Ep18 Ryan & Paris—Why Your One-Man IT Guy Is Putting Your Business at Risk

Ryan  0:00  
One of those clients that I had 900 bucks a month was sort of their max. We started working on their SEO and, you know, outsourcing how they get business. And over the last year and a half, their $900 bill, they're paying us probably, like five, $6,000 a month in needed work. Because they've gained more employees. They've gained more business. They've grown because we've helped them get to the point of doing that while being protected and taken care of.

Scott Groves  0:30  
Welcome to Henderson HQ. This is the podcast where you get all the stories behind the businesses that make our community tick. Don't forget to subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Hey, Henderson, HQ, it's Scott groves here. Don't forget to subscribe to the newsletter. I'm here, actually, with my new friends, Ryan and Paris, who I met through the Henderson Chamber of Commerce. They work with the company synergy. It. We've got Paris here. I'm not sure what you for the company, but we'll figure that out a minute. And you brought Ryan the CTO. I guess the first thing is, like those companies that are like 10 to 100 people, which is kind of like your bread and butter, of who you service. Why? Why do they need an IT company generally.

Ryan  1:08  
Throughout the day, in the new world of doing technology, there's a lot of messages that will come. There's a lot of prompts. And as humans in general, we're just not really great at reading those. Yeah, but at the end of the day, we're the people who take you from I don't recognize what's going on right now. I'm scared. I'm not feeling comfortable with what's happening with my computer or my printer or anything. And our job is to come in and make them comfortable with everything that's happening again, in a sense of I understand what you don't understand. Like if you're calling me saying, Hey, I'm freaking out about X, Y or Z, then my job is to take you off the ledge, get you feel uncomfortable again, and fix the problem

Scott Groves  1:49  
for you. Got it so Paris, is this more like software, hardware, service solution? Like, what is the business? What does the business do?

Paris  1:57  
So we consider ourselves like a it one stop shop. Okay, so we do it all we do, you know, your software, your hardware, we we supply what you need. We fix what you need. We help you understand what you need.

Scott Groves  2:12  
So you tell me what. You tell me what CRM to buy. Yeah, pretty much, yeah, yes. In the mortgage industry, we used to call this, like, the daisy chain of fre. You can fill in the blank, because, like, none of our systems work together. The mortgage industry is, like, habitually, 15 years behind, like, like, modern tech. And so I ended up having, like, full time assistants to, like, well, I need you to take this name, yeah, we got to lead, but it's got to go into this system. But they fill out an application, then they have to go in this CRM, oh, but you want to send them a birthday gift, they got to go in this other system. Other system, and it was just like an absolute mess. But I think we're doing this interview at the perfect time, because it is kind of Top of Mind with I think it was just a week ago I coach mortgage loan officers, realtor sales people kind of important. Like to meet the closing date and be able to send out the wire for your for your home that you're purchasing, and get the closing package out to title, and all of Microsoft was down, and so the industry was just freaking out. I think there's like, last Tuesday or something like, what kind of problems can you solve there when there's these massive outages?

Ryan  3:12  
So it's definitely a challenge. You know, from 15 years ago to now, 15 years ago, you had a server on site. It did everything for you, and as long as nothing was broken internally. You as business as usual. You know you may not have phones, but that's fine. Nowadays, everything is cloud based, in a sense of you require the internet, and I require those cloud services to be online. So the challenge is, hey, it's great that it's accessible anywhere now, and not just in the office. But on that same note, when the Internet is down or the cloud services are down, our hands are tied, in a sense of we have to wait for those services to come back up.

Scott Groves  3:48  
So this is like the old school I remember, still to this day, some mortgage software lives and is domiciled, like on your hard drive on your computer. It's like native to your computer. So if the internet went down, okay, who cares? I can still get on there and work and then just upload the file later when the internet comes back on. But like now, I run my entire coaching business off of Google Docs. So if Google's Google goes down, like I'm dead in the water, I don't even know how to use like word anymore or like a native software to my program. So is this, like, the modern challenge for small business like

Ryan  4:21  
it, it really is right like if your internet is down, or your cloud services are down, you're pretty much dead in the water. And it's kind of translated into our job has become more How can I help you still progress when this is down? If you need Google Docs, you know what? Open up a local something, start doing your work, upload it later. So it's a little bit like it used to be, where if the server went down, or if there was a problem, just work locally. But a lot of times, in many industries, everything, all of your information in your data is in that cloud or in that server database. So what can you do, besides maybe intake? New Client, if your phones are still up. So the challenge has become like we have everything so integrated, and it works great Once you're connected, but you're dead in the water the moment that something takes that connection away.

Scott Groves  5:12  
Yeah, it's so funny. Oh, we were doing a camping trip out in the desert, and one of the parents of the kids that we were with fights in the UFC. So we're like, oh, well, we'll get Starlink. We'll go out there. We'll watch everything on Starlink. Sounds great, right? Then we get out there, we realize, like, oh, to use Starlink, you have to download the Starlink app to your phone prior to leaving a service area. So you could connect the app to the Starlink. So then we had to drive all the way back out. Somebody had to, like, get a signal, download the app, and then drive all the way back, and then, oh, I forgot the number on the satellite to take with me, drive all the way back, come all the way back. So it's like, like, these modern technologies, they're great, but like, when they're down, you're just dead in the water. I might as well play a game of chess with my kids or something, right?

