Uncle Marv's IT Business Podcast (Real Talk for IT Pros & MSPs)

Sitting at ACES in cold Minneapolis, I pulled Justin Maxwell aside after his wealth session because the room literally shifted once he started making us write down real numbers for the life we actually want. Justin has a teacher’s gift for taking the scary, foggy “money ball” in our heads and breaking it into clear targets, simple math, and real choices that don’t make you feel sleazy or like you’...

I brought back my friend Dori Spade, founder of Call to Action, to talk about something most MSPs quietly struggle with: you spend money on marketing, hire a sales rep or two, and still only close a few deals a year. Dori walks me through how she has helped MSPs move from the industry standard 25 percent close rate up to 70 percent by closing what she calls the “trust gap” that prospects feel when...

I grabbed Richard Wingfield at ACES Conference in Minneapolis to talk about something every MSP and IT consultant secretly worries about: how do you actually get out of the business without it collapsing or ticking off your best clients. Richard has been running Envision Design out of Houston since the early 90s, starting as a Mac‑only consultant when you could “throw a rock and hit a Windows guy,...

I brought back my friend Dave Scott from Scott Growth Strategies to poke the bear a little and talk about why so many MSPs feel stuck, even when they’re working their tails off. Dave lives right in the middle of that problem as a fractional CMO/CRO for MSPs and B2B firms that have hit a growth ceiling, and he does not sugarcoat the reality that a lot of us are fantastic engineers and pretty rough...

I am still here at ACES in Minneapolis, and this segment with Allen Edwards really hits home for any MSP owner who hides behind tickets and wonders why the pipeline feels dry. Allen talks about treating networking as a skill, not a personality trait, and walks through how he made a room full of techs actually stand up and practice real conversations instead of just listening to another slide deck....

Referrals are slowing down, phones are too quiet, and every vendor swears they have the magic funnel that will fix your pipeline—for a nice monthly fee, of course. Meanwhile, most MSP websites are still glorified digital business cards, and when a real prospect does reach out, that inquiry can sit in an inbox long enough for them to sign with another provider before you even know they exist. In th...

I caught Melanie Curtis at ACES 2026 in Minneapolis after her keynote, and this conversation goes way beyond “what does skydiving have to do with tech?” Melanie walks through how she went from traditional corporate track to professional skydiver, coach, and full‑time keynote speaker, and how that journey reshaped how she thinks about fear, risk, and reaching the edges of our potential. We dig into...

Recorded on‑site at the Elliott Park Hotel during ACES 2026, this conversation kicks off with a quick behind‑the‑scenes look at the venue, the vibe, and why this Apple‑centric event cares more about P&L than power users. I walk through how ACES is structured as a business‑first conference for Apple IT providers, covering topics like pricing, marketing, HR, scaling, and work‑life balance, with zero...

Most of us put huge effort into our tech stack and very little into how our team actually shows up in front of clients. In this conversation with MSP owner, branding coach, and author Lisa Shorr, we talk about why a “solid stack” is not enough if your clients experience you as slow, unresponsive, or robotic. We dig into real stories from the field, including a law firm that fired their IT provider...

I brought Colin back on because he’s one of the few people in our space who’s actually lived it all: tech, MSP owner, and now multiple vendor exits. We walk through how the “simple” stuff like billing reconciliation quietly drains profit from MSPs, with the average million‑dollar shop leaving a shocking amount of money on the table because they aren’t tracking seats, renewals, or vendor price hike...

Laura walks me through her “Know, Grow, Scale” framework and how most MSPs are trying to jump straight to lead gen while their business is still “root bound” at the foundation level. We talk about diagnostics, digital health, differentiation, and why your website, offers, and content have to actually say something meaningful before you ever expect your marketing to convert. We also get into mindse...

Chapters 01:08 Welcome to the IT Business Podcast 05:47 Cloud Hosting Exploration 19:41 Upcoming Conferences and Events 20:53 Acronis Event Announcement 23:43 Rant Warning: Caution Ahead 27:47 Family and Business Challenges 33:44 Vendor Relationships and Fairness 39:40 Navigating Vendor Changes 43:40 Industry Dynamics and Perspectives 52:16 Conclusion and Future Content This one starts with a stra...

