June 29, 2026

Jeff Heather, Founder and Principal of North Light IT

Jeff Heather, Founder and Principal of North Light IT
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Jeff Heather founded North Light IT in 2000, as a boutique managed services provider in the Boston area that handles IT and cybersecurity for law and professional services firms with 30 or fewer employees-environments where every hour down is costly.

North Light manages IT so clients can handle the work that actually pays. Jeff believes that IT done right should be accessible for smaller firms - support, strategy, and security. And, that IT should “stay out of the way – be vanilla and boring”.

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The topics and opinions express in the following show are

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solely those of the hosts and their guests, and not

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be directed to those show hosts. Thank you for choosing

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W FOURCY Radio.

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Churchill said, those who failed to learn from history are

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condemned to repeat it. Kevin Helenan believes that certainly applies

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to business. Welcome to Winning Business Radio here at W

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four CY Radio. That's W four cy dot com and

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now your host, Kevin Helena.

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Thanks everyone for joining in today. I'm Kevin Hallanan and

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welcome back to Winning Business TV and Radio on W

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four cy dot We are streaming live on talkfotv dot com.

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That's the number four, and of course we're streaming live

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on Facebook and that's at Winning Business.

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Radio, and we will be available as we always.

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Are, in podcast form after the live show on whatever

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platform you go to YouTube iHeartRadio, Spotify, Apple Again.

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Wherever you go, we are there.

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The mission of Winning Business radio and TV, as regular

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listeners and viewers know, is to offer insights and advice

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to help people avoid the mistakes of others. Right you

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hear the intro to learn best practices, the how tos,

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the what toos, the what not tos, to be challenged

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and hopefully to be.

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Inspired by the successes of others. Who are those others.

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They're consultants and coaches, advisors, authors, founders and owners and entrepreneurs.

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They're people with expertise. But you know, virtually every successful

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person I've ever talked to has had some form of

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failure in their lives and careers. So while we all

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have to get our knees skinned once in a while,

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I'm driven to keep those scrapes from needing major surgery.

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Let's endeavor to learn from history so we don't repeat it.

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I've spent the better part of my career equipping businesses

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to grow from solopreneurs to small and medium sized companies

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all the way up to the Fortune fifty. I've seen

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some of those companies win, and to varying degrees, I've

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seen some of them fail I've had the opportunity to

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rub elbows with some of the highest performing people around

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and with some who probably should have found other professions.

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And in my own businesses, I've had lots of success,

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but some failures too, and I like to think I've

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learned a lot from those experiences. So, yeah, you'll hear

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some of my opinions, but really you're going to hear

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from guests, and today is no exception. My guest is

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friend and Fellow Provisors member Jeff Heather, founder and principle

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of north Light It.

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Here's his bio.

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Jeff Heather founded north Light It in two thousand as

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a boutique managed services provider in the Boston area that

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hill's IT and cybersecurity for law firms and professional services

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firms with thirty or fewer employees, where every hour counts

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and downtime is just not just inconvenient, it's expensive. Jeff

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and his team managed the IT so clients can handle

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the work that actually pays. He built the practice around

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a conviction IT done right shouldn't belong exclusively to big firms.

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Smaller firms deserve the same quality of IT partnership that

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large organizations take for granted support, strategy and security, and

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yet they rarely get it. A systems thinker by instinct,

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Jeff favors repeatable playbooks over one off fixes, and he

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spent his entire career turning the messy or excuse me,

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his career turning the messy high stakes part of running

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a firm's technology into something predictable. He's seen what happens

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when firms put it in the back burner. Client data

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is at risk, ransomware attacks hit with nothing to recover,

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billible hours disappear into a breach no one saw coming.

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He's also seen what happens when firms get it right,

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Fewer headaches, stronger security posture and technology. I love this statement,

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Jeff that gets or stays out of the way. With

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twenty five years across enterprise and small bit business environments,

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Jeff is spent his career at the intersection of technology

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and business strategy, and I love his tagline north light

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it an IT partner you can swear by, not at.

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Jeff hearn earned his BS get ready for this in Aeronautics, Aviation,

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Aerospace Science and Technology from Bridgewater State University. It's not

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like a rocket science dot dot dot Jeff's married to

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Tracy since nineteen ninety five. They have three adult children,

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Kennedy who's twenty nine, Mackenzie twenty seven, Matthews twenty four.

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They have a three year old grandson named Beckett, and

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Isla is their Australian labradoodle. I'm going to try to

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say this one right. Alice is a shop adoodle and

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Ted's a tabbycap. Jeff grew up in Eastern mass and

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now lives in Freetown. Jeff, welcome to Business Winning excuse me,

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Business TV and Radio, and thanks for coming.

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Thank you, Kevin. I'm thrilled to be here.

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I've known about your show and been jealous of all

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of the amazing guests that you've had on over the years,

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and I am honored to have finally made the made

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the invite list.

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Another amazing guest. That's how I'll view it. So let's

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talk about the important stuff. Tell us about Tracy.

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That is, that's the important stuff, right, yeah, well yeah,

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after thirty what one years or so? Now it is

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you know, still still the love of my life. I

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still when I see her car pull into the driveway

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at the end of the day on the way home.

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My heart still bitter, patters with excitement.

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Tail wags.

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That's right, tail wags. So I love that I'm a

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lucky man, was able to marry well above my weight.

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Same same. How'd you guys meet?

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Well, I'll tell you what. If you ever meet her,

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she'll tell you the story. So I'm going to short

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circuit it. Yeah, take the bite out of it. We

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met in college, and what happened was I was in

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a class with her best friend, and I wanted to

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date the best friend. The best friend was involved with

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somebody already and said, you know what, I think you

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really get along well with my friend and they she

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introduced us in that's you know, as they say.

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Is history.

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So you got to referral. Really, I got to I've.

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Been I've been doing the networking thing for a long time.

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That's right.

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We have a little controversial story, but it's fun controversial,

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not like race or anything like that, which I won't share,

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but it's just fun. I love to know the story

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of how we met. We met in church, basically, So

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tell us about your kids.

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So kids, thankfully, my kids all take after their mom,

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so they're all smart.

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Good.

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And my oldest we're really excited. She Kennedy.

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She just moved back from Georgia and she spent eight

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years down there as an officer in Army Cyber Command.

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Thank you for that, teller, please, yeah, I will thank you.

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And so they're going from you know, fifteen hours away

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to four minutes. And the really important part about that

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is that my grandson will now be four minutes away.

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So that's the important thing. My my middle daughter has

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decided in some ways to follow I guess in my

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entrepreneurial footsteps and has decided to throw away all of

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the expensive education that we buy and you know, the

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degrees and a great job at Harvard and decided to follow.

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Her dream and open a bookstore.

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Oh yes, so that soft one Salem right to have

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been last weekend?

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How did it go up in.

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Salem, Mass?

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Yes?

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And it it was fantastic. There was aligned ten deep

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for several hours long waiting.

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To get into the store. So well, off to a

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great start. Yeah.

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I was going to say bookstores dying greed, So she

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can she can do it. People want still, you know,

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lots of people still like to go and touch books

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and hold them in their hand.

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Yeah.

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Well, and in fact, she did come up with a

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you know a business plan that you know, I read

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through and I made her show to a couple other

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provisor folks to vet. And it does turn out that

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the niche bookstore and this is a niche fantasy.

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Horror bookstore Salem.

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After all, the niche bookstore thing is really becoming a

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thriving business. People are longing for bookstores again, but not

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necessarily the big box stores.

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I have an author that I may want to connect

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her with.

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She would love that.

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All right, I'm making a note right now, look at this.

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We're not working on live. So before we get into

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the nuts and bolt, tell us about your background. I

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know you grew up in shovel City. That's an inside

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choke Easton, Massachusetts. Tell us about the town and let

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people know what it was like to grow up there.

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Sure, sure, yeah, you know, Before I do that, in

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case I get in trouble, I need to mention my son.

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I got him, and so, yeah.

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Matthew twenty four, he's out of school, he's got a

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you know, he's got a big boy job.

