From "dead-end job" to CEO: Building an IT consulting business | John Hansman

Speaker A: Today on um, Cyberwork, I speak with Jon Handsman of the IT managed service provider Truitt and the co host of the Business and Bytes podcast. Now, John's tech experience goes way back, starting with the time he learned the difference in a really surprising way between a local network and the Capital I Internet. On his podcast, he's helping small business owners leverage AI tools to solve their fundamental business challenges. We also talk about some inspirational guests that have been on Business and Bytes and John has lots of great advice for overcoming overwhelm and getting out of your own head when things get difficult. It's a great talk today and it's all here on cyberwork. The IT and cybersecurity job market is thriving. The Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts 377,500 new IT jobs annually. You need skill and hustle to obtain, uh, these jobs, of course. But the good news is that cybersecurity professionals can look forward to extremely competitive salaries. That's why InfoSec has leveraged 20 years of industry experience drawing from multiple sources to give you cyberwork listeners an analysis of the most popular and top paying industry certifications. You can use IT to navigate your way to a good paying cybersecurity career. So to get your free copy of our Cybersecurity Salary Guide ebook, just click the link in the description below. It's right there near the top, just below me. You can't miss it. Click the link in the description and download our free Cybersecurity Salary Guide ebook. Your cybersecurity journey starts here. Now let's get the show started. Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the Cyber Work Podcast. I'm your host Chris Sanko. My guests are a cross section of cybersecurity industry thought leaders and our goal is to help you learn about cybersecurity trends and how those trends affect the work of InfoSec Professional, as well as leaving you with some tips and advice for breaking in or moving up the ladder in the cybersecurity industry. Now, um, my guest today, Jon Hansman, began his career in electronic security working 20 years in a 24, 7 monitoring center, eventually becoming IT project manager after a corporate acquisition. For the past seven years, he's helped businesses solve tech challenges, improve profitability and strengthen cybersecurity. John enjoys educating business owners and speaking at events to promote cyber awareness. Outside of work. He travels with his family in their fifth wheel RV and and as founder of Truitt, a family owned cybersecurity company. He's passionate about protecting Businesses of all sizes. Uh, the other part of uh, John's career that I'm interested in talking to is he is a fellow podcaster like I am. Uh, his podcast is called the Business and Bytes podcast. I've listened to a couple episodes, it's fantastic. Hope you all will do the same and I'm looking forward to hearing more about it. So John, thank uh, you for joining me today and welcome to Cyber Work.

Speaker B: Hey, thanks for having me. I'm glad to be here.

Speaker A: My pleasure. So, uh, so John, let me start, uh, out as I usually start out here. I want to know a little bit about your, your early years as a, uh, as a tech person. Do you remember if you had like an initial spark or a, a family computer or something that really got you excited about all this stuff?

Speaker B: You know, my dad was an IT technician. So. Okay, he got out of the military, he went and worked for the state, worked his way up.

Speaker A: This is a family business then.

Speaker B: Yeah, in a sense he worked for the state government. And so for uh, I can remember as a 12 year old, 13 year old, uh, going to his office and helping him build computers. That's back when slave labor in the United States was legal.

Speaker A: Yeah, for real. You know, I was, my previous guest, I talked to another one person today and yeah, building a computer back then was a lot different than it is now. Now you can just sort of like shop the pieces, you know, go to a micro center or something like that. And uh, and it's like putting together a puzzle. But boy, back then it was a, it was fraught. So. Yeah, tell me about that a little bit.

Speaker B: It was a task. So I remember just as a kid, uh, helping, uh, just with little things. He was just showing us his work and sometimes he had projects that ran out of his normal 8 to 5 that he had to finish. And so he would just bring us along and, and show us what he was doing. And I've always been the person who likes to solve problems. I've always been the person who is programming, you know, grandma's vcr.

Speaker A: Oh yeah.

Speaker B: You know, we were, I remember, you know, I, I'm a, I'm 45. So I grew up right as Windows, uh, was taking off in my middle school and high school years. And, and so, you know, most of that stuff was just nerdy stuff that we did. Yeah, bulletin board systems, you know, and those were popular for a minute.

Speaker A: Yep, all those things.

Speaker B: Uh, and I can remember, uh, I was telling the story recently about how I remember my first exposure to the Internet. As a kid, I didn't fully comprehend it. And we were on a bulletin board system and my dad had a car that he was trying to sell. I was like, oh dad, I can put it up on the local bulletin board system. Well what I didn't realize there was a checkbox or a thing that was going to move it to what was the Internet at the time.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: So this, this bulletin board system I didn't realize was connected nationally. So my dad started doing phone calls nationally.

Speaker A: Wow.

