not the first CFO/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 guide 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. 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. Your CFO doesn't want 47 Internet bills. We help IT teams consolidate multi location Internet into parent child billing with coterminous contracts with while still buying wholesale from the best providers. It gets control, finance gets clarity. No disruption, no sales pitch. Just go to you've been heard.com and answer the seven questions to simplify, streamline and save.
• 10:02
  Speaker A: 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 text, tier two text and things like that where they get really frustrated because somebody called them and they said, oh my computer's 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 our 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?
• 11:54
  Speaker B: 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 gonna 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. So I like logged back out and I logged back in real quick. But that was the type of. And it wasn't that that ended up not fixing the problem, right? But the fact that I felt like that with a third party vendor means that their 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.
• 13:22
  Speaker A: 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 her 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.
• 13:44
  Speaker B: 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.
• 13:51
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 13:52
  Speaker B: It was just like, you know what I mean?
• 13:54
  Speaker A: It's like I used to have, in One of the MSPs that I work 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 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.
• 14:52
  Speaker B: Pull down your passwords off the screen.
• 14:54
  Speaker A: Yeah. I've literally taken pictures and sent it to people. I'm like, okay, there's a post it note on here with all your passwords on there, right? I'm like, guys, come on. Right? But how I go about it is, is what made the difference, right? I didn't go in there and just yelling and throwing a fit and say, oh, what are you doing? Are you putting our company at risk? Et cetera, et cetera. 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.
• 15:27
  Speaker B: Right, so you brought up a really good point. So hourly wage people, people that don't care, every company's got them the 80 20, you've got 80% of the people that don't give a crap, 20% of the people that are like bought in with it or whatever. Then you've got the really big autumn level of people that might be a completely deranged employee. Someone that doesn't care, doesn't care about sifting company data, whatever it is. That's why we have like lawyers that send out cease and desist letters.
• 15:51
  Speaker A: My favorite are the high school summer job kids. Those are my favorite. Yeah. Because they just don't care at all.
• 15:58
  Speaker B: 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 gonna be successful?
• 16:11
  Speaker A: Right?
• 16:11
  Speaker B: 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 gonna be successful or not? What's the hardest thing that it people have to deal with?
• 16:24
  Speaker A: 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, the VPs, they fully, I think they capture that. But when we're talking about the lower level people, they, they don't care, right? It's not their data.
• 16:42
  Speaker B: Well, let's explain this then, then. And the best way possible. How valuable? First of all, what data is valuable, right? Is it all and how valuable and why should I care?
• 16:58
  Speaker A: 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? 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, then you got HIPAA data as well too. But like, if we're talking about this, like, how would you like it? I just put all of your personal information on this table and just everybody, right? And in, in, in a coaching, in 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, it's almost a good click, a light bulb going up 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 cards. 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 have 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 charge, 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 like, oh yeah, that is a smart idea. Right. Don't put your passwords all in one notebook or 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.
• 19:38
  Speaker B: 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. 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?
• 20:27
  Speaker A: Well, the example you just used is more of a reality than even as a hypothetical scenario, straight up bills not getting paid. Yeah. It's it. I mean, it. Like, especially when you're talking about payroll data, right? How many times do you see companies switch from one payroll vendor to another payroll vendor and not even put into the consideration, hey, do I need my historic data? What do I do with that? 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?
• 21:13
  Speaker B: Yeah. A 20% loss in any category would be just devastating. Complete change of subject. What are people going to be talking about 18 months from now that we're not talking about today? What's your prediction?
• 21:26
  Speaker A: 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 not everybody. Everybody's tip of the tongue, right? AI, AI, AI. I think 18 months from now and maybe a little bit longer, I'll say 24 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 happened. So finally I flagged the bartender down, and I'm like, hey, are you gonna 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 got to order through there. Efficient, right? Because now I don't have to wait on somebody to come take my order. I can just quickly go on and put my order 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. 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 100% corp. I have to call big cell phone companies that would be on hold for like 38 minutes and stuff like that. But the example that I would use on that is then 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 tea 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 8 o' clock in the morning. And if 8 o' clock is not available, AI 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 the afternoon, et cetera, et cetera, just having that animate 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. So I think we'll nail that.
• 23:54
  Speaker B: 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, I think AI has to be the assist tool. I don't think it can replace creativity. I don't think it should replace. I had a big kind of like fallout with the kids the other night because I was like, look, if you can show me how you did this with a. 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?
• 24:28
  Speaker A: The. I'll give you one thing and 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, your cell phone bill, you have so many options. You can send the 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 may be like 60, 70, right? Or 50, 60, 70 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
• 25:19
  Speaker B: movie Wall E, the robot one, a long time ago.
• 25:21
  Speaker A: Yes, a long time ago. I just rewatched it again a few. Few days ago with my kids. 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. We're just all getting the dumbing down
• 25:40
  Speaker B: of America is a real concern. It's a real thing. 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. It was direct from Mr. Alex Hormozy's 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 overwhelming amount of AI guilt and overwhelm. And basically what he's saying, that's from it. And 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 90% of people. So that means there's 10% 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 will really have multiple agents mapped out, will 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.
• 27:13
  Speaker A: Yeah, I. I would agree. 100. And we don't. I don't think there's a need for any of that guilt, though. Right. I think we purposely put that.
• 27:22
  Speaker B: Point is. I think the point is it's a huge opportunity to not feel guilty. And, like, if there's only 10% 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.
