Communication Over Technical Skills: Simon Robert’s Journey from Age 7 to MSP Owner | Ep051

From Age 7 to MSP Owner: Simon Robert’s IT Journey

Simon Robert’s IT career started earlier than most, at just 7 years old, he was already fixing computers his father brought home. Now, as President of Novbox in Las Vegas, Simon runs a managed service provider that helps businesses stay secure and operational.

In this episode, Simon shares the honest reality of running an IT business. He talks about the stress of being a “one-man army” for years, why admitting “I don’t know” actually builds more trust than pretending to be an expert, and how communication saves client relationships when things go wrong.

Episode Highlights:
Starting Young
Simon began his IT journey at age 7, disassembling and repairing broken computers his father brought home. This early hands-on experience gave him confidence and skills that would shape his entire career.

The One-Man Army Problem
For 10 years, Simon ran his business alone. He describes the impossible stress of choosing between multiple emergency calls happening simultaneously and why having a business partner changed everything.

Honest Communication Wins
When clients leave or when something goes wrong, Simon picks up the phone immediately. He shares why confronting problems early, even at 7pm, prevents bigger issues the next morning.

Break/Fix vs MSP Model
Simon explains the fundamental difference between being an IT firefighter and providing managed services. The MSP model eliminates billing drama and gives clients peace of mind.

IT Specialization Reality
Just because someone works “in IT” doesn’t mean they do everything. Simon uses the electrician vs plumber analogy to explain why IT professionals specialize and why that’s perfectly okay.

The Vegas Tech Community
After moving from Quebec to Las Vegas years ago, Simon has been actively building connections in the local tech community. He believes in turning LinkedIn connections into real friendships.

Key Takeaways:
1. Admitting “I don’t know” and asking for help builds more trust than pretending to be an expert in everything
2. Communication is priority #1 – confront problems immediately instead of avoiding them
3. Having a business partner or team prevents burnout and enables business growth
4. The MSP model provides stability for both provider and client compared to break/fix
5. Building genuine relationships, both online and in person, creates lasting professional networks
6. Know your strengths and confidently refer out what you don’t do well
7. When clients leave, call them to understand why instead of hiding from the conversation

About Simon Robert:
Simon Robert is the President of Novbox, an IT managed service provider in Las Vegas. With over 30 years of experience starting from age 7, Simon specializes in helping businesses maintain secure and reliable IT infrastructure through managed services.

Listen to learn how honest communication, genuine relationships, and knowing when to ask for help can transform your career – whether you’re running your own business or working in corporate IT.

Manuel Martinez: Welcome everyone, my name is Manuel Martinez and this is another episode of Career Downloads. Where each episode I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest to learn more about their experiences and their background, to really try and uncover any actionable advice that you can use as you’re managing your own career. So I’m excited for today’s episode, I have with me Simon Robert. And this is a very interesting story, so him and I actually connected on LinkedIn, we actually met in person, you know, just in an informal setting, got to know each other, to know about each other a little bit more about his career. And he has kind of established his own business. So again, this is going to be something different than all of the other traditional ones where you know, a lot of people are working for corporate jobs. So I think there will be a lot of, you know, good insights into the way that he managed it and you know, some of the different things that he does for his own career, managing his own business as opposed to kind of working for someone else. So with that, I’ll go ahead and introduce Simon.

Simon Robert: Hey, nice to see you in person again.

Manuel Martinez: Again.

Simon Robert: It’s so nice. I was so happy, you know, remember a couple of months ago, we chat a little bit on LinkedIn. And I said, hey, do you want to smoke a cigar with me? Yes, of course. You agree directly. I was like, this is so nice to have the possibility to have a platform like LinkedIn that we can connect and after that do something in person. That’s amazing. And thank you very much for the invitation to your podcast.

Manuel Martinez: Yeah, of course. And I was glad that you kind of reached out because one of the things that you’ve done and I’ll be honest, I’ve started to do it a little bit more too is when I see people and I interact and I see that they’re locally in Vegas, I do a lot of what you do. I’m like, oh, I see you’re in Vegas. It’d be great to meet up for, you know, hey, maybe you want to do a coffee or do a lunch or to kind of grow my IT community outside of the people that I normally work with, which is also outside. So thank you.

Simon Robert: Yeah. And you know, like we’re a little city. People thinks that Vegas is very, very a large city, but it’s not L.A., you know, we’re about one million people here. So that’s pretty nice to connect with other people in IT. So that’s amazing. So I’m doing that too. So each time I’m connecting with somebody in the IT, I want to go take a beer with me. Yes, of course. So that’s nice. So it gave us the opportunity to connect and build our IT network in Vegas.

Manuel Martinez: Yeah, definitely. And then also do things again, it doesn’t, I think one of the things that people think is, you know, it has to be just IT related, right? Like, I mean, we talked a little bit about IT, but it was really just kind of getting to know more about you, you know, what you’re doing, you know, like you were very passionate about cigars and I, you know, I’ve had a couple here and there, but it was, you know, kind of you teaching me and you know, the people that you have outside in that kind of ecosystem, which is really cool.

Simon Robert: That was nice. I’m part of that cigar club and every Wednesday night we smoke a different cigar. So that’s pretty cool. And it forced us to connect, you know, instead of being in our backyards alone smoking the cigar we’re smoking together, it’s like a family. So I appreciate that. So I’m very happy that you have the chance to experience that.

Manuel Martinez: What I do with all my guests is if you don’t mind kind of telling me a little bit about where you grew up and then eventually kind of what sparked your interest in technology.

Simon Robert: So I grew up in the Repentigny. This is a city in Quebec. So it’s very not so far away from Montreal. It’s a southern city and it’s very special because a lot of people don’t know about Quebec. It’s a French province of Canada. So like, let’s say like 70 or 80% of people speaks French and sometimes they only speaks French. They don’t speak English. So it’s like being in Paris, but like in North America. So I grew up there in my city. Everybody was speaking French. So we’re like, it was so special. Like the first time I went to Montreal, Montreal, it’s more bilingual. I will say there’s a part of the eastern part of Montreal speaks French and the western part will speak more, more English. So I was like very amazed of, wow, there’s people speaking another language even in my, in my province. And I start working in IT. I’ll say my passion start when I was maybe like six, seven years old because of my father. My father was bringing the computers of his clients. So it was not working directly in IT, but there was some computers that were broken and my father were helping his customer by bringing back the computer trying to repair. So I was observing what he was doing. And after that, that was nice because a couple of times he said, oh, that computer is broken. There was nothing to do. You can keep it, Simon. So I was using my screwdriver, removing all the parts, trying to repair, trying to fix the issue. And most of the time I was able to fix the issue, like using a spare part from another computer, making sure that they were compatible. And then voila, I was able to repair computers at seven years old. And after that, my father was so amazed because he didn’t have to do the repairs. He said, hey, Simon, I got something for you.

Manuel Martinez: Keeps you busy.

Simon Robert: Yeah, exactly. So he was happy. He was doing business and he was doing like, he didn’t have to do the repairs. I was doing it for free. So he was happy with that. And there’s a good thing with that because I was not like so near to my father because my father was like more like, I’ve been like that. I don’t say to my kids, I love them. You know, it was like more cold. Because I was working with him, repairing the computers, I had the opportunity to have a lot of time with him. So that’s pretty cool because I’m sure that if I didn’t have the patience for IT or for computers, I will not be as near to my father that I am right now.

Manuel Martinez: So then would you say that kind of your, because you mentioned it before, right? With the cigars and with the bonding with people, do you think that technology, and I’ve seen a little bit of kind of what you do and the connections that you have, is that something that you think probably, I know at seven years old, you weren’t thinking like, oh, this is a way for also for me to connect with people. But kind of looking back, do you think that technology has helped you kind of establish relationships with people?