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He's working for Travelers Insurance and liking it nice.

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He's on month I think twenty five of thirty six

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that we've given him to save up enough money to

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get out.

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Of my house.

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Beat it.

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So we remind him every month that the clock is ticking.

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Is Ian Hartford or is he up up here?

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No, he's here. He's in the Bridgewater off local Bridgewater office.

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So was he at the tournament over the weekend?

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No? No, In fact, he was with me over the weekend.

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We were at a couple of car.

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Shows because Brent Middleton I used to have a client

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right there. They would all close that day and go

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to the Hartford.

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Yeah.

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Yeah, he was down there for the big you know,

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the big onboarding training and all that.

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Yeah.

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Yeah, So Easton, Yeah, Easton was a great place to

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grow up. I was I was born. I was born

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in Cleveland. Thankfully my parents got us out of there.

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I'm gonna say sorry, but yeah, and no offense to Cleveland.

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It's just a joke.

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I'm allowed to say because I was born there.

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Yeah, and moved to Brompton, mass and then moved to

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Easton shortly after that.

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And it's I mean.

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Easton is a wonderful place for people to grow grow up.

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I mean we had Borderland State Park.

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I spent countless hours at Borderland State Park growing up.

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Still go back there, you know, just for you know,

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a walk or or whatever. And the architecture hard to

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be A J. Richardson is amazing, you know, the Oaksange's

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Hall and the library. If you've never been to the

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library in Easton, it's it's worth a visit because it's beautiful, stunning.

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And Oliver Ames is the guy, right.

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All yeah, Oliver Aimes.

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He sold a lot of shovels during the early Wars

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and I think it was what World War two is

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where he made all of his fortunes and uh, therefore

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shovel Town. And yeah, the Borderland State Park has that's

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that was his home, his his estate and they still

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have a big house. A really neat thing they do

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every year at this estate. At least I think they

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still do it. They did it for a long, long

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long time, really neat old Stone Mansion. And on Halloween

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you can go in and they do like a candlelight

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reading of Edgar Allan Poe and it's it's really great.

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That's cool. We'll have to try that, all right.

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What were your early interests and I want you to

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00:12:17.799 --> 00:12:19.840
combine that with rocket science?

229
00:12:22.200 --> 00:12:28.360
Well, my early interests, I uh, you know, I have

230
00:12:28.440 --> 00:12:33.480
to admit that this this stems from, you know, a

231
00:12:33.519 --> 00:12:40.080
really intellectual place. But I grew up watching Tom Cruise

232
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fly around in fighter jets, and so I desperately wanted

233
00:12:45.600 --> 00:12:46.720
to be a top gun.

234
00:12:46.679 --> 00:12:49.120
In high school. That was that was my deal.

235
00:12:49.399 --> 00:12:55.000
And so, uh here's the interesting thing. Not a lot

236
00:12:55.039 --> 00:13:00.679
of people know, but I was not a great student

237
00:13:00.759 --> 00:13:05.840
in high school. I tended to want to have fun

238
00:13:05.919 --> 00:13:09.840
more than study. And uh the only reason that I

239
00:13:10.000 --> 00:13:14.639
ended up graduating high school was that I had two

240
00:13:14.679 --> 00:13:16.960
teachers who gave me d's.

241
00:13:18.240 --> 00:13:19.000
To pass me.

242
00:13:20.639 --> 00:13:22.559
Because they said they didn't want to put up with

243
00:13:22.600 --> 00:13:27.120
me again next year. And uh so I, uh my,

244
00:13:27.360 --> 00:13:33.000
my very humble beginnings were were actually Massasoia Community College.

245
00:13:33.960 --> 00:13:37.399
Uh and my you know, my dad, My dad would

246
00:13:37.399 --> 00:13:40.519
always like to say that I was the biggest turnaround.

247
00:13:40.720 --> 00:13:42.440
He said, since Lazarus.

248
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That's a high bark.

249
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Yeah right, So I you know, I I mature.

250
00:13:48.039 --> 00:13:52.320
I guess got my head on straight and you know,

251
00:13:53.600 --> 00:13:56.279
finished with with high honors and all of that. From

252
00:13:56.320 --> 00:14:01.159
Massasoya went on to Bridgewater. Really between because I was aviation.

253
00:14:01.279 --> 00:14:03.559
I was really between every brittle and Bridgewater.

254
00:14:03.879 --> 00:14:05.360
Okay, yeah, I wasn't quite.

255
00:14:05.159 --> 00:14:06.120
Ready to go away.

256
00:14:06.840 --> 00:14:11.720
Yet I was still maturing a bit, and at least

257
00:14:11.720 --> 00:14:13.240
I was smart enough to know that if I went

258
00:14:13.279 --> 00:14:18.000
away and away from you know, parents in church and

259
00:14:18.039 --> 00:14:20.480
all of that it, you know, I might.

260
00:14:20.360 --> 00:14:21.720
Have gone astray.

261
00:14:22.600 --> 00:14:26.639
So I stayed local, went to Bridgewater, did the aviation thing.

262
00:14:28.720 --> 00:14:31.559
And it was interesting because right around the time when

263
00:14:31.600 --> 00:14:34.320
I was going to be graduating, I knew that I

264
00:14:34.320 --> 00:14:36.879
couldn't be a top gun because I had talked to

265
00:14:36.919 --> 00:14:41.759
all of the military people and they had said, because

266
00:14:41.799 --> 00:14:50.559
of my past, my colorful past, let's say, and which

267
00:14:50.639 --> 00:14:54.759
potentially included some run ins with the law, that nobody

268
00:14:55.039 --> 00:14:57.360
was going to let me fly around in thirty million

269
00:14:57.399 --> 00:14:58.320
dollar airplanes.

270
00:15:00.039 --> 00:15:03.399
And so I figured, well, maybe I'll do you know,

271
00:15:03.519 --> 00:15:04.600
private aviation.

272
00:15:05.480 --> 00:15:10.960
And that was around the time when Bill Clinton was

273
00:15:11.000 --> 00:15:15.120
taking office and military cutbacks were happening. Getting flight seats,

274
00:15:15.360 --> 00:15:19.320
flight slots was getting harder and harder to get, and

275
00:15:19.399 --> 00:15:22.120
so I said, you know, I'm going to make a

276
00:15:22.120 --> 00:15:29.480
pivot here, and I went into aviation management instead. So,

277
00:15:30.519 --> 00:15:32.360
you know, I came out with all of the flight

278
00:15:32.440 --> 00:15:39.159
skills and all that, but a management degree, and my first.

279
00:15:40.399 --> 00:15:42.039
Little bit of a career.

280
00:15:42.519 --> 00:15:48.600
Was in airport management and I was in Midlando, Dexa, Odessa, Texas.

281
00:15:48.919 --> 00:15:53.240
And then I was up in one of my favorite

282
00:15:53.519 --> 00:15:57.240
places in the whole world, up in Lebanon, New Hampshire.

283
00:15:57.600 --> 00:16:01.639
Oh yeah, right over the highway, right, yeah, yeah.

284
00:16:02.120 --> 00:16:06.440
And it's just such a beautiful place up there. But

285
00:16:06.720 --> 00:16:09.080
it was it was between those two things that were

286
00:16:09.200 --> 00:16:11.039
you know, it was a fairly short lived career. I

287
00:16:11.080 --> 00:16:17.600
decided that aviation is a much better hobby than career.

288
00:16:19.000 --> 00:16:22.360
And so, you know, I called my dad. I said, hey,

289
00:16:22.759 --> 00:16:25.399
you know, Dad, I don't think this is really working out.

290
00:16:25.440 --> 00:16:29.000
Can I come home for a little while? And you know,

291
00:16:29.080 --> 00:16:33.279
thankfully said yeah, I mean, of course, you know, come

292
00:16:33.320 --> 00:16:35.960
on home for a little while. Yeah, And so, you know,

293
00:16:36.039 --> 00:16:39.519
we we we talked through some things about what directions

294
00:16:39.519 --> 00:16:40.720
I might want to take.

