Nov. 10, 2025

Martin Lachance, Founder and CEO of Citara Systems

Martin Lachance, Founder and CEO of Citara Systems
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Martin Lachance is the founder and CEO of Citara Systems, a Massachusetts IT services firm keeping businesses fast, secure, and frustration-free since 2001. With 20+ years in the industry, he’s driven a 97% client retention rate by cutting IT issues and delivering rapid support.
Born in Canada and raised in the US, Martin earned accounting and finance degrees from Northeastern, worked at Delphi Internet in the early online era, and later led engineering at Toast before launching Citara.

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The topics and opinions expressed in the following show are

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W FOURCY Radio.

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Churchill said, those who fail to learn from history are

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condemned to repeat it. Kevin helen n believes that certainly

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applies to business. Welcome to Winning Business Radio here at

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

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and now your host, Kevin helen Er.

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Happy Monday, everybody. Thanks for joining in again today. I

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am Kevin Hallan Ann and welcome back to Winning Business

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TV and Radio on W four c Y dot com.

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We're streaming live on talk for TV the number four

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talkfortv dot com, and of course we're in We're live

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on Facebook at Winning Business Radio as well as we're

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available after the live show on many platforms. Pretty much

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wherever get your wherever excuse me, you get your podcast content.

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That's YouTube by Heart, Radio, Spotify, Apple, et cetera, et cetera.

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The mission of this show, Winning Business radio and TV,

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as regular viewers and listeners know, is to offer insights

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and advice to help people avoid the mistakes of others,

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right to learn best practices. Those are the how tos,

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the what tos, the what not tos, and to be

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challenged and hopefully to be inspired by the successes of others.

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Who are those others. They're consultants, coaches, advisors, authors, founders

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and owners, entrepreneurs, people with expertise. But you know, virtually

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every successful person I've ever had a chance to talk

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to has had some form of failure in their lives

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and careers. So while we all have to get our

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nies skinned once in a while, I like to say

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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, and that's from solopreneurs to me small and

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medium sized businesses all the way up to the fortune fifty.

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I've seen some of those companies win, a lot of

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them actually into varying degrees. I've seen some fail I've

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had the opportunity to rub elbows with some of the

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highest performing people around and with some who probably should

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have found other professions and my own businesses. Over the years,

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I've had lots of success, but some failures too. I

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like to think I've learned a lot from those experiences. So, yeah,

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you're going to hear from me, but mostly I want

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you to hear from our guests, those experts, consultants, coaches, advisors, authors,

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founders and owners and entrepreneurs. And today is no exception.

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Today my guest is Martin le Chance. He's founder and

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CEO of Satara Systems. Here's Martin le Chance is the

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founder and CEO of Satari Systems, a Massachusetts based IT

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services firm that's been keeping businesses running, fast, secure, and

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frustration free since two thousand and one. With more than

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two decades in the industry, Martin has led Satara to

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a ninety seven percent client retention rate by doing what

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most IT firms can't, and that's cutting client IT issues

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listened by seventy percent and answering helptic desk tickets. This

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is almost unheard of in about three minutes flat, but

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Martin's story starts long before Satara. Born in Canada, he's

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such a nice guy. He moved to the US at

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age nine, eventually earning degrees in accounting and finance from

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Northeastern University. He got hooked on computers in the early

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nineties when the Mosaic browser brought the Internet to life,

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and his first tech job at del Fi Internet in

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nineteen nineteen ninety four gave him a front row seat

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to the dawn of the online age. From there, he

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helped lead engineering at Toast Technologies before striking out on

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his own to build a different kind of IT company,

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one focused on real outcomes, not excuses. Outside of work,

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Martin's a husband and proud dad of four kids, and

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he's happiest when he's fly fishing, golfing, or flying RC helicopters,

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not an easy thing to do, usually after finding a

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great spot for dinner with his family. Martin. Welcome to

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Winning Business Radio. So glad to have you.

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Thank you very much, Kevin. That's a great introduction.

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Appreciate that, and I did. We'll get to this so

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people understand I used the first one, not the Lucy one,

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because I thought it just had a little bit more

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richness to it. And we'll get to Lucy in a

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little while. People will learn about Lucy. So let's start

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close to home. Tell us about your family.

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Ah, my family. Let's see, I have the pleasure for

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having two children in college, the third one coming next year.

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Pleasure.

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Yeah, so yes, And so my son is in Maine,

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my daughter is in South Carolina. They are loving it.

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And then I have, you know, two more on the way.

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Family is great. Yeah, can't can't say enough good things.

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What are the older two studying?

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So my son is in the psychology field, my daughter

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will be a nurse.

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Oh, very good, very good, huge shows to nurses.

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And my third one has decided on radiology.

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Oh wow, fourth one not yet.

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So as I get older and things fall apart, that's right,

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I have go to's.

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That's why I'm glad one of my daughters got an

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athletic training degree. I just pulled something all about tell

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us about your your much much I'm sure better half?

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Ah. Yes, my wife of twenty four years, wonderful, wonderful mother,

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and and she is also hard at work. I've been

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together for a long time, and you know, she enjoys

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working out as I do. She actually competes and she's

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very serious and very driven.

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Talk about her competition. Is it a CrossFit or something

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like that?

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Yeah, it's it's a let's say what. There's so many

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different categories and I can't think of it at the moment,

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but it's it's not like the bodybuilding.

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Okay, it's fitness fitness related for sure. Wow, So you

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can't you can't go to you can't let let it slide.

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If she's doing that, right, it's not that.

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That would be wrong. And honestly, if I didn't go

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to the gym, I but they would be a struggle

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every day, you know.

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Yeah, I get that too, I get that too. All right.

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So you you were born in Canada whereabouts.

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Shell Brook, Quebec, Yes, you know, And I always thought, oh,

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the whole world, the whole country speaks French. No, no,

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just one province really, and that's where I lived, and

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so that's between you know, kind of Montreal and Quebec,

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and moved when I was nine. Did not speak a

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word of.

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English really, Yeah.

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So thrown right into school. So if you're surrounded by

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another language. You learned very quickly.

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I didn't plan on asking you that. But what was

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that like? Total immersion? For sure?

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Yeah, I remember very little. Certainly remember lots of kids

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making fun of me because kids.

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Are kids, and you had an accident in any language.

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Yeah, but you know, you learn very very quickly.

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I hope you still keep up the fluent French.

