Episode 10: Frank Pellkofer on Enterprise Sales and Why AV Is The Crown Jewel Of IT

this is a software defined survival where we talk to AB IT professionals and software developers to find out how to leverage software to reinvent ourselves and we do business we listen to their stories and ask for advice and tactics on how to survive and thrive in a software defined what today software defined survive we are the crown jewels in the I key and we have to act like with the look and feel like your email like their voice over IP like their security like a virtual people always say well you know software off somewhere to find what what is here is what happened network of that network doesn’t go out we are so defensive about our industry that we don’t understand I see that we’re preventing our own chest like not great looking at ourselves actually specialized IT bars springtime greetings from sunny central Europe my name is Patrick Murray and by the time you hear this it will probably be cold and rainy here again today’s guest has been CEO at several companies in the FBI T. space and his linkedin profile shows a more charitable side where he has been up award committee member of several organizations including hello to my music festival which funds music and local schools and the mid Pacific information and communication technology center that helps improve career pathways for thousands of students as you all know I love learning and teaching solve all behind that and he’s also on the board of order of Oddfellows whose mission it is to improve and elevate the character of man that sounds pretty darn interesting he’s currently CEO at utility a software defined platform to control manage and analyze your enterprise ladies and gentlemen Frank tell cover Frank welcome to the show well thank you Mr Murray how are you today I’m doing excellent how how are things by you very good here in California the seven forty five AM and %HESITATION you’re in my second favorite country on the planet dear Deutschland yeah the if I was ever going to have to go somewhere else that would be the place I choose what brought you I know you’re interviewing me but what brought you to turn the tables that love not money so my what I believe to my wife’s hometown she had she had family in my hometown and lots of back and forth over the years and eventually she won that battle so that that’s my story and I’m sticking to it so Frank is there anything about that immediate called out very good stable Deutsche we can do the women on the podcast in in German right miss everybody or in one week maybe maybe the next one that’s a good idea for a show is there anything about that introduction that you’d like to correct or expand upon no it’s the pendulum music festival we raise money for a band instrument augment teacher salary well the Oddfellows is an organization that dates back to the UK in the seventeen hundred and it’s just all about the community educating orphaned centrum and then yeah mid Pacific a call them pick on the Pacific ICT and it is an initiative in the western United States among community colleges which you know several hundred and it’s all about making sure that the I. he he Asian cracks or dressing the types of things that are coming so that they put out students at the have the information they need to be successful sure I I imagine a lot of the changes that we see in technology easily schools will need to keep pace with that and that must be a really hard challenge especially at the community level yeah I think it is a challenge because the you know Moore’s law yeah is got got got a pretty good element of truth to it so and if you do anything in education you know that curriculum is it takes it takes up a good effort to put together piece of curriculum for a single class and if Moore’s law has technology improving and doubling its capacity every you know you years it’s a big effort to keep pace with the status of technology so but they use a bunch of business leaders on different committees to help no drive their curriculum advance that I I like being in that in that space interesting interesting stuff so it looks like your background is more I. T. based please correct me if that’s not correct accurate how did you get involved in AB well I built my first control system when I was in fifth grade no way I am yeah I had a eagles cassette tape that’s how old I am and effective with the let it be album and I’d ask my dad to take me down to the local hardware store we bought a he bought me a piece of why would a couple of light potentiometers dimmers in some AC receptacle and we built a box and I plugged in a few different like a cheap little plastic fiber optic you know fountain light then the yeah spinning you know kind of the way to the drama Dellums or the or I don’t even I’m not in the in the life of that date colored pieces of plastic with the lights behind it and and I spent a couple days building my box and then I went to waited until it was dark I had my parents to the next door neighbors come over and I put on the of the first title track of the let it be album in all two and a half minutes like made the lights go on and off and what I thought I was cool thing I wish I had that big that is cool you have any pictures of it I would only in my head that the and then I got into the AV business you know through like so many of us through life music you know if I play mandolin cheaper than a psychologist to play music %HESITATION and does it have some opportunities so you know in the in the nineties to produce MAV loved it thought it was very cool and it was way to make money and I haven’t really looked back %HESITATION I’ve had to learn like