Terry Hedden (00:00)
Hello and welcome to the Grow Limitless podcast. Our guest today is Ryan Homan. Let me just tell you, this podcast is a must listen and must watch because Ryan’s story is sure to inspire you to achieve your potential. He was an athlete as a young person and has partly that into being a business athlete. Someone who overcomes adversity, evolves, grows and improves and has reaped the results. He’s grown over 74 % year over year. And let me just tell you,
What he does can be done by you. Believe in yourself. Believe in those you trust. And do what it takes to achieve your dreams and they will become expectations. Enjoy.
Welcome to the Grow Limitless podcast. I am excited to share our guest of the day, Ryan Homan, with you. He is a good dude that deserves to be successful and he has been. And he’s gone on a journey like many of us have, you know, from not knowing where to go to maybe going in different directions. Some of them are good, some of them not, making good decisions and bad and has ended up in a place that I’m really proud of him and I’m proud of what he’s accomplished And I think his story is inspirational. So I hope you enjoy it today. Ryan, welcome to the Grow Limitless podcast.
Ryan Homan (01:17)
Thanks for having me, Terry. I really appreciate it. No problem. conversation today.
Terry Hedden (01:22)
Absolutely, I would too man if I if I am where you are and have gone from where you are to where you started to where you are now I’d want to share a story to Ryan kick us off man. Tell us a bit about you your your childhood where you from kind of lead us into You what led you to start your MSP?
Ryan Homan (01:39)
Sure, ⁓ so I grew up in a small town called Salina, Ohio. ⁓ Kind of got into technology ⁓ probably around junior high timeframe. My dad was an engineer and so I had some computers at home. Got to play with like the original DOS and know, Windows 3.1, stuff like that. ⁓ Got to start tinkering with computers. ⁓ Ended up during high school working with my tech advisor at school and like…being one of their resources throughout the school and just kept that interest going while doing sports, school, all the other stuff you do when you’re that age. Decided to go to Capital University in Columbus, Ohio to get a degree in computer science. One of the things that really interested me there was a thing called computational science, which was a special program they had where you kind of brought in computer science with real life situations.
Whether that was something in the science field, a math field, something like that, but it was integrating those together. So I to work on some cool projects there in college as we both went through that. And then it of evolved into my first job, where I kind of started in IT support and worked my way up to all different roles through IT. One of the interesting parts about that journey, ⁓ so I actually started a business in college. ⁓ To make some extra money, I…printed out, I think it was about 200 flyers that said, hey, local college kid looking to make some money doing computer support. And I went around and just taped them to a whole bunch of people’s doors in the town that I lived in there for college. And it was Bexley, Ohio. And ⁓ I had probably 15 to 20 jobs out of that, mostly just small little home computer stuff. But I didn’t know at that time I was actually starting a business, because it was just kind of a side thing to make some money.
But I thought as I was growing up, you know graduated college that I should get a real job. And so I Got a job in support ended up evolving into doing some programming Worked my way kind of doing some network administration system administration Became kind of a network manager to an IT manager IT director type role before I officially started this this company here So that was kind of my journey over probably about 15 years or so but then came back to ⁓ starting this company. I had officially started it in 2010, but it was kind of a part-time thing on the side doing some projects. And then ⁓ my IT job, the company actually got bought out and so my IT director job was being relocated and so decided, hey, why don’t I give this a shot full-time? And here we are today, eight years later and ⁓ have grown considerably, have a team of seven and continue to grow and expand here this year.
Terry Hedden (04:24)
That’s awesome. What a great story, man. It sounds like you got your first start without even knowing you got your first, you started your first company without even realizing you did it. That’s pretty awesome. And also, hey, I gotta give you some props from a marketing perspective. A 10 % hit rate on the Directing Up campaign is pretty damn good, man. Maybe your next career could be in marketing, you if you can get 20 out of 200 pamphlets, man. I’m gonna call that a win. That’s awesome. That’s awesome. Okay.
Ryan Homan (04:51)
I kind of wish I would have kept going at that point. I who knows what would happen to me. I learned a lot over the ways doing all the stuff in corporate, but it’s like, I gave it up. I remember telling these clients, I don’t got time to help you anymore because I have a real job. it’s like, you they were my, just kept expanding reach and people kept referring me. it’s been interesting to see where that would have taken me if I had just went down that path right then.
Terry Hedden (05:09)
Yeah, well, hindsight’s always 20-20. I think a lot of MSPs are started in the same thing. I got laid off. I had a side hustle, it became a full-time hustle, so I don’t think you’re unique. But to me, it is kind of unique that you had two starts. had the one that didn’t realize you had, and ⁓ the one that you actually did have to make that jump because your position was eliminated. So that’s kind of cool. So you really have started two different MSPs already then, if you really want to think about it.
Ryan Homan (05:36)
Yeah, I mean, I don’t know if I caught an MSP back then, but yeah, it’s.
Terry Hedden (05:40)
Awesome, man, that’s really cool. ⁓ I love that. I love that, Ryan, that sort of journey that you took. I think to be successful as an entrepreneur, and just even as I’ve known you and gotten to know you better through the years, it takes a certain swagger to be successful. It takes confidence. And I feel like that journey…kind of got you there. Like when you started your first IT service company as a student, you didn’t have that swagger. You didn’t have that knowledge and experience to give you the confidence to make the hard decisions, to take the big jumps, to do what it takes. So I think it was part of the journey that you were taking on sort of is to have you grow up in a position and get knowledge, get experience, get swagger. And then you got pushed out of the nest and said, okay, Ryan, it’s time to go. And so that’s really cool that you responded to that call.
