Meet Vishal Rambaran, Tier 1 Support Desk Technician
Today we turn the spotlight on Vishal Rambaran. Vishal quickly became a tremendous asset to the entire team at The 20. Read below to find out more about Vishal!
What do you do here at The 20?
Level 1 Support Desk
Describe The 20 in three words…
Close-Knit, Supportive, Friendly
As a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?
I do not think I had anything in mind but I do remember saying astronaut a lot turned out to be scared of heights.
What’s the most challenging thing about your job?
Nothing is ever the same it is a constant changing environment.
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
To be honest coming here at this time as it breaking out of my day to day and experiencing something new.
What do you think is the most important quality necessary for success?
Be coachable take criticism and run with it.
What do you like most about The 20?
The community everyone is willing to assist to what ever level they can.
What do you like to do in your spare time? / What are your hobbies?
I enjoy building computers and am currently working on my first water cooled rig, other than that currently just playing games. As well as learning the violin and I’m not good at all.
Where are you going on your next vacation?
Next vacation no plans on the book but will most likely back home in Pennsylvania, if not Singapore.
Meet Peter Tessitore of Netlogic Computer Consulting!
Tell us a little about your MSP…
We are in Nashua, NH and have an office in Hanover, MA. Netlogic Computer Consulting was established in 2005 by Craig Packard and myself. We have been doing traditional IT Support for businesses in New England since then. Thanks to the 20 group, we became a Million dollar MSP in 2018. The last couple of years, we morphed into the Netlogic My365 (cloud services) “the Modern Workplace, Any device, anywhere, any time” and brought our services to the 20 at the Vision Conference in 2019. A lot of 20 members are having great success with this platform especially since Covid-19 hit.
How long have you been a member of The 20?
We are an original member of the 20 since it’s inception.
Why did your MSP originally look to partner with The 20?
Tim’s concepts of standardizing and Help Desk. Pricing Concepts also.
Tell us about the biggest change in your business since joining The 20.
Biggest change was the switch to the Microsoft 365 platform which opened up all kinds of opportunities for us.
What do you like most about being a member of The 20?
The Staff and Members are Awesome! Great concepts and we are all still working to improve on them.
What do you think is the most important quality necessary for success?
Marketing and a great Pipeline! An MSP’s service has to be top notch also.
What are your biggest business challenges?
Expenses as we grow fast. Calculated risk on hiring to keep SLA’s and production of the staff.
What are your areas of focus for 2020?
Growing our My365 program to more 20 Members. We will have a virtual booth at 2020 Vision conference.
What advice would you share with an MSP looking to scale their business?
Hang tough through the rollercoaster of growth. As a peer group (The20), you have all the help and resources you need to scale up quickly to grow your business. DON’T try and do it all yourself. Reach out for advice and help and “Plan your work and work your Plan”
My favorite reading has to be the Microsoft 365 official blog. Staying up to date on Microsoft 365 releases and new ideas is a challenge with technology moving so quickly. This blog is great at highlighting updates as well as success stories that we can emulate.
Interested in becoming a member like Netlogic Computer Consulting? Click here for more information!
Meet George Monroy of Monroy IT Services!
Tell us a little about your MSP…
We are located in the San Antonio Hill Country. Monroy IT Services was established in 2004 in Houston, TX. I moved the company in 2010.
How long have you been a member of The 20?
It will be four years in August 2020.
Why did your MSP originally look to partner with The 20?
The company was not growing and it was a do or die decision. I spoke with Tim and he opened my eyes to why I was having a hard time growing. He hit the nail on the head.
Tell us about the biggest change in your business since joining The 20.
I was able to scale quickly like I could not in the past. I was also introduced to managed Google Adwords and that helped with lead gen. Then I was able to sell with some training from Tim.
What do you like most about being a member of The 20?
I love the Support Desk and the tight knit family of being in the same boat with other owners.
What do you think is the most important quality necessary for success?
An open mind and a willingness to execute.
What are your biggest business challenges?
Currently it is selling during Covid. We have gained one client so I am not complaining but it is definitely much slower growth than I had planned this year.
What are your areas of focus for 2020?
Close a co-managed It deal and move forward with a sales plan for more co-managed IT. We currently have one co-managed IT client.
What advice would you share with an MSP looking to scale their business?
This is easy. Join The 20 so you can focus on lead gen and sales. The 20 will handle the scale.
