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Rebranding for the Better with Paul Sponcia · We Built This Brand

• Paul: People want somebody who's buttoned up and understands their business and can help them navigate these uncharted waters and make sense of all this technology. I think branding is a big piece of that. Chris: Welcome to We Built This Brand. I'm your host, Chris Hill. And today we're talking to Paul Sponcia, the principal and CEO of the IT company. Paul has a history of helping build great IT service brands here in East Tennessee. Be that Claris Networks or his current business, the IT company. Paul actually joined the IT company back in 2010, which at that time was a company named CSK Technologies and he oversaw a rather dramatic brand refresh at CSK, transforming IT from CSK into the IT company. And in this episode, we're gonna do a deep dive into that story, why they chose the brand, the process of rebranding, and the eventual outcomes of that process. I've known Paul for quite a while. We've known each other since I was a. And he was working with my dad, and then now, you know, we've been able to work in the same industries together over the years, and I've even literally gotten to work across the street from Paul. So, It's been really cool to know of him over the years, to bump into him, places, and so to finally get to sit down and actually learn more about his story, how the IT company came to be, and everything else that you'll hear today, I think was really illuminating and really fun. So we go into a lot of detail about all of that, why it matters, we talk about a lot of branding stuff, and frankly, even if you're not interested, Paul has a lot of good wisdom to share, and I think you'll get a lot out of this episode. Without further ado, here's my interview with Paul Sponcia, Principal and CEO of the IT company. Alrighty, welcome back. I'm Chris Hill, as always, and with me today is Paul Sponcia. Paul, welcome. Paul: Thanks. Glad to be here. Thanks for having me. Chris: Yeah, yeah. Paul, when we, um, we've known each other a while, I feel like, just in passing or through different, Professional jobs and things like that. Me working at AT& T. I remember having to work with you all on some projects when you all were the, I guess, more the early days of the IT company. So Paul: probably, probably digital crossing as well. Back in those days, I would think maybe, Chris: yeah, Paul: certainly, certainly years and years and years with your dad as well. Yeah, Chris: my dad, for sure. Paul: Back to swim, back to swim team at Gulfwood. Chris: Oh yeah. Yeah. Those were the days I love, I love the swim team there and lifeguarding there too, watching, probably watching some of your kids and stuff growing up. So that's awesome. But yeah, so we've, we've known each other a while and you know, over that time I've, I've gotten to see. I'm sure you've gotten to see some of my career growth. I've gotten to see some of your career go and, you know, grow over time and lead to where it is today at the IT company. And one of the cool things that I wanted to do today is really do kind of more of a deep dive into the evolution of what it takes to go from moving a business from, you know, maybe a more traditional service that it's used to offering to newer technologies and a newer transition. That transformation is not easy for anybody. I think you and I can both safely say we've been in the, in telecom in a time of great transition going from traditional landlines to high speed internet and then on to cell phones and higher technology stuff, higher even than cell phones, you know, cloud managed services and things like that. And just the world we, you know, think nothing of today, but, you know, several years ago was quite a big transition. So we'd love to just dive into that with you today and how you had to rebrand. What was CSK Technologies into the IT company? So let's dive in a little bit and talk a little bit more about your background first, because as much as we know each other, most of the audience doesn't know who you are, so I'd love for you to just share a little bit about your background and what led to you being with the IT company. Paul: Yeah, I've been, uh, space of some type of IT services, managed IT, gosh, since 1996, a long time. Yeah, it's a really, really long time. So it came out of a construction company where I was in IT and wrote some software and anyhow, created a managed IT company, uh, known as Claris Networks. So I spent 11 years building that company, left there, uh, spent a couple of years doing some consulting for a couple of managed IT companies. And at Claris too, we went through a rebrand. We were actually RM Technologies first, and then we rebranded as Claris Networks. And so marketing and branding have always been a very, very important thing to me, extremely important to me. I've always felt like there's something powerful about a brand, um, even a brand with just an icon. I remember. When we were thinking about rebranding to Claris, one of the things I remember telling the folks that were working on it was, you know, you always know what the AT& T, speaking of AT& T, you always know what the AT& T symbol is. Like, when you see that little symbol, everybody knows that's AT& T when you see the swoosh. Everybody knows that's Nike when you see the three stripes. Everybody knows that's Adidas, you know, so I'd harken it to that. Like, I want something that when you just see the icon, you know who it is. Um, so branding has always been really important to me, but, um, I joined CSK, what was CSK in December of 2010, and I knew that we needed to do A rebrand, uh, relatively soon. I knew that the name was, uh, nothing wrong with the name. It was the founders and, and his wife's initials. But I knew it didn't carry enough from a branding perspective for us to really be able to create a mark and