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Erick and Rich discuss what MSPs should make of AI-native, venture-funded MSP rollup Shield Technology Partners working side-by-side with OpenAI and hiring a C-level Palantir executive as its new CEO, as well as how and why to design your MSP for exit readiness even if you’re not selling today. Then they’re joined by ConnectWise CEO Manny Rivelo to explore AI’s long-term implications for MSPs and ConnectWise itself. And finally, one last thing: Just in time for holiday gift giving, there’s now drunk raccoon merch.
Discussed in this episode:
Jim Siders joins Shield Technology Partners as Chief Executive Officer
Merch commemorating drunk Virginia raccoon raises over $250,000 for animal shelter
Some guests on this podcast are clients of Channel Mastered. Compensation plays no part in their appearance or the content of the discussion unless the episode they appear on is a “bonus episode” explicitly labeled as sponsored.
Transcript:
Rich: [00:00:00] And Three, two, one, Blastoff. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of the MSP Chat podcast, your weekly visit with two talking heads, talking with you about these services, strategies, and success tips you need to make it big in managed services. My name is Rich Freeman. I’m Chief analyst at Channel Mastered, the organization responsible for this show.
I’m joined in this merry holiday season by your other co-host, our CEO and chief strategist at Channel Mastered. He is Erick Simpson. Ho, Erick, how you doing?
Erick: I’m doing great. Rich and ho, ho to you.
Rich: We we are both looking forward to, we, we do love podcasting with you folks, but we are also ready for a little time off, as I’m guessing you folks are as well.
We are looking forward to that. This is actually what [00:01:00] we’re recording right now is actually the last episode of 2025. We will be back on January 2nd, right at the beginning of the new year with another episode for you. But we will be dark for one week in there while we are enjoying the holidays, as we hope you do too.
But we’ve got plenty to talk about here, Erick.
Erick: Yeah. Let’s get after Rich, because being the last show of the year, let me just guess what the story of the week might include.
Rich: Yes, indeed. I woke up Monday morning and a lot of people came, I should actually say I got a call last week from one of my contacts at Shield Technology.
Partners Shield is a company I’m sure we’ve spoken about on the show before. A venture capital backed MSP Rollup built around a very sophisticated AI platform. And I got a call late last week saying, I can’t tell you what it is, but we’ve got big news breaking on Monday, and sure enough, Monday morning I wake up to discover that Shield now has a A CEO or a new CEO.
His [00:02:00] name is Jim Siders. He was up until now, the CIO at Palantir. I am sure everybody in our audience is familiar with Par Palantir, an unbelievable AI fueled Silicon Valley success story. This guy Running Shield now was the CIO there. I think it goes without question, Erick. He’s had a few other job offers along the way.
He chose to take this one. And a few things to point out here. First of all, if there was any lingering question about the matter, now we now officially know managed services has arrived. As big business. That does not necessarily mean that’s the only way to do managed services or to be a successful MSP, but I remember back in 2019 when TPG, this big private equity firm bought a piece of Kaseya and that felt like a milestone moment where a company like TPG that has or had stakes in Airbnb and Spotify and Uber was investing in Kaseya that told you something about the growth and the [00:03:00] opportunity in that market.
For the CIO. Palantir to step on as the CEO of Shield Technology Partners tells you something else, as does something that was in the news two weeks ago, which is that OpenAI now owns a piece of Thrive Holdings, which is the parent company of of SHIELD technology partners. So you’ve got some of the biggest names, the biggest businesses, the deepest pockets in technology betting on the growth of managed services.
And what’s particularly interesting about this Erick is what they’re betting on. We’ve spoken with, in fact, just a few weeks ago on the show, we had, we Silverstone the CEO of Zoic. There are a bunch of these AI native companies out there building AI software for MSPs. And they have a very rich opportunity in front of them right now.
But with the venture capital companies and OpenAI, for that matter, are betting. Is that the real opportunity? Is on the MSP side of that equation, you’ve got the [00:04:00] AI software being made by AI software companies, and then you’ve got MSPs using that software, and you’ve now got venture capital firms betting that on a company by company basis.
If you look at who is best set up for hockey stick growth or something like it through ai, it’s more the MSPs than the AI software makers. They will do very well don’t get me wrong, and there’s huge money flowing into those companies, but the idea, the thesis here is if we take a good MSP with good customer relationships.
And we combine it with the kind of technology that our shield technology partners can introduce into the picture. You can really scale and grow a business rapidly in that power law kind of way that the venture capital folks are interested in. And then there’s another interesting piece of this.
Really from the get go, since I first encountered SHIELD and started talking to the folks there I was aware of the fact that one of the co-founders there is also a veteran of [00:05:00] Palantir. They really, as part of their model they from the beginning have had this idea that just as Palantir is very well known for this concept of the forward deployed engineer, you buy a solution from Palantir and you’re not just consuming it over the web.
Somebody from Palantir is gonna be on site with you if nothing else deploying and optimizing and customizing, possibly helping you operate it. And so the idea with Shield Technology Partners has always been if you’re an MSP. We acquire you, we will have a forward deployed engineer, somebody from SHIELD hq, come out to your company and for at least a few weeks in the onboarding process, work side by side with you to make sure that you have all of this amazing AI technology that we’re building properly installed, fully optimized, properly configured.
Everybody is trained, and I assume there’s some more forward deployed engineer work that goes on in the future. Beyond that I still, I don’t know for sure [00:06:00] I should say, but it is entirely possible based on things that I’ve heard from SHIELD and from Thrive that some of those forward deployed engineers now and again could actually be not.
Shield or Thrive employees or ZVS employees, that’s the other big investor in shield. They could actually be full-time employees, open ai who are like on site with you, helping you deploy and and optimize this software. And that too speaks to a bit of this venture capital thesis that I think is worth keeping in mind, which is the idea basically.
And we heard this directly from Titan, which is a company very much like Shield. Their co-founders were on the show with us. It’s this idea basically that with ai, unlike all the other software that MSPs use or have ever used, where the model has always been, vendors come along with some great new exciting thing.
They persuade you to buy it, you buy it, they do enablement and training, but basically it’s up to [00:07:00] you as the MSP to deploy and operate. There’s a bit of a thesis in the venture capital world that, that won’t work, that’s insufficient with ai, that this is so different and so sophisticated, and the opportunity for growth is so much greater if you actually have the software maker on site with you.
That’s the model that they’re building here, and that’s, fundamentally why. They are buying MSPs as opposed to selling software to MSPs because they believe the growth opportunity is with the Ms. P, but the only way to get that is if they actually own that company there.
And so there is a question for everybody else who is not thinking about, has no interest in selling to Shield or Titan or the other companies like them that are inevitably going to show up. Are you gonna be at an operating disadvantage trying to get, no, no matter how good the AI software tools for MSPs are you really gonna be able to capitalize on the growth potential they create for you on your [00:08:00] own, or are the shields and the titans of the world, right?