Ryan  5:55  
There was a very short amount of time, I think, in the 2000s when there was this sweet hybrid, where internet wasn't good enough to make us dependent on it, and servers were just coming out of that phase of, hey, we can do this, multi offices in multi places without the Internet. That was really the sweet spot. But progress as progress goes, once the Internet came around and got really good and really fast, we integrated all the services in the cloud, which is wonderful when it works again. And I know I sound like a broken record, but that is really one of the biggest challenges today. It's if the main services go down, whether or not you have satellite, if Microsoft itself goes down, like it did last Tuesday, then it doesn't matter if you're the greatest internet in the world, right the place the cloud is the server these days. So if the cloud has a problem, everybody has a problem, because we're all connected to that same cloud server. Interesting.

Scott Groves  6:48  
So, Paris, how do you market this to businesses? Right? Because, like, I think of tech problems, like, kind of like a field goal kicker, you don't think about them until you really need them, right? And by the time things go down, it's kind of too late, right? Like, you guys can't come on board and send out the geek support. Like, on the spot, no problem. We'll be there in 30 minutes. Fix your problem. So like, how are you positioning this to small businesses, which, especially in this market, are kind of like pinching every penny, and I'm guessing you're on the sales side, since I met you at the Chamber of Commerce. Okay? So like, How are you, how are you getting in touch with these businesses and being like, hey, whatever your guys's costs are, and feel free to share those or kind of what the range is. Why would Small Business care about this until they really care about it?

Paris  7:29  
Really the reason that people should care about it is because if, like, you don't have your stuff back to the cloud, you're not secure. And, I mean, there was a daycare in Somalia that got hacked, and all of their stuff was lost. And if you lose your your data of your business, most businesses just go under. Yeah, it happens. So we just market it as like, if, if you're not on the cloud, like your your business is, is a foot in the grave, you know, without

Scott Groves  8:01  
using any names, because I don't want you to break any confidentiality. Can you tell me about the kind of businesses that you guys service with, like, setting up an IT plan for them? Yeah.

Paris  8:10  
So we specialize in law firms, okay, or really any compliant or compliance based industry, but we service really anyone small, small to medium sized businesses, but we, we prefer law firms because they like holidays and so do we there, but any compliant based industry, we focus on compliance. Awesome.

Scott Groves  8:32  
And Ryan, can you talk a little bit about that? Because, like, I think of security, right? And for the longest time in the mortgage industry, oh, you had to have a Blackberry or a joy because their security was better than Apple. And I'm like, I don't think a trillion dollar company has like, bad security, but whatever the beliefs are out there. So when you are talking about law firms or health care or mortgage companies where, like, the security really matters, right? Like, I have if you apply for a loan with me, I have everything about you. Mother's made a name. You know your bank statements. I know where you shop, like, I know everything about you. And so can you talk a little bit about that security aspect without, like, totally going over my head on the tech?

Ryan  9:09  
Yeah, definitely. So a lot of times I think I could sum it up pretty well, and then kind of talk about it in today's world, if your company, or any company, gets out there in the news, hey, there was a breach. Every single one of our clients have possibly been exposed. That's you can send out every email in the world. You can try and damage control all you want, but that business's days are numbered. Yeah. So the risk is, Hey, you're good until you're not good, kind of like what you already said, but the moment that you're not good, if it's something like a data breach, it's over for your business, unless you rebrand or do something shady, right, right? So that being said, I kind of want to roll this into as well, like the idea of being an MSP versus a one man shop. Why do you have to explain what MSP is? An MSP is a multiple service provider. Okay? Which means that we're one, it company that services many businesses in that area or farther, and a lot of the businesses that we take over, it's a lot of the medium, the small to medium. It's Hey, we used to have one guy, and when we're at the mercy of him, right? Like our business is moving forward, our business needs this cloud thing, or does our business needs backups? But a one guy that we hired 10 years ago that we're friends with doesn't know how to do any of those things, nor does he see the importance to do so. So hiring an MSP versus your friend is once your business starts growing and becoming something that well, how do I say this when you have something to lose, that's when you really want to start protecting it. Yeah, right. So just like being a kid and growing up and building assets, when your business is a fledgling, you have very little to lose. So hey, I need to save money. I need the single guy. I need the single girl. Just like, Come do what I need you to right the moment you start having something to lose, that's where you need an MSP. You need a company that looks for, hey, where are your risks, and how do we mitigate those within your budget?

Scott Groves  11:13  
Has, has the risks gotten worse now that kind of, like everybody is diffused, and like even law firms. I have a good friend, I won't say the law firm. She works for a very, very large, prestigious law firm in LA, but she lives in Valencia, and then she travels to Vegas, and then a bunch of their paralegals live out of the state. They do VA, work out of the country. You know, it's just like, I mean, I just think of that of like, Ooh, it only takes one password getting compromised with my virtual assistant in the Philippines for somebody to wreck my life. Yeah, so has it gotten harder on the security side now that people are kind of all over the place and working abroad and et cetera, et cetera?