295
00:16:41.559 --> 00:16:45.399
And my dad was also an entrepreneur war so he

296
00:16:45.519 --> 00:16:47.200
had his own company.

297
00:16:47.240 --> 00:16:51.080
He started out working for IBM, and then he went

298
00:16:51.159 --> 00:16:56.080
on to the jet propulsion labs were there for a

299
00:16:56.080 --> 00:17:00.879
little bit, and then went out and started his own

300
00:17:01.120 --> 00:17:05.599
business that is at least related.

301
00:17:05.319 --> 00:17:06.559
To what I do in it.

302
00:17:07.759 --> 00:17:11.480
And you know, I was thinking about all the things

303
00:17:11.519 --> 00:17:15.079
that I did and loved, and really the technology is

304
00:17:15.119 --> 00:17:20.160
the thing that I always loved about aviation.

305
00:17:20.240 --> 00:17:22.279
I really loved all the technology around it.

306
00:17:23.039 --> 00:17:28.160
And it's where I learned that I had what turns

307
00:17:28.200 --> 00:17:32.720
out to be a fairly unique skill, which is I

308
00:17:32.720 --> 00:17:41.279
can easily understand technology and relate it to people in

309
00:17:41.319 --> 00:17:46.000
a way that humans can understand, not just technology people.

310
00:17:47.680 --> 00:17:50.680
And you know, that was, I guess natural to me,

311
00:17:51.319 --> 00:17:55.000
and I didn't understand that it was, you know, a

312
00:17:55.039 --> 00:18:01.480
really nice combination of skills. And so you know, uh,

313
00:18:01.880 --> 00:18:04.759
my dad had some contacts again networking. He had some

314
00:18:04.799 --> 00:18:09.519
contacts got me in touch with one of the managers

315
00:18:09.559 --> 00:18:13.960
at my very first corporate job with International Data Group.

316
00:18:14.359 --> 00:18:15.119
So I d G.

317
00:18:15.400 --> 00:18:16.559
They're the folks in.

318
00:18:16.559 --> 00:18:21.359
Framing him who do the for example, the Four Dummies books,

319
00:18:22.440 --> 00:18:24.839
and back in the day they did the Macworld show

320
00:18:25.279 --> 00:18:28.960
and the E three Expo, all of those. So I

321
00:18:29.039 --> 00:18:34.960
started my very first job in technology and it was

322
00:18:35.079 --> 00:18:35.880
very glamorous.

323
00:18:35.960 --> 00:18:42.960
I literally changed the paper feeders for the big accounting.

324
00:18:44.039 --> 00:18:47.200
You know, the big accounting paper feed printers that were

325
00:18:47.200 --> 00:18:53.640
going four seven, And I changed the back when backup

326
00:18:53.640 --> 00:18:58.000
tapes were like the Hollywood looking reel to reel tapes

327
00:18:58.039 --> 00:19:02.000
for a deck vax way back in the digital days,

328
00:19:04.160 --> 00:19:07.519
and then slowly started to work my way up, work

329
00:19:07.559 --> 00:19:10.359
my way up, work my way up until I got

330
00:19:10.440 --> 00:19:13.240
up to a you know, a pretty good level over

331
00:19:13.279 --> 00:19:20.160
seven years up in the corporate IT structure and loved IDG,

332
00:19:20.759 --> 00:19:26.039
loved all of the people, loved my job, felt like

333
00:19:26.640 --> 00:19:29.759
my soul was being sucked away slowly by.

334
00:19:30.079 --> 00:19:32.880
Okay, all right, pause on that. We're going to come

335
00:19:32.920 --> 00:19:34.440
back to that thought in a minute. We need to

336
00:19:34.440 --> 00:19:36.839
take our first commercial. We'll be back in one minute

337
00:19:36.839 --> 00:19:37.400
with Jeff Heather.

338
00:19:42.279 --> 00:19:46.240
You're listening to Winning Business Radio with Kevin Helene on

339
00:19:46.480 --> 00:19:50.480
W four CY Radio. That's W four cy dot com.

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363
00:21:15.000 --> 00:21:18.799
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364
00:21:18.920 --> 00:21:21.480
mind to help you succeed in business.

365
00:21:21.640 --> 00:21:32.599
Here once again is Kevin Helenett. We're back with Jeff Heather.

366
00:21:32.880 --> 00:21:36.119
He is your guy you can swear by and not at.

367
00:21:37.599 --> 00:21:42.880
Jeff tell us more about your soul being sucked. No,

368
00:21:43.039 --> 00:21:44.960
the situation at IDG, of course.

369
00:21:45.440 --> 00:21:50.680
Yeah, yeah, you know it was. It was really I

370
00:21:50.680 --> 00:21:51.359
don't know what it was.

371
00:21:51.400 --> 00:21:55.839
I think it was the mind numbing sameness of and

372
00:21:55.960 --> 00:21:59.599
all every day, regardless of how much I love the

373
00:21:59.640 --> 00:22:04.599
people in the place. You know, the same every Monday

374
00:22:04.640 --> 00:22:07.680
morning coming in and saying hello to the same people

375
00:22:07.759 --> 00:22:10.920
and talking about the football game the same way. And

376
00:22:11.559 --> 00:22:16.920
you know, just day after day after day it and

377
00:22:16.960 --> 00:22:20.599
I think it was, you know, the bureaucracy of big

378
00:22:20.640 --> 00:22:24.160
corporate life just it was so.

379
00:22:25.720 --> 00:22:31.039
You know, opposed to my nature. And eventually it just got.

380
00:22:30.920 --> 00:22:33.519
To the point where, you know, when one day I

381
00:22:33.559 --> 00:22:37.920
told my my wife we had my oldest I don't

382
00:22:37.960 --> 00:22:42.039
think was a year yet to round a year, I said,

383
00:22:42.400 --> 00:22:43.720
I think I'm going to quit my job.

384
00:22:45.599 --> 00:22:48.720
It was the news, yeah, and go start something on

385
00:22:48.720 --> 00:22:49.079
my own.

386
00:22:49.599 --> 00:22:53.480
Well, and you know, the amazing thing, and I will

387
00:22:53.599 --> 00:22:55.200
I still give her credit to this day. I'll give

388
00:22:55.200 --> 00:22:58.519
her credit to the day I die. She didn't flinch.

389
00:22:59.160 --> 00:23:01.720
She said, now's the time to do it.

390
00:23:01.759 --> 00:23:05.160
If you want to do it, that's great. Wow.

391
00:23:06.039 --> 00:23:10.319
And so you know I did and and took that,

392
00:23:11.079 --> 00:23:14.079
you know, with what you hear over and over again

393
00:23:14.119 --> 00:23:17.039
from people who have left corporate life to start something new.

394
00:23:17.680 --> 00:23:23.200
Took the big, big first year pay cut because I

395
00:23:23.279 --> 00:23:27.920
went from you know, reasonable income, steady paycheck to.

396
00:23:29.599 --> 00:23:29.960
Nothing.

397
00:23:30.799 --> 00:23:37.920
And it it really helped me appreciate.

398
00:23:38.599 --> 00:23:41.279
Rom and pride, noodles and hamburger helper a lot.

399
00:23:42.079 --> 00:23:42.200
Uh.

400
00:23:43.559 --> 00:23:45.359
We did. We did a lot of that for a year.

401
00:23:46.240 --> 00:23:49.319
But the nice thing is that there was a little

402
00:23:49.359 --> 00:23:53.440
bit of a soft landing because at the time I

403
00:23:53.599 --> 00:23:57.559
d G let all of the different publication run as

404
00:23:57.640 --> 00:24:00.200
what they call different business units and they can make

405
00:24:00.240 --> 00:24:04.599
their choices on you know, whatever, and so they didn't

406
00:24:04.640 --> 00:24:07.640
have centralized it either. The corporate it T was all

407
00:24:07.720 --> 00:24:10.440
to support the corporate functions of the accounting and you.

408
00:24:10.359 --> 00:24:10.880
Know, all of that.

