In this episode of the B2B Marketing Methods podcast, host Terri Hoffman, CEO of Marketing Refresh, interviews Kyle Tate, the President at Firethorne Technology Services. This interview provides invaluable insights on building a brand, sales strategies, and fostering client relationships.
Whether you’re in your first year or your twentieth, Kyle’s experience will resonate with anyone growing a business. From differentiating in a crowded market to the power of transparency and prioritizing the right clients, this episode is packed with actionable takeaways.
Topics Discussed:
- The challenges and rewards of launching a business
- Sales strategies and finding the right customers
- The role of branding and marketing in a competitive space
- Transparency, trust, and long-term client relationships
- Lessons from being both an MSP provider and client
To learn more about Kyle, connect with him on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kyle-tate-486620123/
To learn more about Terri, connect with her on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/terrihartley/
To connect with Marketing Refresh, visit: MarketingRefresh.com
Full Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Terri Hoffman: Welcome to B2B Marketing Methods. I’m your host, Terri Hoffman, and I’m the CEO of Marketing Refresh. Let’s face it, embracing digital marketing is daunting. This podcast was created to make it more approachable. Join me as we talk to CEOs, sales leaders, and revenue growth experts who will share lessons learned and tips from their own journeys.
[00:00:24]
[00:00:24] Terri Hoffman: Welcome to another episode of B2B Marketing Methods. I’m really excited this week to have a unique guest with us.
[00:00:30] Terri Hoffman: His name is Kyle Tate. Kyle is the president, founder, CEO, leader, all those things of a company called Firethorne Technology Services. He is in his first year journey as a business owner and I’m really excited to have him on because I think he has a lot of relatable experiences and advice, to share with our listeners.
[00:00:52] Terri Hoffman: Knowing Kyle, like I know him, he’s a humble guy. So he is definitely not coming in with the attitude, like “I have it all figured out and let me tell you all how to do this.” Right, but I do think that anyone who has been through building a business, especially in the first year and just getting things off the ground, let me tell you, if you’re listening and you’re in your 20th year, your 30th year, your first year, your fifth year, there are going to be things that Kyle talks about today that are relatable and, can help you hopefully kind of round out things that you’re doing to grow your revenue and go to market with whatever it is that you sell. We’re going to be talking about what his business does and what differentiates them in the market, how he developed that message, how he goes about growing revenue, and some things he’s tried this year to kind of get the company launched and into a stable position.
[00:01:39] Terri Hoffman: And there’ll probably be a whole lot more that we uncover from there, but I think this is going to be an exciting episode. So Kyle, thank you so much for joining me, welcome.
[00:01:47] Kyle Tate: Thank you, Terri. I appreciate you having me on.
[00:01:49] Terri Hoffman: Absolutely. I do want you to give a little bit of background about yourself, but maybe you could just first start by explaining who Firethorne Technology Services is, what do you do?
[00:01:59] Kyle Tate: Yeah, so we’re an IT managed services company based here in Houston, Texas. And for those of you guys that don’t know what managed services are, it’s essentially us providing IT services to businesses that either have a small team that cannot handle everything themselves, or they have no IT team whatsoever.
[00:02:16] Kyle Tate: If you have no IT experience in-house. We can come in, we run everything for, from service desk to network monitoring and management, management of all your endpoints, such as your laptops, desktops, all that good stuff and we also do professional services and consulting for everything from greenfield environments,
[00:02:32] Kyle Tate: that’s brand new environments set up. If you’re a new company that’s looking to build your network or if you’re moving to a new office space, and everything in between. So, yeah, a broad range of services. And we’re really just out there trying to help other businesses grow and do that through technology.
[00:02:47] Terri Hoffman: When we get into you developing your, your value proposition and what differentiates you. I think the fact that you talked about helping a business grow is, is automatically a hint towards that. So, tell me a little bit about your background, like what, what led you to this point where you thought, “I am going to start an MSP”, dive in.
[00:03:06] Terri Hoffman: Yeah. Like what, what is your experience in the technology field?
[00:03:09] Kyle Tate: So, I’m a career IT guy. I started doing help desk way back in the day. I’m not going to age myself too much, but, started doing help desk, worked my way up to system administrator, project manager, and then most recently I was the VP of technology at a commercial bank here in Houston, Texas.
[00:03:25] Kyle Tate: And that started, we started that process, right when COVID hit. So it was pretty challenging kind of getting everything transitioned to a remote workforce and environment. And we were the customer of a, of a smaller MSP who I actually used to work for as a project manager and this bank was a customer of ours and I ran the project on the PM side for them setting up all of the new infrastructure for the bank.
[00:03:50] Kyle Tate: And I got to know the CIO really well. And then when everything happened with the pandemic, it was kind of, you know, Hey, I’m the only guy over here and I could really use some help. That transitioned over to that. And then I immediately became a customer of the MSP that I used to work. So really kind of unique situation there.
