Bringing Order to Communications Chaos: Lessons from a 35-Year Telecom Veteran
In the latest episode of The COVI Way podcast, we sat down with Daniel Bray, founder and president of Braytel Communications, to explore the often-overlooked world of business communications and connectivity. With over 35 years in the telecom industry, Daniel has witnessed the evolution from single shared computers to today’s cloud-based everything, and his insights reveal a troubling pattern: businesses are still paying astronomical bills for services they don’t use or understand. Daniel shared stories of pulling $7,000 to $30,000 per month out of client budgets simply by conducting proper audits of legacy services that had been ignored for years. His core philosophy centers on transparency and education, taking complicated telecom acronyms and making them understandable for decision-makers who often find themselves navigating technical complexities without proper guidance.
What sets successful partnerships apart in the technology space isn’t just technical expertise—it’s the commitment to putting people first. Daniel emphasized how his team’s willingness to pick up the phone and have real conversations, rather than hiding behind email chains, creates the foundation for understanding what clients actually need. This people-centric approach extends beyond customer service to strategic thinking about productivity and business continuity. Rather than just focusing on cost savings, Daniel advocates for viewing technology investments through the lens of employee productivity and talent retention, especially in today’s competitive job market, where frustrated employees have options. The conversation highlighted how proper internet redundancy and cloud-based phone systems aren’t just technical requirements—they’re business continuity strategies that prevent the chaos that ensues when communications fail.
The episode concluded with a sobering reminder about the risks of putting all your technological eggs in one basket, particularly with custom solutions that only one person understands. Daniel’s tech tip reinforces this: every business needs a documented backup plan for when internet connectivity fails, whether through redundant circuits or procedures for employees to seamlessly switch to mobile hotspots and softphone applications. As we look toward an AI-driven future, the fundamental principle remains unchanged—technology should enable human productivity, not create dependencies that leave businesses vulnerable when key people or systems disappear.
Episode Summary:
Daniel Bray from Brtel Communications joins The Covi Way to uncover the messy truth behind telecom contracts, legacy billing, and decision-making in a tech vacuum. Learn why simplifying complexity, building trust, and prioritizing productivity can save your organization more than just money.
Key Quotes:
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“Most businesses are paying for services they haven’t used in years.”
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“My job is to clear the fog and help people make sense of what’s actually going on.”
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“If you’re not reviewing your bills annually, you’re asking to be taken advantage of.”
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“It’s not about being the smartest guy in the room—it’s about making people feel heard.”
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“Respect your partners’ lanes. If you don’t, you’ll lose your allies.”
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Episode Transcript
Cody: Welcome to The COVI Way, the podcast where we break down the intersection of people and technology because it shouldn’t just be about fixing problems. It’s about enabling people to do their best work. I’m Cody Lents, the VP of Sales at COVI. And today we’ll attempt to unravel the complexities of communications and connectivity with Daniel Bray, the founder and president of Braytel Communications.
Braytel is a technology integrator based in Indianapolis that brings over two decades of experience to internet connectivity and telecom. They have been instrumental in helping organizations stay connected and competitive with reliable, custom-fit solutions.
Daniel, thanks for joining us today. Looking forward to talking to you. I know we go way back. Again, I say this in almost every episode because it feels like we’re always bringing things out. But full disclosure, Daniel is Thomas’s dad. So you are very proud, Dad.
Daniel: Yes, I’m a very proud coworker. Thank you for bringing Thomas our way.
Cody: I’ve known you since 2019, I believe around there. And then Thomas joined us in 2024 and I think you’ve worked in and around us for a decade or so before then as well.
Daniel: Yeah, formally. ECS days and things like that.
Cody: Over the next 30 minutes or so, I’m just gonna ask you some questions. I know we’re gonna dive into how you help solve really simple to really complex problems in the internet connectivity and telephony space. It’s all up to the board. I’ll try to trip you up as many times as I can, but probably fail. So if you don’t mind, can we start in the beginning with the, why did you start your own company and how’d you do it?
Daniel: I was a really grumpy employee. I worked for carriers for 15 years of my career and I just kept getting stonewalled and I realized that not every carrier was quality. And just because they paid my paycheck, I had to tow the party line. And I realized after a while that it’s like, well, I need to represent everyone and I need to go out on my own because first of all, I’m not a very good employee because I just want to do my own thing and leave me alone. And some bosses did that very well. And other bosses did not like that at all, especially my last one. And I just said, that’s it. Enough is enough.
And so I went out and I found pretty much all the carriers in the market at that time. All the names have changed since then. The only one with the same name and some of them are gone completely. And so I just decided to match the carrier with the customer instead of trying to shove one company’s products down everybody’s throat as a salesperson. Because when you work there, you have no choice. You do what you do.