a style and all the things I, I felt were important. Chris: Right. Paul: So anyhow, that was that. I joined it in 2010 and it wasn't too long before I was like, we need a new face, Chris: And, and, and I totally get that. Having, having been in telecom of that era. Like a lot of the tech companies that were the IT support companies that were, you know, local to the areas that I operated in were these like CSK technologies or RM technologies. They were initials first and never really exactly knew what they stood for or why you just knew they were. And that was great for, I guess, word of mouth, but you know, for a new business looking for, you know, an IT company, you know, something like RM technologies doesn't just like Automatically spark. Oh, this is the company. I need to help me solve my problems, right? Paul: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that was, you know, both of those names, there was always something about it that I knew would have to be different because it didn't make it didn't just make enough sense. And I always felt too. Like, there's a, there's gotta be a plain way to say it. Even, you know, it's funny. Claris doesn't exist anymore, but. You know, Claris was a, was a combination of two Greek names that we put together, but it was, I wanted the word networks in it because back then we were a big cloud hosting company and infrastructure company, et cetera. So I've always been a believer too, and just say who you are, you know, don't, don't try to come up with, uh, these fancy names that nobody knows quite what they mean. Chris: Yeah. Throw, throw a bunch of things together and be like, we're who good dots or something. All right. Paul: Kyros, you know, it's like, you know, whatever. I mean, there's a lot of cool Greek names, but only people that study Greek know what they mean. Chris: Exactly. And how many, um, Greek scholars are you going after with the company? Paul: That's right. It's tough. Yeah. Well, we, we tend to fall in love with the things, you know, I've, I've, I've said this before about like, uh, product branding, like for the most part in these types of businesses, nobody really cares what the product's called. You could come up with a lot of really cool names. But they're probably not going to remember what the name of the product they bought is. They just know I'm calling the IT people, you know, and so other things like, you know, tacit things that you hold in your hand and that you touch and that you feel those make sense to have a name, but services are a little tougher to. To align all these names too, because they, I mean, it's fine and important, but I think largely to the customer. They're like, I don't even know what it's called. Just get it to me. Does it do what I need it to do? Does it serve the service I need? That's right. That's all I care about. Chris: Yeah, I've, I've definitely been there many a times. I remember when I first came into the telecom industry, this fresh out of college, I was in training and they gave me this. Dictionary of telecom terms. And then I think it was bigger than the actual dictionary itself. Paul: I'm sure. Yeah. A lot of acronyms. Chris: Yeah. My favorite one was going through there and finding PFM. And I was like, I think I'm going to use this term a lot. And for those that don't know, PFM just stands for pure freaking magic. And it just killed me that that was in that giant dictionary. That's funny that that was in there. Yeah, yeah. It was quite snarky. That's funny. But yeah, so like it's. It's definitely a challenge. And at the end of the day, yeah, you have customers that don't really understand what you do. They just want you to make it magically go away and magically get solved. I think a lot of times now, granted, you do have more high end customers that do understand and need to know that depth, but that definitely affect affects the business itself. So when you think about CSK and you think about where you were at prior to the rebrand, What was that market? Were you servicing a lot of high end customers, or where was the business position? Paul: Well, you know, it was, uh, the guy that founded it, Chris, had done a great job, but it was about a million dollar business. You know, it wasn't very large, uh, at the time. Um, not that a million dollars is, is a, is a teeny tiny business either, but, you know, it was doing about a million. And, and when you're at that size in this business, you're typically serving a very certain kind of customer, typically fairly small. Customer, uh, not as mature. Yeah. Yeah. Just from a business perspective, they're not just not very mature. And again, everybody, everybody goes through that evolution too. I mean, that's just part of it. When you have five or 10 employees, you can't be as mature and nor do you need to be as mature an organization as when you're 30 or 40 or 50 employees. And so we did have a couple of larger customers, um, but for the most part, they were all Smaller, you know, 5, 10, 15 employee companies, um, not super mature, sophisticated, not, um, you know, not, uh, not even necessarily interested in kind of the higher end level of services that we sort of dreamed of providing and the reason I came in and it was brought in as well. Was to kind of take the company to the next, the next level of delivery and type of customer we could serve and et cetera, which is one funny thing is we did buy another acronym, another, uh, three letter company later on, which was RTL, which stood for Richard Travis lay. So it was another one of the, one of the initial companies. So there, there's a lot of them out there. Chris: I mean, for, for what it's worth, I remember Mitel, which is a big phone system company, which I think has since been acquired. Stood for Mike and Terry's lawn mowing. Paul: Oh, I didn't know that. Didn't really. Yeah. Chris: I'll have my editors verify that and make sure I'm