Battle Scars of a Sales Leader
Understanding the stories of resilience, strategy, and leadership is essential for success in the competitive sales world.
James will uncover the raw and unfiltered real-life experiences of sales Leaders, exploring the ups and downs and lessons learned in the high-pressure sales world.
Battle Scars of a Sales Leader
From Imposter Syndrome to Leading a 65-Person Sales Team | Samantha Borg
James sits down with Samantha Borg, Senior Director of Sales for Kaseya in Australia and New Zealand, to uncover the secrets of successful sales leadership.
Samantha reveals the lessons she's learned during her seven-year tenure at Datto and Kaseya, including the importance of hard work, passion, and building a team that thrives on trust and accountability.
Navigating the challenges of imposter syndrome, managing a large go-to-market team post-Datto acquisition, and dealing with underperformers—Samantha opens up about the emotional and operational aspects of sales leadership. Her candid reflections on balancing empathy with assertiveness and the demanding nature of VC-backed software companies are eye-opening. Learn how she leverages fundamental sales processes and mentorship to overcome these obstacles and lead her team to success.
Lastly, discover the strategies Samantha employs to hit sales targets, understand the path to deal closures, and maintain a cohesive team culture amidst significant acquisitions. Drawing inspiration from experts like Simon Sinek and James Kerr, she discusses eliminating organizational toxicity and aligning team goals. Tune in for invaluable insights that aspiring sales leaders won't want to miss, and connect with Samantha for more guidance on LinkedIn, where she actively engages with the professional community.
It's not a job for the faint-hearted, and I don't expect it to be. He said Sammy, I just don't know if you're going to make it.
James Bergl:Were you working nine to five? Oh fuck, no.
Sam Borg:No, no, no, no. I would love to even do that now, to be perfectly honest, but I think good leaders are hard workers and they don't watch the clock.
James Bergl:From selling denim to recruiting to running a 65-person software sales team. I had the chance to sit down with Samantha Borg today. With Kaseya, we went into her framework for success, her daily routine and her philosophy for how she successfully builds high-performing sales teams. Enjoy the show, sam. Incredibly excited to have you on the show today.
James Bergl:Battle scars of a sales leader. This is a podcast that we've thought about for a while. My experience as a sales leader is that when you look at brands, organization, vendors, individual sales leaders, on the surface they're a little bit like ducks. They're often very calm, collected, they're beautiful, but underneath those legs are going crazy and those legs have often got a lot of scars with them. So the fact that you and I have worked together I know some of those scars that we both faced over the years together. But I would love to explore some more of those scars, some of the lessons that you've learned what it was like to move from non-sales sorry, non-tech sales into tech. Sales kind of a little bit later on in your career to what a lot of people do. Sales kind of a little bit later on in your career to what a lot of people do, and what your career trajectory has has been like. So, for those that don't know me, don't know you, sam, please give us a quick introduction yeah, cool.
Sam Borg:So samantha borg, uh, senior director of sales for kaseya for australia and new zealand, um yeah, so I've been been in the company for for seven years now. I'm actually spent about five of those years over in new zealand, uh, leading the go-to-market team there and growing out the Kiwi operation. And then came back about a year and a half ago to run Australia and New Zealand have about 65 or indirect reports at the moment with seven sales managers. So it's been crazy kind of continuing to grow and scale at the velocity that we've had and I sometimes pinch myself saying why me? So, yeah, plenty of battle scars to share.
James Bergl:You've earned the right to be that senior director and you've grown and you've progressed Like you've absolutely earned it and I was. You know I look at with pride and excitement to watch what you've achieved, like I'm really really proud of what you've done. If we go back to a little bit of the earlier side of your career actually I want to go back to before you even got into recruitment like you jumped into recruitment. You were in recruitment for a number of years. Like what drove you to jump into recruitment in the first place.
Sam Borg:It's such an interesting question. I did. I think I'd gotten to recruitment when I was about 23 and spent five years there, and prior to that I worked in retail for eight years and always thought that I would sell denim for the rest of my life, just loved it. I've always been quite a passionate person, like whatever I did. I worked at the cinema and in hospitality, I suppose, and I went to, I went to retail. I was working two, three jobs, going through school as well. I've always just been really driven. I forgot your question, but that's okay. Do you want to tell me?
