ABOUT THIS EPISODE
Your small business is vulnerable to cyber attacks whether you realize it or not. In this eye-opening conversation, IT expert James Sanford reveals the shocking truth that companies like yours face dozens of digital attacks daily—even if you're "just a handyman company" or small service business.
James takes us through his journey from solo IT consultant to managed service provider, explaining how the cybersecurity landscape has dramatically evolved from annoying pop-ups to sophisticated ransomware operations that can completely shut down your business. With remarkable clarity, he breaks down complex security concepts into practical advice using colorful analogies like "putting alligators in your digital moat" that make cybersecurity accessible to even the most tech-resistant business owners.
The most valuable segment comes when James outlines the five essential security measures every business needs: a proper firewall, endpoint detection and response software, password management tools, multi-factor authentication, and comprehensive backup solutions. These fundamentals form a solid security foundation that can protect your business from the most common threats without breaking your budget.
What truly stands out is the paradigm shift James describes—moving from reactive IT support that only fixes things when they break to proactive management that prevents problems before they impact your business. This approach not only improves security but dramatically enhances productivity by eliminating those frustrating technology disruptions that kill your team's momentum and waste valuable time.
Don't wait until you become another cybercrime statistic. Take the first step toward protecting your business by implementing these essential security measures today—because the cost of prevention is always less expensive than recovery after an attack.
Thanks to our sponsor Smart Hire Solutions LLC!
IN THIS EPISODE
SHOW NOTES 🔗
TRANSCRIPT 🔗
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But what if you change that mindset to your customer that I want to have less of those break-fix incidents because those are disruptive and I can't control them?
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But if you start thinking about proactive maintenance, hey, let's look for the top things we see go wrong with a PC Monitor for them.
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And what if we can self-heal those issues?
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monitor for them?
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And what if we can self-heal those issues?
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Welcome to the Small Business Safari where I help guide you to avoid those traps, pitfalls and dangers that lurk when navigating the wild world of small business ownership.
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I'll share those gold nuggets of information and invite guests to help accelerate your ascent to that mountaintop of success.
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It's a jungle out there and I want to help you traverse through the levels of owning your own business that can get you bogged down and distract you from hitting your own personal and professional goals.
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So strap in Adventure Team and let's take a ride through the safari and get you to the mountaintop.
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Alan, here we go again.
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Everybody's listening.
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I'm getting all kinds of feedback here lately from people about all right.
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One of them really sucked, but it was my sound quality on one of the episodes, and so Chris had to go back to podcast school to get his audio fixed back up.
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But he's back and we're going to be back rocking.
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Now here's some of the cool feedback we've gotten.
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Alan is I listen to your podcast every week, got that one.
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Your podcast every week, got that one.
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Hey, buddy, I was just listening to your podcast and I wanted to give you a call and tell you, man, I really love that episode talking about some of the topics that we've had as of late, which had been kind of cool and so that's been kind of fun.
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I love that kind of feedback, so we're getting some really good feedback.
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Of course, I got the radio gig going now and we're really starting to hit our stride here in Atlanta, where we're only focused on home service companies here and helping people in their home improvement stuff.
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But today I've got a really exciting guest.
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I am excited about this one because there are so many different ways we can go with this guest, but I asked him to focus in on something that I think is important to all of us.
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So I have my IT guy here today and I have James Sanford who takes care of all of our information technology and all of the safety that we need to have in this new crazy world of cybersecurity.
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Man, you're just getting right into it.
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There's no dad jokes, no puns, no what you did this weekend no Vegas.
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That's what happens when we have a dry podcast.
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All right, so everybody, you didn't even no what you did this weekend.
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No Vegas.
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That's what happens when we have a dry podcast.
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You didn't even ask me what I did this weekend.
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All right.
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So here's the problem.
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Usually, alan and I get together in the afternoon and it's bourbon four o'clock, I mean bourbon five o'clock, as it were.
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But today we're doing this one during the day to accommodate some different schedules but to make sure that we're getting out some great episodes, great coverage.
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And you're right, I didn't talk to you about my big daddy weekend, so I will tell you I had a proud papa moment this weekend.
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You did, I did.
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My daughter has walked with her white coat in her PA school.
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Congratulations, thank you.
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Very exciting.
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And one of the things I got in the comments on Facebook was hey, she's one step closer to getting off the payroll.
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And of course, she's home today and I just got done approving a $2,000 expense on her vehicle before she takes off to do her first rotation.
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They never leave and I've told you the story about my wife's father's father who, at 13, his dad said time for you to leave the home, head down to the docks in Portland and seek your adventure At 13.
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I know right.
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What are we doing?
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I don't know.
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We're coddling our children.
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It's not healthy.
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These kids are 26.
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They need to work in the docks.
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That hits a little home for somebody.
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She's 26 and not off the payroll Whoa.
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And what are we doing?
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That's right, you can't see this because we actually have an extra special person in the audience, but she's not going to be on the podcast.
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We have James' daughter Savannah, who has recently joined his company, and in literally one hour she blew my mind on AI, on what the heck she's doing.
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But we're not going to talk AI today.
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Savannah, that's not that hard to do.
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That's true.
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I mean AI.
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That's a lot of syllables.
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I mean it's at least two letters.
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I think it's actually longer than your password.
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So we're going to get into this, guys.
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Man, this is going to be so much fun.
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Cybersecurity James Sanford thanks for joining us today.
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Like I said, we can go in so many different directions.
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He's done so many things in this business in terms of automation, scaled without having to add staff.
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Oh my God, hello, you don't have to add people.
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Oh, I need that one.
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Yeah, Until they build robots that can you know, do construction.
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I think you're screwed with that Not happening.
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You have to have labor.
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So we could go that way.
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We could talk about all the stuff they're doing with AI, so we'll probably end up having James on.
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But today, man, I wanted to focus on what James has done, because no more than at least three different times he has blown my mind on cybersecurity and stuff that happens.
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And here's the thing, right, when we all get started.
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I started with a laptop, a flip phone and a camera, right?
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The good old days, the good old days, right.
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So I had my laptop, which was a client server-based CRM system.
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I was pretty cool, except the client and the server were all on my laptop, which was in my truck, which was driving around with me every day, and so I had that.
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And then I had a flip phone and then, as I've grown to where we are today, where we have the Atlanta and the Athens division, I've got a server in the office but we're all on the web now, right, but I have voice over IP.
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I have all this other stuff going on, and I let one of my ladies go work from home, and so we set up a computer at her house and she happened to be doing all of our payroll, all of our books.
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She's a threat, oh my god, she is a threat.
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So james, james, there's a leak.
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He says he, he, uh.
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He says hey, um, chris, uh, can, can we do?
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I think he said vpn.
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I forget exactly what he said, but we need to do something about this computer.
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I'm like why he goes.
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It's getting attacked 90 times a day to get into our.
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I said, but we're just a little handyman company.
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He goes oh, that's like the Matrix.
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With the little Right.
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So, james, welcome to the show.
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Well, thanks for having me.
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I'm really excited to get to be here and talk to you guys.
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Nice to meet you.
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Yeah, nice to meet you.
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Sorry, it's not over a bourbon Well I agree, but you were missed last week.
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I mean not by Chris, no he actually got a little sentimental.
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I listened to it, I did.
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By the way over this weekend I was at a big, fancy wedding in LA.
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It felt like I was in a movie and I heard maybe the greatest seven words I've ever heard in my life um, you're three thousand dollars short on your minimum at the bar, oh, my god and then, and the night had already kind of wound down and so we're like bring me the, bring me the bourbon list.
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Cousin brad was like bring me the wine list and the next thing, you know, champagne for everybody.
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It was.
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And I was trying to be good that night.
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That went to hell and all of a sudden my brother-in-law showed up and he's like, okay, we're to six bucks.
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And he just shut it down.
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So we made up the gap you made up the gap.
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We made up the gap.
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Wow, you know things that you do for family, somebody has to do it.
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Oh, my God, that's awesome.
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I was in the right spot.
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You know opportunity preparedness, all those things that go into.
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You know performing.
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I'm proud of you.
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You pivoted well, I did.
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You had a problem presented and you found a solution.
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I was a solution provider.
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Well, the other solution was to use someone else's credit card to keep going.
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No, to pay the whole thing.
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No, no, that's not as fun.
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Oh yeah, but yeah no, it was.
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It was already prepaid.
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So, oh my gosh may as well hit it so you had, you had, you were in la with cousin brad.
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Did they mention that you were on a podcast, that you were a celebrity when you're out there?
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yeah, that was it was part of the wedding vows and then.
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But cousin brad and I did get to play a little round of golf and uh, at his country club at his club.
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That is so, you know.
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Nicholas redesigned it right.
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There's a couple holes where it's almost like 11 at augusta where they you know, they say if, uh, if you actually hit the green, I missed you know, because you're supposed to hit front, right right out on.
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We had a couple shots like that.
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You know, I haven't touched a stick in a while and we ended up uh coming from behind.