Ryan  11:53  
Yes, it definitely has. Because a lot of times to mitigate these things, we have what's called like DLP, data loss prevention, and it's these policies that are put in place that automatically protect data and protect things. When everyone gets a login to have like keys to the castle, if you will, right? And the way that we mitigate that is almost like shooting yourself in the foot. And I'll explain you put all of these protections in place, and then it comes to the point where the calls that you're getting are, Hey, I can't access this. Hey, this was blocked because of that. And I always like to say that in the name of security, we all suffer like us as the vendor and the client to keep your stuff secure. I get five more calls a day that has to do with this wall that's stopping you from doing what you're normally used to doing every day. But the difference that we do than other MSPs that I've worked for is I'm going to teach you, I'm going to help you get past the screen. I want you to not need me like, kind of like our mission, or our philosophy is always do what's best for the client in every aspect. I'm not trying to sell you my vendor. I'm not trying to sell you my backup product. If some other product works better for you, I'm getting on board, and I'm making sure that happens for you. I don't care about the commission. If I do the right thing for you, everything else will work itself out like you'll see that your best interest is my number one priority, love

Scott Groves  13:22  
that Paris, I'd love to hear as you're talking to businesses, like, what are you hearing from them? That's like, spurring the conversation, where maybe they're proactively calling you or like, what are their what is a company's pain points where they're like, oh, yeah, we need to, we need to seek out synergy.

Paris  13:38  
It, yeah, most of their pain points are. What Ryan was saying is that they they have this one person that does everything and they don't know how to do everything. They're looking for people who can secure their data and keep their business safe, because if you have a data breach, you lose all credibility, and your business days are numbered,

Scott Groves  14:00  
yeah, because if, if Bill's been at the company since its inception, just kind of the de facto IT guy, and then five years later, Bill has a little bit of an attitude, and you look around and you're like, Bill's the only one that knows where our invoicing system is. Bill's no offense, Bill, if you're watching, but like, Bill's the only one that knows how to log into our CRM. That's like, a real problem, right?

Paris  14:19  
Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure, it's a it's a big problem. And so, like he was saying, we teach our our clients how to be self sustaining and how to use password managers and how to, you know, do their MFA is, which is, like, the multi factor authentication that keeps you from getting into anything without your phone.

Scott Groves  14:38  
Multi factor authentication is the bane of my existence. Like, like, at least half the calls I get from my executive assistant was like, Can you do a two FA so I can go in and do your expense report? Can you do it too? I'm like, why can I not just download it on her phone? And I call it, and they're like, you can't have two IP addresses on your two FA because it's supposed to just be you. And I'm like, Okay, forget I called. Oh. It. So, yeah, two FA is the bane of my existence, and I also understand the need for it, especially when we still have some dealings with a mortgage company. Hey, Scott Grove, just want to take a quick interruption here to give you a rundown of a couple businesses that are supporting the Henderson HQ, newsletter, podcast, website, Instagram, all the things number one, ethereal Med Spa, a true gym for your skin. Check them out. Ethereal Med Spa, here in Henderson, right bet auto body. Love everything that they can do for you, whether it's a scratch and dent or whether it's a full custom remodel of a classic car. And then shout out to my friend Casey Hallstatt. He is the owner of 10th Planet Jiu Jitsu, they have everything from very beginners, kids at four or five years old, to the old man class that meets at six o'clock in the morning, which was where I'm at every morning. And also my friend Val, who's doing some of the Instagram content for us, she runs a women's self defense class on Friday night. So whether you're a seasoned black belt or you're just thinking about giving jiu jitsu a chance, or you want to get your kids into it, shout out to Casey Halstead 10th Planet. And back to the podcast, Ryan, can you talk a little bit about because, like, there's one of these weird things that I've seen in the mortgage industry where, I mean, the company that my partner still works for and does our home loans, I've since handed off my database to her is called Neo home loans. Not everybody knows what Neil home loans are, but all of a sudden, with like, a 20 minute conversation, people are like, oh, yeah, sure, I'll just send you an email with my tax returns and my bank statements, and we're like, no, no, don't do that. Just like, upload it to the secure portal, or at least put it in like, your own Google Drive and share that. So like, Could you maybe talk about the levels of security of sharing things? So maybe there's a client or a business that's like, Oh, if I want to start protecting things, like, where does it get? Like, like, like, horrible, don't ever do that. That's okay. And if you really want to be secure, do this. Because I think of just like, all these companies sharing documents back and forth, it would only take for some people one email hack, and there's a lot of client data in there. So can you talk about like, security of sharing stuff?

Ryan  17:00  
Yeah, definitely. So I think the best way to start this conversation is locks were made for the honest man, meaning, if the CIA is coming after you, there's very little you're going to do to stop that FBI is coming after you. I don't care what security you have, it's probably come they're probably coming in, right? Unless you're like, you know some great hacker. Now, let's take the movie scenes out of this for a minute and talk about real, everyday life. Nobody has the

Scott Groves  17:23  
like, Oh, I've seen the movie hacker with Angelina Jolie. I know. I know everything about your job. I saw that 1997 hackers movie, or whenever it was 99%

Ryan  17:32  
of businesses do not have the funding to make that type of security happen. So we have to sort of cookie cutter it to what is the most likely way you're going to get hit. And yes, that doesn't cover all the bases, but based on your budget, we're going to protect you as much as we can. That being said, No, there won't be any holes, but if you go and directly send a password and an email without encrypting it, you've already asked for it, right? Yeah, any email can be spoofed by anyone. And it used to be that, hey, you remember the MFA you were talking about goes to my phone? Well, nowadays, because we have E Sims and things like that, you can spoof a phone number on a computer, right? So you'll get the text message at the same time as the other person. And nowadays, there's, if you've ever heard of it, if your phone ever stops working and like it says service unavailable, you need to call your carrier right away, because it seems like someone has stolen your phone number, and you have very limited time to stop them from hacking into your bank account and getting everything that you just had on MFA, right? Oh, and that's why these days, MFA has come to the point where it's Hey, can you face ID? And then can you enter this password? And then can you go to your email and give me this Yeah, because the likelihood of that hacker having all of those things is slim to none. But when something like your cell phone number is stolen, the danger becomes so huge, so quick. Yeah, I