James Bergl:Yeah, no, the question is you know what, what, where? How did you go from you know selling denim into recruitment? And I then want to say, like what was that transition going from you know five years of placing salespeople into vendors to actually going? I want to try this myself as well.
Sam Borg:Yeah, it's, it's. It's a really good question. I think I've always had a natural curiosity for people and for problem solving. I actually did a gender studies and cultural studies degree and I really learnt kind of the inner workings of the mind and people and why they do what they do, and so I think I was drawn to recruitment because it kind of brings people and a whole lot of those things together, I suppose. And then you know, I spent five years doing that and I loved it. A lot of battle scars, even from, you know, my old sales director and my old general manager. We used to spend a lot of time crying and fighting and yelling and actually just blood, sweat and tears trying to get deals across the line, which I will never forget. But I feel like I hit a bit of a glass ceiling in that role and it was a 30-man company. I just looked at my career what's next?
Sam Borg:And I really, I looked to tech and thought, hey, fast paced, really innovative and a good opportunity for me to cut my teeth and to somewhere to see myself long-term. So that was what inspired me to move to tech. I think I used to recruit for Alex, the old HR director, so he put me in touch and then I think we also knew what's his name the Autotask guy.
James Bergl:Adam Ross.
Sam Borg:Adam Ross sorry, adam ross, adam ross sorry. We also had a mutual connection in him, so uh naturally took a look at data. I did about 14 or so interviews and uh fell in love with the place and, yeah, obviously to be under your leadership was um, which was incredible.
James Bergl:So well, I know, I definitely remember the first time that I met you. I was just like before we'd even been through many interviews. It's just like we need to get sam on board. I just I loved your energy, um that you brought. I love the love, the drive, the absolute desire to win, and you've still got that in abundance today, which is absolutely why you are where you are. It's interesting, we swapped roles.
Sam Borg:We have.
James Bergl:What's interesting is some of the organizations we're working with today. They specifically say I like to have people that have been in recruiting. I like recruiters and I remember thinking this as well when I was a hiring manager, because people often don't like recruiters and you get a lot of rejection, a lot of nose, a lot of nose and a lot of doors slammed on you and a lot of people that just don't want to deal with you. And I think if you can get your skin that tough, then that sets you up for a really strong career in SaaS sales.
Sam Borg:Yeah, 100%.
James Bergl:So can you remember? You know your first year working in Datto and what that was like, and you know I remember some of the conversations that we had and I'd love to get your opinion. There was a learning curve. You never thought you had a doubt in getting over it, but what was that like for you to go through that process?
Sam Borg:I think about this a lot. I I share this war story with, with a lot of my reps that, uh, I remember just going again fuck, have I done? I really don't understand this. And I was in the trenches for the first three months and I even remember my old boss, adam. He said Sammy, I just don't know if you're gonna make it. I'm like you're probably right, brother, I don't. I just don't know if you're going to make it and I'm like you're probably right, brother, I don't really know what I'm doing.
Sam Borg:But I persisted and the one thing I had was my hunger and my aptitude to have a call and ask questions. And you know, I remember putting hours into figuring out what these products were and where they fit into the ecosystem. But one thing that I just made sure I went back to was my roots and understanding sales process setting up appointments, asking the right questions, really getting to understand the partners and what their needs were. And then I just jotted everything down and I had billions of questions and so, yeah, I think it was really tough and I don't think that it clicked for me, probably until month four or five, and I really came into my strides.
James Bergl:In those first four to six months when you're going, I don't know if I'm going to make it. I always knew you were going to make it, but I can, I'm going to have words with Adam. How dare he speak to you like that. But what are you? What are you doing Like? What sort of activity are you doing Like? What are you telling yourself to persevere and break through that barrier of of just like? I'm in deep here and I don't know what I'm doing?