he and I really had to learn the last decade the ideal solution selling you know I had two good mentors and partners and you know people Helen helping me along the way like you all I’m I’m always trying to learn always curious now how did that guy you do so well have happy customers to pay them so much money what did he do what expectations did he that I did not so yeah it’s not always the they talk the technology that that is the deciding factor in these things there’s there’s often some nuances involved with it that %HESITATION yeah that they can only be learned sometimes you could learn them as one plus one is two more but more often than not it’s it’s a it’s a more nuanced thing that %HESITATION that you can’t directly just kind of learned you just kinda have to be around it and experience it a little bit so I like that you mention the fact that the mentors or important to you %HESITATION how do you did you just kind of bump into somebody that that helped you along your way or did you actively the seek a mentor and and how did you go about that process what was it a was even like something you set out to do or did it just happen oh yeah in fact my very first business was a coffee cart college I was going to and and so I reached out to the CFO of the college I knew he had gone to UC Berkeley’s graduate school of business and then I also reached out to the dean of the business department professor Alistair Milroy who owned a shoe manufacturing company in the UK before he got in the teaching of I said Hey here’s an opportunity but I don’t really know what to do and never had a business before wondering if you guys can help me and they did and that I kind of got me hooked on the idea of mentors it and I’m not sure how many people on the planet which I don’t have an ego but you have to set aside your ego and really be willing to embrace your vulnerabilities and take a good hard look at you know what you think your strengths are and be willing to hear what other people think your strengths are not you know so I kept portfolio I mean I always you know one two three %HESITATION I mix them up but I keep in touch %HESITATION at least once a month to you know go to lunch have a phone call a great thing to do mentor say advocate for them great stuff I really appreciate that out that also the the tactical advice of keeping in touch and meeting at least once a month I’m actually in the middle of of the book %HESITATION ego is the enemy so it’s funny you should bring that up right now and now it does have a lot of %HESITATION knock on effects putting putting the ego to the side it just kind of a makes the glass empty in and ready to to receive the knowledge so let’s jump back to a V. could you tell me about your most successful project and and what made it special for you cool well for me there there’s so many you know there are some projects that you know don’t go well they all end we well yeah but you know you know how that goes I’ll have this the most successful project at least as far as you tell if you’re concerned is in the California community college system is we started in in higher education it was a way for us to do that our technology in an enterprise level without having to fly around the world we could do couple hundred three hundred five hundred thousand rooms %HESITATION and to do it in a in a in a region even though the longer sales cycle but I would say the Los Angeles community college district the C. I. O. name is Jorge mata they are the largest community college on the planet they have something like a quarter million students in any given semester if nine campuses yeah multi billion dollar operating budget and then they’ve got a problem I mean they’ve got a couple of thousand classrooms and when I I met Jorge at a CIO conference you know I would do what I always do which is you know not tell me about what kind of challenges you have with your technology in the classroom or conference rooms about that in it hit challenges you know are like nothing you would hear in a typical AV conversation because they really had nothing to do with video on the screen the quality of the audio challenges were decidedly Aikikai challenges I have no insight into my room I issue propriety it seems ridiculous but I have to pay so much money for a box that really running that you’ve got a chip in there at a PC that’s been locked down I have several hundred people on my I. T. staff and I have a choice to have to either hire one or two people with a very highly specialized skills that they go away I’m stuck or I have to hire a third party you know with this with this skill set and done yeah so so those are some of this pain and he wants the ability to have we deliver a ubiquitous user experience regardless of what integrator you use but it goes further you go I’m spending twenty five thousand dollars a cluster on average two thousand classrooms seven year refresh fifty million dollar eighty budget right so divide that by seven years that’s a very significant amount of money sure and he’s responsible to board of trustees faculty taxpayers in his case and and he wants to understand what the effective the technology having unlike student learning outcomes for instance right then fact this goes to about a value conversation that I hope we can touch on put so well we did a first it was like fifty rooms of proof of concept and then we did another eighty rooms and then we did a project that couple hundred rooms it ended up being about three hundred fifty rooms over the course of two and a half years triple redundant you know virtual environment circuses datacenters he’s got three data centers spread throughout the south land will third one is