[00:04:07] Kyle Tate: And shortly after I moved over to the bank, that small MSP got acquired by a very large multinational publicly traded multi-billion dollar managed services company, and after that you can guess when you go from a small company that has the agility to kind of tailor their services and really focus on customer service to now you’re just a cog in the wheel, this huge corporation, you can really start seeing the cracks emerge in service.
[00:04:38] Kyle Tate: Not to say that a small MSP is perfect, there’s tons of gaps there, but I was given the unique perspective of being on both sides of the fence in a very short period of time. And so throughout my tenure at the bank, trying to finagle everything and work within the confines of a large IT really kind of started getting into the back of my mind like, hey, I see a lot of things that they could really do better here.
[00:05:01] Kyle Tate: And, you know, I wonder if I have the chops to go off on my own and do it myself. And, lo and behold, I, have a guy move in right next to me that, kind of challenged my thinking on starting a business and, now we’re partners and here we are.
[00:05:17] Terri Hoffman: Yeah. And then all of a sudden you realize, wow, I just jumped out of a plane.
[00:05:21] Kyle Tate: With no parachute.
[00:05:22] Terri Hoffman: Yeah.
[00:05:22] Kyle Tate: Yeah.
[00:05:23] Terri Hoffman: Well, you do, I mean, you have a really strong technology background, obviously from what you just described. And I do know his business partner who also has a really strong business background.
[00:05:33] Terri Hoffman: I know you guys have a really good strategy that is kind of drawn.
[00:05:36] Kyle Tate: I hope so. Yeah.
[00:05:37] Terri Hoffman: Yeah. Oh, I think you do. That’s good. but let’s talk about that MSP market a little bit. It’s, it’s huge, right? And it’s, it’s super competitive. And so you just described an experience where you were part of a smaller MSP acquired by this large one, you kind of experienced it.
[00:05:52] Terri Hoffman: It sounds like on both sides. Right.
[00:05:54] Kyle Tate: Yep.
[00:05:55] Terri Hoffman: Like what, what were some of the things that you had in mind, like, what do I want the Firethorne brand to stand for and be about? How did you kind of formulate that and prioritize what was going to be important to you?
[00:06:08] Kyle Tate: That’s a great question.
[00:06:09] Kyle Tate: And this is sort of a, you could apply this to any business, right? But the world of MSP, it’s, it is very competitive. As you said, there’s a ton of them out there. I think there’s over 10,000 active MSPs in the United States alone today.
[00:06:22] Terri Hoffman: Wow.
[00:06:22] Kyle Tate: And so, you know, when you come up with an idea, let’s start a new MSP.
[00:06:26] Kyle Tate: People kind of look at you like you’re crazy, but, at the end of the day, every MSP, they offer the same services. They can basically do and achieve the same things. they have expertise in all these different areas, but one thing that they don’t really do well is customer service and fostering the relationship between themselves and the companies that they do business with.
[00:06:47] Kyle Tate: Some of them do, and those are, are very successful, you know. And like I said, if you get to a certain size and MSP, it becomes very difficult to maintain that. And that’s where we ran into that issue at my previous gig. But at the end of the day, it’s all about relationships. And if you can foster good relationships with your customer, and I don’t just mean a business relationship.
[00:07:07] Kyle Tate: I mean, on a personal level, if you can’t see yourself, you know, going and having a dinner or a beer with these people. You know, maybe they’re not the best fit and we’ve had, quite frankly, we’ve turned down business from companies that we just didn’t think would be a good cultural fit for ourselves. You know, companies talk about, you know, culture and all these things internally, but when you do business to business
[00:07:32] Kyle Tate: there’s a culture between that as well. And if you don’t, if your values don’t align with the companies that you do business with, the relationship can get very rocky. And that’s something that we really tried to focus on early on is not trying to pick off all the low hanging fruit and just scoop up anything that we could get right away.
[00:07:50] Kyle Tate: Yeah, it’s nice to make money immediately, but in the world of MSP, you’re talking about contracts that are three to five years or longer. And so do you really want to marry yourselves to these businesses for that amount of time, if you don’t feel absolutely comfortable and confident that you can take that relationship and grow it?
[00:08:08] Kyle Tate: Cause ultimately, at the end of the day, our goal is not just to be a utility or, you know, like a plumber where; you call us, we have a problem, we come in, we fix it, we invoice you and we get out. That’s not what we’re about. We want to grow with the businesses that we help to grow, because if they’re growing, we’re growing right along with them.
[00:08:25] Kyle Tate: Cause I can tell you if we ever lose a customer, it won’t be because of our customer service. It will never be because of the relationship and that’s something that’s just really, really important to me personally. And something that I’ve tried to ingrain in our internal company culture, not just with our employees, but with the people that we do business with.
