Challenges Fuel The Jet

Challenges Fuel The Jet

Tim Fitzpatrick
Welcome to the Rialto Marketing podcast. Today's episode is a revenue acceleration series interview where we talk to seven figure B2B professional service firm owners that are actively trying to grow their business and get to the next level. We talk about the good, the bad and the ugly so that you can learn from their experience. Hi, I am Tim Fitzpatrick with Rialto Marketing, where we believe you must remove your revenue roadblocks to accelerate growth, and marketing shouldn't be difficult. Thank you so much for taking the time to tune in. I am really excited to have Logan Edmonds from Tabernacle Technology Solutions with me today. Logan, welcome and thanks for being here, man.

Logan Edmonds
Hey, thanks for having me, Tim. Glad to be here.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yes, I am excited to dig into this with you. I always learn things from these interviews, so I am looking forward to it. Before we jump in, I want to ask you a few rapid fire questions if you're ready to jump in.

Logan Edmonds
Go for it. Let's do it.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Okay. So very quickly, what do you do and how long have you been doing it?

Logan Edmonds
Okay, I am a CEO of a cyber security and IT company. So cyber security is the name of our game, and we're actually about 20 days short of our five year anniversary. So the CEO gig, I'm going on year five for it.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Congratulations. Yes, that is a definite milestone right there.

Logan Edmonds
Absolutely.

Tim Fitzpatrick
What's the most important lesson you've learned in those five years?

Logan Edmonds
Oh, man, I was talking to you earlier about this. I think Chris Voss, I'm reading a book by him right now called Never Split the Difference. He phrases it up a really good way. When you go in, you think you have your goal. Never be so attached to that goal that you can't take an offer for something better. I've learned that being mentally flexible and being able to adjust as the market adjusts gives you opportunities you never dreamed you might have but are way better than I think you previously had in your mind.

Tim Fitzpatrick
I love that, man. One of my favorite quotes is flexibility is the key to stability.

Logan Edmonds
I always say knowing when to flex and knowing when not to. That's probably a better way of phrasing that, what I said.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah. So, dude, I know growing a business can be tough sometimes. When you run into some of those roadblocks, those hurdles, do you have any mantra or anything motivational that you say to yourself or you share with your team to help push through those times?

Logan Edmonds
Yeah, I have one that's been codified and I can't take credit for it because it was shared with me and I loved it called fuel the jet. Challenges and overcoming challenges are the fuel that fuels the jet of our business to go to greater heights. So whenever we're going through a challenging period or I feel like I'm up against a new roadblock, I just got to keep in mind myself, I'm fueling the jet. I'm fueling the jet. When I get over this, I'm going to fuel the jet. And it's been good for me.

Hire the Best People

Tim Fitzpatrick
One of the things that we talked about in the pre interview, Bryon, was one of the biggest drivers of your growth. You touched on this a little bit where you just have a huge focus on hiring the best people, and you tend to lean towards very senior level people. Obviously, that is an expensive investment. The best people, senior people are not cheap. Why did you choose to do that? And how has it helped grow the business?

Bryon Beilman
Yeah, it does relate to what I said earlier about good people hiring you. But I think if you listen to some of the business leaders, and this wasn't a new media, this is looking back a little bit like Jim Collins was the business leader. He's like, Hire the right people and get those right people on the bus. Or Steve Jobs talked about hiring A players and they'll run circle around B and C. We found those to be very true. When we started the company 16 years ago, it's probably a little bit of impatience, a little bit of need. When we first started, the primary customers we had were semiconductor companies. They produce semiconductors and they had very complex needs with their software and their whole IT stuff. Very complex. An average person or a person without very high level of skills is beyond them. So we had to hire very senior people just to get that, to serve those customers. And then as you start growing, you say, Well, you touched on it, good people are expensive. So we tried a few times to hire less skilled people, and we failed. Our customers noticed that as well. So when you say, Well, we have a high value, you're trying to create a value of a brand and you say, We're the best. And then they say, Well, what about this person over here that's not so good? But regardless of this, not always skill level, it's typically a growth mindset. We found some really people who don't have a lot of experience, but they learn at an incredible pace. And so I think that translates to more senior people. But I'd say that because you can... Even the most senior people can learn from a less skilled member who has a very strong skill in X, Y, Z. So collectively, if you're collaborating well and you're working together well, I think that has given us the most success at our customers. And that right there for growth, as you said, is the less churn you have, you build on your customers and you don't have to replace them. So it helps focus on new versus trying to retain the old because you have good quality people. That is the thing that really has helped.