Speaker B: People wanting to buy his car. And he was like, what did you do? And I'm like 12 years old, Dad. I have no clue what I. Yeah. And it turned out there was a little switch that was. All these bulletin board systems would check in with each other and, and it was the first parts of the Internet before it was what it is today.

Speaker A: Yeah, uh, yeah, uh, when I was in college when I went from intranet to Internet and you have that similar feeling of like the aperture opens and suddenly you just like there's a bajillion people sort of staring at you, you know. Although, yeah, but as a, as a kid, not as a 18 year old like I was. But yeah, um, uh, yeah, also, you know, uh, I think we're of the similar generation. I'm 51. But yeah, like computers were not ubiquitous so like computers were just kind of a hobby. It was like a fun thing to do. It was not like this is going to be your career or whatever because everyone's going to use a computer. So yeah, it's, that's a, that's an interesting, uh, sort of era like that. And yeah, I love, I love hearing about old BBS's and stuff like that too. That's always fun. Uh, so, um, you know, I mentioned this before the show but you know, a lot of our listeners, uh, are looking for the, their job roles or potential career roadmaps and so forth and they like to kind of window shop with our, our podcast. So I want to ask about your work in Managed IT services. Uh, can you talk about some of the roles and key moments that got you to where you are today as the CEO of Truett? What was the draw with Managed IT specifically?

Speaker B: To be honest, it was being stuck at a dead end job.

Speaker A: Okay. What was the dead end job I

Speaker B: was, I was working for at the time was a small business. When I first started my, my, my company, uh, it wasn't called true at the time, it was called something else. Um, I was already helping people, random um, people on Facebook with uh, tech Issues. And I was helping small business owners I knew with problems and those types of things. And I was just doing it under the table. And a really good friend of mine, maybe I'll send him this podcast. I don't, I don't know how often or if he's heard this story very much, but a good friend of mine who is a pastor at our church was in this transition stage of his life where he was going to get out of ministry and he didn't know what he was going to do. So he went and saw a career counselor and no joke, I believe he works for one of the major rock. He works for one of the major rocket firms. I'm not going to tell you which one. Uh, but, but he went from pastor to rocket engineer.

Speaker A: Wow.

Speaker B: Like, what a crazy change. And so he was on his way, decided what he wanted to do, what his end goal was. And I remember him saying some of the same things. I said, I don't know what I could do. I've only done one thing my whole life. And I had been in the home security, electronic security industry for the same amount of time he'd been in ministry. And I was seeing the same things. And so I went and saw the same career counselor. And that helped open my eyes to the possibility that I wasn't as stuck as I thought I was. So I immediately went and got my business license. I immediately turned my, you know, under the table job into a legit business.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: I was already doing chamber things for the alarm company I was working for. So I just stopped promoting them and started promoting myself.

Speaker A: Fantastic.

Speaker B: I literally, I was making 50 bucks a referral if it panned out. And, and so I was like, well, I could go and meet people and just, I can make, you know, 100 bucks an hour, you know, doing this. Mhm. Uh, or I m. Think even was even like 65 at the time. When I first started, I was just not sure what I was doing. And I just, you know, honestly, one thing led to another. I sat down with people that I knew who were in the industry, that I met through, through networking. I sat down with a coach who helped me navigate stuff. I had a really good friend who's uh, he's funny because he's a good friend and he's a competitor in one of my spaces. And he at one point says, bro, you got to stop doing this, this break fix stuff. Like you need to think about managed services because it's not going to pan out. Like, it's, it's a lot of Work for little return. So I started looking into it and I started uh, figuring it out. And one day, uh, I had met my, what was my very first managed client. Mhm. And uh, just a week or so before that, my business coach was looking at my books and was like, hey, you realize you're making just as much part time on your own business as you are full time at your job.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: What would happen if you expanded your 10 pegs and, and went to full time business? Mhm. But being the good coach that he was, he forced me to pick a date. And he said, pick a date, I'm going to hold you to it. And so I picked a date and I just happened to close a. My first managed m IT deal right as I had picked my date and I said, uh, September, uh, was when I want to quit, uh, that job. And so they happen to be right on the same timeline. And so I went right in with a client and plus I did residential stuff. So what's crazy is, and I always tell people the dates and they're like, oh, because I quit my job September of 2019. Yeah.

Speaker A: Wow. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker B: Six months later our, uh, world changed.

Speaker A: Yes, it did.

Speaker B: And, and I was forced to kind of make some decisions. I was out literally doing, I was beating feet, you know, doing the entrepreneurial, you know, go to each, every business I could go to. And all of a sudden I couldn't do that anymore.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: So I had to figure something out. People started calling me for, for repair and like is all the major Best Buy, all the major repair places were closed?

