Mike Ita WINS by supporting one niche specialization.

Host Carrie Richardson sits down with Mike Ita, founder and CEO of IT Corps, a managed service provider based in Ohio. Mike shares his inspiring journey from a general IT consultant to a highly successful niche business specializing in IT services for veterinary practices. He talks about the challenges and triumphs of carving out a unique space in the market, his strategies for building lasting relationships, and how IT Corps adapted to industry changes driven by private equity and cloud-based technologies. This is a must-listen episode for entrepreneurs, IT professionals, and anyone looking to specialize their business in a competitive industry.

Episode Highlights:

• [00:00:29] Mike's start in IT Corps after a business partnership fallout.
• [00:01:44] How a sick cat led Mike to discover his veterinary niche.
• [00:03:41] Early challenges in acquiring veterinary clients and the breakthrough at the Midwest Veterinary Conference.
• [00:05:52] Mike's transition from attending events to speaking at them and gaining more clients.
• [00:07:45] The explosive growth of IT Corps' veterinary client base after a successful conference.
• [00:10:17] How private equity acquisitions of veterinary practices impact his business.
• [00:14:33] Telemedicine opportunities in veterinary practices and Mike’s attempt to break into the market.
• [00:18:12] Carrie and Mike discuss niche specialization and pricing strategies in IT services.
• [00:26:47] The importance of maintaining personal relationships with clients and Mike’s approach to customer retention.

Notable Guest Quotes:

• "I realized I loved working with veterinary clinics—they’re appreciative, and the relationships are just better." – Mike Ita
• "People love their pets, and they’re willing to pay for the best care, including making sure their systems work efficiently." – Mike Ita
• "Specialists can charge whatever they want. If you’re a specialist in veterinary IT support, you set the price." – Carrie Richardson

Guest Information: Mike Ita is the founder and CEO of IT Corps, a managed service provider that focuses exclusively on veterinary practices. With years of experience in various industries, Mike pivoted to specialize in veterinary IT services, helping clinics manage their IT infrastructure more efficiently. He’s a frequent speaker at industry events an

Carrie Richardson and Ian Richardson host the WIN Podcast - What's Important Now?

Serial entrepreneurs, life partners and business partners, they have successfully exited from multiple businesses (IT, call center, real estate, marketing) and they help other business owners create their own versions of success.

Ian is certified in Eagle Center For Leadership Making A Difference, Paterson StratOp, and LifePlan.

Carrie has helped create and execute successful outbound sales strategies for over 1200 technology-focused businesses including MSPs, manufacturers, distributors and SaaS firms.

Learn more at www.foxcrowgroup.com

Book time with either of them here: https://randr.consulting/connect

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Carrie Richardson: Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Carrie Richardson and I am your host for WIN, What's Important Now. Today, we're asking that question to Mike Ita of IT Corp

[00:00:09] Carrie Richardson: It Corp is a managed service provider located in Ohio that specializes in working with one specific industry. Tell us a little bit about how you started that business and how you chose that niche, Mike. 

[00:00:22] Mike Ita: I fell into running or owning IT Corp it was birthed out of a partnership that was going downhill.

[00:00:29] Mike Ita: We'd been together for 6 years and we were profitable up until we weren't. there was a lot of speculation on where that money was going because I didn't handle the finance side of it. And we decided to split up and I took the most of the main customers because that's what I came with started core.

[00:00:47] Mike Ita: I had been a consultant before, doing different jobs for different companies. But I never. Owned a company all by myself. I decided to take it on because either I go back to working for somebody or I move [00:01:00] forward and make something great.

[00:01:01] Mike Ita: I learned a lot of stuff in the first couple of years. I had worked a lot of different industries. Finance, sometimes government. Lawyers, doctors . And it got to the point where I like them. They were great industries, but I realized I always felt like there was something missing.

[00:01:17] Mike Ita: So fast forward a couple of years. I had this cat and he was starting to get sick. I had taken him to this clinic for a while, and I got to know the doctors and the staff pretty well, and they'd always complain about their computers and how bad they were.

