Hey everyone, welcome back to the Stepping Forward Technology podcast. I recently got invited to speak at the Connect Global Conference in Vegas. Standing on that stage was more than just a professional milestone for me. It was a moment of reflection on our journey. From a modest IT firm to being a recognized world class MSP. But what I shared on that stage went far beyond business strategy or tech trends. It was the power of community and my network of peers, mentors and coaches that got us there.
In my talk, I delve into the challenges we face, the lessons we learned, and the pivotal role that community played in our success. It’s a testament that nobody finds success on their own. So in case you missed it, I invite you to join me in this episode as we reflect on the power of community.
Dan: Welcome back.
Matt: Thank you. I’m excited to be here.
Dan: Thanks for coming and sitting down, we’re talking big conversations around community. We just got to watch a little piece of your journey. Why don’t you set the stage for all of us. I’m sure it’s not as easy as it looked in that video to get to where you’re at today.
What’s going on at Stepping Forward?
Matt: There’s more to the story than the video shows. That’s a great highlight reel, but the reality is there was quite a bit of challenge building an MSP. I think you guys probably experienced that. You probably fall into two main categories.
Most people here that are running an MSP, they probably either have a clear vision and direction. What you want to accomplish and where you’re going to go and how you’re going to get there. You’re disciplined to make that happen. The other camp would fall into the category of you’re really working day by day one day at a time. The vision’s a little blurry. You have hopes and dreams for the future, but you struggle with executing that vision. I lived both of that. I was in both categories.
Dan: Yeah and you had fought some other issues that came up. Early on in your business you had to hit the reset button a couple times.
Walk us through some resets that you had to hit
Matt: When I started Stepping forward Technology, I hired my best friend. Doing that, I thought, man, this is going to be great. We’re going to build this wonderful company together. About four years into it he decided he didn’t want to work for me. He wanted to have his own business. One day he slid a sheet of paper across the table with the clients he was taking. My one other employee left, prudently, because he didn’t know if the business was going to be around and neither did I.
That was a very stressful year. For, me personally, for my family, for my wife, our health really took a hit that year. I was working 17 hour days for a year, trying to start over, rebuild, reboot this business. For the second category, I mentioned that second camp, those people that are day by day, many times you probably feel that your business might feel like a house at cards. You’re building it up, you’re trying to get it to where you want it to be. Where you can feel comfortable and have less stress, but you just don’t know if something’s going to shift and it’s all going to come crashing down.
Dan: Has anybody out in the audience ever felt like a house of cards in their business? Hands are going up. I think it’s relatable. I remember having my MSP and just some of the challenges like you just said, we’re trying to provide for our families and the people that are working for us. So it’s truly really a big commitment. So let’s talk about community.
The Power of Community: what it means to as a business owner
Matt: The biggest thing that it’s meant to me is that I’m not alone. That I don’t have to have all the answers, and that when I do get knocked down, there’s going to be people around. People on my cell phone that I can call and they’re going to be there to support me.
Dan: I can remember when I started my MSP, I knew nothing about the space. I had to learn a lot and to be able to tap into a community that can give you answers when you’re struggling or when you’re trying to figure it out, and to be able to get that, thats blueprint right to success. You can get the blueprint to success without going through the failures because somebody’s already done it. I would like to know a little bit more from you though, from the industry side.
What did you learn about community?
Matt: Let me jump back into my story to answer that. It was 2010, my first response wasn’t to lean into community. My first response was, I need to learn what I don’t know, so I don’t make these same mistakes again. I realized that what had happened with my best friend was kind of a leadership problem on my end. Not to excuse it entirely, but there was definitely some growth that I needed to go through.
I dove into Audible, I bought a hundred books on leadership and finance and culture. That was a good start. That took me till about 2015. I learned about the True Methods framework and some of the stuff that Gary Pica was talking about. That was my next shot at trying to get more knowledge in this area. So I signed up for that content. I did that for the next five years or so, but it was at the end of 2019 that I really felt my business was still not going the way I wanted it to grow, I was on a treadmill trying to build momentum. I didn’t have the profitability.
