Laser Cutters, Servers, and Sci-Fi: A Real Talk on Modern IT

**[00:00:00]** Hello everyone, my name is Amando Prescareno and today on the web talk show I want to welcome John Patterson from Pathfinder Technical Services. Welcome John. Thank you so much. I'm so happy to be here today. John, can you give our listeners a brief introduction into who you are and what you do? Sure. Uh well again as you said Armano, my name is John Patterson. I'm the general manager for Pathfinder Technical Services, which is a managed service provider that specializes in the Houston, Texas area. And we are a soup to nuts uh managed service company. We do break fix. We do ongoing uh monitoring and support. We do custom application development. We do bridging between software. Uh we do provisioning and network development uh network infrastructure and I could go on and on and on and on. If it's got the word IT in it, we probably do it or have a resource that does. Wow, that's a lot of things to cover. I don't think a lot of people understand the breadth of things that you might need in a business on the day-to-day business as a daily basis as the business grows. So maybe you're a small tiny business or oneperson shop and you just do everything on your computer. Maybe you have some machinery etc. But as soon as your business starts to grow, you start getting printers and faxes and servers and routers and employees and employees. It's always the employees. So, let's talk about what that means for maybe someone who's thinking of growing their business or maybe they already scaled to some employees and they're they're starting to have some trouble and the day-to-day runningings of the business because frankly most people don't understand all of this. So, what is **[00:02:00]** managed services? What does this mean for a local business, for example? Sure. Well, I mean, and to use your example, a lot of businesses these days start off running their whole operation on this thing, which is still incredible to me at 51 years old. Uh, but say you've now grown from this thing to maybe a laptop and from a laptop to a desktop and from a desktop to a small office and all of a sudden, creep creep creep creep creep. Oh my god, I've got 10 employees and we need access to printers and email and our accounting software and this cloud hosted application and this this weird little dodad that does the thing that my company does that used to run off of my phone, but now I've got ah what do I do because it stopped working today? Oh my god. uh a managed service company when it's operating correctly will come in and take ownership and stress that ownership of all of the things that I just mentioned and then some so that you as business owner you as the employee only have to focus on doing what it is that you do. So, we're going to come in to your company, let's call it the ju just just to be original, the XYZ company, and we're going to come in and we're going to take a look at all of your resources, and we're going to put a small monitoring piece of software on every resource there that connects to our master portal. And we're going to make sure that that is up to date. We're going to make sure that it's properly provisioned, meaning you've got enough memory, you've got enough storage, you've got enough internet access, you've got all the **[00:04:00]** things that you need. And then we're going to monitor that 24 hours a day, seven days a week to make sure that it keeps running exactly the way that it's supposed to. I want to say about 80% of issues that pop up on your device when you get that little boop, it's not working. Sorry, you can't do the thing today are preventable if somebody is monitoring the problem beforehand. Think of it like a heart attack. You don't just keel over. You're going to get a pain in your arm first. Our job is to catch that pain in your arm and get some aspirin into you uh before that blip happens. And following that uh that process, we typically keep businesses operational 99% of the time. They never aware that they had the problem that they had until they get a message from us saying, "Hey, you may not know this, but you had a massive heart attack last night. We took care of it for you." Now, as to the other 1% of times, the unpreventable things that just happen, uh we are there and then available to immediately jump in uh either remotely or on site if that's actually what's required. In fact, we had one of these just on Monday where a the unthinkable happened. A piece of hardware just died like they sometimes do. We were aware of the problem before it occurred. We had somebody on the phone as it was occurring and we had somebody on site less than an hour later resolving the problem and 24 hours later they were back up and running at full capacity. So there's a very long answer to your very short question. That's what managed service when it's working correctly does. Very interesting. **[00:06:00]** I find that we have no idea that all of this is going on behind the scenes and we most of the time, like you've very wisely said, figure it out once we see that message that something is broken. And by that point, there's not much you can do except try to start digging into the problem. And what that would mean for everyone listening, if you don't have someone helping you out, you have to first figure out where the message is coming from. What happened? Are