IAM1292- CEO Improves Efficiency by Leveraging on the Right Technology

Proven Problem Solver – Uncanny Ability to Connect with People – I Execute and Get Results

Through continuous learning, health and fitness, and emotionally balanced life, Victor strives to be the best version of himself in order to provide leadership and long-term improvements for his employees, clients, family, and friends.

He is an agile, quality-focused operational driver, critical thinker, and primary technology leader credited with automating hundreds of business processes.

Being a strategically focused executive who values security, Victor has helped companies mitigate risk while improving efficiencies by leveraging the right technology. Most companies don't even know how vulnerable they are, or that they can improve many of their processes by leveraging the right tech.

• CEO Story: Victor started his passion for tech while working in his dad’s construction. IT Trailers were installed on-site and there goes the young kid full of curiosity. He pursued his passion, got his degree, and cemented it with a Master's and MBA.
• Business Service: Solving the business needs of a company. Bringing in the tech automation
• Secret Sauce: Vendor agnostic – looking at the business need and coming up with a solution. Technology success partner – tech solutions that will make the business more efficient. Tech security.
• CEO Hack: Being ahead of everything that’s happening – preparation.
• CEO Nugget: Take care of yourself. Working out and continuous learning. Access your true potential.
• CEO Defined: Being the number one educator in the organization. Teaching everyone else.

Website: deskside.com

Linkedin: @vcalabrese , deskside

Instagram: @vxcalabrese , @desksidetsp

Facebook: @vxcalabrese , @desksidetsp

Twitter: @vkase , @desksidetsp

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Transcription

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00:19 – Intro 

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, start-ups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

00:46 – Gresham Harkless 

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO Podcast. I have a very special guest on the show today, Victor Calabrese of Deskside. Victor, it's great to have you on the show.

00:54 – Victor Calabrese 

Awesome to be here.

00:56 – Gresham Harkless 

Yeah, super excited to have you on, and before we jump to the interview, I want to read a little bit more about Victor so you can hear about some of the awesome things that he's working on. A proven Problem Solver with an uncanny Ability to Connect with People, he executes and gets results through continuous learning, health and fitness, and an emotionally balanced life.

Victor strives to be the best version of himself in order to provide leadership and long-term improvements for his employees, clients, family, and friends. He is an agile, quality-focused operational driver, critical thinker, and primary tech leader credited with automating hundreds of business processes.

Being a strategically focused executive who values security, Victor has helped companies mitigate risk while improving efficiencies by leveraging the right technology. Most companies don't even know how vulnerable they are, or they can improve many of their processes by leveraging the right tech. So that's why Victor's here. So, Victor is super excited to have you on. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO Community?

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01:49 – Victor Calabrese 

Yeah, absolutely.

01:50 – Gresham Harkless 

All right, well let's make it happen then. So, to kick everything off, I wanted to rewind the clock a little bit and hear a little bit more about how you guys started what I call your CEO Story.

01:58 – Victor Calabrese 

Yeah, man. So I started back, every time somebody asks me this, like, it keeps getting one year more, right? So it's been 26 years that I've been in the IT game. I started back on, believe it or not, a construction trailer. That's how I got started back before servers were a thing in an office suite. I was working for my dad. My dad's always been in construction and back when I started, I got out of school, so I was a little more tech-savvy than most of the people that are out there and they just started getting servers on at offices.

So being in construction, offices are trailers. You put them on-site, you have a trailer, and they got the server, and nobody knew what to do with it, right? So they would set it up. It would break. It would come online. It would be offline. So being a young kid was kind of a little bit into the technology stuff. I started playing with it and I fell in love with it, and that's how my entire technology career started.

I just started learning more and more and more. I became a tech, and at that point, I started doing a lot more technology-oriented stuff. But I was also always enamored with the business world, right? So I love business. I love business operations. I love the financial aspect. So after I finished my Master's in Information Systems Management, I went back and got my MBA and with the merge of those two degrees, I was able to start my executive leadership career in the IT industry.

03:28 – Gresham Harkless 

Nice. I absolutely love that and definitely to hear you're beginning the 26 years, so sounds like you're just getting started, just scratching the surface, so to speak and it reminded me a lot. I don't know if you ever heard of Mark Cuban's story of how he started, but I think he worked in an electronics store and he always said people would come in and ask questions.

No one knew the questions or the answers to the questions, but he would always read the manual. So because he read the manual, it put him so much farther ahead than everybody else, and he ended up being that go-to person largely because he fell in love with it, and he did those extra things that helped him to be that go-to person.

04:01 – Victor Calabrese 

Yeah, absolutely. And it's he's not the only one that has that same story. So, continuous learning is a huge thing for me. That's one of my pillars. I'm writing a book, and one of the things that's in that book is continuous learning, right? We should never stop learning. On multiple for multiple reasons. One's for what you're talking about, right?