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I we were forced to speak French at home. So

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I have, you know, two siblings, and so at home

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we were forced to speak French to retain as much

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as possible. Now it's mostly like I have cousins in

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the area, et cetera, and my brother and we speak,

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but it's more like Franklish. It's like half and half

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kind of a thing.

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Yeah, that's funny. You moved to where from Canada? And

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what was behind that move? Family move? Probably?

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Yes, so my father. So my father was a doctor

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and you know, socialized medicine, et cetera. You decided, oh,

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time to leave Canada, moved to Maine. So I lived

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in Maine, in Lewis in Maine, Oh yeah, La Maine,

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Lewist and Auburn right for many, many years until I

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moved to Boston to go to school in Northeastern.

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And that's the next one. What were your early interests?

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And I noticed that your degrees are accounting in finance.

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How did you get into that?

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Right? You know, you're eighteen years old and somebody says,

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what do you want to be? And my concept was

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I knew I wanted to be a business owner, and

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I didn't really understand what that meant. Of course, the

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boy if I learned that the hard way. So I

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thought accounting in finance, and that's not really what you need.

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You know, you can have people that help you with

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those parts you need, sales and marketing and market analysis

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and entrepreneurship, that's really what you need. So I went

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into it the wrong way. But the intent was to,

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you know, to run a business. No idea, what.

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How did you get that bug? That's early? To have

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that bug?

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I really have no idea. I couldn't tell you. I

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just decided, Oh, I'm that's what I.

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Want to do. That's cool.

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Why because I didn't have anything. I couldn't say, oh,

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I want to be a doctor or a lawyer. And

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my father was dead set against us being going in

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the medical field.

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Why was that.

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Just became highly regulated, and you know, I'm sure various

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reasons I didn't know about, but he certainly steered us

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clear of that.

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I noticed you took a little geology.

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Too, Yeah, which was actually my favorite.

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I took some believers you did. I did electives. We

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did some really cool field trips to western mass to

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see the strata of the of the rs. It's pretty cool.

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That was the most fun of all the classes I

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was taking at school. But I wanted to get the

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most out of every class. So you know, this is

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you know, this was it. But clearly accounting was not

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my world.

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So it The question then, is how do you go

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from accounting to the IT world? Your first job after

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college seemed to well, a professional job was as a

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help desk technician, where you have to know a lot.

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How did you get there from accounting and finance?

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Well, so I was at you know, I was in accounting.

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I was in cost accounting. To me, the worst possible

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kind of accounting and I did not understand it. But

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fresh out of school, I worked at a company up

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in Nashville, New Hampshire, and they they had this the

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system called the total Quality management as I recall, where

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as problems arise within the organization. They developed teams from

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all different departments and those teams work to solve different problems.

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So I was actually put on a team to resolve

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some problems that were related to it. And the director

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of it happened to be in this group, and I

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just got the bug. I was fascinated by the things

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that they were doing in it, and he noticed that,

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and so he put me into other groups that involved

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some technology to it. And from there I had some

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friends that a friend of mine had started working at

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Delphi Internet and started the conversation and said, is there

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anything I could do there? And that's essentially how I

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was able to get in at the help desk level

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of it and.

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So tell people about Delphi. It actually became pretty well known.

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Yeah, interesting Delphi Internet back when the browsers were starting

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in AOL and CompuServe and Delphi you know, did a

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joint venture with m c I back when m c

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I was was around, and we had a tremendous budget

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and we could pretty much do anything. I was one

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person in it for for this group, and we developed

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I did not you know, I was in internal support.

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But they developed a platform like like like the AOL

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of you know that that you saw for a very

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long time, and and they competed to be online, you know,

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and we got to do things like we were the

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first host for Major League Baseball. It was a wild ride.

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That's pretty cool, all right. I just noticed the time.

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We're going to take our first commercial break. We'll be

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right back in about a minute or so with Martin

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la Chance. Best in Wealth Management is family owned for

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two generations. They take pride in thoughtful financial planning and

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wealth management with a family feel for your closely held

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family business. Best in Wealth Management focuses on deep planning,

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integrating your business planning with personal They will help put

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your money to work and your mind at ease. Go

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to Bestinwealthmanagement dot com for more information. Advisory services offered

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through Commonwealth Financial Network, a registered investment advisor. Join the

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best and family and let our family advise your family.

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That's Best Inwealthmanagement dot com for your complementary initial consultation.

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We're back. That was quick. Key takeaways from that first job.

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There's a lot going on, a lot of growth, a

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lot of innovation, a lot of new things which we

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take for granted today. But what did you learn. What

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would your key takeaways from that position or positions? Oh, man,

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I know it's a big one.

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Wow key takeaways? So well, you know, there was a

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the joint venture fell apart and mc I actually went

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backed out, so half the company was taken out and

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I was left in the IT department by myself. So, uh,

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I was bootstrapped into learning a lot of things in IT.

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And that's at the time when when there was no

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school for the for IT and for diructor. It was

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programmed back then, so I had to lean on peers

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and any resource I could find to help me along

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the way. So I learned early on that a lot

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of success actually comes from the people that you know

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and who you surround yourself with.

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Yeah, that's good. That's a good one, all right. Then

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about three plus years later, you moved to Toast Technologies,

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another company will become pretty well known. What went into

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your decision to take that position and how did you

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get it? So, you know, we.

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Del Fi had an integrator. Back then there were no

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managed service providers as they are today, so an integrator

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and we had a relationship with them for product and

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some service, et cetera. And they actually approached me to

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run the integration business. So I could not pass that up.

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That was a fantastic opportunity. And as as Delfi Internet

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was being sold to Line one across the pond, I said, oh,

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I need to jump on that. So so I went

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over to Toast to head up the you know, the

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the IT project division integration division, which was doing work

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for clients projects and integration work for clients around technology.

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What were some of the early things you worked on?

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Oh boy, some some things that people probably won't know here.

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Citrix was a was a big thing. A Cisco back

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then was tremendous. We did, you know, a lot of

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Cisco integration work, VMware Uh not VMware NetWare Okay, okay, Yeah,

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we did a lot of operating systems build out, a

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lot of custom project stuff.

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A lot of learning again right.

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Uh, it does not stop in this field.

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Yeah, I bet all right.

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I always made fun of my dad, you know, because

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he was dermatologist. He had to study fifty two hours

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a year to maintain his license. And I said, I'm

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not going to pick a feel where I have to

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keep studying. And then I picked this fifty two hours

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a month.