That you really need forward deployed engineer expertise. You really need consultative hands-on assistance from the software maker to, to make this work. And I, one last quick note, Erick there is one company I know of. There are all these different AI native. Startups out there for MSPs. There’s one that I know of called Everest.
Interestingly enough, they come out of the venture capital world as well. They’re part of Y Combinator and their model, the model they’re building does involve for deployed engineers as well. So they’re bought into that same thesis. They’re not acquiring MSPs. So that’s the one option I’m aware of right now where you could potentially get that FDE benefit without actually having to sell your business.
But it, whether or not you need that FDE in order to make AI work is now a question, that we’ve got some very big money betting on one side of that question, and it’ll be a question. MSPs in general are gonna need to answer [00:09:00] down the road. Yeah. Isn’t
Erick: it amazing, rich, we’re watching history unfold before us business models changing a perfect storm of opportunity where, you know, from where I’m sitting, it’s like the MSP.
Model was built for ai, it was the missing piece, right? It’s almost if I had to look at all of the different businesses and verticals and the target markets and these businesses and what they did, and I had AI and I was a betten man, where could I make the most impact to an organization from an operational perspective, from a reporting perspective, from a, not only a sell to, but a sell through opportunity where the business themselves could then resell and consult on the AI that I’m introducing to them and [00:10:00] increase valuation, lower costs grow ebitda.
I would definitely think that the MSPs would be in the top five of. Of opportunity. So what we’re seeing, I think is this inflection of, m and a and PE backed money that’s been happening. We’ve been talking about it on the show for forever. Then the MSP model itself and the maturity that the MSPs are now enjoying, right?
So we’ve been around 20 plus or minus years working in this channel, you and I, both, from both sides, and have seen it grow and mature. So now we have AI and then we have these gigantic movers and shakers in the AI industry taking notice. And what I would say is yes, I think that there is a certain maturity level where it’s [00:11:00] opportunistic for an MSP to say, yes, I am ready for that.
I’m all in. Let’s go, forward deployed engine. Yes, sign me up for that. But there’s a whole lot more MSPs that aren’t yet at that maturity level. So we still got some time. MSPs still have time to mature, to get to a point where they will learn how to adopt AI into their organizations because their vendors, the tools that they’re using are integrating that.
They’re putting it in there for them. They’ll learn how to, just like anything else, how to become more strategic and consultative with a new technology. AI is probably the biggest tool or solution that MSPs can accelerate that discussion from the server room to the boardroom, like we always talk about and be more strategic in employing and deploying and managing AI and not just chat bots, but.
Agents and [00:12:00] orchestrating agents and everybody in an organization having an agent for their job role that helps them eliminate noise 20, 30%. Let them be more efficient. That’s what the MSPs are experiencing or going to be experiencing more of as this matures. So it’s crazy what’s happening right now, and the MSPs that are at that point of maturity, that are at that perfect inflection point that can take advantage of what’s happening here are they’re gonna change how this whole business runs and how the value of technology changes from a cost center to a profit center for the clients they serve.
I’m betting my bottom dollar on it rich.
Rich: And the interesting question that comes at it. I would say in general the argument here is not that you are gonna get competed out of business by, I don’t know, you, you might disagree, but I, the argument certainly I’m making is not that you’re gonna be competed out of business by the Shields and the Titans and the other companies that come along, and [00:13:00] the independently owned companies that that do perfect the AI business.
Mo like you can still use different kinds of AI tools and and, there are li what you will be limited in is how fast you grow and how far you grow. And so the question will become how. Ambitious are you basically, because if you are really trying to build something that is gonna get past, $10 million or something like it, then you’re really gonna have to think about how do I do that on my own?
What are my all if I don’t wanna sell into a, an a AI rollout, what are my alternatives and so on. If big time growth is your ambition, you’re really gonna need to think about a strategy for doing that. But there is still a managed services, of a very fruitful future for for smaller MSPs out there as well.
It’s just gonna be more of a traditional business model with a real kind of cap on. How far it goes. I think,
Erick: You look at any other industry, [00:14:00] rich, think of, there are, how many hundreds of thousands, who knows? Accounting firms out there, but there’s also the big guys, the Andreesen Horowitz and stuff like these, they don’t compete with each other.
They’re just at another level serving larger clients and being much more strategically valuable to those clients. It’s my MSP, we weren’t selling, million dollar a year agreements, right? But there are some MSP there were no million dollar MSPs back then, but there are now and some, right?
So there’s always the rest that have opportunity. It’s just how strategic and effective can a business owner that runs an MSP be in building their organization as efficiently and properly as possible with the tools and technologies that they have now, if they choose not to be acquired. By, what’s happening here with equity firms and AI and all this, and [00:15:00] one of these types of relationships, they can be tremendously successful and still command very high multiples on their ebitda, which, is part of my tip of the week this week.
By
Rich: the way. Very nice segue. Let us, let’s take advantage of that right now. We are certainly not encouraging anybody to exit, but you might wanna think about it, Erick, correct?
Erick: At some point, a business owner, an entrepreneur and, we know many MSPs, which two numerous to count TNTC.
And some of them have told both of us. I know they’ve told you ’cause they’ve told me. It’s I am not interested. I will, I will die at my desk. An attitude, right? I love what I’m doing, I’ll never, but you know what? Know time changes, age catches up with us and we want to do different things and we want to enjoy the fruits of our labor.
So whether. Whether we have a strategy for positioning our organization for sale or not, I would encourage everyone to run their practice [00:16:00] as if they are looking to sell it at any time. And the reason I say that is because if you’re thinking about positioning an organization for sale, rich, no matter what it is, you’re gonna run it as profitably, as efficiently, as leanly as possible.
Because you and I both have known our share of MSPs that have had something happen that was unexpected, that forced them to exit that practice or sell that MSP and certainly did not command the value that they wanted to command when they exited something personal, some health issues, something like that.
And, it’s an unfortunate circumstance when that happens. So let’s talk about the things that we can do now. Just, and I, and if you don’t wanna sell your MSP, great. You can also grow your acquisition. But when you’re doing that, you still have to be efficient. Your procedures have to be standardized, documented.
You’re rewarding your [00:17:00] team for, or execution and hitting their APIs and being accountable, right? Nobody wants to buy an organization and buy a job for themselves, rich, right? So the organization has to operate autonomous autonomously of the business owner. And if you’re just wanting to grow through acquisition, you’re getting, you’re putting yourself in the best position now to go finance it yourself.
I know MSPs, I work with Rich that are doing it, going to finance companies, going to their banks, and they are buying MSPs small and growing that way. But you start, big things have small beginnings, right? So let’s talk about three quick tips. Started off with the one standardizing on everything that we are managing.
We’re not supporting every, brand and make of any device known, on the planet. We’re focusing and standardizing on our gear that we sell, maintain, deploying support. We standardize on the solutions [00:18:00] and the applications that we maintain and support, and we standardize on the methodology of how we market.