Simon Robert: I’m sure about this because one of the first things that I did when I had those computers was calling my friends. Hey come over. I have a printer that can print banners. We were printing banners. We were like, the first time I got the internet was back in 1994. And I don’t know if you remember, but that was about the release date of the Nintendo 64. So we were able to go online and find the cheats or the solution, for example, for Legends of Zelda. So that was like, wow. So all of my friends were connecting with me because of the internet, because of the computers. So it was creating a new ecosystem. And back in the days, I don’t remember, there was that mIRC, the chat. That was so cool. The world was not ready for that. I was able to chat with people located in the United States, located in Australia, and in the comfort of my home using my keyboard. So I’m pretty sure that the world of communication that we’re having right now in 2025, that was present back in mIRC in 1994. And just because that kind of communication was different, we were not going to a bar, we’re not going to a big party. We were doing the party with a keyboard, connecting with people. So I’m pretty sure that all the computers and the technology, for example, the internet, the first goal of the internet was to communicate between campuses in the United States. The goal of that technology was for communication, not only for productivity. So I’m pretty sure there’s a lot of connection possible with technology. And I’m sure this is just the beginning. In the future, it’s going to be even more powerful.

Manuel Martinez: Yeah. So then as you’re learning to kind of put these computers together, now you’re, again, you’re bringing your friends over, you’re doing more and more. Did you think at some point, like, I want to do this for as a career? Or are you kind of like, well, this is fun. I enjoy this, but, you know, I’m going to do something else, you know, in my life for work.

Simon Robert: This is a pretty good question. My father wanted me to not do that as my career because he was looking at me. It was like, my son will be like 45 years old. We will still use his screwdriver and remove the parts. He wanted me to go to college, university, you know, being the doctor, I don’t know, dentist, whatever. So he wanted me to have a big career, like something that give me a lot of money. So when I told him, this is what I want to do for living, I will say he was not so happy. He was expecting of me to go to university and I don’t know, do something like doctorate in something very complex and will receive the Nobel Prize for something. And this was not the case. So he had to understand that this was my passion and this is what I will, I was going to do all the rest of my life. I decided to devote my life to IT and this is what I did. So I’ve been in IT, I will say since I’m seven years old, doing the same thing. Things have changed since like 1992, but to be honest with you, this is kind of the same thing. Everyday in my life, I do the diagnostic even with my wife, with the kids, you know, everybody’s having issues like, oh my God, I don’t know what to do. I’m going to die. I don’t understand the computer is not turning on. The car is not working. Everything is a diagnostic. So like being an IT person, I feel like everywhere that I go, I need to do something to help somebody. I swear. And this is my passion. I love helping people. I love solving issue. And each time there’s something that it’s not okay. I will give you an example. I was in Barcelona last week and there was this bus driver. He was stuck. He was looking at the road. There was a car that was parked on the right and it was in front of an hotel. So they were like a column on the left side. He was like, I cannot pass. He was honking. I went through him and say, hey, wait a second. I will go outside. I will give you the direction. You will be able to for the bus to pass through. Don’t worry. Stop being angry. I’ll fix the situation. So I went down the bus, give him direction and we were able to continue our route. I think it’s the reason why we are in technology. We need to help normal people that doesn’t have the patience or doesn’t have the skill to analyze problems in life.

Manuel Martinez: And you’re right. And I think that’s the big thing with technology because I now when people ask me, oh, hey, what do you do? Right. I always used to tell them what my title was or things like that. And now I’m like, oh, I help people and businesses solve problems with technology because that’s what we are. We’re problem solvers and we just happen to be doing it with technology as opposed to money or something else. But I love the way you say that is we’re helping people with technology.

Simon Robert: Of course. And you know what? I’m not doing IT support like full time. I’m doing it a little bit now because I’m more into sales. So I sell technology. But it’s the same thing. You need to solve a problem that a client obviously say, hey, my router is not working. Let’s change the router. Let’s have a better model with more security. So you’re doing the same thing. The only difference is you’re not connecting the cable. You’re not doing the configuration, but you’re preparing the project. So when you call your technician and say, you know what? I sold a firewall to Manuel. It’s a Meraki MX75. You will need to configure that, that, that. Don’t forget to activate the security. So we just guide the technician to do our plan. So we’re like engineers. We’re engineering what it needs to be done to solve the customer issue. So it’s a continuity. I would say technology sales is the same thing as support, but you don’t have your hands on it.

Manuel Martinez: On the actual keyword and devices. So then you told your father that you’re going to go through and this is what you want to do for a career. How did you kind of start that career? Did you go and start putting in applications for other people? What eventually started to say, OK, this is how I’m going to make money?

Simon Robet: So I was doing computer repairs for friends or people. People were calling me. Back in the days we were like Windows 95 and 98. That was so crazy. The only way to solve a problem was to format and reinstall. So that’s what I was doing every week. Like, yeah, you know what? You went to that bad website. Unfortunately, there’s a virus and Windows doesn’t boot anymore. We need to format and reinstall. So it was like doing that every, every day. And like I began, I was like, hey, let’s start a career with that. I will get a lot of money with it. The only thing is like I needed to have bigger clients and the bigger clients were not like B2C. It was B2B. So what I decided to do is to do a network engineer course at college. So I went to that college in Montreal. I went to study like it. It was like a CCNA course, but like made made by teachers. And it was very nice. So I’ve learned everything about networking and Windows Server. Back in the days, it was Windows Server 2000. So that was very nice. So I’ve learned a lot. And after that, I was so excited. I decided to start my own business. So I went to the Quebec Registry of business and I say, I want to start a business. You have the business name. Yes, I have the business name. Back in the days, it was a French name. So I registered that company. Et voilà. I was a prospecting clients. To be honest with you, like somebody that wants to do that right now, it will be way more difficult than back in the 2000s because like back in the days, I was receiving calls. I was even not even in business. And you know, I heard that you repair computers. Can you come to my business to fix a couple of computers? So I didn’t have to do Google ads, not Facebook ad, not LinkedIn presence. Everything was free. I was receiving the leads because there was not enough IT technicians for the number of business that were doing something very special back in the days. They were going digital. So they were using papers and pen. They were writing reports. They didn’t have any computers. So we needed to install computers to replace typewriters and written notes. After that, a lot of businesses, they were using like, you know, like Kodak, you know, the photo.

Manuel Martinez: Polaroid.

Simon Robert: Polaroid things like that to digital cameras. It was a big, big move. They were able to take pictures, get it instant. They’d be able to send it by email or put it on a USB stick. They were able to send it by mail. So it changes everything. So we had those kinds of companies. They were like, especially in insurance, hey Simon, here’s our company. We’re 25 employees. We don’t have any computers, no digital camera, no printers, nothing at all. We need all of that in one month. So it was crazy. Like a $25,000 deal was easily done because there was nothing. We’re starting from no computers to a computer. So you were not doing upgrades. You were doing the initial setup. So back in the 2000, it was like that.

Manuel Martinez: And I’m sure, like you mentioned, right, it’s a very different time, right, as opposed to trying to start and do that now because there’s so many other businesses that do it. It’s not as new, right, because people, there’s already MSPs and there’s already businesses that do business to business. But the other thing I think that probably helped you, and like you said, people are calling you, hey, I’ve heard is, I’m going to say by this time, if you started around seven, you’ve been doing this for probably at least 10 years, right? Let’s say you’re 18, so 10, 11 years, you’re building trust with, at that time, probably some of it is your dad’s clients. Some of it is your own coworkers and, or sorry, your friends. But as you’re doing more and more of this, word starts to spread around. Hey, Simon does this. Oh, I know a guy who does this, or I know someone who, oh, you need something printed, or you’re having this kind of problem. Ask them. And my guess is that the other reason that people are recommending you is you’re actually helping them. You’re not, oh yeah, yes, I do that. I can help you. It’s going to be $5,000, right? You weren’t looking for how can I make a bunch of money really quick? You’re like, oh, okay. I’m guessing that you were charging there. Kind of what’s fair, but again, establishing a network of people that were almost selling it for you. They were your Google ads.