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I tied it on 16 and cousin brad put the knife in their heart and we went up one up, uh went on 18 there we go.
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Nice, now that's a big trip.
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You didn't have a big daddy weekend I was just over here buying in the store, doing the podcast trying to help people, educate them a little bit about this and that, so all right, let's get into.
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So james sanford started team spring.
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Uh, when did you start that?
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gosh savannah uh 99.
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She was born 26 years yes ago.
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What's this, what's this?
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That's, uh, bourbon light, uh, that is that.
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That, and I cannot perform a miracle.
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I cannot turn that water into wine.
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You keep drinking water, alan.
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We're gonna keep you going and we'll almost stay on track, almost so, 26 years ago, you left the corporate world and started.
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Well, I didn't initially just jump ship.
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So what happened was I was part of the dot-com era, you know, building enterprise software blue martini, different other products and when she was born and then her brother was born a few years later, I was like, every time I come back from the West Coast, every week they look different.
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You know how the kids grow so quickly.
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And it just got to the point where you saw the writing on the wall with the dot bomb and you're thinking gosh, I really want to do something on my own, my own consulting company, my own something.
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That entrepreneurial instinct kicked in ever since I was little.
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I mean, my brother and I would go on the beach in Savannah and get shells and drag our little wagon around and sell them things like that.
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So we even created detectives on the spot dots for the Hardy Boys, and so we've always had this little inclination that we wanted to own our own thing.
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So I initially started doing custom software development.
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That was eTech Software.
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That was the initial name of the company.
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Everything was e-something back then.
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So around 2006, I finally left the corporate world and went in full force.
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That is the hardest thing is jumping ship.
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That first step is absolutely the most terrifying until you're off the boat, until you're doing it yourself and you have to perform.
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You have two little children, a wife, you have to perform.
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And so then it turned into okay, I've got all these great programming gigs, you know, building out CRM systems and workflows and things like that, but you're always hunting.
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You're always hunting for that next thing.
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So at that time then customers were asking for tech support.
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It was starting to get to the point where the Internet is now a very stable thing.
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It's not Earthlink, you know dial up.
00:11:04.421 --> 00:11:07.745
Talk about being at the right place at the right time, Like I was at that bar.
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I mean his customer.
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The whole world is expanding and you happen to be right there and know what you're talking about.
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Yes, and so at that point I'm like you know what?
00:11:18.389 --> 00:11:22.191
There should be a monthly recurring revenue component here.
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If I'm going to have to support somebody, we are supporting them, we're charging them an hourly rate.
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And so then I thought, well, maybe we come up with plans silver, gold, platinum where you get two hours a month, four hours a month or six hours a month, and then anything above that you get built in a little reduced hourly rate.
00:11:39.539 --> 00:11:49.539
But at the time nobody had that idea, nobody Right.
00:11:49.539 --> 00:11:51.528
So you didn't say well, say well, listen, I'm gonna put you on a subscription program.
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You're doing subscriptions before.
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Netflix was even thinking about it, maybe a future seer.
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It was really.
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Really.
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It started to get to the point where, okay, I've got some momentum here, I've got some cash that I can at least have, knowing it's coming in each month.
00:12:01.530 --> 00:12:06.327
So at that point technology is starting to really blow up.
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There are ways to remote into computers, there are ways to automate things associated with tech support, and so I bought into an enterprise software package called Kaseya that allowed me to remotely monitor and manage my customers' machines.
00:12:24.647 --> 00:12:30.067
So I can now turn a reactive question hey, my computer broke into.
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Hey, I see that your hard drive's getting full and fix it or call them before they can't work anymore.
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So that is part of the subscription.
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You came up with gold, silver, platinum, yeah, and you started selling people on it.
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How was the original adoption with that?
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Well, I went slow to begin with.
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Right, the typical startup entrepreneur is everything has to be just absolutely perfect before you introduce it to a customer, and everything is never perfect.
00:13:52.461 --> 00:14:07.990
So I started it with just putting the agent, those tools, on the machines, because it helped me not have to drive over to your office or somebody else's office and as a one-man show, I still had little children that I, okay, I can watch them, honey, while you go out and go grocery shopping.
00:14:07.990 --> 00:14:11.861
Well, you know, and not if I have to have an emergency and go help somebody.
00:14:11.861 --> 00:14:16.158
So then that started becoming more and more prevalent.
00:14:16.158 --> 00:14:21.144
I still, I mean, at that time that was an $80,000 investment for a one-man company to buy this.
00:14:21.144 --> 00:14:23.252
It was considered enterprise software.
00:14:23.252 --> 00:14:24.798
There was no cloud version of this.
00:14:24.798 --> 00:14:36.254
I had to have a server in my house, in my basement, that these agents would check into and we would just manage it, and then slowly I'd charge, and we would just manage it, and then slowly I'd charge.
00:14:36.254 --> 00:14:38.956
You know, whatever it was, that base package.
00:14:39.416 --> 00:14:44.339
Well gosh, now suddenly viruses are coming in and being more prevalent.
00:14:44.339 --> 00:14:48.902
I mean, you know, 25 years ago you didn't even really hear of a virus.
00:14:48.902 --> 00:14:50.163
No, you know.
00:14:50.163 --> 00:14:55.284
And then until one day I'm looking and I'm clicking on something and suddenly all these pop-ups keep happening.
00:14:55.284 --> 00:14:57.826
They're very, I mean, they're just annoying.
00:14:57.826 --> 00:14:58.147
Right.
00:14:58.147 --> 00:15:12.219
At the time they were just annoying Right, and all you had to do was download things like Viper or McAfee or, you know, trend or any of those reactive antivirus tools.
00:15:12.219 --> 00:15:14.024
And so I'm like, well, we should have some component of security.
00:15:14.024 --> 00:15:15.289
Yes, there's this.
00:15:15.289 --> 00:15:17.616
Let's ask for managed security.
00:15:18.269 --> 00:15:30.013
Then suddenly, oh gosh, all these servers that everybody have, all these small business servers that Microsoft came out with, that had their own exchange server for email, their own shared volumes and things of that nature.
00:15:30.013 --> 00:15:32.138
We need to back that up.
00:15:32.138 --> 00:15:36.129
So again, my thought was it has to be perfect.
00:15:36.129 --> 00:15:36.971
How am I going to do this?
00:15:36.971 --> 00:15:46.311
Well, I was like my business coach at the time, and I think everybody needs a business coach If you don't have somebody that you can look up to, no matter what level higher than you.
00:15:46.311 --> 00:15:47.432
It's so important.
00:15:47.432 --> 00:15:49.485
I said, well, it doesn't have to be perfect.
00:15:49.485 --> 00:15:50.565
Can't you just drive over?
00:15:50.565 --> 00:15:53.089
You only have 10 customers Drive over on Mondays.
00:15:53.089 --> 00:15:54.846
Swap the little USB drives.
00:15:54.846 --> 00:16:03.262
I was like days, swap the little USB drives.
00:16:03.262 --> 00:16:04.168
That's a great idea and I maybe I can get my friend Jay to do it for me.
00:16:04.100 --> 00:16:05.628
But so at the time it slowly progressed.
00:16:05.628 --> 00:16:10.355
And when I say slowly progressed it, you know we went from 10 customers to maybe 12 to, you know, and now we're at 50 and manage a thousand computers.
00:16:10.355 --> 00:16:15.789
Then it turned into it was getting annoying doing two hours and then billing somebody for an extra three because they had more questions, and then gold.
00:16:15.789 --> 00:16:20.764
And then it was getting annoying doing two hours and then billing somebody for an extra three because they had more questions, and then gold.
00:16:20.764 --> 00:16:23.812
And then it was constantly getting to the point where I'm getting.
00:16:23.812 --> 00:16:36.484
I'm spending a lot of time answering questions about invoices and what's included and what's not, and so I finally I think in 2010 or so said you know what I'm not taking any customers that aren't on our all inclusive plan.
00:16:36.484 --> 00:16:41.574
I'll lower the rates a little bit, but I want to take the billing aspect.
00:16:42.100 --> 00:16:43.002
So in 2010,.
00:16:43.002 --> 00:16:49.231
You said I will work with you if you buy my subscription, but I will not just come set up a computer for you.
00:16:49.231 --> 00:16:50.700
Correct, and that was in 2010.
00:16:50.700 --> 00:16:53.288
That's why I'm writing this down for the timeline.
00:16:53.360 --> 00:16:55.404
I met you in 2014, I believe.
00:16:55.445 --> 00:16:55.505
And.
00:16:55.526 --> 00:16:58.861
I already fully vetted this as all-inclusive one plan.
00:16:59.344 --> 00:17:05.324
That's really a tipping point in a business life when you can actually be selective on who your customer is.
00:17:05.924 --> 00:17:08.409
Well, yes, it is and it isn't.
00:17:08.409 --> 00:17:11.942
I still was taking up people that had four machines or five machines.
00:17:11.942 --> 00:17:14.226
Now our average customer is 15.