virtualize they just picked all the boxes for him and he didn’t force that he he he let it run its course it was evaluated by all nine campuses directors like pee on each campus that to me from a sales perspective was just a highlight from a technology in its success perspective it was a highlight from the I. O. level and a very large enterprise with a couple thousand rooms it was a highlight and my favorite quote is I always say well you know software also where to find what what is right it all fear fear fear in Horry goes so we had our Australian partner out if he came into her disability here’s what happened network goes out Jorge across my network doesn’t go out I have utility I have you told you getting right next to my payroll server what if my payroll server goes up and he had it all you shouldn’t be in this role if you’ve got network problems like that it’s the truth rank yeah so anyway very big highlight except and then they ended up buying a you know a seven figure option on a on a five year plan for your contract with us and you know we love it and that was very successful everyone happy teachers students Theo our company just when when when I really really love that story there’s so many elements that I’d like to touch on I don’t think we’ll have the time to hit the mall but %HESITATION you found like the golden end user who really just laid out these needs was launched knowledgeable of the network right just sink my network does not go out AV people not all of them of course it’s getting better but you know everybody tries to do this private network where we close everything off into our own little networking called a network and that’s not really the idea we’re not taking full advantage of everything that standards based networks offer to us there’s like I said there’s a lot I want to touch on but I’m curious about that so what kind of a issues did you run into in in the first few rollouts with that project well a network issue actually the very first one he had a campus that was you know a hot mess of the network and and it was a it was a major issue but we spent a lot of time really focusing on the customer what the challenges were and it and remember this was the PLC we didn’t get past this that one we weren’t going to get that we was going to be yet in all likelihood so so helping them understand what the problem was instead of a big finger pointing exercise teachers would call a river are still gonna James Gonzalez on this project teachers would call on a Saturday they had shattered the clock this isn’t working you know he’d have to walking through he would go there a lot of days you know for for a couple of months to hold their hand but also to really make sure that he was understanding what that pain point was and understand the customer use case scenarios and so instead of a finger pointing will this doesn’t work because we knew they understood at a at a intellectual level but the possibility could be needed to improve their network so that that’s how it went in and %HESITATION we work with the I. T. department we’ll sell network but in their case their HP we work very closely with Cisco’s well but in in their case it’s an H. P. network and we were able to work with their team and I would say from an integration perspective that’s a huge huge requirement if you’ll have high level specialists like you know CCIE which are not cheap people or people like our mutual friend Misha Vander stoop on your team you’re not going to be very successful in the new paradigm twenty work in the old paradigm right that’s not going the way I would argue that right now it’s just the rate of growth with hotel rooms boardrooms conference rooms collaboration spaces is double digit it will be double digit for several years to come as far out as we can see in the future so there there I would argue the only room for both in the and that it could it comment there but it’s a recurring theme throughout the network yeah it comes up quite yet like the old I don’t even want to call it old but the very specialized highly customized one off type rooms that could get very complex they’ll always be there and %HESITATION they’ll always be custom and you don’t kind of the island so we do you know that the customisation and maybe a hardware based approach is kind of okay but if you’re but you can’t scale so %HESITATION anything that needs to operate at scale many many hold rooms or middle sized conference rooms we’ll need to start take advantage of the network I just want to point out the lesson that I got from that last part of the story because my next question was you know what kind of trouble did you have and how did you solve them you talked about hands on support and of course support really is the secret sauce to agree business and long term customer relationships but you pointed out that it it it improves your knowledge of how your systems are being used and that was and that was intentional it wasn’t just a group provide great support for the customer to it to win that customer over which of course is a great thing to do anyway but you also saw value in in learning about your own products and and how it’s being used and I I think that’s a really important point of that story so after that you’ve got you’ve got this projects with some kind of the perfect end user lots of knowledge budget you’ve got this proof of concept you move beyond that and and did the large roll out what was kind of the next step and what what activities really provided the most traction on to get you to where you are today well on that particular project he was repeating that PLC process on as well I mean you can imagine right so in pollution sale you