Simon Robert: It’s so funny that you’re talking about that because like I was an entrepreneur. I was alone. I’ve been alone for 10 years when I started the business because I didn’t find any people that was compatible with me. I was looking to find a good technician to be able to work with me and start the business and then hire new technicians, but I was alone and I was okay like that. I was not happy, to be honest with you. It was a lot of stress because some months there was no calls. I was having like five, 10 calls and that’s nice. I was having free time. I was able to do more activities. But let’s say the month after, I don’t know. This is like God or I don’t know what. Everything was crashing at the same time. I was having like two or three calls in the same hour. Simon, the computer is not working. Simon, the printer is not printing. The boss is very angry. You need to come right now. And then the third call, hey Simon, the server is not powering on. So all the 50 employees cannot work. The boss is very, very not happy. You should be there right now. And you need to select what call do you need to prioritize? And it was difficult because I didn’t lost client because back in the days there was not a lot of technician, but it made some people angry. And they’re like very upset at you. You come like the next day, I sorry, I was not able to come yesterday. I had another emergency. Hey do you know much it cost me. So I was feeling always guilty of that. So to be honest with you, the best thing that happened to me, one of my best friend, he told me, hey Simon, I want to go to school and learn IT because we’ve been doing that since we were young. And I want to do the same thing as you do. I want to be an IT technician. I was like, wow, this is wonderful. Do your course and I will hire you. I swear this is what I’ve done. He finishes course in college and says, Simon, I have my diploma. I say, let’s go work. Let’s go, we will work together. And after that day, everything starts. I was having a lot more clients because we were two. So let’s say that somebody is sick, somebody, I don’t know, it’s going on vacation. There was a continuity. I was able to continue the business and it just start like crazy. We decided to open like an Apple repair store because we’re having office. We say, let’s repair some computers. In one month, we hire 10 employees. So we went from two to 10, like in less than a month. That was very stressful, but I was so happy. We had a lot of fun doing that.

Manuel Martinez: I guess I have two questions. The first one that I’m going to ask though is when you mentioned about, you know, it’s kind of slow. Now all of a sudden everybody’s calling you. How did you go about learning how to prioritize? And the reason I bring that up is that’s something that I don’t think I’ve kind of talked about here before, but I remember again, it’s the same situation, but different environments. I worked for somebody else, right? I worked for a business, started as a PC technician and you get those different calls. So I worked in the casino industry. So you have your food and beverage, you have your casino slot floor, you have the HR department, like there’s all these different departments. So they’re not different businesses, but they’re different business units. And a lot of times you’ll get those tickets or you get those phone calls. Like you said, it’s either nobody or everybody at once. How did you learn to kind of prioritize who you’re going to go to first? You know, what’s the level of importance? Me, I had other people, you know, that kind of had trained me. And by then maybe I had a little bit of experience to know as well, like, well, wait a minute. The casino floor calls me, that takes priority over HR, right? Because that’s how they make their money or versus the food and beverage, like, okay, well now they can’t serve customers in the restaurant. So between a restaurant and a casino slot floor, like which one’s more important or which one’s easier? Like maybe the casino slot floor is more important, but I know that the one in the food and beverage, I can go and it’s going to be a five minute fix and then I can go. So how did you learn to do that?

Simon Robert: That’s a pretty good question. To be honest, when I was young, I was having difficulty doing that because I was like normally doing the person that was the angriest at the first time. So the person that was so angry, it was like saying, I have that printer is on the side of the wall. I have my baseball bat. If you don’t come, I will break it in five thousand piece. I was like, okay, let’s go fix the printer. So I was thinking like that. But the more I grew up, the more I was able to think and say, okay, that guy needs to have his server replaced. For example, the parts is broken. Even if I go there and I try to resurrect the computer, it will not work. We need a new power supply. So I was like talking to the client. I am so sorry. I cannot help you on that. We need to order that part. Let me order the part. And once I get it, I will install it to your to your server, your computer. So I was able to prioritize being smart because this is exactly what you were saying. If I can solve an issue that will take me five minutes and make everybody happy, let’s do that. That’s a quick fix. I can I can make it. And then after that, OK, let’s concentrate on that other case. It will take me more time, but I will be able to help the client too. And of course, priority, I will say that this is how many people are down. So when you hear that a complete business is down, let’s say there’s a crypto crypto locker installed. Of course, you need to stop everything and say, OK, let’s go save that client because there’s maybe a week of work. You need to find a plan. You need to think you need to like sometimes you need to call the insurance company. You need to have forensic there. So there’s a lot of steps. So you need to have time to think about that. But of course, if a client calls me right now and say, Simon, we’re down, we have a crypto locker and they are one hundred company and they are one hundred user, it’s priority number one. So even if there is a ticket for the boss that cannot open his email, this is nothing compared to a business that is completely down because if you don’t do something, they will go out of business. Like in especially the SMB, I’m not sure about the stats, but it was about 70 percent of SMB do it getting a cyber attack. They go out of business. That’s a lot. That’s a lot. And if you don’t do the correct things, if you don’t, oh, that’s OK. Let’s do that later. But maybe all of the computers will get infected and all of the files will be leaked to the dark web. So you need to be careful about that. The computers are there. The information you don’t know where is it right now. Maybe it’s on the dark web. Maybe there’s something very bad happening. But you need to you need to be careful with that. You cannot go on vacation and say, let’s I’ll do that next week because it can be like the end of your client. And like you said, at the beginning of the podcast, you know, we are here to help people. So this is our goal. We’re here to help the people with to support their computer, support their problems they’re having with their email, things like that. And if we don’t do a difference in their business, if we are not able to get a plus value, we’re nothing. It’s we’re not there to collect a paycheck. We’re here to help them grow their business so we can be responsible. For example, let’s say that there was a cyber attack because I was like not doing my thing correctly then install the firewall. I’ve seen that before. Like, oh, let’s let’s do a test. Let’s remove Windows Firewall and forget to reactivate it after. So I’ve seen that. So sometimes you arrive at the new client and you see that. Yeah, you were affected because somebody disabled the firewall in your server and they were port forwarding to your server. So you can see the evidence. You know the you know the way that the hacker got into the server. So we need to be very careful with that. I will say.

Manuel Martinez: You talked a lot about, you know, explaining to them and kind of going through you prioritize your different, you know, tickets and you know the different businesses. But that right there explaining to a business. Hey, this is the problem or this is you know why it happened but without laying blame because I’m guessing it took a while similar to learning how to prioritize learning how to explain the reasons for something that went down. Like we’ll take your server example. My guess probably early on in your career you’re like, oh, somebody disabled the firewall and that’s your problem. Like hey, you did it not me or you know that might happen. And then now you probably take a much different approach like hey, here’s what happened. You know, you’re not laying blame but you’re again kind of explaining why it happened. Oh, it looks like the firewall was down. You know, I can try and maybe I could try and investigate find out how that happened when that happened. But without laying blame. Is that something that just over time you got better at doing?

Simon Robert: I’ll say that it depends. So for example, sometimes I go to a customer location and I find out that everything is disabled and we’ve seen things so special last year. There was one of my clients, he bought for like $35,000 of Fortinet firewalls and he paid the big license, you know, with the big protection and the person who installed the firewall did not enable the protection. So of course, when you find that you cannot do like, I know sometimes it happened in IT Maybe the technician was very tired and forgot to tick the box, enable the license. So that was a blame. I said, I’m sorry, but your actual IT made a big error. And I said to the client, maybe we should investigate. And of course we did the investigation. There was Chinese, NDNs, people connected by VPN everywhere in the network we’re like, oh my God. So it was even worse. And the client asked us to do like a complete evaluation of all the situation. And we’ve seen things that we never seen in our career, like the technicians have put all user into the administrator group. I’ve never seen that. I was not even thinking that was something possible. Like in, in when I’ve learned IT, when I’ve learned networking, Windows server, nobody ever told me, you know what, Simon, you can put everyone in the administrator group of Windows server. That guy did that. So of course everything was screwed. And we were like, oh my God. So all the employees were able to have access to all the management files. So I’ve never seen a case like that. So of course my mandate by the client was Simon find every errors that the guy did because it was incompetent. The guy lost his job. And I don’t feel bad about that. So because that guy, he did a lot of problems and maybe because of him, maybe a computer client will close because of all the bad things that he does that he does. And this is the reason why I think it’s very important to learn every day. This is what I do. So every day I’m trying to be on LinkedIn to be connected to those training websites. I try to learn something. And if I don’t know something, I’m the first one raising my hand and asking help. I don’t know that. Can you help me on that? I will not go and click everywhere. I will find a procedure. I will ask somebody for it to help me to figure out something. So I think that if you’re in IT, you need to have that skill of being able to raise your hand and say, hey, you know what, I need help.