making that up, but that's what I always remember it being. And they were like, yeah, it's Mike and Terry's lawn mowing is what they originally, and they started selling phones. I guess they pivoted. Paul: Somebody needed a phone system while they were mowing their lawn. Chris: That's exactly Paul: right. But yeah, the business, the business was, uh, you know, I think that at the time the brand fit, the business was fine. And to Chris, again, to Chris's credit, he had built a good business, but he hadn't, he didn't need to. And he didn't really, I don't know that he cared a whole lot about the branding part of it. You know, he, he was a technical person is very, very good at what he did. And he cared about, you know, serving the customer from a technical perspective and the brand part of it was a kind of secondary to him. Chris: Yeah. So you're, you're serving some, you know, smaller businesses it sounds like as you're growing. You have this ideal of where you want to go with services, and then you decide to transform the name of the company to the IT company. How did you get to the name, The IT Company? That's a really funny, Paul: funny story. I didn't know until much later how genius the name was that somebody, a friend of mine who was a competitor told me later. He was so pissed when he, when I took that name. Dang it. Why didn't I think of that? But, uh, it's really funny. I got some really smart people together in the room and it was, uh, I remember it was, um, Alex Lavage, Chris McAdoo. Gosh, I remember, I can't remember who else it was. There were two other people. And I said, Hey, I want to pay you guys to help me think about a name. And, you know, we went through traditional process. If you've ever been through that from a marketing perspective and asking you a lot of questions, a lot of whiteboard sessions. And I was like, I don't know, there's this name I like, I just, it's kind of like the IT company, just like, why don't we just call it what it is? And they're like, nah, that's really not, you know, it's not that cool. And it's just not, I don't know, it doesn't really speak to me. It's not that sexy. And I was like, yeah. So I think I spent like 10 grand going through this process and all these names. And I was like, I'm just going to keep the IT company up there. Chris: Yeah. Paul: And I just. Just never fell in love with any of the other names. And I was like, you know what, guys, we're just going to call it the IT company. And so thanks for all your time. And these all, I need to go back and see if I have some of the notes and stuff that we took from that and some of the names we came up with, because some of them were things like Kairos and, you know, like. Greek and Hebrew and Latin and putting names together and, you know, all this stuff. And so, but yeah, that's, I mean, I was just like, I don't know. Why don't we just call it what it is? We're an IT company. So why don't we just call it the IT company and, uh, see how that works. And, uh, and that's what we, and that's really legitimately how I got there. And then the, the, the mark itself. I don't know. I've always liked a circle. Um, and part of that is like, I like the idea of something complete, you know, the soul, same thing with, you know, a ring, you go through the ceremony, right? And you get married and they talk about perfect circle and it, there's nothing in it that's broken and all that stuff. So I always liked the idea of a circle. I thought it fit well in the tray of the computer as the icon. Cause in our business, there's like a little icon for people to click on and request support or whatever. And so I thought it would always be You know, something that would look cool as a circle in the tray. And I don't know, I just was like, let's just do this IT thing. I can't even remember. I think it was, it was actually McAdoo when he had Best Behavior Creative Club. He was always so, always so interesting with the names that Chris came up with. I don't know where that one came from. Best Behavior Creative Club. I should ask him. But, um, yeah, I kind of gave him the idea of the logo that I was thinking, and he, he came up with the first, we actually just went through another rebrand or, uh, not a name, but a logo refresh, I guess. And, uh, and, but Chris did the very 1st 1 we ever did. Chris: That's awesome. Yeah. I remember. When the IT company came on onto the scene and seeing and hearing like the IT company, that's just so generic. But it, it's kind of clever because like when someone goes to Google an IT company for Knoxville and they type in IT company, Knoxville, you're going to come up. Paul: Yeah, that was really the, that I, that was the last thing I thought ever. I mean, it was, I actually didn't even think about that. It was like, not even on my radar. And, uh, that was what my buddy, uh, said later. He goes, I was so pissed. Cause I was like, dang it. Like now, every time somebody searches IT company Knoxville, they're going to find the IT company. And I was like, yeah, I didn't really think about that. Funny enough, we just finally, yesterday, were able to buy the itcompany. com. The domain. So for all these years, we've been, uh, theitco. net, which is a freaking pain to explain to people and say, and so we just were able to acquire theitcompany. com, which is pretty cool. Chris: Congratulations. That's I know how domains go. That's a big deal. Paul: Yeah, it was, uh, it wasn't, it wasn't cheap to acquire it, but, uh, but it was, and it wasn't also, you know, crazy, but yeah, worth it. So super, super pumped about that. Chris: That's awesome. So I know this rebrand wasn't just about the name. It wasn't just about the content. There was also some, maybe some technical stuff, services, products, things like that, that changed with this rebrand as well. What was that process like? How challenging was that for a company that was used to just