From Slot Technician to MSP President with Adam Lopez | Ep026

In this episode of Career Downloads, host Manuel Martinez interviews Adam Lopez, President of CMIT Solutions Las Vegas, a managed service provider specializing in cybersecurity for small to medium-sized businesses.

Adam shares his fascinating career path that began without a formal tech background. Starting as a slot machine technician at Las Vegas casinos, he developed an interest in the databases behind gaming systems. Through curiosity and initiative, Adam built project management skills that propelled him through increasingly senior roles.

Episode Highlights:

• Adam’s early tech experiences, from building circuit boards to a shocking lesson about electricity
• How he transitioned from hospitality management to technology through casino work
• The development of his natural project management abilities
• His career-changing experience working on cruise ships, which took him to all seven continents
• Navigating transitions between operations and vendor roles in technology
• Challenges of managing technical teams and handling workplace dynamics
• Making the leap from corporate roles to business ownership
• Practical advice on taking strategic risks and recognizing when to make career moves

Adam’s journey demonstrates that career growth often requires stepping outside your comfort zone—sometimes even taking a step back to ultimately move forward. His story offers valuable insights for technology professionals at any stage of their careers.

Whether you’re just starting in technology or looking to advance to leadership roles, Adam’s practical wisdom on building transferable skills, managing teams, and navigating the industry will help you chart your own successful path.

Listen to learn how being open to unexpected opportunities and having the courage to take calculated risks can lead to a fulfilling technology career.

#CareerDownloads #TechCareers #ProjectManagement #CyberSecurity

Manuel: Welcome everyone. So 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 really learn more about their career and how they’ve managed it over time to really be able to uncover any actionable advice that you can use as you’re managing your own career. So for today’s episode I have with me Adam Lopez and I had met him at a networking event. So this was for SIM, so the Society of Information Managers. We had connected on LinkedIn. I had seen his kind of his career path and found a lot of interest in kind of the trajectory that he had. So I asked him to come on and he more than graciously accepted. So with that I’ll introduce Adam.

Adam: Hey thanks for having me, Manuel.

Manuel: I appreciate you coming on and kind of sharing your career trajectory.

Adam: Absolutely.

Manuel: So what I’ve been doing with my guests is if you just kind of give us a brief summary, just kind of tell us what your current position is and kind of some of the roles and responsibilities.

Adam: Yeah, sure. So currently I am the president of CMIT Solutions. We are a MSP cybersecurity company. So we predominantly do it in the cybersecurity space, but we also do MSP, which is your help desk for small to medium-sized businesses. Typically our market is small to medium-sized businesses, but we also do government as well, as well as enterprise, you know, just depending on the level. We are a franchise that’s been around since the 80s. Kind of funny story about the franchise. CMIT used to stand for Computer Moms in Informational Technology. So it was a mom that started the business and she used to go around and fix people’s computers. And so when I heard about the story, I love the story. I love the everything about that. And I was like, how do I get involved? So now, you know, now I am the president here in Las Vegas and it’s been great. You know, I work with a lot of the same people you guys work with as well, as well as I work, you know, with the casinos in town, a lot of the small to medium-sized businesses that just don’t have that understanding of what cybersecurity is. Like, you know, most small to medium-sized businesses don’t understand they need it until they’re breached, right? Kind of scenario. So those are the kind of things that we do. And then I have a team here of system administrators, network engineers, technicians, help desks that are locally here that help support me in my business. So most of the time, you know, it’s a lot of going around to understand what businesses are needing, keeping a pulse on what’s going on in cyber because it’s changing daily, if not hourly. And then also, you know, managing a team. You know, I have a huge team here that I need to make sure that, hey, they have things under control that they’re running on. I fully trust my team. I’m very happy that I have a good team. But again, to get to that point did take some time.

Manuel: And now, just to kind of work our way up to that. So if you just kind of give me a brief summary of kind of where you grew up and eventually what kind of got you interested in technology. Like everybody has a different point in time that kind of where that bug or that desire to kind of learn more started. So what was your introduction?

Adam: Yeah. So, you know, didn’t come from a tech background. My father was a welder. Mom was a home caretaker for elderly people. So didn’t have a lot of tech. So my first tech thing was a Super Nintendo that I bought myself. I had to work for it and pay for myself. And then I just kind of got involved with it. I saw, you know, started some cool stuff around the house, like building some these little circuit boards that you used to make. And you used to make lights go bright and dim and stuff like that. You remember those? And then my famous story is that back in the old days, when I was a kid, they had cordless phones. Remember the ones they pull out? So I had this, I got one from the thrift store because back then they were expensive. So we got one from the thrift store, you know, being thrifty as we were. And I’m going to make this thing work. So, you know, I started taking it apart. And it’s always taking it apart. It’s the easy part, right? Putting it together. So I’m taking this thing apart and not knowing nothing about electricity. I’m like, oh, I need to splice this wire. And so instead of using my finger, which I didn’t, I used my teeth with 120 volts plugged into the wall. And, and, you know, I learned that way about electricity, but also I learned, it was kind of funny. That’s how I got my, you know, kind of, it excited me. I was like, technology is this cool kind of scenario. So it’s kind of drove me. So I’ve always had that on my mind kind of scenario, what I wanted to do. I went to school for something totally different. I went to school for hospitality management at Las at UNLV, which is the feeder part. So I grew up in San Diego, you know, went to a feeder school out there called Mesa, Mesa Junior College. So, you know, got my two year associates there in hotel management. And I’m like, what do I do? You know, UNLV has one of the best hotel programs in the nation applied. I got in, I’m like, wow, that’s cool. So started that journey through UNLV. You know, not to say I put tech aside. It was just like, you know, in my day, tech wasn’t big. This was very early, you know, of the 2000s before Y2K, all that stuff. So tech wasn’t a huge thing back then. So the emphasis was more like, hey, you got to know about tech because, you know, if you’re gonna be a hotel manager, you need to know that we have terminals that people need to check in on. We have credit card machines, stuff like that. But it wasn’t the emphasis. It wasn’t the bread and butter of the career. So, you know, I kept that in mind and said, okay, how do I leverage this? So funny enough, I graduated. What do I do? I got a part-time job at a casino working as a technician. So I kind of said, I want to work on the slot machines to make sure they work correctly. So what we do, go through there, clean them out. You know, if they were broken, if they didn’t accept bills, we’d come in there, clean them out, make sure they work kind of scenario. So I worked for a small casino here in town, eventually led me to Caesars Palace here in Las Vegas, which was a fun job that I got to work at. But in this technology realm, but I noticed that I said, hey, I thought to myself like, okay, these slot machines are great. They’re built on really old Linux technology. Like this career doesn’t seem like it’s going to go anywhere. Like, you know, I don’t know. I don’t see the future. So I started understanding, okay, all these slot machines feed into a centralized database. Now this database is huge, right? It collects all the data for all the slot machine. Every time you put a dollar in, every time you put your card in, all that data and analytics then kind of compresses. And then they create the marketing programs off it. Like I need to get in there. So I started reverse engineering and said, okay, well now I know this job will probably not be here forever because technology will take that over. So where’s that next leap? And I started tracing that back and says, the database is where I need to be. So I started learning about databases. So on my own, just trying to say, hey, what does all this stuff does? So it’s a very simple SQL database, right? That collects all the data. And then they use report generators to report the stuff out. Nothing super complex. So, and again, you know, my background, not super technical, right? I grew up through more of the project management, project delivery role and the product delivery role rather than the technical hands-on keyboard. What I knew I was good at was like, was managing, making sure deadlines are good. You know, making sure that, hey, if they says, hey, we need to deliver this project or this technology. I know that through just how I am, you know, I can drill in and say, okay, looking backwards, we need to deliver to the customer on this day. What do we need to do to get there? Or we need to deliver to the customer on this day. What do we, and I’m very, I have this kind of innate ability to see that out. And I didn’t figure this out until later on in life, but it was one of those innate abilities to say, okay, well, not only do I understand how much time do I need to build this, but I also need to understand how much resources are needed, how much time, how much money, how much allocations are for all this stuff is kind of combined into one. So doing that, I did a couple of projects. I’m like, this is amazing. I was built for this. This is project management, you know, product management is kind of where I love. And so I kind of developed that role and I kind of developed myself as a project. Then this was before like project management was even kind of a job. It was, you know, we, they knew about it, like project managers were there, but it wasn’t as, as bountiful as it is today. So it was really cool to kind of learn in that. And then, you know, eventually I kind of got in a place where I’m like, cool, right. I got to understand the, not so much the data. I mean, I can sit down there with a coder and say, Hey, SQL database administrator, you know, run this query. And then, you know, in the, and if you, in the tech world, not to get too technical, it’s going to come back with a query of rows of data, right? But you can kind of look back at that and say, Hey, every row has a call, has a name, has a header, has a row count. So you can go through this and say, okay, this data makes sense. Or it doesn’t, it’s just garbage. Right. So being that, you know, I’m not, you know, I am technical, but I’m like super like, you know, in the weeds technical, but I know how to drive teams and, and processes to get us to where we need to go. So that all wrapped up was kind of fun and exciting with Caesars Palace. They said they owned a cruise ship at that time. And I got to go out there and work on a cruise ship. So.