Cody: It’s like I sell COVI actually know we introduced you and third parties all the time. We do all but…
Daniel: Yeah, maybe by design chip, the founder of COVI by design of this so that we could avoid the problem that you left for.
Cody: There we go. And you also will tell someone if you’re not a good fit. You’re not allowed to do that in the carrier world.
Daniel: That’s true. You’ve got to get that deal. You’ve got to get every deal you can never say no, you can never fire a customer. You can never not do a proposal, even if you know it’s the wrong one. And so I don’t have those problems anymore.
Cody: Did you ever have a time, I’m guessing you had a bunch of them, but do you remember any specific time when you had to force something in or force a deal through that you knew wasn’t the best fit for the client and then it came back to bite the carrier you worked for at the time?
Daniel: Wow. You’re asking me to go back to some cobwebs there. I know I had some really bad fits, but I know is an okay answer. There’s one I worked for MCI back in the day and their entire redundancy for the state of Indiana was one DS3 of connectivity between one part of their network and another part of the network. And I was in a presentation in the FAA had taken like two thirds of that for… So we had like one DS3 of connectivity, you know, 28 channels of voice at the time, or 28 channels of T1s. And the customer looked at me and he said, how redundant is your redundancy? And I just had to say, it’s not.
Cody: A little bit.
Daniel: Yeah. Just, I mean, compared to the whole state of Indiana and we, I just, you know, we didn’t get the deal of course, because once they know what they’re talking about and they see, you know, they see something that’s trying to have the wool pulled over. Then they just walk away and he did and I didn’t blame him. But it was just, I, there’s nothing I could say. It’s like, well, I just work here.
Cody: Transparency. I always say like, if you set out to do the right thing every time and you’re transparent, then the worst thing you ever do is apologize for a mistake. And so I, I’ve lived that way since my door knocking construction days. I don’t know if it’s in my DNA or I just heard it and grabbed it, or I just thought of it and ran with it, but it has probably been the greatest de-stressor as a relationship manager, account manager, salesperson, and multiple industries over the last two decades of my life. I- Birth order might’ve had a play a part in that.
Daniel: In fact, I was the oldest. So the oldest of none. I was also, I mean, my sister is seven years younger than me. So she’s the oldest. That usually resets the cycle. Six years. It’s two oldest. But we were only in the same household when she had her frontal lobe started developing for like a year or two before we were in different households. I was basically an only. Right. You know, through my teenage years.
Cody: So I think you may have already answered this. So if you have, just give me a quick reiteration of it. But when you stepped out, besides the personal pain that you out and started your own business for, what other like primary pain or problem were you trying to solve?
Daniel: Appreciate that. It mainly it was there were so many choices and people were so confused and the technology at that time, you know, compared to now was just, it was terrible. And I had to navigate the different carriers because it wasn’t a one size fits all. It wasn’t simple like it is now. It was, it was much more, even though the technology was worse, say, there was a huge Delta between ABC carrier and XYZ carrier. And we really had to listen because the customers didn’t understand what all these acronyms were, techno, you know, there was no IT. There was no IT back then. I forgot you predated. Yeah, I’m Asian technology. We’re talking the early 90s, you know.
And so we have the telecom industry has terrible acronyms and always has. But it was mainly because the AT&T employees didn’t want the customers to know what all this stuff was and why it was. Like if you go back to the numbering, you know, all the central offices, they would all use all these code names and all these things. And just to like, to be secretive and to not let the customer know what they were talking about. And I was like, why do you keep doing this? We need to explain what’s going on to the customer. And so I just, I just said, okay, forget it. I’m, I’m going to do that. And so I’m going to clear the fog of war and explain to them what’s going on and they’ve appreciated it.
Cody: Yeah, I think I was working with you on a client who was looking at a new fiber connection to go from a coax to fiber and they couldn’t do it because we were missing a flower pot and a handhold. And so when you talk about… When you talk about like the hidden codes back then, I’m like, now there’s the actual terminology for real things nowadays. But they still call them stupid things. I heard the term flower pot last week and I started joking. I’m like, well, are we going to go to Lowe’s and get another one? Do we use some topsoil? What are we going to put it up?
Daniel: So you’re still navigating a similar completely different reality, but similar problem. Exactly. And that really boils down to my entire, I’ll say my entire business plan has been taking complicated things and making them simple, but also tailoring them to the audience. So I have a CIO who’s a great example. I’m not going to mention any names, but he he’s the CIO and he makes big bucks running a big company and he doesn’t have a clue. And then I’ll have an office manager who has been around. She mostly runs a 15 person shop.
And she knows almost as much as I do, even though she doesn’t get paid to because she is like on the ground and she is engaged and she asks questions. And the CIO is just kind of up in this, you know, on the cloud, you know, the cloud in the sky and he, he doesn’t know what’s really going on. And he just depends on a lot of other people, but he’s trying to make decisions in a vacuum. And I’m kind of like, okay, time out. Let me, let me help you.