Sam Borg:Honestly, I reckon I'm a bit of a sucker for punishment. It's, it's. I'm. I'm fine with the, with the discomfort and being in the trenches and just figuring it out. But yeah, I think it's just going back to basics. Is you will get there, you're competent, you're capable. Ask the right questions and you'll figure it out. So I don't think there's much more to it than literally pushing through, are you?
Sam Borg:working nine to five oh fuck, no, no, no, no, no. Um, I would love to even do that now, to be perfectly honest, but I, you know, I think good leaders are hard workers and they don't watch the clock. Um, but it is blood, sweat and tears.
James Bergl:It's early starts and it's late nights it's working over the weekends and yeah, because and it's the reason I ask that because you know we're in this funny um phase. We've gone through COVID, we're going through this concept of hybrid and it's all about like looking after the employees and having um, having uh, flexible work and um. There's this at times, this woke community where you know we have to look after our staff, otherwise that they they may report us or you know something like that. But reality is, the reality is there is a direct correlation between work in and output as well, and you've just absolutely proven that. It wasn't the concept of a nine to five, wasn't even your vocabulary.
Sam Borg:No, yeah, and it's something that I continue to reflect on right as we grow and hire and scale businesses sorry, scale reps in our business is how do you find somebody that's inherently successful, kind of motivated, to put in those extra yards without asking for it? It's you know, if your boss says jump, you say, well, how high and how many times do you want me to jump, and what is it that I need to do to prove myself? There's no sense of entitlement and that's very much something you know when you know you haven't quite asked the question yet, but from a hiring perspective is like you certainly want to try to find those people that are okay with putting in those hard yards and not complain about it, and they understand that hard work is what it takes to get to the top. So, um, people that have to get up early and jump in the swimming pool at four in the morning, um, that's what we look for in terms of that grit, because it's bloody hard to find.
James Bergl:Yeah, it's. It's interesting, um, cause I'm now going through this phase of of startup business here in Australia again and I'm I'm thoroughly enjoying it. I have terrible days, but I have really good days as well, and I've actually had to, like proactively implement new things in my life Not necessarily new things, but just bring in the concept of exercise and training and eating healthy and not drinking too much and sharpening my blade now that I'm frontline as opposed to in leadership, and what I've noticed is that with sports and with endurance or with anything really where you have to push through boundaries, like one is you're training your muscle, that resilience and how to get through that, but two, you're also demonstrating that you can survive the tough times as well.
Sam Borg:I often ask that question of how do you sharpen the saw and how do you continue to develop your skill set, both mentally and kind of physically. Because I am naturally drawn to, and I think, people that have that grit put in the hard work, they listen to self-development books, they go to the gym, they've got a routine and they just have structure in their life and the way that they go about their day and they take pride in that. So, um, it's not necessarily even a trait, because I think resilience, determination and all of that is kind of table stake stuff for a salesperson. How do you structure yourself for success and how do you? Do you want to be better, where do you see yourself and what steps are you taking to to actually get there?
James Bergl:no, I love that, but the next step in your career is then going into people leadership.
Sam Borg:Yeah.
James Bergl:And that is another whole thing. Again talk to me a little bit about what that transition was like. I mean, initially, I'm imagining it started off with a small team and now you've got 65 in the rest of the course.
Sam Borg:That's bloody crazy.
James Bergl:What was that? That that? Um, if you could reflect on like initially, when you were first a sales manager, like what was that like?
Sam Borg:yeah, uh, look, I think the first thing you need to overcome in transitioning transitioning from an individual contributor to, uh, a management type role is, you know, the fact that the either limelight's no longer going to be on you and your performance and your excellence. I actually remember one of my partners in new zealand. I've had a really good relationship with him. He's like one of the challenges you're going to have to think about as you're a leader is that they get the limelight. And I kind of thought, going into that, oh, that's an interesting thing. I wonder how I'm going to go with that. Anyway, so that was the first hurdle to overcome and going oh shit, I've actually got to care for other people. It was interesting.