Speaker A: Yeah, they weren't going to do it.

Speaker B: And they were like, can you do it? I was like, yeah, I'll take money

Speaker A: now more than ever.

Speaker B: And so I just, I did that for about three years. Moved into a commercial space because, because people kept showing up at my house at weird hours with computers and uh, and then I just grew my team from there and at some point I just really was focused on managed services. The whole time was my desire.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: And I just started to build it up.

Speaker A: Wow. Yeah, that's. Yeah. Boy, what a, what a, what a, what a harrowing moment there though. That was a lot of, uh, a lot, a lot of people doing a lot of fancy footwork around that time in terms of uh, yeah. Hard pivots and whatnot.

Speaker B: Yeah, a lot of people did. And I, I was small. I was really small at the time. I only had a couple client managed clients, but that.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: And, and so my phones just stopped ringing. Like most People's. Except unless it was an emergency. And so I was literally the world shut down and I'm trying to figure out how to get more business.

Speaker A: Yeah, like. Yes.

Speaker B: Crazy times wild.

Speaker A: Um, well, okay, so I wanna, I might come back to that. But uh, I want to hear more about what you do now. Tell our listeners about your role as CEO of Truitt. I mean, because that's, I imagine there's a lot less, uh, you know, you know, you bring the thing in and I do it with my own hands or whatever. You got a team now, so.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: How does that work?

Speaker B: Well, one, one thing when you're small. You know, we're a small business. We have about five of us total. You know, my wife, uh, now is a stay at home mom. We had a, we had a baby year. What is a year? Just almost a year and a half ago. We had a son. So she's kind, uh, of moved into a real part time role in the business. So we just have a couple technicians, assistant for me and myself and my wife. Uh, and so most of my day is marketing and doing things like podcasts and public speaking and then focusing on the day to day vision and service delivery with our team, making sure that we're meeting, you know, what we say we're going to do and just trying to be a, uh, better company than we were yesterday. That's really what our focus is as we learn and grow. You know, I didn't have the benefit of being like a lot of people in our industry who were. I was a nerd, but I'm the different extrovert type. So. Yeah, uh, I was not the person who got into it because I was like, this is what I wanted to do with my whole life. I wanted to be an IT guy and then I started a business. You know, like a lot of people, I was the guy who was like, I'm good at that. I could solve problems for people. I could turn that into a business.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So for me, I love the sales and marketing and public speaking and education side. So for example, um, you know, it's, uh, what is it today? Today's the 28th. On Friday we have a big a lunch and learn here in Spokane, where I'm at Spokane, Washington.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: We have 25 people coming to learn about AI and how they can grow their business with it. We're just finding opportunities to help people do something with their business and use technology to solve problems. That's really what we do. And my, my job as a CEO in my role today mhm. Is marketing, sales and uh, high level service, you know, delivery, uh, project management. It's a little bit of, when you're CEO of a small company, it's a little bit of this and a little bit of that. It's not.

Speaker A: Oh yeah. The luxury of signing checks and swabbing toilets and the whole thing. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: Whatever's needed to fill in the holes. So yeah, when the phones ring and my guys are on the phone, I answer them and help out.

Speaker A: So one of the uh, sort of conflicting uh, pipelines we hear on the show a lot is people who really are sort of lifelong problem solvers, tech geeks, like to break things and put it back together. Uh, and the issue that they have when suddenly they're promoted into management because they don't get to get their hands dirty anymore. Now this sounds like a sort of a different position but. And also you said that that wasn't necessarily your whole entire life, uh, you know, doing the sort of like hand to hand managed it. But was there any a disconnect when you sort of lifted yourself out of the you know, client. Client base to base into what almost is more of like a, almost like an outreach sort of role? It seems like now I think the

Speaker B: disconnect was really, it was when I had hired my first employee with the residential consumer side. But when before we switched to Truitt. Because my face was the logo.

Speaker A: Yeah, right. Yeah.