Cody: Yeah, navigate this, you know, and he wouldn’t he so far has not thanked me or apologize for pretending like he knows what’s going on. But I’m OK with that. I don’t need that to cash the check. You know, yeah, because the relationship trumps the…
Daniel: The ego.
Cody: Yeah, that’s the word I looking for. Thank you. And if it doesn’t, then you’re in trouble.
Daniel: Oh, well, let’s dive into that. I agree with the statement. What do you mean? Well, if I take everything personally and I get offended and I demand appropriate recognition for the things that I do, then I’m not going to succeed for very long. I tell people when I go and install phone systems, the end users, I go in there and they don’t know who I am. The only person that knows who I am is the person who made the decision. Well, I go around everybody’s desk, I crawl under their desk and plug things in and some of them treat me like complete dirt.
I’m just the owner. They don’t know I’m the owner of the company. I’m the janitor as far as they’re concerned. And they’re waiting for me to you know, they’re they’re waiting for it to enter their trash while I’m down there, you know, and it keeps me humble. And I don’t mind that. Some days I walk out and I just shake my head and think if they only knew, but that’s okay. It keeps me humble. And I enjoy that part of the business, you know, simply for like, why are you still doing that? It’s like, because I really like it. It’s weird. But I like it. It’s voice. You know, I came from the voice side. So I’ve been doing voice for 35 years.
You know, internet when I was at Ameritech, they wouldn’t sell internet, they wouldn’t let me sell it. They said, Oh, Indianapolis isn’t a big enough market for us to bring internet there.
Cody: And I was like, how much is after we had a football team?
Daniel: You how much do need me to sell? This was, um, this was 2002. I said, wait, after we had a football team, how much do need me to sell? And they’re like, well, we need you to sell 400 and some circuits. And I’m like, we can do that, you know, in a year. Absolutely. And they were like, no, no. And they literally would not, they wouldn’t bring it to Indianapolis. And so I left the company and went elsewhere because it was just ridiculous. So
But the voice, you the background in the voice really still applies like all those stupid acronyms, all those things. They still flow through and that background helps me simplify things for the customer.
Cody: Yeah. You do it for me all the time for our clients. And most of the people who were a little older than I am have all retired. So there aren’t many left, which is crazy.
Daniel: Yeah. And scary.
Cody: Or I mean, depending on which side of the table you’re sitting on, it’s scary or it’s exciting. So I’m on the scary side, but that’s unfortunate. Going back to relationships, how do you, you have that historical knowledge, all those acronyms, you have all sorts of, probably people sell numbers at places to be able to back channel things because of your history of contacts, but how do you balance keeping up with cutting edge technology and the customizing and tailor pieces that you mentioned earlier, while also delivering really good support, making people feel cared for and heard and like your empathetic piece.
It’s a lot for, I mean, you’re three people, if I remember correctly. Yeah, it’s a lot for like, you guys feel like at least a five to 10 person company when I work with you. So how do you balance that and make it work without you know, the burning candles at both ends reality.
Daniel: Sometimes it doesn’t, you know, sometimes we do burn the candle at both ends and that’s just, that’s just reality. Um, but asking a ton of questions, um, that, that is really sometimes it just feels like an interrogation because I just need to know these things that most people don’t think about on a daily basis. So when I start asking questions, they’re like, Oh man, I don’t even know the answer to that question. And then I’ll set up, you know, a list of questions that I’ll email them. Because it that’s the only way to really get to the pinpoint and to really understand how I can help them. Not just you know, it’s great to save money. That’s a wonderful thing. I’ve got a great story of a company in Crawfordsville. But but it’s really productivity. It’s like, okay, you know, we can save you a little bit of money and
Is it going to save the company if you go out of business? Absolutely not. You know, if we make a thousand dollar a month impact on your budget, that’s a wonderful thing, but it’s, it’s not going to keep you in business if you have unproductive employees. So I’m always harping on productivity, productivity, how many minutes a day is each of your employees sitting there waiting for something to happen? And if your bandwidth isn’t sufficient, or you don’t have a backup, you don’t have redundancy, you don’t have the right infrastructure.
you are burning your customers time and they’re angry and their morale goes down and they leave the company. You know, it’s a buyer’s market for our firm police right now. And so if someone gets up to here before they wouldn’t leave because they didn’t know if they could get another job. Well, they can get another job. And and so that’s that’s the big that’s really the center of the whole thing is figuring out how do we maximize productivity to
potentially not have to hire another person or hire another person because you’ve got so much business because everybody else is producing at that point.
Cody: Especially in our primary assessment that we do to score best practices for technology from an overview perspective, we do an impact version. And one of the things we are primarily focused on, like you said, the finances, what’s our impact on payroll, then also talent acquisition and talent retention is so huge and we always focused on it.