Scott Groves  19:01  
really worry about that because my cell phone, my personal cell phone number, was on Yelp as my business number. It was on Google. It was everywhere, and the number of daily spam texts that I get and solicitations, and then they find me on telegram. And it's always the same, like, hot Asian girl being like, Hi, do you remember me? I'm like, No, sure. Don't I'm married, but it's like, non stop, WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, Telegram, like everything is just trying to suck me in to get my data. And it like, every time my phone like hiccups for a second, I freak out. And now it sounds like maybe rightfully so.

Ryan  19:36  
Well, I'd like to say that what you're mentioning is what's called whaling, and whaling is, yes, we're going after the big fish, right? If, if someone already has access to your email, right? And they've already hacked it, what's the point of acting on it? If you don't have any money, or there's nothing running through your account, I don't have that much money, right? So at first, my mortgage is really large, so my money comes in and goes right back out. So I. Hey, we're all the same boat there. Hey, hackers, don't bother with me. You're not gonna make enough me too. So once they get in, they're looking for those big transactions. They're looking for whether or not you make that money, and then they're waiting for their cue. It's like, okay, we've hacked your email, we've hacked your cell phone. We're just monitoring and now we're gonna make a directed attempt to try and steal this from you. We want to a start with emotional hey, I need to do this right now, like your bank account was hacked. Please verify someone's trying to log into your whatever, like, for example, this past weekend, I had Venmo and Cash App constantly texting me every 30 minutes to reset my password. What that tells me is someone's trying to hack into all of my stuff. Well, recently, in the news, Google has just leaked What 43 million or a billion passwords and usernames. So not on purpose again. But when those things happen, you can't have the emotional response of, oh, I have to save my cash app right now, right if anything, the moment you get to a computer, I like to tell a lot of my clients if you have an emotional response immediately, like, for example, Hey, we have pictures of you and videos of you, you need to send $100 100 Bitcoin here, or a Bitcoin here, the moment you have that emotional response sitting at the computer, stop and walk away. Same with your cell phone, same with a text and a call like, what, 10 years ago, the IRS would call you, right, right? And say, Hey, you owe us, like, $8,000 right? And you're freaking out. Oh no, the IRS is gonna take my house, my car, everything. How did I miss this? Well, it turns out, 15 years ago, I call like that, but I worked for one of the top accounting firms on the West Coast, and I called one of the managers, and I was like, hey, the IRS just called me in this let me just say that I felt so stupid afterward, being like because the IRS will never write you 25 years old in it, and I truly thought The IRS was called. Let me just tell you, after that, I don't care what you text me, yeah, I'm not responding. I don't like if you leave a voicemail, and then I can go to your website separately from whatever link you've sent me, I need to be able to call you without anything you've given me right to verify or just leave it alone. You know, it's

Scott Groves  22:18  
interesting you mentioned the monitoring thing, because obviously, large transactions I've seen this, sadly, real time in the mortgage industry. So somebody will have hacked into a client's email years ago, and they'll keep an eye on it. They'll keep an eye Oh, they're buying a house, so like, four days before they're ready to close on the house, they'll send an email from instead of it being, you know, Glen Oaks escrow.com it'll be Glen Oaks escrows, and they've completely spoofed the email, spoofed the website, everything. And then they'll say, great, you're coming up on your closing. Go ahead and wire your $250,000 down payment to this house. And it happened sadly. And this guy was a tech engineer at a very large company that put spaceships into the orbit. So you can kind of guess which company that is, and he wired $475,000 never to be, never to be seen again. Because once that wire hits, like international goes overseas, it's gone. So FBI is involved. Yeah, FBI was involved. They were making sure that the escrow company and the realtor weren't involved in the loan officer. So everybody got investigated. But the money is just gone. He'll, he'll never see it again, and there's no insurance policy for that.

Paris  23:23  
I mean, that brings up, like a the modern version of that is they spoof your phone number, and it'll be like, your wife calling you and she's like, I've been kidnapped. My wife. Yeah. Because if you answer those, those spoof calls or spam calls, and you're just like, hello, hello. That's all they need. They have your voice. They call you spoof, spoof your wife's phone number, and they're like, Oh, I've been kidnapped, oh, I'm trapped in an airport, oh, I'm in jail. Wire me this amount of money right now, the best thing to do is to walk away like he said, or to hang up and call back, yeah, like, anything like that. Do not like, hang up and call back. Is your

