" Okay, so now what we're going to be doing is we're going to see the discovery with the CEO. Now keep in mind, this is, this is our first conversation that I'm going to be having with the CEO since I sold the discovery. Now, when I first walked in, there's going to be an introduction, there's going to be a warm up, okay? of, Hey, how are things going, but keep it state of business, maybe keep it for a minute or so minute and a half, you know, admire, whatever you want to admire. If there's any current events going on, don't get controversial, but just shake hands and then move on, let him know what your what you're going to be doing there. Okay, kind of set expectations of where your your IT guy is going to be doing, you know, where he's going to be at what he's going to need access to. Maybe even introduce them to your it engineer. Okay. And then you're going to start having questions with him based on how he answered the first diagnostic questions when you sold the discovery. Okay, so if you remember when we first had that very first meeting with him, when we sold the discovery, we had some diagnostic questions on, on how many locations who takes care of it. If there's anything that's that's currently bothering him right now, whatever he brought up, okay, we're gonna revisit today and now seek to understand why those are challenges with him and his employees. So let's watch and see how this goes down. Jason, thank you for having me back. Now, I brought my senior engineer Eric. Now he's going to be running around the back office in the server room, and, and probably in the phone room as well, looking at the technology in the infrastructure. Meanwhile, I'm going to be having a discussion with yourself and your other officers and everybody else around the building, about their technology experience and how it relates to business issues and challenges that we've seen or are trying to avoid. Gotcha. Now, the last time you and I had spoke, you were concerned about a number of items. One of them was security. Right? Tell me more. Okay. So now, what you're seeing is we had the warm up. And I immediately brought up a question that I heard from our first meeting, and I went in with a global question. Tell me more. Now watch what happens when I say tell me more how he just explodes with information. We know, when I see these things online, you know, Home Depot has credit card breach, or we have somebody else another business that has employees stealing something out of their computer, you know, all that does. It makes me think, what am I missing? What am I vulnerable with? Because, you know, Home Depot can take a multimillion dollar hit I do that I lose my business. Yeah, absolutely. I understand. Well, let me ask you this. Have we had any challenges yet? Okay. So look at this, did you see the transition? So I acknowledge what he said. I said, I understand about the Home Depot and the challenges in the news. And then I transitioned, I said, Well, let me ask you this, then. Have you had any challenges currently? Okay. So he told me something was bothering bothering him. That's the mini invitation to at least seek and see if something happened. Let's see here. Well, let me ask you this. Have we had any challenges yet? No, not not like that. We I've had questions raised about certain employees, but I have no way of actually trickling it down to figuring out if I do or not, nothing's really provoked the the need for this discussion except the media and the news. Yeah, you know, I'm just insecure because of news reports. Okay. We didn't get anything. As you can see, I heard them any invitation. I asked them if something has provoked them to be concerned. It was just media hype. Okay, but here, did I lose? No, I didn't lose. Okay, I do know it's a concern to him. But now, I also know what I don't need to bring up so that I don't make a big deal out of something that that hasn't happened. Now. Watch. I then transition into my next issue. Yeah, you know, I'm just insecure because of news reports. Yeah, absolutely. Well, let me ask you this. Do you guys you guys currently take credit cards internally right. Now? Do you take them outside with your trucks as well? Your drivers, right? We give their drivers a square device so that way they can take that on their on their device? I gotcha. Now, have you and your CFO had a discussion about getting PCI compliant or is that not an issue yet? We've thought about it but we just don't know what we're where we're gonna start at you know, we know what's the the animal in the room, but we don't know. Start with right. Absolutely. Okay. I understand. All right. Well, let's switch gears. Okay. As you can see the next issue I brought up or possible issue was PCI compliance. Okay. Did you hear me do a diagnostic question? diagnostic question was very easy to ask. It was easy for him to answer. And it allowed me to understand what was going on. Okay. And then, at the end, after I heard the status of where they're at with PCI compliance, and how they take credit cards for possible security issues, I then said, well, let's switch gears because I got what I needed. You'd also mentioned you were concerned about your backup. Tell me more. Well, you know, I see Mary now giving her time in the afternoon in the evening going over, she'll show me Oh, put the tape in and get the job done. But we've had one circumstance where that actually bit us. We had an outage during a fourth of July event where Fourth of July is a big event for us. You know, that's where we do a lot of business. Well, what happened was something went down in the middle