know the monstrous find pain you pay if you gonna boil down that’s it and but it is any enterprise environment if if you’re not the thing the committee right for constituency if you will the users the technical the business folks CFO sucker and the financial well I would say maybe maybe you’re executive sponsor director level not using then you’re not you’re not captain to the source Monica that are key all the values good plucked out of the project at that point commodity one one to ten are for men and so %HESITATION in think about consultants in our industry right they’re the ones that are tapped into the value tell me what you’re trying to achieve challenges trying to overcome projector they’re the ones that are sitting there with those four constituencies and having a conversation well I mean fix it go have those conversations and there’s nothing wrong with the night he or maybe you know far I prefer to call them that you’re having those kind of conversations in your value added reseller as opposed to an integrator integrator implied your technical that your value proposition but you’re also fighting margins of your of our you’re probably having the conversations with core constituency so relative to your question our conversations were multiple multiple they you know they have a your district technology committee with all the I. T. you know leaders from all the top nine campuses they have a user group committee two years about they all meet quarterly so you can imagine though one report on your progress ask questions what have you learned you know there’s seven camp of the year that haven’t you two camps is let’s share what you know what you’re and it developing trust with all of those constituencies over the course of time and of course it doesn’t go perfect there’s people that raise questions and and you know fear uncertainty doubt we don’t have that then you’re not either asking the right questions or or or not it’s a normal part of it all only get to go to all of that and address them one by one they even went so far as to hire two different consulting firms outside of what they normally higher to design classroom one was an I. T. bar in the Midwest an IT consultant in the Midwest one was an eighty consulted in the Midwest it with other state to a value away again to the old paradigm you know giants in the industry yeah that that was a particularly proud moment because now there’s something published in the public record that we scored perfect scores you know in a whole bunch of areas and you know very respectable and you know leaders in our industry that I was a proud moment sorry I probably got off track what would you get not at all we have always asking you how you gain traction with end users because you kind of alluded to it the way a V. projects flows from from my perspective as a programmer and for many integrators as well is the end customer in lists of consultants to make a a a specification and that is what we see right and and that’s and then the project gets done and then maybe there’s some contact with the end user afterwards to %HESITATION to fill in the blanks that were missed in in Madame in in that process and dumb I’m noticing it already now that it is it’s it’s a different business flow being AB programmer there were just a few manufacturers that people choose from and the phone would just kind of ring right the everybody else would do the hard work of marketing and sales and the phone would just kind of ring but now with software based solutions where even if you’re doing something open source if it’s affordable or not doesn’t really mean much of a difference there’s there’s some there’s this new marketing and sales process that it’s just inherently different than than something that’s hardware based so that’s something I grapple with a lot ends you definitely answered the question quite well it’s really enlightening these these four constituencies that you that you spoke up and down that was definitely I would I would add you know in the end you just said it and I’m coming from a place of deep respect that but you said you know you get to the project you go through your having in the programmers in particular are very well positioned to hit in the matic shift in approach that I’m talking about from a just from a stylistic approach to value added sales solution sale but you said something that I just broke down contacting the customer afterwards small changes in follow up I would argue there is no afterwards that may be the biggest issue that the AV industry has a lot to continue on this conversation with this particular customer okay community college district two thousand rooms nine campuses do you take in a two thousand room license off the table subscription it done and for the several AV you know integrators along the way you know we’re trying to get them to go in with us we can’t get them that you know were looted were bad you’ll die you know no one ever got fired for hiring big blue IBM right sure well well now that we’ve got the license and now that they’re moving forward with with implementing okay new building coming on line here new building their twenty five rooms here fifty rooms there and that will go on over the next five years actually the refreshing every room on the platform of the next five years and not a single AB integrator they look at these folks it’s twenty five rooms I don’t want to bid on what you tell you they’re not in there asking if they are the only intelligent they’re calling us in any to quote this is impossible to put the system on you tell you plot so not like completely and totally missing the target altogether but the worst part is to them that twenty room