I know I’m gonna, I’ll talk about two things that are the Achilles tendons of Achilles heels of MSPs, market sell, right? Deploy and support and expand those relationships. So all of that needs to be standardized and has to be documented. All of our processes, this is our intellectual property, right?
So what makes us different and unique than another competitor? It’s tough to build that differentiation, but when we can deliver a suite of services. In a very competitive price point. And I don’t mean we’re losing margin rich, I mean that we are delivering that service so efficiently that we’re not only meeting our margin targets, but we are very competitive on the retail pricing for these services.
Number two, we’ve gotta establish and track the KPIs [00:19:00] that best in class organizations strive to achieve. So what, what are our service desk KPIs? What are our SLAs? What are our sales goals? Are we hitting those? What are our profitability goals? How are we managing the organization from an organizational perspective?
And making sure that everyone feels invested in their role and they are being incentivized and rewarded for helping hit and exceed those KPIs. And then these key client relationships. Last tip Rich, where? We want to move these key client relationships from the owner, right? Typically the business owner who’s built these relationships that loves going to lunch and taking these clients out, but shifting those relationships to more CIOs.
B, C, let me see if I get it right. Rich. B, CAI os got it, right? I’ve got it right. Yep. And other folks, client [00:20:00] success managers, folks that not only, that are not technical and they’re not sales. You’ve gotta find these folks. They’re a little bit of a hybrid, but they can be strategic and consultative so that the owner can step back and focus on tweaking and tuning right in the background and growing that organization and putting people in place in the right seats on the bus, doing the right things the right way so that now you can actually think about this, rich, take vacations.
Take a few weekends off, right? Take the trip with your loved ones, and the organization can run itself. And now you’re in the best position to decide what you wanna do at that point. And if something happens that takes you out of the game for however long that is, you don’t have to worry too much because you’ve built an organization that is running based upon the leaders that you’ve coached and put into place and are managing and growing that organization thanks to your foresight and strategic, [00:21:00] getting it done.
And then you can reap the rewards of all that hard work.
Rich: So building in advance for exit. It’s funny, Erick when I was kinda looking at the show notes before we started recording and you were talking about designing for exit readiness, it immediately reminded me of an interview I did circa 20 17 20 18 with Austin McCord, who was then the CEO of Datto.
And, there was a ton of speculation in those days about an IPO and I asked, where is an IPO on your roadmap? And in, in, in terms that were maybe just a Tad West, polite, then I’ll put it right now, he basically said, that’s not something we will talk about would ever talk about, but we run the business as if.
We’re going to IPO next week at all times like that, we’re not IPOing IPOing next week, but we are always running the business as if an exit is imminent. And so that’s how, how he built data into what it became. And there’s some, there’s a good model there for MSPs to emulate.
And we, I’m sure we’ve spoken [00:22:00] about it before on the show, that it is never too early for an MSP to start planning for that exit. And this is not a one and done kind of thing, but you really do. Wherever you are in your journey, you wanna understand what is going to matter to a potential acquirer.
At some point down the road, and you wanna be planning for that accordingly. And so the three pillars of advice you provided there are, if you look at this from the potential buyer standpoint, tho those are all great pieces of advice, standardization, documentation. That all matters a lot. That all makes you more attractive and more valuable to a potential buyer because less work, less effort, less time to, to really get value outta the business that you’ve built.
KPIs, tracking those, being rigorous about that helps them understand what they’re buying, right? Relationships you’re not gonna be there forever. They wanna buy a business that’s gonna be valuable after you’ve left. If there are relationships between the customer and the business that you’ve built as opposed to just with you, that’s appealing to a buyer as well.
So [00:23:00] understand now, even if you’re not. Even remotely contemplating and exit. Understand now what’s gonna make you more valuable when you do exit and plan accordingly. Build that into how you run the business and how you plan for the future.
Erick: Yeah. And it takes discipline to, to carve out time every day, every week, every month to work on the business.
And rather than being pulled back into the business, ’cause it’s easy for us engineers to get pulled back into, these, these rabbit holes on the technology side. And forget that our job is to build a business that is profitable, that, that attracts and retains the talent that we need.
That’s the other, to the other side of the coin is if you’re profitable and you’re attracting the right talent because you can be competitive and build a succession plan for them, because that’s what you’re doing. You’re building an organization. For someone else to take over when you walk away, you’ll have happier, more satisfied [00:24:00] employees, and you’ll have happier and more satisfied clients.
Rich: Last episode of the year, and that means we’ve got one last spotlight interview segment for you here in 2025. And it’s a good one, folks, Erick and I are gonna take a quick break here. When we come back on the other side, we’re gonna be joined by Manny Revelo, he’s the CEO of ConnectWise, and we’ll talk a little bit about ConnectWise.
Mostly we’re gonna pick his brain about AI and its implications for managed services. A lot of the stuff we were talking about at the top of the episode, I think you’re gonna enjoy this conversation, so stick around. We’ll be right back
and welcome back to part two of this episode of the MSP Chat podcast, our spotlight interview segment. You are viewing or listening right now to what is almost certainly going to be the final episode of MSP Chat in 2025. Over the course of the year, we have had the CEO of enable the [00:25:00] CEO of both the previous and the current CEO of Kaseya.
On the show, it seemed only fair and right that we round things out by having the CEO of one of the biggest, best known names in managed services on the show as well. Before we move on to 2026, his name is Manny Rivero. He’s the CEO of ConnectWise. Manny, welcome to the show.
Manny: Thank you. Thank you, rich. Thank you, Erick.
Look forward to it.
Rich: I’m not even gonna ask you to tell anyone what ConnectWise or who ConnectWise is, but for the folks in our audience who are maybe new to you a little bit, just give them some background on you.
Manny: I’ve been in this industry for. Hate to say, let’s say a little bit over 30 years.
Okay. And I’ve had the pleasure of starting with the internet, when the internet was getting formed, living through that revolution, if you will, moving on to the web, moving on to the cloud, and moving on through security. And a lot of that was done with enterprise companies, but enterprise companies that always drove the [00:26:00] market through the channel, both the Steve, ours and MSPs.
And then approximately a year ago, I had the great opportunity to join ConnectWise, basically take ConnectWise to the next level, helped ConnectWise grow because the challenges that the SMB are, is faced with are almost identical to any large enterprise organization that’s either buying direct and or SMB that’s buying direct.
And I love the model because the model is a one to many. We drive in the MSP, and as a result of that, I want to come in here, help the company grow, help the company scale, and obviously help our MSPs be successful.
Rich: For me Manny, this is an opportunity to scratch an itch or two. I’ve been carrying around with me ever since the ConnectWise IT Nation Connect Event a few weeks ago.
That’s the last time we had a chance to speak face to face. I only get so much time with you, obviously, at an event like that. So we talked a lot about ConnectWise, but during [00:27:00] your keynote at the general session, you said a number, you painted a big picture about AI and the future of managed services.