[00:08:43] Terri Hoffman: Yeah. I think that is so smart. I guess just as our business has grown over the years, I’ve experienced different levels of that. And the more you get comfortable saying, no, the more successful you are, which is like, it’s counterintuitive when you first think about growing and starting your business and growing revenue.
[00:09:00] Terri Hoffman: But that, pickiness, is really important because you want to leave space for the fit.
[00:09:04] Kyle Tate: Absolutely. Yeah. It almost gives people a sense of like exclusivity working with you, right? And as you start to grow and get bigger, it, you know, it’s like, oh man, we, you know, we’d really love to have Firethorne and it’s like, well, you know, our, our services aren’t for everyone, you know? We have to really like you and want you as a customer, you know? So it’s, it’s almost like a screening process and, you know, if you don’t align with our values and the things that we cherish as part of our culture, then, you know, we’re fine saying, no, you know, we might not be the best fit for you.
[00:09:36] Kyle Tate: There’s plenty of other companies out there that are willing to work with everyone, you know. We just, we say things differently.
[00:09:43] Terri Hoffman: Yeah. Well, we talked about, transparency too, right? It’s part of building a relationship of any type, but talk to me about your view on transparency in the relationship and the way that you work with your clients.
[00:09:58] Kyle Tate: Yeah. And I can speak to this directly from somebody that has worked on both sides of the fence working for, and, you know, being a customer of an MSP and transparency, it’s one of the things that is missed really badly, across not just MSPs, but a lot of businesses. Yeah.
[00:10:14] Kyle Tate: You know, if there’s a problem and it originated from you, just own it and, fix it, you know, pointing fingers and doing all this, well, you know, this and that and this and that it’s all just crap at the end of the day. And your customer doesn’t want to hear that, they want to hear, “Yeah, we screwed up.”
[00:10:30] Kyle Tate: “We’re going to fix it.” This is exactly what happened. And this is how we’re going to prevent it from happening in the future. You know, people understand that there’s a human element to everything that we do and humans are not perfect, right? There’s always going to be things going wrong, especially with technology.
[00:10:45] Kyle Tate: Technology is completely unpredictable as everybody knows. you go to change your password and you start entering stuff in and it’s like, you can’t use the last password. You just lose. You’re like, what are you talking about? I just put that in tech, technology is crazy. You know, things happen that you can’t explain.
[00:11:00] Kyle Tate: Sometimes you literally just put one extra period at the end of a line of code or, you commit something on a config on a firewall. That’s got one little typo in it and everything can come crashing down and that’s fine. It happens. There’s a human element to all this.
[00:11:16] Kyle Tate: So owning your mistakes, being transparent about what’s actually going on behind the scenes is huge. And I think it’s valued, but I think it’s undervalued at the same time. I think if more businesses would hold their vendors accountable for these things, you’ll really start to see a big shift in how companies handle that.
[00:11:35] Terri Hoffman: Yeah, I completely agree because I think part of that transparency is the follow through if you own up to the mistake and you hold yourself accountable and you’re transparent about it, then you’ve got to actually do the things you said you were going to do to remedy it. That’s a whole other skill set and ability to commit to that.
[00:11:54] Terri Hoffman: My kids get really sick of me saying this to them, but I’m like, if you just do what you say you’re going to do in the professional world, you will get promoted. Just doing that. It’s a lost skill and a lost art. And so I think that’s huge. And I do think it builds trust in the relationship.
[00:12:11] Terri Hoffman: If there’s a mistake that was made and you just own it, you talk about it and you talk about the steps. The person you’re normally working with is just like, please help me avoid a shock or surprise that puts me in hot water, because we’re partners in this, right?
[00:12:25] Kyle Tate: And that’s something you made a really good point there that, you know, the person on the other end of the relationship, they’re a regular person too, they’ve got a job, they have somebody that they report to, and they’re just trying to fight through this just like you are.
[00:12:38] Kyle Tate: And the more that you are honest with those people and show the mutual respect and say, “Hey, look, this is what happened. We’re going to get through this together,” because ultimately as an MSP, that’s, that’s my job. My job is to make every IT director or VP of technology or CIO. My job is to make you look like a rockstar to the rest of your company.
[00:12:57] Kyle Tate: That’s my job. And if you don’t, then I have failed at some point. Now, if you’re, doing some sketchy stuff on your own time, that’s something you got to worry about, but I’m going to do everything in my power as your service provider to make you look good to the rest of your business.
[00:13:13] Terri Hoffman: Yeah, I love it. So yeah, it sounds like you put a lot of your personal experiences of what you saw working and maybe not working into building the Firethorne brand and kind of defining what you wanted your company to be about. And I mean, I think that’s really important because, you know, how do you build a message?
[00:13:33] Terri Hoffman: How do you build a brand? A lot of it needs to be driven by what are the pain points that your customer is actually going through, right? And so because you had the perspective of being a customer, you had personal pain points that, you know, you knew you could help to overcome.