Manuel: So interesting point there, where you mentioned that, you know, you kind of on your own kind of develop that, that curiosity of like, Hey, how does this work and understanding? So does a lot of that project management, you know, kind of understanding the deliverables and, and Hey, how does this work and being able, again, you have to be technical to at least understand what’s going on. Was a lot of that from your innate curiosity of just being able to say, okay, this is how long it takes me to develop, you know, or clean out a slot machine. This is, you know, are you kind of piecing that those smaller pieces together of your own understanding of how long something takes or how are you kind of, how did you build that skill of I can deliver on time because I know how long this will take or that will take or database administrator. I need you to make these types of changes or pull this information for me. Like, how did you determine that that’s like, how do you determine timelines?

Adam: It, and great question. You know, I got a tribute to my mom, honestly, because my mom, you know, we didn’t have a lot of stuff growing up, you know, early on in life, but my mom was scrappy. She would figure stuff out. She would always deliver birthday, always deliver Christmas. And she was just one of those people that can just honestly go out and says, okay, my son wants this. And again, it wasn’t nothing, you know, outlandish, but my son needs this or my daughter needs this. What am I going to do to figure this out kind of scenario? She’s kind of like my, you know, what I give all my credit to because that was that I’ve always had that in my mind of like, okay, understand that. Cause again, like, you know, not everybody is going to be super technical, right? Kind of scenario, but not everyone’s going to have a project management mindset. And they’re two totally different parts of the mind, right? You know, and that’s why they need each other. What I, what I was really good at is, is understanding the programmers, understanding developers and stuff like that. And just having a, like a realistic talk like you are and say, okay, here’s our realistic timeline. What we, is this achievable, right? Like, you know, getting the feedback from them instead of, you know, I think the problem with a lot of projects, why they fail nowadays is the project manager kind of takes that stuff back and just says, oh yeah, we’re going to make it work, you know, and they’re trying to figure it out. You can’t do that. You need to go to the people you rely on every day and say, okay, I need this piece. Tell me what’s going to take. And, you know, maybe buffer in a little bit. I need this piece from you. How long is that going to take? And again, 90% of the time it’s going to slip, but as long as you’re realistic with them and say, hey, what happened? Are you going to make it up? And most times good people are going to be like, yeah, we’ll make it up. Give me another day. It’s all I need. You know, we’ve all been in that situation, right? And just having that understanding. And I think that’s what Billy built me to be successful in that job was just being adapt to people to understand what their needs are and what their timelines are and backing that into an actual project, right? And then, then you kind of put it all together and say, this is what I can do.

Manuel: And then over time, I’m sure you’re kind of developing that expertise, right?

Adam: Yeah.

Manuel: To where you can go through and like, okay, I know I have a better understanding. So if a developer tells you, hey, I’m going to get this done in a week, you know that maybe it might be a week and a half or, hey, he’s putting in buffer time. I think we could probably get it done in four days, right? But initially, yeah, it sounds like having to really have those conversations and say, hey, how long is this going to take? Okay, realistically and being transparent, right? And say, okay, we didn’t hit the deadline or you finished early. Why did you finish early right? You know, and just kind of get a better understanding.

Adam: It’s a hierarchy, right? Because the CEO is going to say, I can deliver it tomorrow. The sales guy is going to say, I can deliver next week. The project manager is going to say, I’m going to leave it in two weeks. And the developer is going to say, I’m going to deliver it in a month, right? So how do you massage that to say, what’s realistic, right? What is, what can we deliver it on? What can’t we deliver it on and pushing all that together.

Manuel: So then as you’re kind of learning all this database stuff, and it sounds like that’s kind of, I’m assuming when you kind of saw that, hey, being a slot technician is not going to be the career path for you, you start to pick up databases. So now are you just kind of searching job boards to figure out how you can kind of move out into other roles? Because again, there’s not a defined project manager role like it is today, technologies early. So what kind of may you decide or kind of what was your thought process to say, I need to go out and kind of what, what did that look like?

Adam: Yeah. So I think I just took a second and said, okay, now I have to figure out like, where do I go with it? Right. You know, cause I think you have two options, right? Operations or, or, or, or, yeah, operations or vendor. Right. And that’s, I think a lot of people make that decision in their career. Right. So I’d say that, that path in the road, where does that go? So I was working in operations. It was great. But then I’d see these vendor guys come on site and they were like, kind of flashy. I’m like, they got a credit card. Well, they got this and that. And you’re like, that’s kind of a cool job being on the vendor side. I didn’t realize they’re like, yeah, you know, we, we, we get to travel around the world. We get to do this and stuff. And when you’re young, it’s very influential to you. Cause you’re like, I’m stuck between these four walls and I kind of come see the same thing. And for me, it was kind of like, I like that because it’s a little bit more, you know, versatile. So I can go out there and figure more stuff out. And then you’re kind of understanding other technologies as well. So I started, so from there I started, I got a job with Bally. It used to be called Bally Technologies. Now it’s called Light and Wonder, but that manufacturer there, you know, they were the main person that I did the database work for, or the project management database for. So I was like, well, I extrapolated that and just did a jump, right? So, okay, well, if there are vendor for the casino I’m working for, they’d love to have you, right? So there’s a little bit of a non-compete going on there, but you have to wait that out. But once you get over that side, you’re like, great. Now you’re learning that. So you, all the information you took from your, your operations, now you’re working for a vendor and now you’re just, your plate just wide open because now you’re not just talking about, okay, what happens at this one company A in the four walls. Now I’m working with company B, C, and D who have the same proprietary software, but I’m learning what they do and how they, how they’re driving and, and what they’re doing different from other companies. So now you’re taking that wealth of information from all of these companies instead of just one. And now you’re become this invaluable asset where you have relationships with the customers, which are the casinos. You have relationships, you understand the product. And so now you’re a golden child for, um, you know, for either a job or for, you know, whatever that next leap that you want to go into to, to be successful.

