IAM1713 – CEO Enhances Customer Experience Through Digital Transformation

Orrin Klopper Teaser 00:00

Fortunately, we have quite a detailed involved strategic planning process that makes us look quite hard in the mirror. So one, our dreams program and focusing on what our people really want in their lives I think is part of our secret source. And number two, having a strategic planning process. It's not the fanciest process, but it's an honest process where we really look at our strategy and what we are doing and decide as a team what we need to change.

Intro 00:27

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, 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.

Gresham Harkless 00:54

Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresh from the I am c e o podcast and I appreciate you listening to this episode. If you've been listening this year, you know that we hit 1600 episodes at the beginning of this year. We're doing something a little bit different where we are repurposing our favorite episodes around certain categories, topics, or as I like to call them, business pillars that we think are going to be extremely impactful for CEOs, entrepreneurs, and business owners, and what I like to call the CB nation architects who are looking to level up their organizations.

This month we are focused on technology. We're a technology company that does dot, dot, dot. Technology is no longer an afterthought or something that you might do and is actually a core part of your business. If you are a real estate investor, you're using it. If you're a financial firm, if you're a cleaning company, an author, or speaker, you are using technology. If you are in any business, you are using technology, and if you're not, then you're probably going to be disrupted by an organization that is.

So this month we are going to look into purposing episodes that are around technology, whether that be firms or organizations that are actually using and investing in technology as a core part of their products and services or potentially those individuals that are using and leveraging CEO Hacks and CEO nuggets that center around technology and sharing ways that we can leverage it as well. Remember that you are a technology company that does dot, dot, dot. Sit back and enjoy this special episode of the I AM CEO podcast.

Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast. I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Orrin Klopper of Netsurit. Orrin, excited to have you on.

Orrin Klopper 02:26

Thanks so much, Gresh, excited to be on the show.

Gresham Harkless 02:29

Yes, absolutely. It should be a phenomenal time and before we jumped into the interview, I wanted to read a little bit more about Orrin so you can hear about some of those awesome things that he's doing.

And Orrin is the CEO of Netsurit, a $30 million MSP firm that grew to a hundred-plus people and 30 million plus dollars in revenue through acquisitions and organic growth. Globally awarded Dreams program as a key part of the Netsurit aspirational culture. And he went to nine schools as a kid and only got expelled from three. So six out of nine is not that bad

He enjoys swimming, traveling, and vino or wine. Excited to have you on the show or to talk about all the awesome things you're doing in your journey. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

Orrin Klopper 03:09

Yes. Thank you, Gresh.

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Gresham Harkless 03:10

Yes, absolutely. And six out of nine are definitely not bad at all with the awesome things that you're doing. So I guess to kick everything off, let's rewind the clock a little bit, and hear a little bit more on how you got started. What I call your CEO story?

Orrin Klopper 03:22

Yeah sure. I think if I look back at my time in school, I thrived under teachers that I really respected and with where I didn't necessarily connect and respect the teacher, let's just say, I was a trouble and a problem in their class. I realized pretty early on that I probably need to navigate and architect a way that I can travel the entrepreneurial journey and did various things. I got a student loan to pay for my university degree.

During that time, I did everything to make money from selling books and magazines for my brother's business on Sundays to selling shoes and clothing at restaurants and building sites to throwing parties, and eventually a friend at university invited me to come and sell computers and engineering calculators. Long story short, that's how the journey started. And yeah, I suppose over 25 years ago, that's where the journey started. And here we are today.

Gresham Harkless 04:31

I love that you had that entrepreneurial spirit, it sounds like from day one, and it sounds like no matter what it is, you were able to excel with it.

Orrin Klopper 04:38

Yeah, it was. Always, supported by great people and friends. I've never been one of those entrepreneurs, Gresh that's just done it on my own. Always had people around me or close to me that believed in me and gave me a chance long before the imposter in me would've believed I deserved it.