Ryan Homan (06:31)
Yeah, it’s been a, it’s been a fun journey. got to learn a lot from a lot of different people over the years. And, even, you know, when I started the MSP business, you know, I started going to some conferences just to start to understand what was different between an MSP and corporate. Cause I’ve learned like it’s similar things, but it’s totally different tools, totally different, types of offerings that you do when you get into the MSP space versus the corporate. So it was, it was like, it took me a couple of years to kind of get my feet grounded on, you know, exactly what that would look like. And, Got lot of advice from a lot of different people over those years to kind of take it to where it is today.
Terry Hedden (07:04)
That’s awesome. So Ryan, in an eight year span, you’re adding about a personal year, which is a pretty good clip. Has your story of growth been a consistent one? Have you literally started out and just sort of gradually got bigger and bigger and bigger? Or if I would now look at your P &L over time, your revenue, did it have pops and fits and starts and ups and downs and good months and bad months? Or was it a smooth journey for you?
Ryan Homan (07:31)
I would bet that nobody could say it a smooth journey, but ⁓ I’d love to see if somebody did. you think that in your head. The funny part about the story, when I kind of mapped out a business plan of what I was going to do and how I going do this, I was going to do tech work four days a week and then work on business stuff like maybe one day a week. That was my goal. I was like, if I can build so many hours this week, and that was my business plan. ⁓ Realization, I could kind of do that a little bit when it was just me.
But then when I got to, you know, and kind of evolving that it started as that process and it’s like, okay, I got busy enough where I felt like I needed to hire a tech. And so I hired a tech and then it became, now I’m spending more time managing a person training, doing all these other things. And it’s like, I couldn’t do that tech work anymore. And so every time I do that, there would be a dip and that, that it was, it was very much a rollercoaster. There was some, not, not even years, but some months, my wife’s like, why are you like, are you making any money doing this? And it’s like, Well, I’m betting on myself for the future. That’s what I kept saying. it’s like, um, and I didn’t know what the future was going to hold. Uh, but, uh, we, uh, it kept doing that. So, you know, you get now, I feel like I’ve got a pretty good plan. And to be honest, I’m not as critical to the day-to-day operations of the business anymore where I was, you know, a hundred percent involved, um, initially. So now I can be more of that leader and strategic planner and, know, doing those types of things to help continue to grow and expand the business. Um, and then jump in where it needed, um, to help the team out. So. That’s kind of been my story. And so every time you hire people or bring other people in, I feel like you see this or you have new clients come on a bunch one month and you’re like, how are we going to handle this? then the next couple of months, might be slower. So just balancing all that, figuring that out, and trying to continue to evolve and expand on that.
Terry Hedden (09:15)
Yeah, wow. Yeah, you just to me struck one of the best and most important lessons for a successful entrepreneur, which is the importance of dividing responsibilities into sales and services being two different things. Because if not, you end up dealing this whipsaw over time of when you’re selling, you’re not serving. When you’re serving, you’re not selling. And you end up creating an environment where it’s really hard to be successful because it’s kind of feast and famine. It’s like, hey, things are going good. We’re slammed, overwhelmed up.
Shoot, have nothing to do tomorrow. God, sales are gonna be down, revenue’s down, payroll’s gonna be hard, you know? And so, I think a lot of MSPs sort of struggle to get past that. ⁓ You know, when I look back and people, you know, asked this question a number of times, sort of like…
What do you look back and see the reasons that maybe your MSP grew so much faster than others? And I think a lot of it comes down to just that. Hey, listen, I’m not smart enough to be a tech. I don’t have the skills nor the desire to get the skills to fix a computer or rack a server or put in Azure. You were blessed with those skills, which is awesome, but you also had the aptitude and fortitude and impetus to pivot and say, okay, for my organization to be successful, I’m going to have to go over here to trust my tax, delegate that responsibility and go over here and start running the business and focusing on sales. And in my mind, it doesn’t matter which side you pick, but at some point, if you want to grow a sustainable business, you’ve got to pick and say, okay, I’m either a tech or I’m a salesperson. Ryan, how did you get to that point? How did you, I mean, was there something that happened that made it to a realize or did you just not be able to sleep one night and it came to you going, Hey, this is not a sustainable path where I’m, I’m the business, right?
Ryan Homan (10:58)
So I would say the biggest thing I took away is I was always the technical guy. to be honest, the biggest thing I learned is I kept worrying about my stack. I kept trying to like, let’s pick this tool, let’s pick this tool. And I think we have a great stack today. But for years, I just kept going, let’s improve the stack. Let’s improve the stack. Well, guess what? Improving the stack didn’t sell us any more accounts, didn’t get me any more accounts on the sales side. It didn’t provide any more value to our customers kind of took away after a couple of years of doing a bunch of stack adjustments and thinking, that’s going to help my business grow. It became what would help my business grow. And I finally, you know, came to realization I really got to do some sales. Like I got to focus on sales and marketing. And I tried several different things. some that work, some that didn’t work, some that work better than others. And, ⁓ I’m still learning and evolving on that, but, I still find myself occasionally not as much, but just like you said, you know, Balancing the operations and the sales stuff a little bit going. Oh shoot. I’m selling too much I’m breaking operations and you know, we had this last year we did 74 % year-over-year growth and it’s
Terry Hedden (12:07)
Dude, that is awesome, man.