[00:13:48] Kyle Tate: You know, once we kind of knew that this was what we were gonna do, and, you know, it’s like, okay, well, you know, now let’s write it all down. Let’s, let’s come up with an actual business plan. Like, how are we gonna address certain things? How are we gonna market certain things?
[00:14:00] Kyle Tate: And, you hit the nail on the head. It’s, it’s all about finding the pain. Like, where is the pain? The customer is always going to have pain that they are dealing with and if you can alleviate that pain and make life easier for your customer, they will always come back to you and they will be loyal.
[00:14:14] Kyle Tate: It seems like it’s such an easy equation to solve, right? You know, do, do good things for them, they do good things for you. Everybody makes money and they’re happy. But you know, there’s lots of variables in between that, but at the end of the day, like I said before, and I’ll say this till the cows come home,
[00:14:29] Kyle Tate: It’s, it’s all about the relationship with your customer.
[00:14:33] Terri Hoffman: Yep. I love that. You’ve got a lot of credibility in the technology field with good places that you worked with a lot of credibility, but the company itself that you founded as new, what were some of your priorities out of the gate?
[00:14:46] Kyle Tate: So I think the biggest challenge for any new business, especially in this world is credibility and visibility.
[00:14:53] Kyle Tate: It’s really tough to build credibility from scratch. And so you have to use your own personal credibility and the relationships that you’ve made throughout your professional career, sort of as a springboard for your business. And you really need to be putting yourself out there. I mean, when we first got started, all I did was contact everybody that I used to work with and say, “Hey, I’m doing this new thing.”
[00:15:19] Kyle Tate: You know, we’ve got all these great services. I’ve got, a ton of great people. You know, how can we help? And then going to events is another huge thing, one of the biggest things I can do. If I can sort of relay to everybody is; you need to meet your customer where they are. Nobody is going to do business with you if they have never met you in person.
[00:15:37] Kyle Tate: I won’t say never, but very rarely will somebody sign a six-figure, seven-figure deal with you if they’ve never met you in person. You need to be looking these people in the face, telling them your story, showing them that you can be trusted, that you are trustworthy and that you have that credibility, that you’re willing to show up where they are, to meet your customers where they are.
[00:15:56] Kyle Tate: Otherwise, You’re just some Joe Schmo guy trying to, you know, run a garage band company out of their house. And it’s tough to break through, but if you really just focus on doing things in person and after COVID, we went through this whole thing of like, everybody wants to do meetings online and, just do a phone call or whatever, and I feel like we’re kind of coming full circle.
[00:16:18] Kyle Tate: Things are coming back to the normal way that I’m used to doing things. But man, that personal touch being having a personal relationship with somebody, like I said earlier, it’s not about just the business-to-business relationship. It’s about the personal relationship that you have with these people.
[00:16:32] Kyle Tate: If you can’t see yourself having a beer with these people and, asking them how their family’s doing and getting to know them on a personal level, you’re never going to get those big deals.
[00:16:42] Terri Hoffman: Well, I agree, especially at the stage of like developing your company that you’re in, people are, you know, you have, you have a team and so they’re not necessarily buying you, but to begin, you know, I think your personal brand.
[00:16:57] Kyle Tate: Oh, they are. They’re buying you at first. Yeah.
[00:16:59] Terri Hoffman: Yeah. It’s because it’s so strong. It’s great that you’re leveraging the credibility of your personal brand and connecting it to the company. Over time, I think you have to evolve that, but I mean, use the strength at the beginning for sure.
[00:17:12]
[00:17:12] Kyle Tate: Yeah, definitely.
[00:17:13] Terri Hoffman: Yeah, what about on the sales side? Like, how have you, I hate to say check that box of sales because sales is not easy. It’s a really challenging role to be in, but like how do you address that part, like sales in general?
[00:17:27] Kyle Tate: So sales is challenging and, you know, I’ve always been told from a young age, like, “Oh, Kyle, you should do sales.”
[00:17:33] Kyle Tate: You’d be great at sales. And let me tell you, it is not as easy as some people make it out to be. I’ve got a really good friend who works for Honeywell and he does sales. And I mean, I watch him, go out to these events and do all these things. And I’m like, man, he makes it look so easy.
[00:17:51] Kyle Tate: And then here I am launching a company on my own and I’m trying to emulate that. And they’re like, man, I can’t keep up with this guy. Like it’s, it’s tough. It takes a toll on you. And being in sales, you’re going to hear no all the time. You’re going to hear no 99 times out of a hundred. But you know, that one time you hear, yes, you’re like, okay, now I’m ready to hear
[00:18:10] Kyle Tate: no 99 more times. But, from a small business perspective, when you’re first starting out, you don’t have a whole lot of, most people don’t have a lot of money to work with at first. And so you can’t just go out and the first thing you do is hire a huge Salesforce.