Manuel Martinez: You led me perfectly into the question that I wanted to ask is, how are you keeping up to date with your skills? Because in the corporate environment, it’s very easy to… There’s people that come through and they will teach you. There’s trainings. You become aware of a lot more of that than I would on my own. At the same time, I’ve seen and I’ve helped and I’ve had my own in the past where I’ve kind of set up a business because I was getting people that were like, hey, can you do this? Can you do that? Can you do this? And I was like, well, you know what, I’ll do this on the side. So I created a business and would help people out. And to your point, I would come across environments where you’re like, why is this set up this way? Like it doesn’t make sense. Now I came from a very structured enterprise corporate environment, whereas a lot of times, and I’m curious your experiences, especially with being, you know, working with small businesses, it might be hard for them at first to kind of trust you because they’re like, well, I’ve had three or four other people that have done this. Sometimes it’s like, well, they know somebody who took a class once or to your point, I’ve run across people and it happens even in larger environments where they think they know more than what they really do. And that’s dangerous. And I thankfully, I haven’t come across that personally. Like I don’t do that because everywhere I’ve been, I had somebody that, you know, as they were teaching me, hey, if you don’t know, it’s okay. That’s one of the first things they said, hey, have you ever done this? And if you haven’t, that’s okay. Like I credit the very first person when I became a PC technician. I don’t know if he did that on purpose, but he was like, hey, have you ever punched down a CAT5 cable? And if you haven’t, that’s okay. And I was like, well, no, I haven’t. I’ve read about how to do it, but I’ve never physically done it. Like I have an idea of how it’s done. So he gave me that, like that security to say, hey, it’s okay. And I took that moving forward. So for you, how are you, I guess it’s a two-part question. How are you keeping your skills up to date? I know you mentioned some of it. And then the other part is how are you establishing trust with the customer to know that you are that person as opposed to the one that’s like, oh yeah, I know. I’ve never seen it, but I know what that, I can figure it out.

Simon Robert: So it’s two excellent question. First of all, what I do, it’s I want to understand. I want to learn. So for example, let’s say a client asked me, hey, Simon, I would like to do Cisco Splunk. It happened to me a couple of months ago. I was like, I know nothing about Cisco Splunk. That’s good. That’s okay. Let me search. Let me do some trainings. Let me ask the expert and I will get you back. And this is what I done to my client. So I said, here is what you’re looking for. This is the product. I can sell it to you. I can even send to you a free trial. So you will be able to test it. And of course, if you have question that I don’t know, I will ask the expert. And this is the thing that is very important. You cannot be the expert in everything. So if you don’t know, you need to ask. So that’s what I told the client. The client was so happy. It was like, thank you, Simon. And you know, I did the sale and the client right now is using Splunk. And of course, I’m pretty sure it’s better than me. Now I give him the training, the training links. I say, you know what you have at the university here, you will be able to learn everything about Splunk. So I’m very happy for my client, but that’s important to not lie to the client and not say, you know what? I’m the expert in Splunk. If you’re not, you will break your neck. You know, you will arrive. Oh my God, I don’t know what to do. And you will click and it will not work, of course.

Manuel Martinez: And are there situations where you’ve come across where, again, hey, I don’t know. Or as you start to dig in and say, ooh, this is something that I maybe can’t do or maybe you don’t want to do. And then how do you handle that?

Simon Robert: So it’s sometimes it’s not easy because sometimes it’s something that you can do, but you’re not good to, for example, website. I know how to build a website. Okay. But I’m not good. This is not like, this is not what I’m good at. So it will be okay. There will be a website, but I know that there’s a lot of creators that will be like, oh, let’s put that color here. We’ll put some flowers and then let’s put a field of, uh, I don’t know, like mushrooms there. So you’re like, wow. So I don’t have that talent. So when a past client told me, Hey, Simon, I want that website. I want you to do the website. I just say no, because I say, I’m honest. I say, I can do it, but there’s people that are like 10 times better than me and they will charge you less than me. So let’s call them. I will give you a reference. And that’s cool because let’s say that I am giving a reference, a referral, if you prefer to somebody that can do website. The guy will give me a referral for IT support for one of his clients. So it’s kind of circular economy. So you give a lead and you receive another lead.

Manuel Martinez: And that’s probably another way that you’re building trust with that customer as well, because they’re like, Oh, he could have done this. He could have charged me more. You could have come up with some close, but the fact that you were like, no, I can’t and Hey, you know, it’s going to be cheaper. It’s probably be faster. All these things. Let’s go this way. That right there. They could have done one or two things. And I’ve seen this with other people where they’ll say, I don’t care. I want you, even if it’s not as good, or if they say, okay, thanks. And you go that way. Now they’re more likely to keep going to you, you know, to say, Hey, for the things that you do do well, great. And they, they now know when Simon, you know, when you go through and say, okay, Hey, I don’t know this. I can do it. Here’s what it’s going to be. Or I can try and find you somebody else. They might be more willing to let you learn. If it’s not like a web design, but let’s say it’s a new tech, like you Splunk. Hey, I want to learn Splunk. Hey, it’s going to take me a month. They’ll give you that grace to say, okay, I don’t need it tomorrow. That will work.

Simon Robert: And this is, you’re touching a subject that is very important. So we’re talking about the client trust. If you’re lying to the client, it’s over the trust will not be there. And this is the beginning of it’s like a, like a romantical relationship, you know, like, and you lied to me, you went to see that girl. I’m so sorry. So, you know, it’s the kind of thing that you don’t want to happen in a business relationship because the day that the trust is not there, the client will like analyze everything that you’re doing. So each time you do an error, they will like, I will not pay for that. Uh, I don’t trust you anymore. So the trust issue is very important. So to be honest and say exactly, I, you know what? I don’t know to do that. And I got a very good example for you. The cabling, you were talking about the RJ-45 connectors, you know? So let’s say that you’re a technician and you’re starting, you’re like 20 years old and like your client asks you, Hey, can you pass a couple of cables through the walls and do those connector? If you never did it, you need to say that to the client. Hey, I never did it. If you want, I can go on YouTube. I can learn a little bit how to do that. If the client is okay with that, will you will keep the trust? If the client doesn’t know that you’re zero and net in like a, in cabling and like, uh, terminating the cable, that’s a big issue. That’s the trust issue. It was the client will say, Hey, I’m very, very sad because I pay you a lot and the job is not well done. And sometimes the client will need to ask another company to redo the job. So the trust is not there anymore. So that’s the reason why it’s very important to be honest with the client. If you don’t know something, you need to tell the class, the client, I don’t know that, and you give the perfect example sometimes, and it is the most part of the time, the client will say, I will pay you Simon to learn that. And it happened to me. I swear MDM, I was not knowing what was MDM mobile device management. There was a school here, uh, like in the Repentigny in my hometown. Simon, we need to learn about MDM. I’m like, I don’t know anything about that. I can help you to find somebody. They will say, no, no, no. We want you to get to work on that. I was like, I don’t know. I just don’t know. It will take me a couple of hours to learn everything. We will pay you Simon. So sometimes the trust is so high that the client is like, we don’t want to risk. Putting that contract in the hands of somebody else that will say, we know that, and they don’t know, they will prefer to invest in trainings, even if you are the service provider. Simon, we will pay you to learn the MDM and implement it into our school. And it changed my life. No, I did that school. And after that, I was receiving a couple of calls. Hey Simon, I heard that you do MDM. Yeah. So I was the expert in MDM.