Tim Fitzpatrick
It's expensive to turn because it's really expensive to find new business at times. So you're far better off doing what you can to keep the clients that you have than looking for new business. It's also interesting, too. This was a trial and error thing. It's not like you went into this going, This is our strategy and we have to execute on it. It was a demand thing. It's like, Hey, the clients that we're working with, we have to have senior level people. Then there was some trial and error where you're like, Do we really need these people? Let's test this. You tried it and it didn't work, so you went back. I think in business, whether it's operations or finance or sales or marketing, there's always trial and error. We're testing things. As we test things, as long as we measure what we're doing, we've got the data that we need to go, Did that work or did it not? I love this story because I think a lot of people think, Man, I've got to have it all figured out. And man, we don't have it figured out. We're doing the best with what we have, and we're just constantly iterating and that also ties back to that growth mindset where you're just constantly looking for ways that you can get better and better and better.

Bryon Beilman
Yeah. It's also, I think, what I found, too, is the senior people... IT can be very complex. And if you ever... It in some ways is like a good writer. You read somebody who really writes well and they do elegant things in very few words. It can be very complex. And those experienced people, they've seen it, they've done it. And they probably wrote a book on it themselves. And they go, Well, instead of going A, B, C, D, E, F, you're just going right to A to F. And you solved it in a very simple and elegant way. When your customers feel that and they go, Wow, this is a difference because you try to differentiate yourself a little bit, but you can't do that unless you actually work on the differentiators.

Choose the Market You Want to Focus on

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah, that's a great one, man. I love that. So when we talked in the pre interview, your niche is tech based startups. When I talk to people that have a niche, I always like to dig in a little bit because this is something that a lot of people struggle with. How did you choose to focus on this market?

Logan Edmonds
Oh, man. You had to ask me that question because I wish I had a pretty answer. I actually stumbled into it a little bit. So back when I was starting out five years ago and I had no idea what the heck I was doing. I knew I was good at tech. I come from a background where my dad was an entrepreneur, so I knew something about being an entrepreneur, but I just didn't realize how deep this rabbit hole goes. So I was a niche dealer. I was taking clients wherever I could find them and I hooked up with a really cool biotech startup. They're still a customer to this day. And then they started introducing me to their investors and then some of their sister companies and it just snowballed. Before I knew it, I had a pretty decent little book about six companies of business that were biotech and tech startups. I realized I love it. I love the culture. I love the can do attitude. I love how they go from being like two people to 100 people in a year's time. The scaling is a real challenge. I said, hey, these are the customer. And we like working with them. Like I said, fuel the jet. I like to overcome challenges. I'd come over diversity. It's what gets me up in the morning, says I'm going to fuel this jet. That's very prevalent in that startup community. You get to meet those people who are just right in that same head space as you are. And that's a great place to be.

Tim Fitzpatrick
It's interesting, man, because I think it's totally okay that you stumbled across this. That happens to a lot of people. I think early on, it's just important to choose something that you're going to focus on. When you don't have any experience, it's hard to... Unless you're coming from prior experience and know a market really well that you want to serve, it can be really hard to choose.

Logan Edmonds
Absolutely.

Tim Fitzpatrick
We got to make choices and test it. It's just a choice for now. It's not a choice forever. I think it's important to go into that. But as you've gone down this path and you've chosen to really focus on this particular market, are there any particular benefits that you've seen in doing that that come to mind?