[00:18:23] Kyle Tate: It’s not something most people can just do. And so we utilized all of our professional relationships to start generating that business at first. And once we got the ball rolling down the hill, we generated some momentum. the first thing we invested in was a high quality salesperson that has been in the industry that knows what they’re doing to come on board.
[00:18:40] Kyle Tate: And as a small business. Even if that means you’re going to have to sweeten the deal for somebody, right? You’re going to have to make it worth it for a person that really knows their worth and is good at what they do. They’re not going to leave their cushy, you know, they’re making, well into the six figures, $200-$300,000 a year doing sales somewhere else for an established business to come to your garage band, you know, running your company out of your garage company.
[00:19:02] Kyle Tate: You got to sweeten the deal sometimes and you have to make it worth their while and they need some skin in the game. But if you can work that out and you can get a really good salesperson that has been in there and do what they do, you unleash them, you let them do what they do and that’s what we’ve done and it’s been working.
[00:19:18] Terri Hoffman: Yeah. Well, it’s crazy. But in a small business, you just start thinking about the service you’re providing, but you can’t provide service to somebody that isn’t there. You have to get business first. You have to get clients. I know you guys have invested into your marketing as well to support the branding and support brand awareness
[00:19:36] Terri Hoffman: that is hopefully supporting the sales process. I think at this stage you’re in, that would be really the goal. It’s pretty hard to just jump into lead gen in the first year of a business. But it happens.
[00:19:47] Kyle Tate: Yeah, branding is super important and it’s something that I’ve kind of realized throughout this whole process, you are a reflection of your company, but the reflection of your company is your brand and it has to match and vibe with everything that you’re about and everything that you’re doing. And when people see the Firethorne logo or the marketing refresh logo, they’re like, “Oh, these guys, I know exactly what they are, what they do, how they do things.”
[00:20:10] Kyle Tate: And that’s your brand. It’s so important to get that right. And it’s difficult to do right out of the gate because you’re going through this whole process of discovering who you are and discovering what things are important to you and what works and what doesn’t work.
[00:20:22] Kyle Tate: Most of the time you’re not going to get it right on the first try. You might have to go through a couple of iterations to finally land on, okay, this is who we are. This is what we do. This is what I want us to look like. We went through a couple of iterations with our brand and, we finally landed on something that I’m really proud of.
[00:20:40] Kyle Tate: And it’s been, it’s been great. Like, you know, having a, the simple thing in our business, I’m not going to get new business by just having a good looking website. That’s just not going to happen. People aren’t going to come to my site and be like, “wow, this looks great.
[00:20:53] Kyle Tate: Let me call these guys up.” That’s not how it works. But if we’re at an event and we’re handing out business cards and talking to people, the first thing that they’re going to do is they’re going to look us up on LinkedIn or they’re going to go directly to our website and if they see a piece of crap, it’s not going to look good for you.
[00:21:09] Kyle Tate: They’re probably just gonna be like, Oh, click off and they’ll never think about you again. So you have to have something that looks good and something that looks professional. And those are things that you need to invest in early on. Because as you start to grow and as you start to drive traffic and people to your brand, it has to look respectful.
[00:21:26] Kyle Tate: It has to look professional otherwise people will not take you seriously.
[00:21:29] Terri Hoffman: Yeah. Well, and oh my gosh, there’s just so much data that supports what you just said. Like even in the B2B space, there are just so many people who before they talk to a salesperson, they’ve already narrowed down their list because they’ve done research somehow and they have a shortlist.
[00:21:47] Terri Hoffman: And so yeah, you don’t want your online presence to be something that eliminates you it needs to match all the rest of the experiences they have with your brand so that it keeps you In the game because it’s going to come down to your differentiators. How you kind of build that relationship, your pricing. Whether or not it’s helping like in their viewpoint, are you helping me reach my business goals?
[00:22:11] Terri Hoffman: Right? Those are really the four important items that people are using to make their decision. But boy, the marketing and branding makes that immediate emotional connection.
[00:22:22] Kyle Tate: Yeah. I’m never going to win, you know, a customer because of my website, but I can definitely lose one because of how it looks, you know?
[00:22:30] Kyle Tate: Yeah and you’ll never even know what happened because they’re not calling you. It’s a big web that you’d have to kind of just untangle as a small business owner.
[00:22:37] Kyle Tate: And if you’re just starting out. You know, all of these things. I never imagined having to think about all this stuff because I’ve always been like a technical guy, I’ve been a doer and now I’m having to shift my focus to okay, I can’t do all these things anymore. I have to focus on strategy and the people and the relationships and, I’m really enjoying that.
[00:22:58] Kyle Tate: I’m enjoying not doing so much of the technical side anymore, but it’s, you know, that part of the service is just as critical, you know.
[00:23:07] Terri Hoffman: Well, you kind of just went right into the next question I was going to ask you is; what has been like pleasantly surprising about starting a business?