Speaker B: So people came uh, and uh, uh, there was a bearded white guy as the logo and I had a bearded uh, black guy who was an awesome employee who came in and I had to pivot from yes, my logos on this. But my employee who's really talented was perfectly capable of doing what I, what I would do.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: And so it's, there's just a mind shift that had to happen.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: But I don't think for me it personally it wasn't. I've been reading business books previous like while I was developing my business early and I don't uh, I didn't feel like there was that much of a disconnect with uh, having people jump into my business.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: I think it's been later on where uh, things are bigger and there's more responsibility. Like I'm taking a week, next week to go a week and a half to go to a camp for, for kids for a week and I'm leaving things with my team for a week. And that's nerve wracking because it's just that's, that's a pivotal mind shift change of Like I've trained them, I've equipped them, I put safeguards in place. They're capable of doing all, all that I would do and doing it well.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: And so it's good to put yourself in a place where you also figure out where are the things that we need to fix. Like there might probably something will come up that only I can do.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: And I'll have to figure out how to solve that for the next time.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, it also seems like you started this company, ah, for different reasons. Like I think, you know, as someone who really likes to play with the guts of a computer, starts a company so they can do more of that, then, yeah, they're going to be bummed when they don't get to do that anymore. But it sounds like your, um, reason for doing this early on was an educational sort of element or a collaboration and bringing people together. And therefore, uh, if you're doing that on a higher level, uh, there's not really a disconnect between you doing that.

Speaker B: Not for me. Yeah, I'm wired different than a lot of people. I'm, I'm part of one of the big, uh, cohort, uh, groups of MSPs that's, that's out there, uh, Chris, uh, Weiser's group. And there's a lot of guys who come into the program and they're like, I don't want to speak, I don't want to do sales, I don't want to get in front of people. And I'm the opposite. I'm like, I love getting in front of people. At my old job, I used to do trainings and I, and I would put, I put on trainings with 50 technicians coming in to learn a product and I taught the class.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: I just, I love that stuff. It's just, it's something like I will wake up Friday morning before our, our lunch and learn stoked to get out of bed and go sit in front of 25 people and teach them about AI. Like, I love that stuff. I'm inspired that way.

Speaker A: Oh, love it. Well, okay, well, since uh, we're talking about, um, public facing positions, obviously, uh, you're a fellow podcaster with me and you're the co host or host of the Business and Bites podcast. I've only listened to the early ones. And are you and Emilio both co hosts still?

Speaker B: We are. And what's funny is we pivoted, we completely pivoted our uh, podcast format as of the last 90 days. Oh, okay.

Speaker A: What's different now?

Speaker B: We did a lot of guest appearances. We'll still be doing some of those. The idea was to bring in people from business, right. Had them tell a story and it was great. But it was really hard to find guests, to be honest. It was. Mhm. You know, this, you're doing it.

Speaker A: Preaching to the converted, my man.

Speaker B: You're just trying to find people to show up. And if you're trying to get them to tell a story, an inspirational story about business, it's probably 10 times harder in some ways. Mhm. So with the launch of, of really looking at AI and where it's going and looking at our business of cybersecurity, we've pivoted business and bytes, uh, more towards, still towards the small business owner. But we're pivoting it towards a educational piece to help people navigate AI and cybersecurity and all that from a small business, medium sized business perspective. And so now we actually have three of us that are doing podcasts.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So it's three IT guys shooting the breeze, talking about, uh, AI and what it means for our world right now, talking about cyber security, how all those things work together.

Speaker A: Hm.

Speaker B: And uh, we'll probably have some guests on, you know, we're just, we're figuring it out new. You know, I've done a million a while. Uh, and so we're just, we're figuring it out. That's just what happens when you have three people who are starting, uh, to work on something together.

Speaker A: Yeah, I'm, I'm, you know, I'm one of those sort of fussy listeners who has, feels like they have to listen from the very beginning because there's, you know, an unspoken spoken narrative, you know, in those 27 episodes or whatever. So that's why I'm not as aware of the most recent ones. But uh, um, yeah. So is it always going to be AI focused like that or is it, or is the focus just on small business?

Speaker B: On small business, our goal is to meet people where they're at and that's always been the mission of business. Invites. Um, there are lots of really good nerdy cyber security podcasts out there. There's some really great ones out there, uh, that, that are, that are catering to those of us in the industry. I listen to them because they're really informative. I have got friends who run the Cyber Squawk podcast. If you've never heard of them, they're fantastic guys. Uh, they have a really great podcast. Um, but for me, I never wanted to have a nerdy podcast. I Wanted to have something that was really focused on how do we bridge the gap between tech talk and the, the owner who's literally just trying to find profit, who's trying to solve problems.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: Is trying to maybe just trying to keep things afloat or trying to turn his business into something that he works on 70 hours a week to something where he can go golfing if he wants to.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: That's where AI and having a really good IT infrastructure and all of those pieces come in handy because you can then turn your business into something that makes you money by putting the right things in place. So our goal is to bridge that education gap for small businesses. That's what Business Invites is about.

Speaker A: Nice. Now, um, can you uh, tell our listeners about maybe some of these recent episodes or what the topics are around these post pivot episodes and maybe what other sort of trends or tech you're thinking about for future episodes?