And then we added to that in the assessment when COVID hit and the craziness of employment and hybrid work and everything. I have found for me personally that that is my favorite piece of the puzzle is the people. And so that’s one of the things I wanted to bring out is how.
The synergy that we have in our partnership from a vendor to vendor perspective or partner to partner perspective is, I believe, because both organizations, you at the head of yours, founded ours and Dave runs it now and our entire leadership team, me included, are so focused on we are a people first organization internally and externally. I…
don’t experience that in your field very often. so that’s the different is that a strategic differentiator or is it just part of your DNA or like both? Like, does that work?
Daniel: I would say it’s both because, um, you know, there, there aren’t a lot of young people coming into our business right now. And I know a lot of people say that, but because they don’t want to pick up the phone, they’re just, know, the phone has always been heavy. I have to admit, you know, early days, that phone weighed like 20 pounds and
to get it up to your ear to make a call. But even with current customers, know, email is very efficient, know, texting is efficient, but we, we just want to talk to people and, cause if you don’t talk to them, they won’t really tell you what’s going on and you can’t really fix anything until people tell you what’s going on. And, it, it, just is a requirement, but it’s also just part of who we are, you know, because we came from the voice side. It’s just, we’re just,
already attuned to using the phone instead of not.
Cody: Yeah, mean, like I said, I have a door knocking background. So it was doors and phones and feet on pavement. And I still find when I was incredibly over capacity before we hired another customer steward to help that I would be like working at night after hours, I shouldn’t say at night, but you
after five and I’d be like, oh man, I should like this phone call would be so great right now, but like they’re eating dinner. can’t do it. I was always in such conflict because I was like, I could wait and do it tomorrow. But then the waiting could lead to the forgetting that you can. So I used to, I would just send the email and try to make the call and then feel bad about the double hit and the extra flag in your inbox. Cause I hate an email that didn’t need to be there.
Like you said, it’s efficient unless there’s so much that it’s not. so that having that calibrated correctly, whether it’s tailoring it, personal process or some type of technical filter is so important. And as you know, most IT people are email centric and most HR people are voice centric.
Daniel: Oh, yeah, that’s a good point. I’ve never thought about it. Yeah. Most HR people, which sometimes they’re over telecom and the finance people, you know, they they’re much more that they want to talk about it. The IT people are like, no, I’m just gonna email you, we’re gonna get this done in 15 seconds, it’s gonna be done. And I have to my track record so can look back when I forget. Which I get.
Cody: Me too, I keep record of everything. And then sometimes it’s reversed, which is really weird. I get an IT person who won’t send me an email, but he calls me every time. And it’s like, okay, I just have to know that and be okay with that.
Daniel: So.
Cody: You had mentioned just a minute ago, you had alluded to the answer to this question, but you didn’t quite dive in there. So I’m going to go ahead and ask these questions in the reverse order. So I apologize if you prepared that well, but where you can you give me a an example from your past or even this week or whatever, where you brought order to chaos from a situation where either there, there are IT resources, whether it’s internal or an outsourced third party and you
just weren’t on the same page and you had to get it all untangled, usually because someone in that equation is operating without the understanding that you just described you have to have to be successful. Can you give us like a real world example of that?
Daniel: I can without mentioning names. But this is one of my favorites. It was about 10 years ago. I was brought into a manufacturing concern over in Crawfordsville. And the the the big thing about relationships is, you know, companies change, people leave.
And I have some customers that I’ve been the single only person who’s been involved with that company for that period of time. So like over 10 years, everybody has left except for me. That’s absurd. And so the new people come in and they go, who are you? And I say, well, this is what I do. And they go, oh, good. Cause now I don’t have to do that. And then they leave and then it happens over and over again. So this particular customer had had that happen. The person who had bought all of this garbage years and years ago, left the company. The new people came in.
And as a friend of mine calls it, they waited and paid it. If it didn’t change much from the last month, they just paid the bill and they paid astronomical AT&T bills that they should never have been paying. I ended up pulling about 7,000 a month out of their budget because they had been paying for services for 10 years that they hadn’t been using. And because there were so many generations of…
Cody: Do you think that’s common still?
Daniel: It still is. Oh, yes. I have one from about three years ago. That was 30,000 a month by the time I was done.
Cody: So I’m gonna ask this as a question for him, but it’s like an assumptive thing. I’m looking, this is for me and my own daily activities here, but for you as well, if you’re a leader of an organization, is it safe to assume that if they’re not on VoIP or internet-based phones, that they could have potential for that problem?
Daniel: It’s more likely even. Yes, more likely if they haven’t updated their technology, it’s more likely that they have this legacy stuff that nobody has touched. When you ignore things, they grow. negative things.
Cody: The migration we did late last year for one of our CPA clients, they had a really old system. was the savings in that situation?
Daniel: It was about half. It ended up being beautiful.