Ryan Homan (12:10)
It’s brought a lot of challenges too, but it’s the, trying to like, was just pulling those numbers up, but it’s like, you know, how do you, you know, one, I don’t think that’s sustainable every year. Like that’s just hard to do, but it’s like, how do you balance that with training people, bringing new people in, having a growth plan and you know, not being afraid. Like I, and I, I push it back now to the operations guys is like, Hey, we have these clients coming on board the next few months. Do we have, can I fit another one in if I want?
Or is that going to really mess you guys up? And then I’m being more realistic with those sales things going, okay, that’s fine. This person wants to sign with us, but let’s push it out till December or January, because I know that pipeline. want to keep the operations people from, you know, falling apart and make sure that we have a good plan. So that’s kind of been the biggest evolution of that is taking that from, you know, taking that from a balance of, we’re growing at a small clip to okay, I’ve invested in some sales and marketing, these things are working, so now we’re growing quicker. And just balancing all that and making sure the team and everybody is supported, trained, and continue to be successful as a group.
Terry Hedden (13:12)
You know, I think there’s a lot of lessons right there, man, for a lot of people. ⁓
It sounds to me like you’ve kind of hit that balance where a great leader is willing to step into the fire when it’s needed, right? A person that struggles is the one that lives in that fire. And so you’ve kind of been on a journey where you were in the fire doing the work and then you realize you needed to balance it and be over in sales and growth and leadership. And then you probably did less and less on the services side over time until now you’re probably at a 95.5 or something like that where, you know, when you need a big dog to come in and fix an issue or In my case, it was the dumb dog. I was always the stupidest tech because I’m the one who came in there and said, did you call the manufacturer? Did you reboot the server? Like the dumb things. And I unfortunately fixed a lot of trouble ⁓ that I’ve been in or my team’s been in by doing that. But it sounds to me like you really kind of struck that balance. What would you say the percentage of time is that you spend on technical versus business sales?
Ryan Homan (14:11)
⁓ I would say, I mean, part of it is, I guess, two parts. So just between those two, like probably 90 on sales, 10 on the other side, where I guess I’m starting to spend a little more time now and maybe not saying 90, having a third category there would be just business planning, business growth, working on team. I know we’ve talked, I’m working on implementing EOS right now in our environment just to help with growth and structure and planning as we continue to expand and grow into next year.
Just trying to think more, if I want my business to scale, what do we need to have in place? What do we need to do to get there? And trying to use some strategies that other people have used to continue to grow and expand. I have a big vision. put together a big vision of where I want to go in the next three years, five years, 10 years, and just kind of how do we get there and figure that out. And back to kind of your other question, I did dumb things. I hired a salesperson when I had no sales process, no thing. And six months later, they failed. And the reason it failed is because I wasn’t ready for that.
I thought I was ready. I knew I needed to figure out sales, but I didn’t know the right path to take. that was part of that learning process and figuring out what’s going to work. then I determined, really, I need to commit to sales. And that was the big, I guess, change, the big catalyst that changed the trajectory of us doing some up and down years, slow, gradual pace to now having more of a steep incline exponential growth here in the last 12 to 18 months.
Terry Hedden (15:38)
Wow, right, think that says a lot about you. So you were able to make that pivot. ⁓that a lot of people struggle with, but it sounds like it came down to a very deliberate decision. I am going to not hedge, I’m going to try, I’m going work, I’m going to help, I’m going to start. You’re like, no, I got to do this. For my organization to achieve its potential, I’ve got to get out of the day-to-day tech role and commit to sales and commit to myself being more of a business leader and a sales leader. And I’ve seen that transformation in you, man. It’s pretty awesome.
What in your background do you think, so not everyone makes that transition. I’ve seen, most people can, as long as they are truly committed and they’re not just dabbling. What do you think was unique about you and your experience and your education and your commitment in terms of what maybe you had available to you that helped you make that transition successfully where you make that move and your organization responds with revenue and sales and profit growth?
Ryan Homan (16:38)
⁓ I think the biggest thing I come from a lot of sports background, I still like to play sports. I don’t like to lose. And when I don’t know, it, it’s easier when someone else challenges me, but when you’re an entrepreneur and not, nobody really challenges you. And so you have to challenge yourself. And I think the biggest thing was like, gosh, I, the phrase I came up with, like, I’m working my butt off. I’m doing all these things. Why am I not being more successful? And I, and I’m in all these other peer groups and different things where I talked to other business centers and What I kind of took away from that was a lot of them try different things. do this, but at the end of the day, they don’t ever change. And I, I, as I kept seeing these people do this for, know, and this is years ago, but a couple of years ago, like people that had been doing this for so many years, like they’re, they’re having the same struggles I’m having, but I was kind of watching what they were doing. It’s like, they keep talking about, they’re to do this and go to this, but they don’t actually do it. And I said, if I’m going to do this, I need to do a hundred percent change. So I guess I challenged myself and said, Hey, Can I do this? Can I go in and just focus on this piece? part of that was getting a sales process together, learning how to be better at sales, lots of practice, lots of different examples. I’ve done a lot of different things with you guys, Terry, and other groups, and trying to figure out how can I make myself better. And I’m still learning. I still know there’s shortcomings. I’m putting metrics on myself now in the EOS platform to am I hitting the goals that we set for ourselves? And just really trying to hold myself accountable for those things as we continue to try to continue to grow and scale at the rate I want to. I think all of that was just the mindset of I have to change and I want to win on that and I don’t want to lose. And so that was kind of the biggest thing I think that motivated me.