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That's a riot. Yeah, just to keep up right, all right?

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So then in one you decided you'd start a company.

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So take us back through that thought process and decision making.

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What motivated you to do that? I know you told

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us you wanted to, you know, be a business owner

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when you were younger.

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But go ahead, Well, you know I was still young,

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still learning a lot. Sure, but nine to eleven happened.

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And when nine to eleven happened, lots of businesses struggled

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and this was no different. So the market dried up

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and the company was struggling. So the company shut down

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and the client you know, not the entire client base,

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but some of the client base asked what I would

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be doing and I did not know, and they said,

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we will do whatever you do. And I said, that's

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not an awful way to start a business, not at all.

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So I started with a ready client base and never

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looked back.

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And there was no non compete, right, nobody to compete with. Yeah,

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that's a great situation. Is there a story or meaning

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behind Satara?

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You have to be a client to find out.

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Oh man, okay, that's a challenge. That's a challenge. When

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you started, who did you how many people did you

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employ or if anybody was it just you? At first

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that was just me.

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And then there were two of us and yep, and

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that was it.

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How many today?

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We are only twelve today, but we're adding about five

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to seven a year now.

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Wow, and that's mostly technical people, I would imagine.

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Yes, And for us, you know, we grow largely by tech,

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not by.

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Labor, bringing in new skill sets or the ones you need.

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Leveraging technology automation AI certainly now, which keeps your head

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count lower. You can do more with a good tool set,

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a good process, and some good folks.

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All right, we're going to get into AI in a

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little bit, but first tell us tell the audience what

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work you do. So I think there are number of

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people that would understand managed it, but there are people

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that may not also, and I believe that, So talk

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about the work that you do and also maybe your

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ideal client.

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So I think the easiest way to describe the work

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that we do for non technology folks or for business

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owners is we are the IT department for your business.

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So there are certainly lots of businesses out there that

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are too small to have their own IT folks on staff,

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And then there are larger companies that have some IT

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folks on staff, but there's too much technology, just cybersecurity

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alone is you can't handle all of that by yourself,

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even if you have staff. So we that's where we

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come in. We for small organizations, we are their IT department.

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So from the helped usk tickets to you know, architecture, planning, budgeting,

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the future, et cetera. So that's essentially about us, all right,

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ideal client. We are in the ten to two hundred

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and fifty.

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Size users headcount YEP users.

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Yeah, and we we are we handle that size. We

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are primarily in the fifty to one fifty space.

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And geography doesn't matter, I imagine.

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Not anymore used to matter to folks. But since since COVID, right,

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that's changed a lot. Not that we ever mattered, It

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00:23:09.720 --> 00:23:11.920
hasn't mattered for a long time for our ability to

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deliver service if the technology is set up right. We

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have clients now that I've had clients overseas. We have

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clients now throughout the country.

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So it's probably more of a change for them to

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not see someone on site than for you.

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Yes, yeah, yes.

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How would you define it consulting different from managed I

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T that's more planning, So We do consulting right as

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part of what we do, but the managed.

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Services are day and day out. Our technology is set

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up in your environment, we're monitoring, we're helping with all

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the day to day items. But then consulting would come

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in where you're thinking about acquiring a business, or you're

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thinking about expansion this or hey, we'd like to you know,

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take a look at doing this with the website to

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do this, that's X y Z. We're looking at a

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new CRM, anything like that where the consulting comes into play.

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What they might need for infrastructure, the time to get

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over to the new system, et cetera. Makes sense. Yeah,

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how about a few examples of clients, like a profile

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of a client and I don't know if success story

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would be the right way to describe it, but you know,

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maybe a couple of examples of clients in the work

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that you do.

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Hm profile of a client. Let's see, we have so

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we have clients in different industries because everybody needs technology

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to some degree, most companies that we run into. But

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then we also have some verticals, so we have the

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construction space for example, where we have I'll give you

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00:25:15.920 --> 00:25:20.400
an example. We have a client, Uh, seventy eighty users

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in the construction space doing you know, remodeling and build

386
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out large projects and a mix of of apples and

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and PCs. What else could I uh?

388
00:25:39.119 --> 00:25:43.440
So they would do design, they would do uh are

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00:25:44.240 --> 00:25:45.559
renderings or are they?

390
00:25:46.160 --> 00:25:46.400
Yeah?

391
00:25:46.599 --> 00:25:50.400
Yeah and so so yes, So we support all their

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line of you know, so we're the department, So we'll

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00:25:53.039 --> 00:25:56.319
support anything that that they have on the technology front,

394
00:25:57.079 --> 00:26:03.359
all the way to having let's say, maybe mobile hotspots

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for projects. As you know, they sit at a location

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00:26:08.680 --> 00:26:11.960
for months and months and they need several people to

397
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be connected, et cetera.

398
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Good strong internet.

399
00:26:15.119 --> 00:26:18.400
Yes, so we're we're used to that.

400
00:26:19.319 --> 00:26:22.880
Oh twich reminds me you have voice over IP systems

401
00:26:22.880 --> 00:26:24.680
as well. Talk about that for the audience.

402
00:26:25.680 --> 00:26:33.519
Voiceover ips so much fun. Pretty much everybody has that rights.

403
00:26:33.799 --> 00:26:36.799
That's just a staple now in all businesses. And we

404
00:26:37.000 --> 00:26:41.319
so we do rollouts. We just had one and largely

405
00:26:41.440 --> 00:26:46.720
now people have foregone headsets and handsets and they want,

406
00:26:46.920 --> 00:26:51.160
you know, to go soft on their computer to a

407
00:26:51.200 --> 00:26:54.519
soft phone because they're mobile because they have laptops ever

408
00:26:54.559 --> 00:26:58.440
since COVID. So you know, handling the call routing and

409
00:26:58.480 --> 00:26:59.559
the queues.

410
00:26:59.359 --> 00:27:03.160
And the degrading with integrating with CRM.

411
00:27:02.880 --> 00:27:07.680
CRM and many other yes, lines of lineup business applications.

412
00:27:07.759 --> 00:27:11.480
And we just had one that there's only one vendor

413
00:27:11.480 --> 00:27:12.960
that integrates with their software.