But if you’re not doing an annual review of all the bills that you pay, you are purposefully allowing yourself to be taken advantage of. And that’s even today. Comcast, not to throw them under the bus, I love them, but their goal is for you to go off of contract and for your bill to double. It’s just that simple. They will not reach that why that happens?
Cody: Yes. This isn’t a contact. This is- provider agnostic all from my perspective, but I’m talking about my personal life. I’m like, Hey, I don’t want this to ever change. I actually got business class internet at my house that I didn’t have to deal with all the consumer grade promotional things. I don’t care if I pay more. I just want it stable.
Daniel: Yeah. And, their entire business model is, getting a good rate for two years. And then once it goes off contract, they’re going to ignore it and they just hope you keep paying it. and so I’m intrigued by the it’s it’s
statistics that come with that. How many stay? How many go? How many stay in our angry? How many don’t know? I’ll say 75% of them don’t even notice. Wow, because it’s on autopay. it’s on autopay. They don’t see the credit card every month. They don’t review it. If you’re not doing an annual review of every bill you pay, especially in our world, you know, we find $420 elevator lines on the regular, like every just about every month.
Some one of our customers is paying two to $400 a month for an alarm line or an elevator line to AT&T. I did one just this week. and, and I, we keep, we keep blasting them, send us your bills, send us your bills, send us your bills. And some do most don’t. And then they, they’ll be like, all of a sudden, what’s this bill? And I’m like, I’ve never seen it before. And I’ve been taking care of you for five years. You’ve never sent it to me. And so those are the things that are just so much fun.
Cody: in the business space, we’re seeing AI engines get integrated to the backend of financial platforms like EquipBooks Online or Sage intact. so I assume that what I’m about to say will transcend personal finance and personal connectivity into the business space, probably this year, if not tomorrow, for all we know.
throw back to a previous podcast, I’m now a YSFI user, thank you Eric Zong, and that solution or something like a Monarch, that will flag you and let you know when your recurring bills have gone up. And so that’s actually how I caught that with my internet provider a couple of years ago, or it’s last year actually. So yeah, little impromptu tech tip for you.
Daniel: Yeah, and that’s a beautiful thing.
Cody: That moment in mind, we talked about like there was the chaos, there’s the financial side to that that you just talked about. Do you have a most memorable like integration moment or client acquisition moment where it’s just like, this was insane or this was epically awesome or something like that that you could share?
Daniel: I’ll say the other one that I mentioned from three years ago. I sat down with the CFO down at Atlanta and I laid out my proposal.
And it was a mess. It was just absolute mess. And I hadn’t even gotten all the bills. I was just going off of what I had. And I said, you’re looking at $12 to $15,000 a month in savings. And he said, Yeah.
And I was like, excuse me. And he was like, yeah, it’s a small line item. I don’t care. And I said, we’ll split it. I said, let me do it and we’ll split it. And he was all whole, you know, he kind of laughed at me. And then he was like, the meeting’s over, you know, and then the IT director said,
No, going to do this.
Cody: Yeah. But that’s the CFO. In my experience, it usually goes the other way around. I work with the CEO or the CFO and they help me get the IT resources on board, whether that’s the officer level or the director or whatever. And so not always is it that way, but usually because we’re taking that strategic lens and they’re focused on the tactical as they should be. And it’s just a different presentation for a different. Oh, for sure.
your role and the usually we don’t get the option to do both. And so it’s kind of that right roundabout way to get there. Yours was the other way around, which is kind of funny.
Daniel: And by the time we got all the bills that ended up being about 30,000 a month in savings. And they’re completely on a new, all new technology, all new fiber, all new cloud voice. They’re all integrated. Everything is beautiful. But you know, it was the first, the first blush was, it’s not worth it.
And I’m just I about jumped down. That was a month, right? Yeah, per month. Yeah. So that’s a pretty nice annual operating budget.
Cody: I’m to shift gears back to like some more technical tactical things, even though those were really fun stories. So anytime you can tell a story, please pull it out. I love them.
A lot of what you deal with today is somewhat out of the box with add-ons and things you can do to them. But you have an internet connection, whether it’s low end, you know, cable broadband coax, or it’s dedicated fiber on the high end with all this throughput and really high pricing. Then you have your phone products, which are going to be an out of the box voice system.
that a client could manually configure their call flow. I know they use you a lot for that configuration as well, but you are constrained by whatever that manufacturer and software vendors feature set is. Correct. So how do you approach the customization and the tailoring when within those out of the box scenarios?
Daniel: Sometimes we have to break some rules to do that. Like the carrier will say, well, this is, this is how we go about doing this. And these are the parameters that you have. And with a lot of experience and talking to the people behind the scenes, we’ll figure out ways to, to leverage the feature set in ways that they didn’t intend, which tends to be the best results. So it’s not an advertised feature. It’s like you combine some features together to make a new feature.
to accomplish the customer’s end goal, but not do it in the way that the bean counters or the product manager wants us to do it. And that’s a lot of fun when we can get creative and especially when my team does that without me. That’s so exciting. I try not to be everything for everyone, but to empower them and to encourage them to, hey, think about this and call so and so and ask them, how do you accomplish this?