Being able to grab that knowledge and be able to access it as things come up. But the other side of it is all of that neuroplasticity that happens in the brain. So as long as you're learning, you're not aging as quickly. So one of the things that I keep telling people is, you don't wanna die early. Just keep learning.

04:37 – Gresham Harkless 

Yeah, there you go, that's the key to the Benjamin Button, right? You'd be able to kind of lean into that, but I think it's so huge, because I almost feel like, and I don't know if you feel the same way that there's an art to learning how to learn as well too.

So it's almost as if once you start to continuously learn new things, continue to scratch the surface and get better, it helps you to kind of learn how to do other things sometimes that we aren't really as natural in doing because you kind of learn the art of learning, if that makes sense.

05:03 – Victor Calabrese 

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely and there are different ways. People are there are different types of learners, right? There's auditory, there's visual, and there are people who have to experientially learn. So you have to learn what type of learner you are, and then you're absolutely right. You go and you learn something new, something that you may not like. And how many books I've started that I just never finished and that's okay. You just start. You go through it and maybe something that you love, there's other stuff that I just fell into that I love that I'm like, wow.

I wanna learn more about this kind of, this topic. So, you're absolutely right. Just keep learning whatever it is. You'll find the stuff that excites you and the stuff that just turns you off, and you just walk away or just keep going.

05:39 – Gresham Harkless 

Yeah, absolutely. It's something that we didn't learn from school, that you can actually take a book, read it, and realize it's not for you, and put it down, and actually try to find ultimately what is your thing. So absolutely love that you've been able to do that, and you mentioned now, being able to get your MBA and get your Master in Technology as well too.

I almost feel like those two worlds are starting to merge together where you always hear that you're the business that does technology, you're this business that does technology. It's not that these are two separate worlds. So I imagine that's a lot of what you help out clients with. So I wanted to drill down here a little bit more about what you're doing at Deskside, and how you're making that impact on the clients you work with.

06:19 – Victor Calabrese 

Yeah, yeah. And it's actually that's a really great point. So one of the reasons why we started Deskside is because we had another company, another MSP back in the day that we ended up selling in 2016. It was more of a traditional MSP where they focused more on the technology. They actually separate the need of business with technology as you had pointed out. One of the biggest things that they used to say there is, let us concentrate on the technology so that you can concentrate on what you do best, your business. Well, you're absolutely right. I saw it after we exited that business. I saw that technology, and schemes have changed.

You can't separate business from technology anymore. It's actually one of the reasons why we built Deskside. Deskside has a very big focus on business needs, procedural needs, and the technology that would best fit or best serve that need. So we bring those two together. So I can talk business with a CEO or COO, an executive leader, and actually say, tell me about the business points. Don't worry about technology. Technology, we'll talk about later. But talk to me about the operational needs, the efficiencies, your P & L, and your financial needs. Talk to me about those things and then from there, those are the business needs that we can then plug in technology.

Maybe there is a better accounting package. Maybe there is a better system that will automate a process or make your employees more efficient, but that's more of a discovery kind of thing. Once you have all the foundational technology in place, which every single MSP can do these days, what they can't do is then look at the business seeds and bring in the right technology to serve those needs.

07:55 – Gresham Harkless 

Yeah. That’s so powerful and I almost feel like, it's meeting people or organizations where there are. And it almost feels like, the way that you approach it, technology becomes a tool, we don't get ruled by technology, which we sometimes feel like we have to do this piece of software because this is the only software that there is. When you have that kind of, it sounds like business foundation focused, you start to realize and figure out what things fit in to ultimately reach your business goals. Am I right in saying that?

08:25 – Victor Calabrese 

Yeah, absolutely. And you hit on another important point that really it's a pet peeve that I have with many of my competitors out there I don't care what technology solves the problem, right? I don't care if it's in Microsoft or Google or if it's Zoho. The technology itself shouldn't be the thing that we're pushing. I want you to tell me why you want that specific software.

So once you understand the business needs and how the business works, that's when the MSP or the technology service provider will go in and say, you know what, for your particular case, you should be using this, and that's where we should be doing better as a technology industry, not so much serving our margin, but serving the business needs and bringing the right technology to the table to serve those ends.

09:18 – Gresham Harkless 

Yeah, that makes so much sense and I appreciate you enlightening me and breaking it down because I think so many times you want people to walk the walk instead of just talk the talk, or do a combination of both. And I think so few people actually walk the walk, so I love that, you've been able to do that.

So, would you consider that to be what I like to call your Secret Sauce? This could be for yourself, individually, the business, or a combination of both, but it's essentially what you feel sets you apart and makes you unique. Do you think it's your ability to for lack of a better term, it sounds like empowering your clients and customers so that they can ultimately reach their business goals and their aspirations?

09:48 – Victor Calabrese 

Yeah, absolutely. So there are 3 pieces to our secret sauce. The thing that made us change from the traditional, managed services model to what we call TSP or Technology Success Partner, the one is that Vendor agnostic piece, where we are truly vendor agnostic. We're gonna look for the vendors that best suit the needs of the business, not the vendor that's gonna make us the most money because we're increasing our margin.