[00:01:30] Mike Ita: They just didn't run right. And I'd always make a joke. I'd be like, I know a guy and I didn't hard sell anything. I left it on the table and I always would walk in and out of there. And this cat had kidney problems, so he was in and out every couple months, or he'd do checkups and stuff like that.

[00:01:44] Mike Ita: They had two locations, and I would take my cat to the the closest to me. They had a main location that was 20 minutes south of me. He wasn't doing well. I took him into the main clinic because that's the only appointment I can get last minute.

[00:01:57] Mike Ita: So I got him in there talking to the [00:02:00] staff and they're like, Hey, here, we're talking to IT companies. I was like, okay. So she's do you want to talk to manager? I said, yeah. So the manager comes into the exam room and she's Hey, we're looking for companies. if you're interested, whatever.

[00:02:10] Mike Ita: I said, I'm very interested. She's you work with veterinary before. And I was like, huh. I had never worked with veterinary before ever. And I was like, of course I have. And the cool part about it was, anything has a process, right? If you're logical, all it is logic, in my opinion.

[00:02:26] Mike Ita: There's some inherent knowledge you have to pick but logic dictates everything in this space most of the time. And I've been doing it for a while to know that I could figure out. One of my skills is being able to sit down and look at something and break it all down piece by piece and put it back together and make it either better or just nurture it I could do this. So they interview five companies. They choose us. And that starts my first veterinary customer and really fast, I realized that I love this space. The doctors are super appreciative. There was very little condescending. a lot of times when people get stressed in certain industries they treat you [00:03:00] poorly.

[00:03:00] Mike Ita: Or they expect you to show up right now, or they just have that tone. And I experienced that a lot with government and some, other industries, I like doing what I do, but it's not nice when somebody decides to have a bad day on you. So anyway, I'm starting to work with these guys, and it's going well.

[00:03:14] Mike Ita: I really like the space. Now it's time to go after more, I want more veterinary customers. So how do I do it? I did what a lot of people might have done. , I started reaching out to them directly, or I was sending out packets of information or letters like, hey, come check us out.

[00:03:27] Mike Ita: We work with your space . And there was really no return. And I got one off of Facebook, which is odd. I'm really surprised about that. So I decided to call. I start looking around the industry and I'm like, where do these guys go for more information, learning, credits and stuff like that.

[00:03:41] Mike Ita: So in Ohio, in Columbus, they do a big event every year called the Midwest Veterinary Conference. So I call them and I say, Hey, I want to set up a booth at this event. What does it take? She's what kind of product do you have?

[00:03:54] Mike Ita: I sell IT services to veterinary clinics. She go, we're looking for a product, if you [00:04:00] got a product to showcase because this is what it's all about. I was like, okay. So do you guys have any sponsorships? She's yeah, but how many? She's three. She's we have one that nobody ever sponsors because it's too expensive.

[00:04:12] Mike Ita: They would give out little flash drives with all this stuff on it . 

[00:04:14] Mike Ita: So nobody sponsors that. I said, okay. So hypothetically speaking, I said, if I did all three of those sponsorships, , Could I get a booth? She's let me call you back. Half hour goes by, phone rings again.

[00:04:24] Mike Ita: She's you'd be a really good fit for us. So I literally bought my way in and it was an easy way to get in front of those people. And by September, they already booked up, it goes in February, right? So Most of the stuff is already reserved.

[00:04:37] Mike Ita: So I couldn't get in that year. So I plan to go to the following. So from that September to that August, the next August, I had put together a product. So I took a BDR. I was something I built with, super micro board and it was powered by storage craft. And I put a logo on.

[00:04:56] Mike Ita: I called it system retriever I paired it with. An [00:05:00] off site data center in Cleveland here. I rented some space in the rack and I would pump all the data from the BDRs to that. So that became my BDR on site with an off site, recovery piece.