By the way, if you’re not profitable, that business is a lot more stressful to run. I just wanted peace. I wanted to enjoy what I did more. In 2020, Gary Pica was on stage at a schnizz fest event. And he announced the True Peer Program, and I ran to the sign up table. I knew that was the piece I needed. All the content that I was learning was telling me what I needed to do. That was great and that was helpful, but being able to walk through it with another group of people helped me know how to do it. I can’t emphasize enough how beneficial that was, that that was a transformation point.
Dan: There’s a lot of information out there talking to us all about how we can all do better. How, here’s how you market, here’s how you package, here’s how you price. There’s one thing to get a lot of information, but like you just said, is you ran to peer because you needed help just putting it together because you were putting a lot of time and effort into the process. It just wasn’t yielding the results and now you’ve got that structured framework.
You’re taking that knowledge and the things that we’ve come to know and find. You’ve put it into practice and it’s starting to really transform for you. And for a lot of you out there, you might feel frustrated. This is really where the community, where peer and those things can help and take and really accelerate that for you. So let’s talk about this from a personal impact on you for a minute.
How being part of a peer community impacted your accountability in the business
Matt: On the accountability side, I find it really hard to have your employees keep you accountable when you’re writing their paycheck. It’s a difficult thing for them to really question you and hold you accountable. But a peer group, especially one that you’re really close to, they can be brutal. But what’s really nice about that is they will help you follow through to make sure when you say you’re going to do something, you do it.
They will help you stay laser focused on the things that will really move the needle in your business. There’s a thousand things we can all do in our businesses, but there’s usually only one thing that will really move the needle and make an impact at any given time as you’re growing. I felt like having an external perspective on my business was really helpful in doing that. Like, oh, I’m getting buried in the weeds here again, I need to stay, keep the first thing first.
Dan: I think we can all relate to our list too, right? All of us, we probably have 500 things that we have to do. Every time I talk to everybody in the community in our peer program, everyone’s always like, we got 500 things, we’re busy, I don’t have time. But really what it comes down to is putting that time and attention on the right two to three things and applying that pressure in those right areas. And that’s where the transformation in the business happens. You’re always going to have 500 other things to do, but put the pressure and put the attention to detail on the right things every quarter, and you’re going to start to see the momentum shift and you’re going to see the business really start to transform.
How has being a part of the community impacted you personally?
Matt: I’m blessed to have a really awesome wife and she’s been super supportive from the very beginning. We’ve been married for 15 years. I don’t know if there’s a picture, but you’re welcome to put it up there. So there’s my family and the baby. She was born 24 hours before when this picture was taken, I don’t know how she does that, but this is why I’m in business. I’m really in business for them.
I remember making my business plan, I didn’t even know what a business plan was, but the first thing I put on the list was time flexibility for my family. I go all these years forward, I really look back and I go, wow, I’ve really failed. I’ve had some successes in some ways. But that’s something we’re still growing in and we’re getting there.
I’ve been focusing on building a leadership team and that’s been really great. But to really answer your question, a lot of the stuff that I took in my business, I would come home to her and she would feel the stress and almost feel the obligation that she had to help me solve some of these business problems. And at the end of the day, that’s not why she married me. It was really helpful to start having a a peer group, because that’s where we had the closest relationships that I could go to and I could talk to them and I could express some of the challenges and problems that I had and we could work through that.
Then I could come home and give my wife an update which was a lot more enjoyable than feeling like she’s still feeling the burden. I think that’s been probably the most transformative piece is that I’m just bringing a lot less stress home and I can love my wife for who she is.
Dan: How many people out here have missed some family function because of a ticket, an issue, something that’s come in? I mean, lots of hands going up, right? But we’re all working really hard for our family as you saw his family up there. And I think it’s really important to get that balance in life. I have two younger children as well and it’s important for us to be there and be present. Have those more important things in life for them as they’re growing up. It is awesome to see that you’ve been able to get that now and really leverage the community to help you go forward there.
What have you learned from the Power of Community that’s changing how you run your business?