409
00:24:13.119 --> 00:24:17.799
And so all of the people I had spent building relationships,

410
00:24:17.839 --> 00:24:19.839
It's almost like relationships matter, Kevin, I.

411
00:24:19.759 --> 00:24:23.880
Don't know, all right, all.

412
00:24:23.680 --> 00:24:25.559
The all the people that I had spent all that

413
00:24:25.640 --> 00:24:29.880
time building relationships with, said oh, well, we still want

414
00:24:29.960 --> 00:24:32.680
to deal with you for our I T. Can we

415
00:24:33.000 --> 00:24:35.920
hire you to be the I T for our business

416
00:24:36.000 --> 00:24:37.039
unit outstanding?

417
00:24:39.240 --> 00:24:40.160
And of course I.

418
00:24:40.119 --> 00:24:44.880
Said yes please, And so it was really nice because

419
00:24:44.880 --> 00:24:49.640
I had sort of an immediate client base that at

420
00:24:49.799 --> 00:24:53.960
least helped put foot on food on the table. So

421
00:24:54.240 --> 00:24:57.920
did that for you know, A couple of years brought

422
00:24:57.960 --> 00:25:00.440
on more and more of the business units started to

423
00:25:00.799 --> 00:25:03.039
take over a lot of the local I d G

424
00:25:03.240 --> 00:25:09.799
world for clients, and then you know, well and behold

425
00:25:09.799 --> 00:25:13.400
people would leave and then they'd say, Hey, I'm in a

426
00:25:13.559 --> 00:25:18.359
new place, would you be interested in talking to us.

427
00:25:18.279 --> 00:25:20.880
About doing it? T uh.

428
00:25:20.920 --> 00:25:25.440
And so we started to get some non IDG clients,

429
00:25:26.359 --> 00:25:31.079
and it got to the point where you know that

430
00:25:31.079 --> 00:25:38.480
that every starting entrepreneur hopes to be burden slash blessed with,

431
00:25:38.960 --> 00:25:42.680
which is that I was too busy. I had no

432
00:25:42.759 --> 00:25:45.359
time to sleep, I had no time to eat, I

433
00:25:45.400 --> 00:25:49.799
had no time to do anything but work. And so

434
00:25:50.599 --> 00:25:54.240
got to the point where I had to make you know,

435
00:25:54.640 --> 00:26:00.240
one of the scariest decisions of my life, which wasinging

436
00:26:00.279 --> 00:26:08.640
on help. Absolutely a terrifying proposition, because I mean I

437
00:26:09.359 --> 00:26:10.160
was an it guy.

438
00:26:10.200 --> 00:26:10.880
I was not.

439
00:26:11.039 --> 00:26:14.960
A manager, really, you know, I wasn't. I didn't think

440
00:26:15.000 --> 00:26:21.160
of myself as a business owner at the time, and

441
00:26:21.200 --> 00:26:25.920
so really, really, you know, I did some handbringing over

442
00:26:26.000 --> 00:26:30.359
that for what turns out a lot longer than I.

443
00:26:30.319 --> 00:26:34.319
Should have and probably a lesson than that, right.

444
00:26:34.559 --> 00:26:36.400
Yeah, absolutely, yeah.

445
00:26:36.799 --> 00:26:41.079
I tell every every entrepreneur now, you know, everybody who's

446
00:26:41.119 --> 00:26:44.079
starting out that is in that same cheese. I just

447
00:26:44.720 --> 00:26:47.519
I can't get everything done, but I just don't. I

448
00:26:47.559 --> 00:26:53.759
don't know if it's time to hire someone, and you know,

449
00:26:54.119 --> 00:26:57.759
it's that and when you fire somebody. I always tell

450
00:26:57.759 --> 00:27:00.680
people the time when it's right is when you first

451
00:27:01.039 --> 00:27:01.720
asked yourself.

452
00:27:01.799 --> 00:27:05.279
Is now the time that's good? That's good?

453
00:27:05.680 --> 00:27:08.279
Right? That That means yes, do it for both of

454
00:27:08.319 --> 00:27:09.319
those situations.

455
00:27:09.680 --> 00:27:11.920
So I'm guessing that hire was a technical person.

456
00:27:12.519 --> 00:27:16.279
It was yes, yep, technical person to help go out

457
00:27:16.319 --> 00:27:18.920
and you know, crawl under desks and plug things in

458
00:27:19.079 --> 00:27:26.000
and you know, fixed servers and so that went amazingly well.

459
00:27:27.599 --> 00:27:31.319
You know it was I you know, I guess I

460
00:27:31.319 --> 00:27:34.920
got lucky that I hired somebody great because I didn't

461
00:27:34.960 --> 00:27:38.920
know how to hire someone at that point in my career.

462
00:27:39.200 --> 00:27:41.880
And they turned to that he's still with us.

463
00:27:42.359 --> 00:27:45.799
Wow, Uh, he is our understanding. That is so unusual.

464
00:27:46.240 --> 00:27:53.000
He's our CFO now and he's amazing, absolutely amazing. And

465
00:27:54.160 --> 00:27:58.960
you know, because I stumbled upon this amazing hire, things

466
00:27:59.000 --> 00:28:04.680
went amazingly well. And soon after that we were able

467
00:28:04.680 --> 00:28:08.279
to hire again and then hire again, and before I

468
00:28:08.359 --> 00:28:13.160
knew it, I was at the point where I could actually.

469
00:28:12.720 --> 00:28:13.519
Take a vacation.

470
00:28:14.240 --> 00:28:15.160
Oh. I love that.

471
00:28:16.720 --> 00:28:19.279
It was amazing.

472
00:28:20.200 --> 00:28:23.039
I will never forget that first time I was able

473
00:28:23.079 --> 00:28:25.920
to go away, you know, with my own own business

474
00:28:26.920 --> 00:28:29.960
and know that the world wasn't going to end because

475
00:28:30.000 --> 00:28:30.720
I wasn't there.

476
00:28:32.480 --> 00:28:34.960
I saw my father not do that, and that's one

477
00:28:34.960 --> 00:28:37.319
of the decisions I made, was I don't now there

478
00:28:37.319 --> 00:28:40.960
have been seasons, right yeah, sure where I am right now,

479
00:28:41.000 --> 00:28:43.119
it will be a few month season of that. But

480
00:28:43.200 --> 00:28:45.480
we're still going to go away. I just gotta take

481
00:28:45.519 --> 00:28:47.400
some work with me. But I watched my father do that,

482
00:28:47.440 --> 00:28:51.480
and I said, nope, not doing that. Yeah, yeah, it's hard,

483
00:28:51.799 --> 00:28:52.559
hard than everybody.

484
00:28:53.640 --> 00:28:54.480
It is.

485
00:28:54.519 --> 00:28:57.880
It is, and I didn't know it at the time,

486
00:29:00.000 --> 00:29:03.640
but that was you know, I wasn't nearly mature enough.

487
00:29:03.640 --> 00:29:05.920
Not that I'm very mature now, but I wasn't nearly

488
00:29:05.960 --> 00:29:09.599
mature enough from a business perspective to understand. What that

489
00:29:09.920 --> 00:29:15.640
meant at the time was that I was slowly shifting

490
00:29:15.759 --> 00:29:21.160
away from being a lifestyle company and becoming more of

491
00:29:21.200 --> 00:29:25.559
a process oriented company that in fact, could at some

492
00:29:25.680 --> 00:29:34.599
point in time become sellable. And you know, I understand

493
00:29:34.799 --> 00:29:38.960
now that it's very important that I'm not the limiting

494
00:29:39.000 --> 00:29:43.240
factor to the company and I'm not the important component

495
00:29:43.319 --> 00:29:46.240
for a sale, not that I'm in the market at

496
00:29:46.240 --> 00:29:49.960
the moment, but my business partner and I, which is

497
00:29:50.640 --> 00:29:53.880
part of the journey my business partner and I both

498
00:29:53.920 --> 00:29:58.000
agree that we never wanted to have a lifestyle company.

499
00:29:58.119 --> 00:29:59.559
We want something.