there logs? So, you're going to reach out to a vendor and the vendor is going to take a while to get back to you and they'll say, "Oh, can you send me the logs?" And then you're going to have to find those logs and then if you have them, you're going to send them over and then they have to start studying the case from scratch. Whereas, if you have a managed services provider that's working with you proactively, like John just said, what will happen is they already know everything. They don't have to do a postmortem necessarily. They they once you call or if they figure it out even before, they'll already be on the right page to help you out immediately. Well, we'll take it a step further because we'll also act as the intermediary with the vendors. So, you're probably not going to be the person that's making that call. Or if you are, you're just setting them up so that they can talk to us. The vendor doesn't want to talk to you. You know, the this is if you think of this like a complex health problem. You have physicians talking to physicians. And if you've ever been in that unfortunate situation, you **[00:08:00]** know the doctors don't want to talk to you. The doctors want to talk to each other. So, all we're going to say is, hey, if you've taken a screenshot of the error message, give us that. give us the contact number. We'll make the call. We'll dig in. If we need to get you on the phone, we'll do that. But otherwise, go grab a cup of coffee. We got it. That's great. That and that's very convenient as a business owner, not having to worry about these things. There are And it does it always work that way? Is it always seamless? No. There are so many different factors involved. Of course, I don't want to tell you that this is it's just seamless every time, all the time. But what we see most of the time is that when you contact a vendor, their model is to get you off the phone as quickly as possible. So they're going to look at the error message and they're going to say, "Ah, that's not our software. That's this thing over here. You got to have that thing fixed. We can't help you." And now you're back to square one. Yes. And that's very unfortunate for you as a person, as a business owner, because now what? because now you have to reach this other vendor and do they exist still? Are they there? Do you have their contact information? And they just go round and around and meanwhile the phone is ringing. You have customers who are not being served. You have whatever it is that you do that is not taking place and the money the flow of the money just stops. It just stops. Uh and it's people call me panicked. I mean panicked like they've **[00:10:00]** just been in a car wreck. uh you know, my god, I can't do the thing. Um and frequently we're able to help them get in there and do the thing. That's great. for some again there's we have to open our minds and and and think about get out of our day-to-day and and like look at what happens behind other businesses because sometimes yeah you think of the shop over there that you see or maybe you purchased from there before and I mean maybe they make lanterns they make like fixtures for the house maybe they make pots for plants maybe they make shirts and they stamp them and they print them but if Think what happens behind the he the scenes. Maybe they have 3D printers. Maybe they have laser cutters. Maybe they have all sorts of machinery. And that machinery has to be working sometimes 24/7. They have staff working on it. A lot of people are sort of remote in the sense that they have their factory in another town or they have multiple manufacturing locations and then their main office here. So, it's not just the little shop that you see there. If something happens to their infrastructure now, maybe they cannot send requests over to the machine that is in Utah printing or cutting with the laser. And yeah, it's if you got a big order and maybe you have a ton of big orders, that's problematic. We just did one of those. Uh we have a client that does high-end steel fabrication. They build bridges, walkways, abutments for uh naval things like that. They bought uh I think I a million half dollar cutting implement which connected the way it was supposed to do. But long story made short, they they **[00:12:00]** needed this one little missing piece in between to make this device talk with their network and the software that makes it go. And I want to say that thing sat there for 3 weeks while we with the vendor and the customer and maybe three other consultants from three other organizations all collectively tried to put our heads together to figure out why this extremely expensive resource could just just would not do the thing. And at the end it actually w up being something like it almost always is something incredibly silly and simple that uh we were able to find the answer to. But uh just trying to think about this in in that case we by ourselves could not have resolved that problem. The customer by themselves ne they never would have got there. But the collaboration that's and that's frequently what makes that everything work. Uh I'll be perfectly honest as an IT guy at 51 years old, I'm start my I'm starting to get a little dated. Uh the the knowledge that is required to do this job on a day-to-day basis uh grows exponentially by the day. And there's ever so much more than there was back in