Gresham Harkless 04:59

Yeah, I appreciate you sharing that, and I think so many times when you see people with so much success and you don't see that imposter. You just see the highlights of all the things that they're doing. But I'm a big believer that a lot of times to reach certain altitudes, you have to have a great environment around you.

I'm biased in the sense that I don't feel like we go through this journey alone. And especially when you reach success, I think there are at least some people that have sacrificed or done some things, even maybe hold the door open in some form, shape, or fashion for you to get to where you should be.

Orrin Klopper 05:26

Yeah, I have such a long list of people and it's in my mind and just hearing you say that I almost think I actually need to just go and write all of them down that I want to thank and just go through a full gratitude exercise over time to make sure I explicitly thank the immeasurable number of people that have helped me hold a door open and given the opportunity.

Gresham Harkless 05:50

Awesome. So I wanted to drill down a little bit more hear a little bit more about what you're doing with Netsurit. Can you take us through how you're serving your clients and making that impact?

Orrin Klopper 05:57

Yeah, sure. Our purpose as a business is to support the dreams of the doers. The primary pillar of that is really around the aspirations of our culture, not people. So we've created and aspire to create a culture that really, is the infusion of both your work and your personal life and allows you to pursue what you really want in your life while still doing truly great work. We believe if we can find and keep great people through that, we in turn will we be able to find and keep great clients.

How do we support our clients in achieving their goals and objectives? We take our knowledge of their business and we've got various ways in which we grow our knowledge of their business. And in turn, we put forward technology recommendations and services that have a meaningful impact on the success of their business.

From a service perspective, there are three core services. One is our managed service, which is really a monthly retainer that we are paid to look after their technology environment, from the way the users access their email. Through to how they might be experiencing the speed of their technology environment. We become that one point of contact to support them.

The second piece is from a security perspective, we are looking to really shore up any potential risks in their technology environment that could result, could potentially result in them being hacked.

Then the final piece of our service, which is a piece that we're probably the most excited about from a differentiation perspective. The service is called Innovate, and it's also a monthly engagement where if you're paying us $5,000 a month, we will find a $60,000 ROI in your business based on leveraging the adoption of the technology you already have by your team, reducing the risk and automating whatever processes can be automated using predominantly the Microsoft technology framework Gresh. We are not really in the Google space and that's just really exciting because what it's doing is it's taking the risk out of it for our customers, and what it essentially does is it's enabling them to see the return on the technology investment they've already made.

And a typical customer for us is 25 to a1000 user environments.

Gresham Harkless 08:40

Nice. So I think you probably already touched on this a little bit. I usually ask for your secret sauce, and it could be for the organization, yourself or a combination of both, but is it that innovation piece that you guys have launched, do you feel like that has been a strong part of what sets you apart?

Orrin Klopper 08:54

So I think there are two parts to this in my mind. One is, at the heart of our culture and the people dynamic within Netsurit is us learning what you really want in your personal life and your life overall and can that be realized being part of the Netsurit and family.

So at the heart of my personal secret sauce has been, I've been doing a dream book, which is really your top 10 personal goals and dreams visualized since about 2004. And we introduced it in the business in about 2008 Gresh. And so we've had the Dreams Program ever since. So in my mind, definitely part of our secret source. And I think, when we look at the fast growth that we've gone through and the fast growth that we are planning, protecting the culture is probably the single most important thing. I think this is our Dreams Program and focusing on what people really want in their lives is a part of our secret source.

I can tell you now, there've been times where we've done acquisitions and the interpretation has been that this is some grand scheme to manipulate them. And eventually, people realize it's not a fad or it's not a gimmick. This is in our DNA and then the second part of our secret source, I think is as an entrepreneur, and I'm sure you've seen it in your journey too, we never arrive. So if I go back 10 years, how easy it was for us to find customers and close new business. When I look at the level of marketing investment, it has exponentially changed. So the need to differentiate, Is more important for my type of business than ever before. And so fortunately we have quite a detailed involved strategic planning process that makes us look quite hard in the mirror.