500
00:29:59.640 --> 00:30:04.960
That should we ever choose to sell, it is going

501
00:30:05.000 --> 00:30:05.799
to be sellable.

502
00:30:06.920 --> 00:30:11.200
Therefore, and I'm going to get into this. The quote

503
00:30:11.240 --> 00:30:17.640
was you figured out your natural systems thinker, right, you

504
00:30:17.720 --> 00:30:20.480
think in terms of systems, which is critical for selling

505
00:30:20.519 --> 00:30:23.359
a business. I mean, I'm in the mode where it's

506
00:30:23.359 --> 00:30:26.319
probably a ten year run for this practice that I've

507
00:30:26.319 --> 00:30:28.720
had that I've been in, sorry for twenty five years.

508
00:30:28.759 --> 00:30:30.880
I just as you know, it just bought and I've

509
00:30:31.000 --> 00:30:33.200
probably got an eight to ten year run. I'm going

510
00:30:33.279 --> 00:30:35.200
to scale and it's not going to depend on me.

511
00:30:35.960 --> 00:30:37.759
I know, I'm the bottleneck. And that's why I said

512
00:30:37.759 --> 00:30:40.319
this next few months is there's a little little bottleneck

513
00:30:40.359 --> 00:30:40.839
at the moment.

514
00:30:40.880 --> 00:30:43.160
But that's fine. That's what it has to be. Yeah,

515
00:30:43.200 --> 00:30:44.160
So tell us what it.

516
00:30:44.240 --> 00:30:48.319
Means to be a systems thinker and how that happened.

517
00:30:48.319 --> 00:30:49.039
Maybe you don't even know.

518
00:30:50.559 --> 00:30:58.920
Yeah, I think you know it. I think thankfully I

519
00:30:59.079 --> 00:31:03.240
was blessed with a little bit of it being inherent

520
00:31:03.799 --> 00:31:09.400
and just who I am. And you know there's I

521
00:31:09.480 --> 00:31:14.039
still to this day we come across countless other IT companies,

522
00:31:14.480 --> 00:31:19.720
especially you know one man shops who are just freelancing,

523
00:31:21.319 --> 00:31:24.119
and maybe that's a good way to frame it, to

524
00:31:24.319 --> 00:31:27.759
just oppose it is. We get these freelancers that we

525
00:31:27.880 --> 00:31:30.079
run into every once in a while, and it usually

526
00:31:30.160 --> 00:31:33.319
is because somebody calls us and says, we think we've

527
00:31:33.359 --> 00:31:36.160
both grown our I T and we want to look

528
00:31:36.160 --> 00:31:39.720
at something professional. It's almost always one of these freelancers

529
00:31:40.359 --> 00:31:45.920
who when somebody needs something, they just put something in place.

530
00:31:46.599 --> 00:31:49.400
When somebody needs a new computer, they look on you

531
00:31:49.440 --> 00:31:52.279
know whatever best Buy to see what's on saying right,

532
00:31:52.359 --> 00:31:55.279
and they will get that if they need a component

533
00:31:55.319 --> 00:31:58.160
here or they need a component there, they just plug

534
00:31:58.160 --> 00:32:06.359
holes and things run until they don't. And the way

535
00:32:06.400 --> 00:32:12.160
that we approach things now and sort of that system oriented,

536
00:32:12.400 --> 00:32:18.880
process oriented mindset, is there is no just hole plugging.

537
00:32:19.680 --> 00:32:25.720
Everything is part of a whole. So when you need

538
00:32:25.720 --> 00:32:27.599
a new computer, you don't go when you look at

539
00:32:27.640 --> 00:32:30.160
best Buy to see what the latest thing is on

540
00:32:30.200 --> 00:32:34.160
sale and end up with eighty seven different makes and

541
00:32:34.240 --> 00:32:38.400
models of things that then become impossible to support. You

542
00:32:38.440 --> 00:32:43.359
want everything to be vanilla. That is our goal with

543
00:32:43.519 --> 00:32:49.279
all of our clients is to have their IT as dead,

544
00:32:49.519 --> 00:32:50.960
boring as possible.

545
00:32:51.240 --> 00:32:53.119
As you said, keep it out of the way.

546
00:32:53.400 --> 00:32:54.200
Keep it out of the way.

547
00:32:54.240 --> 00:32:57.640
I always say we should be like your It should

548
00:32:57.640 --> 00:32:59.079
be like an NFL official.

549
00:32:59.599 --> 00:33:03.559
If you don't know we're there, we're doing our jobs.

550
00:33:03.960 --> 00:33:05.359
Things are running smooth.

551
00:33:06.799 --> 00:33:08.279
How come we didn't say w NBA.

552
00:33:11.079 --> 00:33:14.519
There's a lot of good memes going around doing right.

553
00:33:14.559 --> 00:33:19.000
I think you can do the point Caitlin Clark getting

554
00:33:19.000 --> 00:33:23.359
beat up every night. I know. Sorry, sorry, left turn,

555
00:33:23.559 --> 00:33:26.200
left turn. No, I know what you mean though. Yeah,

556
00:33:26.319 --> 00:33:28.079
it should stay out of the way. It should be vanilla.

557
00:33:28.119 --> 00:33:29.559
I love the word vanilla for that person.

558
00:33:29.839 --> 00:33:31.160
Yeah, vanilla and boring.

559
00:33:31.440 --> 00:33:34.359
And you know, we tell all of our clients what

560
00:33:34.400 --> 00:33:39.359
we want you to have is something that should you

561
00:33:39.480 --> 00:33:42.799
decide that, for whatever reason, you don't want to partner

562
00:33:42.880 --> 00:33:45.480
with us anymore, or we decide, you know, we don't

563
00:33:45.480 --> 00:33:50.200
want to partner with you anymore. Any other professional it

564
00:33:50.559 --> 00:33:53.160
firm off the street can step in and say, yep,

565
00:33:53.319 --> 00:33:56.640
see it all, I know exactly what's going on. Let's

566
00:33:56.680 --> 00:34:01.480
do this, because you know, if it's so complex that

567
00:34:01.559 --> 00:34:06.960
another firm would come in and say, I don't have

568
00:34:07.000 --> 00:34:08.280
any idea what these people did.

569
00:34:08.400 --> 00:34:13.119
This is this is crazy. Then it's it's not right.

570
00:34:14.199 --> 00:34:17.840
It needs to be as you know, as dead simple

571
00:34:17.880 --> 00:34:21.239
as possible, totally process oriented. You know you have a

572
00:34:21.280 --> 00:34:26.039
new client or a new employee, You send us the request,

573
00:34:26.119 --> 00:34:29.239
We have the forms we need to know. You know

574
00:34:29.320 --> 00:34:31.920
all of their important information, what they're going to be doing,

575
00:34:31.960 --> 00:34:34.320
you know their role, the start date, all of these things.

576
00:34:34.440 --> 00:34:35.719
It starts the process.

577
00:34:36.360 --> 00:34:41.199
We know we're purchasing exactly this model of system. We

578
00:34:41.280 --> 00:34:44.079
don't care if the price fluctuates month to month, because

579
00:34:44.719 --> 00:34:47.079
you shouldn't care about that as a business owner, whether

580
00:34:47.079 --> 00:34:49.639
it's three hundred dollars more or two hundred dollars less

581
00:34:49.679 --> 00:34:52.760
on this any given month. What you care about is

582
00:34:52.800 --> 00:34:57.159
that you are equipping your employees to have an absolutely

583
00:34:57.559 --> 00:35:02.400
flawless environment where where everyone knows that it's going to work,

584
00:35:03.280 --> 00:35:07.320
because that you know, two hundred dollars savings getting a

585
00:35:07.719 --> 00:35:10.440
deal at best Buy is going to go away in

586
00:35:10.480 --> 00:35:14.559
the first fifteen minutes that you lose in billable hours

587
00:35:15.159 --> 00:35:18.480
because your person's not working, because your computer's not working.

588
00:35:18.880 --> 00:35:21.519
So we buy licenses. We know we're going to do this.