414
00:27:13.119 --> 00:27:19.480
Okidding, that is until you introduce AI. All right, that's

415
00:27:19.559 --> 00:27:22.119
actually a good transition. Uh, you know what, we have

416
00:27:22.200 --> 00:27:24.720
two minutes before the next commercial. Let's do this. I

417
00:27:24.799 --> 00:27:29.680
noticed you have a twenty year client, and yes, you

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00:27:29.720 --> 00:27:33.480
were able to bring you know, you're you're known for

419
00:27:33.599 --> 00:27:37.799
bringing that response time down to an unbelievable threeish minutes

420
00:27:38.319 --> 00:27:42.759
and a ninety seven percent retention rate. That's massive. So

421
00:27:42.759 --> 00:27:44.880
how did this is maybe not a quick question, but

422
00:27:44.920 --> 00:27:46.559
how did you do those two things?

423
00:27:47.920 --> 00:27:48.359
I care?

424
00:27:49.440 --> 00:27:49.960
That's good.

425
00:27:51.839 --> 00:27:57.759
I'm a business owner, so I built the culture around

426
00:27:58.880 --> 00:28:02.519
just making sure we are over servicing our clients essentially,

427
00:28:03.279 --> 00:28:08.720
very very white glove kind of thing, and and keep

428
00:28:08.759 --> 00:28:13.440
them happy. It's it's much easier to keep a client

429
00:28:13.480 --> 00:28:17.160
happy than to go find new ones. So let's let's

430
00:28:17.200 --> 00:28:19.839
do a fantastic job and make sure we take care

431
00:28:19.880 --> 00:28:22.519
of them. So we've we've have quite a few clients

432
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in the twenty year mark.

433
00:28:24.920 --> 00:28:28.799
And how did you get to a three minute? Three minute?

434
00:28:29.079 --> 00:28:30.599
I said, that to my response time.

435
00:28:31.359 --> 00:28:34.599
Yeah, so I uh, the way I set up the

436
00:28:35.640 --> 00:28:45.599
delivery organization allows me to overstaff. That overstaffing means that

437
00:28:45.599 --> 00:28:48.839
that folks aren't waiting a long time, which is the

438
00:28:48.920 --> 00:28:52.319
number one thing that we hear from everybody is response

439
00:28:52.400 --> 00:28:58.119
time in terms of their dissatisfaction with it. So I

440
00:28:58.119 --> 00:28:59.720
wanted to make sure we handle that.

441
00:29:01.920 --> 00:29:04.200
Yeah, I mean this should be obvious, but I'll say

442
00:29:04.200 --> 00:29:07.680
it anyway. When a company's down, that's those are often

443
00:29:07.799 --> 00:29:10.720
billable hours that are that they'll never get back.

444
00:29:12.079 --> 00:29:17.119
Down, which is not as common, right, but every you know,

445
00:29:17.200 --> 00:29:20.200
the average there's studies that show the average user spends

446
00:29:20.279 --> 00:29:23.599
twenty two minutes a day every day working on a

447
00:29:23.640 --> 00:29:27.079
tech issue. When you're paying your business owner and you're

448
00:29:27.119 --> 00:29:32.640
paying payroll and somebody is tied up with a tech issue,

449
00:29:33.200 --> 00:29:36.599
that gets expensive very quickly. You know, you don't see

450
00:29:36.640 --> 00:29:39.559
the number. It's not like a line item invoice you get,

451
00:29:40.519 --> 00:29:45.920
but it's pretty easy math. Yeah, So handling those interruptions

452
00:29:45.960 --> 00:29:49.559
and removing the noise in the first place is really

453
00:29:49.640 --> 00:29:52.559
the measure of it success.

454
00:29:52.920 --> 00:29:56.640
That's huge value right there. All right, let's take our

455
00:29:56.680 --> 00:29:59.279
second break and we will be right back with Martin

456
00:29:59.319 --> 00:30:05.920
La Chance. Best in Wealth Management is family owned for

457
00:30:06.000 --> 00:30:09.759
two generations. They take pride in thoughtful financial planning and

458
00:30:09.799 --> 00:30:13.000
wealth management with a family feel for your closely held

459
00:30:13.039 --> 00:30:16.960
family business. Best in Wealth Management focuses on deep planning,

460
00:30:17.079 --> 00:30:20.480
integrating your business planning with personal They will help put

461
00:30:20.519 --> 00:30:23.079
your money to work and your mind at ease. Go

462
00:30:23.160 --> 00:30:27.759
to Bestwealthmanagement dot com for more information. Advisory service is

463
00:30:27.759 --> 00:30:32.200
offered through Commonwealth Financial Network, a registered investment advisor. Join

464
00:30:32.240 --> 00:30:35.200
the Best and Family and let our family advise your family.

465
00:30:35.680 --> 00:30:39.759
That's Best Inwealthmanagement dot com for your complementary initial consultation.

466
00:30:44.119 --> 00:30:46.400
All right, we are back with Martin the Chance. All right,

467
00:30:46.440 --> 00:30:49.880
now let's talk AI and I want to get to

468
00:30:50.359 --> 00:30:53.480
you have to use visuals, but just verbally, just to

469
00:30:53.480 --> 00:30:57.279
introduce people to Lucy by Lucy.

470
00:30:57.680 --> 00:31:05.599
Yes, uh aptly name after the movie Lucy. Lucy is

471
00:31:05.799 --> 00:31:14.119
just my personal AI, which, of course, if you've worked

472
00:31:14.200 --> 00:31:17.400
enough with AI you can name your AI. Well, mine's Lucy.

473
00:31:18.359 --> 00:31:21.839
So Lucy knows all about me. I've I've prompted and

474
00:31:21.880 --> 00:31:25.039
coached Lucy to know my background and what I do

475
00:31:25.119 --> 00:31:29.720
and what have you, so that anything I talked to

476
00:31:29.839 --> 00:31:36.359
Lucy about is more relevant.

477
00:31:38.240 --> 00:31:41.039
So you've because we've had a little bit of this

478
00:31:41.079 --> 00:31:46.359
conversation prior, you use AI more than what I would

479
00:31:46.440 --> 00:31:50.440
say most and in better and more clever ways versus

480
00:31:50.519 --> 00:31:52.799
just hey, let's load up chat GPT and let's come

481
00:31:52.839 --> 00:31:54.319
up with a better email, or let's come up with

482
00:31:54.359 --> 00:31:57.359
a better tagline. And I do that, right. I think

483
00:31:57.400 --> 00:31:59.960
a lot of people do that proofread my my work

484
00:32:00.400 --> 00:32:05.359
or whatever. But you use AI all the time regularly

485
00:32:05.480 --> 00:32:10.480
and for actual reduction and time tasks and efficiency, et cetera.