[00:05:11] Mike Ita: So that's what I brought to the conference. I bought my booth, got my stuff set up and it was going well. We were meeting doctors actually, not just, staff that comes by to pick up your swag, we had doctors come by what are you guys doing here?

[00:05:23] Mike Ita: Who are you? We got a chance to introduce ourselves . So we got a couple prospects. I think we might have gained 1 or 2 customers from that initial run. And then we would go back every year for a couple of years. And I got to know the people that run the event and , I'm like, how do you speak at this thing?

[00:05:40] Mike Ita: And they were like, what do you mean? I go, I want to. Get up there and talk to people about IT and security and the things that matter, so this guy, he's okay. He's we've never had an IT company do that. you're the first IT company at this thing.

[00:05:52] Mike Ita: so what are you thinking about talking about? I said, I don't know. he's well put together like six presentations. with just name and description, submit them and we'll get [00:06:00] back to you. I'm like, okay. So I do that. I send them all out and I'm not really a big public speaker guy.

[00:06:08] Mike Ita: I'll speak to a small group of people to train you, but I've never been in front of people to talk to people, but I'm like, hell with it. I'm going to go for it and see what happens. This guy calls me back in two or three months and he's Hey, you got your presentation.

[00:06:20] Mike Ita: So I was like, cool. I go, which one? He's like all six. I go, Oh, and this is like a four day event, right? I'm like, Oh, which ones? He's like all six. I go. Oh, Okay. So I'm like, great. I go. So all like to a day thinking they're going to space him out.

[00:06:37] Mike Ita: He's no, all 6 in the same day.

[00:06:38] Mike Ita: Back to back. I had a half hour in between each 1, right? Or whatever it was. I'm like, freaking out now and I got to give credit to another person it's not a plug or anything, 

[00:06:47] Mike Ita: I call him on the phone. It's Manny Palachuk. I told him the whole story and he just starts laughing. He is dying on the phone. He's ha. He's you are going to learn that day, buddy. So I go, will you come up and co speak with me?

[00:06:58] Mike Ita: I said, so you can keep me on pace. I said, so I don't [00:07:00] screw this up. He goes, absolutely. So he does. It was a total slam dunk. We probably had 90 to 100 people in the room the whole day. Most of those people stayed the whole day. A lot of the same faces were there for each presentation.

[00:07:15] Mike Ita: And I decided to take a quick break after because we had 4 or 5 people at the booth I told everybody, I'm like, Hey, I got, I need a break. I need to go eat. I, after it was all done, it was like, I don't remember what time, like six o'clock at night.

[00:07:26] Mike Ita: And everybody's calling me like, Hey, you need to get to the booth. There's like a line of people waiting to talk to you. So I run back to the booth. There's 15 or 20 people there waiting.

[00:07:35] they're all owners and managers. like, we want to work with you. in my head, I'm like, this is crazy. So sure enough, I ended up with 10 new customers, solid new customers.

[00:07:45] Mike Ita: The other ones were, potentials, but it was crazy. It was like something out of a comic book. You know what I mean? So that's how it started. And that was like the catapult to just staying in this space. So over the next couple of years, I stayed there and I nurtured it.

[00:07:57] Mike Ita: The BDR was going well. It seemed to be a good [00:08:00] compliment for their business. They could relate to the name and all they cared about was their stuff working. Honestly, they were so appreciative. The doctors, only thing they cared about is they could enter notes. They could dictate, they could do all the fancy stuff.

[00:08:11] Mike Ita: And when they printed a prescription label, they have to worry about screwing around the label printer for half hour, , and as long as everything worked, that is the only thing they ever cared about. 

[00:08:20] Mike Ita: That story I just told you got me on the cover of Channel Pro in 2017 actually, about the BDR it just seemed like it made sense Didn't want to give my money to Datto.

[00:08:30] Mike Ita: Datto was still, they had their altos and they had all that stuff. Then, they signed the agreement, but you're putting money in their pocket. And I was like, I could do this and take all the money and I could be profitable from that.