Scott Groves  24:03  
nobody's ever my wife. She talks a lot. They'll be like, Alright, get out of here. Like, my son too. He just knows his thoughts, no return, yeah. Well, you know, it's funny. I got, I got this random message from a friend of mine that was running a Olympic boxing camp down in Belize. And so I just get this random text like, hey, it's Simon. I got into a problem down here, and they took my passport. They took all this stuff. I need you to Western Union. Me, like, 500 bucks. And I'm like, headed over to Western Union. And I'm like, wait a minute. I'm like, What are the chances that, like, he's lost everything, but still has a cell phone. So I texted him back. I'm like, what's the greatest fight of all time? And he, luckily, it was really him. He texted me back. So it's like, now I've got little passcodes with family members of friends of like, when I asked you this question, great idea, yeah. When I asked you this question, you better know the answer. Luckily, he didn't pick another fight, or else he wouldn't have got his money to be so stuck in Belize. It really was him. It really was him thankful, yeah. So I sent him the money he was able to get back to America. But are you comfortable at all talking about, like, kind of pricing for, like, what's kind of like an entry level package, and then, like, Where can this scale if it's a large, multi million dollar company that has a lot of data to secure,

Paris  25:11  
so our pricing really depends on what the business needs. So I'll kind of let Ryan take over that. But okay, I don't look at the

Ryan  25:19  
technical, so I'll circle back to synergies. Mission is to do what's best for the client. If you can't afford everything that needs to happen, then I'll actually, I'm not going to mention which client, but I've had many clients that start out small, and they're like, Hey, Ryan, I can't afford a lot each month. Well, then as we start fixing your IT problems. Hey, what can we do to get you more marketing? What can we do to get you more business in what can we do to grow your business?

Scott Groves  25:46  
And when you say, like, start small, I have no idea what it costs. There's like, couple 100 or a couple $1,000

Ryan  25:52  
a month. Let's just, I'll give an example then, okay, if you're two person business at your home, kind of just running a thing, you're gonna tell me, hey, I can afford 500 a month. Got it. And then I'm gonna say, hey, that gives you the bare minimum, right? Like, we're gonna get all the security software on there, but we really need to move this up a little bit so that you have backups, so that you have, you know, kind of a little bit more bandwidth for everything else, because our number one thing is kind of security other MSPs, they're gonna piecemeal it for you and say, Hey, it's 200 a month for this 300 a month for this 500 keep going right, right. For us, the idea is, we know you need security first, and we know you need backups. So no holds barred, we're going to take whatever it takes to get you security and backups within your budget. We're taking you there. Got it. We're only going to cut corners on things that you really, really don't need, right? But we are going to circle back to it four months from now and make sure that we get those things in place. So it could start as little as five or 600 a month, but it could grow into, you know, 1020, even more than that 1000 per month. But it really depends on your needs. And I'll just circle back really quick. One of those clients that I had 900 bucks a month was sort of their max. We started working on their SEO and, you know, outsourcing how they get business. And over the last year and a half, they're a $900 bill. They're paying me, they're paying us probably, like Five $6,000 a month in needed work because they've gained more employees. They've gained more business. They've grown because we've helped them get to the point of doing that while being protected and taken care

Scott Groves  27:32  
of interesting. So we've been talking a lot about just security and kind of basic it, you know, quality your printer fix. But it sounds like Paris, you guys have a much broader suite of products, and can take over marketing, digital marketing, stuff like that. So can you talk about maybe I probably should have started the conversation with this, like the suite of products that you guys offer for business solutions.

Paris  27:52  
I mean, we really are one, one stop it, shop like I do some of like, website design. I mean, we can, like he said, scale your business. We can supply your business, whether it be like printers, computers,

Ryan  28:05  
server or

Scott Groves  28:06  
hardware, software, marketing, everything, everything. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Okay. That sounds way more convenient than having 92 different subscriptions with 92 different companies.

Ryan  28:16  
100% yes. Again, it comes down to what's best for the client. And here's the thing I want to speak on that again, where it's I don't care if I'm the vendor for it, right? If you need a specific company, that is a specific thing, we will liaise for you. I'll be your liaison to make sure that what you're expecting from that product is what you're getting, right? Hey, Ryan, I just spent $100,000 on this marketing company. I'm not getting X, Y and Z. Hey, client, copy me on that email. Tell me all your concerns and copy the proper person I am now going beyond the it portion or the security portion to just say, Hey, I understand that you don't know what it means when they say, Hey, does your website send the metadata when you get a contact form, right? You have a client saying, I don't even know that my website did that. Yeah, right. I don't even know what that means. So for me, a lot of my clients are like, Hey, Ryan, my marketing company asked this, can you help me? Hey, that's not something that I do, but I know that you use this person as your marketer, and I know that use this person for your website, so copy them both into this email and I'll write up what you need done

Scott Groves  29:22  
that's beautiful. Because the crazy thing is, like, it doesn't even matter. This is across all industries, but I've specifically seen it in digital marketing that, like, I don't know what CPM is, and click for this and do through that, and, you know, impressions versus pull through, and I have no idea what any of that stuff is. And I feel like so much of that stuff is kind of just this black box that the number of snake oil salesmen in the Facebook ad space and the we're gonna optimize your Google profile and we're gonna do cold email outreach for you and like, if I could tell you, I could walk you through the money that I've spent in 25 years as a loan officer, just blowing through cash. I. Stuff that was never as profitable as picking up the phone and calling somebody and actually making a relationship. But if I had somebody like you advising me on like this is not you're not really getting what you're paying for here, or what you're paying for is way over your head on what you guys actually need to me, that's an invaluable service. You probably, if we were working together the last 10 years, probably would have saved me more money than

Ryan  30:21  
I spent on you. And again, that's like synergies mission. It's do what's best for your client. Because if your client's doing really well, they're gonna need you. And I don't want the everyday problems of like, hey, my MFA doesn't work. I'm gonna empower you to fix we are gonna empower you to fix all those little everyday things. When you call us, Hey, Ryan, I'm expanding. I need this for a server. I need this for a cloud. I want to sit down and have a meeting on where we're going with this. But now that you're not dealing with paying for the everyday problems, you have time to sit down and actually plan your future, right? You have the bandwidth, you have the money to actually make your business better. You're not just spinning your wheels on fixing problems that constantly happen over and over again.