486
00:32:12.240 --> 00:32:14.400
How does go ahead? I'll let you do that and

487
00:32:14.720 --> 00:32:15.480
I'll follow it up.

488
00:32:15.920 --> 00:32:18.960
It's it's funny. I was trying to teach my kids too,

489
00:32:19.559 --> 00:32:22.519
to leverage AI as much as possible. And I have

490
00:32:22.559 --> 00:32:27.599
a conversation with my daughter in college and she calls

491
00:32:27.640 --> 00:32:30.160
me and asks me a question and I'm like, well,

492
00:32:30.240 --> 00:32:35.680
did you ask GPT? And she goes, well, I'm asking dad, GPT.

493
00:32:38.240 --> 00:32:42.720
Well is a compliment? I mean, right, it's great, yeah.

494
00:32:42.480 --> 00:32:45.480
Right, But you know, I mean you and I didn't

495
00:32:45.480 --> 00:32:49.480
grow up with the power that people have in their

496
00:32:49.559 --> 00:32:57.039
hands now and add AI to that that that's that's crazy.

497
00:32:57.200 --> 00:33:03.119
So you know we're in I T so at this point,

498
00:33:03.200 --> 00:33:08.079
now we are working with our client base to leverage

499
00:33:08.119 --> 00:33:11.920
AI to help them do things that in the past

500
00:33:12.359 --> 00:33:18.799
was really not possible, generally cost prohibitive, tying different systems together,

501
00:33:20.200 --> 00:33:26.000
creating automation for workflows and things that that was you know,

502
00:33:26.079 --> 00:33:30.200
would have been a major endeavor in the past, is

503
00:33:30.279 --> 00:33:36.880
now fairly easily done. So there there isn't a day

504
00:33:36.960 --> 00:33:40.480
that goes by that I see a use of AI

505
00:33:41.279 --> 00:33:45.240
that I am just blown away. We are really limited

506
00:33:45.960 --> 00:33:53.680
by our own by our own uh view of the

507
00:33:53.720 --> 00:33:54.920
world so to speak.

508
00:33:55.240 --> 00:33:55.519
Uh.

509
00:33:55.680 --> 00:33:58.240
You know, I work with one of my one of

510
00:33:58.240 --> 00:34:01.640
my guys here. We talked about this, what will approach

511
00:34:01.680 --> 00:34:04.519
a problem? And we've learned to approach it differently and

512
00:34:04.599 --> 00:34:09.119
to ask AI how it would handle it instead of

513
00:34:10.719 --> 00:34:14.760
telling it what we want. It's a very different approach.

514
00:34:16.239 --> 00:34:20.000
Really opens up your mind. So I look every day

515
00:34:20.039 --> 00:34:23.760
online and I see how people are leveraging AI and

516
00:34:23.800 --> 00:34:27.400
the ideas that they come up with, and I'm blown away.

517
00:34:29.079 --> 00:34:31.719
Examples.

518
00:34:35.159 --> 00:34:36.920
Wow, oh my god, you.

519
00:34:36.880 --> 00:34:38.760
Know I was going to do that, right, I know,

520
00:34:39.920 --> 00:34:42.599
I really didn't.

521
00:34:44.039 --> 00:34:44.320
Wow.

522
00:34:44.639 --> 00:34:49.800
Uh, Well, provide examples of what you've done that are

523
00:34:49.840 --> 00:34:53.760
not just again emails or marketing one pager.

524
00:34:53.760 --> 00:34:57.559
Or yeah, so you know, I guess I have one

525
00:34:57.599 --> 00:35:01.800
now where we have a client that approaches us and

526
00:35:01.880 --> 00:35:08.039
says to us that they've had to switch from QuickBooks

527
00:35:08.039 --> 00:35:12.280
desktop to QuickBooks online and they were forced to do

528
00:35:12.320 --> 00:35:16.760
that by the parent company. And now they have an

529
00:35:16.800 --> 00:35:22.440
additional forty hours plus a month of labor to reconcile

530
00:35:22.519 --> 00:35:26.719
one thousand line items of credit card transactions that used

531
00:35:26.760 --> 00:35:31.559
to go automatically in the system, categorized appropriately in accounts,

532
00:35:32.280 --> 00:35:38.280
and now that is gone. And so we are leveraging

533
00:35:38.320 --> 00:35:44.159
AI to automate the pull, the sort, and the pushback

534
00:35:44.159 --> 00:35:49.559
into the accounts. And we can do that fairly, easily

535
00:35:49.639 --> 00:35:52.960
and quickly and save them forty hours a month.

536
00:35:54.280 --> 00:35:57.159
So creates a workflow. How do you like turn that

537
00:35:57.280 --> 00:35:59.440
workflow on or will it always be on?

538
00:36:00.519 --> 00:36:04.280
Uh, it's really a decision. You can have it so

539
00:36:04.360 --> 00:36:06.960
it's always on, or you can have it so it's controlled.

540
00:36:08.039 --> 00:36:10.559
You know, that's something you learn about AI is before

541
00:36:10.599 --> 00:36:15.559
you It's like, should AI answer all of my emails

542
00:36:15.880 --> 00:36:21.360
for me automatically without me seeing anything? Probably not a

543
00:36:21.400 --> 00:36:23.119
good idea, right right?

544
00:36:23.559 --> 00:36:23.800
Right?

545
00:36:24.760 --> 00:36:29.400
So? But could you have AI draft responses to have

546
00:36:29.559 --> 00:36:32.559
you review them, and then you review them instead of

547
00:36:32.599 --> 00:36:35.599
having to draft them and adjust them. That would be

548
00:36:35.639 --> 00:36:36.320
a better move.

549
00:36:37.320 --> 00:36:43.599
That's a big time safe certainly can be. So how

550
00:36:43.719 --> 00:36:45.360
let's see, I was going to say, and also you

551
00:36:45.400 --> 00:36:48.320
could filter out emails you don't care about. That takes

552
00:36:48.320 --> 00:36:51.360
a little time to teach your particular AI who those are, right.

553
00:36:52.880 --> 00:36:55.519
Yeah, there's a lot of prompting and coaching that goes

554
00:36:55.559 --> 00:36:56.000
into this.

555
00:36:56.719 --> 00:36:59.519
For somebody, For somebody new, they probably don't know the

556
00:36:59.519 --> 00:37:00.000
word prompt.