And that’s been a lot of fun. That’s really as we wait for the carriers to roll out new features, we try to front end it and either be a beta test or to just make it work to the end user and transparent to the callers without necessarily getting permission.
Cody: Yeah. mean, forgiveness, not permission is sometimes the way, especially in this space where I feel like that’s less of a rule and more of a guideline. for sure.
Within your process, because I know that when we have a mutual client that we’re somewhat integrated together in process, I don’t know it. I don’t have a clear picture of how you’re doing things behind the scenes. So in that process, what and you already answered the I ask a lot of questions answer here. So that is no that’s no longer an acceptable answer to this question. But within your process, how do you work to uncover the individual needs of
organization or different departments within an organization or even just a particular end user if you have like a power user.
Daniel: It a lot of what we do. I’ll say 80 20 rule 80 80% is is cookie cutter. It’s just here are your five things. I told Thomas growing up. People do what they know and they don’t do what they don’t know and that is true by and large and and he always pushed back on me with that.
And 80% of the time, if you’re getting them to what they know, or maybe a step further, then it’s a win. It’s the 20% where it’s not automatable yet. And that’s one thing I am working on, which we’ll talk about in a second. It is truly sometimes just gutting it out and talking to and just being on the phone for hours to try to figure out. My VoIP administration days, I remember the
Back in circuit calls. just in T or earth link or home management, old names and earthlings. But even with the customer, you know, contacts, because everybody’s got their own perspective. And, and I was in a meeting last week where there were four people who wanted four different outcomes on a particular phone system. And we ended up engineering everything in a very convoluted roundabout way. Well, now there’s a new decision maker and we sat back down and he was like,
Why this so complicated? And we said, because it was a committee. And when you have a committee, you know, a camel is a horse created by a committee. Then you have all of this complexity that is really unnecessary, but it made everybody happy. And so sometimes you just have to do that. other times you get to strip it all away and simplify it because people really want simplicity. They really don’t want all the complexity. And that’s where IT is getting.
And, and, you know, back in the day when there was no IT budget or there was no security budget, all that stuff was, just, you know, somewhat new in the business world. If you think about it in context, because when I started, there was no such thing. It was, you know, there was one computer in the office when I started and we all shared it and everybody printed off their email and took it back to their desk and cut it up with the scissors and put it in the files. You know, it was that silly. And, you know, so it, we, we try to make it.
It’s tailored to the audience. We try to make it simple for the people. Want it to be simple. People want to get into the meat and potatoes and really dig into it. Then we just spend a lot of time on the phone, really just talking about it because it’s not automatable yet, but we’re on the cusp of it being more automatable with.
Cody: Birdie told me about that. Birdie named Thomas. Would you say what percentage of your day on an average day?
Would you spend on that 20% versus the 80? Like all of it or?
Daniel: No, it’s very cyclical. There will be weeks when it’s all very transactional and popcorn and surface. And those weeks are fun because it’s just bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. You’re getting a ton of work done. Lots of checkboxes. lot of checkboxes. And then other weeks, I am in the weeds. So it’s very cyclical. It seems to go in waves similar to the way the carriers used to be where
They would work really hard. They would get successful. They would do wonderful things. And then they, and Comcast has passed that peak now. So they were really hard for a long time. They were the premier company and now they’re on the backside of that cycle. They are falling apart inside and out and they’re frustrating. And that’s a normal cycle for that. That’s what I’ve seen for 35 years. Carriers do this. They, they work really hard. They get really good.
And then something happens with the encounters. Get the same cost cutting usually and usually cost cutting. And then all of a sudden they drop down the other side. And then another carrier will come up and say, Hey, we’re working really hard. We want to your business. And that’s why I can’t represent one. That’s similar to the Amazon story where Bezos ran a negative until the shareholders are like no more negatives. then you. And but weeks are like that and months are like that. So I’ll be in the weeds for a week or two. This week has been a lot of weed.
Weed pulling and then other weeks are just simple and I don’t really I’m not on the phone much at all. But this week I’ve been on the phone. So it’s an interesting dynamic where sometimes voice takes precedent and I’m doing all phone systems and the next time period it’s all internet. And so it’s bizarre like that.
Cody: We talked about transparency, ensuring that you understand the real problem or problems, a lack of ego or negative ego, I should say. What else do you believe makes a really good partnership work?
Daniel: It’s kind of cliche, but honesty, you know, as you said earlier, you know, all you can do is ask for forgiveness, you know, because everybody makes mistakes. But it’s the folks that I work with that I realize you’re not being honest with me, whether it’s a customer or a partner, you know.