[00:08:40] Mike Ita: It just made more sense to me and I had a good relationship with storage craft. if we, stuck around for more than 7 or 8 months.

[00:08:47] Mike Ita: We became profitable on it, and I had warrantied them for three years, and I had nothing but parts on hand,

[00:08:52] Carrie Richardson: so you self warrantied them as well. 

[00:08:54] Mike Ita: It was a no brainer. Still to this day, it's still a profitable thing for us.

[00:08:59] Mike Ita: We have only one [00:09:00] customer at this point, not veterinarian. And it's been a long term customer that we've been working with forever, . we just support their systems and their salespeople. 

[00:09:10] Carrie Richardson: How do you see the veterinary industry changing through technology in the next five years?

[00:09:15] Carrie Richardson: What will you need to do differently to support the changes in their businesses? 

[00:09:20] Mike Ita: Good question. What I need to do is the trend is in the last probably 5 years, maybe 6 now. A lot of practices, a lot of your bigger practices were private owned, so they're owned by doctors they started, they were started by a doctor, and then a lot of times as they grow and they get new, more doctors on, they become partners and they, so a lot of those, a lot of these bigger practices that have good reputations are being bought by corporations so that if you've ever heard of one called MedVet. We had four clinics up here in Ohio. In a matter of two weeks. They made an agreement with all those clinics and bought them all out.

[00:09:57] Carrie Richardson: So private equity is impacting your [00:10:00] business in a negative way at that point. 

[00:10:02] Mike Ita: Exactly. Because they keep me around for, the trend is usually about two years. We'll stick around, do the transition and they sunset us So what I need to do is decide, because these companies are bringing their own IT staff in, which means we go away, which means I'm out of customer.

[00:10:17] Mike Ita: The other problem is even the current customer base that some, but again there's like this shift. Okay. You have this corporation, right? There are people on the outside, people like you and me that don't want to deal with corporate because there's a lot of stuff there.

[00:10:31] Mike Ita: There's always a high price with corporate. No matter what, you're going to be in serious money. But corporate based stuff has typical high end lab work and all the good stuff, right? Private stuff a lot of times , you'll hit a level where they're like, we can't help you because we don't have the equipment you have to go to that place 

[00:10:48] Mike Ita: You're going to have to transition over. they're also moving into web based products. They're moving into practice management softwares that are cloud based. Where they always had a server on prem, we'd always support the server in [00:11:00] installations and new PCs, They're moving away from the traditional model of having an on prem server. In the last five years they've really moved into. Web based stuff. So their security needs, network needs, any infrastructure needs still exist.

[00:11:16] Mike Ita: You're just supporting a different piece of the puzzle. for me, it's still very similar if not identical. Unless the company that supports them, like there's a big company called IDEX. known in the veterinary space and they're, they come with a big price, But their support is top notch. we'd like to be the third party liaison for those. We prefer to be because then it keeps us in the loop. But sometimes the customer will call on their own and they'll resolve the issue without us being involved.

[00:11:44] Mike Ita: So there's a tricky part there. For me, it's just staying in the loop, making sure that they know that we're there to be there for that. It's part of their, it's part of their agreement. It's part of what they pay for. So they utilize us, 

[00:11:55] Mike Ita: I got a practice right now that has three different managers, and [00:12:00] it's like the telephone game, right? I'll get a call or a text Hey, we need you to fix this thing, I'll go in to go to fix it. It's already fixed. Then we find out later that so and so took care of it.

[00:12:11] Mike Ita: So a lot of times I beat my head against the wall, and I'm like, oh my god, if you just let me know. I don't even care if it's just a text message hey, we took care of it. Growing with that industry we're still growing with it, but it's definitely shifting. It's moving into another space.

[00:12:24] Mike Ita: I still think we're going to have private practice because people prefer taking their animal to a private practice or smaller towns that we work in smaller cities. , 

[00:12:34] Carrie Richardson: there's always going to be somebody who leaves that private equity on practice disgruntled, tired of working for private equity to go start their own veterinary clinic and then they'll realize, 8 years in that.