557
00:37:02.039 --> 00:37:08.159
Ah, yes, the word. I'm sure you know the word prompt.

558
00:37:08.320 --> 00:37:11.239
I do, right, So if you've used AI, that's one

559
00:37:11.280 --> 00:37:15.719
of the first things you learn is how to guide

560
00:37:16.079 --> 00:37:20.920
the AI into to really hone in and be more

561
00:37:21.079 --> 00:37:26.920
specific so that which comes back in a response is

562
00:37:26.960 --> 00:37:27.719
more relevant.

563
00:37:30.119 --> 00:37:35.199
So it's yes, it's being clear of your ask, right, Yes,

564
00:37:35.679 --> 00:37:39.920
I was doing a I was playing with a one pager.

565
00:37:40.000 --> 00:37:46.760
Somebody from Provisors in Chicago sent me her one pager

566
00:37:46.840 --> 00:37:49.159
and I like the format and I've got a boring

567
00:37:49.239 --> 00:37:52.480
one and I thought I should probably update that. So

568
00:37:52.599 --> 00:37:58.320
I scanned her her one pager, including the graphics, right,

569
00:37:58.519 --> 00:38:01.400
just scan it right in there's a PF And I said,

570
00:38:02.000 --> 00:38:05.559
I asked, this was just jet chat GIPT, I said,

571
00:38:05.920 --> 00:38:09.880
create a one pager for me and it's my instance

572
00:38:10.159 --> 00:38:13.239
of JATCHEPT. So it's starting to get to know me

573
00:38:13.320 --> 00:38:16.559
over time. And I also said, and use a sand

574
00:38:17.079 --> 00:38:21.280
What was the phrase I used, Uh, filter it through

575
00:38:21.800 --> 00:38:25.559
the lens of a Sandler trainer. Yes, And it really

576
00:38:25.559 --> 00:38:28.760
did a nice job because I said Sandler trainer.

577
00:38:29.960 --> 00:38:35.920
Yeah, you told it. Essentially, it's an expert in a field, right.

578
00:38:36.840 --> 00:38:38.719
And that thing goes out, it finds I mean, I

579
00:38:38.719 --> 00:38:42.199
could ask now Sandler related questions and it does a

580
00:38:42.239 --> 00:38:45.000
really good job because it's gone out many times and

581
00:38:45.079 --> 00:38:50.840
found those resources and can speak the Sandler quote language right, right,

582
00:38:50.920 --> 00:38:55.559
use terminologies, et cetera. So what's something that everybody should

583
00:38:55.599 --> 00:38:59.960
do like tomorrow using AI? Use it?

584
00:39:01.159 --> 00:39:07.880
Put it on your phone. I have conversational AI while

585
00:39:07.920 --> 00:39:09.239
I drive around in the car.

586
00:39:10.480 --> 00:39:11.400
Uh.

587
00:39:11.440 --> 00:39:14.639
And of course I'll be driving around and I'll go

588
00:39:14.719 --> 00:39:17.320
I'll see something and I'll go, hey, tell me about this.

589
00:39:17.639 --> 00:39:18.159
Yeah.

590
00:39:18.360 --> 00:39:21.039
Yeah, And I learned a lot of things along the way.

591
00:39:21.079 --> 00:39:23.199
And it's just a conversation with Lucy.

592
00:39:25.039 --> 00:39:29.599
Uh, she's just another question there. Oh, everybody is using

593
00:39:29.679 --> 00:39:33.400
AI now and they're in some cases not aware that

594
00:39:33.440 --> 00:39:38.519
they're using AI. Obviously, outbound calls from certain telemarketing firms.

595
00:39:38.639 --> 00:39:41.719
You could, you can tell, but you know the delay

596
00:39:41.800 --> 00:39:44.960
and there's a beep. It's a weird tone. It's it's

597
00:39:45.000 --> 00:39:46.920
not like an answering machine tone, but it's like you

598
00:39:46.960 --> 00:39:50.000
can hear the loop when it clicks over to somebody live.

599
00:39:50.760 --> 00:39:52.880
And I'm not opposed to it. I'm just saying, you know,

600
00:39:53.559 --> 00:39:59.039
they should fix that. Uh you can uh, oh if

601
00:39:59.079 --> 00:40:01.719
when you call into tech support, whether it's no, excuse me,

602
00:40:01.840 --> 00:40:07.760
anybody in customer service right, your bank, really, anybody that

603
00:40:07.800 --> 00:40:10.880
people call my doctor's office now you can schedule an

604
00:40:10.920 --> 00:40:17.079
appointment over the phone.

605
00:40:15.599 --> 00:40:23.079
Yes, yeah, and certainly bots when you go to get support, right.

606
00:40:23.239 --> 00:40:26.760
I've used one the other day for I forget what

607
00:40:26.880 --> 00:40:30.360
software I was on. But oh, actually I was putting

608
00:40:30.360 --> 00:40:33.599
a survey together in survey Monkey, and I wanted to

609
00:40:33.719 --> 00:40:35.440
know this little funky little thing and I asked, and

610
00:40:35.639 --> 00:40:39.360
there I get the answer. You know, I could have

611
00:40:39.360 --> 00:40:40.960
found the answer, but it would have taken me probably

612
00:40:41.000 --> 00:40:43.320
half an hour. Instead, I asked the question in about

613
00:40:44.000 --> 00:40:46.840
five seconds, says go here, go here, do this do that?

614
00:40:49.079 --> 00:40:55.360
Yes, absolutely saves. It's a tremendous time saver for us.

615
00:40:57.599 --> 00:41:06.239
What are are you starting to monetize that consulting. Yes, yes,

616
00:41:06.320 --> 00:41:08.360
and so that's a reason why people may want to

617
00:41:08.400 --> 00:41:11.400
reach out to you. In addition, of course, if they're

618
00:41:11.440 --> 00:41:13.800
not happy, what are some of the let's get back

619
00:41:13.960 --> 00:41:16.599
go back to IT managed services and that list of things.

620
00:41:16.639 --> 00:41:18.119
I want to read this. Actually I was going to

621
00:41:18.159 --> 00:41:21.360
do it and I forgot. So it's it consulting managed

622
00:41:21.519 --> 00:41:25.840
IT services. That's the broad category technical support on a

623
00:41:25.840 --> 00:41:30.559
particular tool or server or hardware, software help desk. You

624
00:41:30.599 --> 00:41:35.880
talked about that network support. Cybersecurity. I want to get

625
00:41:35.920 --> 00:41:39.000
back to that one for a minute. Email and spam protection.

