When it comes to entrepreneurship, sometimes your biggest obstacle is you—and getting out of your own way and empowering employees is the recipe for success.
Wayne Hunter started Allen, Texas-based MSP AvTek Solutions in 2004. Over their two decades in business, AvTek evolved from a consulting firm to an MSP, and has since gone fully remote. Through all these changes, the business has thrived, breaking the million-dollar mark and creating a quality MSP culture that actually feels like family. Here’s how they did it.
The Biggest Entrepreneurial Challenge: Delegation
While Hunter has faced plenty of challenges over the years of running his MSP, the biggest lesson he had to learn was how to step away. “My biggest challenge was to get out of my own way,” he says.
When you start a business, you’re running everything, Hunter explains. “You’re the chief, bottle washer, cook; you name it, you’re running it. You’re got all these hats you wear, but the hardest thing is to let go of those hats, hire people, and give that responsibility to them. Give them the guidance and the vision, but let them go do the job, so that you can focus on other things.”
Delegating is hard for many business owners, and Hunter is no exception. However, in order to grow, you have to face the fact that there’s only so much time in a day. You simply don’t have time to work tickets and scale the business.
This was exactly the reality check that made Hunter intentionally take a step back and hire more staff. While his employees had been telling him to take some things off his plate, it wasn’t until a particularly disastrous Friday, when Hunter ended up working a few tickets to help out, that the point stuck. “That Monday, my tech said, ‘If our CEO has to work tickets, then it’s time for us to hire somebody,’” Hunter says.
While Hunter’s first reaction was to dismiss the concern, taking his technician’s advice ended up paying dividends. Not only did Hunter recognize the importance of delegating tasks, but acknowledging and acting on his employees’ request also opened up a new line of communication. “When they spoke up, they were heard,” Hunter says. “The whole dynamic changed.”
Shaping the Culture with a Family Dynamic
This open line of communication is a major component of AvTek’s company culture. “Culture is everything for me,” says Hunter. “It didn’t used to be; I didn’t understand it.” After the reality-check moment that taught Hunter how to delegate, he started reading up on how to create a quality MSP culture and began incorporating ideas from the books he read.
A major test of AvTek’s culture came in 2017, when staff asked if they could work fully remote. Technicians already worked remotely when doing projects within customer sites, so there were already some processes in place, and Hunter’s lease on AvTek’s office space was about to end.
“I said, ‘We’ve got three months, let’s try it out,’” Hunter says. “As long as our communication, processes, and how we took care of clients did not falter, then I [was] game. Everyone agreed that if we couldn’t do it, we’d come back to the office.” But that didn’t happen, and AvTek has been fully remote since January 2017.
In fact, Hunter says their culture is stronger than ever. “But you’ve still got to get that [social] interaction, even when working remote,” he says. To this end, Hunter individually greets his entire team via Teams each morning. The AvTek team also takes it offline twice a year for their State of the Union.
“I started doing it two years ago, in January and June,” says Hunter. “I bring my employees, their spouses, their kids, their dogs… everybody together, at one location. We have two work days and two family days together. When I’m doing presentations on where we are as a company and where we’re going, the family can sit there and listen in with the employees. They’re included.”
Many people find a biannual retreat a bit extreme, but Hunter finds it invaluable. “The amount of collaboration and involvement from everyone across the board—doesn’t matter their job—and smiles instead of stress is so much better. Culture, from how you treat people to how you communicate, has actually made my job so much easier,” he says.
Related: From Culture Shock to Cultural Revolution: 5 Steps to Improve Company Culture
More Advice for Other MSPs
From creating processes to marketing, things are better done than perfect, Hunter advises. “I’m absolutely insane about being a perfectionist—but that can hold you back,” he says. “Think about the plan, and implement something. It doesn’t have to be exactly right. You can always fix it, but if you never implement something, you’ll never get anywhere. You can’t just plan all the time; you’ve got to do it.”
As the company’s leader, it is also important to strategically spend your time—not just stay busy. “You can always make yourself busy,” Hunter says. “I can think of a thousand things to do—but do I need to be doing them? That’s the hardest question entrepreneurs need to ask themselves. Is it worth it to the company for me to be doing this, or should I be doing something else, and let someone else do it?”
Hunter recently joined host Robb Patterson on an episode of the My First Million podcast. To hear more from Hunter about continuous learning, the advantages of joining peer groups, and how to find employees that are a perfect fit for your team, tune into the episode here.