00:17:14.226 --> 00:17:16.431
Our biggest customer is more than 50.
00:17:16.431 --> 00:17:18.835
It, you know, it's all relative.
00:17:18.835 --> 00:17:22.990
You know, at the time that was plenty of money for us, it was just one salary.
00:17:22.990 --> 00:17:27.971
Um, then it became the next first hire who do you first hire?
00:17:27.971 --> 00:17:34.249
And then it was an assistant, because nobody is going to everybody's like, oh you need to buy us.
00:17:34.249 --> 00:17:35.681
Hire a salesperson, yeah.
00:17:35.740 --> 00:17:39.171
So until that point, in 1999 to 2010, you were still a solopreneur.
00:17:39.171 --> 00:17:42.888
You were by yourself, doing all this with no help.
00:17:42.888 --> 00:17:44.031
No help, wow.
00:17:44.271 --> 00:17:49.191
Okay, no vacation no sick days Right.
00:17:49.191 --> 00:17:50.384
Yes, that is correct.
00:17:50.684 --> 00:17:51.508
Yeah, All right.
00:17:51.508 --> 00:18:02.164
So in 2010, you started a subscription-based business and did this, and then you started selecting and putting your shingle out for this, and this is now what we've learned to call.
00:18:02.164 --> 00:18:07.363
The industry term is Managed service provider MSP that's what we like to call it here.
00:18:07.483 --> 00:18:08.326
Alan MSP.
00:18:08.326 --> 00:18:09.049
What is this?
00:18:10.160 --> 00:18:13.028
He started saying these things like, well, I'm a managed service provider.
00:18:13.028 --> 00:18:14.031
I'm like, well, I don't know what that is.
00:18:14.031 --> 00:18:17.813
And then, sure enough, what do I hear now out networking, you know?
00:18:17.813 --> 00:18:19.974
And how many contacts, how many emails do you get?
00:18:19.974 --> 00:18:22.496
Guys, you probably are getting all these emails too.
00:18:22.496 --> 00:18:25.637
Hey, we can be your IT guy, we can be your managed service provider.
00:18:25.637 --> 00:18:27.461
And you're like, well, I don't even know what the hell that is.
00:18:27.461 --> 00:18:30.504
You know, I'm just a handyman or I'm just a knife sharpener.
00:18:30.504 --> 00:18:33.446
I'm just a, I'm just an auto detail where you guys are.
00:18:33.446 --> 00:18:34.708
These are all the two guys who called lately.
00:18:34.708 --> 00:18:38.531
So how do you explain managed service providers?
00:18:38.932 --> 00:18:47.769
Okay, so prior to managed service providers it was a break-fix model, Just like the automobile.
00:18:47.769 --> 00:18:53.301
You're trying to do proactive maintenance on it so your daughter doesn't break down down the road.
00:18:53.301 --> 00:18:58.769
Typically in the past, dads would just get an AARP.
00:18:58.769 --> 00:18:59.590
What is it?
00:18:59.590 --> 00:19:00.051
Aaa card?
00:19:03.381 --> 00:19:05.609
We started talking about the fact that I'm 55.
00:19:05.609 --> 00:19:08.227
He was looking at you when he was thinking.
00:19:08.247 --> 00:19:10.907
AARP hey, easier You're a capital A.
00:19:12.322 --> 00:19:14.347
So yeah, it was reactive break fix.
00:19:14.347 --> 00:19:19.100
My computer broke, I took it to somebody, fix them, charge them an hourly fee, bam.
00:19:19.100 --> 00:19:31.711
But what if you change that mindset to your customer that I want to have less of those break-fix incidents because those are disruptive and I can't control them?
00:19:31.711 --> 00:19:40.303
But if you start thinking about proactive maintenance, hey, let's look for the top things we see go wrong with the PC Monitor for them.
00:19:40.303 --> 00:19:43.891
And what if we can self heal those issues?
00:19:43.891 --> 00:19:46.644
Like if I see a hard drive gets below 20%?
00:19:46.644 --> 00:19:55.502
Some of the things I can have a script do is go and clear out cache, clear out temp files, clear out things that then I don't have to get involved with.
00:19:55.502 --> 00:20:02.771
So the ability to automate that transforms you from a break-fix to a proactive managed service provider.
00:20:02.871 --> 00:20:09.842
We are proactively managing things so let's go back to Chris's progression in his career.
00:20:09.863 --> 00:20:13.171
He's got computers managing, I'm gonna have PSD if we go the way.
00:20:13.171 --> 00:20:15.343
I got what's going on with that water.
00:20:15.343 --> 00:20:16.205
It, it lit up.
00:20:16.565 --> 00:20:19.492
This is what my daughter has decided I have to drink now.
00:20:19.492 --> 00:20:26.707
That is the not-so-great thing about having your child work for you is she's healthy and I'm not.
00:20:26.707 --> 00:20:32.259
This is what Savannah Molecular hydrogen, molecular hydration water.
00:20:32.259 --> 00:20:35.670
So it puts I don't know magic in the water.
00:20:35.670 --> 00:20:37.384
Why did it light up?
00:20:37.384 --> 00:20:41.343
Because it can charge and it'll bubble up.
00:20:41.343 --> 00:20:45.355
So it's, and then it sinks to tell you, this is riveting podcast.
00:20:45.415 --> 00:20:47.020
It is we are not, we're not.
00:20:47.020 --> 00:20:47.983
We can't even explain it.
00:20:47.983 --> 00:20:50.189
But all right, we'll put that in the show notes well, and then?
00:20:50.229 --> 00:20:54.933
molecular hydrogen water and the other thing you need to look at is plodai.
00:20:54.933 --> 00:20:56.459
It's a digital transcription.
00:20:56.459 --> 00:20:57.503
Oh, I got it.
00:20:59.379 --> 00:21:00.498
I've heard about that, you keep giving me crap.
00:21:00.679 --> 00:21:02.904
I'm going to ask him what he thinks about your password.
00:21:03.567 --> 00:21:03.767
No.
00:21:04.348 --> 00:21:05.110
The home password.
00:21:05.110 --> 00:21:05.892
The home password.
00:21:07.000 --> 00:21:08.045
You can't share that with everybody.
00:21:08.259 --> 00:21:10.785
This goes out to seven times the universe we can give an example.
00:21:11.479 --> 00:21:15.146
Savannah just asked for it, so we know yeah, so we know he's already in trouble.
00:21:15.166 --> 00:21:16.729
We're going to go back to see.
00:21:16.729 --> 00:21:25.649
James is talking about this proactive stuff and I think as a business owner or somebody in business, you don't get what he was putting down.
00:21:25.649 --> 00:21:27.659
Let me tell you what the pain looked like when I wasn't doing what he's talking about.
00:21:27.659 --> 00:21:32.990
So at the time when I met James, I realized we were outgrowing.
00:21:32.990 --> 00:21:36.686
The Chris is the IT guy and Chris was the IT guy.
00:21:36.686 --> 00:21:40.145
The Chris is the IT guy and Chris was the IT guy.
00:21:40.145 --> 00:21:44.317
And again at that point we had gone to a different software package that was quote-unquote web-based.
00:21:44.919 --> 00:21:52.375
But what was happening was every day at about three o'clock, the computer would just get really slow and Chris would be out selling his ass off.
00:21:52.375 --> 00:22:01.627
Come back in the office and I'd have one lady out back smoking, one lady out in the front talking on her phone and the other lady beating the mouse against the wall because nothing would work.
00:22:01.627 --> 00:22:03.803
And I'm like man, it happens every day at three.
00:22:03.803 --> 00:22:06.021
I don't know what's going on, and but it didn't.
00:22:06.021 --> 00:22:08.942
Obviously that didn't happen like day one, right, of course.
00:22:08.942 --> 00:22:10.266
It just kept happening.
00:22:10.266 --> 00:22:16.826
You know, little times one day it would happen, next time it wouldn't, and then we would lose our internet and then we would lose our internet and then we'd have to get Comcast involved.
00:22:16.826 --> 00:22:24.355
And then we're starting that whole world getting Comcasted and I'm chasing my tail all over the place trying to figure out what's going on and it's just not working.
00:22:24.355 --> 00:22:30.807
And I met James and at the time, again being cheap, I was like I'm thrifty a frugal.
00:22:31.740 --> 00:22:37.168
So you got James as a provider before he decided to have standards on who he would want as a customer.
00:22:37.208 --> 00:22:38.310
It's true, I was really broke.
00:22:38.310 --> 00:22:39.452
I had just gotten remarried.
00:22:39.472 --> 00:22:41.134
You were desperate, I was desperate, oh my God.
00:22:41.660 --> 00:22:48.410
And a guy who's been on our podcast, wayne Sugar, introduced me to him, so we had to play the friend card.
00:22:49.503 --> 00:22:50.307
He got ready to help.
00:22:50.899 --> 00:22:53.981
And he said he's going to look like an ass, but he's really kind of a nice guy.