589
00:35:21.599 --> 00:35:23.880
We know that the onboarding is going to happen this way,

590
00:35:24.599 --> 00:35:29.719
and even more importantly. Using that example, when an employee leaves,

591
00:35:30.079 --> 00:35:37.400
the offboarding happens according to a very precise workflow, because

592
00:35:37.960 --> 00:35:41.199
the worst thing, I mean, it would make us go

593
00:35:41.239 --> 00:35:46.199
away very quickly, like end your business. If we'd missed

594
00:35:46.239 --> 00:35:49.840
something and we didn't turn something off and then it

595
00:35:49.920 --> 00:35:55.639
led to a bad thing happening, we would rightfully get

596
00:35:55.639 --> 00:35:58.760
in big trouble for that. So it's I mean, it's

597
00:35:58.760 --> 00:36:02.519
those little things. It doesn't have to be you know,

598
00:36:02.639 --> 00:36:06.920
really exciting workflows and processes. You know, something is mundane

599
00:36:07.039 --> 00:36:10.559
is user onboard and off board is a great example

600
00:36:10.599 --> 00:36:14.679
of something so vanilla but so important that it needs

601
00:36:14.679 --> 00:36:15.440
to be done right.

602
00:36:16.320 --> 00:36:18.199
And that's why the system marks. All right, let's pause

603
00:36:18.239 --> 00:36:20.400
on that. We're going to take our second commercial. We

604
00:36:20.480 --> 00:36:23.880
will be back in another minute.

605
00:36:26.400 --> 00:36:30.360
You're listening to Winning Business Radio with Kevin Helene on

606
00:36:30.599 --> 00:36:34.719
W four cy Radio. That's W four cy dot com.

607
00:36:34.760 --> 00:36:37.400
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633
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And Now back to Winning Business Radio with Kevin Helenan

634
00:37:58.960 --> 00:38:02.800
presenting exciting topics and expert guests with one goal in

635
00:38:02.920 --> 00:38:06.400
mind to help you succeed in business. Here once again

636
00:38:06.719 --> 00:38:08.239
is Kevin Helenett.

637
00:38:15.440 --> 00:38:18.880
We are back with Jeff Heather, founder and principle of

638
00:38:19.039 --> 00:38:23.239
north light It. Jeff, you mentioned, and you know, I'm aware,

639
00:38:23.280 --> 00:38:25.880
but you mentioned that you like to work with smaller

640
00:38:25.960 --> 00:38:28.880
law firms and professional services firms. What was behind the

641
00:38:28.920 --> 00:38:31.800
decision to smoke to focus to smoke? What were you

642
00:38:31.840 --> 00:38:35.400
smoking to focus on smaller firms?

643
00:38:35.480 --> 00:38:38.760
Sorry about that, it's been a long time, Kevin about

644
00:38:38.800 --> 00:38:39.119
the US.

645
00:38:41.840 --> 00:38:46.679
Yeah, well really, what made us focus on the small

646
00:38:46.760 --> 00:38:47.960
law firms is.

647
00:38:50.039 --> 00:38:53.760
My you know, I personally and my business partner.

648
00:38:54.079 --> 00:38:58.559
You know, we've spent most of our adult lives building

649
00:38:59.199 --> 00:39:03.039
and running a small firm.

650
00:39:03.760 --> 00:39:04.719
We hear it all the time.

651
00:39:05.199 --> 00:39:07.760
These it firms that will say hell, yeah, we're gonna

652
00:39:07.800 --> 00:39:11.760
we can support anybody from five to five thousand. Those

653
00:39:11.800 --> 00:39:16.079
are very different animals, very very different. You know, if

654
00:39:16.119 --> 00:39:19.280
somebody is a shop that's going to support five hundred

655
00:39:19.400 --> 00:39:22.440
or five thousand employees, they're not going to be terribly

656
00:39:22.480 --> 00:39:24.679
interested in the amount of money they're getting from you

657
00:39:24.760 --> 00:39:29.679
to support five. So I always find that, I mean,

658
00:39:29.679 --> 00:39:31.559
there are some great shops out there, don't get me wrong,

659
00:39:31.559 --> 00:39:33.159
but I always find that to be such a weird

660
00:39:33.159 --> 00:39:37.840
thing to say we support the small because we you know,

661
00:39:37.880 --> 00:39:41.599
we understand it. We we get being a small firm.

662
00:39:41.639 --> 00:39:46.920
We understand the limitations, the challenges, the opportunities, great opportunities.

663
00:39:48.679 --> 00:39:53.119
You know, we we can shift very quickly and over

664
00:39:53.159 --> 00:39:57.239
and over and over again. Throughout my career, I've seen

665
00:39:57.920 --> 00:40:03.280
these small firms, the that just can't get the help

666
00:40:03.320 --> 00:40:08.519
they need. They need the help. You know, a CPA

667
00:40:08.639 --> 00:40:11.199
firm or a law firm is a CPA firm or

668
00:40:11.239 --> 00:40:15.639
a law firm. The information is just as confidential whether

669
00:40:15.840 --> 00:40:20.079
you have five employees or you have five hundred. But

670
00:40:21.000 --> 00:40:24.800
with these smaller firms, because you know, everybody's looking for

671
00:40:24.800 --> 00:40:25.960
the big whale clients.

672
00:40:26.239 --> 00:40:27.199
They want those.

673
00:40:27.159 --> 00:40:33.239
Those big, big recurring numbers. Nobody ever really wanted to

674
00:40:33.239 --> 00:40:37.199
touch them. But that's those are the people that I

675
00:40:37.320 --> 00:40:39.679
resonate with. I love, I mean, that's my you know

676
00:40:39.760 --> 00:40:41.480
why I get out of bed in the morning is

677
00:40:41.519 --> 00:40:46.800
because I'm excited to work with other firm owners like

678
00:40:47.000 --> 00:40:52.800
myself that you know, just from a business to business perspective,

679
00:40:52.880 --> 00:40:55.960
I actually don't really care that much anymore at this

680
00:40:56.039 --> 00:40:57.920
point in my career about technology.

681
00:40:58.679 --> 00:41:02.199
You know, technology doesn't the excite me. Business excites me.

682
00:41:02.800 --> 00:41:07.239
And helping other business owners, other firm owners be successful

683
00:41:07.440 --> 00:41:12.599
excites me. It's just that I have a particular expertise

684
00:41:13.079 --> 00:41:17.199
in technology that I can help apply to them, and

685
00:41:17.280 --> 00:41:21.679
so working with them is you know, we always say

686
00:41:21.800 --> 00:41:24.079
we don't want to. We're really friendly and we play

687
00:41:24.119 --> 00:41:26.679
well with others, but we don't want to We don't

688
00:41:26.719 --> 00:41:28.840
want to work with your I T people. We want

689
00:41:28.840 --> 00:41:32.760
to be your I T people because a huge part

690
00:41:32.800 --> 00:41:37.719
of the value that I think we bring is the

691
00:41:37.760 --> 00:41:43.199
ability to talk firm owner to firm owner about business

692
00:41:43.480 --> 00:41:46.760
in a way that we actually understand what we're both

693
00:41:46.800 --> 00:41:49.360
talking about. You know, I talk to our clients and

694
00:41:49.400 --> 00:41:52.519
other firm owners all the time about non technology things

695
00:41:52.559 --> 00:41:56.960
like how is EOS implementation going for you right? And

696
00:41:57.079 --> 00:42:02.079
you know, all these different things that only owner would understand.

697
00:42:03.960 --> 00:42:09.239
And because we understand from that perspective, it.

698
00:42:09.320 --> 00:42:11.000
Gives us the ability to.

699
00:42:12.679 --> 00:42:17.039
Much more successfully sort of apply the solutions to them

700
00:42:17.719 --> 00:42:22.480
that are right, because the solutions themselves for a five

701
00:42:22.519 --> 00:42:26.480
thousand person firm are different than a five person firm,

702
00:42:27.280 --> 00:42:28.920
and you need to understand the difference.