of the night, by the time we were able to run to it, we found out that we had a hardware problem. And it got worse from there. By the time we were able to recover from that. We had backup issues where we were put the tape in and it wasn't all there. We had to go in and backfill it and I had to pay people to backfill that information. Okay. Okay. So I hear your pain. But let's back up a second. Okay, guys, if you see that I switch gears, I brought up his backup issue that he had mentioned in the first case concern when we had a discovery meeting. And he started to tell me about this backup issue that he had, okay, happened on the Fourth of July. But then he had mentioned he had a server go down, that was a mini invitation that we picked up. So if you hear what I if you look at what I did, I said, Whoa, I hear your pain. But let's back up a second. Just to make sure I heard you clear. Did you have a server go down? That's what I said. And now the backup issues backup challenge was that was the first issue the implication, okay, was something else going down. So now I stop. And I'm seeking to understand exactly what went on there. I'm going to try to maybe find some downtime, because if I can find some downtime, we're golden. Let's watch this. July 4, you went down? Yeah. What happened? Well, when the middle of the night when my dispatcher I have on call dispatch, like I told you, uh huh. Well, in the middle of night, that's just a computer went down. And what end up happening was our phones went down with it. And before we knew it, nothing was working. So let me ask you this when this server goes down, is your remote location attached we go down as well, it does. So how do you guys even operate? Do you have a backup plan? Or is it just by the seat of your pants? Well, it's two things see the pants and CB radios now they still work? Oh, that's right. I forgot about good old CB radios people do? Well, let me ask you this. How do you guys track your billing at that point? post it notes and a lot of trust in your employees? Oh, my gosh, okay. Okay. You see that? I was seeking to understand what else went wrong when that server went down. I tried to understand how they operate. Okay, I tried to bring up some possible issues that could happen with the with the server going down? Like for example, how do you get your billing How do you communicate are both locations down? Is it just the one is about whatever that is, I'm seeking to understand more, because remember, one of the five prerequisites that we need to close the deal is a need. All right, and not just a need, but many needs many different solutions, many different needs. So even though they had the one issue, I've already identified three or four different things. They said they use post it notes, right? They're talking about CB radios, all this kind of stuff that's happening and you know, as well as I do in efficiency, or efficiencies going down and productivity probably came to dang near a halt. Alright, let's watch the rest of this. I understand. Now, are the phones still up and running? When when the server goes down with Connect? Oh, not at full capacity, it will get a trickling call once in a while. But by and large it's not it's not full capacity. That July 4 outage was just that day, or did it go on multiple days, essentially three days that were we were down going on backup plan of post it notes and CB radios. Look at that, guys, boom. I asked a simple question. I said hey, this down server challenge was just that day, or did it go on longer? And what did he say? He said no, it went on for three days. Okay, so guess what? I have started my math problem on down days on downtime. I now have the first first part of the formula, which is three days. Okay. So now as the video goes on, you're gonna see I'm going to try to get the other half of the formula, which is how, how much it costs to be down and I don't do right then and there because I don't want him to put the formula together and get real defensive. But you all Chow it comes up later on. Meanwhile, we're gonna poke and prod and and bring up some more possible issues, see what else we can find? Oh, my goodness. Well, that leads me to my next question I wanted to chat with you about you had mentioned when we spoke about that Mary handles all the it or she's your go to girl right now. I can just imagine how how she was affected during this time she was involved, right? Yep. But the moment that we found out there was an issue that in the middle of the night, she and I both came in the office just trying to figure it out, she had called up the guy we used to work with. And by the time he was able to get there, we will still running on backup. So we went through another half a day before that IT guy said, well, it's it's a it's a drive issue, I need to order a part. And you know what it's like, it's like trying to find your keys in a hurry. It never happens fast enough. Again, you heard me seeking to understand you heard me listening. Just listening to what's going on. I asked even deeper questions to find out if he lost any data. But did you see what I did as a then brought in Mary, there it girl who is actually their office manager, I brought her into the play to see how she was the fact affected by all this downtime that was going on and what her role was in it. Okay, because again, the idea here is to understand what they did well, and what they didn't do. Well, if you notice what's going on here through this entire situation, not one time, did I talk about how I'm going to fix anything? All I'm doing is listening and trying to