Matt: If I’m being honest, the most impactful thing that changed was my level of self-doubt. I can come across as a pretty confident person, but the dialogue inside my head, there’s just a lot of self-doubt there, and that has been holding me back. That’s kind of been part of my upper limit problem. The second piece is belief. My ambitions was to make my company just a little bit better than it was before. I was really day to day, just trying to make some improvements. That’s actually not a bad recipe when you have accountability and support and people to pick you up when you get knocked down.
Dan: When we have customer meetings and they say, there’s no way I can raise my prices, my market won’t value that. It really comes down to what you just said. It’s the self-doubt, it’s the belief. You all in this room are extremely valuable. There’s so much value that all of us bring to the table with our customers, and it’s really important to be able to have the confidence, the belief that you can go do these things and get the respect you all deserve.
You’ve heard us talk a lot about how the lawyers and the financial firms and all of that really get the respect and their margins in that and you need to as well. It’s super important, to get that self-doubt out of our heads and the belief in there and leveraging the people that are in these rooms and sharing some of those ideas and best practices with each other to allow us to move forward.
Over coming Challenges with the Power of Community
Matt: I think the people problems in business become the biggest challenge and some of the hardest things to work through. For me, the first year of being in peer I felt like I was still spinning my wheels a little bit. A lot of that was around belief and self-doubt. Part of it too was I wanted to build an extraordinary business with people that weren’t the right fit. We ended up making a pretty big transition, just one person at a time. I think through our employees, we raised the bar a little bit of the standards and somebody would leave and we’d replaced that person.
In 2021 during Covid we cycled through our entire staff except my lead engineer who is awesome, and my wife, she’s still with me. That was transformative. During that time I was working with my coach and he has a really great culture survey that he does, and that’s when I realized that our culture was, well, we scored a 62 out of a hundred. I knew there was a mismatch there and so my peer group teases me and says, I created the Matt Harvey Culture Improvement Program where everybody gets out. You get really good people, but that wasn’t an essential piece for us to be able to make a transformation. Then if I can go into the business transformation side of that a little bit, and this isn’t to brag, but the next four years, we went from what I was calling a 6% net profit.
I’m sure Gary Pica would not agree, he told me you weren’t paying yourself enough, you really had no profits. I think that’s true. We averaged 27% net profit and a little bit higher year over year. Also, we grew at a 28.8%. Growth rate year over year as well. We’ve moved three times into new offices because we were outgrowing the offices we were in. Last year alone we added 54% to our monthly recurring revenue. These are the kinds of things that were transformative in my business in terms of how I can now take care of my employees and our customers. We have more resources now, so it’s just changed everything.
Dan: It’s super important. In our MSPs, we don’t always feel like that, right? You don’t really hear us talk a lot about culture. A lot of people say, ah, we’re a small 5-10 person shop culture is what it is. That’s really important because you just said it once you had the culture fixed in the side of the business, the growth came, the scalability came, and now you’re off to the races.
Community: Better than a Marketing Budget or a Tool
Matt: In business, you’re going to get knocked down and you’re going to second guess yourself. You’re going to have setbacks. Having people there to communicate a positive message or to help you through some of the problems is really transformative.
I described that period of time when I lost a third of my business to my best friend. There was a business owner who told me “Matt, I think you have no business being in business.” That was difficult. That was putting words to my deepest inner fear that I had. When you hear something like that, it sounds confirming right? But when you have somebody come by and say that they believe in you, that makes all the difference. I really didn’t have that in those early years it could have been so much easier if I had help.
Dan: There’s a lot that comes with being in a community like this where we’re all together, I was witnessing it last night and throughout the day, people talking and sharing ideas and, and strategizing, and you took over being a pod captain. You’re running your peer group, nine other companies are in there, you don’t get paid for that. It’s another leadership job, but it’s about the give and take.
Leadership and being a Pod Captain
Matt: Actually I don’t know if I was volun-told exactly, but it was from day one, they asked if I would do it and I said yes because I knew if I was the captain, I would have to hold myself to a higher standard and I would get more out of the program.