Logan Edmonds
Yeah, I think I touched on it earlier, but I can elaborate and flesh that out a little bit. A lot of businesses in different verticals, there's nothing wrong with this, right? They grew up very steady, predictable increments. We're going to add a certain headcount every year. We're going to grow at this level. And that's fine. But I'm the person, and my team for the most part of the people that enjoys unique challenges. Like I said, that fuel the jet thing is a really big part of our culture. And when the startup world, you are scaling. That's what you are on your startup. Your goal is to scale. Your goal is to grow fast. What was it, Mark Zuckerberg, you see famous for saying it, we're Facebook. Move fast and break things. It's a unique set of challenges that for me, and I think for the majority of my team, find uniquely fulfilling. We love working with them, don't get wrong. But it's almost as much for us as it is for them. There's just a synergy there that we love.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Have you found it easier to identify places that you should be to get in front of those people?

Logan Edmonds
Oh, absolutely. I didn't know. I didn't have a clue of what I was doing when I said, Hey, I'm going to niche in this. I had the whole book of business, but where do you go? Who do you talk to? One of the biggest things I really spent some time, it took me about a year, year and a half to figure out was just talk to people who are in that space. Not necessarily in tech, but in that star space. Hey, where do you congregate? Where do you go? Where is the places that you find value in community? And so we identified conferences, certain trade shows, special LinkedIn pages, just going down a list and saying, Okay, this is where we need to build relationships in. This is where we need to make a presence in. And that expedited a lot of things for us.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah. One of the thing when we work with clients, we create what we call an ideal client GPS. And it's just a list of where you can go to find those people. And when you're very specific, one, it's much easier to create that list, but it just makes sure that you're fishing where the fish are rather than dealing with the people.

Logan Edmonds
Absolutely. I have nothing against people who go to their Chambers of Commerce and build relationships there. That's a very valid stroke. But in the startup world, they're not really in the Chambers of Commerce. That's a great example I can give you. I'm not fishing where the fish are there by going there. Don't get me wrong, there's some great people there. It's just not where I want to be if I want to be present in that vertical.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah. Another example out of conversation. This is probably three or four weeks ago, with a residential architect who niches in log homes and cabins. And he was telling me, he's like, Man, my market, they're all second home owners. Somebody told me that I should be doing a podcast. I'm like, Dude, my clients aren't listening to podcasts. I already know that. And part of that is really just a great example of he understands who his ideal clients are and how they're getting information. Because if you don't understand that, it's really easy to make a mistake like that where, man, he could be spending all kinds of time and money on creating a podcast that does absolutely nothing for him.

Logan Edmonds
Yeah, no, that's totally valid. You have to know what your market is interested in. There's a guy, I won't mention his name, who's in my market, who's in a very similar space to I am, and we trade notes. He's been someone I was introduced to in the last eight months, and we just really hit it off. And I took a lot of appreciation from him because what he's done is he's figured out not even just the places, but the specific individuals because in the startup world, there are certain movers and shakers. He figured out he figured it out. He could sit them down for a half hour and treat them to a speakeasy lounge style thing, which everyone in this time world right now likes. You ever gone to this place, like a quiet place, all those lounge chairs. He would just invite them to come out and he'd pay for a drink and chat with them for a half hour. He made incredible inroads of that. I'm like, I'm spending all this money on this other stuff, and here's a guy for the cost of a couple of drinks is just making relationships that are carrying forward over and over and over. And my mind was just blown. I was like, Oh, my gosh. I must learn from you, sensei.

Generate Content That Resonates with Your Ideal Clients

Tim Fitzpatrick
I love it. We e're one of the marketing challenges that you mentioned struggling with is generating content that resonates with your ideal clients and that gives them value. A lot of people struggle with this. What have you done to try to solve this problem?

Logan Edmonds
We do believe you're going to give me an email address or come to my webinar, I need to give you something of value. So it's a twofold. We do webinars. We just started on that path, though, so I won't advertise too much in that yet. We're still working through our process. But one of the things that we found is we're a cyber security company. I think every business owner on one level or another has at least heard of cyber security is cognizant. So one of the things that we started doing in our newsletters and our various other marketing news is just offering, Hey, here's six things that you can do yourself without paying us a cent to go help yourself with cybersecurity. T hey're valid, too. They're not just making stuff up, fringe stuff. This is six very applicable things that are not hard to implement that can make you 70 %, 80 %, 90 % more secure as a company. And giving that to them in exchange, just to show them that, hey, we're not just here to do the hard sell. We want to give value back.