Sam Borg:I started with quite a small team in New Zealand. I had a couple of reps underneath me, but I was still kind of contributing to the business and had my own quota and then I took on the team quota. Yeah, it kind of feels like it's gone super quickly and it feels like six months basically, but I started with about three. And then when the Datto acquisition, or the Xeia acquisition of Datto happened, I was in New Zealand it was actually in Australia at the time when it was announced and the SVP was there and he said you know what's your appetite? To come over to Australia and maybe run the go-to-market team for us. And I said, oh God, my roots are here in New Zealand. I've built such a great business. Love everyone dearly.
Sam Borg:I don't know again imposter syndrome. I don't know again imposter syndrome. I don't know if I can do it. Why are you looking at me? I'm just running little old New Zealand kind of thing. And then over the course of really the last year and a half, we added about I think we had 30 last year and then the most recent count as of last quarter was 60 odd reps. So it feels like it's gone super fast and it's now no longer something that concerns me that it's not me at the top and that that thrill you get from seeing them succeed is far outweighs any any kind of joy that you get on on an individual or a personal note can you reflect on any stories in that first yeah, six months when you're managing people, you're like I don't know what to do in this situation.
Sam Borg:Oh, I'm trying to think of some examples. I think you know I'm a bit of a softie. I'm a bit of a softie at heart, I'm quite emotional and you know, it's really finding that balance of empathy versus assertiveness and providing direction and what to actually do in the right context. I suppose I'm trying to think of an example.
James Bergl:Let me give you a topic performance management. Okay, yep. So performance management is something that I struggled with when I became a people leader, probably 10, 11 years ago, and I remember having to have a conversation about someone's underperformance and they were not going to be with the business too much longer and I didn't sleep the night before. I tossed and turned, I literally could not sleep because I was just petrified of having this conversation. It was horrible. It's still the worst part of the job, but that was something that I personally really struggled with, and I mean, I don't know what your situation is with regards to that, but how do you handle underperformers? Because you must have had some.
Sam Borg:It's really tough, right, it's something that we've had to. There's been a couple of tough conversations we've had over the years. I think it starts with understanding its expectation setting on, making sure that they understand what the role is and what's expected, and I think it's always then starting with the opportunity to let them know what's going wrong. And I think, when that fails and you kind of go into that performance improvement plan territory, what I've learned? It's not easy, because I'm naturally empathetic as well and I do see the best in people.
Sam Borg:I think it's both a weakness as well as a strength, but it's taking a step back to say, well, you know, I've got a number to hit, I've got millions to bring in per quarter, and naturally so does the sales manager and so does that individual rep, and if they're not paying for their seat effectively, we really need to start to think about, well, what's going wrong and why.
Sam Borg:So then we go into that kind of structured performance improvement plan territory where we really do need to be black and white and let them know what's at stake if they don't deliver. So I suppose a couple of learnings in removing the emotion or the personal side and really thinking around what's best for the business and what's best for me in terms of my success and the sales manager's success, that you know if it's not quite right then we do need to call it, and I've had tough conversations where we've had to let somebody go and they got teary and then you know, trying to hold back those tears as well. You want to show the empathy that you care for them, but it's probably not the right job. So if anyone's got any tips for how to do it without it impacting you, we'd love to hear it. But I reckon it's one of the toughest parts of the job.
James Bergl:No, I think that the way you described that is, I don't think there's a right or there's probably some wrong ways to do it, but I think that you know, you're certainly certainly directionally similar to the sort of conversations that I would have with people. But I want to shift gears a bit into what I would would describe as as the leadership aspect. And you know, in in software sales and most companies, but in particular us vendors that we both had experience with is is, they can be, um, you know, relatively full-on let's call it full-on with their expectations. They've got big expectations. They're often v VC backed, they're driving the business with a level of aggression and expectation on numbers and that filters down. It's heavy at the top and it gets lighter towards the bottom.
James Bergl:But there's going to be times where you miss the number number to hit whether it's macro or micro reasons in your, in your control, out of your control, you, you're steering a ship with 65 reps that are all fighting for the same goal of success. How have you navigated? Can you think of a time where where you've been behind that number? And how have you navigated and pulled the entire team together and rallied the troops and actually changed the direction from being deflated to actually a turnaround and a success story.