the days of Windows NT if anybody's listening remembers those days. um it's necessary to be able to hold a lot of pieces of that in your head. So we have uh the staff and the resources available that collaboration where we can put three or four people in a room that are each collectively experts on various aspects of your infrastructure and typically find an answer. That makes a lot of sense and it comes back to some of the other shows. If you haven't been listening to our shows, the the recent past **[00:14:00]** maybe four or five shows have been on leadership, team building, um HR type things. And we spoke a lot about that collaboration, communication between teams and across teams. And this all comes into play because you like you were saying as if if people can extract this from the conversation, John is an expert at what he does and he's been doing it for many years, but there's always new things coming along and he as a business owner cannot do all of it. He has to delegate some things to people who in themselves are experts at specific things and then even better if they can collaborate amongst them then that's that's how you can really get these hidden results very easier than said than done but but it's possible. So, as a business owner, it's always important to remember to lose the ego and you're not going to be the best at what you do always. And you're never going to be the best at what you do anyway. There's always somebody going to be better at something. And so, it's good to find a team, build a team, grow your team with you so that you can get these results. Yeah. uh in the industry I have seen a lot of uh organizations come and go over the years and those that seem to strive and succeed are those that diversify inside of their uh inside of their their teams. Uh trying the the days of being able to just have one or two high-end techies uh on staff those days are over. the days of being able to have a a third party help desk that people call into to my in my opinion those days are over. Uh you you need collaborative teams with **[00:16:00]** strong and to your point with strong leadership. Uh I I think it was Isaac Azimov talking about programmers years ago that said it was absolutely impossible to get programmers to row together as a team because they're not a team. What they are is a swarm of bees. And as a leader, you can't get them to row together, but you can occasionally get them to swarm together. And while they're swarming, you can carry away the honey. That I find is a much closer approach to leadership in our industry than than a than a a row team. I haven't heard that one. That's that's that's a good quote from Asimov. Uh if if you're listening and you have never listened or read anything from Isak Asimov, you should do yourself a favor. Do yourself a favor. He go ahead. But but set aside some time. His his books tend to be uh a little on the wordy side. Yes. Well, you know, audio books are great for that. I listen to most of his stuff. Well, not most of his. He has so many books and written works, but all the foundation series and all that with uh audio books, they're fun. Like they're really a fun listen. I haven't listened to I have not listened to any of his on audiobook. That's And it's time to start the Foundation series again. That's a that's a I think I might actually do that. I've got some drive time coming up this weekend. You should. They're well recorded. They're they're wellmade. the voices and everything that for anyone listening if you like science fiction it's so fun to read these the foundations here specifically because you you have to remember this was written in 195052 and2 I think **[00:18:00]** and so the things he says are happening now or just very recently happened and some haven't happened of course but many of the things he goes into if you relate them to what's happening he was such a visionary that It's it's just incredible reading it so many years later and and it actually making sense. Well, and that his the voice he writes with, it's so easy to put yourself like within the first chapter, you're in the story. Uh and that's a rare gift. I mean, the man the man really is the master of storytelling. Yes, that's a very good point. It's not It doesn't feel like, oh, I'm in I'm in a 1950s book or I'm totally in the future and you just feel like you're today. you're just listening to that. But in that space, the only guy I've seen that actually does that on a comparable level in the sci-fi world is Robert Heinland. Uh who who is my my personal favorite and every every book you read, you are just you are present in his stories immediately as in the first person of whomever is dictating the story. I just absolutely love the guy. What's which what's a good book if I haven't read him? Uh, I tell you what, they made a they made a really interesting movie about it a few years back. But start with um Oh, for God's sake. You just drove it right out of my head. Oh, I'm sorry about that. Uh, no. Oh, no. It's okay. I'm going to sit here and stammer while we while while the camera rolls. Um, Starship Troopers. Oh, yeah. Okay. He he wrote Starship Troopers. Yeah. Now, the the movie is very loosely based in the book, and the **[00:20:00]** movie is its own thing, and it's a lot of fun, but the book is almost nolla size. Uh, and it is it's just fantastic storytelling. It's fun. It's an easy read. It's