703
00:42:29.480 --> 00:42:32.079
You mentioned the messy high stakes part. What does that

704
00:42:32.119 --> 00:42:35.480
look like. What's messy high stakes part of running a firm?

705
00:42:36.239 --> 00:42:39.039
Yeah, well, it's.

706
00:42:38.639 --> 00:42:39.840
Running a firm's technology.

707
00:42:39.880 --> 00:42:43.000
Sorry, well yeah, I mean well, running a firm in

708
00:42:43.039 --> 00:42:47.800
general is messy, and you know, from a firm owner perspective,

709
00:42:48.519 --> 00:42:51.519
every day is high stakes because you know, this is

710
00:42:51.559 --> 00:42:53.840
your this is your life, this is your abe, you know,

711
00:42:56.119 --> 00:43:02.559
and especially it's it's only getting worse from the high

712
00:43:02.639 --> 00:43:08.079
stakes perspective when you start thinking about all of the

713
00:43:08.119 --> 00:43:12.199
cybersecurity things. You know, it's it's one of the areas

714
00:43:12.239 --> 00:43:14.360
that I both love and hate to talk about because

715
00:43:14.400 --> 00:43:17.280
they never want to scare anybody into doing anything. But

716
00:43:17.320 --> 00:43:19.639
at the same time, some people need to be scared

717
00:43:19.639 --> 00:43:24.280
into doing some things because just not seeing it. And

718
00:43:25.360 --> 00:43:29.519
you know, these days, one person doing one wrong thing

719
00:43:30.239 --> 00:43:34.519
one time can mean the end of your business that

720
00:43:34.599 --> 00:43:39.400
you have spent you know, your life building. And so

721
00:43:39.599 --> 00:43:43.239
there's really high stakes when it comes to that kind

722
00:43:43.280 --> 00:43:43.719
of a thing.

723
00:43:45.480 --> 00:43:47.960
But you know, just in general, you layer that on

724
00:43:48.000 --> 00:43:50.760
top of just I mean, you know, Kevin, what it's like.

725
00:43:51.000 --> 00:43:55.679
You own a small business and you know every day,

726
00:43:55.920 --> 00:43:57.920
every day you're fighting for that thing to get a

727
00:43:57.920 --> 00:44:02.800
little bit better, and you know, you know that there

728
00:44:02.920 --> 00:44:06.559
are all these messes out there. You know, we're we're

729
00:44:06.599 --> 00:44:08.199
stepping around hr.

730
00:44:08.119 --> 00:44:14.360
Issues and it issues, and you know, all sorts of

731
00:44:14.360 --> 00:44:18.239
things that that we understand, and you know we we,

732
00:44:18.440 --> 00:44:23.239
at least from the I T perspective, we want to

733
00:44:23.320 --> 00:44:28.039
make that part of your life not messy.

734
00:44:29.039 --> 00:44:33.039
And as you said, boring and vanilla, boring and vanilla.

735
00:44:33.360 --> 00:44:37.119
If you you it's not because of your technology.

736
00:44:37.599 --> 00:44:38.119
I love that.

737
00:44:38.559 --> 00:44:42.199
Are you doing much with AI yourself? Are and are

738
00:44:42.239 --> 00:44:45.280
you helping clients use AI?

739
00:44:48.039 --> 00:44:51.960
Yes? Yes, and yes, using AI a lot.

740
00:44:53.840 --> 00:45:02.440
It's very much a part of my every day.

741
00:45:00.079 --> 00:45:02.480
Some examples other I mean we all do research, right

742
00:45:02.639 --> 00:45:05.280
maybe sure, yeah, yeah.

743
00:45:05.239 --> 00:45:08.320
Some research some things like that I do.

744
00:45:08.599 --> 00:45:12.000
I you know, I personally use it because my role

745
00:45:13.440 --> 00:45:19.360
is not technical anymore. My role is business development, and

746
00:45:19.480 --> 00:45:22.239
so I use the technology to do all sorts of

747
00:45:22.280 --> 00:45:22.840
things like.

748
00:45:24.079 --> 00:45:24.960
Take my meeting notes.

749
00:45:25.000 --> 00:45:27.880
So everybody's got a meeting note taker these days, we

750
00:45:28.000 --> 00:45:30.519
use a meeting note taker that's super high security and

751
00:45:30.559 --> 00:45:31.559
that's why we use it.

752
00:45:32.119 --> 00:45:36.119
Uh. And we are standardized on.

753
00:45:36.159 --> 00:45:40.280
Claude necessarily because it's the best, because they all have

754
00:45:40.719 --> 00:45:42.079
their place, UH.

755
00:45:42.480 --> 00:45:45.320
And I have Claude do things.

756
00:45:45.079 --> 00:45:47.159
That I don't like to do that are very boring

757
00:45:47.199 --> 00:45:49.639
for me, which means they don't usually get done or

758
00:45:49.719 --> 00:45:52.840
they get done poorly. So to take my meeting notes,

759
00:45:53.440 --> 00:45:58.679
import them into my CRM, you know, update the CRM notes,

760
00:45:59.760 --> 00:46:01.880
help me formulate.

761
00:46:01.440 --> 00:46:05.400
Next steps, keep track of next steps. Hey what you know?

762
00:46:05.880 --> 00:46:09.280
Hey, you're a week late on a follow up email

763
00:46:09.360 --> 00:46:16.719
to this person running weekly reports for me to look at,

764
00:46:16.800 --> 00:46:19.360
for my business partner to look at, for the operations

765
00:46:19.400 --> 00:46:21.440
team to look at, so they can see what new

766
00:46:21.519 --> 00:46:24.480
potential onboardings are on the horizon.

767
00:46:26.159 --> 00:46:28.079
I hate doing those things.

768
00:46:28.320 --> 00:46:33.400
And that is a very appropriate use to me of

769
00:46:33.679 --> 00:46:40.800
AI is taking the mundane things that you don't require

770
00:46:41.599 --> 00:46:43.960
any kind of human thinking to do.

771
00:46:44.119 --> 00:46:47.280
They're just busy work and making those better.

772
00:46:49.119 --> 00:46:51.320
And are you helping clients do the same.

773
00:46:51.760 --> 00:46:57.599
Yeah, we are a real majority of what we're doing

774
00:46:57.679 --> 00:47:02.840
right now with clients is still talking to them about

775
00:47:02.840 --> 00:47:05.760
the security ramifications of AI.

776
00:47:06.559 --> 00:47:09.920
Say, I mean you hear all the time. AI never sleeps, right, So.

777
00:47:10.159 --> 00:47:11.400
Yeah, it never sleeps.

778
00:47:11.440 --> 00:47:14.039
And for example, you know, when when cloud Cowork came out,

779
00:47:14.719 --> 00:47:16.519
all of our clients were saying, hey, can we you know,

780
00:47:16.840 --> 00:47:19.320
can we just was the thing we kept hearing, Can

781
00:47:19.360 --> 00:47:20.559
we just turn that on?

782
00:47:21.519 --> 00:47:22.239
Uh?

783
00:47:22.280 --> 00:47:25.800
And so we would have to point out that doesn't

784
00:47:25.840 --> 00:47:27.599
mean what you think it means, you know, if you

785
00:47:27.719 --> 00:47:30.679
look through, look look through, look through all the notes

786
00:47:30.960 --> 00:47:33.800
of what cloud cowork is telling you. If you enable this,

787
00:47:33.880 --> 00:47:38.280
you're giving it administrative privilege to all of your data.

788
00:47:38.400 --> 00:47:41.760
It needs that in order to do it do its thing.