Tim Fitzpatrick
To me, this challenge all goes back to just understanding your ideal clients and how they're getting information. Once we understand how they're getting information, where they're accessing it, and what's important to them, then it becomes a lot easier. It's work, right? You still got to put a lot of work in, but it becomes a lot easier to identify what type of content you need to create and what types of channels you need to be in to get in front of them. Because it's like you said, again, I don't know your market super well because it's not when I play in. But startup community, it's pretty specific community. And a lot of it, as an outsider looking in, seems to be very relationship driven.

Logan Edmonds
Absolutely. These guys, you're trusting. Startup is such a risky thing to do. And anybody who started a business feels this on a gut level. No matter what business you're starting, there's always an element of risk. And when you're talking about scaling rapidly, when you just started the company, that risk is compounded. There are certain people that are always going to be trusted in that community who have done this, who are experienced, and they're relied on to give guidance. And so developing relationships with those people is critical to surviving in the sphere.

Tim Fitzpatrick
One of the things that you touched on when we first connected was that a while back, you chose to invest in building your leads pipeline from one of that was just referrals to more robust model. Why did you decide to do that? And what channels are you focusing on to do that?

Logan Edmonds
Sorry, go ahead.

Tim Fitzpatrick
No, yeah, that's it. I was just going to...

Logan Edmonds
Oh, no, you're fine. Great question. So I sat down, and we talked about this earlier, this whole concept of jack of all trades, master of none. It's more than just marketing. There's a lot of things in business that you need to decide. Are you going to be a jack of all trades, master of none, or are you going to be a master of something that delivers excellent service? When it comes to our company values, the master of excellent service resonates above and beyond that. So we said, look, we do certain things really well. We have a great business model and our customers love our value. They come back to us. We're not the cheapest guys on the block, but they still come back. They keep coming back to us because we do certain things better than anybody else. And that's where our strengths are. So when we go to customers, sometimes they're not interested in that stuff. And we've got to be okay with that because we've chosen to be a master in our strengths and to offer that with the customers that resonate with those values and those strengths. The problem is when you operate from a mindset of scarcity, right? And the referrals people have on it, it's very hard to pull off. If you're not sure where your leads are going to come from, or if there isn't going to be more leads down the road, how are you supposed to be confident enough to say, Okay, we're a good fit, or now I need to walk away? That's part of being a business owner. We realized we need to invest in our leads pipeline, so we didn't operate in that mentality of scarcity, that we operate in a mentality of abundance, and we could pick and choose the best partners because it's not just us being elitist. We really do think that a good partnership at the beginning where everything's lined up, ends up with happier customers. And happier customers and happier business owners is better for all parties involved. And that's what we just valued more than anything.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Got it. Yeah. So it sounds like you wanted to get to a place where you had more choice.

Logan Edmonds
Absolutely.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Between, man, we're generating more than enough leads where we can now pick and choose the types of clients that we work with.

Logan Edmonds
Absolutely. And to be clear, it's for their sake as much as ours. We're not a good fit for you and I take you on because I don't have enough leads. It just can be a bad time for both of us.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah, it's not going to be good.

Logan Edmonds
And we're more of an art business model, just give you context. I mean, we talked to a couple of other people in this sphere. It's much more of a longer term relationship is what we shoot for. We only get even with the full leads, pipeline 20, 30 leads a year deal. We are looking for the long haul. So finding that person that we have a good relationship with and we synergize with well, it's absolutely critical for the longevity of our business.

Tim Fitzpatrick
What channels or tactics have you started to use at this point?