[00:12:47] Carrie Richardson: They're going to have to sell to somebody at some point if they want to retire and the circle of life continues. 

[00:12:53] Mike Ita: I agree. There's such a shortage of doctors. And they're already so tapped out money wise, like they're so far in debt [00:13:00] that the thought of them owning a practice is completely insurmountable for them.

[00:13:04] Carrie Richardson: I think dentists have the same experience, right? You're either born into a family where one of your parents is a dentist and they leave you their practice or you come into practice with a extraordinary amount of debt.

[00:13:20] Carrie Richardson: And you've got to go deal with that. Startups are expensive, clinics are expensive, they need stuff. I started my business from my kitchen table. I needed zero dollars and zero anything that I didn't already have on hand. I had a computer and a phone. It's all I needed. You can't really run a veterinary clinic with Things that you have on hand, 

[00:13:38] Mike Ita: right?

[00:13:39] Carrie Richardson: Are they doing telemedicine in veterinary clinics? 

[00:13:43] Mike Ita: So that's interesting. You said that because I was going to jump on that opportunity as soon as started coming around and I, I. Anticipated it getting worse.

[00:13:51] Mike Ita: I didn't know how bad it was going to get or how much stuff was going to happen. I just saw it coming as an opportunity. So I was looking at [00:14:00] registering certain domain names to be specific. I was even calling. There was a company out of California they were this small company that did telemedicine for veterinary, and I called the guy direct.

[00:14:10] Mike Ita: I go, I wanna leverage your platform, but I wanna put my name on it. I said, but I wanna sell it to these clinics. I said, I just need the infrastructure piece that I don't have. I said, I don't know if that's something you want to do. He is absolutely.

[00:14:21] Mike Ita: We don't care. We have a platform. We're trying to get it out there. I'm like, cool. So this guy and I talked a dozen times about it. We were just about to pull the trigger and then pandemic hits. And the guy didn't talk to me anymore because he blew up overnight.

[00:14:33] Mike Ita: They blew up. Their prices went from this reasonable cost product to triple in literally a week's time. And I was like, this guy don't want anything to do with me anymore. He don't need me. So I came to him with this idea and I and my customers were so on board with it at first.

[00:14:48] I had plans. I had the camera designs. everything else. I had all set up and I was pitching it to different clinics. I'm like, hey, you could add this in here and you could don't worry about contact. And You could talk to the people in the car if you wanted to, you could have a [00:15:00] vet visit with them.

[00:15:01] Mike Ita: You could have their animal in the queue and they could ask questions I don't know. It was a big thing then. it seems to be these really big practices have eight or nine doctors are utilizing like a tele vet.

[00:15:14] Mike Ita: Kind of like a product. . Nothing that we've been able to leverage though, to be honest, that we could call our own. They like, there's a couple big names in the industry. There's, like I said, there's idexx, there's Covets there's another one I can't think of. But they all have their own products and they've all been scooping up all these little products and putting 'em under their umbrella.

[00:15:34] Mike Ita: I'm working on angles with IDEX and Covetris to be partnered to sell those products. So I'm hoping to be involved with them to at least get a piece of that to make it work.

[00:15:43] Mike Ita: So that I'm somebody they call for that help. 

[00:15:47] Carrie Richardson: What's the natural progression towards diversification as you grow as a business? At some point, if veterinary clinics keep getting gobbled up by private equity, that's going to limit your total [00:16:00] addressable market. So how do you 

[00:16:02] Carrie Richardson: protect yourself against that?

[00:16:03] Mike Ita: I've been really sitting on this because I think after going to Charlotte and seeing you guys, Ian talked about that different ways to stick out in the crowd. This is a niche that we've fallen into and you've been around it for a long time. It's been very good. And I've actually considered that and, I'm getting older like all of us. And I wonder what my next what my landscape looks like next. I've spent very little time deciding what direction to go.