Terry Hedden (18:18)
Winners win Brian, winners win. Tell me about your sports man. I didn’t realize that you were that much of ⁓ a sports stud going back man. What did you do? What was your position? And how much did you achieve in the sports realm? Because I love that it pivots over. I don’t think that’s coincidental.
Ryan Homan (18:33)
Yeah, so I did a lot of stuff back in school. My main sports at the time, back when I was really young, was like football and then basketball and baseball. ⁓ To be honest, I’m a large guy now, but I was tiny and just really tiny person back in like fifth, sixth grade, seventh grade. I quit football in junior high because I was getting the crap beat out of me. These guys were huge. I didn’t really develop till I was later in life.
Kind of the one takeaway from sports on that was interesting. I was in the basketball team. I was barely making the team back in seventh grade, eighth grade. But I was putting in all the work. I just kept coming back, putting the work in, putting the work in. Still, might get to play one minute a game. It was terrible. But for some reason, I stuck it out. I don’t know why. I did some different stuff. After I got done with football, I went to cross country. And I ended up doing golf. Then I grew and became a larger person and was able to be more successful in the other sports that I played. But the interesting part that I guess I take away from that is I kept doing it, kept doing it, kept doing it, and then finally I got my shot. as a, I’ll use basketball because that was probably my favorite one, is I was at a Division I basketball school in Ohio, which is the largest division, and I was the sixth man on the team. So out of 1,200 kids, I was the sixth best at basketball in our school. So it was kind of a neat thing when you think back about it and what I could do. then I didn’t go anywhere to play in college or anything like that, but I did get asked by at Capital because I was playing a lot of sports during my spare time. And like, hey, do you want to play on the basketball team? I got asked by the college coach. it’s like, just some, I decided not to. I wanted to focus on other things, but it was like some of those things and just putting in that extra work, how much return and how much better as a person as I was able to develop and take those sports things into now my life, my career, and just use those same lessons I learned.
Terry Hedden (20:31)
That’s awesome, man. I think there’s a lot to the whole athlete to leader transition. A lot of what makes you successful in athletics translates to success in business, success in sales. I don’t think that’s a coincidence, but what I do think is special about what you’ve done in your journey is that you committed to yourself that allowed you to probably overcome a lot of setbacks. My guess is the transition wasn’t perfectly smooth in your growth journey, that you had lot of fits and starts, a lot of experiments that didn’t pay off, a lot of things that didn’t work as well as you needed to, but you didn’t give up. Like so many people do, it’s almost like I see it all the time where it’s like someone who’s 60 years old.
And in the twilight years of their life, the people that deserve to retire well in our industry, in my mind, so many of them can’t because they allowed setbacks to keep them from trying again. And it led to a lifestyle business that didn’t make any money, which led to a situation where they’re facing a very uncertain future.
You know, they didn’t probably invest enough in their 401Ks like so many entrepreneurs do, but their business isn’t worth much at all at the end. So they’re kind of putting themselves into a working retirement situation, and it’s really unfortunate. Ryan, you, you know, walk me through your professional journey as an MSP. What did you do to grow? Give me some examples of things that didn’t work, and in hindsight, why they didn’t work, and tell me kind of the things that you tried over the years to get to where you are today.
Ryan Homan (22:13)
Sure. I think the first thing, going back to kind of the stack conversation we talked about a little bit earlier, I thought if I put together the best technical tools and everything else, everybody would just want to buy it. And there’d be people knocking at my door going, hey, you have the best things. We want to buy it from you. What I found is that’s not a realization at all. To be honest, now that part of it, the biggest transition of that is I don’t talk tech at all. I talk business. I talk to these leaders about their business. And some of that came from my experience being like an IT manager, IT director, because I was in, you know, leadership meetings with other business people in our organizations and took away those things. But now I now as a small business owner as well, I can relate to those people I’m talking to that are also running small businesses and, and like, Hey, I know the challenges I’m dealing with. You need to focus on your business, not worry about technology. And that’s how we can come in and do these things. And so that conversation has kind of evolved from.
Again, stack a tool conversation, a technical conversation to a business conversation. you know, of course some of people are more technical and we talk a little bit more in the technical weeds, but most of the time it’s the business assurance is that, hey, I know who you are. It’s a handshake, you know, deal conversation going, hey, we want to work with you. And I’m building a partnership, not just, I’m not just a provider. We’re, we’re building a partnership to help each other grow. And I think that’s been kind of the biggest takeaway of what that, that part that worked for me there. Now, there’s plenty of things that have not worked. Even when I first tried to start doing sales, I said I hired somebody that didn’t work out because I didn’t have a sales process. Even when I started doing it myself, it took me, what was it? Nine months to get my first big sale. ⁓ Like a full managed contract, like all in type contract. And so that was a little disconcerting. Shoot, I might know what I’m doing, but every time I…did a meeting every time I had a thing, just kept learning from that. I taking notes, evolving that process just a little bit. And even today, sometimes my team yells at me too much like, well, you said you’re going to this way and now I’ve changed it. Well, every time I go into these things, I learn a little bit more and I determine what, how we’re to do things a little bit different. And I, again, try not to break the operations, but trying to figure out what I can do to become better at that sales side of things and help, you know, help add more value to our customers. And we’re getting into new technologies and new things with AI and all the new stuff that’s coming and having those conversations now. ⁓ but those are kind of the different things that kind of worked and didn’t work. the other thing I would say is the big, the one of the other big thing was trying to not always, ⁓ try to understand what the problem I’m trying to solve was. I, know, in your head, you think, you know, the problem, but every business I find they have different problems like in technology might be a piece of that, but it solves different pieces for them. And so becoming more of a listener and having, you know, letting them do the talking versus me doing the talking was a big thing of, I think, learning that sales process. And I think that’d be the biggest thing if I was hiring somebody, it’s like, Hey, I need to teach you to be a listener, not a talker, because you need to understand what they, what they’re dealing with. And then how does technology play a part to solve that? And that’s how you can, you know, kind of present that in the sales pitch.