• 27:47
  Speaker A: I agree that 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, 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 came, 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, use your kids as an example. I'll give you a prom example that I shared with my kids because my son asked me, my 13 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 when 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 gotta wait until that book comes back or go to the public library. All right, cool. I'm like, utilize A.I. 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, four different people. Now I can learn it on my own. The answers are readily building up complex.
• 29:48
  Speaker B: 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 gui's that I don't like getting into and some of the CRMs 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 the.
• 30:50
  Speaker A: Sorry, 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?
• 30:58
  Speaker B: I don't. I think that would be stupid not to. Right. Like however, the only thing I'm thinking is, is like well, I should have delegated that.
• 31:06
  Speaker A: Yes, if you had the resources, whoever
• 31:08
  Speaker B: I delegated it to should have done that. I mean like I find myself. Thank my t. I find myself saying 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 organ, 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 and the community? It's kind of a manual oneon one human belly to belly interaction, 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 every. Just going to sit there dead. So like, I've brought on AI Granola Guy. D. He's in the community. But I was like, you're AI 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 right, you know, to everybody, and then hop in with the human factor after someone actually raises their hand. That's the type of thing, that's the guilt. AI guilt. Not everyone's using it.
• 32:09
  Speaker A: I. 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, right?
• 32:16
  Speaker B: Oh, no, absolutely not. 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.
• 32:33
  Speaker A: 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 we're also reliant on technology now. Nobody can survive without their cell phone. Hey, 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 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.
• 33:19
  Speaker B: And then back to the Cost center days. Could you please just make sure that 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 the last question. This has 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? Man?
• 33:47
  Speaker A: Break things and fix them. 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 said break things and fix them, I mean that in a very open ended way. Right? It's okay to fail, fail forward, fall
• 34:15
  Speaker B: down, get back up.
• 34:16
  Speaker A: I mean, look, I've always been okay talking to people. I'm sure you can tell, right? Like I don't have any issues going up to someone and saying, hey, okay, interested in this and what's the worst that's gonna happen? They're gonna say, no, okay, cool, no problem, I'll move on. Right? I mean like faith in, 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. Like any of the consistent sounds so horrible and a cliche 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.
• 34:53
  Speaker B: Like every black bet will tell you, like, just go get tapped.
• 34:57
  Speaker A: Yeah, right.
• 34:58
  Speaker B: 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 jujitsu 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 at 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 a creative writing guy gon do? Yeah. It has been an absolute pleasure having you on the podcast. Any final words of wisdom for your fellow IT colleagues?
• 35:44
  Speaker A: 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 packed down the road to success, it's just, it's wide open for you. That would be my word of wisdom for anybody coming up in the IT side of things.
• 36:16
  Speaker B: 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 kind of 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. I don't mean like the IT leaders that are listening 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? Just, 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. Do you teach your kids when you're growing up? It's like, hi, my name's Phil. What's yours? You know, I mean, like, we have to like, teach some of us. Like, yeah.
• 37:25
  Speaker A: And I think the best way to learn is putting yourself in an uncomfortable position. And I agree with you 100%. Like, the generation up today is looking for that instant gratification, right? The 30 seconds, the six second videos, the 32nd of just getting to it. I. I find myself in it too, right? Sometimes I'm watching a video on Instagram and then 20 seconds into it, there's a commercial reel that comes up, an ad that starts playing, and I'm like, I'm not waiting for this. I'm just gonna 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?
• 38:11
  Speaker B: So just real quick, like, like tricks of the trade, I would imagine that at least 85% 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 to. So you better strap yourself in and be prepared to be wowed. And I think people right away just be like, what? Yeah, 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. 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. 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 zoom info, basically. You guys 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, I was amazing. It was just 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 am 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 them 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.
• 40:54
  Speaker A: So.
• 40:54
  Speaker B: Or as another 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 gotta be salespeople and minor comedians and that type of thing.
• 41:10
  Speaker A: 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 gotta be salespeople. Like it doesn't stop. We have to constantly say 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, classmax and a fly. I need to start doing going forward where people are like, dude, we gotta get popcorn ready for this presentation. I mean it's gonna be a tear jerker here.
• 41:40
  Speaker B: 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?
• 41:54
  Speaker A: When you mentioned that earlier, immediate thought that goes into my mind. If I'm not there and somebody's talking about me, one sentence I want them to say, he gets it. Yeah, yeah, that's it.
• 42:05
  Speaker B: Fixed my crap, saved us money. Awesome dude. Wicked funny. I would sacrifice any other employee for him.
• 42:13
  Speaker A: I mean like if I can walk away from having a conversation with a non tech person in my field or in, in my, within my company and they get the impression when they're done talking to me, say he gets it. I feel like that's a mission accomplished.
• 42:29
  Speaker B: Great. And then just build on that every single day. Every single day. How are we think when we go into work? How have we made someone's lives better, memorable? How have we really freaking delivered so much so that people are just like, yeah, they just cannot stop talking about you. That's how people really grow, I think. And that's how they really.
• 42:51
  Speaker A: So anyways, 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.
• 42:59
  Speaker B: 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.
• 43:06
  Speaker A: Yeah, one thing I got out of it too is like sell it like a sales pitch, man. Like why not?
• 43:11
  Speaker B: What stops us from doing it starts by. If I could remove the word pitch from the world, I would. Because I'm a strong believer in this. Because I am. 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, 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 world 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. Yeah. It's not something you do for them. Selling is really something you should be doing for them. Everyone should be enjoying it. 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 sleaze ball 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 IT 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.
• 44:44
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 44:44
  Speaker B: Father Hennig has been an absolute pleasure having you on. You've been heard and you've been heard.
• 44:50
  Speaker A: Thank you very much. It's been an absolute pleasure here.