Manuel: You’re kind of gathering all this information and, and I’m sure, you know, some people might be okay and just like, Hey, I like what I do. And you’re there, but it sounded like you had bigger aspirations and more curiosity because you’re right. Like I did, I did operations for a long time. Eventually I moved into, um, so I’ve worked for a VAR, which is a value added reseller, right? So you, you’re kind of going through and it’s on the vendor side. And I knew that how this vendor, this VAR did a lot of work for casinos. I had experience there. So they’re like, Hey, you’d be a great fit. You, you know, you understand infrastructure, but it is completely different. I knew what I did at this casino. I had experience from, you know, I worked at two different casinos. So it was like Boyd gaming. I worked for Coast Casinos, a lot of similarities, but a lot of differences. And then now you’re getting exposed to multiple at the same time. And you’re just like, Oh my God, like, why are you doing it this way? And my first inclination was like, well, that’s, that’s dumb. Why would you do it that way? But then you have to understand that there’s a business reason behind it, right? It’s not just like, well, we’re doing this, this way because we just felt like it, right? Like there’s something in their operations. So my guess is that as you’re kind of doing all this, you’re gaining all this information, apart from resources and building a network, your experience and your expertise is starting to grow. So at what point do you kind of determine? I remember looking at your LinkedIn, I kind of followed it. So there’s a couple where you kind of stayed for a while and there was like upward growth. And then eventually, you know, there’s times where you’ve kind of decide to move to another role. You don’t have to talk about it specifically in this one, but kind of what’s your thought process on how do you develop in the same business versus deciding to go out somewhere else?

Adam: Yeah, it’s a difficult, it’s a difficult question, you know, and I reflect on that a lot. I’m, I’m really, cause I’m, I’m, you know, a project manager for a heart lesson learns is what I live and die by. So I reflect on that a lot of like, okay, if I would have did a different path, or I could have did something else differently in my life, what would I have done? And kind of interesting enough, like, you know, it’s tough because, you know, you want to make that trajectory growth and develop and go along the way. Now, some companies are great of internal growth, as you know, you know, they’re like, okay, great. But some company, but it’s tough because once you, once you, you’re know the product and you, you’ve kind of found your niche and you kind of do it in your sleep, they don’t want to promote you because they have this great person. It’s a perfect fit and that’s what they do. And, and, and for, for me personally, it was like, that’s handicapping my growth because now I can’t move up because now they have me kind of cornholded in this position, which I’m good at. I could, I know what I’m doing. I’m, I’m great at it. And I’ve been complimented by everybody, but now like, okay, you have to kind of figure out what do I do with that? Right? So it was a hard decision to say, okay, let me step back and let me go on to another role. And that other role was the director position, going from a manager to a director position, right? So project manager to a director position. And that was a big, a big jump because now, you know, project man and project directors in most medium or small companies, you’re wearing both hats. You either have your own kind of projects and you’re also mentoring and managing project managers in that kind of realm to keep everything afloat, deliverable times and stuff like that. So I needed to make that jump to, to get where I needed to go for that project, for that director position. And then eventually the VP position, which was even harder to get to, but every, every step of the, that, those two steps were, were very difficult. I mean, I’m not going to say they were easy because it’s one of those things, like I said, once you’re good at something, they don’t want to let you go. So how do you do that? And sometimes you have to make that jump from a one company to another, just to get that experience that they’re going to try you out to get this opportunity.

Manuel: And you mentioned, right, you become that, that invaluable resource at any point. Did you kind of decide like, Hey, you know what I am? I am this person. I don’t want to be this person. And outside of making a leap, maybe how do I kind of bring somebody else in to kind of do that role? And the only reason I say this, cause I, I kind of fell into something similar, right? Where I was like, well, you become this person that is like the go-to, right? Like you eventually become that person. So one of the things, and I, I wish I kind of would have learned this earlier. But I got brought into a role. I brought, I got, I took on a project that eventually I became that person. And it was basically managing. So I worked for an airline and I was supposed to be a storage administrator. There was a project because it was, I had VMware experience. VMware had a product where they would be able to manage devices, right? So device management, managing iPads for flight attendants. Okay. Yeah. I have experience. I know the technologies. I thought it was just going to be the backend setting that up. But once you do now, that’s your job. And I was like, I don’t want to do this. This is terrible. Like, I don’t, I don’t want to come to work today and manage iPads all day. Like, this sounds horrible. Eventually when I went to the manager and I was like, Hey, I don’t want to do this. Here’s the amount of time I’m spending. He basically said, why don’t you go through and document all this or train somebody else up so that you’re not the sole purpose person. And there’s other times, like after he said that, I was like, well, can I do that? He’s like, yeah, well, can we can hand this off to somebody else, but you’ve got to train them or you’ve got to have documentation. I used to hate it. And to this day, I still, I’m not a big fan of doing it, but I see the value. Like I document it, train people up. And I think that’s where I started to get that passion for helping and bringing other people. Like I was always the receiving end of, hey, you mentor me, you help me. And it was kind of that position where I’m like well, now I can do the same for other people. So I’m just curious if at any point, did something like that happen for you as you’re moving or you’re just kind of like, the only way for me to get out of this is to make that jump?

Adam: Yeah. I mean, if you’re fortunate enough, if you have that opportunity, then take it, you know, because again, unfortunately, you know, in corporate America, not everybody wants you to succeed, right? So you kind of run into some of the roadblocks. And again, like, you know, you know, and again, when you’re a project manager, yeah, you have to make those tough decisions sometimes where you can’t be the nice guy all the time because you’re just going to get ran over all the time. So, you know, it just becomes a, it’s, yeah. How do I explain it? So I think more importantly, yes, if you have that mentorship that’s available to you, grab onto it, run with it, you know, grab that rope. If someone is offering it to you, it just doesn’t happen very often, right? Because a lot of people have their own agendas in mind. And, you know, you know, unfortunately I didn’t have a lot of, I’ve had a few good bosses and are leaders in my life, but, you know, I’d say more often than not, it was that, okay, we found a hole, a round hole for you. You fit perfectly in there. Just stay there. Just, just make it work kind of scenario. I did, you know, but not say all the time, there was a couple of times that did have good leaders that did say, Hey, you need to develop out and get your next place. But, you know, it’s not as often as I would like it to be.

Manuel: Got it So then now you’re moving up into the, this director position, right? And that’s, that’s a big jump from manager to director. So what are some of the challenges you came across in making that, that transition?

Adam: Yeah. So, so typically when most people make that jump, like you have two options, right? One, either you work a long time at the same company and someone either wins the lottery, I like to say, and you get to move up or, you know, um, you might be a good time where you start someone, the other person leaves and you get that opportunity. Uh, for me, I had to look at my situation and say, okay, I’m with a great company. Where do I, how do I become that director position? And so for me, it was to go with a startup company. So it was a new startup company here in town that said, Hey, we’re looking for a director of project management, you know, and we’re willing to give someone that has your expertise because they were their main 90% of the business was casino. So, and the, and all their business was databases. It was more of a, it was back in the big, uh, the big data days. Well, you know, so it was a big data company, right? When that was the old AI back then. So it was a big data company. And, and so I took a step, uh, took a stab at them and said, okay, let me, they’re going to offer me this position. I mean, I know it’s not, you know, uh, the fortune 500 company, but they’re going to give me the title. So I said, okay, I’m going to try for it. I got the job and the, it was great to get that. But the bad side of that, you’re with the company, right? There’s no really loose policies. There’s really loose, uh, documentation structure, stuff like that. It’s a fun organization because everybody wants the company to succeed. But, uh, the other side of that is that you have to build all that framework, right? You have to come in there. There was no PMO documentation. There was no PMO. There was no, you know, so you have to build all that. So it was a great opportunity for me to build a PMO within this organization, hire all the PMs and get them going and developed and trained. And then also make sure we have standards in place that we’re actually being able to hit deadlines.