a great intro uh into uh into his world. Uh, and if you read that and you enjoy that, then I would downshift into something like The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Okay. Okay. I will I will look for that. the there there are some really amazing sci-fi stories and you you brought up another very interesting point that people again we don't know because we're not in the day-to-day of that like Starship Troopers you just mentioned it's loose the movie is loosely based on the book and that's very common like even most movies are loosely based on their books um except for example Harry Potter very very well aligned they still miss some cuz it wouldn't fit. But they're well aligned. You still enjoy them. But there's others that you you read the book, you watch the movie, you're like, "How?" Yeah. Well, I mean, the character names are the same. Other than that, there's nothing. Yeah. Yeah. And sometimes sometimes even those change but there's there's a thing I think many many don't know which for example 2001 space odyssey the the film and the book were written in parallel and and that's very interesting to a very different approach by Kubric and and uh Clark well the um what was it the uh with the Baratheians and uh there was a big TV show that was that was just on uh George R. Martin's series. Mhm. Uh he wrote um what the heck is the name of the series going from sci-fi into fantasy. But I mean it was the most **[00:22:00]** popular TV show on for about five or six years. and he wrote the series to the fourth book and then stopped and hasn't written the conclusion the fifth book. But he did write the conclusion in the TV show because he did all he did the whole the whole show. So now there's speculation is the book going to match how they ended things in the show or is he going to write write the book differently? Is he ever going to write the book is actually the real question. My guess is probably not. But he was actively writing this uh while writing the book also. Oh, that's interesting. It's a different way of of doing it. And I know we sidelineed to a whole different concept, but storytelling is so important in everything in in business as well. We were recently discussing this for again business owners who I know a lot of listeners are business owners or are in business. You're thinking of how do I get more customers? How do I get more people to know about my business? And we've had this discussion offline talking about social media, for example. Social media is a great medium for people to get to know you. And it's a term that sometimes we don't really understand. Sometimes we think social media is just, oh, I'm looking at pictures that my aunt put up or my friends or people from college, but it's not that anymore. It used to be that, but now social media just means that you're getting your news, your content from people, from the world, individuals who are posting. And so these algorithms has gotten so much better that they now follow your interests. It's now sort of a an interest graph. We're talking **[00:24:00]** about this where now you can publish something and not necessarily have uh 10,000 or 20,000 followers but still get an impressive reach with a post that you put up. Are you talking about the Tik Tok algorithm? Yeah. And now the rest have followed. But yes, Tik Tok, love it or hate it, some people. I mean, you can get political if you want, but at the end of the day, if you want people to listen to you and they're on there and if it it makes business sense to actually do so. Oh, I mean, yeah, I was just playing around. We just just begun to use Tik Tok and for this reason because the algorithms are so much more open uh than traditional social media. I posted a p I posted a thing of my dog just just to I mean just to see test the waters and see what would happen. And I want to say 48 hours later that that stupid little video had 900 views. Now I challenge you to go on Facebook with a business post being an unknown with a brand new account and post anything with a paid advertising and get 900 views. It never happened. Tik Tok is extraordinary for this. It's a it's a it's it really is a game changer. It's the way things ought to be. Yes. And this is the the for you algorithm. Uh basically that that tab which shows you things that it thinks the algorithm thinks it's it's not a thing but anyway it it shows you what you probably like based on what you're doing. And it's very advanced because the way it happens is you are just scrolling through but you're you're going to stop for milliseconds sometimes for a **[00:26:00]** few seconds on a particular video and then continue swiping. And so it's reading all that and it's understanding even if you don't like it, even if you don't share it, even if you don't follow them, it's understanding that you like videos of dogs or you like videos of theater or you like videos of AI. And so it understands that and then it starts showing you more and more of that until you change your habit. So it's nothing it's nothing just static forever. I read uh yesterday and I h I so this is something I read out there in the in social media so take it with a grain of salt that the Tik Tok algorithm is also making background use of your forward- facing phone and it is matching the expression that you make in conjunction with that millisecond pause to see what your overall