[00:23:16] Terri Hoffman: What’s happened that you were like, wow, I was not expecting to feel that way or to view it this way?
[00:23:21] Kyle Tate: I can tell you I have never worked so much in my life. but it doesn’t feel like, like I’m not, it doesn’t feel grindy. It doesn’t feel like, you know, there’s no light at the end of the tunnel.
[00:23:35] Kyle Tate: You know, when I was, you know, working for someone and, you know, just nine to five doing my day job. It’s like, yeah, you know, I make a good salary and I do good work and you know, that’s all well and good. But to what end, you know, like, am I just going to do this the rest of my life? And that was really ultimately the thing that kind of pushed me into doing this was like, okay, if I’m going to do this, I’m going all in and we’ll see what happens.
[00:24:00] Kyle Tate: And I’m so glad I did because it truly does not feel like work. You know, cause it’s everything at the end of the day up until this point has all been on me and my small team and now we’re starting to see the fruits of all that really come to fruition and man, I can’t tell you how good it is to see a signature get on paper for a new deal.
[00:24:19] Kyle Tate: And, hiring people, like I never thought I’d have my own employees and like now we do. And it’s like, man. And everybody is looking to me and looking to my partners and it’s a whole different dynamic, but I love every bit of it. I’m here for all of it.
[00:24:34] Terri Hoffman: That is awesome.
[00:24:35] Kyle Tate: It’s great.
[00:24:36] Terri Hoffman: Okay, let me ask you from a different point of view. What’s something you’ve had to do where you’re like, I’d be fine never having to do that again?
[00:24:42]
[00:24:43] Kyle Tate: Oh, man, honestly, um, interviews. So we interviewed a bunch of guys for a sales position and the overwhelming majority of them were great.
[00:24:55] Kyle Tate: Keep in mind, when I say interviews, I don’t mean like I’m just interviewing for, you know, X, Y, Z position. Like we were interviewing for our first sales director role, like our first big role for the company. And so it was a huge amount of pressure. Like we have to get this right. A lot of people out there are really great, but there are quite a few people out there that just really aren’t great
[00:25:18] Kyle Tate: and some of these interviews got, kind of awkward. I know we’ve been talking for about 10 minutes and this was booked for an hour, but I don’t have any more questions. So that’s something that, hopefully, in the next year or so, I won’t have to do anymore.
[00:25:31] Kyle Tate: And I can have people that I trust and know really well to, to do all that for us. And, you know, I don’t have to worry about that because I, I hate telling people no. I, I really do, especially like if they’re like a really good person and, having to make that decision, it’s just, it’s tough I was talking earlier about, having to tell a customer, no, we’re not the best fit for you.
[00:25:51] Kyle Tate: That, that’s easier. Cause it’s not just an individual. It’s a company when you’re dealing with a guy that you’ve talked to three or four times, and you kind of know a little bit about this guy or this girl and their family already, and you have to make a decision and then you got to tell them, Hey, I’m, you know, I’m really sorry.
[00:26:05] Kyle Tate: We’re going a different direction. It’s tough.
[00:26:07] Terri Hoffman: It’s tough. Well, yeah. Whether it’s a company or a person, if they’re not hitting the criteria that you’ve set, it isn’t as hard to tell someone, correct? If they’re checking all the boxes, it’s, it does become more difficult.
[00:26:23] Terri Hoffman: But yeah, that is definitely not a fun part of the business owner type job. No, it’s really not.
[00:26:30] Kyle Tate: I’m sure a lot of people will have some different things other than that. But that was just the one thing that really stuck out to me when you asked that question was just I immediately went to that interview process for that first position and I was like, Oh, I don’t want to do that again. I’m good.
[00:26:44] Terri Hoffman: Well, so what’s been something that’s been gratifying that kind of stood out this year?
[00:26:48] Kyle Tate: We closed out our first big project early in the year.
[00:26:52] Kyle Tate: That to me, it was a huge migration, Office 365 migration for a company that isn’t even located in Texas. We have such good people here that they knock it out of the park. Everything goes well. Of course there’s little hiccups here and there, but again, it goes back to transparency, owning everything, fostering that relationship and we hit the mark on everything. And I was like, there’s no way that our first project went this well and sure enough, it did. And we, we’ve now got like a customer for life, you know, where they would trust us to come in and do anything for them.
[00:27:27] Kyle Tate: And they have told us repeatedly, like, “Hey, do you need a reference for anything? Do you need us to talk to anybody for you? We’re more than happy to do it.” And hearing that from a customer is, it’s so gratifying. It really, makes everything worth it and all the hard work that you put in to get to that point, it’s like, yes, we did it.
[00:27:48] Kyle Tate: And then immediately the switch flips and you’re like, okay, where’s the next one? Where’s the next one? How are we getting the next project? Where’s the next customer? And it’s just crazy. It’s just a big cycle and it never ends.