626
00:41:39.199 --> 00:41:41.960
I think everybody knows what that is, voiceover IP, phone,

627
00:41:42.519 --> 00:41:45.400
cloud services. I think people most people know what that

628
00:41:45.480 --> 00:41:50.119
is now Microsoft Office three sixty five since using that

629
00:41:50.159 --> 00:41:52.000
a number starting using that a number of years ago.

630
00:41:52.199 --> 00:41:55.480
I can't imagine not having Microsoft Office three sixty five

631
00:41:57.320 --> 00:41:59.960
server support. I want to ask you a couple questions there.

632
00:42:00.079 --> 00:42:04.400
Vendor management that's I think underrated. Instead of them having

633
00:42:04.400 --> 00:42:07.480
to make in those make those calls or getting their research,

634
00:42:07.559 --> 00:42:10.480
you do it back up a recovery and data recovery.

635
00:42:10.920 --> 00:42:14.840
Get back to cybersecurity. What do people need to know

636
00:42:14.880 --> 00:42:15.519
that they may not.

637
00:42:19.360 --> 00:42:24.719
That's actually the question is, so we have a third

638
00:42:24.760 --> 00:42:27.679
party that we work with and one of the things

639
00:42:27.719 --> 00:42:32.920
that we do is will run a security test for

640
00:42:33.000 --> 00:42:37.320
a company and it's not really us, We just you know,

641
00:42:37.360 --> 00:42:43.760
we're facilitator. So it's a third party test. Every single

642
00:42:43.920 --> 00:42:48.599
time I have run this test, it's eye opening and

643
00:42:49.239 --> 00:42:53.199
it's what you don't know. It's what most people don't know.

644
00:42:53.880 --> 00:42:56.960
And so we'll have people tell us, so, well, we've

645
00:42:57.000 --> 00:42:59.920
never been hacked, Well, how do you know? How do

646
00:43:00.119 --> 00:43:03.119
you know someone hasn't already been in your environment? Maybe

647
00:43:03.119 --> 00:43:04.840
they didn't find anything. They just let the door there

648
00:43:04.880 --> 00:43:07.119
and they'll come back and check later, you know.

649
00:43:07.199 --> 00:43:14.760
So so the the well, hold on, I'm just a

650
00:43:14.800 --> 00:43:16.480
small company. Nobody cares about me.

651
00:43:17.360 --> 00:43:18.039
Yeah, I love that.

652
00:43:19.119 --> 00:43:21.239
And that used to that used to be true.

653
00:43:21.280 --> 00:43:26.920
It was security by obscurity, right, but it's everything's automated

654
00:43:27.159 --> 00:43:30.239
now and now with AI it's it's much worse. It's

655
00:43:30.480 --> 00:43:34.800
you know, script kitties as they're referred to as folks

656
00:43:34.800 --> 00:43:39.239
that you know, are looking to do make money, do

657
00:43:40.079 --> 00:43:44.719
things ransomware et cetera, malware, but they don't really know

658
00:43:44.760 --> 00:43:48.000
how to code. They don't they don't have that knowledge

659
00:43:48.000 --> 00:43:51.880
base or what they do now is they just leverage AI.

660
00:43:52.159 --> 00:43:54.559
So what used to be, you know, sort of a

661
00:43:54.880 --> 00:43:58.880
really low level, rudimentary kind of thing is now actually

662
00:43:58.960 --> 00:44:04.880
far more sophisticated and really damaging, you know. So, so

663
00:44:04.960 --> 00:44:10.119
the obscurity three, the obscurity component no longer. So I

664
00:44:10.159 --> 00:44:14.719
have a ladybug that just landed on me. So that

665
00:44:14.800 --> 00:44:19.199
obscurity thing, it just it doesn't matter anymore. Everyone is

666
00:44:19.239 --> 00:44:23.559
a target. Everything is automated. It's done by the millions.

667
00:44:25.880 --> 00:44:29.800
We have a few companies just in the last month

668
00:44:30.599 --> 00:44:36.079
that we received phone calls from very small companies they

669
00:44:36.119 --> 00:44:38.480
had already been ACKed.

670
00:44:38.760 --> 00:44:41.960
Well, and all it takes is well, I know the

671
00:44:42.000 --> 00:44:45.559
answer to this. I think the weakest part of security

672
00:44:45.639 --> 00:44:49.239
is what of a company's security is what.

673
00:44:50.880 --> 00:44:51.639
Credentials?

674
00:44:51.679 --> 00:44:58.039
Generally the office joke from Michael Scott is the computer,

675
00:44:58.280 --> 00:45:01.559
what's your password? Incorrect? Why because the computer said, my

676
00:45:01.639 --> 00:45:05.400
email has said correct. But it's people not being clever

677
00:45:05.480 --> 00:45:07.400
enough to get the same password for everything, right.

678
00:45:07.280 --> 00:45:10.760
It's people rhyming in the end, right, Yes, people clicking

679
00:45:10.800 --> 00:45:14.400
on things and that they're not supposed to. And there

680
00:45:14.480 --> 00:45:20.360
was an article a company in the UK seven hundred

681
00:45:20.360 --> 00:45:25.800
employees one hundred and fifty eight years in business. They

682
00:45:25.840 --> 00:45:28.519
just closed their doors because of one password.

683
00:45:28.920 --> 00:45:35.000
Wow, so well, actually the louver theft.

684
00:45:35.239 --> 00:45:38.719
Oh that's a password.

685
00:45:39.079 --> 00:45:44.679
What was the password? Didn't they publish it? Love? I

686
00:45:44.719 --> 00:45:46.320
thought that's what it was going to be because they

687
00:45:46.320 --> 00:45:49.920
were laughing about it. Yeah, passwords love, unbelievable.

688
00:45:50.400 --> 00:45:52.320
Yeah. I didn't actually read it, but that's what somebody

689
00:45:52.360 --> 00:45:52.559
told me.