Scott Groves  31:06  
Going back to the mortgage company, mortgage industry, the daisy chainer of effery. How do you pick the right service providers that like mesh well together, especially now with Claude coat and all this stuff. Everybody's building their own little thing and whatnot. But I, as much as people hate Facebook, I like that. I can just go to the meta business suite, and this connects to this, and this connects to this, and this, this automatically shares over to this. And there, I'm sure there's plenty of code as a technical person in there that sucks, but it just works. So like, when you're talking to a business, and whatever I'm doing, a consulting engagement with a landscaping company, and they're like, Well, we have an invoicing company or an invoicing system, and we have a CRM thing, and we have all and none of it seems to play nice together. Like, how do you find for all these variable, different types of businesses, stuff that works nicely together? Or do you design the stuff that makes it work together?

Ryan  31:54  
I guess the best way to say that is that's where we stand out, and that's what our job is. Okay? It's they don't work nice together, and these people don't want to work together. So a lot of times I find myself in an email with 15 to 20 people CC on it, all from different companies, and it's like, hey, the company is trying to do this, the third party is trying to do this, and the fourth party is trying to do this. And then, as the IT person. I'm the mediator between all so it's Hey, this doesn't work. That doesn't work. This doesn't go then I'm going to come back with a paragraph, hey, vendor a, vendor B, vendor C. This is what all three of you need to do, come back to me with these three things, and then we'll all be able to talk on the same page. And it takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of follow up, takes a lot of effort. But again, that's not something a business owner wants to do and right? Something that you want your tech people to do for

Scott Groves  32:47  
and I don't have a special specialization do that. I have no clue what I'm talking about, right? I can barely reset my password. It's bad, like, it's real bad. I still have to call my old assistant from two years ago. I'm like, Do you have any idea where the two FA for GoDaddy lives, because it doesn't come to it doesn't come to me. He like, yeah, it comes to me. I'm like, he's like, I can switch it over to you, but like, and I'm like, Yeah, okay, cool, whatever. I'll just send you 100 bucks a month when I need you. He's totally worth it. He's a good friend. So, you know, it's just like, yeah, making this stuff play nicely together. And my business isn't even that complicated, like I said, most of it's on Google Documents and Google Sheets and stuff like that. But I did have this like, freak out moment, December 12, so on the Henderson HQ brand, we have this girl, Val that's doing content for me. And so I have all my meta sweet stuff over here, Scott groves, Facebook, Scott groves, Instagram, whatever. Then we have the Henderson HQ, and then she has her personal stuff all over here. We were both logged into Henderson HQ to do content which apparently is not a violation of their their privacy policies or whatever. And somehow I woke up on like December 9, and my birthday had been changed to her birthday, so I was getting all these birthday messages on December 9, my Facebook profile showed that I was a jiu jitsu coach, and I'm not, I'm not a black belt, and like all this all, somehow all this crazy stuff cross pollinated, because I guess the first time she had logged on to Henderson HQ, it asked for to do age verification that somehow filtered over to my stuff. So on December 12, that alerted some bot at Facebook. And 22 years, or 21 years on Facebook, 12 years on Instagram. Everything in my ecosystem was shut down, my coaching groups, my Facebook ads, everything gone like your all of your accounts are scheduled for deletion. Henderson HQ was gone. They shut down her account because they thought we were trying to impersonate each other. And it was only through like grace of God that I had a friend of a friend of a friend who lives in San Francisco, who worked for Facebook, and he was able to start a case number, and I was able to get all of that back. And when I got on the phone, I got a phone with a real person at Facebook. They're like, they're like, hey, just so you know, like, all this code is built on top of each other, and you over the years, between your assistants and your VAs and everything your computer shows authorization. Application from like, 47 different places, so you need to go in there and eliminate all of those. And it was a real wake up call. And what was funny is, when I was talking to the guy, he's like, Hey, luckily we're here. If this was Google and your Gmail got shut down, you would never get it back. And I was like, Oh, wow. I built an 11 year company, and everything is in Google Docs, everything, no no. Like credit card numbers, thankfully for my clients, or anything like that. But you know, like all my coaching curriculum, all my videos, everything. So we started archiving videos on Vimeo, and we started archiving some stuff over here. But I'm just thinking to myself, I'm like, if, for some reason, some bot at Google got a wild hair up there, but like, my whole thing would be gone. So when you guys bring on a new client, long story, longer do you guys go through some type of audit process where it's like, Hey, you should probably go into Facebook and make sure you're not logged in 47 different places. You should probably set up two factor authentication on your Gmail, stuff like this, because it's stuff I didn't even know, right?