Logan Edmonds
People are going to hate me for this, but email is still absolutely 100 % relevant in this day and age when it comes to marketing, especially in the sphere I operate in. And there's a key difference in the email marketing you can do. We use drip campaigns with valid, actual, valuable materials as opposed to just scammy, Hey, you should call me so we can set up a sales talk. That's not the thing we're talking about here. I'm talking about, Hey, are you interested in this? Okay, you are. You obviously opted in. But let me give you a newsletter. Let me give you some things of value. Let me teach you about the sphere of cybersecurity or operational efficiency and IT or whatever your primary interest is in that. And then when you're ready to talk, if you're ever ready to talk, you will know that I've already given you something of value even before we've ever picked up the phone. You know that the stuff we've given you is good. And so we do a lot of stuff in that regard. We're in social media like everyone, but we see that more as a, hey, we're live over here deal. It's not a lead generation, but it is important to have our presence and say, hey, we're still doing stuff. And the other thing too is strategic trade shows, opportunities. We talked about that earlier. One of the verticals we're looking at adding toward, you start actually looking at doing two niches, we're doing more work with insurance brokerages. It's another opportunity to come in. We've been building brand awareness in there for a while. So going to those trade shows where those insurance brokerages gather and making those relationships now so we can establish ourselves as a persistent presence in that industry. That's another part of what we do as well.

Finding Team Members is Challenging

Tim Fitzpatrick
Got it. Like any businesses, finding team members is challenging. What kinds of things are you doing to overcome that?

Logan Edmonds
I mean, it's an interesting market right now. We're seeing record layoffs in big companies that really hired aggressively during the height of the post pandemic COVID. You've got money. And what my industry is doing with finding is companies are being very strategic about who they lay off in those scenarios. And I don't mean this to be a detriment, but it's hard to find good IT talent at the highest level and cybersecurity talent. And those guys that are masters of their crafts, they're not going anywhere. Those companies are still calling on to this. So what I have found to be, we have about 11 people on staff right now, and we're growing. We have another additional team out of the Philippines as well for some of our after hours stuff. And building relationships with key areas of where these professionals network and grow. Again, I got to point to a guy I know who does better. I'm a very big believer that there's very little that's new under the sun. You're not going to be the guy that reinvents the wheel. You might figure out how to make the wheel a little better, but you're not going to be the guy that reinvents the wheel. So looking at what others are doing in your similar spaces and seeing how it works and what doesn't is a great tactic. So that's what I did. And there's a guy who literally hosts in my area tech networking professional events for four times a year. He pays for pizza. They have a valid speaker that's an expert in his field in various areas of tech. Everyone has a great time. There's usually a little bit of beer on the side, like John Bruce. And because of that, he has built these relationships with these people. So when they're ready to move on, when they go in, guess who they're reaching out to first? Before they go to the recruiter before they go anymore else, they're going to this guy. And so going to those events, making sure that we're known, figuring out, hey, identifying those relationships. I'll give you a great example. Our most recent system architect, who's in my world, the top tier, I think, galaxy brain guy. I give him any tech problem, he can figure out an answer. I've been talking to him about coming over to us for two years now. Two years we had to maintain that relationship, and it's absolutely worth it. Why? He wasn't ready to move on. He wasn't ready to go anywhere. But I said, Hey, when you're ready, you got a place here. We know you, we love you. You've done great. You did a little consulting work for us. Maintaining that relationship was a big deal. Now I've got somebody who, I'll be quite honest, I'm not confident I could find out the open market. If I'd gone to straight, you know, Indeed or Kroger's, I don't think I would have found that guy.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Well, you know what, man? That's a perfect example of you got to nurture potential team members just like you do potential clients. Same thing. They're not... Depending on this statistic, he throwing this statistic out because it's not... I don't know how accurate it is, but it's between 5 % to 10 % of your market or less is ready to buy at any given point in time. I think the same is probably true in the job market as well, where they're just not looking. But if you make those connections and you just stay in touch, when they do get to that place, there's a higher likelihood that they're going to at least reach out to you.