understand the full picture of that day that he's talking about. And we'll continue. Right. Okay, well, then let's back up again, going to the original backup question, have you guys done anything different since that initial downtime you've had with that server or just get everything up and running like it was before? Frankly, we're just back to where we were? Oh, my goodness. Now, did you lose any data that day? I would say we did. Because when we put the data back into the network, you know, zip codes were missing. Certain types of characters inside of files are missing. So I had to hire a temp come in and essentially go through paper files, throw it inside of the network, piece by piece. So it wasn't all there. But it was close enough to bet with. Okay. All right. I understand. So let's switch gears. Mary's handling the it? Or she's the first go to person. Yeah. Now, is she also on call 24 hours a day for both locations? Or do you have somebody else that that aids or while I'm the guy that aids or, you know, she is on call, essentially 24 hours, you know, she's been with us since the beginning. So I trust her to take care of the things that I need to get done. So when she gets over work, she's picking up the phone to call me just to alleviate but essentially, I'm not a computer guy, right? I'm not a network guy. So she ends up having a few new select vendors she works with, but you know, it's it's rinse and repeat. They work today, but they may not work in three months. So we're just trying to find something better. Is there a lot of challenges that might happen in the evening time? Or have any challenges happened recently, say midnight or two in the morning? No. And we have certain types of hours, that really are just very low, that we could essentially, you know, not bring people on staff that hours, of course, but we have certain types of hours that no calls come in. Okay. All right, I understand. Now we have our biggest location, right? We got to attach the location. Culture is one thing between the two companies it's hard to get a handle of I can just imagine communication between the two as well or is that not an issue with you guys? As it relates to data? We have I think the biggest challenge I have with the employee culture dealing with data is the fact that it's hidden Miss might attach the office you know often complains that they either can't connect or when they do connect, they have to wait for things to to essentially load up and then some my sales guys will essentially drive 35 minutes into town, do their work and drive all the way back. And I'm paying for the fuel on that. So your sales guys, they're doing quotes, they're doing invoices, maybe collecting checks from from clients, I would assume but they can't work completely remote. They have to come into the office to get quotes done is by and large. Yeah, they do. My goodness now is is that hold true with the remote people in Bakersfield to or just attach up guys most intach be I mean, the Bakersfield office they're transient to begin with. But I would say most of the time they've got to come in to the home office to get the finer details done before they go out and close new business. Okay, all right. I understand. I can just I can just imagine how the frustration they may feel having to have an address back Not to mention the frustration you're feeling having to shell out for the gas to go back and forth. Yep. You know what it's like, does that affect their sales at all? It does, you know, I can see where they have peaks and valleys. Then on the months, they're complaining the most I can see their, their their numbers starting to drop. So yeah, you do your best or they use that as an excuse. Well, they do their best, but I never let them off the hook. You know, there's always something out there to capture. Got it, got it. Got it. That little jaunt, right there was nothing more than seeking to understand hearing issues and seeing if there were any implications along with those issues. I teed up because I knew they had two locations. Anytime a company has two locations, you know, there's possible issues. Okay, communications is a big one, security is a big one, speed is a big one. So why not to them up and see if those challenges appear with them. They may or may not. But if they do, then you need to seek to understand the implications of those issues. And if you'll hear what he said, he says, the speed is so bad that sales can't work remote, because when they connect in, it's just too slow. They can't do invoicing. They can't they can't get pricing, they can't do quotes, they can't do any of that stuff. And I asked him how sales is affected because of that. And he had some hesitation on them. And there was some challenge. Okay. Now, if you also look, before that, we talked a little bit about married the it I poked and prodded around to see if she works 24 seven, or if they even have problems, 24 hours a day. And what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to put legs under all the features of my managed service offering because if I can put legs under it, that means I'm justifying the solution. And there's actually a need. Okay, now we're going to move in, and I'm going to bring up the next issue. All right, now, you opened that to me last year. Do you have any growth plans over the next 18 months to do another location? Yeah, you know, I've thought about that I got a buddy of mine up north in Fresno, is actively considering getting out of the business and moving on to a new form of life, you know, he'd like to go fishing. So we've been talking, you know, in the