Terry Hedden (25:34)
I love that Ryan. ⁓ man, I love that. a couple of things you said, I want to make sure that we kind of capture those. One is You don’t give up. just pivot. You try to get 1 % better. know, losing is only losing if you don’t learn. So you could learn, lose a deal and learn a lesson and be better off than you would have been if you won the deal and didn’t learn the lesson. And I don’t think a lot of people realize that. And going back to the athletics, if you, if you, if you hold the bat, a ball like this, when you throw a basket and it doesn’t work, and then it makes you pivot your hands just a little bit where you might improve the arc or the rotation. And it starts to go in, you know, as a basketball player in your basketball part of your sports story is you probably had thousands of different ways to shoot and they were just a little bit better until you got to the point where you you know, you were making more than your fair share and it sounds like you kind of parlayed that into the sales and marketing side. You tried different things, some things worked, some things didn’t, but what you made sure of is that you won at the end of the day by either winning the deal or learning the lesson and that made you better and then the future got brighter. What are some things that you learned in sales? I’m curious, man. You know, we talked about the analogy of basketball in the hands, but what are some things that you pivoted over? You said sales methodology. What specifically did you do different? Did you learn that? And I guess give us some examples.
Ryan Homan (26:58)
Sure ⁓ So again, I had never done sales before so I didn’t have a clue So, you know, I did some searching online did some things like that ⁓ There were some different groups that I was part of that I kind of embraced some of their sales process and what I found was There’s a million ways to do sales. There’s a million different sales processes out there Any of them could work you just have to decide how you’re gonna change yourself And then again, like you said doing small little tweaks, so, you know, I’ve incorporated stuff from other groups as I tried theirs and so I’ll give you example. ⁓ For a while, we used to be a kind of break fix hybrid MSP when I started. That was how I started it. That’s what I thought was the best and we’ve kind of evolved that to now full MSP all the time. Now there’s no break fix anymore and ⁓ the biggest challenge there was, okay, when I go to offer this plan, what do want to offer? I originally, I think I started when I had my original hybrid plans, they were like, you know, gold, silver, bronze, like most people have done.
When I went to the all in plan, just, I just wanted one. I just wanted to be simple. So I was like one plan. Well, I wasn’t winning as many deals as I hoped. Like it was, it was interesting. And I was like, Hey, one plan is me forcing it down their throes. What I learned from this. It’s like, Hey, it’s either all or nothing, take it or leave it. And so I lost plenty of deals. Some people took them, but a lot of people said, Nope. And they went somewhere else. And so it’s like that evolved to, okay, why is that happening? And so then it became, Hey, let’s offer two plans. and so now I have two plans and then actually we have a third plan now, but it’s like, I’m trying to keep it simple, but giving the people choices. And one of the things I found is interesting when I did that was we have, you know, the higher tier plan, and then we have a little bit lower end plan. The, I’ll walk into these conversations. We’ll have talk about all this stuff and I’m working through the sales process and you know, a prospect will be like, like I, in my gut, I’m thinking, they’re going with the cheaper package because they’ve asked all these questions, all these things.
And so I present it and we go over and talk through it. I can get in a hundred percent feeling like they’re going to go for the cheaper package. And then they surprised me a lot of times because they have a choice and they, again, what I thought they valued versus what they actually valued sometimes like we want, we want the ball, the bells and whistles. We want the higher end plan. And so a few of them even recently have been a little bit of surprise to me. Like, Hey, I thought they were leaning here because they were more price conscious or more here, but we upsold them to the higher end plan because they valued what we’re going to bring to the table. And so I think that’s the biggest thing I would take away from that is just having some options in the sales thing, being flexible and trying to, again, let the customers, it’s their decision, ultimately giving them options that fall in line with what you want to provide, but that they get to ultimately make the decision because they’re the buyer, they’re the consumer.
Terry Hedden (29:43)
I love that, Ryan. I don’t know where you got these ideas, but I’ve seen, what I hear in your story, and I don’t want to put any words in your mouth, it feels like you’ve worked with a lot of different advisors. You’ve taken feedback and implemented it and then maybe tweaked your approach as you went on. And there are some people out there that advocate all in or nothing. It’s like we’re selling Lamborghinis and you either buy a Lamborghini or you don’t.
I see a lot of those people struggle. It’s hard to get a stranger to buy a Lamborghini. You’ve got to be someone who’s given them a ride in a Lamborghini, they’ve experienced a Lamborghini. Someone else has got to refer. And usually it comes down to really close relationships where you’re able to convince someone to go with you, even though the price point may be in great excess of what other people might do. In fact, maybe sometimes it’s not even a competitive bid.
Is that what led to the whole multiple plan thing? Was it more of like this realization that, I’m only selling Lamborghinis and not everyone needs a Lamborghini?