Speaker B: Yeah, so we only have a couple episodes out now of the new format and really we really are just doing an introduction to AI right now. What is it? Yeah, how can it address your, you know, work in your business? And then we're also talking about what's IT doing in cyber security? Because there's uh, there's a uh, good role in cyber security. Like most vendors are using AI in some sort, especially if they're in security. They're using AI to scan, to look at traffic, they're doing a bunch of things. But cybersecurity criminals are doing the same thing. You notice how in the last like what, five years, four years? Spelling all of a sudden is better in scam emails?

Speaker A: Yeah. Oh yeah.

Speaker B: It's because of AI. It's not because scammers got better or scammers got better at spelling.

Speaker A: Right, Right.

Speaker B: That's not what happened. Uh, they didn't get better at English. They're using AI as a tool to write emails. And that's why things are a little bit easier and better formatted and set up differently. And that's, that's we're trying to educate people on what, why is it important to know? And like the. I really, this is my opinion. I firmly believe if you're not using AI to move the needle in your business, you're probably missing out.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: You don't know where it's going to be in 10 years. I don't think it's going anywhere.

Speaker A: It's definitely not. Uh, okay, well let's uh, speak to uh, the small business owners who might be listening here. What are some AI Tools that you see people are kind of leaving on the table that they should be, um, integrating into their ah, workflow.

Speaker B: So uh, one is ah, just in fact just adopting your favorite language model. So ChatGPT, uh, it could be a Microsoft tool, it can be any of those.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: All those tools have the ability to speed up your, your work. So just think about not writing, just writing marketing emails, which is what a lot of people do. But think about. I had an email from a client that literally was so many words and letters and it looked like a square book.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: And I'm like, man, that's a lot of reading. So I put it into AI. I said, ah, help me answer all these questions, find out questions they had and I'll answer them and then we'll craft an email together. It probably saved me 45 minutes.

Speaker A: Wow. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker B: Right? There's things like that you can have AI challenge your thinking. M. Most people don't think about AI as something that can help you with your critical thinking about your business. Hey, AI, I've been doing this for the last three years in marketing. It's not really working. How do I move the needle? What do I change? What's. Why is this not working? Critical thinking, things like that. There's also tools in marketing like, I know, go high level, which we use. Uh, they've got a new uh, sdr, so they've got a new voice, uh, caller that can literally if somebody fills out a form, call them on the phone and have a conversation with them in response to that form that they filled out and get appointments scheduled and do crazy things.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: There's a lot of tools out there. I think the big thing we have to watch out for is security.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And just making sure we know where that data is going. And if you feed data in it, you have to assume that it could come out into the world.

Speaker A: Yeah. It's going public.

Speaker B: There's no question they get hacked. Even if they have a good privacy policy, if they get hacked, it's out. Mhm. Just like you're banking, just like anything else. So you have to look at AI through that lens. Whatever you feed it could become public.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: Either on purpose or by accident.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And, and make really good decisions on how you do that. And medical is doing it right now. Like you think about. Oh yeah, medical. My doctor for one of my appointments came in with his phone and was just pushing the button. Okay. We're gonna record our call and I can have notes and M. They're, they're doing it already.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So there's no avoiding, there's no avoiding these tools, but there's a lot of them out there that are just, you just have to. And one of the things we do, uh, as part of consulting that we've added to our business is we sit with businesses and answer those questions, ask them what's the thing that takes you the most time that you wish you can get rid of?

Speaker A: Mhm. Mhm. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Right. Yeah. Uh, I saw a presentation by David, uh, Foot at, I was at Isaca this weekend or this past weekend and he also has an AI based podcast. And uh, I'm sort of cribbing his idea. But yeah, he said that he ends every episode with uh, asking the guest, you know, what's in your toolbox? Uh, and he's, you know, he said if you, if you learn about, you know, one new AI tool a week, by the end of the month, you know, or end of the year, you're going to be really, really comfortable with what you need and don't need. So I guess, uh, so you know, at the risk of using someone else's idea. Jon Hansman, what's in your toolbox? What are, what are some A.I. tools that you're putting to use with, uh, druid.