[00:16:28] Mike Ita: I have not spent a lot of time looking at what happens if all these clinics go, corporate, what happens to Mike, I don't know if I could retire. I don't want to retire because I get up in the morning and I'm very self motivated.

[00:16:40] Mike Ita: I've been offered a couple of different jobs , but it would have to take me away from this. Or they want me to relocate. Actually, you said Arizona earlier.

[00:16:49] Mike Ita: That's 1 place that 1 of the guys out there wants me to move out to. He's dude, he's I'll give you whatever you want. And I was like, man, 

[00:16:56] Carrie Richardson: Arizona is great until June. 

[00:16:59] Mike Ita: Yeah, right 

[00:16:59] Carrie Richardson: [00:17:00] from June to September. It is untenable to live there. Summer home in Ohio. 

[00:17:04] Mike Ita: That's a possibility and I thought about it.

[00:17:07] Mike Ita: Trust me. I did this. I sat on this for a minute. I even thought about moving to Hawaii. I have to be here. I thoroughly enjoy my customer. I've got the kind of customers that I just recommend something

[00:17:21] Mike Ita: there's no questions. Just tell me what we got to pay. There's no argument. All the customers that used to be a problem are all gone. Either I fired them or because we had to, it was just the relationship wasn't, there was lack of whatever.

[00:17:36] Mike Ita: It just was not going well. And I was like, we got to make some changes here. I want to help you guys, but it looks like it's not a good fit for us anymore. So we moved on from those guys and we now have only customers that are just what you call A level customer, they're really good people and trust us so much that I don't have to worry about a lot of pushback on anything.

[00:17:55] Mike Ita: As long as I keep doing my job and everything works, they love me, 

[00:17:57] Carrie Richardson: [00:18:00] Yeah, no, for us, it was always, you were only as good as your last appointment, yeah do you not remember the six figure ARR deal you closed last month? No, what have you done for me lately? 

[00:18:12] Mike Ita: Always. Oh, my gosh.

[00:18:17] Carrie Richardson: This is something that people are buying from Mike . They're not buying from random 4 an hour telemarketer from the Philippines. They're having a personal relationship with you . It's growing through referrals and it grows through event outreach. Are you planning a national play?

[00:18:34] Carrie Richardson: How do you either add more veterinary clinics or you charge more money? 

[00:18:37] Mike Ita: I think adding a couple clinics would be good. I'm actually going down that path. So we stepped out of the Midwest veterinary conference for a little while 

[00:18:45] Mike Ita: You can only kill so much and eat it. So we got to the point where I was like, we're getting a little bloated and that's good. And I, at that time I had five employees and things were pretty good. And like you said, they want me, a lot of the customers, they're [00:19:00] buying me.

[00:19:00] Mike Ita: They're buying IT Corp Mike Ita. And I realized that the hard way with one customer, we had a customer I had for about 16 years at some point. The most profitable customer we ever had. Yeah, at the time they were doing really well for us. And I had to step up like I, I told him I said, hey, we're gonna, we're gonna bring a guy.

[00:19:20] Mike Ita: They didn't want to hire an employee to be an IT person. They wanted to keep my guy out there 3 or 4 days a week. I said, okay, sure. So how much it'll cost to keep this dude out there. So I was that guy prior to bringing this guy out there. 

[00:19:33] Carrie Richardson: I feel like I've heard this story before. 

[00:19:37] Mike Ita: Despite how well this guy did and I trained him, I picked him out.

[00:19:41] Mike Ita: I said, this is how we're going to do this. This is how we work with this customer. They liked him at 1st. And it got to the point where he. Didn't deliver well, and I didn't know he wasn't delivering for a while, but when I found out he wasn't doing the things that we'd agreed to, it was already too late.