690
00:45:52.559 --> 00:45:58.119
I'm like, Yeah, I had a client for a while

691
00:45:58.199 --> 00:46:01.880
where U I had an email address for that client

692
00:46:01.880 --> 00:46:08.280
because so I could use Johanna Black. It's the messaging

693
00:46:08.320 --> 00:46:11.480
and scheduling appointments with each other was much easier for

694
00:46:11.559 --> 00:46:14.079
having an internal address. So I had to go through

695
00:46:14.119 --> 00:46:17.280
their IT training and they would send out you didn't

696
00:46:17.320 --> 00:46:20.239
know this, but they would send out little test emails

697
00:46:20.239 --> 00:46:21.920
to see who would click on it every once in

698
00:46:21.960 --> 00:46:24.280
a while. So I kind of learned just so I

699
00:46:24.280 --> 00:46:26.239
wouldn't get embarrassed not to click on stuff.

700
00:46:26.440 --> 00:46:29.559
You know, that's part of what we do. You know

701
00:46:29.679 --> 00:46:38.320
that the current statistic is nineteen point eight percent of

702
00:46:38.480 --> 00:46:42.239
folks click on things employees click on things they should not.

703
00:46:43.400 --> 00:46:47.280
Wow, it's that that to me seems well, now, I

704
00:46:47.280 --> 00:46:49.000
couldn't have said that a few years ago, but that

705
00:46:49.199 --> 00:46:51.639
seems basic but still happens.

706
00:46:51.920 --> 00:46:55.800
Oh, and it's it's only going to get worse just

707
00:46:55.840 --> 00:47:01.239
because the AI sophistication now is there's no misspellings, there's

708
00:47:01.320 --> 00:47:05.719
no you know, it looks legit. It's that much harder

709
00:47:05.760 --> 00:47:08.440
to discern from real.

710
00:47:11.079 --> 00:47:13.760
All right, final question here, this is an easy one,

711
00:47:14.320 --> 00:47:16.800
and we've talked about this a little bit, but who

712
00:47:16.920 --> 00:47:20.119
in the viewing and listening audiences should reach out to

713
00:47:20.199 --> 00:47:26.639
you be specific? And why should they do that? Because

714
00:47:26.639 --> 00:47:37.360
you a couple of categories, right, Who should Yeah.

715
00:47:37.760 --> 00:47:44.280
Anybody that wants to know what they don't know, which

716
00:47:44.320 --> 00:47:48.800
is generally around security and their security posture. If they

717
00:47:48.920 --> 00:47:53.000
care about their business and their reputation and not being

718
00:47:53.199 --> 00:47:57.159
hacked and they want to know what they don't know,

719
00:47:57.559 --> 00:48:00.800
they should reach out. And then I would also say

720
00:48:02.199 --> 00:48:06.440
two other things. It's so many those folks that are

721
00:48:06.559 --> 00:48:11.800
unhappy with their level of support their response time there,

722
00:48:12.880 --> 00:48:15.599
which is the number one thing we hear still today,

723
00:48:17.119 --> 00:48:20.559
you should reach out. And then anybody who's looking to

724
00:48:22.039 --> 00:48:27.719
leverage AI in their business, great conversation to have.

725
00:48:28.280 --> 00:48:31.239
I'm going to add a word, demystify AI. And they

726
00:48:31.280 --> 00:48:33.000
want to figure out how it can work for them

727
00:48:33.920 --> 00:48:35.840
rather than just oh let me just see what chat

728
00:48:35.880 --> 00:48:41.280
GPT has to say. I'm on lunch break. All right,

729
00:48:41.320 --> 00:48:43.599
Well this has been great. I hope it's been good

730
00:48:43.679 --> 00:48:46.000
for you too. Thank you for being here. I know

731
00:48:46.039 --> 00:48:48.000
you're really busy. I appreciate you taking the time for

732
00:48:48.119 --> 00:48:49.000
me and for the audience.

733
00:48:49.639 --> 00:48:52.920
Well, thank you, Kevin. I really appreciate being on here.

734
00:48:52.960 --> 00:48:53.880
Thanks for thinking of me.

735
00:48:54.320 --> 00:48:56.800
My pleasure, my pleasure. I will see you soon, and

736
00:48:56.800 --> 00:48:59.719
thanks everybody for watching and listening. This is a show

737
00:48:59.719 --> 00:49:04.920
about business and business challenges. If you've got concerns about it,

738
00:49:05.519 --> 00:49:09.360
reach out to Martin. If you've got sales challenges, reach

739
00:49:09.400 --> 00:49:11.320
out to me. I don't know if I can help

740
00:49:11.360 --> 00:49:13.360
you or not, but you can find me at Kevin

741
00:49:13.440 --> 00:49:17.239
at Winning Business Radio. We'll have a brief conversation and

742
00:49:17.280 --> 00:49:19.639
we'll figure out if there's some way I can help you.

743
00:49:19.880 --> 00:49:22.960
We are Winning Incorporated. We're part of Sandler Training and

744
00:49:23.000 --> 00:49:26.400
we develop sales teams into high achievers that could be

745
00:49:26.400 --> 00:49:28.559
a very small team or a large team. And we

746
00:49:28.639 --> 00:49:34.760
develop sales leaders, managers, directors, vps into true coaches and mentors. Listen.

747
00:49:34.800 --> 00:49:37.440
We're not right for everybody, but maybe we should have

748
00:49:37.440 --> 00:49:41.159
a conversation. Thank you as always to producer and engineer Wan,

749
00:49:41.280 --> 00:49:43.480
thank you want for another job well done. Be sure

750
00:49:43.519 --> 00:49:46.599
to join us next week Monday, November seventeenth, We'll do

751
00:49:46.639 --> 00:49:49.400
it all again. Until then, this is Kevin haleanin.

752
00:49:51.039 --> 00:49:53.840
You've been listening to Winning Business Radio with your host

753
00:49:53.920 --> 00:49:57.039
Kevin Helena. If you missed any part of this episode,

754
00:49:57.119 --> 00:50:01.280
the podcast is available on Top four Podcasting and iHeartRadio.

755
00:50:01.719 --> 00:50:05.440
For more information and questions, go to Winning Business Radio

756
00:50:05.559 --> 00:50:08.559
dot com or check us out on social media. Tune

757
00:50:08.599 --> 00:50:10.679
in again next week and every Monday at four pm

758
00:50:10.719 --> 00:50:14.199
Eastern Time to listen live to Winning Business Radio on

759
00:50:14.480 --> 00:50:18.760
W four CY Radio W four cy dot com. Until then,

760
00:50:19.119 --> 00:50:22.719
let's succeed where others have failed and win in business

761
00:50:23.000 --> 00:50:26.719
with Kevin Haleanan and Winning Business Radio