00:22:53.981 --> 00:22:55.541
So that's how James came to work.
00:22:55.541 --> 00:22:57.302
When is that going to happen?
00:22:57.302 --> 00:22:58.883
The nice thing doesn't happen, bro.
00:22:58.883 --> 00:23:02.024
So so James got involved and here's what he did.
00:23:02.024 --> 00:23:05.406
He says let me put my agents on here, let me do these things.
00:23:05.406 --> 00:23:08.587
And all of a sudden all those three o'clock problems started to go away.
00:23:08.587 --> 00:23:18.192
Then the voice system started to work the right way, and then we figured out that Comcast wasn't really providing the circuit they were supposed to be providing, and then we had to get a different one.
00:23:18.192 --> 00:23:19.332
So all these things.
00:23:19.332 --> 00:23:21.373
At first I went, oh man, I can't afford.
00:23:21.373 --> 00:23:24.975
You know, at the time I think I was doing it on my own.
00:23:24.975 --> 00:23:27.376
I would say it cost me like $500, okay.
00:23:27.376 --> 00:23:34.043
And he was like well, this is my program, this is what it is, and for the machines we had at the time.
00:23:34.043 --> 00:23:35.606
And then I'm like oh, I got it.
00:23:35.606 --> 00:23:37.892
And then Wayne said you need to do this.
00:23:37.892 --> 00:23:40.459
So I was like yeah, and so that's when it happened?
00:23:40.479 --> 00:23:43.329
Well, it took you a solid nine months to make a decision.
00:23:43.329 --> 00:23:45.286
You don't act that way anymore.
00:23:45.286 --> 00:23:48.107
No, we both have changed a lot.
00:23:48.107 --> 00:23:50.059
And our business acumen has grown.
00:23:50.119 --> 00:23:54.727
Chris can make a really quick decision when it's like fun and lifestyle oriented.
00:23:55.068 --> 00:23:58.694
Hey, if I was at that bar dude I'm talking we would have had some fun with that one.
00:23:58.694 --> 00:24:00.005
We would have been lining stuff up.
00:24:00.005 --> 00:24:01.886
It probably would have been an epic viral video.
00:24:01.886 --> 00:24:04.439
But going back to that, that's called evidence.
00:24:04.439 --> 00:24:04.821
What was the?
00:24:04.861 --> 00:24:05.504
three o'clock thing.
00:24:05.504 --> 00:24:07.445
Was there a particular TV show on Somebody?
00:24:07.465 --> 00:24:08.608
watching porn.
00:24:08.608 --> 00:24:09.211
What's happening?
00:24:09.211 --> 00:24:21.145
It was the fact that, where they were, the circuit that Comcast or whatever provider it may have been, spectrum, I can't remember at the time was underserved in that location.
00:24:21.145 --> 00:24:27.263
And so what happens is they'll say, yes, we have internet capability for you.
00:24:27.263 --> 00:24:35.988
But what happens is, yes, they have it, but cable is one little pipe down, and if you have 50 people on the pipe, great.
00:24:35.988 --> 00:24:41.330
If you have 500, you're still sharing that same bandwidth, whether you're paying for this, that or the other.
00:24:41.330 --> 00:24:58.344
So what we found was, at three o'clock, there were people trying to keep awake watching videos or maybe not YouTube back then but a lot of bandwidth was being consumed and we had to put Comcast on notice and eventually we got a new circuit and then you moved.
00:24:58.505 --> 00:24:59.127
And and then you moved.
00:24:59.127 --> 00:25:07.839
I've kept the circuit sense, but one of the things that we thought about at the time was that we were at the end of this line in Comcast.
00:25:07.839 --> 00:25:17.942
In between the beginning of line the end of line were a lot of houses and apartments and a lot of kids came home from school at yeah, we get on get online and start doing their thing and we would lose it.
00:25:18.223 --> 00:25:18.664
that's what.
00:25:18.664 --> 00:25:23.633
So, yeah, so we end up having to go to a t3, not a t1, and uh, we've.
00:25:23.633 --> 00:25:34.333
I still have the t3 today, but uh, since we've gotten this fixed, this is one of those things where you don't realize it until you think about it and as you think about it.
00:25:34.333 --> 00:25:38.288
I haven't had a three o'clock disruption like that ever again.
00:25:38.288 --> 00:25:53.004
I've had Comcast go down, maybe twice, but I would tell you now, with having a service provider, I wasn't at the office it was like a Saturday night and I got a text message that came from his system saying your power's out.
00:25:53.004 --> 00:25:57.056
The power company didn't tell me no, but they did.
00:25:57.056 --> 00:25:58.881
They said, well, they set your servers offline.
00:25:58.923 --> 00:26:00.106
And this wasn't an easy.
00:26:00.106 --> 00:26:01.451
We've realized it.
00:26:01.451 --> 00:26:01.732
It was.
00:26:01.732 --> 00:26:10.144
How many times was I out there making the Comcast guy stand there with me and asking the questions Well, that doesn't make sense because of this, this and this.
00:26:10.144 --> 00:26:15.321
Oh well, you know, no, let's try it on this laptop directly and let's try this.
00:26:15.321 --> 00:26:23.870
And so now the tools have gotten to the point where I can tell so-and-so is watching YouTube videos and so-and-so is playing Spotify.
00:26:23.870 --> 00:26:27.269
And it's exactly the time you said things were slowing down.
00:26:27.269 --> 00:26:33.747
And it's, by the way, this machine and this person and this iPhone, big brother, baby, that's right, big dog.
00:26:35.040 --> 00:26:35.965
But what it's really helped.
00:26:35.965 --> 00:26:40.270
Help me understand how YouTube helps your job performance.
00:26:40.270 --> 00:26:42.285
Questions you know on your one-on-ones.
00:26:43.061 --> 00:26:44.686
I will say that one of them is help.
00:26:44.686 --> 00:26:46.090
Here's another stat.
00:26:46.090 --> 00:26:58.831
Here's a mind-blowing stat I just saw on TV they said that the Gen X and millennials 90 I'm sorry, 75% of workers will watch TV while they're doing their work during the day.
00:26:58.831 --> 00:27:00.193
I'm like, do what?
00:27:00.193 --> 00:27:02.205
Look at my daughter going.
00:27:02.205 --> 00:27:03.122
I'm like, do what.
00:27:03.122 --> 00:27:05.666
I'm like this isn't Final Four.
00:27:05.666 --> 00:27:10.431
This isn't like the start of the NCAAs, which is supposed to be the lowest productivity time ever.
00:27:10.431 --> 00:27:12.344
I was like you've got to be kidding me.
00:27:12.344 --> 00:27:15.865
So we went and looked it up and, sure enough, so I did have to ask one of my csrs.
00:27:16.346 --> 00:27:23.054
so help me understand I said so what are we watching today on your phone, through our, through our internet?
00:27:23.375 --> 00:27:26.526
with the little grin yeah, I said what are we watching today on our phone?
00:27:26.526 --> 00:27:29.503
So, but but that's the kind of stuff you know when you go back.
00:27:29.503 --> 00:27:31.110
I don't want to talk about this one too.
00:27:31.110 --> 00:27:38.339
So performance of your company, you know it's, it's a cost, you know, and to have that cost, I don't even think about it.
00:27:38.339 --> 00:27:47.467
I mean, you get all these email guys I know you do, and I get approached at least weekly about somebody who wants to get a free quote on it, quote unquote.
00:27:47.467 --> 00:27:52.887
Or you go to a networking group and they're like, hey, can we come over and just give you a free analysis?
00:27:53.490 --> 00:27:59.863
I'm like, yeah, I I actually it's not even worth my time right now.
00:27:59.863 --> 00:28:01.106
Well, that's why we do quarterly business reviews with you.
00:28:01.106 --> 00:28:12.711
I mean, the thing is, it's one thing to be at your revenue levels, but if you go back to startups and thinking about the things you can do, this isn't just about let's talk about where you started with.
00:28:12.711 --> 00:28:14.755
Well, I'm just a little handyman company.
00:28:14.755 --> 00:28:15.784
Why are they looking at me?
00:28:15.784 --> 00:28:17.201
They're now.
00:28:18.022 --> 00:28:22.652
It's not the pop-ups, it's not even just the ransomware, it's the email attacks.
00:28:22.652 --> 00:28:34.661
I mean, you've gotten it now where I know you're out of the country, and I say why is there a valid login from Ethiopia when I know Chris was at his office for 25 minutes ago when I left there.
00:28:34.661 --> 00:28:40.546
We get that constant security operations center monitoring and I'll get a phone call in the middle of the night.
00:28:40.546 --> 00:28:45.365
James, there was a valid login in Costa Rica for so-and-so-and-so.
00:28:45.365 --> 00:28:49.421
Oh, yes, that's valid, because I got an email from him that he was going to be out of the country.
00:28:49.882 --> 00:28:53.131
We have rules associated where you can log in where you can't log in.