project fifty room project is the start and end that said there is no ongoing there is no enterprise conversation and and I see it repeating itself over and over again back I want to start a class called enterprise solutions only Brimble come I keep telling myself I want to do that psycho I would argue that I’m gonna go off of off road here go crazy we were talking recently about you and I about the IT industry twenty seventeen was a three point five trillion dollar global industry and depending on what numbers you look at the AV industry twenty seventeen was about a hundred and twenty billion maybe a hundred and fifty billion somewhere in there globally which is about three three and a half dance you know cake of the total like he global spent in twenty seventy five would argue that we in a V. have been so defensive and I’m for maybe I owned an immigration company in California for decades that that that we are so defensive about our industry and we don’t understand I see that we’re preventing our own success by not in bracing and looking at ourselves actually specialized I. T. bar we are the crown jewel like he and I would bet you would never talked about this but I would be willing to to to say go out on a limb and say Patrick you have been involved in AB project where you struggle to have a meaningful cooperation or communication with an IT department weather was the network folks with it with the datacenter folks whatever they are I wouldn’t give us the time of day or the information we needed or they throw up their hands and said you had to build a different network winning one yard you have probably absolutely ASEAN and the result of that is we said okay the truth of the matter is that not what they want they want your stuff our stuff on their network they just don’t believe us we can’t have a coherent conversation yeah when we’re done with the project and the building opened up and all the contractors could become you’ve probably been to those kind of party the lobby party where they celebrate they bring in you know the the people that founded the building the people that built the building users and everyone get to spend a couple hours you know with cookies and punch and you know etcetera where the black people you’re showing off the board room they’re showing off our technology we install they wouldn’t have given the time today and I’m I’m being a little cheeky there but you get my point right we are the crown jewel in the IT industry we have to act like it with the look and feel like their email like their voice over IP like your security like the virtual desktops and when we do that whether you’re using our technology here you tell he or whether you’re using you know our competitors technology we it makes the AV world show up in a completely different way and here’s what you’ll experience you’ll experience and I key department going well I get it thank you conversation done you got to be able to talk about the security protocols which you you know measure that guy is probably you know took top ten globally from the network perspective John chambers of Cisco he was like up there in in in John chambers whenever John chambers within the media Michelle was there supporting him that kind of thing Michel does you know network reference architecture for companies that have ten thousand rooms globally in you know eighty countries hundreds of city where the crown jewel of I. T. that’s my claim and I’m sticking to it I love the mindset specialized IT VA ours and and and that the I. T. people basically show off our stuff because Iraq is a rack and %HESITATION you know video is much more interesting so can we can we get a little tactical because the message to me is loud and clear I love it but there are some steps to get there so what what should a company with a traditional AV backgrounds or even a an independent programmer like myself what are some steps they can take maybe you break it down what what should a sales person be doing what should a technician or a programmer be doing to be able to have better conversations with with IT well first off so I I mention the poor constituencies right technical users executive director I two years ago she also but you need an executive sponsor for us it usually director right here CIO of my experience with it and they’re not all like that Minami be clear this you know I’m being very general here applying at a high level but HV world it’s very comfortable talking to technical people at a customer site right an AV department yeah if there is one I find it challenging not to talk about technical well and there’s a very important space for that but that is I would argue the biggest discipline the biggest thing we have to discipline ourselves to a boy on demand to elevate conversation the director level how do you do that applause and I HV integrator today I would be doing small regional shows with the ideals I would not have it if you ever come to you elegy boost that these kinds of things you’ll never see a piece of equipment in our place ever ever ever okay death of a sale because I’m not here to show you the thing I’m here to find out your challenge that’s the key thing is not to do that tactical focus on the strategy number one right small regional the audio show government education you know small medium businesses if you’re big enough to handle large scale you know fortune ten thousand companies you know great if you’re not avoid them because they’re huge and cumbersome you can do a lot of damage from a you do a lot of great things I should say with a law firm that got you know fifty conference rooms in three locations in your state right sure and there’s a lot of good value