Ryan Homan (30:42)
I mean that was definitely some of it again. It’s I have not taken everybody’s advice perfectly and said hey This is exactly what I want to do. I to copy it, but I’ve said hey, what parts can I incorporate and usually it’s a slow incorporation So, you know you hear this one over here you hear this this story over here and you’re like, okay I’m gonna try this part of this one and sometimes it works Sometimes it doesn’t like you said it’s continuing to evolve that be incremental improvements ⁓ learning what works what doesn’t and continuing to take it a little bit further along. And that’s really kind of how I got there. I wouldn’t say there’s any, I’m sure I’m copying off some, everybody copies off of everybody at some point, but it’s like, I’ve taken pieces from different people and kind of melded it all together to see what is going to be our key differentiator there and what we offer.
Terry Hedden (31:33)
Love that. Ryan, talk to me about those relationships that you had, the people you’ve sought advice from. What’s worked for you in marketing and sales for your MSP and what hasn’t? Give us some tactical real world stuff.
Ryan Homan (31:45)
⁓ sure. ⁓ so I, again, not coming from the sales background, ⁓ I’ve learned I’ve evolved into sales as a multi-part component. I’ve learned that there’s a marketing aspect. There’s a kind of BDR type aspect, business development. There’s kind of that sales closer role. And then also even once you get a customer, you know, the account management side of things. And so there’s all these different parts of sales and, ⁓that kind of all go together, they all have some sort of connection. so what I learned, one, is most people aren’t good at all of them. That’d be the first thing I would say. ⁓ That figuring out who the right partners people are to fill certain pieces of that and do good at those pieces. so things that I tried, I tried a part-time BDR at one point in time. ⁓ What I didn’t like about that is it was part-time felt like they were going to be fully committed to me, but they were working one day a week for me and four days a week for somebody else. And so that wasn’t as committed. ⁓ I tried having a person in house that would do all that stuff. And like I said, that’s where I learned where that one person was good at these pieces, but not these other pieces. so those things failed. so one of the challenges of being small, Ler, is you have all these pieces of the pile or all these rolls that you have to fill.
You don’t have enough people to put one person dedicated to each spot. So somebody always has to pick up more roles and that’s, that’s also a challenge. There’s not a lot of people that I found that can be really good at a whole bunch of roles. And as the owner, I’m not good at all of them, but I had to take on whatever else, you know, I can to help move it along. so, you know, figuring out what strategic roles I could, you know, outsource or bring in people or bring in resources, partnerships to kind of fulfill that role. so, you know, you know, I’ve worked with you guys at Marketopia on bringing in an SDR and Like that was a role that was very helpful and, you know, brought in, ⁓ took that burden off of me and gave me, you know, leads and opportunities to kind of run with. And so that has worked pretty well for me. ⁓ You know, looked at marketing services, other things. I’ve tried a lot of different things, people, local people out and about, and just different things have worked better than others and continue to evolve and mold that and figure out, you know, where does it go in the future and where does it take me to continue to be successful?
Terry Hedden (34:04)
I love that. I think the SCR is a particularly unique role in the sense that it takes a certain person to be great at it. And you could be a great person and suck at that role. could be a great salesperson and suck at that role. You could be a hard worker and suck at that role. There are people who just are good at that. And it’s really an interesting industry because the fire, it takes a fire inside to deal with rejection. Every time I look at the metrics I get more inspired by these people. I think we have like probably 50 of them or something like that here and they’re getting rejected like 1,990 times a month.
And I just think to myself like, who deals with that? Like Ryan, you’re a good looking guy, so you probably didn’t get rejected much from women. But my guess is that at some point you were rejected and it probably hits you hard. They do it in stride and it’s just so inspiring to me. And it feels like if there was a way to kind of bottle that and give a little bit to everybody of basically saying, you know, commit to yourself.
Deal with, overcome objections, deal with rejection, don’t let that stop you from picking up the phone and doing it again. I feel like there’s a lesson there for MSP owners where it’s just like, deal with it. Yeah, it’s gonna suck. The things aren’t gonna work. You’re gonna waste money. You’re gonna do things that were bombed. You’re gonna waste money. You’re gonna waste time. But at the end of the day, the travesty will come not from that issue.
It’s if you allow it to defeat you. And it feels like to me, Ryan, you’ve got this insatiable desire to achieve that has led you to have that sort of ⁓ commitment to self-improvement, commitment to achievement, commitment to doing whatever it takes to achieve your goal. ⁓ Ryan, is that something that’s in you or something you’ve built over time?
Ryan Homan (36:07)
I think it’s definitely in me some I mean, I think my parents and still a lot of that in me ⁓ I’d say the biggest takeaway though from that is I’ve watched so many people like do that and again I’ve made bad financial decisions and things that didn’t work but it’s like Did you did you change some from that? Did you did you evolve a little bit? And if I find so many of the people I stalked to they’re like, well, I’m still struggling It’s like well, what did you learn from this? What did you change? Well, I didn’t change anything. Well, then what do you expect like?
Terry Hedden (36:21)
Yeah.