impression why what was that guy thinking when he paused on the video of the dog. Was he pleased with it? Was he displeased with it? And how can we feed that into the algorithm to show him or not show him content? Uh, and it it's all uh anonymized. So, they're not it's it's reading about 86 different points on your face, not your face itself. But uh not verified, but it's an interesting uh addition to how the algorithm works. Did I like it? Did I hate it? And do I want to show them more content that they hated? Because just because you hate it doesn't mean you don't like it. That's that's interesting. And obviously we don't know if it actually does that. But if it did, it's creepy in a way, but understandable as a data point like wow they could read facial expressions without **[00:28:00]** bit being a privacy thing of course because it's a little depends. I mean, maybe you don't, right? But I mean, follow again, not not confirmed, read on social media. And it it's it's an interesting way to if it were a thing to to gather more data points of whether the person is enjoying it or not. And so there's many triggers that they that mark your interest if you stay there, if you like it, if you share it. And so all that helps to sort of train it to what you like. And like John was saying, it is a very different type of reach. Now, the other platforms have been following suit and they all sort of added their for you section that they start to show you. They're not maybe up to par yet, but they they're getting better. But it's like just like you said when you we used to do a lot on Facebook and it was always a percentage of your following. So if I have your follow your followers trying to get your followers to look at your content. Yes. And and and with your followers and you would only get five to 6% views or engagement unless they all liked, shared, etc. Then it would grow and that's how things got sort of viral organically. But now it's just like the the video of your dog. It just goes viral. And I'll remind people that when you start doing it, you see these posts. Obviously, the ones you're seeing are likely very popular because they they're that's why you saw them. And so you'll see they have a,000 views, 10,000 views, 10 million views, and then you post something and maybe it has 500 views or even it gets 120 **[00:30:00]** views and then you feel sad. Oh, this is Yeah, I'm not getting the right. I'm really bad at this. I'm really bad at this. Yeah. And but stop for a moment and I saw this post recently that I really loved. It had some images and what it showed, it was a little slideshow and it showed think about what reach really means. If you have a room with 20 people and it showed a classroom with 20 seats and then think about a room with a hundred people and it showed like a little convention set and then now think about a room with a thousand people and it shows a theater and then now look at a room with 10,000 people. It shows an arena, right? And so you see these and now you start realizing, hey, as a business owner, if a hundred people see my content for free, each post that I do, I can do one right now and a 100 people are going to see it for free because you touched on the paid aspect, but no one's giving you. It's just it's free eyes on what you're doing. Yes. That's it's uh I don't know how long how long can they sustain that do you think? Well, because it really is I mean I don't know the I don't know how Tik Tok makes money. Uh I know how Facebook makes money. I know how Instagram makes money. I I don't know how Tik Tok is making their money. But they must be making money somehow or this wouldn't be a thing. No, they make a lot of money because remember Tik Tok is multifaceted. So they do have ads. So there's always going to be people and companies that don't want **[00:32:00]** to wait to create good content and they will just pay for it. So you can promote your posts. So that's still there. There's going to be tons of people who do that and I'll touch on that in in in the next point. But there's also shop. So Tik Tok is huge for online selling. It has online social shopping and it has Tik Tok shop. So, Tik Tok shop is this place like an Amazon on the app where you can find products. But not only that, people regular ordinary people can have an account and they can do their videos and their streams and they can post about products. So, let's say I have this hand sanitizer and it's fantastic and it works and I I just record my video. I'm like, "Yeah, so this little sanitizer, it's small. It smells like rose water and ivy. It's just great. I carry it with me all the time. Fits in my pocket. It's it's just it's just great. You need it for your kids, etc., etc. And at the same time, the link is there and so they can click it and people can buy it and I get a commission off of it. Jim, it's like no one hired you to do this. You just decided to just do a thing for drink Sriracha. Yes, exactly. And so there are hundreds of thousands of products or more, I don't know, there. And as you if you become a Tik Tok shop affiliate, which you have to have a certain amount of followers, etc., etc., but once you get accepted into the program, you can then be like, "Oh, I like this." And there's a ton like for microphones and they have these little microphones. And so they're **[00:34:00]** doing the video like, "Look, this is the microphone. Now