What book are you currently reading?
I am currently finishing up Gap Selling by Keenan, Then it may be Fix This Next by Mike Michalowicz.
Favorite blogs / podcasts
My favorite podcast is The Joe Rogan Experience for the breadth and depth of the topics that are covered
Interested in becoming a member like Monroy IT Services? Click here for more information!
Meet Donna Pebworth, Financial Controller
Today we turn the spotlight on Donna Pebworth. Donna quickly became a tremendous asset to the entire team at The 20. Read below to find out more about Donna!
What do you do here at The 20?
I’m the Financial Controller and also handle HR & Payroll.
Describe The 20 in three words…
Innovative, Challenging, & Rewarding.
As a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?
A Photographer.
What’s the most challenging thing about your job?
Trying to make processes and procedures so things run better, faster, and smarter.
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Going back to college later in life to finish my Associates, then on to my Bachelor’s, and then my Master’s, all while working full time and throughout the process, paying my own way.
What do you think is the most important quality necessary for success?
I have two, you must be driven and self-reliant.
What do you like most about The 20?
The challenges I face daily and how these challenges help me grow as a person and as an employee of The 20.
What do you like to do in your spare time? / What are your hobbies?
In my spare time, I like hanging out with good friends and my four legged babies, going to dinner, and relaxing poolside. My hobbies are yard work/gardening, I love to have a beautiful lawn. It gives me a sense of pride.
Where are you going on your next vacation?
Depending on the COVID19 situation, maybe Hot Springs, or the beach, or if nothing else, my backyard pool!
Founded in 2002, PacketLogix has worked with organizations of all different sizes and in a broad spectrum of market sectors. In the early days of PacketLogix, we focused exclusively on the corporate enterprise marketplace assisting large organizations and agencies mainly with network security and wireless design. As cyberthreats became more omni-present, we have invested significantly in our capability of helping better protect both clients’ networks, but also their end points and servers. For the past fifteen years, we have been working with the United States federal government through our own GSA blanket contract. We have worked on national classified networks at various intelligence agencies, trained network technicians in Baghdad, Iraq, and even worked with the US Secret Service, US House of Represtatives, and the US Senate. In recent years, PacketLogix has taken a focus closer to home in Rhode Island helping the small to medium business community.
How long have you been a member of The 20?
Since January 2020.
Why did your MSP originally look to partner with The 20?
The model, the Support Desk and tools were clearly first class and what we needed to get to our next level.
Tell us about the biggest change in your business since joining The 20.
The biggest change I have had since joining The 20 was the realization and action I have taken in seeking our larger clients that I can now handle with the support of The 20 Support Desk and community of like-minded partners.
What do you like most about being a member of The 20?
Hands down – the other members. Their generosity and honest desire to help me grow my business has been so overwhelming. I hope when I get on my feet I’ll be able to repay it forward with other members.
What do you think is the most important quality necessary for success?
Never, ever, ever give up. You can screw up 7 ways til Sunday, but don’t ever give up.
What are your biggest business challenges?
Sales and marketing. Getting new clients.
What are your areas of focus for 2020?
New client acquisition and bringing our operations in line with the best practices of The 20 and its members.
What advice would you share with an MSP looking to scale their business?
Sales and marketing is everything. Yes, you need great operations, but without sales and marketing excellence, you won’t have anyone to support.
Interested in becoming a member like PacketLogix? Click here for more information!
Meet Chris Plouffe of CSP Technologies!
Tell us a little about your MSP…
Our HQ is located in Sedona, AZ, but was founded in Winston-Salem, NC in 2005. We service both AZ and NC, plus plenty of other states.
How long have you been a member of The 20?
We have been 20 members for 2.5 years and loving it.
Why did your MSP originally look to partner with The 20?
Operating as a one-man-show for so long just wasn’t going to cut it anymore. For me to be the business I wanted to be, I needed the help and depth of The 20. A 24/7 support desk, guidance, peer support, and more.
Tell us about the biggest change in your business since joining The 20.
Everything has changed, but the biggest thing is me. My confidence, my expertise, my vision. I know we can provide TOP NOTCH service and support, and there is no company too big or too complicated that we can’t handle. Second would be revenue because that is always important too.
What do you like most about being a member of The 20?
There is so much, but I would say the other members. Having accountability groups, people to bounce things off of, to learn from, and to have your back.
What do you think is the most important quality necessary for success?