Manuel Martinez: Well, and like you said, you had already established that trust with them. Like I said, they could go to somebody else and say, Hey, I know it. And maybe they do know it. But when it comes to mobile device management, okay, they know how to do it, but what are they doing with my devices? Are they doing something in the background? So again, you’ve established that trust behind and says, Hey, we’ll pay you because we know that once you learn it, not only are we, do we know that you’re going to implement it correctly, but once it’s implemented, you’re going to make sure that it’s set up correctly. You’re not going to do anything malicious on the backend. So that’s again, it goes back to that client trust that you talked about.

Simon Robert: Yeah. And it’s not only in IT, you know, you can have the same situation like, uh, let’s say a wall painter guys. I trust him. I want him to, to paint my garage door. I want him to, to do a job commercial job. So once the trust is established in any profession, you want to keep that contact. You know, I’m going to the same barber since five, no, since four year, I moved to in Vegas four years ago. Okay. And my wife, she cannot believe that I’m doing that. My barber is in like east side of the, of the city. It take me like 50 minutes to go there. And she’s like, you’re stupid. There’s a barber shop around the corner and you’re driving 50 minutes. Yes. Because I want to meet Angel because you know exactly what I’m expecting. And I know that the quality of the job will be perfect. So this is the client trust. I trust my barber. My barber it’s important for me. Of course, if he leaves like to Atlanta, I will not follow in there, you know, but if he stays around maybe one hour from my location, of course, I will still continue going to see him because I trust him and you know why? Because we all had bad experiences with people. You go to the new barber. Oh yeah, it will be cheaper. $20. And you’re looking at your head after that. You’re like, oh my God, I should never have done that. And you go back to your old provider. It happens to me a lot of times. I have a couple of clients. They went away after the time because there was somebody doing it cheaper and they were like, Oh my God, we’re going to save a lot of money. That guy is half the price of Simon. Screw up everything. Everything doesn’t work anymore. Getting a call back. And Simon, will you accept to come back? And you know, I always accept. It’s very rare that I will say no. If I say no, it’s because it was very a bad client, but like I will, I will go back and it’s, it’s normal. Human will do that. Human’s want to try new things and it’s, it’s, it’s a normal behavior. So I respect that. So some of my clients with the time, maybe they went away and sometimes, or I will say most of the time they come back.

Manuel Martinez: And you’re right. That does happen quite a bit within the business realm. And I’m assuming because of the fact that you’re like, Hey, they’re going to leave. They come back that, that confidence in yourself and knowing that it’s a business decision and not a you decision. They’re not leaving because they don’t like Simon or maybe they are right. Or, or Hey, this person is half the price, whatever that could be. I’m sure at first that was kind of, you know, a bit of a challenge. And as opposed to now, cause now it sounds like you’re like, Oh, they’ll leave. And if they leave and they don’t come back, that’s okay. If they leave and they do, that’s okay. How did you, is that something that just came with time to like that confidence or that, and I’m going to say in your skillset, because I would think that early on, and when that happens, you’re like, why did they leave me? Okay. Should I be charging less? Should I be charging more? Now you have the experience and say, okay, no, this is, this is the going rate. Like I’m not overcharging, but I’m not undercharging. Like the reason I charge what I charge is because you’re not, and I think this is difficult sometimes, not only within IT, but you mentioned your barber, like within service-based industries is that you’re not paying for a product. You’re paying for almost more than knowledge that that person has. So how was, how was that for you? And how did you learn to kind of be comfortable?

Manuel Martinez: First of all, congratulations for the question. It’s just amazing. It’s the first time that somebody asked me that question and it’s a pretty good question, to be honest with you. It’s not easier. Like maybe 30 years after I started doing IT, when a client like leave, it’s never easy. And of course it’s never like, like a relationship ending like, Hey, Simon, you know what, I found somebody that’s cheaper than you. Oh yes. Are you sure you want to? Yes, I’m sure. Okay. Bye-bye. It’s not like that. You discover the client is calling one of your technician hey we want to have all of our client of password. We need to have the documentation. So they will not call you to say this over. You will learn it by the side and it’s always heartbreaking. You’re like, Oh my God, what’s happening? And what I do, this is what I’ve always done, but I’m better now. I’m more like mature on that. I will pick up the phone, even if I’m angry or sad and say, Hey, what’s happening? Oh, you know what, Simon, I have one of my friends from high school. He started an IT business. Oh, okay. I understand. Okay. No, no worries. But the day that it doesn’t work, you need to call me. This is why I get my client calling me back. It’s because sometimes it doesn’t work out and they call back and they say, Simon, you know what you told me last time that you will take me back as a client. Yes, of course. I’m ready to do that.

Manuel Martinez: That’s interesting. So then it makes sense though, right? Because they’re not just say, Hey, we’re leaving, right? You know, they’re just slowly start unpacking, you know, like taking things with them and, you know, the passwords. But what made you decide to go through and say, Hey, I’m going to, I understand. I’m uncomfortable. And it sounds like you didn’t try to win them back, right? Like you were like, Hey, I, I, you wanted to know why. And then once you knew why, okay, great. If you have any problems, Hey, I’m still here and I’m still available. How did that thought come about? Or, you know, I’m assuming it was a learned process.

Simon Robert: It’s not easy. And, you know, and sometimes, Oh my God, I have a crazy story for you. I swear it’s true. It was December 24th. So the day before Christmas, my technician called me and say, Hey, Simon, I cannot wait to finish. I just have to do a maintenance at a customer location. So I will take the keys. I’m going to the physical location. I will do the maintenance and then Merry Christmas, Simon. I was like, Hey, thank you very much for doing that on the 24th of December. You’re such a good technician. He goes on site. He tried to insert the key. The key was not turning. The client have changed the lock. This is the way that you will learn that we were not their clients.

Manuel Martinez: Wow.

Simon Robert: On Christmas Eve, my technicians call me and you know, it’s a tech. The guy is a tech, you know, Simon, there’s something with the key. I’m like, okay, is it, are you sure you have the good key? I have the good key. I’m trying to turn nothing turns. So there’s another, there’s another door with the same key. Try it. Simon. It’s still doing the same thing. Let me call the business owner. Of course. He didn’t pick the, pick up the phone. He didn’t want to talk to me. So I was like, I call back my, my employee saying, you know what? They flushed us. So they’re no longer our clients. And this is the way that they decided to treat us like we changed the locks. So that’s something that you need to be able to digest, digest, because this is the thing that are happening. This is our business work. So that guy decided to be like upset and say, Hey, Simon, you will no longer work for us and you will learn it the hard way trying to get to our location doing the maintenance.

Manuel Martinez: Wow. That’s that is, that’s an interesting story.

Simon Robert: And of course, do you know why they try to come back? And I said, no, I said, this is not respectful. The way that you did that, I will never want your business again. So this is one of the rare case that I decided to say, to respect myself. And of course my employee and say, this is a big no. You don’t do that to a human being.

Manuel Martinez: Right. Well, especially around that time, like around the holiday season or something like that, or, you know, I’m sure here’s this employee trying to go above and beyond and say, Hey, on the, on the 24th of all days, I’m going to go and go do this work and then to find out this and, you know, even not answering your call. I mean, at that point, that’s wow. I’ve not heard that.

Simon Robert: That’s bad, huh? That’s so bad. I was like, wow. And this is, I got a friend in Quebec. You need to meet her. She’s, she’s like, she was doing boxing before and she’s in IT and sometimes she called me to tell me those kinds of stories. Hey, Simon, did you know what happened today? That client did that to me. And I feel like our profession is so, I will try to, to say the good words. So people doesn’t respect people in IT. That’s very sad. And it’s something that needs to change. It’s, it’s ridiculous. Like you’re going to the garage. You need to change your tires. You need to change your brakes. You need to fix something. You will not negotiate after fact. Hey, you know what, Manuel, I’m not paying for that job. And I think it’s not good. I will not pay because you are afraid that you will take a crowbar and look at you in the eyes and say, I will crush you in two. But the IT guy is so gentle. So people will try to push on that button and say, yeah, we will not pay. We don’t want to pay right now. So let’s change the locks or let go, go away. We don’t want you anymore. So this is something that is very bad because they don’t see us like real workers because we’re clicking with a mouse. So they’re thinking that while they’re doing nothing, oh they click two times and they don’t, they don’t get it and they didn’t fix anything. They don’t know how much stress we have on our shoulders, especially where they’re there and waiting for us. Hey Simon, the printer is down. Nobody can print. There is a lot of pressure on the, on the shoulder of the IT.