Logan Edmonds
Totally. People want to go... I read somewhere, and this is true for anyone, an 100 % ratio of how we make decisions. 70 % is fear of loss, fear of the unknown is the reason I make a certain decision versus 30 % is hope of gain. There is a sense of if you're filling a relationship, just letting know what employer you are, what company culture they can expect. That really streamlines the roads up. Okay, I know this guy. I've got a sense of where it would be like I work for him, as opposed to, I don't know, the last time you went on to an open job market application. But I remember when I applied for my last job before I went to my own business and that was a big thing for me. I was like, I have no idea what company this is. I can only ask so many questions in an interview. I don't know if this is going to be a great place to work or a terrible place to work.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah. Honestly, that leads into, I think, something that a lot of people overlook from a hiring, recruiting, and retention standpoint is marketing is just as important on the recruiting side as it is on the client side. Not only are potential applicants looking at your website and comparing your website to other people, so your front end marketing is super important. They're looking at your social media, they're just checking you out. They're looking at what you're doing. Are you different than everybody else? Do you look the same? Is it portraying confidence? If not, that's going to be a problem. It's going to be hard to recruit.

Logan Edmonds
Nobody wants to work for a flight. Well, some people might, but most of them don't want to fly by night job. You want to know that nothing is 100 % in life, but you want to know this place is established, they're legitimate, and you can trust them with your livelihood. You're trusting your employer with a lot. So setting that tone and establishing, Hey, we're legitimate. We bring value to the industry. We have actual depth of knowledge and expertise. We have a good reputation. All those things are very important when you're trying to find those candidates.

Tim Fitzpatrick
The other thing, too, is on the client side, I always talk about your message and focusing your marketing message on who your ideal clients are, what pain points do they have, and what outcomes are they looking for. We need to focus on them. On the employee side, we should be doing the same thing. Who are your ideal team members? What are they like? What are they looking for? What do they want? What are their what are their aspirations? When we understand that, you probably remember this when you went on to the open job market, how many job ads actually are drastically different? Most of them say the same damn thing over and over again. It's really not that difficult to look.

Logan Edmonds
It's a quantity game, not a quality game. They're not doing quality. They're casting their net wide. And when you're a small business, that's not the way you should go at all because you trust a lot to each and every one of your employees. The wrong employee on your team can set you back 6, 12 months easily. They have that power of your company.

Tim Fitzpatrick
It's not that hard to stand out with a different job ad that if you know who your ideal employees are, you can put in messaging that attracts those types of people and repels the ones that aren't going to be a good fit. Is that going to miraculously change your recruiting and hiring challenges? No, but it's going to make things easier. It's going to open up more doors.

Logan Edmonds
I mean, one of the things I do is from our... We do get occasional people reaching out from our leads pipeline saying, Hey, are you by chance hiring? And then they'll send the resume. And you better believe, I look at the resume, it don't strike my fancy, I'm like, We're not now. But you know what? I'm going to put you in a nice little folder over here. I'm going to reach out in a couple of months, check in on you, maintain that relationship because you made the effort to reach out to me. That shows me you got initiative. Let me in, especially your resume makes sense. Absolutely. We're going to start in that engagement then. You never know. You never know. Be flexible, right?

Conclusion

Tim Fitzpatrick
Right. Yeah, exactly. So what's next, man? What are your aspirations for the future?

Logan Edmonds
So we've been on a ridiculous growth curve. It's been honestly a little whiplash over here. So we went from three quarter of a million in 2021 in gross revenues to 1.7 in 2022. Based on our most recent PNL analysis from the Q1, we're on track to close three million this year. So our goal right now, obviously, this year, we're still on that three million goal, but we would like to be five million within a couple of years, not because we want to make necessarily tons more money, but because we see ourselves servicing a very valid need in the market. And the more capacity we have, the better we can serve the market. We can offer more things, we can do more things for our customers without compromising on our quality. So that's our strategic goals of company. Our personal goal, I'm just really invested right now. When we do cybersecurity, people eyes glaze over. It's not, I would say, the sexiest topic in the world. But it has real life implications. And to give you a great example, about a year ago, I got a call from a little lady who was in her mid 50s. She worked as a financial administrator for a nonprofit for the last 20 years. And long story short, a hacker managed to get on her computer, somehow managed to use her email and social media to gain a level of trust over three weeks, and managed to make off with her entire 401k. The whole thing, it never came back. She didn't realize it till it was well beyond the point where she could reverse the wire. So you hear that stuff, right? And then I'm telling her, I can't do anything. You need to go call the police. That's the stuff. I'm like, What we do makes a difference. We're keeping businesses safe. We're trying to protect the most precious assets, namely their people and their finances. I want to see us make a difference in the markets. That's what personally motivates me.