Manuel: And it’s not often that I have a lot of people that have been in a management or director role. So, and especially where you’re building this from scratch. So as you’re kind of going through and, you know, you’re interviewing, you’re trying to hire, right? What are, what are things that you look for? I’m not going to stay on their resume, but like more like in the interview process, right? What are some things that you’ve, even as yourself going through and interviewing, like skills that you have identified, like, Hey, this is helpful to me. This helped me get into this role, especially like a director role, you know, Hey, I have this experience, but you’ve got to be able to communicate that. And then how are you also identifying those qualities or traits that you’re looking for in interviewees?

Adam: Yeah. Great question. Um, you know, honestly, it’s, it’s no one’s what they are on paper, right? Paper is just, you know, it, it gets your foot in the door, right. Your experience, whatever it is. Um, you know, I, I really, I’m a, you know, cause here’s the thing, like you can have the technical mindset, the technical adaptation, but if you can’t, uh, be nice and work with your coworkers or, you know, anything like that it’s disastrous. Right. And sometimes you have to make those tough decisions. The manager is like, Hey, this guy’s a great technician. This guy’s a great person. But on the other side of that, he doesn’t want to work with anybody. So you have to balance that out to understand like, okay, well, you know, invite them in, talk to them, you know, get them to loosen up a little bit and say, Hey, you know, what is it you want out of this job? And again, and maybe my, my mindset’s a little bit different. Cause I’m like, okay, you know, I want you to stay here as long as you want. But a lot of them, a lot of these people are like, Hey, I want to work for the Amazons. I want to work for the bigger companies. So I say, you know, what is your ambition? Like, what do you want to get out of it? Well, you know, I want a longevity and, you know, I eventually want to work for a fortune 500 company. Great. Like, how do you get there? Right. What are those steps? And I’m like, okay, well, we can be that stepping stone and I’m okay with that. I’m okay developing people out to be that next person, to be what they want to go on their journey, as long as they commit to that a hundred percent. Um, so for me, it’s not so much about the, the, the technical skills. It’s more about the adaptation to being able to say, to pivot, right? Like say, okay, well, especially for us, you know, we’re still a small business. We have, you know, we have a few people, but we’re not like, you know, a fortune 500 company, but you know, we got to be able to say, sometimes we have to wear many hats, right? Sometimes our system engineer is doing network jobs because we just, we just don’t have everybody at enough people at that certain time. So it’s more about just being able to say the willingness. And, and I think employers now are starting to understand that, like that attitude goes a long way. And just being able to say, yes, I, I, yeah. Okay. I’ll show up, you know, just showing up on time, being there, being the person that says, yes, I’ll do it. Instead of trying to pull it out of them to get what you need from them.

Manuel: At the director level in, in those types of scenarios, like how involved are you in the firing or the letting go of people? Right. Cause you mentioned like, Hey, if you have those conversations and it’s, you know, as much as we would like to think that we can turn everybody around and they’re going to be great. There are scenarios where it just, it doesn’t, it’s not going to work out, right? Like we’re at odds either. They aren’t getting what they want out of this role or you’re not getting it from them, like what you’re expecting. So what are some of the challenges with having to kind of let people go? Right.

Adam: Yeah. It’s tough because you don’t never want, you never want to let anybody go. Right. I mean, that’s like the last resort. You try to bring them in, you mentor them to see what that is, because again, my, and it’s tough because through my career, you know, you have two options. Like you have one where you’re coming into a startup where you’re kind of, you get to develop your own team, which is great because then you’re not going to have that big of turnover, right? Cause you can, you’re going to develop those people there. You’re going to screen them ahead of time to know they’re going to be good, bad, or indifferent. The tougher situation is when you become a director and you, you know, you, you have to make the decision where people that they’ve been there, they’ve been there for years. You know, they know more than you. They, and they’re not scared to tell you that. Right. And you’re just like, okay, now we got to have this discussion. Right. Kind of scenario. So, you know, in a walk into a situation where you become a director and guess what? The person next to you applied for that job too. And now you got to be his manager. That’s an awkward situation to be in. So how do you kind of, you know, how do you confront that? Right. So I usually just sit down with them and say, Hey, you know, you know, basically how can we make this work? Right. You know, from a, from a letting go perspective, how, you know, if, if I, if I’ve kind of went through the process, which is, you know, the written warning, the suspensions and stuff like that, and it’s just, just not working out, you know, you have to sit down with them and says, what is that career path? I try to, what I try to do a lot of times I try to say, okay, this isn’t working out for either. I’ll pull you conversation. This isn’t working. What can we do? I mean, if, if you’re not going to change, I’m not going to change. How can we make this? How can, what can we do? And, you know, sometimes I was able to a few times say, why don’t we do this? Why don’t you go out and look for another job? I’ll be your biggest cheerleader and you can find that other job. And that’s worked out a few times. Like, it’s just, Hey, you know what? Like, great. I got this other guy, he was working for us. And then he went to JT3 and he was, he was like, this is my dream job. I’ve been one. And he was a level one technician and he went to go work for a government agent, which was huge for him. Right. So, um, it’s just opening up those opportunities that they just don’t see. They just don’t have the blind, they have blinders on. So they just don’t see that.

Manuel: So a lot of it’s just really communicating with them. Right. I mean, that’s at the end of it.

Adam: As you grow. So as your career goes, less time is spent on the technical stuff. Like you’re like, I like the technical stuff. Forget it. It’s all dealing with two aspects. So you’ve got stakeholders, which are going to be your, your peers and managers. And you’re, then you’re going to have your employees, right. They’re going to, that are going to make or break you at the end of the day. Uh, but yeah, you’re, it’s a people job. You, you know, when you, you know, so be prepared when you want to move up and understand that, like your job’s changing, right. You’re not going to be called. I mean, on occasion you might be called for them, but you’re going to be, but you want it to be more of a guidance role. Cause you know, as I was a director, you know, the project was going off the rails. Now I come in and I, you know, I don’t want to go in there and take it over from the person. Cause what, what’s that going to do? It’s going to diminish their, you know, their, their self-esteem, everything about them. So bring them over and just be like, Hey, what can we do together? Let’s, let’s figure this out. Let’s work together. Okay. Let me do this. You do that. And then we get the project back on track kind of scenario. But 90% of your time is now spent on people.

Manuel: And what did you do to kind of develop those skills? Right. So like we go back to the database part, right? Like you look up at, especially nowadays, right? You can look up YouTube videos. You probably were reading books, maybe just messing around, tinkering with yourself. But as you’re, as you’re kind of developing and understanding it’s less tech, like you still have to understand it, right? You still got to be aware of how things work, but now you’re having to develop communication skills and management skills. So what are some of the ways that you kind of develop that? And is there anything, any like gotchas along the way where you’re like, Oh, I wish I would have known this would have either helped accelerate that learning or maybe not had as many missteps along the way.