Manuel Martinez: And you said it right. They, there’s times where people, again, it’s their perception. It’s what they see. Because I’ve been in places where, you know, sure, you’re at your desk and, and you know, you’re working, you’re clicking around and I’ve had people walk by and, you know, I always open door, Hey, any problems? And I had a couple of people and again, this is just the confidence that they come in and they go, Hey, man, you make a lot of money to just sit around and be on the computer all day. And I was like, Whoa, hold on a minute. I go, I don’t always get paid for what I do. Like, yeah, you see me clicking around. There’s times where it’s not as busy and I had like a lab environment. Like I might be learning. I might be going through labs. There’s just a number of different things that I can be doing. Am I for eight hours a day, every day, fixing problems? No, I mean, it’s impossible. But I told him, I was like, the reason that I get paid a little bit more, I go, it’s because of what I know. It’s not always what I do. I go right now, you guys, you know, everything’s working fine, right? No problems. Nobody’s having any issues. Keyboard, my server. Everything’s working fine, correct? And they’re like, yeah, okay. I go, remember this conversation when the whole building is down and I’m running around and I’m on the phone and, you know, pulling cables or doing servers. Like we’ve had issues, right? Where like, Hey, I’ll be right back. And I’m driving across town to get a power supply or, you know, any number of things, a switch died. Great. Now I got to go grab a 48 port switch. That’s dead. And I’ve got to pull all these cables and, you know, we’re doing assigned ports. So now the work that I did before where I labeled every, every port had a port map. You know, when you just saw me clicking around because I’m making a port map that I then printed out so that when I pull these out and I can pop them back in and I have to go and say, Oh man, this isn’t the right one. Click, click, click, and move around. And I go, that’s where I’m really earning the money. And like you said, when you’re getting those crypto locker calls, like that’s when you’re really providing the value. If you go and fix a power supply, can anybody do that? Sure. I’m sure they can, but it’s you that has the knowledge to know that it is the power supply and then when it is something more serious, right? So there’s a number of things you talked about Splunk. You talked about Windows, servers, Cisco, like there’s a lot of knowledge and there is a lot of stress. So when they are just kind of clicking around to your point, like that’s like the one time that you’re kind of like, Oh, like I have a little bit of a downtime, but you’re still probably learning or doing something.

Simon Robert: I saw a video on LinkedIn a couple of minutes just before coming to see you. And the girl, she was an electrician and she was doing 107K per year. So she’s doing more money than regular IT. Let’s say IT level one level two, maybe level three, they will be around maybe $100,000, but the girl, she’s an electrician. She’s doing more money than IT and it’s so unfair and it’s, I don’t want to discredit, the discreditate like electrician, but in electricity, nothing has changed like since like 40 years. It’s the same equipment, the same specification they’re doing. Always the same thing. They can go after the punch out at 5PM. They don’t have to learn anything new. It’s always the same thing. In our case, we arrive home and we’re like, Oh my God, today something’s crash. I have to map all my ports. I forgot to do that. I will need to do that next time. Let’s go see a video on how to do a map for the cable. And next time I will need to, to save my configuration. I totally forgot to do that. So I had to reconfigure all the ports on the new switch. I should have done the backup of the config. So this is learning every day because you cannot go to school and learn everything about IT. There is no course that covers everything in IT that doesn’t exist. So every day we’re learning every day we need to arrive at home and we have that problem in the head and you’re like, I’m not going to sleep till I find a solution. So a lot of people in IT, they continue working after shift for free, of course.

Manuel Martinez: Well, and then to your point, a lot of times also like an electrician, if I go to an electrician now, there might be people that do commercial versus residential. And I understand like there’s a difference between a big box and, you know, the little box in my house. But to your point, like, Hey, I have these lights that I need to install. But, you know, I need, you know, an extra, you know, outlet put in my house. They can go through and they, like you said, it’s pretty straightforward. They’re like, okay, Hey, boom, boom, boom. Here’s what it is. Because you’re an electrician, I’m not going to go on to ask you and say, Hey, I’m having a problem with my water pump. And they’re going to be like, great. I don’t, I don’t deal with water or my plumbing, right? Like, Hey, there’s a problem with my sink.

Simon Robert: Do I look like a plumber?

Manuel Martinez: Like, I’m an electrician. Do I look like a plumber? But within tech, they’re like, Oh, well, what do you do? And sometimes to make it easy, I’m like, Oh, I’m in IT. Hey, I have this printer problem. I’m like, whoa whoa whoa, I haven’t touched a printer in years. Like, can I probably figure it out or Hey, my phone, or just because there’s technology in it, like you said, they, they try to lump this all in. And they’re like, well, you have to know AI. You have to know this. You have to know all these different things. Most people specialize, but in like, in your, even though you’re broad, there’s still areas of, like you said, and they’re like, I, I can’t do web design. Right? Because that’s a totally different type of discipline than doing networking. Of course. But people are like, but it’s tech, it’s computers. It’s all the same.

Simon Robert: It’s not because there’s a computer and a screen that it’s related to like IT or networking. So this is what I do. And when people ask me, Hey, Simon, can you, can you configure, can you program in a software? I’m like, no, I’m not a programmer. You don’t know that. No, I don’t know that I fix the issue of the software. I don’t code the software. So that’s some things that people don’t understand. And I, I’ve read an article about the pain of being an IT director in 2025, because we as IT needs to learn a lot of things. And it’s the same thing for the IT director. So the guy doesn’t do the support anymore. He managed the team, but he needs to learn IT. He needs to learn AI. He learns, he needs to learn how to do a budget because everything is now related to IT, like the computers, the internet, the phones, everything’s now belongs to IT. Before it was very simple. The cellular bill was going to accounting. The telephone bill was going to, not everything is related to IT. You even need to manage the license from Adobe, Microsoft, AutoCAD. So the IT director, it’s now like one of the toughest job that you can do because you’re managing maybe half of the business because everything is now related to IT. So that’s another pain. So I’m not an IT director. Of course, I’m an entrepreneur. I’m doing IT support, but I can understand them their position that it’s not easy in 2025 to be the IT director and taking all the decisions. And those decisions can be very problematic because if you don’t select the good technology, let’s say that you will buy that kind of firewall. This seems to be good. And the company goes out of business. You’re totally screwed. All the money that you put on that technology is going to recycle. You cannot use it anymore. And these are things that can happen.

Manuel Martinez: I know we talked about the beginning. You were fortunate in when you kind of started your business that there wasn’t a lot, you were able to kind of build your technology business and also build your skill set. And what I, again, I don’t want to encourage and I don’t want to discourage somebody that says, “Hey, I think I want to do, I want to do that. I want to do it on my own. I want to learn.” Sure, you know, customers are going to come and go. But what are some of the things that in your role, it’s not just IT because you are an entrepreneur, you’re also running a business. You’re the CTO, you’re the CEO, you’re the CFO, the CMO, right? You’re doing everything. So for someone who might be watching and listening and saying, “Hey, you know what? I think I want to do this on my own.” What are some of the things that you’re like, “Hey, that’s okay, but be aware of budgets and hiring employees.” So what are some of the things that you would think or that you would want to kind of share that says, “Hey, it’s not just fixing PCs all the time.”