[00:27:59] Terri Hoffman: Well, I think you’re describing something that is really unique to someone in either an ownership or a leadership role is you kind of have to appreciate every moment for what it is.
[00:28:10] Terri Hoffman: That moment of them telling you the difference that it makes and how much they appreciate your work, it’s like celebrate that and enjoy it because in the next moment, the pressure’s going to be on. And then the next moment, one of your employees will just do something that you’re like, wow, that was awesome.
[00:28:26] Terri Hoffman: I’m so proud of you for that. And then the next moment it’s, it’s like on and on and on, but just appreciating every single one of those moments. And even the bad moments, there’s always something you can learn and grow on. Oh, the first, the first year, especially as hard, it’s tough to make it over that hurdle.
[00:28:46] Kyle Tate: It’s tough. And you know, we’re almost through that point and everything’s looking up and things are looking good. And we’ve got a lot of irons in the fire.
[00:28:54] Kyle Tate: End of the year is always tough for signing new deals. Everybody’s on vacation and, doing things with their family, which we are too. So believe me, I get it. And, we’re really looking forward to hitting the ground running at the first of the year.
[00:29:07] Kyle Tate: Like I’m excited to get through the holidays so that we can start the next year. And I’m like, okay, where, where are we at? What are we doing? Let’s, let’s roll. You know, where’s the next thing? And, you know, I’ve never been excited to get through the holidays. I’ve always, like, as an employee, I’m like, man, I can’t wait for the holidays.
[00:29:22] Kyle Tate: Like, I can’t wait to just sit at home and, you know, hang out with the kids and travel or do whatever. And now I’m like, all right, it’s not even vacation yet. I’m ready to get over vacation so that we can start the new year and see what we can do. I’ve never had that feeling before. And it’s so weird.
[00:29:36] Kyle Tate: It’s so weird. My wife is like, are you crazy? What’s wrong? Who are you?
[00:29:42] Terri Hoffman: Yeah, I’m sure she’s excited for you to see it. And, if you’re listening to this and you’re looking for an MSP or somebody who’s got the IT consulting expertise and you’re hearing what Kyle’s all about, hopefully you’re ready to reach out.
[00:29:55] Terri Hoffman: On that note, Kyle, there’s just a lot of people who struggle with different technology issues in their business. What’s a typical way that you start, like where does a conversation or process typically start with someone?
[00:30:09] Kyle Tate: Yeah. So it, it’s really, most of the time we get leads and we talk to customers that have a particular problem they’re trying to solve. And that’s, that’s kind of true with any business and whether that’s, “Hey, we don’t know what we don’t know. And we want somebody to come in and tell us the honest truth and be blunt about where you think we are and what we need to do.” That’s one of the things that I think we’re really good at is coming in and giving you an honest assessment of where you’re at and giving you a roadmap for where we think you should go.
[00:30:40] Kyle Tate: And most of the time people look at it and they’re like, great, where do we start? And they want to do everything all at once. This is a process, right? You’re not just gonna flip a switch and this is gonna be the new normal tomorrow.
[00:30:53] Terri Hoffman: Yeah.
[00:30:54] Kyle Tate: Most of these roadmaps are three to five-year roadmaps.
[00:30:56] Kyle Tate: Now. There are lots of wins and lots of things that are accomplished throughout that period of time. You know, we did a big assessment for a big multifamily company here in Houston, and you know, at the end of the day the assessment was like 60 something pages long and we had a whole list of things that we thought that they should do.
[00:31:16] Kyle Tate: Things they should prioritize. And they’re like, great. how do we do all this? And I’m like, okay, let’s take a step back
[00:31:22] Terri Hoffman: One chapter.
[00:31:24] Kyle Tate: Yeah. One step at a time. Let’s do the easy stuff first and then we’ll start building on that and maturing everything. And one of the biggest things that we, we talked to people today is people are, you know, they’re nervous about cybersecurity.
[00:31:36] Kyle Tate: Especially small businesses. You know, we hear all the time companies falling victim to ransomware and things like that. And this, I mean, these things will cripple your entire business overnight. A lot of people are surprised to hear that you don’t need to go spend a bunch of money on a fancy appliance or, this huge undertaking of uprooting everything with your IT
[00:31:57] Kyle Tate: and transforming it to something different. There’s really a lot of basic practices that you can put in place to put yourself in a much better position from a cyber security standpoint that people are like, Wow, that, that’s it. And we’re like, well, yeah, but these things are really important and you’re not doing them today.
[00:32:15] Kyle Tate: And so any little thing that you can do to move the needle on that and it also helps build trust with customers when you’re just not trying to sell them everything under the sun, right? Like, look, yeah, we could sell you an awesome email appliance and it’ll do all this, but you don’t need that as a small business or, you know, you, it’s just, it’s not justified.