Ryan Homan (36:36)
you know, that, that saying that, know, if you don’t change anything, you’re going to get the same result. mean, the definition of insanity is continue to do the same thing and expect different results. So it’s like, how do you, every time, even when I made that mistake, okay, well, I don’t want to do that again, but what did I learn or what did I change to take it to take it a little bit farther? And sometimes he moves the needle a lot. Sometimes it moves it a little bit, but as long as you tried something different, sometimes I’ve tried stuff and it’s what the wrong way. It’s like, well, that was dumb, but you know, you pivot and you continue to evolve. And I like change. ⁓I tell a lot of our clients, I want to be a change agent for your organization. ⁓ I’m not going to force you to do it, but I’m going to encourage it. And I do the same thing to my team and I do the same thing in our business. it’s like, okay, has to be some thought out changes, but you got to continue to evolve, continue to change. Heck, I got kids at home and I, you know, I start talking about technology with them and it’s kind of funny because, you know, they’re still young, but they’re starting to get into devices and we lock them down and do different things. And then they surprised me and they figure out how to get past some of these restrictions and then I have to, know, one, educate them on why we’re doing that and then also tighten up the social, the things a little bit more. But, you know, it’s just those conversations and it’s like, you got to be able to pivot. You got to be able to work through those things and same things in life as business. A lot of that relates and, ⁓ you know, good, good takeaways from both sides.
Terry Hedden (37:55)
Absolutely. Ryan, know, I wanna, I I guess I wanna harness what you’re saying and what you’ve done and sort of your ability to overcome challenges and turn the focus to the future. Cause there’s a big thing coming and we all know it, we all see it, you know, and it feels some days like it’s gonna be like a jet pack that’s gonna make us reach new heights. And sometimes it’s a tsunami that’s gonna kill us and drown us. And that is AI.⁓ What are your thoughts on AI? ⁓ What are you going to do to make sure you overcome that challenge and capitalize on that opportunity? And kind of walk me through your vision for how that’s going to happen over the next couple of years.
Ryan Homan (38:41)
Sure. ⁓ So it’s something we’ve talked about before. I’ve talked about in different peer groups. ⁓ I’ve been monetizing a little bit already with some things and just doing some training and education. It’s still a work in progress. It’s one of those things that’s going to take a lot of pivots to where I feel like I’m confident in it. But I’ve been trying to set the table. of our business review meetings, we’ve been mentioning AI as one of the items to talk about. And more of just, do you want a little consultation on it and talk about where it’s going? Because whether you want to or not your clients are starting to play with it. Everybody’s starting to play with it. mean, I’m trying to, even our school systems, my kids are starting to, they’re encouraging it and I’ve been encouraging them to use it to help them. And I’ve had a lot of people ask me about, what does that mean about the job force? What should I be doing? What should I be learning? What should my kids be learning? Things like that. And it’s like, I think it’s going to be managing the AI in different ways and what’s going to be successful for people. And so for us from the technology side is our goal is to kind of one, I want to be kind of on the front end of it, running with it, ⁓ knowing how to use it, being able to be, know, someone, our whole team can be, you know, people that can train our customers on it. But that’s just the first stage. think for me, it’s how do we use it to be almost a product or an offering to our customers that provides value? ⁓ We’ve built like a phone AI dispatcher, I’ve built some other automations inside there. And so it’s like, how do you…take that, build something for a customer, and then turn it loose in their environment in, know, secure ways, proper data controls, ⁓ you know, rolling it out in a way that’s not going to offend anybody, but making sure that you’re implementing it in a proper way that is going to provide business efficiency for them and be a resource for them. And I think that’s the biggest thing. And we have a lot of our customers are open to that, embracing that. You know, there’s a few that are scared a little bit, yeah, but that’s an education thing. That’s a time thing but continuing to see how we can make that a valuable, use it as a valuable resource. Our goal, I think, is to put the guardrails on it and to give kind of the path or the highway to go to follow to get there. But help them utilize those tools to the best of their ability to help them grow their business. Because I think that’s going to be the biggest thing. The businesses that really grow over the next five or 10 years are going to be the ones that embrace that, utilize it, and figure out how to become more efficient and more streamlined with those type of tools.
Terry Hedden (41:08)
I love that Ryan and I love your your mental and business approach to that. You know, I think that’s the hottest topic in all the conferences now and and when I go and I talk to your peers, it’s almost like paralysis. Like they know it’s there. They use it. They know their customers use it, but they’re just stoned when it comes to responding and it feels like you get it, you’re calm about it, you’re thinking, you’re planning, you’re doing, you’re monetizing, you’re making money doing it, and you’ve got a more optimistic path. think…you know, when I step back at 50,000 foot and I really spent time doing that in the last week or so, is to just get out of the day to day and step back, you know, three, four clicks, where I’m kind of looking at the world of tech and saying, okay, who’s the winners and who are the losers? I think MSPs are in the top three in terms of potential businesses to make money in AI. And I would tell you that for those that embrace it like you’re doing, I think it’s a can’t lose, and I’ll tell you why. I don’t think there’s any question that utilities are going to play or be a winner in AI. There’s going to be a lot of nuclear power reactors bought. There’s going to be a lot of coal burned to generate electricity, especially in China and places that are doing it the old-fashioned way. And utilities are going to do extremely well. I also think the AI platforms, the winners, the ones that are going to be there long-term, who knows what that will be. But as of now, it’s more of like a Google, an X, open AI.