Flexibility. Being able to pivot, change, or adapt to the changing landscape. Also, being flexible in your way of thinking too.
What are your biggest business challenges?
I would say sales and marketing. Having a clear message and plan to reach people is always something we can be better at.
What are your areas of focus for 2020?
Growth on the business side, security on the tech side, but growing smart with the correct standards and controls to be able to scale.
What advice would you share with an MSP looking to scale their business?
Join a group like The 20, honestly. The resources I have and the information I’ve learned in just a couple of years, would’ve taken 15 more for me to figure out myself.
I don’t do that many podcasts right now, I try to use my down time to relax by the pool more. Not many blogs either, except maybe Channel E2E for industry news.
Interested in becoming a member like CSP Technologies? Click here for more information!
Meet Joe Parr, Manager 0f Backup and Disaster Recovery
Today we turn the spotlight on Joe Parr. Joe joined the team several years ago and quickly became a tremendous asset to The 20.
What do you do here at The 20?
Backup and Disaster Recovery Manager in charge of over 120 backup devices each backing up 5-10 servers a piece.
Describe The 20 in three words…
Knowledgeable, customer-focused, friendly.
As a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?
I had dreams of becoming the next Dan Rather, a news correspondent.
What’s the most challenging thing about your job?
Being the sole point of contact for all things BDR related.
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Raising my niece from the age of 4 until she graduated high school.
What do you think is the most important quality necessary for success?
Care about your employees, they are what help you succeed.
What do you like most about The 20?
The work/life balance here is good in that if I need to deal with an emergency, I can, no questions asked.
What do you like to do in your spare time? / What are your hobbies?
I love going to movies, listening to music, and spending time with my family.
Well, that’s a wrap on our first Virtual Quarterly!
Spring Quarterly was held on Zoom on May 28th and 29th and we had an incredible time with all of you! We look forward to these events every year, and while this one was a little different, it was every bit as fun and informative as its always been.
Our first day was entirely dedicated to in–depth training sessions by 3i International, Deep Instinct, BLOKWORX, and TruGrid. We then wrapped the day up with a Q&A session with Kris Blackmon of Informa, talking about the MSP 501.
Our CEO Tim Conkle kicked off day 2 with hammering on the importance of marketing and building pipeline. This was followed by a presentation from Danny Astin of Ciardi, Ciardi & Astin. We also held 3 insightful panel sessions: “How to Get the Most out of The 20” featuring several of our Elite members, “Growing is Not Magic” with Tim Conkle, Crystal McFerran and Mark Elliott, and a Support Desk/NOC Q&A with our CIO Jeff Griffin.
Last, but certainly not least, Nerdio and Crayon joined us to talk in-depth about Azure and Microsoft year-end incentives.
Everyone is adjusting within their businesses and we are glad to have had theopportunity to bring Quarterly to you during these ever-changing times!
So much was learned, and so much fun was had— we hope to see you at our next Quarterly!
If you have any questions about future Quarterly events, or would just like to learn more about The 20, please contact us today!
Meet Gary Blawat of Businertia!
Tell us a little about your MSP…
Businertia was established in 2006. Originally, we were going to be a management consulting business and had an opportunity to start an IT business for a real estate investor that wanted to diversify. We actually had two articles written about our flat-rate IT model in 2007. However, when the market crashed in 2008, we were able to negotiate an asset purchase for the IT company we started. Twelve years later, we are still enjoying delivering IT services to the SMB market.
How long have you been a member of The 20?
I saw Tim talking about Cytracom at ASCII for a couple of years before we joined and kept hearing about this great idea called ‘The 20.’ So, in May of 2018, I decided to dig a little deeper and I signed up a month later. Michael Vu, Michael Wayland, and others were big influencers to our decision. When you can hear the vision and then talk to people that are working to make it a reality, it was a game changer.
Why did your MSP originally look to partner with The 20?
The bottom line was scale. With every new customer we always seemed to hit a resource limitation to perform technical work to a high quality and focus on growing the business. The biggest thing I realized was that we needed to focus on building our competitive advantage and that was not going to happen by organically growing a support desk or just outsourcing it. So, the idea of us joining a group that was building a common support desk, leveraging core tools, and most importantly: giving us access to a dynamic, mastermind group, became too good to pass up. It quickly became an integral part of our future growth plans.
Tell us about the biggest change in your business since joining The 20.