So one of our Dreams Programs and focusing on what our people really want in their lives, I think is part of our secret source. And number two, having a strategic planning process. And it's not the fanciest process, but it's an honest process where we really look at our strategy and what we are doing and decide as a team what we need to change.

Gresham Harkless 11:18

Awesome. Awesome, awesome. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit and I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an app, a book, or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

Orrin Klopper 11:29

I use a gratitude journal every day. I get to it most days and it's really three sections, at least three points on what I'm grateful for. And then three things I wanna make sure I get done today and then an affirmation statement. You can buy it in book form, either on Amazon, it's called the Five Minute Journal, or you can get it in an app. It's free. And I just find that instead of looking at my phone first thing in the morning, I literally, I'm going to my gratitude journal and instead of looking at messages and so forth and, the first thought for the day is gratitude.

Because that's how I started the day. I found myself almost looking for it during the day because that's how I started. And that was the initial seed that I planted. And then the other one that that's really just had a huge impact on me. And this might be less unique, but when I'm meditating, Whether it be five minutes or 10 minutes, or 20 minutes a day in the morning, particularly in the morning, the quality of my thinking and the quality of my listening is exponentially greater.

Gresham Harkless 12:40

Absolutely. So would you consider that to be what I like to call a CEO nugget? Little bit more word of wisdom or a piece of advice. And it might be something you would tell your favorite business client, or if you hopped to a time machine, you might tell your younger business self.

Orrin Klopper 12:53

Revise the way we show gratitude publicly. And he broke it down into two categories. We kept the wow moments, but he came up with a new category, which is called Sawubona. Sawubona in Zulu means I see you and I could tell you now, I literally looked at it because we ran our star satisfaction server every six months after he implemented that.

Literally, you saw the gratitude just reached its high level, the highest level ever in the business. And yeah, I think there is a balance. Some people don't like to be thanked publicly and be aware of that. I think that's the minority. But we have a culture where people are learning and we want to thank people. Do it as often as publicly and as authentically as possible, because I think if it becomes too flippant and superficial, then it'll lose its value. But I definitely think it's a huge untapped force in a culture that can be leveraged so easily.

Gresham Harkless 13:52

I absolutely appreciate that. And now I wanna ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. We're hoping out different quote and quote CEOs on this. So Orrin, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Orrin Klopper 14:02

A huge sense of accountability. I look at some of the tough decisions that I've had to make and sometimes Gresh that meant actually letting people go because of the eco-macroeconomic or business challenges that we are facing.

When things are tough, when we're getting it wrong, look in the mirror and hold yourself as the CEO accountable. And when things are going really well, find someone to really recognize and give credit. And I think finally, what does it mean to me to be a CEO it feels like a massive honor and a privilege. Just the hugest honor and privilege.

Gresham Harkless 14:46

Absolutely. Orrin, truly appreciate that definition. 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 hold of you, find about all the awesome things you and your team are working on.

Orrin Klopper 15:02

We offer a free innovative business automation assessment. You can text me on my mobile. Love responding. I'm very responsive. If you can text me on 917 517 7763 and just include Innovate Business Automation in that text, innovate Business Automation. And yeah, just feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn and yeah, Gresh really appreciate the opportunity of having me on your show today.

Gresham Harkless 15:38

Yeah, absolutely. I definitely appreciate you for your time and all the awesome things that you're doing. Of course, we're gonna have the links and information in the show notes as well too so that everybody can follow up with you, text you, and find out about all those awesome things.

I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Outro 15:50

Thank you for listening to the I am CEO podcast, powered by CB Nation and 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.

Check out the latest and greatest apps, books, and habits to level up your business at ceohacks.co. This has been the I AM CEO podcast with Gresham Harkless, Jr. Thank you for listening.

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