You said a lot of really interesting kind of things in there that I was if we had more time, I would’ve gotten into with you in that interview. But here’s my chance now. So here’s one. You said something on stage here that I’m quoting, quote, the MSP of today will not exist in just a few short years.
You’ll all look different and you’ve got to get used to that change. Tell us a little bit more about, what it mean for the MSP of today, not to exist. A few years from now. And what’s that change people need to adapt to, looks like to you?
Manny: Yeah. The look, the speed of change that the MSP has to create is really coming from the SMB or their end customer who’s adopting new technology is expecting their services to always work, is expecting just a faster, more efficient way of driving the business.[00:28:00]
So you’re starting to see that pull and that change is there. The s and b is asking the SM MSP to move quicker, faster, and more efficient and change the way they operate. The second part is every MSP has challenges finding talent, and as a result of that, the level one, level two talent can be augmented with ai.
AI has the capability of solving many of those issues, solving them consistently at a lower price point, and therefore creating better economics not only for the MSP, but better service for the SMB. And that’s been you could see it in the examples that we’re starting to share with many of our MSP partners.
And we’re gonna see AgTech as part of that continue to evolve. The MSP has been on a journey to do automation or to drive automation, but it’s really being accelerated with the capabilities of AgTech. And it’s not [00:29:00] unreasonable to see efficiencies in the 30, 50% range when you start to implement that technology as it pertains to the work that a level one or level two technician may do within any MSP.
Erick: Hey, Manny, you spoke about two big shifts in ai, the one that you just expressed, which was helping MSPs with AI with operations, and that’s where ConnectWise helps. But the other area that you spoke about was helping MSPs deliver AI services to their clients. Now, rich and I have been talking a lot on this program about the challenge that MSPs have in bringing these types of services to their clients and becoming more strategically valuable to them.
What’s your take on that? What would you say to our audience in terms of thinking about delivering AI services to their customers? If you think about it
Manny: as an [00:30:00] MSP frees up level one, level two support, it gives them the capability of using those resources. To help the SMB drive their transformation, their success, which to a large degree, that’s the fuel of their growth, right?
So there’s basic services that an MSP could start to think about to drive an SMB. And I also spoke to the fact that AI is showing up in SaaS software. It AI by itself is not being it’s it’s a horizontal solution also, but it’s being embedded in AI software. So the SMB is consuming ai, whether they get the benefits out of it or not.
And as a result of that, there’s an opportunity for the MSP to help the SMB transform their business with the AI software that is showing up in their SaaS stacks. Some of that is some basic services, which [00:31:00] we spoke to a little bit. Core services. We all know that ai is dependent on data. So how do you build the core AI services?
How do you help them build a foundation, their data modernization, their a AI infrastructure? What tools should they use, not use. Second is services around security, which is the protection. It’s the governance. What AI policy should an SMB have or an end customer have? What’s their governance? How they protect themselves from a threat?
How do they do compliance, things of that nature. The third is their people. How do you adopt ai? How do you change the behavior inside an organization and be able to drive that to be much more successful? And the last is really around advisory services. AI is here to stay. So how do you create maybe a fractional AI officer, an advisor for your end customers?
How do you give ’em [00:32:00] predictive analytics? How do you manage their data going forward? So there’s a set of services that can be built to help an SMBB successful and not can be done as horizontal services, or it can be done as vertical services. Meaning how do you help a healthcare provider? Drive the value of AI so that they could better serve their end customers.
And I think that transformation can happen now, driving greater value inside the industry and ensuring that you pull that thread all the way too to the last consumer of the services.
Rich: Two of the most popular, most widely read posts on my blog channel Hall of 2025, were about Titan and Shield technology partners.
These two companies that have stormed onto the scene, they’re venture capital backed Silicon Valley AI talent in-house. They’re rolling up MSPs the way a lot of other companies have [00:33:00] been for a while. The VC angle and the particular nature of the AI talent these companies have put together has just generated a lot of interest and attention.
We’re recording this interview not too long after open AI and apps and investment and thrive and an agreement to work directly with Thrive at companies like shield. In terms of enabling Shield’s, MSPs to use open AI technology, we’re actually recording it on the day, a few hours after SHIELD announced.
That the former CIO of Palantir is now gonna be the CEO of Shield. Without asking you to comment on either of those announcements unless you wish to, I am really curious to get your perspective on what the rise of these, the appearance of these companies, the nature of these companies, the fact that the money is coming from venture capital instead of private equity and in fairly large amounts.
What does that say to you about the scale of the AI powered [00:34:00] operational and beyond opportunity in managed services, the fact that it’s attracting this kind of money and talent from these sources right now? What does it tell you about the state of play in managed services? Thanks to AI and the impact it can have.
Manny: Look, I don’t think it, AI is not built for the, it’s built for all of us. I think as consumers, we’ll benefit from AI as individuals in the way we work, live and play. You’ll see AI in the center of many of the decisions we make on a day-to-day basis. There is an incredible amount of money being ported to ai.
Spoke to it a little bit. Everything from at the base, electricity, all the way to the SaaS applications that leverage ai and that is applicable from the consumer all the way to the largest enterprise in the world. So the MSP delivering services to the mid-market is definitely gonna benefit from ai, and you’re seeing the dollars come in, [00:35:00] but the dollars are just not just coming in from VCs.
There is dollars coming in from VCs. The bulk of the money is coming in from the largest companies in the world, meaning Google. Microsoft Facebook, they are plowing an incredible amount of dollars into their LLMs and into their infrastructure to enable that business to occur. And the beneficiaries of that enablement are the software providers who will then take that technology, which is core technology embedded with their data to create better business outcomes.
So what you’re starting to see is, yes, you’re seeing investments in the VC community around certain solutions inside certain markets which we will all be able to capitalize on. We ourselves are looking and have made significant investments and we’ll continue to make significant investments in AI and how we leverage AI with the data we have because part of the [00:36:00] value of the oxygen, as I spoke to is the data.
And we have an incredible amount of data. When you think about the years of business we’ve been doing with the MSPs and the end customers to understand what type of tickets, for example, is an MSP dealing with and what now we can automate that ticket. So there’s less manual intervention, meaning a faster resolution for the end customer, lower cost for the MSP, everybody wins right in that situation.
So you’re gonna continue to see us down that path. I’ve never or generic seen this level of investment. I was around for the internet buildout. I worked in the early days with Cisco. When it just didn’t exist. I was around for the web buildout as part of F five networks. I was around the cloud.
Build out with companies like Arista as Microsoft and others are consuming and continue to consume an incredible amount of infrastructure. I’ve never seen the level and the pace of spend. From the largest companies in the world, all the way to VCs out there. [00:37:00] Now, is there a bubble? That’s the $64,000 question, right?
Is there a bubble or not in the industry? What I believe is there might be over investment going in, but over time the value will be extracted just like in every other technology innovation. Sometimes it’s a little bit of over investment upfront, but there’s no question that we’re all gonna benefit from this.