to be had here so that’s the first thing the second thing it’s just focusing on the paint in those conversations strategy and I might thing is when I’m talking to CIO I will say so for our first meeting I only fifteen minutes of your time twenty minutes Max will make it quick I want to get to the word no as fast as possible and I want to waste your time or mine okay then I say but I get the meeting then I say what I really want is just you by yourself none of your team I don’t want to bring your integrator to mean you and usually she or he will agree to that then I shall tell me about your challenge what you pay because their team is there day will not tell you what their challenges are they want a candid peer to peer conversations almost like a mentor relationship yeah and I swear it’s a fascinating don’t tell you one of my challenges you know my eighty integrator they think they hold me hostage you know the TV broke when my team won out they got a new TV you know they just want to hang it and change the code that two weeks before that but you know the integrated could come out they want to try to get out of well you’ve got a thousand rooms in that you know in every room requires that you know once or twice over the life of the system that that’s a Burr under the saddle their their world is not should be able to do this I had an employee quit on my voice over IP canceled you know that that that their email account cancel their voice over IP account yeah I had a night the bar install the voice over IP them but I can manage it I can make changes been up a new account these people want let him have what they want then the next strategy that value now you have an honest conversation okay sounds like we’re not at the word no what’s the best next step who should I talk to your organization to get this going my goal is to have a proof of concept I want you to go by five rooms in any good CIO or any good director like he is not going to make unilateral decisions gonna send it down for betting to their team if they don’t they’re not good now we get permission to go start having meetings with the team sponsored by the executive we got our exact spot I’m going to go through that and then that’s when I would bring in someone senior like you right and I’d say well you know please make Patrick Murray he is highly technical been here done that and I think that for programmers in our industry they’re the best position to do that as opposed to being your install technician the programmers are the ones that understand architecturally at the high level how these things go together there is a one the one constituency navy that had both conversations about what are you trying to achieve with this user are you trying to achieve user experience so that’s when I bring those people in preventing and I will and if their network experts I’ll leave it at that if they’re not then you know I treated as user experience expert then I will also bring in a network expert and my goal there squash the network conversation factor that comes up Bennett if you got the right person they’re gonna you know good customers because they will what the effect on my network what your security protocol how do you avoid you know X. Y. Z. how many hops on the network what do I gotta do what ports you’ve got to be opened up tracker tracker and that conversation will pop up like you’re in it go in fifteen minutes and now they’re open to everything else that you want to talk about you still have to go through and that you know invalidate the network architecture in support of this paired up right but you still need now there had the you shut down the whole voice in their heads and you’ve got there full attention instead of every time you bring something up there thinking security how that’s going to work where do you expect work which I consider AV programs to be at a network expert which I it I believe that yeah AV programmers are the best suited and have the closest you’ll that in our industry to be able to learn and fill those roles and like you said earlier you love to learn I love to learn you know I I got it in a at one point you twelve years ago now but believe me if I can do it anybody can do it in it now helps me in my conversation so tactically those are the first few steps and my goal is to get to a proof of concept from the business owner’s perspective it takes some money and really the new value here is A. V. as a service when you tell it to the platform that enables back managed service provider that’s one thing right but in the AV industry we’ve done this idea of a services contract what a services contract it’s nothing more than an actuarial bat between me and the customer they’re betting that their maximum exposure is at and I’m betting that I built the system so well that I’m in a pocket that money you know and wore this for a year right and what kind of a long term relationship is that when at the end of a specific project we’ve now got a bet against each other basically some sort of insurance policy two eighty years of service five I’ve done all that heavy lifting up front understand your problems to quell the concerns of your team to earn your trust to prove that the concept works now we’ve got a relationship now we’re actually got a partnership where a partner a trusted partner a trusted value added part margins are now healthy the relationship is awesome and now I’ve got a subscription model so where do you go if you’re a business owner well go finance the pure Cisco reseller I don’t know what what their arms under some nexus half or sixty percent of the of the you know project involves disco equipment don’t finance the whole thing the whole con of