pre emptive stages about what that might look like, what he's gonna look for what he's looking at, and trying to get out of it. And I'm trying to figure out if I can go that route. So if that comes to fruition, is that going to be another satellite office or something bigger? Like in Bakersfield, it would be essentially be a Bakersfield sized office. So 2025 people? Yep. Wow. Okay. You know what, let's back up a little bit as it relates to to hatchapee. When we first spoke, there were some challenges opening up to hatchapee. Tell me more. Well, we initially budgeted for a certain X amount of dollars in a certain timeframe to get that location launched. Well, Mary gone through, we picked some of the best vendors we could find. But at the end of the day, we're still a tote company, you know, we're not a business trying to throw a new location together. So the best thing we can do is manage subs. And what we end up finding was, by the time we got communication out of this specific location, we were running behind, we couldn't get power there fast enough, we couldn't get certain subs to really just honor their agreement. So by the time we actually opened, we were about 30 days late. But I had already hired tow drivers to be in the area. And I'm not going to go back on my word. So we did a lot of you know, Blitz marketing, we shook a lot of hands, by a lot of lunches, trying to build by some goodwill, but we were still over budget and way over time. My goodness, well, let me ask you this, did you end up releasing anybody? Or did you just take on the burden of holding them as employees until you finally opened, we kept the burden because for a few of those drivers, they came down here and earn their paycheck. If we were the drivers up there that were connected with the community, they worked their leads to try to build that good relationship. Yeah, I understand. I totally understand. Now was Mary involved in a lot of the engineering of those solutions or assisting with with that, or was that completely on your side? It was shared, you know, I told her what I was looking for, told her what I wanted, and she went out and found some subs to make it happen. So she was really the, the the person on the ground getting the work done. And I was just simply picking up the pieces as they fell apart. Yeah. Okay, so let's go back to February, you had mentioned you had spent some money to go to the new version of connect up, you wanted to go from version 14 to version 15. And something went wrong. What happened? Yeah, you know, those times when you you know, get something new on your computer. And as that loading bar, yeah. Well, we we came in the middle of night because it was pretty low. So we went on backup. And as we were loading this software update, the bar went from zero to 10 to 20 to 50. And right at about 97 it stopped and I'm sitting there looking at her and she's sitting there going, what do we do? So we let it sit for a while and by the time we figured out it's not gonna move, we end up calling Neil the guy that came out and helped us the last computer repair and he says you just gonna have to go backwards. You know, we can't go forward as a problem. What we ended up finding out was is that we had an infrastructure challenge, we weren't able to migrate forward because of something we should have known about now was connect to involved in this or did you and Mary, take that on yourself? Well, she was on the phone with them trying to figure out how we got there. But they were still limited by what we had locally. Because all they knew was, this is where we're going. But they're looking at this thing. Well, you can't get there from here. Oh, my goodness. Now, did that take you down any additional days? Or did you realize that by morning, we were up by morning, but I mean, you gotta think about it. I've still paid for that upgrade that haven't been able to use and all the benefits from it, I've still not been able to use. So let me ask you this by moving to version 15. besides the obvious of getting up just up to date with everything. Was there something you were expecting to implement that it had version 14 didn't have? It did it has two updates? Number one, it syncs certain different modules inside of itself more with connect or what not more with a QuickBooks? Uh huh. The other thing is, it has a GPS locator. So that way, I can actively locate all my assets inside of my, you know, connect to, I don't have to go outside of that to another resource. Now, if you already set up a time to try that again, or no, no, I know, it's gonna fail again. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So I let that run a little bit, because I wanted you guys to see how this played out. very conversational. And if you're, if you've noticed, from when we first saw the discovery, how I'm bringing these issues back up, like, for example, this migration, I had mentioned that he tried to go to 14, or tried to go to version 15. But he didn't, and he had to go back, he had to go back to 14. And at the time of the discovery, I didn't really want to know much about that. Because I didn't want to go down that road. I was just trying to sell the discovery. But now since I have the discovery, I had to tee it back up so I could learn more about it. And really find out and if you notice what happened is I even poked and prodded I even got some more downtime from him. Okay, so again, very conversational, bringing up the issues that I got from the very first meeting, and now I'm expanding on with global global questions. I'm hoping you guys are paying attention to the transition