[00:32:34] Kyle Tate: Here’s some things that you can do from a logical perspective that are, yes, they’re more on the basic side, but you’re not doing them today. Let’s come in, we can show you how, you know, these things can be applied and yeah, there may be some cost associated with this, but you’re not going to spend 100 grand on the spot on an appliance and another 40 grand on, on labor and time.
[00:32:54] Kyle Tate: And, you know, most of the time these are small engagements and they move the needle a lot. And so that’s, that’s a lot of what we’re seeing today. And a lot of the conversations start around new setups and then cybersecurity. That’s, that’s a lot of what we’re seeing today.
[00:33:10] Terri Hoffman: Yeah, I would believe that, but I think a value you’re adding, just from listening to you is helping them prioritize, right?
[00:33:18] Terri Hoffman: So there’s a lot you could do as a business to have all the right technology and the solutions in place and firing a hundred out of a hundred every single time. But you’re helping them prioritize, like what’s the most important and the most impactful and that type of guidance, you know, like connecting back to the very beginning of our conversation you have, if you look at your service list, you could look at 10,000 other MSPs and you have the same service list, but your logic and how you’re guiding a client through like setting priorities, the best way to spend their budget at any given moment is a differentiator that’s as big as the service and the transparency.
[00:33:58] Terri Hoffman: Because I think you’re not just making a sale for the sake of making a sale. You’re making it the right sale at the right time for the right business reasons. That’s a logical approach.
[00:34:11] Kyle Tate: Yeah, and IT a lot of people respond really well to that and that’s you know, speaking from experience being on both sides of the coin as a customer of an MSP I don’t want to be sold everything, just tell me, like I employed you and you’re my vendor because I’m trusting you to provide me with the knowledge that I don’t have.
[00:34:30] Kyle Tate: If I knew all this, I wouldn’t need you, right? And so having someone that can just come in and give an honest assessment of where you’re at and you know what, if you come in and tell me, well, you do need these more advanced things and here’s why. And if you don’t do that, here are the risks associated with that.
[00:34:48] Kyle Tate: That’s fine, but you need to be able to justify those things as a vendor and as a provider of the service. And if you can’t, you shouldn’t be trying to sell it.
[00:34:59] Terri Hoffman: Yeah. Well, so sales advice for pretty much any business out there, in my opinion, but that, that’s what makes you trusted incredible in it.
[00:35:08] Terri Hoffman: And it also comes back to a fundamental people buy from someone they know, like, and trust. Right? And so, you know, you’ve kind of talked about every single one of those things in terms of how you viewed growing your brand and growing your business. Marketing can help you get known.
[00:35:23] Terri Hoffman: The way that you sell also can help you get known and be liked. If you have that relationship orientation to building a relationship and then trust is like almost every single other thing that we’ve talked about. And you’ve got to be showing that in so many different ways as a business owner.
[00:35:39] Kyle Tate: Once you build that trust, it’s so important. You have to never break it because once you break that trust and once you kind of cross that line, it’s really hard to get back over to the other side. And that’s where transparency and owning your mistakes come into play.
[00:35:55] Kyle Tate: Right? That is the most important thing. Because if you break that trust, you’ll never get it back. And that’s true in all aspects of life, right? That’s not just business. It’s, family, friends, everything. If you lose that trust, it’s really tough.
[00:36:07] Terri Hoffman: Yeah. No, I agree. Well, congratulations on, you know, all the success you guys have had this year.
[00:36:13] Terri Hoffman: Thank you. Can’t wait to see where 2025 brings you guys as well.
[00:36:18] Kyle Tate: I’m excited for the future and for you guys as well.
[00:36:21] Terri Hoffman: Thank you.
[00:36:21] Kyle Tate: Yeah.
[00:36:22] Terri Hoffman: If somebody wants to connect with you, what’s the best way for them to get in touch
[00:36:25] Kyle Tate: Yeah, so you can go to our website, it’s firethornetech.com or you can find me on LinkedIn, Kyle Tate. Or if you can get ahold of my number, you’re more than welcome to just call me. I’m always happy to have conversations and talk and that’s another thing where I think we really excel by the way, is, we are never going to charge a customer just to come out and talk to them about something.
[00:36:46] Kyle Tate: If you want advice, you know, personal advice on something you’re dealing with at work or, you know, technology-related or not, you know, we’re here, we’re here to be true partners for our customers and everyone else in between.
[00:36:58] Terri Hoffman: Thanks so much, Kyle. Thanks for taking the time to join me today.
[00:37:01] Terri Hoffman: We appreciate it.
[00:37:02] Kyle Tate: Thank you, Terri.
[00:37:03] Terri Hoffman: Thank you for listening to B2B marketing methods. Please be sure to follow us on your favorite podcast channel and leave us a review. We’d love to hear from you and connect. You can find me on LinkedIn or visit our company website at marketingrefresh.com.