00:28:53.131 --> 00:29:08.885
But think about this the average business that has five people or less, or maybe 10 people or less, or just a solo entrepreneur, they're not going to be able to spend a ton of money, but there are some things they can do to protect themselves.
00:29:08.885 --> 00:29:11.792
And so you get to your level.
00:29:11.792 --> 00:29:14.083
You're going to have a managed firewall.
00:29:14.083 --> 00:29:27.423
We're tying that event log and the event log of your computers and the event log of your email and the event log of everything you do into a security operations center that is going to 24 by 7 US-based.
00:29:27.423 --> 00:29:30.810
Monitor it and record those logs for a year.
00:29:30.810 --> 00:29:39.291
So if you are breached then we can turn it over to your insurance company and prove that you did what you said you did on your application, because that's half the battle you hit.
00:29:39.351 --> 00:29:40.456
You done two things.
00:29:40.456 --> 00:29:41.582
Let's go with that.
00:29:41.582 --> 00:29:42.548
The last one first.
00:29:42.548 --> 00:29:50.000
So just getting ready to do my insurance renewal, and at the back of my insurance renewal is cybersecurity protection and they had.
00:29:50.000 --> 00:29:56.705
I had to show them that I had an MSP so that they could provide me this protection and obviously charged me less premium.
00:29:57.266 --> 00:30:08.189
That's true, and the more you can report on it and actively show hey, when I help you, it used to be they just a business owner would send me the policy and I'm supposed to fill it out.
00:30:08.189 --> 00:30:10.123
Well, I can't take that risk anymore.
00:30:10.123 --> 00:30:12.730
You're responsible for a certain level of risk.
00:30:12.730 --> 00:30:17.500
I can help you mitigate that risk and I can report on how you're doing it.
00:30:17.500 --> 00:30:31.696
But ultimately, if the city of Atlanta can get ransomware, if all these pipelines and you can't throw enough money at a small MSP like me in a size revenue, you are to say, James, can you 100% protect me?
00:30:31.696 --> 00:30:34.443
No, it's layers of security.
00:30:34.524 --> 00:30:37.736
So let's go to the next thing, because you's bringing this one up ransomware.
00:30:37.736 --> 00:30:40.803
Why would anybody ransomware me, and what the hell does that mean?
00:30:40.803 --> 00:30:42.166
What's that?
00:30:42.207 --> 00:30:42.387
mean.
00:30:42.387 --> 00:30:49.613
So ransomware is an evolution of the virus and the ability to lock down your computer.
00:30:49.613 --> 00:30:56.449
So basically, what they're doing is taking a bet that you want your data back.
00:30:56.449 --> 00:30:57.973
So bad, you'll pay for it.
00:30:57.973 --> 00:31:02.271
We've encrypted it and unless you pay it with Bitcoin that can't be traced.
00:31:02.271 --> 00:31:06.389
Well, first of all, don't pay it, because the minute you do, they will unencrypt it.
00:31:06.389 --> 00:31:12.366
However, they got it in there in the first place hasn't been solved, so they'll re-ransomware you.
00:31:12.719 --> 00:31:16.930
I had my customer in Savannah which is Coastal Grading.
00:31:16.930 --> 00:31:17.792
They're a great company.
00:31:17.792 --> 00:31:20.769
It's been sold a long time ago.
00:31:20.769 --> 00:31:25.411
But they had a friend, a companion company, that got ransomwared.
00:31:25.411 --> 00:31:32.311
They paid the ransom, bought new computers, put everything back on.
00:31:32.311 --> 00:31:33.653
It got ransomed again.
00:31:33.653 --> 00:31:38.440
They expected the insurance company for their cybersecurity to pay for those new computers.
00:31:38.440 --> 00:31:43.360
No, you also got to look at what your policy if you have a cyber insurance policy will pay for.
00:31:43.360 --> 00:31:51.367
I know I'm birdwalking there a little bit, but ransomware is where somebody's clicked on something or somebody's downloaded something that are a computer.
00:31:51.367 --> 00:32:06.461
Or you've had a child at home that's got Minecraft and they've downloaded something to make them cheat at Minecraft that happens to have malware or a bad payload or something in it and they're playing on your work computer and you happily go to work, not knowing that your kid was using it for gaming.
00:32:06.461 --> 00:32:11.366
And you open up and suddenly hi get to your files.
00:32:13.631 --> 00:32:14.653
This is crazy, right.
00:32:14.653 --> 00:32:16.697
So I was asking him.
00:32:16.697 --> 00:32:18.548
I'm like, well, what will they do?
00:32:18.548 --> 00:32:19.850
He said, well, they'll hold your files.
00:32:19.850 --> 00:32:27.205
Now you can't work, and so they're going to ask for a number and they know that you can't go anywhere else and you're going to have to go back to them.
00:32:27.225 --> 00:32:29.288
That's right, it's evolved and it used to be.
00:32:29.288 --> 00:32:32.232
They'd say we want $500,000 or $50,000.
00:32:32.232 --> 00:32:39.310
Now what they do is they get into your systems and try to move laterally across the board, everything from your cell phone to your.
00:32:39.310 --> 00:32:40.212
They don't.
00:32:40.212 --> 00:32:42.237
Now they've seen you log in.
00:32:42.237 --> 00:32:49.258
They see you have a $20,000 bank balance, pretty regularly they're going to ask for $15,000.
00:32:49.258 --> 00:32:51.852
If they see you have $100,000, they're going to.
00:32:51.852 --> 00:32:53.216
But it's not just that.
00:32:53.216 --> 00:32:57.949
They've started to realize, well, a two million dollar ransom isn't going to be paid for this guy.
00:32:57.949 --> 00:33:00.757
He could probably pay 15 or 50 or whatever.
00:33:00.757 --> 00:33:20.211
But more importantly, it's who you're doing business with right, because if they can trick your system and this happens all the time you have 12 tabs open and one of your employees clicks on a fake email, logs in, suddenly they have access to every login on every one of those tabs.
00:33:20.211 --> 00:33:22.545
So think about the tabs you have open on your browser.
00:33:22.545 --> 00:33:25.571
It might be your bank, it might be your CRM.
00:33:25.792 --> 00:33:27.856
It might be your QuickBooks online?
00:33:27.856 --> 00:33:28.564
It might be.
00:33:28.564 --> 00:33:30.407
Yeah, Boats, boats, boats.
00:33:30.587 --> 00:33:33.632
I have 18 open right now.
00:33:34.113 --> 00:33:38.640
So if you were to click on that, they have access to all of those systems.
00:33:38.640 --> 00:33:44.798
So suddenly you're communicating with your attorney or you're about to close on a piece of property.
00:33:44.798 --> 00:33:55.676
They see that there's a oh, you're buying a piece of property in Captiva and so, and so, suddenly, they'll interject themselves into that email chain with your signature.
00:33:55.676 --> 00:34:07.872
Looks like it came from you, it might even have been from you, and they've got hidden rules in your Office 365 that are moving anything from this to a hidden folder and you don't even know that.
00:34:07.872 --> 00:34:13.378
So and so is not there clicking on replying oh yeah, I'll give you an updated wire instruction.
00:34:13.378 --> 00:34:17.054
And suddenly that money for your down payment or whatever, whatever.
00:34:17.125 --> 00:34:18.711
This is making my blood pressure go up.
00:34:18.711 --> 00:34:25.353
I mean, I'm so uncomfortable right now because you know, to be honest with you, when we start talking about computers it's blah, blah, blah, pop-ups, blah, you know.
00:34:25.353 --> 00:34:31.177
But this is how close are we to being able to hit a button and nuke them back?
00:34:36.344 --> 00:34:44.485
Well, I can tell you this If I had my laptop with me, it's in the truck, but I can actually get in and pull up Trusted Toolbox and tell you every attack down to the apartment building or the city they're in.
00:34:44.485 --> 00:34:50.952
Oh, so we can trace them now Can't do anything about it other than block that IP address or block.
00:34:51.740 --> 00:34:53.327
Chris knows some people that can do some things.
00:34:53.327 --> 00:34:55.931
Yeah, that's a different podcast.
00:34:55.931 --> 00:34:56.972
No, it's this podcast.
00:34:56.972 --> 00:34:58.896
Yeah, it is my podcast.
00:34:59.376 --> 00:35:00.840
I've asked too, and he said, no, you can't do that.
00:35:01.105 --> 00:35:03.010
I said where are these 90 attacks coming from?
00:35:03.010 --> 00:35:04.135
He goes, yeah, I know where they're coming from.
00:35:04.135 --> 00:35:05.626
I said, all right, let me have it.
00:35:05.626 --> 00:35:06.008
He goes.
00:35:06.008 --> 00:35:10.655
I can't Give me the address, so, but all right, so we have that here at the Trusted Toolbox.
00:35:10.655 --> 00:35:11.097
Trusted toolbox.
00:35:11.097 --> 00:35:15.345
But if I am a smaller guy, let's say I've got three or four people, what, what should?
00:35:15.345 --> 00:35:22.849
What preventive measures should I take before I decide to go yeah and and take the leap into ms 100 paper and courier pigeons.