[00:19:59] Mike Ita: He'd already [00:20:00] burned the bridge enough that when I tried to salvage the relationship, they were like, yeah we're going to start looking for other IT companies. And I was like, damn it. And, had I been more attentive on it because I was growing, I was moving in other directions, I did not pay enough attention to it.

[00:20:14] Mike Ita: And I kicked myself for a little while for that. But it obviously I took it from the other side. I took the positive out of it and it taught me that lesson to pay attention and always be on the pulse of that customer at least as best you can and we go out of our way. We do the little things. I make an effort to talk to the management. On a regular basis, calling in more, get on a more personal level with them like, Hey, how you doing? How's this? How's that? And I actually care.

[00:20:37] Mike Ita: And I remember what gingers kids like she talks about with their kids. They're in school. They draw cool pictures and put them on the wall for, I ask questions about stuff like that, or I'll just show up . There's a really cool donut shop here that does these crazy over the top donuts.

[00:20:50] Mike Ita: I'll randomly just pick a couple of customers that day and I'll go buy a bunch of donuts at 6 in the morning. And I'll drive them out to the customers. That's my job for the day, just to go drop off donuts and shake hands and be like, really good seeing you [00:21:00] guys, call me if you need me. Nine times out of ten

[00:21:02] Mike Ita: it's always oh, by the way, we were meaning to talk to you about this thing. Oh, cool. Now I got something to do. So I put it on my list . I make an effort to do really over the top Christmas gifts and it's not super expensive, but like the one year I bought these little Christmas tree kits.

[00:21:16] Mike Ita: They were just circuit boards and wires and diet and LEDs and stuff. And I sat like for three months, I sat there every Saturday morning, three or four hours soldering these damn things together. And they were these little tiny Christmas trees. They had batteries and you turn them on and that's what I gave them.

[00:21:31] Mike Ita: And they were like, did you make this? I said, I did. So I do stuff like that. And I think that puts us a little apart because we have a personal relationship with them enough to the point where I've even befriended some of these people. We're like, good. Yes, if we ever moved away, if we, if they ever moved away, it would be like.

[00:21:48] Mike Ita: A really cool friendship, like they would still call me and be like, Hey, what's up? So we've got a really good thing going with these people. And I think that what's that also sets us apart as having a personalized [00:22:00] relationship with them. And again, that all leads back to me, though, none of my employees were doing that.

[00:22:04] Mike Ita: We, unfortunately, lost that customer. I learned really fast that. No one's gonna. Care. No one's gonna nurture this thing like I will, I don't know what has actually set us apart, other than me just being a real human being about it, and talking to these people, and actually caring about the business side, and I actually lose sleep in some, I've woken up having a solution in my head, literally woke up, and I know how to fix that.

[00:22:27] Mike Ita: I'll grab my phone, I'll write it on my little notepad real quick, and I, because I won't remember it in the morning, I've done it. And I know I'll actually lose sleep over some things like that, and I still do and I still love the space. And we finally met how many years. We've been talking.

[00:22:43] Mike Ita: When we first started talking and I saw your article in channel pro. I when I read it I sent you a message or something. I was like, hey, can I ask you a couple questions?

[00:22:52] Mike Ita: Yeah, sure. So I picked your brain and you answered everything. What was really cool to me was that you took the time out to answer questions and it [00:23:00] put me in a direction finally to go down a path and make a final decision because I was so undecided with some stuff and having the ability to have access to that was, Immeasurable, I guess for me.

[00:23:13] Mike Ita: So I've been lucky enough to meet people. So now going to channel pros most of the time I go for the people because I have some really good relationships with people that I nurture and I want to make sure we keep staying connected because life is too fast. You get too far away from people. 

[00:23:27] Carrie Richardson: You're also going to be the guy that someone calls one day with a bunch of questions that seem like day one questions to you.

[00:23:34] Carrie Richardson: And now you get to return that favor to the industry, which I think is important. 

[00:23:40] Mike Ita: I'll tell you what, it was really flattering you asked me to be on this because this is my first podcast ever, That's pretty cool.