Ryan  35:56  
So I actually specifically have a client that is dealing with stuff like that, where it's like, Hey, have this Microsoft account that matches the exact email address on my Google account. And when my marketer sends stuff to the Google account, my Microsoft account is hijacking it, and then I can't get access to it. So it comes to the point where I'm logging in, I'm learning all about meta business. I'm learning about all its connections, and then I'm having to go and make them all play nice. As you said, where it's, Hey, why can't I access this from my personal but I can from the business, and a lot of times it's, well, let me speak to that whole losing your account thing. Let's say marketing company says, Hey, we're going to take over control of your business account, but now it's associated with Microsoft and Google. Well, immediately Google, and I've had this happen, will completely pull that account and say we've disabled your account. And my client is like, Ryan, I've had this account since 2005 I cannot lose this account. And even when he called me in there, he's like, No, I Googled it. There's no getting this back, like, I have to just walk away from it. And I was like, let's do the appeals process now, because you said about the bots, there are certain words and terminology that you can't use, right? So when you make the appeal to get an account back, it's, Hey, my marketing company did this, I've now lost access to this. Like, you have to be very direct in what happened and very honest, as much as you know, because if you say, Hey, I was just trying to log into something else, they're going to immediate lock that account forever. There's no more getting it back. Like your response wasn't good enough to actually get an appeal. So a lot of times, doing the Appeal yourself can hurt you Ooh or without getting what terminology to use to get an appeal. That's why can be very detrimental.

Scott Groves  37:54  
I was at Alex her Moses event here in Vegas a couple years ago, and, you know, they're looking at companies to invest in, and he had this horror story of, like, I don't know, of all the 1000s of businesses they've looked at, they've invested in 12 of them. They had one that was, like, on the docket they were going to take an equity stake in. And there was some type of perishable company, I don't know, almond milk or something, whatever. And they had built this massive, like, $30 million business, all on Facebook ads. They were non political. They by all metrics, they didn't do anything wrong, and all of their business came from, like, hundreds of 1000s of dollars of ads on Facebook. But of course, it's Facebook, so you don't have an ad manager, you don't have a human to talk to right before they were about to pull the trigger, their account got blocked somehow. They didn't have a robust email or backed up CRM somewhere else, because it was all just through Facebook and Facebook and Facebook Messenger and whatnot, and the business was dead in like 55 days before they could get the account back. So, I mean, this is like, real, real stuff, and I don't know, I don't know why that $30 million business didn't have a guy like you or a guy like you working on their account, but that's bonkers.

Ryan  38:57  
I think that kind of harkens back to the hey, we've done this since the beginning, but it's kind of that moment you have something to lose. That's where you want. If you bought a beater car, you wouldn't buy insurance on it, except for liability, right? If you went out there and bought a brand new Porsche, you would never, even if you paid cash, yeah, you would never dream of not insuring that vehicle at its full coverage, right? And I think that's kind of the best way to say that, right, as your company gets into the Hey, we make 30 grand a month, 50 grand a month. Like, that's something significant and is worth protecting, yeah? And a lot of times we just keep running with the business and forgetting about the fact that we've protected,

Scott Groves  39:36  
yeah, that's a really good point. Paris, what would you say to like, the small businesses that are kind of on the fence? Like, I don't know if I need these guys yet. I think we've made a pretty few case on why they do. But how do you talk to people to be like, Hey, let's just do a consultation and kind of like, see where all the pieces are. Yeah.

Paris  39:52  
I mean, we offer free, no obligation, estimates on, you know, their security, where they're at, like, what their what their risk? Point. Czar, we really talk to people who hate their current it, right? Really, the biggest thing is, is having that credibility of your of your data being protected, yeah, like you said. I mean, if you lose your account, or you lose your your Gmail, like your business is dead in the water, like, yeah, you're done, yeah, that your your data is credibility, and if you lose your credibility, you have nothing

Scott Groves  40:25  
powerful way to end a podcast. But I have to ask you, since you guys are both Vegas locals, perfect favorite place to eat.

Paris  40:31  
Wine on water was awesome. Wine on water was so we went there before we came wine water is pretty good. That charcuterie board is incredible.

Scott Groves  40:39  
Yes, wine on water. Definitely a high point. We actually did a little mixer there a couple months ago, and they were great. They're so very fan. Deidra.

Paris  40:47  
She is an amazing, amazing server, like server. She does it all. She does it all, and she's fantastic.

Scott Groves  40:55  
Any hidden gems that people should know about, if they're like, new to Henderson, new to Vegas,

Paris  41:00  
Pacific diner. So diner, really, I haven't been there, is actually great. You're like, super old school diner vibes, and the food is is perfectly priced. Like, I'd say, I'd say it's even cheaper than, than what I what I would typically pay.

Scott Groves  41:15  
Perfect business that you wish was here. You can't say bagel shop, because we've had three people be like, there is not a good bagel shop in Henderson. So if you guys are looking like, especially on this side of town, by Water Street, so if you guys are looking to expand into the bagel industry, I would highly recommend it bagels. So personal we're on Water Street, yeah, awesome, because that's core competency. I'm sure I

Paris  41:36  
would love like, a family entertainment center, you know, like something like area 15 out here,

Scott Groves  41:41  
yeah, me too, yeah, my kids are always wanting to go someplace I don't want to drive

Paris  41:46  
to. Yeah, yeah. I think mine's

Ryan  41:48  
a little less personal, just because of, like, the few people that I know out here, you know, they're married, they have kids like, they're like, hey, I need more places to be able to take my kid, right? I need more places to be able to be an adult where my kid can be a kid. So I guess kind of the same thing that she's saying, Yeah, but like, child care along with like, Hey, watch my kid for me while I go have fun. Yes. So totally agree.