Sam Borg:Yeah, and you're absolutely right. I mean, if you can't handle the heat in sales, it's probably not the right industry to be in, particularly in a SaaS-based business. The targets do continue to grow and that pressure only gets more and more every quarter, and so there's a definite acknowledgement there. There's certainly been quarters where we've been close to missing and all we've missed, and certainly as you get larger, the responsibility becomes more and more. The risk of that also is increased, right, because there's more people under the fold and you take more risks on people as you grow and scale the business too. So, yeah, I mean there was a time quite recently where we missed. That's on you, and so it might be at the rep level. That doesn't quite get to their commit, but that times 10 and then a sales manager rolls up the wrong forecast. That's ultimately on me and it's my responsibility to course correct. And so it's just going back to the basic making sure that at every deal we understand every single step. To close why won't it come in? Why will it come in? Are we using Bant or are we using Medic or MedPick, or what's the nature of that sales cycle? Do we understand the path to purchase for that specific solution and where can I plug the gaps? Because it's not often, you know, it's not out of the blue, right, and could we have actually had three or four eyes on that problem to be able to prevent it sooner? So it's again, I don't think it's, it's not magic wand type stuff. It's going back to the fundamentals of what are we calling, why was it called, why didn't it come in? And then what can we do to course correct and move forward.
Sam Borg:So for us what's what's really important is having a regular cadence of forecasting, both at the sales manager level as well as the individual one-on-one rep to manager level. So they'll run it as a pod weekly and just drive that accountability piece for what they say they're going to do, and then the manager to rep one-on-one. We call it a PBR or kind of a TRC process and we run through pipeline kind of cleansing and make sure that all the notes are there and if we don't do that something gets missed, right. And you know, when we're running a business at scale and the expectations are so high, it happens. And I suppose some of the learnings that I've had and I recently inherited two more sales managers and about 16 new sales reps is. You know it takes time to build that trust in understanding what your sales manager's calling. You've not worked with them for a while, so you expect that the number they give to you is is is the number and you know I've.
Sam Borg:yeah, I really need to strip that back.
James Bergl:And how do you build trust with your leadership team to ensure that that what they're calling is correct and that you guys are completely inter interlinked with expectations?
Sam Borg:So you know trust is built day by day. It's definitely something that happens over time. I think trust for me has always been being able to it's accountability. It's doing what you say you're going to do and I think for me it's leading from the front, is putting myself in their shoes and being on the front line with them saying well, would I have called that and what are the questions that I might ask in this process to help validate whether it will or won't come in? I think it's. You know, it's really common things like it. I mean really table stakes stuff of doing as you say you're going to do, making sure you advocate for them and have their back, and they might make a bad choice, but at the end of the day you've backed them and if they've made a bad choice, let's work through it and let's figure out how not to make that bad choice again. So everyone builds trust slightly. You know you earn my trust, I earn yours, and then we figure out how to work together dynamically.
James Bergl:Yeah, amazing. You've talked about what I would describe with how you operate in the month, with a lot of rigor in terms of process, methodology, inspection of pipeline and cross-references, etc. What does a typical day, if that's such a thing, look like for you?
Sam Borg:One of the misconceptions you'll have as you get into sales leadership is that you've got more time and in fact I need to schedule bathroom breaks in my calendar to ensure that people don't book over so I'm not back-to-back. A typical day is pretty busy, so there's a lot of rep and partner calls where we take our partners through our vision and what we're working on and some of the problems we're solving um anywhere from. You know a one-on-one to my sales management team. Maybe it's a senior leadership uh roundup as well. Um planning. We do kind of project kickoff calls, um, a lot of uh, a lot of quote approvals, deal strategy. It's, it's. It's a busy, it's a really busy day.
Sam Borg:I typically start from a personal perspective working out. I'm up at 6am, I work out every day. I'm in the office fairly early and I'm in back to back to backs and then we work and we hustle and we rinse and repeat. It's not a job for the faint hearted and I don't expect it to be so. I wouldn't be where I am if I didn't work hard. I don't expect it to be so. I wouldn't be where I am if I didn't work hard. Some days I wish that I had a bit more breathing space to have more of a strategic lens, but it's such a variety.
Sam Borg:And yeah, I love it but I'm going to be a bit mad.