being CSK? Paul: Well, I think there's a lot more to it. I mean, from an outward marketing perspective, that's the easy part. You know, I I've said this many times to people who've asked me like building Claris. This sounds very trivial, so I don't mean it or try it that way. It was a whole lot easier than building this company. So, because Claris was invented from the ground up, you know, and it was, it was like, I was able to shape and mold and build the culture, you know, as from, from the beginning, the brand, the culture, everything. And I think in a small business, that's a point that I think is important is in a small business. You know, the business largely takes on the brand and the culture of whoever that person is that's the leader, the owner, the inventor, or the, or those few people that are a part of it. And usually there is one particular one who it takes kind of the, it's like, it's almost like your child, right? It becomes like, oh, this one child looks more like their dad than their mom, right? That, you know, so your company sign, it kind of begins to look like you. So I'm sure Chris, your company does, right? Your company's culture is largely a by product of who Chris Hill is. And so Claris was largely a byproduct of who Paul Sponcia was because that was the company that I, you know, it was my company. I largely built it. This was very different. You know, this was, uh, a company that had a culture that wasn't cultivated and wasn't curated. It was just, it just kind of happened. And it was largely followed by Chris. And again, we talked about that, right? Chris was a great technical, very, I mean, actually one of the absolute most brilliant, brightest humans I've ever met, like, crazy, wicked smart, but the company largely followed him and his brand and who he was. And so having to change that was super hard and I gave him a lot of props. Like, he was very humble and very much said, yeah, you do what you got to do. It's not going to be easy. There's gonna be things I hate about it, you know, but I know that that's why you're here and that's what you're here to do. So super tough. I mean, like there were, as a matter of fact, there's not a single. I'm the only person that exists from that day that I started, you know, in December of 2010. And I don't say that lightly, like, letting people go and then moving on is a very, very difficult thing. But that's part of a rebrand too, is like, when you change the The brand, there's a cultural element in that as well that you're changing, um, at that scale, right? Like we weren't, like what we did with the IT company logo last year is not the same thing. It's like, that's right. That's just a refresh of our logo. This was actually a whole rebrand of the, who the company was and what we did and how we did it. And what we wanted to be in the kind of the level of professionalism, you know, that I wanted us to have, you know, was just at an at another level. And again, that's want to be real careful. It's not a knock on Chris. It's just, I looked at it differently and saw it differently and wanted to see things done differently and. I've always had this idea at, because we're at the higher end of the market of what we do from a delivery and a cost and, and how we deliver and what we deliver the brand needs to speak to that. And we all know that from all the brands we love. There's a brand that you spend 1, 000 on and a brand you spend 100 on. And the way that they present themselves, the 1, 000 brand versus 100, they're very different. You know, they just, they just are. Walmart and Target, right? Nothing wrong with Walmart, nothing wrong with Target. But like, it feels different when you walk into Target than when you walk into Walmart. And it's a bit more expensive, right? And so kind of that thought process, I think, uh, it's tough. I mean, it's tough to, to change a culture. And to move a ship that's moving this way and move it this way, um, and most people, a lot of people won't make it, you know, and, and that was a hard thing, but we also had to upskill. And, I mean, we, we needed a different type of, of employee to deliver the services that we wanted. And we had, I mean, there were fine people that were there when I got there as well. It just need to look different, act different, be different, even from the office. And I mean, we painted the interior of the office and. Kind of tried to make it fit the brand that we were, and eventually moved because that office didn't fit the brand. And I think that's a big part of it. Like all that stuff to me matters a lot. Is that what led you to Emory Place that move or was there another one in between? Yeah, we actually, when we bought the other three letter company, RTL, they, uh, they had an office over on, uh, like across from, uh, US Cellular. Chris: Yeah. Yeah, it is. Paul: It was kind of in a, in a, one of those, like, not a strip mall, but like a strip office park. Right. Yeah. And, uh, but it was very, it was more modern. And, um, and again, we went in and we painted the place and the guy already had done a good job of like, he had glass, like a glass conference room. And so I had some cool stuff. So we just had to sort of gussied up a little bit, make it look cooler, put our colors and. And logos on the walls and stuff like that. But, um, but that was actually a big deal. I mean, that felt really good. Like it felt good for everybody. It was a new spot. It was cooler. One more hip. Um, but yeah, I mean, eventually to Emory Place. Yes. When we were seeking out a spot, I really felt like my, um, kind of thought process then was like, I really wanted to, I love Brooklyn, New York, and I was like looking for something that reminded me of Brooklyn, you know, like warehouse see kind of thing and high ceilings and old floors and stuff like that. And I felt like that kind of, I felt like it felt, it did fit our brand because it was like