We see it every day in everything we’re doing and how we’re slowly adopting AI in our thinking.
Erick: Yeah. Manny, that question about is there a bubble? How big is the bubble? It causes a lot of uncertainty. But yes, we’re with you. We’ve never seen any, anything like this in the channel.
This is, yeah. It’s revolutionary, right? Not
Manny: evolution. It is you look at the internet as an example. The internet’s the foundation for a lot of what we’ve done. ’cause there’s an open protocol. In 2001, the floor fell from under the internet and everybody thought, if you look prior to that, there was a lot [00:38:00] of investment that went into it.
From 2001 till now, the amount of value the Internet’s created is far exceeds the valuation of the internet in 2001, or the companies that were there. It just happened to be that the investments got ahead, the valuations got ahead, but Mark corrected and then did, its final. It continues to do its climb.
I don’t know if that’s gonna show up for AI in that manner or not. It almost doesn’t matter. For us, for me, it doesn’t matter because obviously we’re leveraging the technology. We’re using our data with ai right? To create business benefits. And I appreciate all the investments from electricity to chips, to infrastructure to LLMs that’s going out there because it allows us to do our job better, and it gives us options and choice.
So I do believe in the long run, Erick, that yes, we, there will be an incredible amount of value. We will look at this and say, wow, we should have invested. Is there a hiccup along the way? I don’t know. It’s I’m not, I’m not a financial advisor from that point of view. [00:39:00] And, but to us, it doesn’t matter ’cause we’re gonna participate in this and help transform the MSPs using this technology.
Erick: Well, Manny, your experience is, provides you a certain level of. Of insight and expertise. Talking about kind of the uncertainty and the FUD with AI and things like that. How do you as can X-Y-C-E-O manage the need for planning and road mapping around a revolutionary change that, seems to be having, seems to be implementing change maybe week over week, if not month over month?
Hey, as we record this, open AI just released, chat GPT 5.2 and this has been a series of improvements and I know that has a ripple effect through folks that are using it internally and developing with it and things like that, like ConnectWise. So how do you manage staying in front of things and adjusting to, the changing environment as c
Manny: Yeah we took a position when I joined that.
[00:40:00] Our job is to create greater outcomes for the MSP. And as a result of that, how do we accelerate those greater outcomes? And we made a couple of bets. One bet we made was on continuing to shift all of our software into a unified platform with a unified set of data. Which which has been, it’s something that we, the journey we’ve been on and we’re doing, making incredible progress.
The second thing is how to expose that data and get better outcomes from that, which was ai. So we’ve taken a position inside the company to do everything we can with AI as quickly as possible inside our internal processes. Also the solutions we bring out to the market, to our MSPs products, if you will, that we bring out to the market.
And that’s been culturally, it’s how do you create that change? So we’ve created a, an internal council, if you will, that manages everything from our governance, our policies for ai, ensuring that it’s going into all of the [00:41:00] functions and obviously into the product that we bring to market.
So we’ve been under that transformation now for the better part of the year and are starting to see the benefits of it. We launched some AI stuff at IT Nation. We’ll be launching a lot more in 2026. So we’re making it as part of the way we operate every single day. And when somebody asks me, excuse me, can I have some headcount?
The first question I ask ’em is, can AI do that? And if AI could do that, why aren’t we leveraging ai? It’s not about not spending the money, we’re spending the money differently, right? AI is not free either, but it’s about getting a faster outcome and not being dependent. AI does not catch COVID.
AI does not always works on Saturday and Sunday. AI does not get sick, right? So if we can begin to solve some of these challenges, then what we could do is apply our resources to do higher level work, interacting with our partners, listening to their needs, advising them right on how they grow their [00:42:00] business versus resetting their password, right?
That’s the goal that we have as a business and how we try to drive our business every single day.
Rich: It is. I, everybody in business, anyone running a business wants to skate to where the puck is going. As the saying goes it’s really hard to do that around AI because nobody really knows where the puck is going.
So you clearly have put processes and systems in place to manage that challenge within ConnectWise. What advice would you give to the MSPs and our audience along those lines? ’cause they’re facing the same thing right now, trying to build and maintain a roadmap and keep up with the technology, stay ahead of the technology so they remain relevant to their customers.
What advice would you give to an MSP in terms of being agile enough to adapt to AI change?
Manny: Yeah, part of it is you gotta start by anointing. You gotta get a leader inside your organization who is gonna evangelize ai. [00:43:00] And this cannot just be the CEO. The CEO is a very busy individual in most corporations and most MSPs, and they’re running around doing a lot of work.
So how do you create a center of excellence inside the business? Usually you gotta dedicate somebody or a team to help you drive that. How do you prepare your data? Because your data is the oxygen of the value you create. How do you centralize or consolidate your systems? Because the more data sets or more systems you have, the less context you have, the harder it is to make these decisions as you move along.
And then how do you manage the security compliance of all of that? Then how do you rationally experiment? Don’t worry where you start. It’s less about that. It’s getting that outcome and once you get that outcome and that benefit, it just feeds itself inside your organization. So I don’t think anybody’s too late right now.
And to the point you made before, yes, judge EVT just came out with a new LLM and I would assume that Grok and Gemini and everybody [00:44:00] else is gonna come up with another LLM, whether it be tomorrow or in the next month or two. So as a result of that, it’s getting faster and better. You didn’t have to start two years ago.
To catch up the window. To catch up is much shorter because the language models are getting that much better. And you could do more in a faster period of time, but you have to get in the game. If you’re an MSP, you have to be curious. You have to start leveraging technology and you have to start experimenting it.
And whether you’ve been doing that through automation and scripting. Basic machine learning ag agentic is just the next step inside the evolution of you. And I think you’re starting to see that interest brew. And whether you’re building your own agents or you’re leveraging the agents that are coming with your software, it’s how you blend that into your business process and how you get that benefit.
So there’s a lot I think they can do, but to me it’s get going, get started. You’re [00:45:00] not behind. Everybody’s going through the transformation. As I taught to MSPs, there’s been more work done around automation, basic automation, RPA, scripting, things of that nature than has been done around true agenda capabilities.
Systems that are self-learning systems that can do tasks. So it’s still early days for everybody.
Erick: Your last comment there, Manny made me think about the term, we used to say this is happening at internet speed, right? You’ve talked a little bit about your background and helping build the internet in early days and things like that.
Would a, would an appropriate term now be like this is AI speed now because this is so much faster, right?
Manny: Yeah, I don’t Erick, we used to talk about dog years, internet years. Were dog years, right? Seven to one. I don’t know what these are nowadays, right? What, I don’t know what age is a little faster than that, but we’re definitely operating at a faster clip. The progress is monumental and we see it. I’ll give you an example. We took our SOC and we [00:46:00] implemented AI capabilities. We announced it at IT nation. The, they returned it on. We not only reduce our workload by 30 to 50%, depending on how you wanna account for it.