Most of us have helped clients “call the carrier” or work with a master agent to bring in a circuit, grab a small commission, and move on. Brian flips that script and shows how MSPs can own the relationship by bringing a bulk fiber circuit into the building, carving it up, and billing each tenant under our own brand—while still leveraging master agents and existing carrier relationships. Instead o...

If you’ve ever wondered what it takes to keep a show going for a thousand episodes while still running tickets, projects, and staff, this one pulls back the curtain. I talk with Matt Rainey, Lalo Nuñez, Martin Obando, and Dawn Sizer about how Podnutz Pro started as a way to teach desktop techs the server side of the house, and how that spirit of “learn out loud” carried into the IT Business Podcas...

This conversation with Brian Weiss starts with Copilot, but it quickly becomes an honest look at how unprepared most of us are for AI inside client environments. I talk about being just like my customers—dabbling in random AI tools—while Brian lays out what it actually takes to make Copilot useful: modern workplace, SharePoint/OneDrive, sane file structures, and real governance instead of “S: driv...

I sat down with Larry Cobrin, founder and CEO of MSPCFO, to unpack how MSPs can turn messy PSA data into a clear picture of which clients are actually profitable and which ones are quietly draining the business. Larry broke down the idea of treating clients like a portfolio, normalizing profitability with contribution per hour, and using that lens to decide whether to improve, protect, or let go o...

Too many of us spend decades building our MSP, missing vacations and pulling all-nighters, only to “decide” to sell when a random LOI hits the inbox. Amy Babinchak has spent years helping owners sell their MSPs through Sell My MSP, and she joins me to walk through the real-world questions, red flags, and blind spots that determine whether you shut it down or cash it out. We talk about planning thr...

I’ve been talking for years about having a stack that works and not jumping every time a shiny new tool comes along, but I’ve never really unpacked how I got there. In this conversation, Tom Wyant from Wyant Technologies joins me to walk through the real‑world impact of switching RMMs, PSAs, documentation tools, security platforms, and even client portals and payment systems. We dig into migration...

This conversation with Ben Lee and Marc‑Andre from the N-Able Head Nerds team gets right into the questions MSPs are really asking at Empower 2026: how to approach AI strategically, what the new AI management tab actually does, and how to wrap governance and compliance around all of it. We also get into the evolution of automation inside the MSP space, why it’s shifted from “hours of scripting” to...

DePalma's been at it a year since jumping from Datto and Kaseya to OpenText's massive operation—25,000 employees, billions in revenue, but they give his team real autonomy to hit numbers without micromanaging. They've streamlined everything into one Secure Cloud portal, fixed Microsoft 365 pains with better UX and 98.7% in-house support, and launched partnerships that enable MSPs, not compete—like...

Robert Johnston’s journey goes from Marine Corps cyber operations to running incident response at CrowdStrike, to founding Adlumin and ultimately landing inside N-able as Chief Innovation Officer. We unpack why SIEM and MDR used to be “Fortune 500 only” tech, and how Adlumin intentionally built a cost-efficient, easy-to-use, channel-first platform that MSPs could actually deploy for community bank...

I sat down with Lewis and Steph from the N‑able Head Nerds crew to unpack what’s really changing in the MSP game: your clients don’t want another tool, they want outcomes and business resilience. We get into the shift from “cybersecurity” as a tired buzzword to a more powerful story around keeping doors open, maintaining revenue, and helping business owners survive their worst day without getting...

Frank and I sit down at Empower 2026 to unpack where N‑Able is investing, how AI and UEM are reshaping endpoint management, and what that actually means for MSP service catalogs, pricing, and security offerings. We get into the control-plane vision for UEM, the action layer for security, and how N‑Able is using Enzo and its head nerds to turn field lessons into repeatable playbooks and automation...

Mike Wise runs Clockwork Networks as a one-man MSP, and he’s doing it intentionally. This wasn’t about staying small because he had to—it’s about building a business around efficiency, standardization, and control. We talked through how he niched into tax professionals and compliance-heavy clients, and how that decision simplified everything from tooling to service delivery. We also got into secur...

We dig into how their MSP quietly turned into a “ticket factory” where work piled up, documentation was thin, and a 20‑year employee held way too much tribal knowledge. From there, Dawn and Dave break down the specific steps they took to fix it: rebuilding processes, enforcing documentation standards, killing weak level one roles, focusing on root cause analysis, and putting real accountability ar...