Adam: Right. I think you’re always learning, right? Cause I don’t think you’re ever going to master it. Um, you know, for me, uh, Stephen Covey is a, I’m a huge fan of, right. You know “How To Win Friends And Influence Others”. Right. You know, just understanding like, Hey, his, my greatest quote from him is like, “if you want an employee or a person that’s going to love you every day and walk into your job and love you, then get a dog”, you know, that’s it. You know, because that’s unconditional love. Every time you come home, your dogs, I’m like, I love you. I love you, master. But you go to work every day. That employee is not going to be that same way. Right. So it’s just understanding how people, and you’re just kind of peeling that back. Like what motivates people? What gets people up in the morning? You know, you know, you know, it goes back to saying, you don’t want to be ever become a micromanager, but you don’t want to be, uh, laissez-faire, you know, you know, where’s that medium at? So you have to, you have to balance them out. And I still struggle with that today. Right. Kind of scenario, like with my team, like, okay, I have to entrust the leaders I put in place to develop that. Now they might not do it the same way I do, but I have to appreciate it, uh, because they’ll get the job done, but it’s not always going to be the way you want it to be done. So I think a lot of that is just, you know, one is learning your first director position or even manager position. You’re going to learn a lot because you’re dealing with the human element, which is no one can predict it. Like you could, people come in and have bad days. People come in and have great days. People get sick in the middle of a go live. You know, you have all these factors, um, that go on in that you have to balance them out and say, okay, well now I’m manager, uh, how, how do I put all these pieces together? Okay. If my main guy that I rely on for everything, if he’s out sick today, what do I do? You know? So you have to put in redundant, then you start figuring out, okay, well I, I need a redundancy. If this main guy that this person that I love and he’s great, but he wins the lottery next day, where’s my failover? Where’s my backup kind of scenario? So you have to look at that in those angles as well. So it’s, it’s, it’s really about the people.

Manuel: And that’s just something that obviously there’s going to be no one job or there’s not a, I mean, the books are helpful, but there’s no really one way that you could just be like, oh man, do this thing and figure it out similar. Like it’s not as prescriptive as kind of learning databases, right? Like I can read a book, I can watch, I understand it. Now there’s troubleshooting involved, excuse me, there’s going to be troubleshooting involved that will come up that you kind of have to figure out. But for the most part, if you understand databases and you can read and learn, but from the management side, that’s not going to be the same case.

Adam: Yeah. I mean, there’s a lot, you know, there’s a lot of information out there for team works, for coaching, developing and stuff like that. And they’re great, right? Just understanding, you know, how are you pushing your team to, to achieve next level results, right? How are you developing, you know, Atomic Habits? You know, there’s a lot of good stuff out there to understand how, how these are driving. But I always say like one thing you can’t ever read or know about is the human element because everyone’s different, right? There’s no two people the same, you know, and especially in technology is like, you know, and I’m sure you deal with this in tech. I love tech, right. I’ve been in many years, but tech is, you know, there’s a lot of egos, you know, and I think that’s the biggest thing in tech is it. And then I always say, and when I used to hire project managers, like, you know, a project manager has to have an ego and I want him to have an ego because he needs to be the captain of that ship. Right. And when the storm hits, he needs to be at that helm and going through the storm. But, you know, at the same time, he needs to be personable and relatable and stuff like that. Because if you don’t have that ego and you’re a project manager, you’re going to get ran over all day. And, and it’s just kind of the things. So it’s, it’s in tech, in tech, especially you have a lot of egos. So to manage those, it’s not easy, right? Kind of scenario. Cause you got people, Hey, I’ve been here since day one. You don’t know more than me. And you’re walking into this new job and you’re the manager and you’re like, well, I’m not trying to tell you what to do. I just kind of want you just to come to work every day on time, you know, like, or stuff like that, you know, and it’s just the, the trivial stuff that, you know, but you can’t say that. So how do you do it? Right. I mean, you can say it, don’t get me wrong, but you don’t want to say it. You want them to adapt to learn. So what do you do? Okay. Hey, you know, he sees kid coming in every day. Hey, let’s have coffee, you know, every other day to get them in that routine at eight o’clock. I’ll put a standup meeting every other day. Let’s have coffee. I want to get caught up because I want to know more about what you do or what he does or she does or kind of scenario.

Manuel: So it’s just finding ways more to not necessarily tell people what to do, but kind of similar, like in that book, right? You’re trying to find ways to influence them to change that behavior and say, okay, I don’t want to say incentivize, but really kind of understand and say, okay, hey, come here and show up on time. And if it means I’ve got to do coffee with you, like you’re starting to kind of alter their behavior over time.

Adam: Yeah. And it’s, it’s twofold, right? It’s also like, okay, so say you have this guy that, you know, does come in late every day or girl, I should say, it does come in late every day, but this person, she, when five o’clock hits, she won’t, she’ll keep working until the job’s done eight o’clock. So now what do you do in that aspect? Right? So now you’re in a weird situation where like, gosh, like, you know, I have this other guy who comes in every day at eight o’clock, but then clocks out at five, no matter what. Then I have this other person that comes in eight 15, but she’s here till the job’s done. You know, it’s, it’s a, it’s a stark contrast, but how do you manage those kinds of things? And for me personally, it’s like, okay, well, you know, because now the guy that you’re telling to come in every day on time saying, well, what about Sally Jo? Because she’s like, but she, you know, so it’s dealing with those kinds of things. And how do you, how do you manage them? Right. Kind of scenario. So you have to be, a little bit creative, you know, kind of scenario and say, Hey, you know, if you’re not gonna be on time, just give me a text to your whatever. And, and most of the time, you know, it kind of all flattens out, but it’s those dynamics that no book’s going to train you for no, you know, no YouTube video is going to train you for, you’re going to have to adapt that to understand. Cause again, that person work until five, six, seven, that’s invaluable because again, like she’s taking time out of her life afterwards and she’s making sure the job is done, which is huge.

Manuel: You’ve kind of become this director level and you’ve kind of moved around. Um, so what at that level, at some point you get to, you know, you know, either a CIO, CEO at that level, what is kind of the career path that you decide to change or work towards at that point? Are you kind of moving around? Is it, you’re looking for different challenges? So like the startup was probably great because it gave you one, it gave you the title, right? So, Hey, now I’m a director. You’re building stuff from scratch. You’re learning a lot. What is kind of the career path moving forward? Like, how do you determine where you want to go, what you want to do?

Adam: Yeah. I mean, some, some people, you know, I, and, and I’m a little bit different than most, some people are like, Hey, hit that director. I’m good. Director’s a good title, right? Don’t get me wrong it’s a good mid man, mid manager title. You get some good perks, but you also get, you know, the, the, the prestige of being a director, right? Um, for me, I’ve always wanted to be, you know at the top and it’s just self-driven where I wanted to go. So I was like, okay. So for me, it was, it, uh, it happened over COVID weird enough, right? COVID hit. We’re like, what happened bro? Like casino shut down. Uh, you know, I was the director of the PMO over at Golden Entertainment and we just got done doing the $700 million renovation for the Stratosphere Hotel. And they’re like, all right, guys, we’re shutting down the casino. And we’re like, and you know, PMO unfortunately is usually one of the first to go because there’s no projects, right? I mean, so, you know, they just kept the bare minimum crew, which was like their VP of ops. And I think they kept their cyber guy and a few others, but that was it. So I was like, dang, what do I do? So I kind of stepped back and kind of said, okay, well, let me figure some stuff out. And, uh, you know, I started applying online and there was a job for vice president of IT at Goodwill. And I was like, that’s kind of cool. I get to give back. It’s a, it’s a good government organization or a good, a good organization, but I also get to give back to what, you know, to my roots. Cause you know, not coming from much. So I applied and they were like, yeah, I’d love to have you. You know, I mean, pay wasn’t great. I didn’t do it for the pay. Absolutely. But I did it more for giving back and also for the opportunity. So I said, great. I enrolled in it and got signed up. They were like, great. Have you on board? And then that was a whole different kind of demographics because now you’re dealing with all different kinds of skillsets, all different. I mean, anything from, you know, uh, you know, and, and, and issues, right? Because again, they don’t pay a lot of money. Right. So now, you know, you as a, as a, as a VP of IT is, is not making a lot. Imagine what’s your first level, you know, it trickles down. Right. So how do you kind of understand them and, and, and develop them and kind of scenario in that, but yeah, it’s, you know, that jump was kind of weird because again, it happened over COVID. And also I was like, you know, I wanted to give the opportunity back, but also in a, not to be greedy, but it was also for me as well. Right. Kind of scenario. So I got to take that next jump and that was exciting. Was there for a, you know, about two years and got to change some stuff around. I brought in cybersecurity. It’s where I got a lot of my passion for cyber at was during those times, done a few cyber installs for the casinos, but this was where I got to get hands on to understand the technology and stuff like that. So it was a great experience for me to learn all that stuff. So from a career perspective, yeah, I kind of had a step, take a step back, you know, to, to go forward kind of scenario. Cause again, like, you know, like, great, I could have been another director. I could have been a project manager and, you know, you know, at another company and made more money, but that’s not my end all goal. And it’s never, I’ve never been, I’m personally for me, I’ve never been driven by money. It’s always, you know, that I did chase the title. I’ll be honest with you. Now there was some good and bads about it. Some of the stuff I would have did totally different. You know, but then you kind of get to the point where you’re like, okay, well, I’ve been a, you know, vice president of IT for a few years. And now you got, you know, there’s project managers probably at like Tesla making twice as much as me. And you’re like, where did I go wrong in my, my life? Right. Kind of scenario. But like I said, I was never driven by the money. I like to challenge myself and I always like to drive for that next best thing.