finance companies out there that can bond the idea of AV at the service just as a subscription there is no upfront cost you gonna take whatever gonna pay fifteen hundred dollars a month for this conference room with dual screens in a disco that sex twenty you know of buying up you know to Sarah sound bar where whatever it may be right whether Hubbell rumor complex order and you can price it accordingly and what you’ll find is that and it’s actually not that hard to sell in fact it’s a huge asset to most entity especially in the corporate space because instead of having to capitalize the put on their books straight line you know amortized and appreciate it’s just only expendable suddenly in companies leave things all the time and until we change the whole model to look like %HESITATION my voice over I pieces restriction most of my video is now subscription most of my C. R. M. is now subscription most of my ERP I don’t know what the number is but a vast majority it think that IT departments by our bought today as a subscription so we need to change the business model we need to change the failed approach we need to train up our AV programmers which are very well positioned to leverage this and in it and then at that point you know it just becomes a matter of implementation and we already understand that we can go in and have those conversations the gossip I plugged the TV in two or you know ungrounded you know isolated ground I knowing that have like a hermit shoppers are so much war you know sixty cycle home an audience that’s an expertise that we have right and and not another part of our our value whole conversation in the subscription business model it worked six eight times trailing twelve months rather than whereas the contracted model it word for the five times even huge difference in valuation on top of the huge difference in margin I’m on a mission not just for my company industry that I love I’m on a mission to get our margins back be the crown jewel of I. T. and to eliminate fear that I think a lot of people in our industry have because we’re undergoing this paradigmatic shift but I’m here to tell you there’s nothing to be afraid of it safe we’ve been doing it for decades for five competitors like me Barco bought media along you know what this could start I would argue are little better and I say that with a smile on my face but it could stop Kramer bought I rule it’s not I got nothing against my competitors because they were out there doing this paradigm shift as well like it like explores in the old days so nothing to be afraid of call us call them will will walk you through it will have the conversation will take the time the best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago the next best time to plant a tree today again thank you so much you’ve got another call to take in a few minutes but I definitely would like to have you back on flora a part too because you just laid out and a business plan basically you’ve you gave us the entire game plan to get from where we are to where we need to be and I have a lot more success and not only that the motivation on top of it I really do appreciate that and I thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me today if anyone would like to get in touch with you how would they do that well our website you elegy dot com you T. E. L. O. G. Y. dot com I’m Frank helicopter you can find me on linked in course I always want to talk about you tells you but really a rising tide list all ships and you know you hear me talk about our competitors I’m so happy they’re here so I want to have a conversation and we can do this together Patrick let’s work together to elevate the industry and that’s what our party is that I see at Infocom the called the machete club has nothing to do you’ll never see us mention our name if you’re in an on board with the shifting paradigm and join us whether you appreciate what we bring to the table or what our competitors bring to the table not none of that matters us there were all good we all have a good solution what matters is that we’re changing our industry and if in the end of your on board with that you know having those kinds of conversations you know all be on all the time because I’m gonna keep it neutral I’m not going to make this about our company it’s about our industry me yeah my company will just ride with that conversation absolutely there’s I mean just the numbers you were mentioning comparing IT Davy there’s lots of elbow room so even the word composition is %HESITATION the it does direct competition I think is a not really what’s going to happen how this will play out at least for some time so thank thank you so much for being on the show Frank and will definitely do a part two some time you got it my friend thank you so much out leaders stand choose it is and we got on this muscular shell Patrick here again Frank got you all excited about software and living up to the moniker of being the crown jewel of IT you’re going to need some new skills and more importantly mine’s a new way to think about a new approach to designing and delivering projects so I encourage you to go to learn even program dot com just read the home that’s it just read the whole page that resonates with you then go ahead and click the button at the bottom of the page and sign up for the starts and some females with more ideas technical info on how to start expanding beyond the comfort zone that’s learn AB programming dot com all right get out there role adapts and let’s live up to specialized role in IT I’ll see you next week thanks for listening to software defined survival for transcripts and show notes go to solve thirty find survival dot com