Tim Fitzpatrick
I love it, man. This has been great. I appreciate you taking the time. I want to ask you one more question to close things out, which is knowing what you know now, is there anything you would do differently?

Logan Edmonds
Yeah. I would say in the beginning, learning how to embrace my now. We talked about before, it's okay to tell people no. Sometimes you need to be okay with that because if you say yes to everyone, you're going to put yourself in a place where it's going to hurt you and them more than you would imagine. No is just the beginning. No is not a relationship ender. That's the thing I've learned, too. Just because you tell someone no doesn't mean you're severing the relationship. There's a way to say no in a way that's like, Sorry, no, we're not going to do that. But the relationship is still maintained. You never know what comes down the road. So learning that specific skill set, if I could do that differently over again, I would have learned that first and foremost back in the beginning and then growing from here. I learned about Midway and had a lot of course correcting because of that.

Tim Fitzpatrick
It's tough in the beginning because you want new clients, you want to grow. And so it's tough to say no.

Logan Edmonds
But you're also in a place where at the beginning, you can make changes to your business so much easier than you can once you grow. It's the difference between a nice little sailboat and a steam cruiser. One's way more easier to steer than the other. So making those good decisions in the beginning, even if they're a little painful in the short term, and I'm not telling you got to do it, you got to do. I get that starting out. But making those good decisions in the beginning builds a foundation that you don't have to go back and fix three, four, five years down the road because you made some bad calls. I'm a big fan. I like Chris Voss. I'm a big fan of Mike McAllister. If you go and read the books about entrepreneurial success, I love Mike McA lwitt's stuff. Big fan of the pumpkin plan. That's a great example. I would suggest any entrepreneur, take a look at those authors. They have great stuff.

Tim Fitzpatrick
I love it. Where can people connect with you?

Logan Edmonds
Yeah, of course. I think you've already linked our website in the chat. Obviously, we're reachable there at any time. We also have on my LinkedIn page, we have company page stuff, but I try to give something of value every week on our LinkedIn. So if you want to connect me on LinkedIn and see what we're doing and why it makes sense for the market we're in, love to see you there. Other than that, the other thing they can do, I don't think I told you this, I wrote a book a while back called How to Protect Your Small Business From Hackers. Literally, that's the title. Look it up on Amazon Kindle, it's 99 cents. If you want something that's just easy, understand the logic of things you can do to protect your business on the cyber security front, absolutely would steer you that way. I co authored it. I don't get any proceeds or anything, but it's a we had to get the publisher something, so it's 99 cents.

Tim Fitzpatrick
What's it called again?

Logan Edmonds
How to protect Your Small Business From Hackers. We tried to make the title very self explanatory.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yes. Okay. How to Protect Your Small Business from Hackers. From Hackers. Okay, cool. We will...

Logan Edmonds
Because of my colleagues in the industry, it's an awesome read. I'd encourage you if you're wanting to spend the 99 cents, go take a look.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Cool. So we'l make sure... And this will all be in the show notes, but tabernacle.tech is your website. And then LinkedIn is Tabernacle CRS. And then we'll put the link into the book, How to Protect Your Small Business From Hackers. Logan, thank you so much for taking the time. I really appreciate it. It's a great interview. You could see I was feverishly taking notes. Those of you that are watching, listening, I appreciate you as well. We talked a lot about what Logan has done up to this point to grow and continue to accelerate growth. If you want to discover which of the nine revenue roadblocks are slowing down your growth, you can do that over revenueroadblockscorecard.com. It takes less than five minutes. You'll get a customized report so you can start working on removing those roadblocks to accelerate growth today. You can also always connect with us over at RialtoMarketing.com. Be happy to chat with you. You can always book a discovery call with us over there. So thank you for checking it out today. Logan, thank you and till next time. Take care.