statements that are happening. Let me table this for a minute. For With that being said, everything is making things very, very comfortable. And there's no uneasy anxiety or tension in our meeting. And if you see, he's really opening up as well, and spilling out everything that's going on. Because first off, these diagnostic questions are very easy to ask. They're quite their answers that he's going to have. And then by me using the global questions, he's expanding out on those issues, so I can understand. Okay, now what we're getting there, and I want to show you how we're going to tie in the rest of the formula here pretty quick. We have a lot of other clients like yourself that have chosen to go the route of letting their employees just bring their own devices to work. Now, you had mentioned you had some challenges with that. Anything you want to share, I specifically had to deal with a salesperson that I'd had, where a lot of great promises a lot of great assurances, but nothing really to match it with. And I'd given him we set him up with a laptop. I said, I'm on the phone. And then at the time we had died to have a conversation with him. Let him go. I still haven't seen my laptop still haven't seen my phone. He walked out with all the device. Yes, he did. Oh, wow. Okay. Well, that would certainly prompt me to not want to buy another one. That's for sure. Of course. Now, currently, right now, how many devices do you own versus what the employees bring on? Or do they own everything they own their their, you know, their essential mobile devices they have. But my drivers, the drivers that are most productive areas, I give them a phone because I want their their their their square swipe to be on my stuff, God so I have a certain limited number amount of devices that I own for the people that most productive, including office personnel. Got it? Okay, well, you know what, let's take down a little bit further. Do you mind if I ask you a couple specifics about your remote device policy? Or something close to that? Now currently, do you have people that work remote, just besides the sales people just to drivers that are in the trucks, but they're not really technically remote? They're just the guys who go out from the home office come back it girls in accounting or your dispatchers? Do they work remote at all? No, they're on prem. Okay, got it. Now. The people that have their own devices, are they responsible to backup the data on there? Or does Mary do that forum? You know, I would have to say that they're responsible for doing that on their own. I can't I can't really say that we've ever done it. Okay. Now, what about this, should you should they quit or you release them? Do you have a way to get that data off? Or wipe out their laptop. The best thing I've got is now two bikers and a fistful of money. How's that worked? Oh, it's work. Okay. pretty far. Fantastic. I mean, that's, that's the old way of doing it. But I can't think I'd like to find a way to be able to just see if there were a magic button to play, you know, to press. Yeah, that'd be a lot cheaper than two bikers. Yeah. Well, let me ask you this when when somebody is left with your, with your, with your data, or in the case of that employee took his laptop, were there any implications of him stealing your data? And did it pop up anywhere or used against you in any shape, or form? I would say within a few weeks, he landed in a competitor's tow business. And magically, a few of the clients that he used to harvest started calling me up asking about our rates. Got it. So I put the two together, it's conceivable that he did. But I wish I had a better way of being able to say, you did this, and I'm going to make you pay for it. I wish I could do that. Okay, I brought up another issue. It was bring your own device. And guys, what your competitors do, if they even bring it up at all, they just stay on the issue. Okay. And as you can see, there's a good two or three minute conversation of me trying to understand if they have remote workers, if he buys laptops, why he doesn't buy them anymore? Does he buy phones? Does he have a policy? If they quit? Or if he gets fired? How does he get that data off, I'm trying to seek to understand if there's an onboarding or off boarding process, because those are all the things that I want to talk about when I present my solution. So if I were to present my solution and talk about how we do all this stuff, but yet, he will have that already taken care of, I'm trying to sell him something he doesn't need, even if it's just a feature. Okay, now, if you also look that I went down the road to see who's in charge of their backups, is married, backup everybody's device, or do they do that themselves, the client really didn't know. But again, it's a conversation. I'm really trying to understand anything and everything that's going on. And I know when you guys as it guys are watching this, you're hearing all sorts of problems and challenges with the way Jason runs his tow truck company. There's a few more. Okay, so, so Jason, part of our assessment is to look at your connectivity that's coming and the connectivity that's coming into to atrophy, the connectivity that comes into Bakersfield, and then the connection between the two. And what we like to do is, I want to make sure that you're getting what you're paying for. So in order to identify that I'm gonna need a copy of your internet bills and phone bills. Can I get those from Mary? Or shall I deal with crystal on that? You'll get them from Mary, we had a mountain not a few days ago. And I'd sure like to know if