And it has to be over the long term. can’t just do a flash in the pan and take your money and run. If you do that, you’re in trouble. At some point, you’re in trouble when you do that. And some people just don’t understand that. They just think they can get away with it. So the honesty and the transparency and the willingness to stay in your lane, you know, I’m big on staying in my lane. I love my lane. And by golly, if somebody says, Hey, will you do
This for us, firewalls and switches and I will not sell security. No, thank you very much. But you know, people ask me, Hey, will you do this for us? And it’s like, no, I will not. Let me call your MSP because that even though I could, and I might make some money on it, but you know, the relationship is far more important to me than any single customer, any single deal or any single ad on or whatever. Um, I think, you know, respecting.
your peers and your partners lanes is extremely important. And, you know, this is a small town and I had somebody ask me recently, well, you know, why should we do business with you? I’m like, ask anyone in town. I’ve been here 35 years and I’ve never screwed anyone. And if you can find someone that thinks I screwed them, then I’ll go fix it. Because they were like, you know, they I’ve heard the name, but how do I know? you know, and it’s so if you’re if you don’t live your life like that, you’re always going to be looking over your shoulder.
And you’re going to lose all your allies. know, you know, in my construction days, we would we would store storm restoration nationwide. The company I work for was the first formalized storm restoration contract. Wow. know, storm chasers that became a real thing basically. And when I was in Wichita for a storm, I can’t remember what year that was. I had like seven or eight houses on this one street and.
one of the neighbors came in and said, I really want to use you, but I really want to do someone local. And I was like, that’s fine. You can use someone local. was like, what’s your main reason to do it? Like, cause we come in and do storms all the time. We only do 2% of the business because the local contractors can’t keep up. That was always what I said. And that was, that was a real metric. And he said, well, I, I’m afraid you’ll leave and you won’t cover warranty. And I like, I just want someone who’s been here for a long time and decades over decades of success. And said, okay, well, who are you thinking about?
and he showed me what he was thinking about and I pulled up Google on my laptop in my truck and I was like, so this this particular shop or company has been filing bankruptcy about every 10 years and. Wow. Rebranding and they’re saying they’re 60 years old, but as the entity they are now, they’re only eight. as what that means is each time they file bankruptcy, all their warranties were null and void.
And so we’ve been around for just 25 years or something that I don’t remember the number anymore. And we go back and do our problem repairs each time there’s a warranty or we contract it through a local contractor. I got that deal. But it’s one of those things where it’s like the honesty piece is like, you’re not 70 years. I can just Google that. I didn’t go look at any county records or anything. I was just Google pulling different things up. But I’ve also seen that in your world.
in the MSP world.
Cody: Oh, yeah. I’ve seen that over and over where people over or go out of business and they change their name and they protect the innocent or, you know, protect the guilty. And I haven’t noticed that. Oh, my goodness. I’m look into it. Yeah, we I’ve seen that so many times. There’s a couple of companies that I I’ve been around who have changed their name like four or five times in the last 10 years. And we’ve changed our name technically once. But but but that wasn’t for, you know.
protection purposes. It so we didn’t sound like an internet provider.
Daniel: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, like poor people that netlink to COVI is we were like, yeah, we evolved together with you co evolution and partnership instead of we provide internet circuits, which we never did. The board company that was called Spectrum here in town when Spectrum bought Bright House. I remember that suddenly 5000 old ladies were calling their help desk for help with their cable bottoms.
I talked to those guys. I felt so sorry for him.
Cody: my gosh. I didn’t even think about that. Yes, it was. But I have seen that many, many times where people ask me, Oh, have you heard of XYZ IT firm? And I’m like, Nope, never heard of them because they used to not be that like you’re. And so when you mentioned that you’re being humble about that in your industry, but it happens all the time in your business. Wow. I’m going to have to get more. But a future podcast, the craziness of MSP name changes. Yes, that is.
coming soon to a COVI way near you. What, if there’s one thing you can choose from for today in the communications and internet connection space, what’s one thing that a business leader or a primary decision maker for IT for a company should be focusing on?
Daniel: I’ll say this, Eswe, whether it’s the IT director or not, the alternatives to cloud voice, there are out there and they are sometimes less expensive. But the problem is, is the person who implements it, if they leave the company, nobody knows what’s going on. I had that happen up in northern Indiana, they did a three cx system, the entire phone system was sitting on a laptop on a residential grade laptop, sitting on a phone block inside of a data center with fans blowing all over it like hot fans.
And the guy left the company. And I was just, when they told me the story, I was dumbfounded. so that’s what this space is. When you put all of your eggs in a single technology basket that only one person can facilitate and manage, you are asking for serious trouble down the line. If you’re working with any cloud voice provider, I’ll say, I prefer us, you know, but any of them.