Manuel: And you bring up an important point, right? A lot of times people think that even if you’re chasing title, right? And I get it, COVID, it’s a different scenario where like, hey, I need to find something. But a lot of times people aren’t willing to kind of take that step back and say, okay, hey, I’m going to take less money. I’m going to, it’s going to be a different challenge. It’s a different set of challenges and different set of ideas. So what did you kind of learn? And I don’t know if maybe this is the first time where you’ve kind of had to step back to eventually move forward, right? A lot of times, and I’m sure at the time it happens, you’re like, well, it’s this or nothing else, but kind of what did you learn from that? And what did you, you know, kind of gain as part of that experience?

Adam: It’s humbling, right? Kind of scenario, because again, you get a certain lifestyle of, you know, how much you make and you kind of count on that. And then from a financial perspective, you’re like, okay, I had to really, really evaluate my finances, right? Just say, hey, I’m not going to be able to get that fancy car I wanted next year or whatever it was. But for me, it was, you know, the opportunity, right? So say if you, if you’re like, say a level one or a technician or whatever it is, and you’re like, okay, I want to become that manager position, but I know I can’t be a manager here or I will never get that opportunity or I tried and it’s just not working out. You just might not be the right fit for that company, right? So you go to another company and they, they see the value and then you are more valuable to that company as you grow up through that, through that change. But I think more importantly is that, that, that position that you get, that you might not be making the same amount of money, you might be learning a lot more, or you might be learning a different skillset that may be a better fit for you, right? So it’s always that learning evolution that you kind of go throught and kind of figure stuff out as you go through. Like, and again, I don’t think mine was intentional per se. It was just like, cause of COVID, right? It was the big thing, but also, you know, Hey, it was part of, um, the overall where I wanted to go, right? Where I, where I thought I wanted to go at that time in my life. Right. Um, I did make some twists and tweaks to that after that. Cause I think that, um, I realized at that time in my life, I was like, okay, well, VP of IT was great, but I just don’t think that’s what I want to do for the rest of my life. Um, so I did pivot after that, but it, but it gave me the opportunity to taste it. Right. And that’s what you got to do as, as, you know, some people are like, Hey, I know people that’s been like a data DBA or, or system engineer, you know, all their life. And they’re like, I am good here. You know, I know what I need to do. I can do it in my sleep. This is where I’m at. So it’s just kind of one of those things that you have to understand, like, are you okay going to that next room? Cause again, it is a title. It’s, it’s, it’s good. It looks great in the resume, but sometimes it’s just, it’s not worth it for everybody. Now, some people it is, but I would say like, just evaluate that. Right. And it’s okay. Sometimes you try it and you’re like, this is for the birds. And then you kind of go back and kind of scenario. And I’ve done that too, where I kind of like, Hey, I tested, I, you know, my goal was to be VP of IT. I made the goal. And then I’m like, this isn’t my cup of tea. And then I kind of went back to consulting for a few years. And then I, you know, it was like, okay, well, consulting is great, but now I’m ready to do my own thing. But, you know, but you kind of learn, you live, you learn, you kind of, as you go through that process.

Manuel: And as you’re going through, so even people who maybe want to move around, right? How did you develop the confidence to say, I can move out and move around, right? Because it’s, it’s very easy for some people and for other people, it’s not right. So I am one of those people that like, when I’ve feel like I’ve reached the plateau in this area, I’m not so worried about, oh my gosh, it’s going to be so difficult. Or, you know, I don’t get the anxiousness of that new role because I’m so, my mindset is I’m, I’m not growing here. I’ve, again, if it gets to the point where it’s on autopilot for me, like, I know I’ve got to leave. And the anxiety for me of staying in this role is more than the unknown. And for you, kind of what, what was that? I mean, everybody’s motivated different, right? You’re chasing titles and doing that. So was it the ultimate goal of achieving that title is less anxious than go stepping into a new role?

Adam: You know, it’s, it’s hard to say, like, I’ve always been a driven person. Like if I set my mind to something, I most of the time get it. But it’s just more just understanding from my perspective, you know, it’s a great question because like, to think about it now is like, if I were to do it all over again, I probably wouldn’t have, right? If I were to say, hey, you know, I would, you know, and I tell my kids this today, I was like, go to, you know, if I do it all over again, I would, I would join the military just to get structure in my life. You know, just to get, I’ve wasted too many years at the bar, you know, just to get that structure. Like, okay, what, what, you know, get that structure and then kind of go to college to learn everything. And then kind of, you know, and then, you know, get an internship, right? Utilize internships. You know, I, you know, even though they don’t pay anything, I mean, it’s, they’re so invaluable to the connections you make and the people you meet. Cause some of those same people that I’ve met early on in my career, I’m still friends with today. And, and, and gaming, as you know, is such a small world, right? We all know everybody. And, you know, you go to the big convention, you’re like a high school reunion, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah. Kind of scenario. I love going to the conventions, but you know, it’s one of the things that you just kind of get back and say, okay, well, you know for me personally, yeah, it was, you know, and maybe it’s a little bit egotistical with me, but I remember like when I was younger, I was like, okay, I got this director title. I’m just going to apply for this job to see if I get it. And nine times out of 10, I probably wouldn’t follow up on it, but I would just be like, it’s what I’m trying to feed my ego. Right. Kind of scenario. And, you know, and, and every once in a while they’d call you back and be like, oh, well, maybe I do have the habit for that. And, you know, for me personally, I always tried to challenge myself to see, and that’s how I would test the waters. Let me just throw my resume out there. Let me just, let me just apply for this job. And, you know, great. If, if, if something, if it leads into something wonderful, if it didn’t, then, you know, I would just not meant to be, but I’m not hung up on it kind of scenario. But yeah, I mean, again, I think it’s double-edged. And I think nowadays, you know, you hear both ends of the spectrum, right? People say, you know, stay with the company, stay devoted, and you’ll kind of move up the path. And other people said, no, you have to jump, you have to jump, you know, kind of scenario. I don’t know what the right, wrong, or indifferent, you know, what, what’s the right thing. But for me personally, you know, I, you know, there’s a couple of jobs that I probably wish I would have stayed at a a little longer, honestly, in retrospect, you know, and not jump as fast. But, you know, you know, I, you know, I have a self-diagnosed ADHD. So I kind of got to keep moving.