James Bergl:Yeah, it's fascinating because, you know, I've watched and I've observed the business go from strength to strength after the Kaseya acquisition and I'd before um, that happened with with no knowledge whatsoever, but culturally there was a slight difference in the um, in how the business is operated. And yeah, I've learned stuff in watching you, in watching derma, in terms of of how um the business would get run and and I've I thought that's a really good idea. You know some things, um, you go I'd probably do things differently, but there's a really good idea. And there's some things you go I'd probably do things differently, but there's a lot of things in terms of the rigor of the process, the inspection. I think, like you know, I'd have loved to have to have probably applied some of that and I think it would have been positive in how we ran things.
James Bergl:But I guess a question for you is and you've adapted incredibly well you know, being a key performer with a business for five years before acquisition, that's often hard. It's often difficult to transition when left foot, right foot, you know what you're doing into. Hey, this is our new commands, this is how we operate and it unsettles a lot of people. There's a lot of unsettledness and some people can cope with change and some can't.
Sam Borg:I, I'm kind of no frills in my approach and I think I might have said this to you throughout the acquisition that I don't really listen to outside noise and I'm here for a very important mission to serve my partner base and the MSPs that I've kind of grown really fond of and I really love our community. It was abundantly clear when the announcement was made that they have a very similar or we have a really similar goal to live and breathe for MSP and the problems that you know that they live with, I suppose, and how we can alleviate some of that stress. So it was less traumatic for me. I think you know the feedback of the wider community. You know, naturally, we competed with them for years. Right, you competed with Kaseya.
Sam Borg:You know I've always looked at competition as worthy rivals and that's something I got from Simon Sinek. Is that it's not? You know, we want to compete with the best of the best and to go head-to-head with a worthy rival. You learn and you go from strength to strength. So I think, um, definitely the merging of the two has made us stronger and, uh, I'm still here because we're, you know, we're serving the msp community in a really good way and, um, at least even at an apac level, the the merging of cultures was was awesome, so we were quite lucky and, um, yeah, I think we're kind of living and breathing to tell the tale, and you know we're in it and you know we make some fuck-ups and we make some mistakes, but we listen to them, we hear them head on and, um, and we're quite obsessed with trying to fix that for the community too.
James Bergl:Yeah, and how do you handle that? And I think I love what you say you block out outside noise, outside noise, even water cooler chat as well. Yeah, that can be cancerous within an organization if you get a couple of pockets of people that spread misinformation or just negativity or toxicity. I imagine that you've experienced part of that, like, how do you have those conversations with those individuals or how do you handle that situation, because you, in my opinion, you need to stump toxicity out of an organization.
Sam Borg:Yeah, 100%, and it's not even necessarily been my experience at DataWalker say. It was certainly something that I've been exposed to, I mean in my former life as well, but when there's toxicity in an organisation, you're 100% right you need to squash it, and it's a straightforward conversation. The same way the Women's Improvement Plan is. It's what's your understanding of what's gone wrong? Why has this gone wrong for you? How can I course correct? And you know, let you know what the truth of that is, and you know if it continues, then it's it's not good for either of us.
James Bergl:So, you know, there's the door. Yeah, no, I, I completely agree. Um, I, I think that and I had a saying um, the tribe is spoken. Yeah, you know, if, if there's there's toxicity within a business, if there's someone that is just going against the grain, like, it's important that that is eliminated. And there's a great book by James Kerr on the New Zealand All Blacks. Oh yeah, what's it called?
Sam Borg:I don't know. I think I know it, though I've heard of it.
James Bergl:Yeah, it'll come to me, but they talk about a lot of like core business principles and how to really talk about a lot of like core business principles and how to really and it's how do the All Backs achieve that greatness in the field of rugby? And it's very much about the team. No one is bigger than the team is a philosophy as well. So just because someone's a great rep, it does not mean they're great for your business.
Sam Borg:Yeah, look, I actually think that that's super important. And even kind of going back to what makes a great rep doesn't necessarily make a good leader and it doesn't necessarily mean that they're right for your organization. And you know, if I even reflect on some of the learnings or the challenges, it kind of goes back to those people that are raw and hungry and you know they're really open-minded and you can kind of coach and develop them and they're kind of on the bus, I suppose. So, yeah, it has a lot of impact, I suppose.