Ensuring that we continue to create face value with all of our clients. Once the documentation is done and the support desk starts handling the day-to-day ad hoc requests, it became increasingly noticeable that we are in the ‘people business.’ We needed to ensure we were still reaching our customers in ways that maintained our local presence, but demonstrated the depth to handle their every day demands. The challenging part of that was not bypassing the support desk and doing simple work to create that value. With the amount of information that flows in the Teams channels, the question is not ‘how’ to create that value, but implementing ideas in planned stages over the course of a customer’s agreement.
What do you like most about being a member of The 20?
The people. There is so much business and technical acumen within the group. Every VISION, Quarterly, or daily peruse of Teams gives another ‘Aha!’ moment to solve a problem.
What do you think is the most important quality necessary for success?
Self-discipline. It is so easy to get carried away on fun items or worry about items that cannot be controlled. I’m always in awe over those leaders that have mastered it. They know when to push themselves enough to move ahead or just seem to focus on the right things at the right time.
What are your biggest business challenges?
Setting the right expectations. Really identifying where I want to take this business so it supports the right balance for my lifestyle and for my employees.
What are your areas of focus for 2020?
Setting the wheels in motion to become the best communicating MSP (MID) Service provider in South Eastern Wisconsin. This also includes re-branding the organization to better match who we are.
What advice would you share with an MSP looking to scale their business?
Stop looking at support desk as a cost-per-hour as it relates to dollars spent in correlation to amount-of-time on tickets. Having the support desk should be looked at as an operational cost that provides you scale in a very budgetable way. However, keep in mind, having a 24/7/365 support desk is only one facet of how you create value to your customers. There is still work to be done in justifying the price points you need to grow your business.
A Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi. – How can you not be interested in learning a philosophical way of battle/life from a Samurai?
Favorite blogs / podcasts
I look forward to my daily dose of The Insider News from Code Project.
The humorous subtitles in response to the article title starts my day with a laugh. For instance, take article title ‘The new surf game in Microsoft Edge now available for everyone.’ — the subtitle to the article is ‘I guess this means all the bugs are fixed (and they’ve run out of icons to change)?’
Interested in becoming a member like Businertia? Click here for more information!
Meet Michael Winward, NOC Manager
Today we turn the spotlight on Michael Winward. Michael quickly became a tremendous asset to the team at The 20.
What do you do here at The 20?
I manage the NOC which is responsible for monitoring and responding to system-generated alerts from our partner’s client environments as well as ensuring our core services and tools are properly implemented and functioning effectively. In addition to the NOC, I manage Professional Services (a.k.a Project Services) for The 20. Need help with an upcoming project? We’ve got your back!
Describe The 20 in three words…
Innovative, Driven, Community.
As a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?
A political consultant or lobbyist… yeah, I was a weird kid.
What’s the most challenging thing about your job?
Time. There is so much I want to accomplish, but the finite nature of time is a constant source of frustration.
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Personal? Either teaching my dog how to patiently balance a treat on his snout until just the right moment, or cultivating a loving, trusting, respecting and fun relationship with my wife… both took a lot of work!
Professionally? Cultivating a team with similar attributes. Loving may be going a bit far, but certainly mutual trust, respect, fun and hard work… all things you need to work effectively together. The continuous forward progress of the team I lead every day, for me is the best gauge of my personal success.
What do you think is the most important quality necessary for success?
Integrity. If you start with integrity, every other quality necessary becomes a part of the equation.
What do you like most about The 20?
The people. I am working with the most brilliant and interesting characters of my professional career, which is fantastically satisfying. It makes going to work every day (back when we used to go to work) easy and enjoyable.
What do you like to do in your spare time? / What are your hobbies?
Happiness for me comes easily — a trip to the dog park with my wife and clinically insane Jack Russell is my idea of a good time. As a hobby, I enjoy brewing beer. Coming up next? A green chili and mango gose, and a carrot cake cream ale!
Where are you going on your next vacation?
Anywhere! I can’t wait for this lockdown to end! But it’s hard to make plans before it does. First thing though is probably to visit my family in New Mexico that I haven’t seen in a while due to social distancing.
What’s your top life hack?
For life incoming: Don’t sweat the small stuff that does or does not come at you. You’ll be happier for it.
For life outgoing: Remember the details. It is often small actions and statements that result in big impressions. They will really appreciate that you took the time to regard them.