I'm over here." He's like behind the pool and I'm over here and you can hear me well. And there's this all this wind and you can. So they're doing that and people buy it and they have sales. They have a lot of gamification with the sales and all that. And so you're just showing off products that you may already use and then people buy them and you get a cut and you didn't have to get a brand partnership deal or anything like that. You're just doing it. And there's thousands of people doing this and making very good money. So you can imagine how much money Tik Tok is doing behind all that. Oh, sure. And see, okay, you're you're in a whole this is a whole Tik Tok is a whole new world for me. Like literally I'm 5 days old. I'm this many days old in in the Tik Tok world. So, little I'm dating myself a bit, but I I didn't know any of that was in there. I hadn't played I haven't played with that part of it yet. It is It is impressive. And then there's the as a business, you can also set up a seller portal and you can sell your products. So, if you have physical products, you can sell your own products on it. And then you can have affiliates selling your own products as well. So, that's another thing. And obviously Tik Tok gets a cut from both sides. And now can I can I respond to a seller video? Can you respond to a seller video? Like like someone someone you you you're an influencer and you told me that this roll of this roll **[00:36:00]** of gaff tape is the best gaff tape that you have ever bought and it sticks where it's supposed to stick and it unsticks when it's supposed to unstick. And I buy it and it's terrible. And I bought it because it based solely upon your review. I now want to tell you how wrong you were. You can. And and so remember Tik Tok, this is for everyone. When you're going on the platform, and this is not that I love Tik Tok or anything, it's just so useful for business. Um if you go on it and you look at comments, so hey, there's you. Um if you go into the comments, I can reply to any comment. So, if if I post a video of a product and you don't like it, you can go in and comment on my video because it's just a regular video. And then you can even put a like a re video response and then I can do a video reply as well. So, this this takes a whole fighting with this is like fighting with strangers online uh advance version two. I love it. Who can who can I pick a fight with today? This is going to be great. Oh, no. It's it's it's just opening up the QVC style thing that it people don't realize. I didn't realize QVC, Home Shopping Network, they still make billions of dollars. They make billions of dollars. They are they and it's still and they're on TV and they're not they have an app and everything but uh I forget which community it was was QVC network is just you could take a styrofoam cup and put some crayon on it put a quarter in it call it a wish cup put **[00:38:00]** it on QVC at 3:00 in the morning somebody I will see it and go I got to have that cup yes that and that's why live social shopping is so powerful So Tik Tok is doing it, whatnot is doing it. In China, it blew up 10 years ago. They're doing it like crazy over there. And it's the whole concept of it's not this far off brand that I don't understand, that I don't have any communication with that I'm I'm getting the advice from. It's a regular person that maybe I follow because their content is great. And so yeah, I'll I'll buy it. You'll see a lot of them that are they're all repeating the same thing, especially like like the microphones stuff for Tik Tok. There there's a ton of people just doing the same like cheap $ five dollar microphones and so everyone's doing the same video and but they still sell. And then along comes someone. They're like no no no but check out these newer ones. These are real m like they are $70 instead of $5, but they actually work. Uh and so now there's there's a wave of those that are doing that particular thing. So it it is very very interesting to see it evolve as a user but as a business owner oh we haven't talked about this so you sell services you can turn your account into a business account and so with a business account you can get leads. So, you can be live if you're live. We'll talk about live in a second, but you can be live and there could be a little popup that appears and people while you're live can actually click it and fill out a little form on there and **[00:40:00]** send you their information or they can reach out through a DM with a little pop-up that's special for getting leads. And so, you can run lives about, I don't know, strategy sessions. So you have a live where you're taking free calls for strategy sessions and people can ask you things and you pull them up and etc etc and then from there you get their information and so it's another medium to get business. So I don't know whether that would fit in the I in the the IT service model and the reason I say that is the the decision makers at the level of the organizations that we support are probably not sitting on TikTok doing you know watching live feeds. Uh I don't I don't know that I don't know that that would have the reach for the kind of market that that our organization does. um like if I was doing businessto business oil and gas sales, I don't know that that would be the right medium for it. And we've run into that in the past trying to