kind of. Cool and hip, but old, but classy, you know, and repurposed. And there was a lot of things about it. So I would say, and that was from a branding perspective, that was always my thought is I wanted to be. I never wanted to be fun and playful, but I wanted to be like this kind of edgy, but elegant at the same time, you know, so a little bit like edgy because it's tech, but very elegant because it's professional, you know, that was the, the, the brand image that I always had in my mind whenever we were doing the, the first rebrand. Chris: Yeah, you don't want people to walk in and see a bunch of dusty old computers in the front office, you know, and a receptionist sitting there. You want it to be, you want people to perceive it as “We’ve got this under control. You’re taken care of.” Paul: Exactly. Exactly. Chris: That’s really cool. Paul: Yeah and I, it’s funny. I’ve heard, like, a lot of people, I was actually at a new customer who works, used to work for a competitor, and so we were, they were interviewing us, we were talking, and when I found that out, I was like, oh, uh, that's funny, like, I don't get to talk to many people that worked for competitors, like, what was your image of us in the market? And he basically said all the things that I was hoping he would say, very professional, high end. Top of the Market. And I've always wanted to come to your office, Cause I always heard it was just this really cool office. I was like, that's super funny. And he's like, and it is like he was there and the office, like it really is. It's everything everybody said. It was that's funny. Chris: That's really cool. I mean, it all plays into the brand and how people perceive you as a business. Right. So yeah, yeah, to that point. So like you've. Rebranded, you're the IT company as you have in, especially in the early days when you were making those shifts, maybe you had some transition going on. All those challenges, like it's got to be nerve wracking, right? You're saying we're, we're planting our flag in the ground. This is where we're going to be going and you have to get some validation that the business is actually moving the way you want it to. What was that moment for you where you just realized, yes, My business is moving forward. This is the way we wanted it to go. And we're seeing proof positive that, um, that things are going the way we wanted them to. Paul: It was quite a while, you know? Uh, and some of that's just like, you know, I was as much as I had a lot of experience, uh, 11 years at, at building Claris to. A $7 million company at that time When I left, I did, I still didn't really know what I was doing, quite frankly. You know, I mean, I, I, uh, I made a lot of mistakes and, and I saw things, you know, I just, I always probably over-focused on the future, you know, and, and really wasn't as much present in the here and now as I needed to be to, to really be practical about getting things done. So it was a while. I mean, and, and we made a lot of missteps. I mean. The acquisition of RTL, I wouldn't say was a mistake, but gosh, that was hard. You know, and we actually had bought Digital Crossing in, uh, I think 2012 and RTL in 2013. So like consecutive back to back years, we were doing acquisitions and integrating these things in and then it was super, super hard, you know, to do all those things. And so I think it was, uh, it was a while. I mean, we, there's probably 2, 2 or 3 moments I could think of. I mean, we bought RTL. We went from a 1. 2 million company to almost a, I think, between the 2 of us, maybe 2. 2. 5 million. So we kind of instantly doubled. And so we had some. Kind of breadth and flow at that point where and we made some transitions in kind of how because of our size at that point, we felt like we could do things slightly different than because when you walk in, you're like, hey, we're, we're 6 people, you know, but when you walk in and say, we're 12 or 15 people, it's just different, you know, it sounds differently to somebody. So we felt like we could go after a different client at that point. And we started to do some things and we had a couple of people come over. Yeah. And work for us that we weren't able to attract before. So that's probably moment number 1, where it was like, we're, we're making progress, you know, where we're getting some big accounts. We're kind of being able to deliver at a level that I'd hoped we'd been able to deliver. So that was 1. I think the 2nd 1 was probably, honestly, it's probably between 2019 and 21, like that whole 19, then 20 COVID and then 21 post COVID kind of coming out of that. I think those years proved a lot. that we were really good at what we did and that because people were needing technology a lot more and we had actually done a lot of things ahead of that not knowing that there was going to be a pandemic where most of our customers were already prepared to work from home and stuff and so I think a lot of that stuff helped us validate that we were on the right track and doing the right thing. Then I would say probably in the past 22 and 23. You know, these are more internal things, but when I really, I saw like a team really coming together from a leadership perspective and buying into all the things we were doing and realizing that this company could operate, uh, from an operational perspective without me, you know, those were big, big moments for me where, um, I knew like we've, we've built a business that can last and do what it needs to do. And, and I don't have to be here every day. And not that I don't want to be here every day, but I don't have to be here every day. The company can continue on without me. So those are probably big, big moments. Chris: Yeah. That last one always feels like it's the biggest achievement. Once you've, once you've been able to be like, all right, I'm gone for vacation for a week and you come back and nothing's on