So we were doing we’re doing we needed fewer individuals if you well, to do the same work so they could be applied to do something else. But we were also increasing the service levels to our end customers. And what really proved it out is the day we turned on the service, our phone was ringing, but not ringing.
’cause they needed something ringing. Like how did you react to this so quickly? So the capabilities are to not only get the work done faster, but reliably and consistently the same way. And that’s the proof to me. That’s when you say, okay, we’re onto something. We could do something more efficiently.
We could do it better. And in the end, customers seeing that benefit, right? I think [00:47:00] it’s only gonna increase from here, right? Significantly where it goes. I don’t think it’s about also, there’s always the fear, am I gonna lose my job? That fear in the world we lived in has been around for a long time, right?
We’ve lost manufacturing jobs through robotics. There’s a lot of things that have gone on. I don’t think that’s the case. If you’re curious and you learn it right now, if you ignore it, it could impact your business at some point in time and it could impact an individual. But I don’t, I really don’t think that’s the case.
We all need to learn how ai, how to use AI inside our business. And corporations need to learn how to shift left, which means less about the mundane work and much more about the business value, right? So we have a workforce shortage here. AI is not gonna be the answer to that by itself, because everybody’s game will go up, but conversations will change.
And yeah, we may not be [00:48:00] resetting as many passwords, right? But that’s okay. That’s not a fun job, right? That is definitely not a fun job. A better job is having a business conversation with that business, helping ’em transform that business and become successful. That’s the opportunity for every single MSP out there.
Be way more strategic. Be consultative. Don’t be basic IT services, but instead grow and evolve, right? To help them transform their businesses, either through horizontal solutions or vertical solutions inside their industry.
Erick: Manny you’ve touched on AG agentic AI a couple of times during our conversation, and the takeaway here is, you just need to leverage AI in a different way.
At the end of the day, somebody’s gotta manage. And somebody’s gotta manage these agents. So let me hit you with another quote. It’s every individual contributor will be a manager. Managers will manage people and agents, individual contributors will manage agents. [00:49:00] So how do you expect the agent component of AI to change the way MSPs operate and deliver their services?
Manny: Yeah, as an in, as an individual, if you’re an individual contributor, you’ll have, for lack of a better word, helper agents help you do lots of different things. They, excuse me, they may run on their own to do certain tasks or you may orchestrate with them. But in, in the business world, we have lots of individuals who specialize in different activities inside their organization who drive the organization.
Now, you as a technician, as an individual, will have these agents to help you do your job. As a manager, you’ll have agents to help you manage your team also, and you’ll have a team associated. So that was my reference. My reference is you expect, you should expect to, excuse me, to have the capabilities around you to make your job better.
[00:50:00] So if you have to reset a password, an agent will do that for you. If you have to provision a new tenant that may need a hardware ordered may need identity and access management may need a Microsoft license, right? That could be one or a handful of agents each specialize in doing that task. So you orchestrate that versus in the past you did all those individual steps.
Now you orchestrate that and potentially the agent does it themselves. I’m giving you a very simple one that MSPs are faced with. They they get a lot of tickets, obviously, right? And customers requesting services things to resolve problems. A dispatcher. That’s an individual inside an MSP who takes a call, understands the ticket, understands the sentiment of that individual, might understand that, hey, it’s Erick, he’s the CEO of the business, right?
Put him on the diamond lane, right? No matter what. And through that, that individual [00:51:00] dispatches that take it and puts it on somebody’s board to go resolve. Guess what? An agent can do that. That individual who’s dispatching for you can now be doing some different work inside the organization. Maybe they’re having the conversation with Rich, around Rich, what’s your three year business plan and how can I help you?
That’s where the value resides. Not putting a ticket on somebody’s board, right? And over time, that ticket would be a password reset will go to an agent feeding an agent to go do that, right? So the world is gonna change around that. We’re gonna have to get comfortable with that. We’re gonna have to get comfortable with not only working with people, but working with agents.
And that mixture’s gonna be there. Now that whole thing needs to be governed controlled. There’s security risk there, there’s compliance risk there, right? There’s probability of a lot of things going wrong. So that is gonna be where we’re gonna hopefully evolve to. But I use agents today, every single day, and I think we’re all starting to dabble [00:52:00] with them in different ways, right?
You can’t do a search anymore without an agent answering it for you. Even Google’s using Gemini. That’s the thing
Erick: that comes up on top. To your point about orchestrating these agents, I know enough engineers that would rather orchestrate agents than deal with people,
Manny: Yeah. But hopefully some of us will still deal with people.
’cause I think there’s the human component. But if you could resolve an issue faster, would an agent resolve it? If an agent can interface with a, an end user and find out why they can’t print ’cause they wanna print on a Saturday, ’cause they have a board meeting on, or a customer proposal, they’re pulling together on a, for a Sunday right presentation or early Monday presentation.
Why do you need an individual to do that? The agent could sell that for you. So that’s where we’re evolving to at a very fast pace.
Rich: That, that human component, I think just for whatever it’s worth, is gonna be a differentiator for MSPs going forward. As the agents are doing the rote technical work, [00:53:00] what’s gonna set the great MSPs apart from the merely ordinary ones, are gonna be the ones that are really good at building relationships and earning loyalty and all that stuff that AI won’t be really good at for for a while.
My 2 cents on that topic is, yeah, agreed. Take those resources, you freed up at the service desk and put it into the human component. ’cause that’s gonna pay off for you big time.
Manny: And understanding how your end user, how your end customers, the mid-market s and b how they’re evolving their business.
Have the conversation, what’s your three-year plan, how can we help you with your three-year plan? How do we get in front of that as we move forward? That’s a very. Different conversation. It makes you a business partner to that mid-market SMB customer, which makes increase the loyalty hopefully to you as the IT services become much more commoditized over time.
’cause they are, they’re basically the, they’re, it’s it’s, [00:54:00] but someday, hopefully it’ll be as commoditized as electricity, right? It’d be a basic, fundamental need to run your business, but you should be able to get it provided to you reliably. Consistently. It’s just been different for a while.
Rich: While we have got you here Manny, we should talk at least a little bit about ConnectWise. In addition to to ai. We’re speaking it’s been about 14 months, I think, since you stepped in as CEO at ConnectWise. You and I had a chance to speak at IT Nation Connect. You spoke very frankly from the main stage during your general session keynote about some of the feedback and input that you got from partners when you stepped into the role you’re in right now and some of the actions that you’ve taken in the last year in response to that.
And so for the many people in our audience who were not at IT Nation Connect, I figured this would be a good topic to get into. So give us an overview there, basically, or what did he hear? From MSPs when you became CEO of ConnectWise and [00:55:00] what are some highlights of what you’ve done in the last year in reaction to
Manny: that?
Yeah, no, thank you, first of all. So look, I love the community in the sense that when I joined the couple of weeks later was my first IT nation and I got a chance to join, I got a lot of honest feedback from the community in areas we needed to improve. One of the initial things I discovered is that we needed to make some organizational changes and in the way we were structured, but also the talent we needed to bring into the business so that we could scale to the needs of the business.