Simon Robert: I will say that the first thing is to find a business partner. I’ve seen a lot of people getting into my office and say, “Simon, I want to give you my business because I’m going to shoot me. I’m going to shoot a bullet in my head.” And you’re like, “Oh my God, it’s difficult to hear those kind of conversations.” So people being alone as an entrepreneur in IT, it’s very, very difficult because they get all that pressure and sometimes they do an error and like the client will say, “I will sue you.” And there is nobody else to help those people. They try to go on vacation. They cannot go on vacation because they have their clients and they cannot give the business to somebody else because they’re like, “Hey, he’s going to steal my clients.” Or they don’t have that network of connection. So in the past 10 years, it’s been a couple of times. Honestly, I can maybe count them on my hands, but a lot of people in burnout coming to see me and say, “Simon, I want to sell you my customer. I want to give you my customer because I cannot handle it anymore.” And this is something that is very common. So to be honest with you, if you don’t want to leave that, find a best friend, find somebody that you’re very confident that you can run a business and do the joint venture and be two presidents of the business. This will be very easier. Of course, you will need to share the benefits, but at least if something’s happened to you, it will not be the end of the world. If you broke your leg, your colleague will be able to continue the business. So the business will not fail or go bankrupt. So I think that that’s the first step that I will do. I will not start a business alone. So if I was going to start a business, I will find a business partner. It’s very nice to be an entrepreneur because you manage your schedule. There are no bosses on the top of your head, so you can go on vacation, whatever you want. You can, for example, invest in the technology that you want. You can do a 90 degrees turn. Let’s say I don’t want to sell firewalls anymore. I will sell only printers. You can do that as an entrepreneur. You can select the technology that you want to support or you want to sell. That’s pretty nice. And I will say that the best thing is the recognition. So once you achieve like some milestones, sometimes you will receive prize. For example, this is a true story. I receive a $30,000 prize from Lenovo. They gave it to me in 2020, 2020 during the COVID because I won. I won something. And that was nice because I achieved to sell a number of computers and I was like very involved into into the PC business. And they gave me that. So that’s nice. So I have the opportunity to bring my family to vacation. We went to for two weeks in Jamaica in the five-star hotels. That was just amazing. But like you need to achieve those milestones. It will not happen the first the first years of your business. Forget about that because you don’t have that market share. You don’t have that buying volume, I will say. So those big vendors, they will not look at you. But if you do more and more every year at a certain point, you will be the star. So that’s very nice to get that recognition.

Manuel Martinez: You’re not doing it for the recognition, right? You’re doing it to kind of help your customers. But again, I’m sure it did feel nice to know that this business recognizes you like, hey, you’re doing a lot. Here you go. And the other part you said about kind of having, you know, a partner, because it sounds like when you hired your best friend that they wanted to do that. Would you say that that was probably the turning point? Like had you continued on your own, you think you might have done like some of these other ones and be like, it’s time to sell or I’m going to go do something?

Simon Robert: Of course, of course, because at a certain point of your life, you cannot always be healthy. Let’s say that you have cancer or I don’t know, you got a big car accident. If something happens, like you got a sickness that you cannot wake up. Let’s say another example, the burnout. You wake up in the morning, you’re like, hey, I cannot wake up from my bed. I have a burnout. What can I do? I cannot work in IT. I cannot go fix issue. So this is, I think, all the things that it’s very dangerous if you don’t have that partner. So for myself, I’m sure that I won’t be sitting with you if it was not of my business partner. See, it completely changed my life. We went from being Simon, superhero. I will call it the one-man army. This is how I called me back in the days, like getting calls every day. Yes, I will be that. So you’re like Superman, let’s go fix the printer. Let’s go fix the server. You don’t have any life. You’re trying to have a relationship with a girl and you’re like in the middle of the lunch. Hey give me a minute. I got a server that is down. You’re alone, you know, so you cannot share the problems with somebody else. So, yes, I think it’s a turning point of my career to have to work with somebody else. And of course, now to work with a complete team.

Manuel Martinez: So you mentioned you’ve been here for four years and you’re enjoying kind of here and kind of growing the business. And what do you kind of envision for your future with kind of are you going to continue with what you’re doing? Do you have you had those pivots? I’m just curious what’s next.

Simon Robert: So I’m happy right now because I have hired three employees here in Vegas because I was kind of the one-man army for a couple of months that was not fun. So now I have a team working with me so I will be able to develop the business. So instead of clicking on the mouse, I will be talking to clients and get new clients here in Vegas. And I’m very excited because I love our town. It’s so nice to live here. And there’s a lot of opportunities. There’s a lot of big businesses here like Casino or let’s say there’s other places like venues like the Sphere. There’s big businesses here in Vegas. So I think it will be a good opportunity. So I’m pretty sure I’m going to grow the business here in Vegas and will continue and maybe like open another office in L.A. or in San Diego. I don’t know. But for sure I want to grow the business in the western part of the United States.

Manuel Martinez: And a little bit of time that I’ve known you, I’m pretty sure that you’ll accomplish that because, again, I’ve kept up with what you’ve been doing and just kind of seeing, like you said, hey, you just got three new employees and just kind of growing that part. And, you know, I’m sure you still enjoy that being the hands on. But you also realize that in order to kind of grow the business and grow your employees, you have to grow and say, OK, I’ve got to step back. And there’s other areas I need to focus on.

Simon Robert: Of course. And unfortunately, we’re not back in the 2000s. So if you don’t like call the clients and convince them that, you know what, it’s time to move to MSP or it’s time to upgrade your firewall. You cannot continue like that. And there’s people that are not well deserved by the by the IT technician. So this is this is the part of life that it’s bad. So if you’re not doing a good job, you will be replaced. This is this is this is sad, but this is the life. And this is how I get new clients. So it’s not always something somebody opening a new store. So sometimes you will receive a call like, hey, Simon, I cannot reach my IT technician and the server is down. Can you come on site? And of course, you you get that customer after that because they’re like, Simon, it’s more reliable. When we had the issue with the server, it came to our location. So this is all that you can get clients. That’s the big difference between 2000 and 2025. In 2000, it was just like the phone was ringing. That was crazy. I remember putting signage on my car with my phone number and I was driving on the highway. Hey, I am the car behind you. I need IT. Let me pull over. I will take your information. So that was in 2000. Like I can I’m pretty sure I can put signage on my car and nobody will call. Will ever call me. You know, you need to find the good spot. When the client have an issue, it’s the time that you can help fix the issue. And of course, get that client.

Manuel Martinez: And the last thing I want to kind of ask you here too is sounds like, especially because of when they’re calling you or not being available, communication has to be a big part of your business. You’re communicating with your employees, with prospective clients, with existing clients and. And I know we touched on trust, but I’m sure that communication has a lot to do with it. You talked about before like, hey, I don’t know. Or hey, that’s not me. But when it is you or there is a problem, there’s a lot of just kind of one managing expectations so that they’re aware. Like, hey, I know you have a problem. You know, I don’t have a power supply. I’ve got to wait for it to get here and then just kind of keeping updates and just keeping that line of communication with all parts of your business.

Simon Robert: And another great, great question. When something bad happens, you need to confront the client. It’s it’s P1 and nobody does that. This is the way this is the reason people lose business. Because if you do an error or if something is bad or if the client is not happy. The if you pick up the phone right now and you speak to that client, the client is not angry. We’ll just say, I don’t like that. You say, I can fix it. Hey thank you, Simon, you wait one week. The guy is already aggressive on the phone. I will send you a lawsuit. You’re not in the state, the same state of mind. So that’s very important to be, I will say to have the courage to say, you know what? I did something bad on my install. It’s not perfect. Client is not happy. Pick up the phone when the clients call. It’s very important. So communication, it’s very important. If you don’t communicate with the client, the client for sure is going to be angry and is going to find a solution to fire you or try to find another another provider. So and sometimes, especially in IT, we’re like horses. You know, we’re looking like that. Hey, the database is not working. I don’t understand the SQL database. I don’t have the password. Everything you need to take a moment and say, OK, I need to relax. I need to get the big picture. And if I don’t understand the big picture, I need to call somebody that can help me. And sometimes I did that in the past. I was like, hey, I don’t know how I’m going to solve that issue. We’re completely screwed. Nothing is working. I know what let me take a look. Simon, you forget that. Hey, let’s do that. Let’s call that friend. Let’s call that person. There was a time we were so unlucky. This is also a true story. One of my big clients says, Simon, we’re not able to use the server. OK, going on site, looking at the server, Windows Server 2003 doesn’t boot. OK, let’s try to fix the boot. Nothing is working at all. So we’re like, OK, this is not good. We go into BIOS and we see that there’s one drive failing and we see that there’s another drive failing. Oh, my God. So there was two drives failing inside the server. So we’re like, oh, my God, we’re completely screwed. So like maybe we lost a couple of files. Maybe something is very bad. And I call my friend. I say, you know, tell me what to do. I don’t know. Do you have a backup, Simon? Yes, I have a backup. OK, so stop stressing at the least. The biggest thing that can happen, you will need to restore the files. Of course, you will lose maybe one day of work. But at least you have a solution. So, you know, like just calling my friend relaxed me and I was like, OK, let’s focus on the thing. So what is the first thing I can do? It’s maybe I can try to access the data. I can try to save the data of the day. And after that, what I did, I changed the hard drive. I was able to rebuild the raid and everything was good. So I was able to recover the server. But. If you’re panicking and if you’re doing like not the good thing or if you’re trying to disappear, the situation will not fix itself. So you need to give love to all of that equipment and of course, you need to communicate that with the client. So when something bad happens, you take the phone and you know what, Melanie, you will not be happy. But the server is kind of not working right now. There’s two drives that fail. Maybe we will lose all the data. So you need to hang on with me. I will try my best. But, you know, so my client was aware that the server was like not working anymore and maybe that the next day the employees will not be able to work. So by calling her, even if it’s like seven or eight p.m., it’s better than to have a surprise the next morning. You know what, the server is not working. So, yes. So I totally agree with you. Communication, it’s priority number one. The more you communicate, the less problem you will have. And of course, you will keep your employee. We will keep your clients. So if something happens, you need to act fast and you need to say, hey, no, you did something wrong. I will tell you how to fix that. Or, you know, I did something wrong. I will try to find a way to fix it. You know, and people, they understand we are humans. You know, we’re not machine. We can do errors.