You can always call an 800 number and say, Hey, do this, you know, and they’ll do it. You’ve always got that big team behind. You’ve always got a team. and with us, you know, we want to be, we want to get our customers out of the phone business. I say that all the time, get out of the phone business. You have no, your time is way too valuable. Every minute of your day is worth a lot more than you messing with moves, adds and changes on a big phone system. And so I would say that’s the number one thing. Internet’s internet.
It’s becoming more commoditized if it possibly can be, you know, and so more is better. More carriers is better. Redundancy, you know, that’s always a good thing. But on the, you know, for some companies voice is irrelevant, but for still 80% of the companies, it’s their lifeline. And if you put all your eggs in a basket that can’t be managed or can’t be replaced, then you’re in trouble. In my opinion.
Cody: No, I think that I will agree with that from a business continuity perspective and a unified communications perspective that makes a lot of sense. What’s one rumor or myth about IT services, whether it’s in my space or yours, because I know you kind of cross pollinate a little bit there. Did you wish people understood better?
Daniel: It is not an expense. It is an investment, especially now, you know, with goodness gracious with all the quantum stuff coming up. You know, quantum security, all that stuff, you know, is, is, you know, some foreign adversary going to go after Joe Schmo’s electric company? No. But security, maybe it’s on who they’re servicing. Right. You never know because how did Target get hacked? They got hacked through the HVAC system and nobody was watching the HVAC system. you know, complete rock solid security and, and rock solid IT support.
You know, as I said earlier, when I started, there was no IT budget. was no, was, nobody had computers on their desks, you know, and then it evolved. Um, but I still hear customers say, well, that’s just, know, that IT proposal or whatever it was, that security system was too expensive and we’re, nobody cares about us. They’re not going to hack us. And I don’t make any money on it. I don’t want to make any money on it, but I want to say, you know, please.
please change that, open your mind to that because you, know, normalcy bias is real. And just because you haven’t been hacked doesn’t mean you’re not going to be hacked because it tends to mean that you’re going to be hacked because you haven’t yet, you haven’t set up the security and you haven’t set up the defense. So that’s a big one for me, even though I don’t do that for a living.
Cody: Yeah, thanks. I’m going to end from a questions perspective with the cheat question and that’s just like, what’s next for you?
Daniel: I think AI. We’re gonna start building that stack even with our small team. The CEO from Shopify this week, he said, I will not hire another employee unless you can prove to me that AI can’t do that job. You know, that’s a bit aggressive, but it’s also progressive. I think from a timeline perspective,
The world’s not ready for that yet, but it seems like where we’re going to hear a CEO of a tech company say that right now, it’s like, well, if you don’t at least listen and think about how that affects you and your industry, I think you’re just, you know, I don’t think that’s And even for a three person firm, I think I’m going to figure out, okay, how much can we automate? Because we’re not automated now. And
If we can scale and maybe not have to hire a fourth person with the tools that are out there, why not use them?
Cody: So I’m working on getting a, uh, a guest, a client guest to talk about some process re-engineering we did for him. Similar to what you just said, apart from AI at this current stage is this was a, this was a, uh, entrepreneur who was on his own. So solo preneur at the time, the vision was to grow to a team of five.
And he had, he switched to a new business coach or mentor, and that helps him realize that he could change some things about his strategic plan. And then our team was able to help re-engineer his workflows and processes and adjust some technical solutions along the way that led to where he now is going to pursue the same revenue growth with no hires. And so that’s without AI. So understanding like you get the right
technical foundation there and standard operating procedure foundation there. The next step is, you if you get all of that digitized so that an AI can analyze it, they’re gonna automate anything that we usually say that is not the meaningful work. Getting on the phone and making the call. Even though I know there’s some AIs that can do some of that. Usually those calls aren’t as meaningful as when a human does them. So it’s not about getting rid of jobs. It’s about
putting having humans do human activities.
Daniel: Right. Exactly. Let the machine do the machine work.
Cody: Which leads us to our tech tip of the day. Daniel, I know you would say in this scenario, get a get a redundant circuit. And I agree with that for most cases, especially for larger, more mature organizations. But everything runs on Internet. All the cloud based phones that you’ve talked about in this podcast has been Internet based. So if the Internet goes down,
those phones in some way, or form goes down. So the tech tip of the day is make sure you have some redundant plan or actual redundant solutions for your internet connection, whether that be failover internet. when one goes down, the other picks it up. You might have a few seconds of blip or you have a plan where if the internet goes down, all your employees pull out their hotspots and turn on their wifi and your phone system runs over to the soft phone application that’s on their mobile device.
If you don’t have a documented plan, it means all you have is chaos. So when internet is concerned, make sure you have a backup plan for when the internet goes down. And thanks for coming today.
Daniel: My pleasure. Thank you all for attending.
Cody: And that’s The COVI Way.