I joke every quarterly meeting I’m like “I’m ready to pass the baton on if somebody wants to take it.” They all say “please, please keep it up.” I have grown a lot as a leader in the early years. We really struggled with time management and just running a good, healthy meeting. I’ve grown, I think our pod has grown as well. We get a lot more value out of our meetings now because we’re really intentional.
The other thing I’d share there is that same period of time when I was working on culture in my company, I didn’t realize it, but that was over flowing into my pod. And I think we have on the best pods, pod three, in true methods. At least that’s how I feel because we’ve got a really healthy group there. That’s, that’s intent on we’re all going in the same direction. We’re supporting each other.
What’s been more valuable to you? What you’ve gotten from the community or what you’ve given back?
Matt: When I get to help other people and work through their challenges, I really like to give and I get a lot more value out of that. In the early years, I was making a lot of withdrawals. Now I’ve learned a lot and I can help people avoid some of the same pitfalls and that gives me a lot of joy.
Dan: That’s the reason I’m sitting here, when I was an MSP, but I found I absolutely loved helping people guide people, and coach people and it was really rewarding. I love being able to get up every day and working with all of you in the community to grow in the business.
Matt: I’ll just add to that for people that, don’t know, Dan, from day one you have been preaching community from the beginning. You demonstrated it, you get tons of feedback from people, you’re listening all the time, you’ve added so much to the program. I just want to throw that out there because this has been your passion for a long time, and it’s really great that this can now come to this stage and be a focus as a whole because that’s where we’ve been having all of our transformation.
Dan: I appreciate that and it’s really impactful, we’ve all felt it and it’s something that we want to really make sure that we carry on, as we continue to go forward.
Building Community within your own Team and your Clients
Matt: The mindset I had when I started stepping Forward Technology was I was a technologist and really enjoyed technology. I wanted to practice my craft in a healthy environment, and I worked a lot of jobs that were not healthy, that were super stressful and people weren’t appreciated. We adopted a culture with our people being the primary focus. The benefit of that is the client benefits from good service when you take care of your people. That I feel we’ve just created a really good community just within our own team.
Our client, our employee retention it’s never been better in the whole history of working with stepping forward. With our clients, I think Gary talked about this earlier. He talked about being strategic with your clients and I try to make ourselves an extension of their team. Relationally a lot of our clients will describe us that way. They want to see our pictures, they want to see who they’re talking to. They love it when we come to their office because they’re building those relationships. I really think on the strategic side, you have to really know your client, what their challenges are, so that you can support them and be somebody that they can lean on and that’s where the community benefits as a whole.
Dan: So, as we kind of wrap things up here, you start off in the beginning saying that you were alone. You tried to find your ways.
To the MSP Who Feels Alone or Discouraged
Matt: I’m going to get your guys’ perspective on something real quick. Have you guys had a serious setback in your business? Can you raise your hand if you’ve had that experience? See, I’m not alone. From the people that have raised their hand, how many people have come through that experience and you feel you’re better for it? Can you raise those ones? Guys, look around real quick. Do you see how many people I bet are here that have input and wisdom that they can share? So this is where I would encourage you to dive into the community here. Whether it’s technical or leadership or whatever your challenges are. Somebody else here has experienced that and they’ve solved it, you don’t have to go it alone.
You don’t get any points for solving all your problems by yourself. That would be the first place I would say to really dive into. Then I would highly recommend getting involved in a peer group like Gary was talking about earlier, a peer group, is where you’ll have the most trusted relationships that are going to come alongside you and support you in your business as you’re growing.
Dan: Yeah, I couldn’t have said it better. I mean, the power of what we have here in this room and outside of this room, and we all go back to our offices. It’s about all of us working together. You heard Gary say it’s a new day, it’s a new time. We’ve gotta embrace this community. All of us working together, we’re going to go further and faster. You don’t have to go at it alone when you’re having questions, challenges reach out, whether it’s in the digital community, on Facebook pages or at these events. Let’s all work really hard together and really try to see the impact and share and help others see the success in their business. Could we give Matt a round of applause for coming?
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