Anthropic, there’s a certain number that maybe those are the ones that make it, maybe a subset do, maybe there’s some new insurance. They’re going to win. And then there’s the MSP. And the reason I think that there’s no way the MSP that embraces AI can lose is because that’s who’s going to do it for the SMB. Anthropic is not going to pick up the phone and call Billy’s tire company in Bakersfield, Ohio and⁓ sell them AI, implement AI, support AI, help them pick the right AI, that’s not gonna happen, right? It’s gonna be the people who are trusted by the small business owner and that’s the MSP. And it’s to the point where I just, I look at people who are afraid, I’m like, how are you afraid? It’s like the greatest gift that anyone has ever brought to our industry is a very big, very powerful, very high ROI technology investment that the average business owner is going to do, but they know damn well that they’re not qualified to do it. And it’s easy to holes in their story anytime they’re trying to do it. Cause you say, tell me about security. What are you doing to make sure your employees aren’t uploading proprietary information, financial statements, HR records? How, what are you doing to make sure that AI is successful. And MSPs, if they just ask that one question, they’d be in the conversation making big money by helping people with a big technology, with big ROI, and great benefits to everyone who really uses it. So to me, Ryan, it’s almost like you’re there. You get it, and you’re marching forward. And I think that’s the recipe for the next generation of MSP and the ones that are going to survive this versus the ones that are going to get collapsed by it. Because if I’m in your market, and I’m marketing for you and I talk about AI and their incumbent is not talking about AI. It’s pretty easy to undermine the credibility that they have in that organization and get you that opportunity in there. And we’re going to do that over and over and over and create opportunities for you to scale. And so I applaud you. I believe what you’re doing is the right thing. And I feel like the future is incredibly bright at a level that you can’t currently fathom. I would not doubt if you’re Tesla Optimist certified.
And I would not doubt that you’re managing 10,000 robots and hundreds of thousands of AI employees, agentic employees, digital employees in five years. I just think back, I’m like, The hardest part of our business is the people, the dumb user who clicks the button that knows they shouldn’t, that hasn’t rebooted their computer in seven months, the one that stinks really short-term in their technology investment. If you could, you know, manage a robot that just does what you tell it to, right? And it’s probably going to be a lot better quality of life as an MSP. So you got more money, more quality of life, and frankly, incredible growth because those AI employees are not just going to be in infrastructure. They’re going to be in marketing and sales and operations and manufacturing and HR and finance. They’re going to be everywhere. So those MSPs are going to be start dipping into buckets of money that they’ve only dreamed about dripping into before. Do you agree with that Ryan or am I off my rocker?
Ryan Homan (46:00)
No, I, I a hundred percent agree. I had an interesting story just from last week. I did a proposal with a contractor type business. I’m kind of an old school person. did my normal proposal, but at the end of we talked about AI a little bit now. And one of the things that he gave me his advice again, something I’m going to pivot from was you should have talked about AI first. And I was like, really? And I was thinking, this is an old school person, you know, traditional, goes, I’m really interested in that stuff. And, and I’m, it makes me know that you’re a forward thinking person and that trust and I’m going against like in that proposal, I’m going against an incumbent that they’re not unhappy with, but it’s like, that might be enough to get me over the edge on that opportunity. And so it’s like, it’s interesting when the client, you know, pushed back and said that, and I was glad I went into the AI. I I started from having a 30 minute proposal meeting to an hour and a half meeting, cause we started talking about all kinds of stuff, but it’s like, you know, how do you continue to evolve that? And for me, the challenge, I definitely think it’s coming. still, how do I monetize it more? We’ve been doing some trainings. We’ve been doing some different sessions with people helping on it. It’s figuring out exactly what that offering is, exactly what those pieces are. And again, I guarantee it’s going to pivot a bunch. It’s going to work and try this, we’re going to do this, we’re going do that. And it’s got to be an ever evolving thing with it to see what works and what doesn’t. And once we get that, then we can go kind of continue to explore and push forward from there.
Terry Hedden (47:17)
Awesome. Ryan, it’s been an honor to even be part of that journey for you. hear some of the things you say. know that you’ve we’ve talked about and you’ve probably heard from things that we’ve been a part of. You know, this is one of the most inspirational podcasts I’ve done yet. And I want you to know why. Ryan, you to me are you represent the person that deserves to win. A good dude works hard, takes care of himself, takes care of his family, cares about his employees, cares about his customers, doesn’t come from, you know, he’s not a billionaire and doesn’t he didn’t start this business with billion dollars in the bank. He’s a good dude who works hard, who’s overcome lessons, who’s overcome objections, who overcome fear, uncertainty, and doubt to continue marching on doing the right thing. I’m not surprised you’re successful today. I’m not surprised you’re growing 74 % month over month Percentage of that that that market today has contributed to I’m proud of I want you to know that But what I’m most proud of is where you’re gonna be in five years Ryan You’re one of those people who’s gonna be phenomenally successful So you’re gonna go from someone who is the type of person that deserves to be phenomenally successful? To the kind of person that is and that’s something very special. You should be very proud of that I’m proud of it and and I wish you nothing but the best going forward dude You deserve to win and you are and you will and nothing’s gonna stop you because you won’t stop you
Ryan Homan (48:36)
Awesome, I appreciate that. It means a lot.
Terry Hedden (48:39)
Awesome, man. thank you for joining the GROW Limitless Podcast. I hope this was inspirational to everyone who listens to it. And be like Ryan. Be like that guy who overcomes objections, doesn’t say no to themselves, doesn’t deny themselves the pleasure of success and the feeling of achievement and the kind of person who’s going to win in the next generation of technology and not be the kind of person who’s going to get beaten by it. So be like Ryan. Thank you so much. It was great to talk to you today, Ryan. Have a wonderful day.
Ryan Homan (49:08)
Thanks, Terry. I appreciate you inviting me on.