Speaker B: So I'm definitely a heavy GBT user.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: And I, I do a lot of creating my own gbts that do specific things.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So there's a couple tools out there that you can buy. I don't remember what one of them was, but there's one that was like, it's like a whole bunch of little look like they look like astronauts, uh, but they have a GPT for everything.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: And they're really just basically creating GPTs and then you, they just interact a certain way. I'm all about creating my own. So we have one that literally works with our guys. If they have a problem on a ticket, they throw it in the GBT GBT helps them solve the problem and then helps them put the ticket into information, uh, for the ticketing system and automatically allows them to cut and paste. So we've, we're creating things like that. I have a roundtable board of directors, which is crazy. This is like a bunch of famous, uh, people who have lots of books who I've just fed all their information, uh, into AI and, and then I ask questions based on the content of their books. So I'm a really big Mike Michalowitz fan for business books.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: And he's one of my board of directors, AI board of directors. Because I love his stuff and I trust what he's doing. So I literally have big name people and their content is driving AI to, to ask me questions, answer questions, things, uh, like that. I'm doing all that through chat, gbt. Those are my main ones. And then I got, you know, uh, you've probably seen uh, the plod. You know, it's the AI recorder. That's probably one of my new favorite things. Ah, you can records meetings, summarizes them, does a bunch of stuff. I'm using a lot of different things. Uh, but GPT just standalone. Uh, the team's account for my business has been like, just transformative for our business.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: Just because it's adoption and we, we have this, this thing that we, we give out to people and at the bottom of it it says, can, Can AI help me do this?

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: So I challenge people to stick these on their desk so they can have it looking at them so they can just ask the question before they do something. Can AI help me do this?

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: M and begin to just look at things through a new lens. M Of uh, maybe I can save time. Yeah, yeah, that's what I'm doing.

Speaker A: Nice. Uh, yeah, great, great answer. Yeah, that was, that was exactly what I was hoping for. So John, uh, I want to talk to you a little bit about some of the pre pivot episodes of the podcast here. The podcast takes in a wide range of security topics, uh, but especially has a lot of really interesting and diverse guests. One example is Dominique Gretchman. Uh, she told her story of uh, having jobs as diverse as boxing manager and model before becoming a communication manager for a nonprofit. Uh, and a lot of our listeners are also people who are transitioning into security later in life. So, uh, based on some stories you've heard of people who have come to security later in life like this, are there commonalities in terms of the things they had to do, like push through or adversity, uh, that she, they need to overcome to be successful in this?

Speaker B: Yeah. I think, I think the biggest thing is mindset. So we talk about being an owner. From my perspective, that's a, there's a lot of mindset shift that has to happen. Things m. Come and go, you know, and as an entrepreneur, you gain clients, you lose clients. There's ups and downs, even if you're getting into the industry. I, I had that mindset for a long time where I was like, oh, this is all I know, this is all I've done. And if you're coming into a new industry later, study. Make sure you know your stuff. M. Make sure that you are putting customers and the, uh, the people you're serving first. Because that's what we're looking for as owners.

Speaker A: Oh, yeah.

Speaker B: And. And you just go after it and, and prove that you are the best for that job. If, if it's a job you want, you're coming into security, like I did in my 30s, where I came into it as a business owner. You want to get to. You, uh, want to get out of tech as fast as you can. Which m. Might be contrary to this, this podcast, in a sense, but the best owners who make the most money and move the needle the faster in MSP land, they get out of tech and they focus on sales and marketing, or they move into management of their technicians and they hire people who are good at sales and marketing. But the best owners aren't out in trucks on site doing tech support. They're leading and growing their company. And they're thinking like a CEO, not a technician.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Uh, so we all have to do it at the very beginning. But it's, it's mindset. And that was the thing about Dominique. She's, you know, in a nonprofit. She's probably 100 pounds, you know, like, she's like the, uh, person that you look at and you're like, you weren't a boxing manager.

Speaker A: That's right.

Speaker B: But she would go in and own the room. Mm. Mhm. She went in and she owned the modeling world where people get messed over all the time. She actually read her contracts and she was really smart and savvy.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: That are the, those are the kind of people that were just, they were phenomenal to interview because you're. You just don't picture it. I had no clue. I met her on multiple occasions for networking things. Had no clue. That was in her history. That was just.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Surprise.

Speaker A: That happened in, in the conversation.

Speaker B: Yeah, it happened like literally the day we recorded. I was. She told me. I, uh, said, what do you want to talk about? She's like, you know what? I was like, what'd you do before this? And she told me. I was like, okay, we're talking about that. Like, there's no, there's no way.

Speaker A: Yeah, no kidding. Yeah.

Speaker B: But really, in anything you do, whether it's tech or it's anything else, it's all about mindset.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: And. And we have a lot of people in our world who think, I can't. And it's just because they're stuck.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: And even me being at a place where I'm in a better spot in my life than I ever have been before. There were times this week where I felt stuck and I had people who care about me. Like, you need to get out of your head and you need to push ahead and keep going. It's part of the human condition. But we have to just continually coach ourselves, continually put stuff in front of us, people in front of us who are going to speak the right things to us, tell us the truth, help us with our journey. Those are the most important things. Whether you're an owner or whether you want, you're looking to join a company and be in a employee, find the right leadership. If you want to be an employee for a tech company, I suggest you interview them as much as they're interviewing you.