Manuel Martinez: Well, that’s good to know. So I know that you’ve been gracious enough to go through and kind of answer all of my questions. You’ve shared a lot of great stories and a lot of good information for people out there who either, you know, just starting out, looking to start a business or even just even I see a lot of applications within the corporate environment as well, like, oh, OK, you know, communication and things of that nature. I now want to give you the opportunity to kind of talk about anything that you want to, you know, whether it’s summarizing your career, hey, there’s a question that you didn’t ask me that I think is important to kind of answer. So I want to kind of go ahead and open it up to you.

Simon Robert: I will say, I think we did a good portrait of of the IT support business. Maybe one point that we didn’t talk was the break and fix versus the MSP. So break and fix. It was the old way of doing things. So this is exactly what I was explaining to you at the beginning of our or of the podcast, like back in the 2000 client was calling me. I was in the car. hey Simon, my server is not working. I’m coming right now. So I was the firefighter. No, I was extinguishing fires everywhere in my city or in my geographical location. And I was very, very happy with that because when I was going home, I was sleeping in my bed. I was like, hey, today I save one server. I save like five employees losing all their job. The only problem with that is like what I told you. It’s like that. So some months you have a couple of clients call and you got a lot of cash flow in your account. And the next month there is nothing. And it’s the moment that it’s very bad because people are very stressed. There’s no cash flow. How can we pay the employees? Oh my God. Imagine if it’s like that for a couple of months, what we’re going to do. So there’s a lot of stress. So this is why businesses, they change the model to MSP, manage service provider or MSSP that’s manage security service provider. This is the good way to do business. So all IT businesses should switch to that model and this prevent burnouts. In IT because what you do instead of being the firefighter, that is something that is very energy consuming. You’re preventing. You’re like, hey, we will install anti virus on all the computers. We’ll make sure to monitor if there’s something wrong going on to your network. Let’s say cyber attack. We will make sure to change the computers when they are obsolete to don’t have vulnerabilities. We will make sure to have your firewall and all the network equipment updated to the latest version, and it will be the same price every month. And you can call unlimited. It’s like a buffet. You know how you can eat. It’s the same thing. All you can call Simon or any anyone in the team. So very simple. The business will do the same amount of money every month. Even if there’s 2000 calls or one call the next month, it remove the stress on the employees, remove the stress on the business owner, on everybody in the business changes everything. So I think that if everybody can agree to go to that model, it will change a lot of things and there will be less burnout into IT IT support community, because it’s not a life. You cannot be like working like crazy a day. The next day there is no job. And then, oh my God. So by being sure to have the monitoring so there is less failure. There’s less big bad situation coming. And of course, if there is no calls, if everything goes well, I give you an example. During the COVID business were closed. But if you have a contract with the client, you will still cash the 2000 or 3000 dollars every month. So that’s the way to do business. And there is a lot of business that doesn’t want to go to that model because they’re used to say when my tire is like it’s broken, I will go to the garage. When my motor is not working, I will go to the garage to make it to make it fix. And I don’t want to pay every month for the garage. But in IT, it’s different. It’s not physical. It’s not about the machine. It’s about the total of the software configuration plus the hardware. So we need to have that plan that it’s the managed service provider. So it changes everything. And honestly, I was able to do that switch a couple of years ago. And I regret to not add that knowledge when I was younger, because honestly, I’m pretty sure I will have less gray hair because of that. There’s sometimes that we were like, oh my God, the client is down. We should have done that maintenance. Oh my God, we let the client down. And you like at the same time, you’re like, hey, I’m not responsible of that. They didn’t ask me to do that. So by being the MSP, all the pressure is on our shoulders. So if something bad happens, it’s our fault. So we will make sure that everything is secure. Everything is okay. You don’t want to have emergency happening every day. So by doing the MSP style, you’re sure to reduce the stress and everybody’s happy. The client is happy and the provider is happy. And you know what? The best thing, you don’t have to end all those call. I don’t want to pay for that service. The price was too high. I don’t want to be charged for that. You install the antivirus. I was thinking it was free. I paid the license. So you should let. So all of those drama are gone because the client is an unlimited plan. He can call me anytime. The client can call me ten times during the day. I will answer, pick up the phone. There will be no charge. The only charge they will pay, for example, it will be about one hundred dollars per month. So he paid one hundred dollars per month and it’s unlimited after that.

Manuel Martinez: Well, that’s awesome. And I’m glad that you kind of did that, right? I think a lot of times MSPs, the managed service provider, sometimes some of these businesses might think that it’s a break fix, but it’s not. You’re managing and it’s a service provider, right? Or a service partner, however you want to go through and bring that about. Because the idea is not to be there when stuff breaks. It’s to hopefully help maintain it. Now, it’s a machine, software, all that. It’s going to break. But the idea is that it will be hopefully less catastrophic and it will be you know, hopefully not happen as often just because you are doing the routine maintenance and things of that nature.

Simon Robert: Yes. And think about the fact like, let’s say you don’t do maintenance. The client will have a lot of old computers and of course they will not plan the future and they will not have backup and they will call you in panic. Hey Simon, the boss doesn’t have any computer anymore. And what we do we do? I will send you a computer. You will get it tomorrow. He doesn’t need it tomorrow. He needed it right now. So by managing the client, you can have a spare computer ready in case of there is a failure, you know, it’s more logical than let’s say set it and forget it. And if it’s break, let’s fix it when the day that this is a nonsense. Not in 2025, especially with the cyber criminality. There’s so much cyber crime. If you’re not managing the customer, you will like. There is a it’s a couple. It’s a matter of months. Like there will be an attack. You will not even be aware. You will arrive on Monday. And oh my God, all the computers are are crypto locked. Oh, but if you have like MDR solution, the computer will be like disconnected from the network. And at least all of the other computer will not be infected. You know, but if you don’t have any any monitoring tools, you don’t know what’s happening.

Manuel Martinez: Well, thank you so much for taking the time to kind of share your experiences and provide some of that knowledge that you’ve gained over the years. And I look forward to continuing our relationship and hanging out and more and hopefully growing our IT community.

Simon Robert: Of course. And you’re always welcome to the cigar lounge anytime we’re always there on Wednesday night.

Manuel Martinez: Sounds good. Thank you so much. And for everybody watching and listening, again, thank you for taking the time to kind of listen to these different backgrounds and different experiences. And hopefully you’re taking away good information that you’re able to go through and use as you’re managing your career. So with that, continue to plug in and download the knowledge. And until next time, thank you.