James Bergl:Hybrid working work from home, work from office, hybrid working. Kaseya, have got a reasonably straightforward line, from what I understand, that we expect you to be in the office. Yeah, Talk to me a little bit about about that.
Sam Borg:I love it. I love it. It. We're in a high performance, sales driven organization. Uh, collaboration is key. You know we're in the office five days a week, whiteboards everywhere, boardrooms, um, towards the end of the quarter, we had two days sorry, two weeks of accountability and whiteboards. You, we used to be bored of truth with um, with you back in the day, um, so it's very much something which we consistently do and, um, everyone's numbers are there to see and if we need anyone, they're just. They're just down the corner. So, um, I love it. It did take an adjustment and I thought, oh, why people doing this? Uh, I honestly wouldn't have it any other way now. But, um, yeah, each to their own, I think yeah no, I.
James Bergl:I admire Fred for doing it. You know, I think Elon Musk made the headline saying that he wanted everyone within Twitter or X to go back to the office. D yeah, people threw their toys out of the pram and they quit and they left. It happened at Kaseya. I admire it because it's taking a strong stance to say this is what we believe is the right. It's against people that didn't want to do that, but I think it is for the best. And you know what? Before COVID, that's what we used to do. That's been normal.
Sam Borg:There was no concept. There was no concept of this hybrid thing. Yeah, exactly. And particularly if they're young and they're new, they have nothing but questions, and if I have to bottle them up and save that for the end of the day, that you know you've lost interest.
James Bergl:basically, so just um, just closing, I wanted to touch a little bit on, you know, the big announcement that Kaseya made. So there was the there was this huge announcement, loads and loads of hype about, uh, kaseya transforming the way in which MSPs are able to do business. Talk to me a little bit about what that was, was and what the response has been like in the partner base and what the impact has been for you guys at Kaseya.
Sam Borg:Yeah, I appreciate you bringing that up. Actually, I live and breathe this stuff. You know us as a company. There's a couple of challenges that we set out to solve and Kaseya 365 is kind of the embodiment of us alleviating all those challenges. So, you know, we think about the MSPs having so many vendors that they work with consistently, and what Crystalize, or what Kaseya 365 has done is has enabled us to offer a single subscription or SKU that allow MSPs to manage, secure, backup and automate their end users environment for quite a you know, an attractive cost.
Sam Borg:So, changing the unit economics of the industry so that an MSP or an end user doesn't have to choose about whether they have complete security, an MSP is able to offer something at a really quite attractive price. And what does it mean for them to increase their profitability by 40% per endpoint that they manage. So it's been exciting, it's. You know our partners have thought this. You know they can start to transform and revolutionize their business because, you know, in a market that is becoming quite commoditized in the way you know, backups, commoditized endpoint security, antivirus you know they need to workflow integrate, they need to save technician time, they need to be priced right so that an MSP can actually feel profit, so it's been nothing but good news, but yeah.
James Bergl:I have to say I did speak to a partner that's become a friend and he said he's just moved to autotask and kaseya recently and he said through that process he was able to save five thousand dollars a month on his monthly bill. So, um so he was absolutely delighted and says it's amazing. And there's the. The innovation has been, um, yeah, significant, um, so no, it's, it's great to see that I still still be bleep blue. Um yeah, I'd love to see that the business continue to flourish and personally, I've loved watching your progression and excited to see what you do next yeah, thanks you too.
Sam Borg:Thank you so much for.
James Bergl:Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you on the podcast. It's been a great chat. Really enjoyed it. If anyone um listening wants to connect with you, ask you any questions or learn anything about Kaseya, how can they connect with you?
Sam Borg:yeah, yeah, I'm Samantha Ball. You can add me on LinkedIn. I won't give you my my mobile number, but you're very welcome to connect with me on there and I'll direct you to the right area. You can text me.
James Bergl:Very, very wise.
Sam Borg:Very wise, exactly. Thanks so much.
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