00:35:22.849 --> 00:35:31.708
Thank you, thank you capital aarp, yeah get off my lawn kids savannah's watching the movie already.
00:35:31.989 --> 00:35:33.070
Yeah, we.
00:35:33.070 --> 00:35:34.032
We've already lost her.
00:35:34.032 --> 00:35:34.894
She's gone Long gone.
00:35:38.265 --> 00:35:39.026
She's planning dinner.
00:35:39.026 --> 00:35:42.911
So before you, you'll know you need an MSP.
00:35:42.911 --> 00:35:56.258
When, just like you mentioned, chris, when it comes to the point where you're spending enough time that it's preventing you from proactively working on your business, employees will hide behind the tall grass.
00:35:56.258 --> 00:36:00.500
And so things like productivity is the point where I'm smoking at the back.
00:36:00.500 --> 00:36:02.708
The internet's not working, I might not take a smoke break.
00:36:02.708 --> 00:36:03.992
Oh, my printer doesn't work.
00:36:03.992 --> 00:36:10.858
They will find every excuse not to do their job, and then they've taken that monkey and put it on your desk.
00:36:10.858 --> 00:36:17.782
So at that point, when you're doing too many balancing of monkeys, that's when you know you need to invest in a third party.
00:36:17.782 --> 00:36:23.847
Somebody that has the ability to multitask and has a team of people that are can help you with your IT needs.
00:36:24.510 --> 00:36:37.777
But to start with, if I was a brand new startup I just read E-Myth Mastery, one of my favorite books, michael Gerber and you take the leap of faith and you say I'm doing it the first thing I would invest in is a firewall.
00:36:37.777 --> 00:36:47.849
You know you'll see people at home using their Comcast modem thinking that that's going to protect them, and it doesn't.
00:36:47.849 --> 00:36:49.235
It just doesn't.
00:36:49.235 --> 00:36:52.634
Comcast isn't in the business of protecting your data.
00:36:52.634 --> 00:36:56.275
They just provide you a pipeline to get to a certain place.
00:36:56.275 --> 00:37:17.175
So a firewall is very important, and that can range from a few hundred dollars to something like we've got in place with you, which is monitored and proactively managed, and several thousand dollars versus a Netgear or a WatchGuard, or WatchGuards are managed as well, but those ones you see at Best Buy Okay.
00:37:17.175 --> 00:37:18.771
So that's better than nothing.
00:37:19.445 --> 00:37:28.153
So good, better, best, you're saying that's good, it's okay, let's at least get a firewall, and let's at least change the default password from admin.
00:37:28.253 --> 00:37:30.826
Admin or your password of password A.
00:37:30.865 --> 00:37:33.811
B, C, D, E it's actually 1, 2, 3, 4.
00:37:33.811 --> 00:37:38.771
I just had a heart attack.
00:37:38.771 --> 00:37:40.195
You're gonna have to change it before this airs.
00:37:40.195 --> 00:37:41.682
That's so funny, I love it so, yes, that that.
00:37:41.722 --> 00:37:44.591
So now everybody can hack into everything for me, no, come on.
00:37:44.591 --> 00:37:46.074
I mean, my passwords are all over the place.
00:37:46.074 --> 00:37:48.347
But um, how many passwords?
00:37:49.088 --> 00:37:52.356
well, that's actually that comes into number three on my list, all right go.
00:37:52.356 --> 00:37:54.811
But so the firewall is basically.
00:37:54.811 --> 00:38:00.187
Just think about it, as you just built a moat around your castle right, got it, so you've got a better.
00:38:00.187 --> 00:38:04.757
It's better than just having the castle walls up, which is good, but you need a moat.
00:38:04.757 --> 00:38:13.171
Well, at that point, the next thing is replacing those Alligators in the moat, that's right, We'll call that EDR.
00:38:15.224 --> 00:38:16.811
That used to be antivirus Endpoint detection and response.
00:38:16.811 --> 00:38:18.195
I'm getting computers, Chris, Did you hear that?
00:38:18.195 --> 00:38:23.036
So the second thing is and this is I'm trying- to, I make fire.
00:38:23.557 --> 00:38:24.097
Good job, alan.
00:38:24.097 --> 00:38:25.190
Go back to coloring your crayons.
00:38:25.190 --> 00:38:27.593
Gronk, chunk, ronks, make sparky.
00:38:27.593 --> 00:38:30.849
I get computers, alligators and butts.
00:38:30.849 --> 00:38:33.211
Hey, I got it and he comes up with EDR.
00:38:33.211 --> 00:38:38.280
I'm like, I'm trying to I'm actually trying to write down EDR, because I don't even know what it means.
00:38:39.204 --> 00:38:41.490
It's shorthand for alligator Detection and response.
00:38:41.490 --> 00:38:50.767
Think of it as antivirus on steroids Used to be.
00:38:50.767 --> 00:38:53.151
You'd have antivirus and the definitions would come down once a week or whenever.
00:38:53.151 --> 00:38:56.556
Edr is the advanced version of that, where real-time your activity is being scanned.
00:38:56.556 --> 00:39:06.856
If there's a malware or a bad piece of software, it's called a PUP Potentially Unwanted Program Something that you might have clicked on and said, yes, you know how impatient we all are.
00:39:06.856 --> 00:39:07.336
I've done it.
00:39:07.336 --> 00:39:10.835
You log in, click, click, click, yes, yes, yes, give me what I need to know.
00:39:10.835 --> 00:39:13.505
I've got a phone call in 10 minutes that one.
00:39:13.505 --> 00:39:19.613
So EDR is the next Plan on spending between $3 and $7 per person on something like that.
00:39:20.006 --> 00:39:21.552
For a basic level of EDR.
00:39:21.552 --> 00:39:23.380
So I've got to put a firewall in.
00:39:23.380 --> 00:39:25.472
I need to get an endpoint detection response.
00:39:25.472 --> 00:39:27.092
Give me a name on that one.
00:39:28.367 --> 00:39:35.253
We use Datto EDR, but there are things like Huntress.
00:39:35.253 --> 00:39:38.111
There are countless good versions.
00:39:38.111 --> 00:39:38.853
That sounds good.
00:39:38.853 --> 00:39:39.515
Get that one.
00:39:39.756 --> 00:39:40.617
That does sound sexy.
00:39:40.925 --> 00:39:55.034
It gets to the point where you can lock down to nothing called Threat Locker, where it is a zero-trust type application where nothing is trusted unless we approve it ahead of time, but an EDR, even some of the decent manufacturers.
00:39:55.034 --> 00:39:57.219
Now you don't want McAfee.
00:39:57.219 --> 00:40:00.213
Some of these are just crap.
00:40:00.213 --> 00:40:02.672
They just come on the home edition computers.
00:40:02.672 --> 00:40:06.193
Do your research, Don't expect to spend more than $7.
00:40:06.193 --> 00:40:18.059
At that point you're going to get into where you have a security operations center monitoring for things a little bit more proactively than just the software trying to do it's true, because I mean, if you would have said, what would you do?
00:40:18.079 --> 00:40:20.588
I was like, well, I knew they're norton and I knew mcafee.
00:40:20.588 --> 00:40:21.731
That's the only two names I knew.
00:40:21.731 --> 00:40:23.807
Right, but I don't have to know that stuff anymore.
00:40:23.807 --> 00:40:25.813
But now he's saying he's unlocking it for you.
00:40:25.813 --> 00:40:27.144
You know to tell you what to do.
00:40:27.286 --> 00:40:35.980
So firewall, put your alligators in your moat for alan that's called edr and then the next thing is you put oil in the moat and light it on fire.
00:40:36.305 --> 00:40:37.691
That's why I can't wait to hear what number three is.
00:40:38.224 --> 00:40:40.874
Well, I think the third Wow.
00:40:42.245 --> 00:40:46.133
No no, guess it's a whole new level you haven't even reached the wall yet Wait to see what's coming.
00:40:46.133 --> 00:40:50.707
Wait to see what he does with that thing, I think the password manager is the most important thing.
00:40:50.747 --> 00:40:52.210
Next, things like LastPass.
00:40:52.210 --> 00:41:19.590
There are so many passwords and there are so many times where we'll do a scan on the dark web and we'll see that Chris has used password as his password for 93 websites or whatever complexity, and then you forget them having something that is encrypted Capital P password and the at sign for the A Weird Ooh, uh-oh oh here, I didn't even give that one up, and now he's gotta go to teach my password again.
00:41:21.414 --> 00:41:22.646
Don't worry, I've got you what?
00:41:22.687 --> 00:41:25.961
all right, so last pass, last pass is a good one.
00:41:25.961 --> 00:41:26.664
There's others.
00:41:26.664 --> 00:41:31.385
There's there's a quite a few, and all of them have been breached at one point of the other.
00:41:31.385 --> 00:41:35.437
Theoretically, I'm just mentioning that one.
00:41:35.437 --> 00:41:36.570
There's a lot of others.