The other one is all-around the technology success partner where we come in, understand the business, and can actually bring solutions that will make the business more efficient or solve a business problem. The third one that is really big these days and that a lot of my competitors out there are really not able to solve this the technology security piece. There is a split within the MSP market where there's now an MSP, which is a Managed Service Provider, and there is an MSSP, a Managed Security Service Provider.

Those two are actually two separate companies, and they'll actually work with each other. So one will contract the other to work as the security arm, where now the client has to deal with two separate vendors. Deskside solves that problem by doing both. So we are both an MSP and an MSSP, and we understand security, and we not only understand security where we're pitching all these things to the client, but we're actually doing that stuff ourselves.

So we are a hundred percent. It's one of our core values. Security is actually something that is one of our core values. We talk to our employees about it, we live it. I have a Yubico key that accesses every single thing that I have. MFA is foundational for everything we do, so we understand security. We understand how it's a layered approach and make sure that we have these different layers within the organization ourselves as well as our clients. It's really important to make sure that they're secure.

11:44 – Gresham Harkless 

Yeah. That makes so much sense and I don't know if you know, but I appreciate you sharing each of those aspects of your secret sauce. And so I wanted to switch gears a little bit, and I want to ask you for what I call a CEO Hack. This might be an app, a book, or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

12:00 – Victor Calabrese 

So with with me, it's all about preparation. So, the traditional Monday to Friday doesn't work for me. I like to be at least a day before, so I end up starting my week on a Sunday. I prepare on that Sunday when you don't have all the emails. You don't have all the employees bothering you. You're kind of and then this is not something that other CEOs aren't doing. I know a lot of CEOs are doing this stuff, so you start on a Monday and I end up ending on a Saturday. So I'm working seven days a week, but it's not truly work because I do enjoy it.

But my hack is actually being ahead and after the fact of everything that's happening. I'm always trying to get some sort of list, some sort of thing going, making sure that my emails are all done, and my checklists are all done. So start early, and plan. I like starting my day at least two hours before anybody else does, and I end up ending my day an hour after everybody else does. But that's my little hack.

12:59 – Gresham Harkless 

Appreciate you for sharing that and so I wanted to ask you now for what I call a CEO Nugget. So this is a little bit more of a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. It might be something that you might be packing away in your book or something you might tell your younger business self if you were to hop into a time machine.

13:14 – Victor Calabrese 

Yeah, that's awesome. It is absolutely in my book, but the one-piece of nugget is to take care of yourself. That is one of the things that is so overlooked because I see so many very successful people dead at 55, dead at 60 years old, or not happy, right? So one of the things that I tell everybody is you have to take care of yourself with nutrition, with working out, with continuous learning, with there are so many different facets, but all those things do such a great service to you being able to access what I coined your true potential.

Being able to access your true potential will actually get you to where you wanna be faster than if you're trying to just grind all the time and just get all that work done by just working, working, working, working, right? So take care of yourself first and then from there, you can start accessing your true potential. True potential will allow you to do so much more with less time, and then you'll see everything else just start falling into place.

14:16 – Gresham Harkless 

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So, wanted to ask you now my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different quote-unquote CEOs on their show. So, Victor, what does being a CEO mean to you?

14:26 – Victor Calabrese 

To me, it's being the number one educator in the organization. The one leader is the one who is able to teach, and I spend a lot of time just teaching everyone else. Because the reality of it is, if you're doing all the work, you're never gonna get anywhere, right? And trying to give work to other people who don't really understand it is not gonna get you far either.

So what you wanna do is be there, teach them, get them to a point where they're doing more than you can ever do, and then you just start replicating that, and replicating that, and replicating that, and before you know it, you have a crew of people that are doing way more than you are able to do by yourself, and that's when you start being successful.

15:08 – Gresham Harkless 

Absolutely appreciate that, Victor. Of course, I appreciate your time even more. So, what I want to do now is pass you the mic so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know, and of course, how best people can get a hold of you, find out about your upcoming book and all the awesome things that you're working on.

15:24 – Victor Calabrese 

Yeah, absolutely. So the best place to find out about the company is deskside.com. We're on every single, social media platform as Deskside TSP. Again, I wanna be a resource for those people even if it's just to have a conversation, my MSP told me x, y, and z. Well, that sounds right. I'd love to be there for that. But, again, deskside.com or LinkedIn is another platform that we use as Deskside TSPs is where you can find this. Please reach out. Be awesome for me to help.

15:56 – Gresham Harkless 

Yeah, absolutely. And to make it even easier, we'll have the links and information in the show notes as well too, so that everybody can follow up with you. Thank you so much for empowering so many organizations today as well, and I hope you have a phenomenal rest day.

16:08 – Victor Calabrese 

Yeah, absolutely. And thank you for having me on the show. Love the show and listening to, a bunch of episodes. Thank you so much.

16:14 – Outro 

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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