789
00:47:41.920 --> 00:47:43.760
You know, it needs to see everything to do what

790
00:47:43.800 --> 00:47:48.960
it's doing. You know, are you accounting for the fact

791
00:47:48.960 --> 00:47:52.760
that you have just released this thing in your environment

792
00:47:53.119 --> 00:47:56.880
that can run autonomously or from somebody's phone. They can

793
00:47:57.159 --> 00:48:01.119
set things to run on your office systems or in

794
00:48:01.159 --> 00:48:05.239
the cloud overnight while you're all sleeping. Do you want

795
00:48:05.320 --> 00:48:08.719
this beast churning through all of your client information and

796
00:48:08.800 --> 00:48:15.159
your information without somebody watching it and even taking a

797
00:48:15.199 --> 00:48:17.760
step back something like a copilot, You know, if we're

798
00:48:17.760 --> 00:48:21.280
going to deplay copilot, you know which we are helping

799
00:48:21.320 --> 00:48:26.880
people do internally, so within your guardrails, you're not really

800
00:48:26.920 --> 00:48:32.800
all that worried about getting out. But what happens when

801
00:48:32.920 --> 00:48:36.280
somebody goes into copilot and says, hey, what are all

802
00:48:36.280 --> 00:48:40.840
the firm principles earning every year? What is my coworker

803
00:48:40.960 --> 00:48:44.280
earning every year? Can I see all of the HR

804
00:48:45.039 --> 00:48:49.079
reviews for all of my coworkers? If that stuff is

805
00:48:49.159 --> 00:48:54.440
not all secured internally properly. AI is going to do

806
00:48:54.480 --> 00:48:57.599
its job and find every gosh darn thing that it

807
00:48:57.639 --> 00:48:58.599
can find in reports.

808
00:48:58.679 --> 00:49:02.039
So that goes to again, it goes systems and processes

809
00:49:02.119 --> 00:49:04.079
and thinking through all that up front.

810
00:49:04.159 --> 00:49:05.320
Right, you have to.

811
00:49:05.280 --> 00:49:10.679
Do all of the important base work before you open

812
00:49:10.719 --> 00:49:11.960
that Pandora's box.

813
00:49:12.039 --> 00:49:12.320
And so.

814
00:49:13.960 --> 00:49:17.119
It's it's almost frustrating, but it's good.

815
00:49:17.320 --> 00:49:20.039
It's also good because I know that people aren't seeing it,

816
00:49:20.119 --> 00:49:22.599
and so yeah, it makes me feel good that I'm

817
00:49:22.639 --> 00:49:26.760
helping them see it. That you know, nobody wants to

818
00:49:26.880 --> 00:49:29.880
understand the foundation.

819
00:49:31.199 --> 00:49:33.440
Before you know, buying.

820
00:49:33.199 --> 00:49:36.760
The shiny toy, and we're helping people see the foundation

821
00:49:36.920 --> 00:49:39.880
and put the proper foundation in place so that the

822
00:49:39.920 --> 00:49:44.320
shiny toy isn't a shiny toy, it's an actual dull

823
00:49:44.719 --> 00:49:48.519
vanilla productivity tool to help you move forward.

824
00:49:48.800 --> 00:49:51.079
All right, last question, we are out of time, unbelievably.

825
00:49:52.199 --> 00:49:56.039
Who in the listening audiences and viewing audiences should reach

826
00:49:56.039 --> 00:49:56.840
out to you and why?

827
00:49:58.880 --> 00:50:04.639
Well, the folks that we really most enjoy.

828
00:50:04.400 --> 00:50:08.280
Are law firms and professional services firms with fewer than

829
00:50:08.320 --> 00:50:13.599
thirty employees. We do have clients that are outside of that.

830
00:50:13.760 --> 00:50:18.119
Those are the people. If you find yourself there the

831
00:50:18.159 --> 00:50:21.559
people we hear from most. And if anybody in the audience,

832
00:50:21.559 --> 00:50:24.199
if this resonates with you, please feel free to reach out.

833
00:50:25.039 --> 00:50:28.920
Anybody who has a guy that they think they've all grown,

834
00:50:29.960 --> 00:50:31.960
please feel free to give us a call. We find

835
00:50:32.119 --> 00:50:36.360
we have found without fail, if you have a guy

836
00:50:36.679 --> 00:50:41.519
that you've worked with for a decade plus, you probably have.

837
00:50:41.599 --> 00:50:45.199
Most things not right in your environment.

838
00:50:47.639 --> 00:50:51.039
If there's a huge consolidation going in the IT world,

839
00:50:51.760 --> 00:50:55.519
if you have a provider that's loved for years and

840
00:50:55.599 --> 00:50:57.840
they just got bought and you don't love them anymore,

841
00:50:58.840 --> 00:50:59.880
you can give us a call.

842
00:51:00.360 --> 00:51:02.400
You're starting a new firm.

843
00:51:01.880 --> 00:51:04.840
So here's the number. Seven eight one, listen carefully. Seven

844
00:51:04.880 --> 00:51:09.400
eight one two nine seven seven five nine zero. It's

845
00:51:09.559 --> 00:51:14.360
Jeff at north light dot com. It's that simple, uh,

846
00:51:14.559 --> 00:51:17.920
Jeff at northlight dot com. You can visit his website

847
00:51:17.920 --> 00:51:20.159
phone number on more time. Seven eight one two nine

848
00:51:20.280 --> 00:51:24.199
seven seven five nine zero. Jeff, Thank you very much.

849
00:51:24.239 --> 00:51:24.920
This has been fun.

850
00:51:25.480 --> 00:51:28.039
Thank you for having me Kevin. I'd really really enjoyed it.

851
00:51:28.360 --> 00:51:28.840
You got it.

852
00:51:28.920 --> 00:51:31.280
I will see you soon, and thanks everybody for watching

853
00:51:31.400 --> 00:51:34.559
and listening. As you know, this is a show about business,

854
00:51:34.599 --> 00:51:37.639
both successes and challenges. If you've got concerns about the

855
00:51:37.679 --> 00:51:40.719
sales effectiveness of your company, whether your sales team is you,

856
00:51:41.000 --> 00:51:43.880
or it's small, or it's large, and you're in Massachusetts,

857
00:51:44.039 --> 00:51:46.400
or you were referred by one of our clients, and

858
00:51:46.440 --> 00:51:49.239
you'd like to learn more about implementing Sandler in your business,

859
00:51:49.920 --> 00:51:54.280
contact me at go dot Sandler dot com, slash KJH

860
00:51:54.400 --> 00:51:57.280
or you can email me Kevin dot Hallanan at Sandler

861
00:51:57.320 --> 00:52:00.880
dot com. Otherwise, please visit a Sandlord. Please visit Sandler

862
00:52:00.920 --> 00:52:03.199
dot com to find a Sandler Training center that serves

863
00:52:03.320 --> 00:52:06.400
your area. At Sandler Training, we developed sales teams into

864
00:52:06.480 --> 00:52:10.599
high achievers and sales leaders into true coaches and mentors.

865
00:52:10.639 --> 00:52:13.159
We're not right for everybody, but maybe we should have

866
00:52:13.159 --> 00:52:16.679
a conversation. Thank you always to producer and engineer Onan.

867
00:52:16.800 --> 00:52:19.360
Thanks Wan. Be sure to join us next week Monday,

868
00:52:19.440 --> 00:52:22.360
July sixth. I'll have another great conversation. Until then, this

869
00:52:22.440 --> 00:52:23.199
is Kevin Haleanan.

870
00:52:25.400 --> 00:52:28.199
You've been listening to Winning Business Radio with your host,

871
00:52:28.280 --> 00:52:31.400
Kevin Helena. If you missed any part of this episode,

872
00:52:31.480 --> 00:52:35.639
The podcast is available on top for podcasting and iHeartRadio

873
00:52:36.079 --> 00:52:39.800
for more information, and questions go to Winning Business Radio

874
00:52:39.920 --> 00:52:42.960
dot com or check us out on social media. Tune

875
00:52:43.000 --> 00:52:45.039
in again next week and every Monday at four pm

876
00:52:45.079 --> 00:52:48.599
Eastern Time to listen live to Winning Business Radio on

877
00:52:48.880 --> 00:52:52.480
W four CY Radio w four cy dot com.

878
00:52:52.599 --> 00:52:54.559
Until then, let's succeed.

879
00:52:54.280 --> 00:52:57.920
Where others have failed and win in business with Kevin

880
00:52:57.920 --> 00:53:00.000
Helenan and Winning Business Radio.

881
00:53:00.079 --> 00:53:02.639
Yeah