00:41:36.570 --> 00:41:43.414
Just something to manage your passwords where it's not a spreadsheet or a note on your phone, because my wife keeps her passwords and notes on her phone.
00:41:43.925 --> 00:41:47.351
So we don't do that at the Trust the Toolbox, we just use sticky notes.
00:41:47.805 --> 00:41:51.271
I think sticky notes are the most secure thing I've heard so far in this podcast.
00:41:51.271 --> 00:41:52.014
No, actually.
00:41:52.266 --> 00:41:54.153
I think his rates are going up far in this podcast.
00:41:54.153 --> 00:41:55.294
No, actually I think his rates are going up, oh my god.
00:41:55.314 --> 00:41:57.918
So what's funny is I said, hey, james is coming over, and I used to go to cindy.
00:41:57.918 --> 00:42:00.467
I'm like, hey, I think it's time to get rid of those posted.
00:42:00.527 --> 00:42:02.070
They're faded, the color's gone.
00:42:02.091 --> 00:42:04.958
Yeah, and she put a bit in her drawer, one that we don't lock.
00:42:05.265 --> 00:42:09.795
I'm like that's awesome I think that, I think that actually kind of works.
00:42:09.795 --> 00:42:13.230
No, actually everybody no no, no, so you said something.
00:42:13.230 --> 00:42:14.593
Sorry, I'm going to digress a little bit.
00:42:14.593 --> 00:42:15.977
What is the dark web?
00:42:15.977 --> 00:42:17.490
I mean, it sounds so ominous.
00:42:17.490 --> 00:42:21.535
It's where the mafia hangs out and all the Russians and all that stuff.
00:42:21.535 --> 00:42:22.617
Basically, okay.
00:42:23.586 --> 00:42:27.373
So it is a version of.
00:42:27.373 --> 00:42:29.517
I'll try to make this as simple as possible.
00:42:29.537 --> 00:42:30.519
Thank you, I appreciate it.
00:42:30.845 --> 00:42:31.890
Alan sport rock.
00:42:36.204 --> 00:42:37.393
Don't forget the oil and the alligators.
00:42:37.393 --> 00:42:38.057
I got flaming alligators.
00:42:38.057 --> 00:42:38.823
The listeners were on it with that.
00:42:38.823 --> 00:42:40.510
Okay, great, I've lost my train of thought.
00:42:40.510 --> 00:42:41.393
What's a dark web?
00:42:41.644 --> 00:42:45.836
Okay, so think of the Internet where you can Google anything you want, all right, yeah.
00:42:45.836 --> 00:42:54.657
Now if you provide a VPN or a hidden tunnel to another version of the Internet, that's a dark web.
00:42:54.657 --> 00:43:07.228
It's where your identity is stolen and they sell your credentials.
00:43:07.228 --> 00:43:09.153
Perhaps you may have gone to a lot of this happens to a lot of people.
00:43:09.153 --> 00:43:13.967
They'll go to Chewycom or OfficeDepotcom and Office Depot hasn't protected your username and password, right.
00:43:13.967 --> 00:43:23.961
They get breached and suddenly you'll see, oh, on the news, blah, blah, blah, I got breached and they've lost your social security number, your credit card information.
00:43:23.961 --> 00:43:29.856
It doesn't take just one of those Like Office Depot is going to give a username and maybe a password.
00:43:29.856 --> 00:43:31.251
Well, that's a starting point for them.
00:43:31.251 --> 00:43:34.432
So then, what these brokers do for pennies.
00:43:34.432 --> 00:43:41.432
I could buy 15,000 names and social security numbers and medical information on the dark web for a penny a piece.
00:43:41.585 --> 00:43:43.820
Why don't you just do that for your customer list, Chris.
00:43:43.820 --> 00:43:44.425
That's what I'm thinking.
00:43:44.726 --> 00:43:45.860
I've already done that for her.
00:43:45.860 --> 00:43:47.691
Okay, how do you think I got the new truck?
00:43:48.072 --> 00:43:51.573
Hey, you do have a nicer truck than Chris does.
00:43:51.573 --> 00:43:52.436
What is that?
00:43:58.704 --> 00:43:59.347
Oh, a nicer truck than chris does.
00:43:59.347 --> 00:43:59.628
What is that?
00:43:59.628 --> 00:44:00.170
Oh, I haven't seen that man.
00:44:00.170 --> 00:44:00.451
I was already.
00:44:00.451 --> 00:44:01.535
I was already in here getting ready for the podcast.
00:44:01.535 --> 00:44:02.097
Sorry, no, seriously it's so.
00:44:02.097 --> 00:44:02.899
Just think of it as the bad guy's home.
00:44:02.899 --> 00:44:04.403
Everything's for sale, whether it's drugs, whether it's weapons, whether it's.
00:44:04.425 --> 00:44:14.532
I mean, I'm making this very simplified, but not enough for alan, but for our listeners they're getting it but it's just not easily found, I mean, it, it.
00:44:14.733 --> 00:44:25.332
It is if you're a bad guy and you can think about the way sophistication apparently I'm not a bad guy, no, I'm not either, if they spent half their time, half of this time, getting a real job.
00:44:25.432 --> 00:44:29.126
I know I know there's really brilliant, so for a password manager.
00:44:29.207 --> 00:44:31.231
Think between there's free versions.
00:44:31.231 --> 00:44:43.577
Last pass has a free version for your family and the nice thing about that is you can put in your Gwinnett water all the things that if something happened to you your Facebook, your phone pin it's encrypted.
00:44:43.577 --> 00:44:47.536
Your wife would be able to log in and see all of those things if something happened.
00:44:47.684 --> 00:44:49.633
It's just being you know All right.
00:44:49.633 --> 00:44:50.706
So, man, we're running out of time.
00:44:50.706 --> 00:44:51.367
This stuff is so good, all right.
00:44:51.387 --> 00:44:52.028
So, man, we're running out of time.
00:44:52.048 --> 00:44:53.389
This stuff is so good, all right, so one, two, three.
00:44:53.389 --> 00:44:53.870
What else do you have?
00:44:54.030 --> 00:44:57.294
Multi-factor authentication hey, you almost did your password One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.
00:44:58.436 --> 00:45:00.157
So multi-factor authentication.
00:45:00.157 --> 00:45:00.838
It's upside down.
00:45:00.838 --> 00:45:02.141
Everybody hates it.
00:45:02.141 --> 00:45:13.739
Everybody finds it completely annoying to have to go to your phone, get a text message that says type this in that's the base level you want for your banking or anything important.
00:45:13.739 --> 00:45:14.340
I got out of that one.
00:45:14.360 --> 00:45:14.661
You broke me.
00:45:14.661 --> 00:45:15.483
You love that one, didn't you?
00:45:15.483 --> 00:45:18.091
I broke out Multi-factor authentication.
00:45:18.091 --> 00:45:18.994
So I have that.
00:45:18.994 --> 00:45:21.032
We have that because we have Office 365.
00:45:21.032 --> 00:45:23.010
So they're the kings of that one right now, right.
00:45:23.432 --> 00:45:23.974
Well, yes.
00:45:23.974 --> 00:45:28.416
However, do you have it on your ability to remote in and look at your files?
00:45:28.416 --> 00:45:31.474
Do you have it on your phone system?
00:45:31.474 --> 00:45:39.050
Do you have it on all the devices that you can turn that on?
00:45:39.050 --> 00:45:39.652
It's a pain.
00:45:39.652 --> 00:45:53.197
You should then get a tool like duo or microsoft's authie or authie, and then microsoft has their own, and what will happen is it'll it'll instead of text messaging you, because now we can clone phone sims, right, so we can make a fake version of your cell phone.
00:45:53.197 --> 00:45:55.164
Wow, the bad guys can not me.
00:45:55.164 --> 00:45:57.068
Wow, right, so then I'm a good guy.
00:45:58.193 --> 00:46:00.362
I think he can, I think he could be a bad guy.
00:46:00.362 --> 00:46:02.771
I know he's just choosing to be good.
00:46:02.832 --> 00:46:03.997
He's chosen the right path.
00:46:03.997 --> 00:46:05.082
You have chosen wisely.
00:46:05.082 --> 00:46:05.945
It's like a paladin.
00:46:05.985 --> 00:46:06.827
But what happens then?
00:46:06.907 --> 00:46:07.008
is.
00:46:07.008 --> 00:46:09.735
It's a push notification to that application.
00:46:09.735 --> 00:46:16.047
That's tied and encrypted and again, that's simplified.
00:46:16.047 --> 00:46:16.929
Last thing backups, thing, backups.
00:46:16.929 --> 00:46:17.451
All right, here we go.
00:46:17.451 --> 00:46:18.855
That's what I wanted to get to this at the very, very minimum.
00:46:18.855 --> 00:46:27.875
Think about your office 365, your email, your files in the cloud dropbox, one drive, any of the e-folder, any of the data services.
00:46:27.875 --> 00:46:32.670
Consider yourself a renter and think about renters insurance.