fire when you get back. Yeah. Paul: Oh yeah. Chris: Those are, I mean, those are all really good signs of validation for any business. Paul: Yeah. Chris: That's really good to hear that you've had had that. I was, I was curious how things have changed post pandemic, because I'm sure a lot of the organizations that you used to support. I don't know, maybe it's not changed as much for you all as I would think, because most of the organizations I assume you all support have physical offices or have, you know, bigger number of desktops that you service or however you put that in your company. But yeah, I Paul: think the demand is definitely higher. I mean, I think people, although I think in this current year, it seems like things are a little softer as people think people are trying to figure out what the election is going to do. Kind of, uh, inflationary pricing has got people a little spooked more than, more than in the past, but I think COVID just proved to people that technology is at the center of your life and the center of your business. Um, and there's a demand for it again. We were fortunate. We had already. You know, largely put people in, you know, voice over IP phone systems, and we were already using Teams heavily as a company at the time, and it started to help customers move to Teams. So we had already, I think, pre prepared a lot of people, and it wasn't as big of a shift, although there were a few that was a big shift, especially those that deal with, like, large files, like people that are in media or people that are in architecture engineering, right? Those folks who Had to really learn that, you know, how do I deal with large files when I'm not in the office, et cetera. So that was a bit more, but I think I wouldn't say things are different. I mean, we've basically, the business is basically almost doubled, you know, since COVID. And so as a company, we were already on that kind of track. So I think from the perspective of just, you know, people just recognize that technology is critical at the center of their business and they need somebody that can manage it really, really well. And as a professional and, you know, We'll be there when they need them and we'll solve problems fast and give them good advice, et cetera. I do think, you know, there is a big shift. Obviously, you know, AI buzzword out there, generative AI, large language models, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you know, I think that and I do think it's going to be a big shift. You know, shift. I think we are definitely in a, in another, uh, revolution and I think that that's as we learn how to harness those technologies and make them work with us. I think a lot of people think they're going to replace us. I think that the key to that is how do they, how do they aid us, assist us, make us better. I think that we're going to see another big shift and companies like us will be even more in demand that can pivot and help people be efficient and productive. Um, and again, I think that goes, our brand goes back to speak to that, like professional, you know, that people want somebody who's buttoned up and understands their business and can help them navigate these uncharted waters and make sense of all this technology. Um, and so again, I think branding is a big piece of that. Chris: Yeah, definitely. You definitely could see how your business has grown to the more I'm sitting here thinking about it. I remember when lockdown happened, having had spent so many years in telecom. Um, Pitching companies on, Oh, you need Office 365, or Oh, you need these things to work from home. And it just felt like when it happened, when it finally happened, it's like, this is what we were taught to do all these years. And now we have a situation where everybody's just magically forced into this situation where you have to rely on remote work. And it was a, Sad how unprepared people were. So I'm sure you've probably benefited from people, business owners, realizing that. Paul: Yeah. It's so crazy to, to think about that time as you're speaking, I was thinking, gosh, all the, you know, all the time just working from home. And I mean, we were doing leadership meetings in my basement. You know, and, uh, you know, for, you know, for a while, they were, you know, we were doing them with in teams, but after a while, I was like, if you guys are comfortable, I'm comfortable, all of us, you know, being together and not spitting, spitting on each other. So, uh, you know, but it's just crazy to think about, like, the leverage that got gained. I think people learned to be very efficient. But also learn to, to take a step back and, and, uh, you know, enjoy their families. Although I don't know, I mean, this is a, I guess a slight pontification, but I don't know to what, to what extent it's really changed. You know, I mean, I would say largely most of my customers are just back at what they were doing before. You know, I don't, I don't really see, I think everybody has got some type of hybrid. Policy in place, you know, where they're, where they're allowing people a little bit more flexibility and freedom, but I don't have any customers that have just said, burn the ships, no more office, everybody go home. You know, you know, I think there's a, and I've actually done a lot of research too. I mean, the younger generations, my daughters are part of that. My son, I mean, they, they love the freedom of remote work, but they also long for the connectivity of teams and. Yeah. And relationships and being in proximity to each other. So it's going to be a really fascinating thing to see, um, which again, I, I think all this stuff goes back to, to good branding and good marketing and communication is how do we communicate this? Because part of brand building, too, is attracting talent, right? I mean, we haven't talked about that, but I mean, you know, part of brand building is, is, uh, creating