find, you know, what's the most relevant means of doing that kind of advertising and that kind of direct reach. Uh we've yet to find one that that really really works. We still we still go to conferences and set up a booth and that we get we get more from that than we do out of any kind of live feeds. And that's although that that wheel is beginning to change as the next generation of leaders are beginning to step up into the the leadership teams and into the seauite the younger generation that was raised and reared on this uh is is turning to that and the conference attendance is beginning to **[00:42:00]** tip off. the scale starting just beginning to do this and there's many assumptions that we unfortunately do there is a platform for everyone not everything works for everyone there are like oil and gas you were saying yeah not very likely they're it's going to do be done via Tik Tok but perhaps on LinkedIn live streams on LinkedIn regular post on LinkedIn LinkedIn is growing so much in the social aspect now where it used to be where people just put up like I got a promotion and we're hiring and all that. Now you're starting to see more posts that are technically helpful training post that sort of thing. Can may I may I make a confession about my opinion about LinkedIn? Mhm. Yes, please. This has been my my experience with it uh trying to do networking. what I have found and what my uh my partner has found uh delving in. LinkedIn is great if you want to make a bunch of contacts with people who are operating at precisely the level that you're at or below it. If you're on LinkedIn trying to get the level above, you're not going to get anywhere. Uh it it's a as a a means of producing uh leads and solid contacts, I have not found anybody above the level I operate at that wants to talk to me. And maybe that's because I'm doing it wrong, but we we're on there all the time, man. We're we've got blogs, we've got podcasts, we've got, you know, live feeds, tutorials, all kinds of free content, and people love it, but the the decision makers aren't there. And I have talked with people who operate at a level above me, and they say the same thing. Yeah, people people **[00:44:00]** at my level, that's that's who I'm all friended up with, but no one no one at the next level. And as a result of that, it's it's it's a bunch of people talking to each other and and it's a bunch of people. It's the networking it's the networking game of I've I've got to I've got to build my network. Uh I've only ever landed two pieces of business. I've made some great friends, but only ever landed two solid piece of businesses out of years on LinkedIn. So maybe I'm doing it wrong, but I have not yet found LinkedIn to be especially valuable for what we do. That's very interesting and it's a good take on it because not it all come down to how you use it of course but that insight where you're just getting that level of below. I do see it. I do see it as well. I don't think it's completely accurate though because I I have seen the opposite. But it has to do with how you do it. And as we were talking about at the beginning, we are not experts at everything. And so there are ways there are some people that are crushing it on LinkedIn and it's the way it's just I don't I'm not good at it specifically but the way they do it they get so much interaction that due to that interaction and all these comments there might be hitting people at this level but then that gets pulled up to the other level because of how it goes and then maybe that person decision maker actually sees it or their assistant right but it gets to at some point and that that's the old I think that's the old social media algorithm **[00:46:00]** that we were talking about is it gets shared enough times and enough people comment upon it that it moves into the next stratosphere or or it just it happens to land in front then it's just the sales game it just happened to be good timing and you landed in front of the right person at the right time for that message. What would be your advice for a business owner that's starting to grow their business regarding how they get set up for growth in the IT environment? Reach out. You're going to find a bunch of organizations exactly like mine that are delighted to help you. And we're going to do that uh at least at the outset free of cost. It's a free consultation. reach out, make the call, explain who you are, what you're trying to do, and anybody who is anybody is going to say, "Here are the five things that you need to do. Here's what you need to look at. Here's how you should budget." Of course, then they're also going to say, "And here's how we can help you do that." But, uh, there are organizations out there that are delighted to take the call. They're delighted to visit with you, spend the time, and help guide you in the direction you need to go. Don't hesitate. Reach out. Don't try to do it by yourself in the name of saving money. You're not going to save any. You're only going to cost in the long run. Fantastic. And where can people find you, John? We are at pathfindteck.com. Excellent. I'll put the links in the show notes and I hope to talk with you again soon. Great. Thank you so much for your time today and to your viewers. It's **[00:48:00]** been a pleasure speaking with you. Hope to talk with you again soon. All right. Thank you so much, John. I remember.