00:46:32.670 --> 00:46:38.730
Microsoft Office 365 is there to provide you the apartment.
00:46:38.730 --> 00:46:41.436
They're there to make sure the apartment's interable.
00:46:41.436 --> 00:46:45.133
If something happens and it burns down, they have to replace the infrastructure.
00:46:45.133 --> 00:46:47.047
What happens to your stuff inside there?
00:46:47.047 --> 00:46:50.276
Make sure you have cloud backups.
00:46:50.276 --> 00:47:01.637
Make sure you at least have something if you're a one-man show and don't have a server, things like a Carbonite or anything that will cloud backup your laptop if you don't have what you have in place.
00:47:01.878 --> 00:47:02.900
Wow, All right.
00:47:02.900 --> 00:47:10.739
So in Alan's case, what would happen there is that the oil alligator oil on fire would come into his place and blow it all up.
00:47:10.925 --> 00:47:11.748
Alan's case.
00:47:11.748 --> 00:47:12.992
He's going to be at the kitchen.
00:47:18.585 --> 00:47:21.451
He's going to put a plank down for the guy that looks like you know Freddy Krueger, to bring in the groceries and leave it down.
00:47:21.451 --> 00:47:22.231
That's right, alan, all right.
00:47:22.231 --> 00:47:22.532
So here's.
00:47:22.532 --> 00:47:25.318
Here's an example of why backups are so important.
00:47:25.318 --> 00:47:28.428
Also, it's not even cybersecurity, it's not.
00:47:28.428 --> 00:47:34.535
It's just some of your employees can get ahold of a file and delete it really quickly and then they go.
00:47:34.535 --> 00:47:36.458
Hey, chris, can't find our price list.
00:47:36.458 --> 00:47:36.978
Where'd it go?
00:47:36.978 --> 00:47:38.260
I can't do anything.
00:47:38.260 --> 00:47:39.300
Where's my price list?
00:47:39.300 --> 00:47:41.331
I'm like, well, it was right there, let me go.
00:47:41.331 --> 00:47:42.655
Where is it?
00:47:42.655 --> 00:47:44.130
Well, I went in there and grabbed it.
00:47:44.130 --> 00:47:45.909
I'm like did you grab it?
00:47:45.909 --> 00:47:48.816
Or did you hit the D button for dumbass?
00:47:48.816 --> 00:47:52.669
D delete dumbass and that Delete dumbass All in the same sentence?
00:47:52.669 --> 00:47:53.871
That's an innocent issue.
00:47:54.391 --> 00:48:14.296
What about something more along the lines of you have somebody in your QuickBooks that's doing your state Sales tax Sales tax, for instance but instead of paying it electronically to the and this happened to somebody I know, a customer their person was routing their state unemployment tax.
00:48:14.296 --> 00:48:16.652
It's shown in QuickBooks that they paid it.
00:48:16.652 --> 00:48:19.653
They were routing that money into their personal bank account.
00:48:19.945 --> 00:48:21.251
Now, obviously, they got caught.
00:48:21.251 --> 00:48:22.872
You need to fire your accountant right now.
00:48:22.872 --> 00:48:24.445
No, my accountant's not doing that?
00:48:24.466 --> 00:48:24.987
Your bookkeeper?
00:48:24.987 --> 00:48:26.990
Yeah, no, oh, okay, are they doing that?
00:48:26.990 --> 00:48:27.630
I don't know.
00:48:27.731 --> 00:48:28.451
But here's the point.
00:48:28.451 --> 00:48:30.934
Can't you tell I don't either, if you have done right.
00:48:31.495 --> 00:48:36.101
You can go back months and potentially you've done accounting.
00:48:36.101 --> 00:48:39.344
What was the P&L then versus now?
00:48:39.344 --> 00:48:47.812
At least you have the ability to go back, even if you're just to have one computer, carbonite or something along those lines.
00:48:48.005 --> 00:48:49.492
We're going to have to skip the four questions.
00:48:49.492 --> 00:48:50.851
I know we are this is great.
00:48:51.988 --> 00:48:56.914
Guys, as we wrap this one up, you're figuring out there's a lot of little things you can do on your own.
00:48:56.914 --> 00:49:06.055
But if you want to go to a managed service provider, I don't think you're going to find it as expensive and you can actually cost justify it quicker than nine months that Chris did.
00:49:06.055 --> 00:49:07.370
Let me speed this up for you.
00:49:07.370 --> 00:49:10.592
It definitely was a help because it took me out of the.
00:49:10.592 --> 00:49:13.898
Well, I need to get a new laptop for a guy, all right.
00:49:13.898 --> 00:49:15.798
Well, I need to get a new laptop for a guy, all right, chris, what did you used to do?
00:49:15.818 --> 00:49:21.943
Well, I used to go look at Best Buy, then I go to Costco and then I go see if I can get a deal with Dell, and then I'm all over the place and then I get the one.
00:49:21.943 --> 00:49:24.146
That all, basically, is just a web appliance.
00:49:24.146 --> 00:49:24.986
Isn't that good?
00:49:24.986 --> 00:49:25.907
And those guys?
00:49:25.907 --> 00:49:27.709
So now I just say, all right, this is what I need.
00:49:27.709 --> 00:49:31.733
And they go okay, set it up.
00:49:31.733 --> 00:49:43.753
They buy the laptop, they get it cheaper than I could have gotten anywhere, and I don't care, because it's all set up and it sits right there and the guy can start working day one and I can start training him on trusted toolbox shit as opposed to how do we set up a computer shit.
00:49:43.753 --> 00:49:45.077
What a massive time saver.
00:49:45.077 --> 00:49:51.637
It really has been a massive time saver for me and peace of mind, a lot of peace of mind, because we did get hacked.
00:49:51.637 --> 00:49:53.740
You know, our email got compromised years ago.
00:49:53.740 --> 00:49:56.662
That was me, no, but that again.
00:49:57.425 --> 00:49:58.892
It happens still every day.
00:49:59.213 --> 00:50:03.110
Yeah, so you guys closed it down quick and then we had to go back in.
00:50:03.110 --> 00:50:05.534
Everybody had to get password educated again.
00:50:05.534 --> 00:50:08.534
And now good news is all my passwords.
00:50:08.574 --> 00:50:08.976
What is it?
00:50:08.976 --> 00:50:11.945
It's apparently didn't stick 9876?
00:50:12.626 --> 00:50:13.572
Apparently didn't stick.
00:50:15.508 --> 00:50:16.414
I'm going to throw one off on you.
00:50:16.414 --> 00:50:16.899
Don't forget the L.
00:50:16.899 --> 00:50:17.423
But that's an upside-down.
00:50:17.423 --> 00:50:17.545
7.
00:50:17.545 --> 00:50:20.854
Oh, multi-factor authentication.
00:50:20.854 --> 00:50:23.751
Chris has got it going on, I'm going to use the upside-down 8 in my password.
00:50:23.751 --> 00:50:24.152
There you go.
00:50:24.152 --> 00:50:24.785
I love it All.
00:50:24.785 --> 00:50:27.585
Right guys, this has been awesome, Like.
00:50:27.606 --> 00:50:29.794
I said we could have gone all over the place.
00:50:29.794 --> 00:50:34.412
We got a little taste of how James started his business and scaled using technology.
00:50:34.412 --> 00:50:39.620
We'll get him back on talk about AI and scaling in the future, because I think it'd be awesome to have you come talk about that.
00:50:39.620 --> 00:50:53.088
But in the meantime, this is something that if it's happened to you, you know it's a big deal and it's a pain in the ass, and it's happened to me, and not in a big way, just in little things, and that's made me go wow, I don't ever want that big thing to happen.
00:50:53.088 --> 00:51:08.259
So I'm actually I'm all for it, I like it, and when I see people trying to kind of crisscross in our world, in my business, I'm like no, no, you got to get back in, you got to do this thing the right way and don't open those stupid emails.
00:51:08.318 --> 00:51:09.463
And what are you watching today, alan?
00:51:09.463 --> 00:51:09.785
All right guys.
00:51:10.345 --> 00:51:11.447
I'm watching my water bottle.
00:51:11.467 --> 00:51:12.869
This is a great episode Alan the cool water bottle.
00:51:12.869 --> 00:51:14.250
I really like that water bottle.
00:51:14.711 --> 00:51:15.932
You know what Echo?
00:51:15.932 --> 00:51:16.874
It's like the Fountain of Youth.
00:51:16.874 --> 00:51:18.216
It's a high-tech water bottle.
00:51:18.216 --> 00:51:20.378
Screw that we're going back to bourbon next episode.
00:51:20.498 --> 00:51:20.878
All right, guys.
00:51:20.878 --> 00:51:22.240
If you put bourbon in it, what would happen?
00:51:24.186 --> 00:51:25.410
Oh, healthy bourbon.
00:51:25.410 --> 00:51:30.867
Healthy bourbon, we love it, I love it when they say healthy bourbon.