Speaker A: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I wish more people would say that. Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker B: They, they, you should be walking into that business as a contractor, not a, not a slave or, or yeah.

Speaker A: Fact finder. Basically you're like, yeah, let's, yeah, like, yeah, if you're, if you're in security, you're already looking for weaknesses in the system, you should be doing that. Yeah. I mean you, you, you can, you can figure out pretty easily if you talk to people a couple steps down from, uh, the hiring manager, like, what is the culture like here? Because the hiring manager is not going to really tell you that.

Speaker B: So you want to wake up in the morning regardless of whether you own a business or whether you're an employee and be excited about what you do. Am I excited about everything I do every day? No.

Speaker A: Yeah. Right, right.

Speaker B: But I'm excited about milestones. Like I'm excited about the big picture. I'm excited about doing podcasts. I'm excited about a lot of things that I do and I get to do.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: Uh, and it's really just, just the mindset that's the biggest thing.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Somebody coming into the industry, I wouldn't let your age be a factor. I would just say, hey, I've got a ton of experience, life experience, and I can treat your customers well and I can make care of. And I've got all this other experience that I can bring to the table and that's. We're not even looking at college that much. When we look at people, we're looking at certificates and knowledge more than we're looking at a lot of that.

Speaker A: Yeah. Oh, no question. It's definitely where it's going. Um, yeah. So, um, yeah, I definitely struggle with uh, getting easily overwhelmed. And I know a lot of our listeners do as well. You said you had people around that were kind of helping you get out of your own head. Do you have any particular self strategies for those moments when you, you get in your own head and, and just feel like you've sort of painted yourself into a corner? How do you, how do you get

Speaker B: out of my life? I'm just joking.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Here's what I'll say. You know, I'm 45, been in business, I'm going on probably actually eight years now, uh, of doing the business. Um, there's no quick fix to anxiety if you face it. I think a lot of us who own business, truth, we, we struggle with it, man. Something doesn't go right, customer says they're leaving. You know, you, uh, look at money and you're like, whoa, things aren't where I want them to be. There's all these different things. And it's funny, as you elevate, sometimes those things feel bigger than they really are.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: And so here's what I would say is the biggest. And I'm going to talk to business owners because that's just what I am.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Know your numbers. M. If you know your numbers.

Speaker A: Yep.

Speaker B: You can be in a place where you're making executive business decisions and you're not making emotional decisions. M. You know, hey, if that customer leaves, I'm okay. Because we know in it, not every customer is great. Right. Like some people just don't want to fix things and they don't want to pay for it. And then you end up with problems because they don't want to fix things. Happens. I'm dealing with that with a client now.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: They don't want to fix their old stuff and, and then they blame us when things don't go well. And they've got 10 year old machines, 15 year old machines in their, in their book of business.

Speaker A: Um,

Speaker B: it's really about knowing like where you're at. Like you want to be working on your business and knowing where you're at and, and then, and really just have confidence. Like if you do the right things, there is a formula to business. Like there is a formula to growth. And it literally is doing the same things over and over and over again. And you start, you start getting business. I mean, like we're, like I said, I got 25 people, probably three quarters of them I've never met, coming to an event on Friday. Mm.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: I've got 25 people who've never heard our Message about cyber security.

Speaker A: Yep.

Speaker B: Who get to be in front of us. And it wasn't because I just put something up on Facebook. I've worked at this all year long for the last six months. Started out with five people and we've just, we've grown it and we've done those same things, the right things, over and over and over and over again to get the results that we're looking at for. So ah, yeah, it's, it's mindset and it's all about getting people. Like I love if you're in the MSP community, I love the seven figure MSP community. It's where I'm a part of, um, there's a lot of people around there. Get in a mastermind group, either of business owners that are in your industry or you can go into one final local one of people who are in other industries who are just steps ahead of you.

Speaker A: Yep.

Speaker B: And, and, and then really just make sure you've got people around you that are willing to just tell you, you know, when you're not doing the right thing. Opening to people, uh, criticism too. Yeah, absolutely. So. Oh yeah, that's how I'm working on it. That doesn't mean I don't struggle. Like I said this week, like, there's been a couple times where I'm, you know, my mindset wasn't great and I had to go take a walk and, and be like, hey, we're good. Like we're doing awesome stuff. Our company's growing, we're doing awesome things even when hard things happen.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: That's just part of life.

Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. Awesome place to sort uh, of start, uh, to wrap this up. So I guess, um, before we go, uh, for people who are interested in business and bytes, uh, what's your favorite episode of the podcast? Is there a particular one that people should listen to to kind of get the temperature of the thing and get

Speaker B: the feel for it? Well, again, we pivoted, so sure.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So if you like the old style and hey, follow us and tell us you want the old style back and we'll, we can mix it in.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: I'm open to uh, stuff. There's a guy named Kevin Hayward who's a really good friend of mine, owns an insurance agency. If you listen to his episode, that was a fantastic episode on culture and building a business that doesn't need you.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: Like, he's my insurance agent and literally I don't ever call, I don't ever talk to him like I talk to his people because he's built a business around good customer service and good employees and taking care of people.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And then we talked about Dominique. I mean, that interview was probably my favorite because it was the most unexpected of all of the interviews that we did. So we'll see. I'm interested in bringing on some more guests and doing some of the old, old format too. Uh, but we're just trying to get rolling on this, this new way of doing things, and we'll see where it goes. It's going to be a lot of fun. And we're really. Our goal is to just really keep it simple, get focused on. On the audience that we're looking to talk to.

Speaker A: Love it. Can't wait to. Can't wait to continue the journey. So as we wrap up, tell listeners more about Truett and the work that you do. I mean, you've talked about it as a company, but, uh, for people who are interested in learning more, tell them all about it.

Speaker B: Yeah. So we're, uh, located in Washington state. We do serve nationwide, but we're, uh, located in Washington state, uh, both eastern and western Washington. I'm in Spokane right now at my satellite office. Uh, uh, but we're a managed service provider. So what we do is we provide IT services for businesses, uh, that generally have five or more employees and are at that point where they need to outsource their IT to a company because they're. They need to have like, stuff that works. They need to make sure their machines work. They need to make sure that their employees can continue to operate and, and stay high functioning. And the other key thing of what we do is everything we do is through the lens of cyber security.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So we don't really do the better big, you know, a good, better bass model. We do a real comprehensive look at the business. What industry are they in, all of those things. And we make sure that they're a really good fit and give them the right services they need for their particular type of business. So we're all about cyber security, making sure that there's adequate protection for our businesses. We stopped six attacks last year.

Speaker A: Wow.

Speaker B: Just in our small book of business.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: Six business email compromises and a couple other things. So like, we've got to track right record of taking care of people and having the right stuff in place. Uh, and then we also do consulting, like if, if businesses, uh, like particularly for our clients. If you want somebody who's not just going to do tech support, who's going to help you walk through how to find the right tools for your business, how to navigate it, have a navigate AI, how to navigate CRMs, and all those crazy things that are technology related but not necessarily tech support. Those are all included in what we do. So we're a full service, uh, security focused, managed IT company. That's what we love. We love getting in front of people and helping them solve business, uh, technology problems.

Speaker A: All right, well, one last request, uh, here. Tell our listeners where to find out more about truett Online and also Jon Handsman. I mean, uh, you got a lot to say. Uh, tell us where to hear it.

Speaker B: You can look me up johnhandsman.com I have a public speaking page if you're looking for somebody to uh, speak at your event. And then True it, uh, you can see it here. Truett IO so T R U I T IO is our website and that'll get you all the information about what we do. Again, we're in Washington, but we serve nationwide and we can take care of anybody who has a problem.

Speaker A: Love it. Uh, John, thanks for your insights today. This was a really great conversation. I love talking.

Speaker B: Yeah, thanks so much.

Speaker A: My pleasure. So, uh, thank you everyone who watches, listens and writes into the podcast with feedback. If you have any topics you'd like us to cover or guests you'd like to see on the show, um, drop them in the comments. Uh, start using our YouTube community tab or you know, go over to our TikTok channel. Drop us a comment over there. We're easy to find. Uh, before you go, don't forget infosecinstitute.com free is a site where you can get a whole bunch of free and exclusive stuff for cyberwork listeners, including our free cybersecurity talent development platform Playbook, which contains in depth training plans and strategies for the 12 most common security roles, including soc analyst, pen tester, cloud security Engineer, Information risk analyst, Privacy manager, secure coder, ICS professional, and more. We also have a free cybersecurity salary guide, uh, with the latest data on popular certifications and their related roles. Uh, you can also sign up for 100 plus free courses in our InfoSec Skills platform for 30 days. Learn incident response, forensic security architecture and more. One more time infosecinstitute.com free. The link's in the description. You know what to do. One last time, thank you to Jon Handsman and Truitt and the business and bike podcasts. And thank you all for watching and listening. This is Chris Sanko signing off. Until next time, make sure to learn something new every day. Keep one step ahead of the story. And don't forget to have a little fun along the way. Bye for now,

Speaker B: Sa.