[00:23:45] Mike Ita: I like it. 

[00:23:46] Carrie Richardson: you've got a unique business because not everyone decides to go all in on one particular niche. At what point does that become unsustainable for an MSP? Do you have an emergency plan [00:24:00] to pivot?

[00:24:00] Carrie Richardson: That's a big consideration in niche specificity. I believe that generalists can charge what the market will bear, specialists can charge whatever they want. And so if you are a specialist in veterinary medicine support. Your rates should theoretically be higher than somebody who supports any kind of business that takes their money.

[00:24:24] Mike Ita: Worst case scenario, like if Mike lost all his customers tomorrow and they were gone, what would I do?.

[00:24:29] Mike Ita: I got enough saved to last me . Also have to decide whether I'm going back to work for somebody, at that point, because there's a couple of local MSPs that I know well. I make jokes about getting old. I'm an old guy at this point I'm not there yet. Not there yet. 

[00:24:43] Carrie Richardson: There must be other veterinary medical specialist it firms in North America. Maybe it's time to have some conversations.

[00:24:51] Mike Ita: There's a handful especially in the ASCII group. I know there are a couple that exist there. There's this guy that I've talked to up here. I'm, he focuses on veterinary . He's the only other one I know of, [00:25:00] and he's a smaller company. Of the other MSPs I know around here, when I talk about what we work with, their first response is the hell kind of money's in that?

[00:25:09] Mike Ita: That's the exact words. And I'm like, you'd be surprised. I said, they have equipment.

[00:25:14] Carrie Richardson: People love their dogs. People love their cats. 

[00:25:18] Mike Ita: The veterinary space is so used to paying. It's very similar to the wedding industry. They are so used to paying top dollar for every single thing.

[00:25:24] Mike Ita: You have an endoscope, right? And they have a little foot pedal for pictures, right? That little serial pedal, right? Anybody that's been around long enough knows that there ain't nothing to a a serial cable.

[00:25:33] Mike Ita: It's a button. So that the foot pedal breaks or the cable, something happened to it. And the customer's Hey, can you fix this? I said, I sure can. They want to charge us 500 for this pedal. I said, 500? that's not worth 20, maybe 30. Total. I I don't wanna under undercut anybody. I said, but when you're getting gouged? I'm not cool with that. I said, I can fix it for you. I said, I'll do it for 80 bucks. I said that it'll cover my labor and time and parts and whatever else. I [00:26:00] always work in a fair way. My former business partner, we split the customer base a couple of years later. This guy calls me. One of the former customers .

[00:26:09] Mike Ita: Okay. What do you need? He's not helping us the way you used to. I said, okay, so let me look into what I can do for you. I'll just do an evaluation and I'll decide. And it was neglect. There was some neglect there and I stepped in and I was like, okay, so I can help you.

[00:26:22] Mike Ita: So we ended up with a customer back and that seems to be the cycle of life with things because. I like to get things nice and functional. I document the heck out of it and things tend to keep working unless somebody breaks it or it's a power outage and something gets taken out, stuff like that.

[00:26:40] Mike Ita: My job is easy for the most part. 

[00:26:42] Carrie Richardson: Stop there now. You just got to stop right there. You're in the jinx yourself. 

[00:26:46] Mike Ita: Thank you. 

[00:26:47] Carrie Richardson: My job is easy for the most part. Yeah, great. Let's see what tomorrow looks like for IT Corp 

[00:26:53] Mike Ita: good call. 

[00:26:56] Carrie Richardson: It's like saying the traffic is good today.

[00:26:58] Carrie Richardson: I really appreciate you coming and sharing with [00:27:00] us today. Happy to be the 1st podcast probably won't be the last. We have a whole network of MSP focused podcasts and everybody's always looking for guests. So I would I would definitely talk to them and make their rounds. You've got a good story. 

[00:27:14] Mike Ita: Thank you. I appreciate that. 

[00:27:16] Carrie Richardson: Thanks for being here today