you can find anything valuable in there. Okay. Yeah, absolutely. Look at that little piece of information. Some of you guys understand the value in asking for phone bills, okay. And if you don't, the reasoning is, we can get somebody out of a out of their internet contract, or the bandwidth contract or the long distance contract by moving them to a different carrier, and possibly saving them a lot of money. I mean, many times, we've went in there, and we've had clients give us our phone bills, and they're been paying for t ones for 15 years. Okay, as y2k pricing on them, then we come in, we not 15 $100 off their internet bill or their phone bill. And that justifies a big portion of their managed service bill. But there was a way that I asked him, I didn't say, hey, let me see your phone bill. So I can see if I can save your money, because we don't always do that. Right. But what I said was part of this job of this network assessment is to ensure that the internet companies are delivering the product that you're paying for now, in order to do that, I'm going to need your phone bills. Okay, so that's how I did that. And that's how I'm going to get his CFO or his office manager to give me access to those so I can then take those phone bills, give them to my master agent, to then price them out. Okay, and then see what if there is a way I can save them some money and put it to my art to put it towards my ROI. All right. So Jason, just one more thing. It's very obvious. You guys are reliant on technology. I mean, I'm walking around here and everybody either has a phone to their phone to their face, or they're, they're connecting to something on the truck or they're billing or dispatches sending trucks somewhere or what have you. But I gotta ask should we come on board and one of my guys answers yes, instead of No, or screw something up or technology fails, that ends up taking you down for an entire day. What would we be on the hook for as it relates to lost revenue? efficiencies lost bringing in overtime for tamps? or what have you, if you had to put a number to it? You know, I looked at this not recently, just because I wanted to see what that look like, because, you know, you can look backwards and see 2020. And right now, based upon the amount of accounts we have, it's about 25 or 30 grand a day. Yeah, I don't find that hard to believe. So I guess we're really gonna have to watch your P's and Q's. He's got to be better. He's got to be better, because we've dealt with a lot of poor in the past. To hear you say that. Well, Jason, I got a lot of good information here. I'm going to spend the rest of the afternoon speaking to some other people. Eric will be back here. You'll see him running around, he doesn't talk much. But if anything else pops up, can I can I knock back on your door and get some more questions from you? Absolutely. Jason, thank you very much. I appreciate your time, we'll be in touch. Sounds good. I found the other side of our math problem. Now, if you notice, I didn't say I didn't just come right out and say, hey, how much does it cost you guys to be down? What I said, is I teed it up, I'm like, Hey, now I understand you guys do a lot with technology. Everybody's running around talking on phones, working on computers, sending invoices, doing your credit scores, back and forth, all that stuff. It makes me wonder if one of my guys were to take your network down for an entire day, what would we be on the hook for? That's what I said. Because when i when i when i position it like that, it puts his guard down. And he always wants to give you a number. And we got a number, I think it was 25 $30,000. So if you if you look at what we have right here, okay, with this 16 minute conversation, we ended up finding out that he was down for three days because of that backup issue, then he had a day down for, for the migration issue. That's four days he was down. And then he told me he was it cost his company $25,000 a day to be down. If you do the math, you're already started your ROI. Okay, now, what I'd like you to do with this video, okay, is think back of all the issues that were teed up, and all the different reasons to buy and how all those different reasons to buy are going to fall into place with the different features of your managed service offering. And there's some things that we went down the road, we didn't get a hit on? Well, those are the things I'm not going to talk about. Now, this conversation was very typical of whom we're going to have conversations with throughout the office, some are longer, some are short, okay, some you're going to get you're going to get information out of some you're not. Now also what's cool, is, every time you have a discovery conversation with somebody in the office, you become wiser about their situation. And that allows you to tee up what you learn from one person to the next person's conversation. Like, for example, right now, I just found out that they were down for three days because of this big backup issue. Well guess what I'm going to do when I'm talking to the CFO, I'm going to find out how his day was affected. I'm going to find out how the sales manager's day was affected. I'm going to find out how everybody else's day was affected because of those three days. Because now everybody's gonna have a different reason to have those servers not be down. Does that make sense? I took one issue and I'm gonna find many different reasons because of that issue. That's the proper discovery. conversational, not interrogation, lots of listening, transitioning global questions, and seeking to understand "