The company has grown considerably over the last five years and definitely needed to reorganize itself for scale, which also brings simplicity. I heard various different things from the community, but they bubble into a couple of themes. One is they, the community wanted us to innovate.
We, we were not delivering on our word. And what I mean by that is we promised this vision of aio. [00:56:00] And we were short on delivering with delivering a Zero. I brought in a team focused on platform. They who is a whole engineering team around that. We’ve been to the position where we’ve launched RMM.
We’ve integrated into that. P-S-A-P-S-A will be a feature parody by the middle of 26. So that we have a whole full platform of RMM and PSA with centralized ticketing. We blend in, blended into that same platform. Our sim we put into it customer sentiment, which used to be SMILE Back. We put in analytics and reporting, which used to be Bright Gauge and various other features that we’re putting into the platform.
So we are now at that point in time where you’re starting to see this concept of a platform, a common user experience. And common services across the portfolio. That’s the path. And there’s scale from as large of an SP as you wanna be to a small of an SP because it, it scales [00:57:00] out from an overall platform perspective.
The second thing is the community wanted us to. We weren’t being responsive to our partners. We were not, we were selling ’em products and technology. We weren’t onboarding the products reliably. We weren’t returning the phone calls from a customer success perspective. So we’ve transformed all of sales and all the post-sales inside the business.
We’ve made improvements. We can now onboard partners in two weeks. We respond to tickets in minutes and are able to resolve ’em usually on a first touch basis. We have change everything from compensation plans on the way we reward to organization across the board. So we’ve done a lot of work around that and we have much more work, obviously, that we’re gonna be doing over the coming years.
And the last is, can you be easier to do business with? So we’ve gone by, we’ve gone and changed the way we’re doing billing. We’ve gone and [00:58:00] changed the way. We change contracts with the customers. We’re gonna be looking at things like pricing and packaging and how we adjust that. So we will continue to push on those three things.
The vision is pretty straightforward. Deliver a platform that has AI in it so that an MSP can deliver. The ser can’t consume the services they need to deliver to their SMB much more reliably. Make that easy to do business with. That means the sales organization and the post-sales and the tooling we bring to them so they consume those services.
So yeah, it’s been a busy year, rich. There’s no question about that. We had our customer advisory board just two weeks ago after IT Nation and the, they were very pleased with the progress. They continue to challenge us and how we do more and more. We’ll meet with them again here in 90 days and we’ll continue to make that consistent progress as we move forward [00:59:00] throughout the year.
We have a clear path, we have a great team and we have great partners that provide us guidance. So all we have to do, I say all it’s a lot of work is execute, but that’s what it comes down to, right? Is honor your commitments and execute. And I feel very fortunate to have the folks in my team and the folks that work for them to help us and our partners deliver.
Erick: Manny, it certainly sounds like you and the team have been really busy restructuring, reorganizing, making some foundational improvements to help ConnectWise partners. For the partners that are in our audience today, what do you expect to announce at next year’s IT Nation can?
Manny: Our next year, the platform will be complete, I believe.
But, platforms are never complete, as we all know, right? There’s always an evolution to the platform. There’ll be agentic in the sense that you’ll have agentic capabilities that will be done. We [01:00:00] have, we are entering the year with a transformed sales organization with compensation plans, with everything.
So that will also be done and we’ll continue to make improvements on ease of doing business with us. So what I spoke to, was a multi-year journey. We’ve made great progress. Year one, I believe. By the next IT nation. We could be done with all those things done from the spirit of what we set out to do we’ll, there’ll be new features, there’ll be new requirements.
So we’ll always gonna have to push on those things. But I will feel very comfortable that we have the core right of it and that we can approach the MSP community and say, yes, upgrade to the new instance, right? Because you’re can get more value, not only value from a feature functionality, but value from an agent capability, right?
As you move forward, it’d be easier for you to do your business more profitably as we go. And then the other part, but I would say that’s core to what we do, is we invest in the [01:01:00] community IT Nation is an example of that. But we also invest in Evolve and SLI. We have a lot of programs to help our MSPs grow.
And learn from each other, right? And not make the same mistakes. We’ll also be making investments there. We plan on continuing to grow, evolve year on year, it nation, year on year, and continuing to drive the community so that the community could prosper because the tech by itself is not good, is not enough.
A lot of MSPs are just starting out. They don’t know what they don’t know. And the one thing that to me is I don’t know how many times I’ve heard over the last year, Erick, if it wasn’t because of Evolv or if it wasn’t because of this, right? I wouldn’t be here today. And their success is part of that.
So we will also make those investments as we move throughout the year and grow that and try to take on more [01:02:00] opportunities or deliver more opportunities for the MSPs to learn from each other and from us.
Rich: Manny, we we very much appreciate you taking some time out as everybody sprints towards the, not just the holidays, but the close of the quarter, so I know it’s a busy time of year.
Thank you for taking a little time out and speaking with us on MSP Chat and our audience. For folks who are in that audience right now who would like to learn more about you or get in touch with you, where would you point them?
Manny: I would go to our website. Everything you need is there. You could find my bio as well as everything about the company but also reach out to your salesperson and or your partner success manager, right?
Anything you need we’re available. Our website or any individual inside the organization, don’t hesitate to reach out to us. We’re here to support you and make you successful. And I wish all of our partners and all of their end customers a great holiday season. It’s really just two weeks away.
Rich: Manny Revella, [01:03:00] CEO of ConnectWise. Again, thank you so much for joining us on the show. Folks, Erick and I are gonna take a break right now. We’re gonna be back in just a few moments to share some final thoughts about this very interesting conversation with Manny. Have a little fun wrap up the show.
Stick around. We’re gonna be right back
and welcome back our three of this episode of the MSP Chat podcast. And we do thank ConnectWise CEO Manny Revelle once more for joining us here on the show. As I said at the top of the interview Erick, this was a conversation I have wanted to have with him ever since his keynote at IT Nation Connect a little over a month ago as as we’re recording this right now, because it really struck me sitting in the audience, there was a a refreshing sort of candor and humility from the stage in terms of him not saying and actually we talked about this on on the show coming out of it Nation Connect.
That he was talking about all [01:04:00] of the. Uncertainty and the rapid change in the world of ai. We were talking about this at the top of the episode, and it’s not, as, it’s not as ConnectWise as presenting itself as the company that’s got it all figured out. And we know the roadmap and it, we know it for us and we know it for you.
This is something that they have to think about and work their way through all all the time as well. So it was interesting hearing him think about about that and about how they organize things, how they run ConnectWise because they understand you don’t know where the puck is going in ai all the time, but you still gotta run and grow the business at the same time.
He had some good advice for MSPs in terms of how of how to do that. And then as long as I’m bringing up the topic of of candor and humility, I’ll just point out that at the end of the interview he did speak with candor and humility about some of what he learned about, some of the things ConnectWise was not doing as well as it aspired to when he took over and some of the the measures that he’s implemented since then.