Manuel: No, I completely get it. And I realized being diagnosed later on, that that was the thing that kind of drove me to kind of move around where I’ve talked to other people, and they’re like, oh my gosh, like, again, I’m not looking for you to tell me like, this is what you should do, or that’s what this person should do. It’s just your experience and trying to understand, you know, kind of what that process is. So now it sounds like we’re getting to the point where you decide to kind of move and venture on into your own and kind of franchise. So how did that come about? And what really made you decide that it’s time for me to do it on my own, you know, because not that it’s not your company, but when you’re moving up into VP, director levels, you do get a little bit more influence into how you want things to run, you know, especially on the, with a startup, you got to build it and say, hey, you know, within parameters of, hey, this is the build, this is the company, and I have to build around this or within this. What made you say, it’s time for me to do it on my own? And what was the difference between now I’m going to franchise and, you know, I’m going to do it my way versus, well, I’ll do it my way, but within these guidelines?

Adam: Right. So, I mean, you know, after leaving Goodwill, I was like, okay, what do I do? Went back into, I went to consulting and, you know, as we all know, consulting pays good. But it’s the same kind of scenario where you’re like, okay, well, great, I’m consulting. But like, when you consult, you’re never treated as an employee. You’re just that kind of guy that’s there that, okay, he’s here to make sure we do what we’re supposed to do kind of scenario. So, I’m on this huge Salesforce deployment. And it’s just like, I got to the point where I’m like, okay, got done with the project. I feel good. Okay, we want you for the next one. I just like, you know what, I’m okay. I mean, I think for me, you know, I’ve always been one of the people I can’t stay still. So, I’m always working on something on the side. So, I’ve always had like either like a side business or something I developed on the side. So, early in my career, I developed an app for rental properties. So, basically, this was before they had all the fancy apps out there. But it was just more of an integration app where it says, instead of, you know, you have a VRBO or you have an AirBNB, you know, it kind of connects your cleaning lady with all your bills and kind of puts it all in one place, right, kind of scenario. It was fun. You know, I get to develop it. It didn’t make any money, but it was a fun kind of process. And then I got into, I went and gave that, sold it, gave it away pretty much. And then I ended up going to, I started like a consulting company where it was like wizzo.com. It was a really interesting thing where I was like, okay, well, how do I leverage this? And it was kind of a part-time thing where I was still consulting for myself, but I started this kind of business of this kind of staff augmentation, right, where a staffing company or something like that, some in that area. And that was okay, but I was like, man, this kind of sucks. I’m not making any money. And I’m spending all my time just kind of babysitting. And I was like, okay, this isn’t going to work. I won’t do this anymore. And then I’m like, okay, I needed to get it. So I was actually looking at different businesses. I was like, okay, maybe I’m just talking to do tech. I started looking at plumbing, upholstery, just like random stuff. Like I’m like, I just, I just want to start my own business. So it’s always been a dream for me to do my own business. No, I’ve had little business, but never like something I’ve a hundred percent my time and to jump with both feet in. So this was the first time I said, okay, I’m leaving everything. I’m leaving the nest egg. I’m investing everything I have into this business. And it’s scary because you’re putting all your chips in the table. But, you know, for me, it was like, I was like, okay, what do I want to, I said, I do like tech, you know, but I, you know, I want, I don’t want to be the guy that drives around with, I fix your computers in the back of my car, right? That’s just not me, right? I want to be on the more of the enterprise level. I want to be more proactive. I want to be in cybersecurity, stuff like that. So I got connected with CMIT and they were like, hey, we have kind of a franchise model where you run the whole state of Nevada. This is your territory. So anything that happens in Nevada, you are the main guy that we go to. I was like, that sounds like a great opportunity, right? So got connected with them and it’s been a great ride with them learning the processes. You know, again, it’s your own business. You know, you’re, you, you have the payroll, you have employees, you have all this stuff, but it’s, it’s, it’s fun because it’s, it’s, it’s that next step, right? Kind of where, you know, when you’re on operations side, you see vendors, they’re like, oh man, they’re doing really good. Now the vendors, what’s that next step is, you know, kind of business ownership, right? And then something to leave back to my kids kind of scenario, something that, that’s going to supersede me. And that’s kind of that goal to where I want to be at in the future.

Manuel: What are some of the differences that you’ve noticed as opposed to being a director versus now, again, you’re kind of managing that self business, right? Like there’s obviously challenges, like you said, you’re doing payroll, you’re doing the whole soup to nuts, right? So it’s not just like, Hey, I’m the CEO, or I’m kind of, you know, directing what’s going like you’re the CEO, you’re the CIO, you’re the CFO, right? Like you’re doing everything. So what were, what was the challenge there? And I’m sure that it was helpful that, you know, it’s a franchisee so you’re not having to either figure it all out or established a lot of that on your own, but there’s still, you know, again, that challenge of, I’ve got to figure all this out. So how did you go about that?

Adam: You know, so I took after, was it no, before COVID, I started going for my MBA. So I went for my MBA in IT management and, you know, anyone’s been through an MBA is, it’s really interesting because it, you know, I think one of the things that MBAs teach you, it’s like going to Harvard. Harvard doesn’t teach you how to get a job. It teaches you how to run a business, how to be a business owner, how to kind of fend for yourself. So going through the MBA process was huge for me anyways, because I was able to earn, like, it started to open my eyes a little bit. Like, you know what, I’m more than just a project manager, more than just a director of IT. I’m more than vice president of IT I’m, you know, I, I’m learning about all this stuff. I’m developing my skillset to run an actual business, run a P&L. And again, am I doing it perfectly? Probably not, but I’m learning around as I go along the way, kind of scenario. So for me, it’s just been a really, you know, I’ve always had in my, in my life, in my career wise is, and you’ll get to this, when you get to that director and VP level, people get very territorial. It’s like, hey, you know what, you wear lots of hats, but when you’re in the corporate America, they don’t want you to wear lots of hats. You are one hat. That’s your only hat you wear. Don’t go outside of the lines or you’re going to get in trouble, right? And I was really bad at that. I would, I would cross the line. I’d be like, hey, COO, you know, what if we bring in like, you know, for a Goodwill is like, I went to the COO one day and I was like, hey, you know, he’s, and he’s a great guy. And I was like, hey, what about we bring in Google Lens? So imagine this, we’re able to use Google Lens on all the articles coming in and we can understand their value before we place on the floor. Because you could be placing a $500 shirt on the floor for $5 where we can actually mark it up for a 50 and then get a little bit more. I’m not saying we market at 500, but we make a little bit more money on that. And they get territorial because they’re like, you’re telling me how to run my operations. You’re the CIO guy. You’re supposed to just tell me, fix my computers and that’s it. And it’s really hard when you’re going to get a big role because they don’t want you to, to impede on their, on their territory. So I had a really tough time with that personally. Cause I was like, I, you know, cause I want to do good for the business, right? So I’ve always had that business mind, not just, hey, how is my department doing? How’s the overarching business doing? So for me, it was a real easy development to go into my own business because it is that overarching, Hey, I’m taking care of everything now. I understand though, you know, I am the marketing guy. I’m the, this, but you know, again, as you, as we grow, we’re going to have a marketing department, we’re going to have sales, you know, but that’s just all part of the process as we go. Right. We have to get the tech start, the tech stack, right. And stuff like that. And like you said, like, you know, going with a franchise was, was interesting. I, I, you know, a lot of times we’re like, you know, I go to Tech Alley. It’s a great event. If no one’s been there, I highly recommend it, but you know, they have these entrepreneur startups and these guys come in there and like, I’m a startup and I have $50,000 and I’m going to develop the next level app. The poor kid or guy or girl, whoever was the 50,000 to an offshore team, develop the app. And guess what? He has no marketing skills, no sales skills. And it just dies, you know, not saying it was a bad app, but you know, you’ve vested everything in there that you had, right. Imagine developing, buying a franchise into that or something like that. So I think the franchise model is good for that. They’re saying, Hey, don’t just spend all your money on here. We’ll help you out with marketing. We’ll sprinkle this market. We’ll also help you out with understanding what is that right thing that you’re building. Now I’m not saying in technology, it could be anything, but you know, predominantly for me, it was technology. Cause they’re like, Hey, you know what? Cause going from enterprise to small business is a different world, you know, and you know that, right? You know, it’s a different, cause I’m like enterprise. Like I’m used to going to a data center, data rooms, and we’re seeing all this stuff where you’re like, this guy has this old rusty server on the server. And he’s like, I think that’s our server back there. And you’re like, that is not your server. But you know, you’re going into those environments and you’re training and teaching. So that’s kind of exciting, right? You know, you’re, you know, cause I’m learning a little bit too, because again, the tools for SMBs are different, right? Cause they don’t need that, the heavy lifting, but they still need security, right? So that’s kind of fun of it to teaching them that security aspect of how are we keeping yourself safe? How are we developing these kinds of scenarios? So that’s kind of fun in that aspect. But yeah, the franchise model was, was never my first intention to go after. It just kind of fell into my lap and I said, let’s give it a try.