Scott Groves  42:12  
Our favorite place for that, by the way, right now is chicken and pickle, because you can just sit there and get blitzed drunk while the kids, while the kids play in the little play yard there, obviously take designated driver or take Uber. But we love it, because the kids can play pickleball. The kids can play with all their giant Django sets and stuff, while we're just like maybe having one too many at

Paris  42:30  
the bar. I keep seeing that place, and it's been calling my name totally worth

Scott Groves  42:33  
going, yeah, there's actually a new pickleball place opening behind sunset stations casino called pickle dinkers, or Dinkle pickle, or something like that, dink and pickle or something. It looks awesome. It's indoor pickleball, which will be good for the crazy pickle ballers during the summer.

Ryan  42:48  
Yeah, if you've ever been to the Container Park, yeah, I would love to see something like that out here. I think that would be so great. Like, every time I go to the Container Park, I'm like, Oh yeah, you know, it'll be an hour or two, four hours later, there's still stuff to do. There's still, like, you know, something going on.

Scott Groves  43:05  
I went to a pro wrestling match over there when the WWE was in town. There was a bunch of little tiny promotions, like, think, like local fair. And we went there, one of my buddies competed or performed, or whatever you're supposed to call it, right? And it was a blast, man. There was like 200 people in like, somebody's backyard having a few drinks, watching pro wrestlers like we finally got shut down because the noise was too crazy, like midnight. It was a lot of fun. So I will drive downtown for that, but I try to stay in Anderson mostly,

Paris  43:32  
there is a great pro wrestling show that happens once a month, okay? And it's called pride style, and it is fantastic this in February, February 7, they actually have an all ages show, which they don't typically do, and it's fantastic. It's $20 a ticket, and their show is amazing.

Scott Groves  43:52  
Pride style. I'm gonna check that out. Actually, the same friend might be there, yeah. Speaking about family friendly, the first one that we went to to see my buddy Tom Lawler, shout out to Tom, my daughter, who's seven. She's just seven at the time, she just turned eight. We're sitting there, and she's really getting into it, like, really getting into it. And she just screams

Speaker 1  44:12  
out, Tom, kick him in the balls. And I was like,

Scott Groves  44:17  
I was like, Man, how did I not get that on camera like that would have been, that would have been a highlight. So, all right, so what's the easiest way for people to get in touch with you, whether it's a social media website,

Paris  44:28  
so definitely the website, the website has like, a bunch of contact forms, okay? Synergy solution, it.com Okay?

Scott Groves  44:35  
Synergy solution, it singular. Synergy solution it, by the way, I mentioned this when you guys walked in, I'll just tell the viewers how stupid I am. We got introduced a few weeks back, and I was doing some research on what we're going to talk about today. And I'm like, synergy solution. It that's a very weird name for a business, because, like, obviously in your email, it's not capitalized. I'm like, what could synergy solutions it be? And then I looked up the website. I was like, Oh, it moron. It's like, it's pretty. If they were filming this on Friday, and it's been a long week, like, I need a cocktail. Because I was like, What is a synergy solution? It? How do I get in touch with this business to interview them? And then I was like, Oh, it you dipstick. Anyway. Okay, so synergy solution, it, or it however you prefer to spell that.

Paris  45:14  
And then we do have a phone number where we do all of like, our free estimates, or like, perfect

Scott Groves  45:19  
give us the business number if you got it at 702-410-0117, perfect. Anything I forgot to ask about the world of it, or anything that people need to know before they call you, why they should call you?

Paris  45:33  
They should call us because we are a family owned local business. We're always real people, real support. You're not going to sit on hold with a bot for God knows how long, right? You're always going to get in contact with somebody who's real, somebody who's connected to the business. When you join synergy, you're part of the family.

Scott Groves  45:51  
The last time I called Verizon, there was a gal from somewhere overseas that did have chickens going wild in the background. And I was like, I was like, I don't mean to. I don't need to be ruined. Ma'am, thank you for solving my problem. But are those chickens? Are those chickens? And she's like, Yeah, I had to bring them in. It's like, monsoon season. And I was like, All right, awesome, perfect. I agree. I live with your chickens. I'm down for it. Anything we forgot

Ryan  46:11  
to ask no, the most you'll hear on my phone call is probably my dog barking in the background. I think that's as bad as it's gonna get. Perfect.

Scott Groves  46:19  
All right. Well, thanks for coming in, guys. I really appreciate we'll make sure we get this out in the newsletter and Instagram and stuff, and then if you're listening to this, either on Spotify Apple, or if you're watching on YouTube, all their contact information will be in the show notes. Thanks for coming in.

Ryan  46:31  
Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you for having us amazing. Cool.

Scott Groves  46:36  
Hey, it's Scott groves with the Henderson HQ podcast. I hope you got something out of that episode. If you enjoyed it, please don't forget to like, comment and subscribe to the podcast. It really helps the show grow. And by the way, if you are a business owner, or you know a business owner who has an interesting product, service or just an interesting backstory, please, please get in touch with us. Email us at the Henderson hq@gmail.com we would love to interview you, because that's what this show is all about. It's about building community, supporting local, individually owned businesses, and just making Henderson a great place to live. And don't forget, go to Henderson hq.com and make sure you sign up for our newsletter. We send out a once a week newsletter, no spam. About the most interesting local businesses, hot spots, restaurants, community events. Thanks for watching the show. Really appreciate you. You.