And again it’s it’s always good to [01:05:00] hear somebody acknowledge what we both know, a lot of people were feeling a year ago and know that a new CEO is taking that seriously and and doing, and not just paying lip service to it, but really making some very significant changes inside the company in response to that.
Erick: Yeah, it, it definitely resonated with me as it did with you. He is demonstrating some amazing leadership. Just, being candid with everybody and listening and taking it all in and, understanding that, we. We’re not where we wanted to be with the platform, with our partners and just getting it out.
And I think that resonance that I felt I’m certain has the same impact to some of the partners that had been feeling frustrated with kind of what’s been happening. That they’ve come in and reorganized and made some very significant, I was really surprised at [01:06:00] just how much internal change has been going on under his watch here so that, so it’s not just, we understand we’re gonna, we’re gonna work on getting them, they are actually getting things done while still having these conversations and trying to meet the changing needs of today’s ConnectWise partners.
Because, we mentioned I mentioned after the, we were back in the green room after we, we ended our recording. That, Arne Bellini sold us our ConnectWise implementation and was our implementer. That’s how far back, our history goes with ConnectWise and, it was quite a success story in, in taking it to where Arne, eventually was able to exit and now turn it over.
And now understanding what the partners today’s modern partners need and what they’re asking for and what their competition are up to as well, to try to make sure that, they remain competitive and [01:07:00] deliver on that promise that they’ve made to these partners. So I was very it was a great conversation.
So like I said great leadership, being objective about things where they stand and. Sharing with us exactly what steps they’ve taken and where they’re going with it. So I was hoping he would give us a little more insight into, what they would be announcing in 2026 at IT Nation Connect.
But I’m sure they’ll have something that they’ll be announcing at ConnectWise Europe.
Rich: Yeah. Yeah definitely. On the topic specifically of resonance there, Erick I’ll say this, and this is both good news and bad news. I guess for ConnectWise, what would have been a terrible thing for them is for them to come out at IT Nation Connect and on the show and say, we’ve made all these changes.
We hear you, where we’re acting accordingly. And to have MSPs basically say, yeah, don’t believe you, and just brush it off. And for me, I don’t know about you, Erick, but I’ve spoken about this with a number of MSPs. No one I’ve spoken to has said that. I just, I don’t buy it.
On the other hand, I don’t know [01:08:00] that they’ve heard that and thought, okay, good. It’s all gonna be better. Now what I keep hearing is. Okay. Sounds good. Now show me. And that’s actually a good place, I think for ConnectWise to be you have earned yourself that opportunity to follow through on what you said that you’re gonna do.
And I, I think if they do, that’s when you’ll start hearing a different attitude towards ConnectWise from MSPs who are, have made even less than delighted with their relationship with that company in the past. So they’ve absolutely got open minds out there and opportunity to to win hearts and minds going forward now.
Erick: And that, that in and of itself is a huge achievement to, be vulnerable and to listen and take the feedback in and constructively work on what the next priorities need to be in a way that the partners which respond to positively and say, okay, alright. Let’s go, right? Let’s go, let’s work together and see where we end up.
[01:09:00] So regaining that, that trust and confidence that he talked about, I think is obviously step number one. And then you build from there.
Rich: All right. Folks, that leads us with time for just one last thing, not just on this show, but in the year 2025. And I think it’s an apt one here because from a certain perspective it’s just today, if you’ve still got a little Christmas shopping to do, this just might help you out.
But if you are a regular listener or viewer to the show, you might remember that Erick and I both fell in love with the story we came across a few weeks ago about a raccoon that broke into a liquor store in Virginia and broke a lot of bottles on the bottom shelf and drank a lot of booze and was found.
Splayed in the bathroom drunkest could could possibly be the next morning. And by golly, we’ve all been there. It turns out it’s not just Erick and me who fell in love with that story. The Unites States of America has so much so that as Erick pointed out to me I miss this myself, but there was an SNL skit about the drunken raccoon.
America [01:10:00] has fallen in love with the drunken raccoon so much. In fact, Erick, that the animal shelter that took care of that, so the raccoon is fine. It’s being cared for by people who care for animals like that, and they have managed to raise $250,000 selling. Drunk Raccoon merch. We will link to the website.
Like I said, if you’ve still got a gift or two you need to buy there take a look at the show notes for the episode here. Click through. You can buy a pretty nice looking drunk raccoon hoodie. There might even still be time to have it ready to go on Christmas day. And enough people have liked the sound of that plan that this very deserving cause.
This animal shelter in Virginia has raised $250,000 selling drunk raccoon merch.
Erick: Yeah, I’m telling you, rich. And you know that is SML Skid is hilarious too. So just do a search on, SNL drunken Raccoon. It’s during the weekend update segment. It’s really funny. The trashed panda that was drunk as a skunk.[01:11:00]
Now helped, the animal shelter that cares for it. It’s as I understand it too. Another story, rich, is he’s a repeat offender, like breaking into this little mini mall and going into all these different stores and they can’t think, he’s definitely a trash panda, drunken raccoon, a little bit of a cat burglar.
What else can I throw at you?
Rich: That’s, that was the other wrinkle to the story that’s emerged since we talked about this on the show is that we learned that this same exact raccoon has broken into a karate studio and the local DMV so an interesting selection of places to break into.
But yeah that, that serial offender yeah. Unfortunately for this one, you can
Erick: only guess at which places is his favorite.
Rich: Folks, that is all the time we’ve got for you on this episode of the show. We thank you so much for joining us and for joining us all year. We will be back again with our next episode on Friday, January 2nd.
Until then, I will just remind you as I always do, this is both a video and an audio podcast. So if you are listening to us right now but you’d like us check us out on video, go to YouTube, look up a MSP chat. If [01:12:00] you are watching us on YouTube, but you listen to audio podcasts, go to Apple, Google, Spotify, you name it.
Wherever you get your audio podcast, you’re probably gonna find MSP chat there as well. And wherever it’s you find us, please subscribe, rate review. It’s gonna help other people discover and enjoy the program just like you do. The show is produced by Great Rust Johns. It is edited by the also great Riley Simpson.
They’re both part of the team with us here at Channel Mastered. They are available to help you create a podcast if you’d like to. But podcast folks really are just the smallest sliver of what we do at Channel Mastered. We are all about helping vendors with MSP channels grow and optimize that part of their business.
And you can learn all about that at our homepage, www.channel Mastered.com. Channel Mastered has a sister business called MSP Mastered. That is Erick working one-to-one with MSPs to help them grow and optimize their business. You can learn more about that at [01:13:00] www.mspMastered.com. So once again, we’ll join you in two weeks time.
Happy holidays to everybody. ‘Cause we will be in the new year the next time we see you. And until then, I will simply remind you, as we always do on the show, you can’t spell channel without MSP.
Erick: Merry Christmas. Happy Hanukkah. Happy New Year everybody. We’ll see you next year.
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