Manuel: Yeah. And it’s probably helpful too, that you do have that enterprise experience for these customers, right? Like in a small, medium business, in my experience, the little that I’ve had is sometimes you’re getting people that have kind of, they’re moving up to that role, whereas they don’t have that. Whereas you coming, I don’t want to say coming down, right? But you’re coming from enterprise down to like a small, medium business. You think differently. And the couple of times that I’ve done a little bit of consulting on the side and helped some of these businesses out and just the mindset of like, Hey, we can do this, right? It’s kind of like, you know, you’re, you’re low end, you’re mid tier and you’re high end, right? Is they’re looking at, because they’re smaller, they can’t spend a lot. And they’re looking at this budget friendly, like, Hey, I can just go to Best Buy and buy this thing. You can, but that doesn’t mean you should. And here’s why, like, you don’t need to do the enterprise. We don’t need to buy, you know, a big rack with all this stuff, but Hey, let’s find something in the middle. That’s going to address your problem, but also kind of help you scale at the same time. So would you say that a lot of the enterprise experience that you’ve had has been very influential or beneficial in kind of what you’re doing?

Adam: Oh yeah. Usually, because again, you’re coming in with that mindset, like, you know, probably 6% of them will never get that big, but you’re coming with that mindset of like, Hey, you know, you’re, you’re future proofing this, right? You’re saying, Hey, as you grow, this is going to grow and develop with you. I think a lot of those is just trying to understand the SMB is like, you know, for them, IT, you know, we’ve always been, IT has always been a loss leader, right? Any company you go to. Right. But like, it’s even worse for them because they’re like, Oh, my brother, Bob, or my cousin, Sally, she comes and fixes my computer. And I’m like that’s great. Right. But what are you doing for backup? Who’s patching? Who’s, you know, and you’re like, they’re like, and they look at you with these deer in the headlights and they just don’t know. So you kind of, you’re trying to explain that to them. So yeah, because you’re just used to it. Cause I mean, we’re just used to having teams of people. That’s their job, right? You know, you have a team of people that, Hey, you know what? Patch Tuesday came out, guess what you’re doing on Wednesday. Right. So we, so bringing that back to them and saying, explaining how these processes work, how do we keep you more secure? How do we develop you into that next level is what we do.

Manuel: This has been a great conversation. I found it in both enjoyable and I’ve got to learn a lot before we kind of wrap this up. Is there anything that I didn’t ask or anything that you’ve thought of that you’ve kind of last minute and said, Hey, you know what, Manny, you didn’t ask me this, but I think this is something beneficial that, you know, would be helpful to others.

Adam: Yeah. I think one of the things that, and it was a small piece that I kind of put in there at the end there. So I did have a small piece of my career. So when I was working for Caesars Entertainment, I was there and this was kind of a pivotal point in my career where I was the slot machine guy out there. At that time, Caesars Entertainment had a management contract with the cruise ship company. And they came to me and says, Hey, um, you know, we really like your work. Will you mind going working on a cruise ship? I was 28 at the time. I’m like, uh, yeah, you know, no kids, no wife at that time. And I went out there with no premonition, you know, like, you know, this was before bill pay. I’m writing hand checks out six months in advance to pay all my bills. And, um, I got to travel the world. I went to all seven continents, including Antarctica. I’ve been, I took a world cruise that started in LA and ends in New York, circumnavigated the world. Uh, and I was able to see all that place because I just took a whim and said yes, uh, for my career. And again, and my pay to use of perspective was $500 a week. So I was getting paid peanuts, but you gotta think about it. They paid for your food because you were on a cruise ship. Uh, you had to sign a six month contract. So it’s kind of scary. You’re out there for six months. Uh, but you know, you know, opening your eyes up to not only looking at what’s pay, the paycheck out there, also looking at what is out there. And, and inevitably what I didn’t learn when I was out there, that’s where I got my knowledge for the database stuff. You know, I did, I did four dry docks. What dry dock is, is when they take the whole ship and they gut it and they clean it and they replace everything in the ship. And every ship goes through this every three years. And I’ve done like four of those. That’s where I learned my project management skills just by being on there because they were like, Hey, we have, we’re in dry dock for two weeks. You guys got to build a whole new casino and you got to do this. And that’s what you got to do with it. And I had, I had to manage that quarterback that out and figure that out. So those skill sets, which I wasn’t even planning on doing, I learned on the cruise ship. Um, so I, I highly suggest anyone like, you know, like, don’t be afraid to take those risks that may not pay a lot, but could have an upside that you just don’t know about until you actually go out there and do it. So it was a great opportunity for me to, to learn about it. And it’s a, and I met my wife out there. I, you know, that I’m still too married to today, which was, you know, I stopped cruising in 2009. So it’s been a little bit, but you know, shows you my age, right?

Manuel: No, that’s awesome. I mean, and I think that’s sometimes that we don’t think about or a lot of people may not realize it’s just sometimes like, it’s okay to take a gamble, right? Especially early on in your career, like later on, like if you’ve got a family and kids, like it’s it’s tougher. And that’s something that I probably, I didn’t do enough of early on is take more risk and be open to more, you know, more opportunities. But I was just like, no, I’m good. I’m going to kind of do this, this, you know, this role, or I’m going to stay within, you know, the realm of what I know. And kind of looking back now, like you said, retrospectively, like it worked out, but I think I could have either had either different experiences like you, like traveling the world or just developed other skills that, you know, I don’t have now.

Adam: So, yeah. And I think the biggest one, like I was reading about, what’s her name? The new Trump’s new press secretary. You know, they were talking about her background. It’s kind of interesting. She just, she did an internship at Fox five news and was a reporter and took a gamble on just becoming the press secretary reporter. And next thing you know, she’s the secretary of state, you know, like, you know, it’s just, you know, these things don’t happen for a reason. You know, you, you have to set yourself up to kind of align your life with them, but they will fall in place and you have to trust, trust the process. I know when you’re young, you want it all, you want it now, you want it yesterday, but just trust the process that it’ll actually happen and just kind of develop as you go through.

Manuel: Yeah. Well, again, thank you for coming on and kind of sharing your trajectory and your experiences. It’s, it’s been, it’s been a blast.

Adam: Absolutely. Thanks, man.

Manuel: Thanks.