a place where people want to come to work. People love to come to work and people want to stay working there in a world where there's so much flexibility. You know, we have a really high retention, right? I have, I think, 6 or 7 people that have been here for over 10 years. So, a 3rd of our companies, almost a 3rd, maybe a quarter of our company has been here for over 10 years. Maybe more than that. One individual's been here 13. He's six months after I came here. And so there's a lot of brand building and attracting, but not just attracting, but retaining talent, you know, because people want to be proud of the place they work. They want to be proud of the work it does. They want to be, I mean, let's talk about the best branded company in Knoxville right now. Who do you think that is? Chris: Oh man. Best branding company in Knoxville. Best Paul: branded company in Chris: Knoxville. Best branded company. Oh man, um, I mean my, my gut on that, um, probably not going to be the one you're going to talk about, but I, I really think that, um, Zach Roskopp over at Knox Brew Tours, the way he's done Knox Brew Tours, the brew hub, he's kind of combined all that together. There's a lot of like, he, he, he's really intentionally thought through the thematic this, and I'm not just saying that cause he's been a guest on our podcast, but I think he does a really good job keeping branding and thinking about that when he builds a new operation. I think it's Axel. Paul: You know, I could be biased because they're around the corner from me, but dear Lord, like there, there are billboards everywhere. Build your, you know, build your empire. Like everybody that works there wears their shirts. Like, if you go to, go to Balter or go to any of these places for lunch or whatever, there's actual people there. They've all got their shirt. There's a company store. They got a gym. Our marketing coordinator, Macy, who you know, she's like, I was, I was before she, she has a house now, but she goes, I was in my apartment and there was like apartment complex and this dude came out, he's wearing like a razor back, you know, workout shirt that said axle logistics on it and stuff. And so I think those guys are, which I don't know if you've had shown as a guest, but if you want to show them, I'd be, I'd be happy to arrange that with. Chris: That'd be great. Paul: But they've done a great job. I mean, they've done a fantastic job of branding themselves. And, uh, and the people that work there wear their swag, you know, and it's impressive. I think the job that they've done, and I think it's been, I would say Sean's probably gonna say a lot of the same stuff. Like it's about attracting and retaining talent and stuff like that. So, uh, so yeah, I mean, I think that it matters. Like your brand matters to the people that work there. They want to, they want to attach. Just something. And they want to, they wanna belong. They wanna believe they're part of something. And uh, and that brand is important. Chris: I think you bring up a very good point, which is I think if people really love a brand and they work for that brand, they're willing to wear the brand in public. Paul: Yeah. Chris: A hundred percent. That's just a lot about the business. So I would. Okay, I'll concur. I mean, I think, I think, I think that makes a lot of sense. I, you know, I'm going to stick with Zach, but I do think what you're saying, I do think what you're saying is like, it really makes a lot of sense for the people that are there. They're very passionate about it. Yeah. I think that that, That makes a lot of sense. I mean, if we're going early meta, I think UT would probably be the better. They're the higher level ones, but small businesses in town. I think, I think, yeah, that makes sense. I got you. Paul: Well, there's, I mean, obviously we have big ones like, you know, pilot, pilots everywhere, you know, these, some of these guys that, you know, are like that, but they have a longstanding brand. I mean, Axel's, Axel's relatively new on the scene, if you think about it. And, um, and there's others, others that are out there too, but Chris: I like it though. Paul: The thing I think about them again, is their people love to wear their gear and if you love to wear their gear, you, you must love the brand Yeah. And the place that you work. So, Chris: um, I need to start giving out more hats, . That's right, that's Paul: right. I mean, I, where's mine? I got my, my podcast, you know, we did this, we did this hat like, oh yeah. We need, we need to do a better job of that actually. You know, and, but it's important. Yeah. People, people care. Chris: Yeah. And when you've got a cool brand, why not wear it? One of our, one of our clients that does a podcast, they have quite a unique brand and people die for their swag. They go to events and that's all they do. They don't have a booth. They just carry swag with them and hand it out. That's smart. I love it. That's cool. Really sharp. That's a good idea. But yeah, that's a lot of fun. A Paul: backpack full of swag, throwing it around. Chris: Yeah. And they go to Amazon's reinvent conference every year. And so they'll go and they'll take. Poker chips and live discount codes on the back for their swag so you can buy stuff from their store. That's Paul: smart. Yeah, it's pretty cool. I like that. Yeah, it is. Chris: But um, that's cool. That's awesome. Paul, this is, this has been really great. We always wrap up with the same question and that is, you know, what brand do you admire the most right now? You've already mentioned Axel. Is there a, is there maybe a more national brand or is Axel the answer? Paul: Nah, I mean, I do admire what they've done a lot. I, I'll go with A brand that I wear a lot, which is Peter Millar. Okay. Golf brand. For those that don't know, it was actually two guys. I think it's two guys out of the Tri Cities. Chris: Oh. Paul: It came up with the Peter Millar brand. It's a very, very well known brand in golf. Most people who play golf or part of a country club or something know the Peter Millar brand. It's kind of that. A little bit of what I said, like it's like elegant, edgy, you know, so they do a good job of kind of providing a little bit of a fresher, uh, not a super stodgy look, but also not a, not overly crazy. I mean, there's some really crazy stuff out there in golf with flowers and all that stuff is fine too. So they're a bit more of an elegant brand, um, with a bit of an edge to it. And, uh, and I love, I mean, people that know me know I'm a sucker for it. Like, if I'm actually not wearing, I do have Peter Miller shoes on. A Peter Millar shirt and a Peter Millar pullover and Peter Millar shoes on, um, because I love, I love that brand. So that'd be the, that was the one that, that just came to mind. There's a lot of other ones out there. I mean, I think there's some really cool, like I, I'm a duck hunter, so there's a really cool brand out there called Duck Camp that I think has done a really good job of branding their stuff and Sheen, a company called Sheen that's done a good job and a company called Kui, that's done a good job of branding. So, I mean, I love brand stuff anyhow, so I could go on and on. I love motorcycles, so I love KTM. And she does. So I think, I think a lot of these guys are in, you know, are doing a really good job of everybody I think is up their branding game. I mean, I think it's such a, it's such a thing now that everybody's up to. And it's, it's pretty interesting too. Like if you're on Instagram or whatever, like. And you get fed these ads like, you know, it's some pretty impressive small companies that have done a really good job of building a brand and grown into something big just by investing heavily in brand. You know, it's pretty cool. Chris: Yeah. Paul: Who's your favorite? I'm gonna ask you. Who's yours? Yeah. My favorite, Chris: um, listeners are going to get tired of hearing this, but, um, my favorite is Red Bull. Oh, okay. Still, I'm a big Red Bull racing fan. Paul: Yeah, on the F1 side, Chris: on the F1 side. Yeah. Okay. I mean, their marketing is brilliant. And I mean, that Paul: company was built purely by brand. I mean, that, that's a story of a brand. Chris: Yeah. Big time. And, and, and as they've gotten into more like extreme sports and racing teams and things like that, they've just, they always create really good content. So I really like, The visual elements of what they do. And I mean, just very personally, like on the F1 side, I followed Max Verstappen from his first year in Formula One, because I was tired of seeing Lewis Hamilton win all the time. And I just, I cheered him on until he's gotten to where he is today. And you know, my son and I have like Red Bull racing jerseys and everything. Although my son's gotten to the point now where he starts asking me, dad is, is, can, can, um, what did he ask me the other day? Can Max lose? Paul: He's so good. Can he lose a race, please? Well, nobody can drive his car either. That's the crazy thing about it. Like he's the only one that can drive that razor edge car that he's got. It's insane. It's insane. But yeah, it's an interesting guy too, so that's, that's, that's interesting. Chris: Yeah. Yeah. Now, Rebel's not in the best place, uh, maybe politically right now with everything going on, if you're following any of that. Sure. But other than that, like I really like them and, and really all of Formula One, like the teams know that it's about the brand. Like it's, you know, it's about attracting people to. The characters within their brand and those, those storylines that are being followed throughout every season. I think that really draw people in. Um, Mercedes has done a good job of playing, you know, over really sad about losing all the time now up and making it funny and, you know, having a sense of humor of things. So I really like, you know, like that industry a lot right now. So I'd say that's probably where I'm at. Paul: I listened to a podcast the other day and I thought it was really interesting. They were contrasting the election that when Obama won. The first time, and it was a brand conversation about like, they're basically like, do you remember who he ran against and what his, what the slogan was versus. Do you remember Obama's and most of everybody remembers Obama's and it's largely why he won because he just had a simple brand and that with everybody attached to it, you know, it's pretty wild. You could even say the same thing for like him or hate him with, you know, the first time that Trump won. I mean, he was just, he stuck to one thing and make America great again. And that was a simple brand, you know? And so it goes back to the same thing. These brand statements, they matter, you know, and the simplicity of them is what gets people's attention. So I appreciate you having me on here. Chris: Yeah, absolutely, Paul. It's been great. So where can people connect with you and where can people connect with the IT company? Paul: Yeah, I probably main place for me would be, would be not Instagram. Please don't connect with me. There'll be LinkedIn. Yes. Instagram is purely for me to watch reels. And laugh, get my humor out, uh, uh, LinkedIn. I saw I'm on LinkedIn, LinkedIn slash, whatever it is slash Paul Sponcia. I think it's like N slash Paul Sponcia. I'm on everything else too, but I don't, I'm not as active as I am on LinkedIn and then the IT company, LinkedIn. And then our website, which is currently www. theitco. net, but soon to be www. theitcompany. com. Chris: Excellent. Excellent. Cool. We'll make sure to include those links in the show notes for folks so they can connect with you and follow the IT company and check y'all out. Appreciate it, man. Speaker: Paul, thank you for your time. Yeah, thanks for having me. Absolutely.