The BMK Vision Podcast

In this episode of From the Trenches, MSP expert Josh Peterson interviews David Prince — longtime MSP owner, former CEO of Databranch, and one of the few MSP leaders to navigate both a major lawsuit and a highly successful copier-dealer MSP exit. David shares hard-earned lessons about MSP lawsuits, arbitration clauses, risk management, distressed-business acquisitions, and how he built Databranch into a profitable, acquisition-ready managed services provider.

David opens up about the moment he was unexpectedly served with a lawsuit after acquiring a struggling IT business, the financial and emotional shock that followed, and how the experience changed the way he approached contracts, partner vetting, and business protection. His insights into arbitration clauses, dispute resolution, client agreements, and legal safeguards are invaluable for any MSP owner.

The conversation then shifts to the decades-long evolution of Databranch — from early hardware-centric break/fix work to building a scalable recurring-revenue MSP model. David explains how he strengthened margins, improved service delivery, built internal leadership, optimized his chart of accounts, and developed the predictable systems necessary to prepare an MSP for sale.

He also breaks down why copier dealers have become one of the most underestimated but powerful competitors in the MSP space. With strong recurring-revenue DNA, experienced sales teams, and deep customer relationships, copier dealers are increasingly acquiring MSPs. David walks through what it was like to be acquired by a copier dealer, why they chose to keep the Databranch brand, and how he ended up staying far longer than the typical post-acquisition owner — ultimately finding fulfillment in mentoring, advising, and watching the company thrive under new leadership.

This episode is packed with actionable insights for MSP owners who want to avoid legal challenges, strengthen their business operations, prepare for acquisition, understand copier-dealer competition, or simply build an MSP that lasts.

👉 Learn more about the BMK Vision Operating System: https://beringmckinley.com/vision

David Prince: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-prince-043a55

Josh Peterson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshdpeterson

How an unexpected lawsuit reshaped an MSP’s trajectory

Arbitration clauses, dispute resolution & legal protection for MSPs

Lessons from acquiring a distressed IT business

Transitioning from hardware sales to recurring managed services

Building systems, processes & service maturity inside an MSP

Why copier dealers are rising competitors — and major MSP buyers

How copier-dealer acquisitions actually work

Preparing your MSP for market valuation & exit

Strengthening leadership and creating a successor model

Life after selling your MSP — advisory roles, legacy, and fulfillment

David Prince is the former owner and CEO of Databranch, a respected MSP serving Western New York for decades. After navigating an unexpected lawsuit early in his career and adapting through multiple waves of industry change, David transformed Databranch into a profitable, highly stable managed services provider. In 2020, he sold the company to a copier dealer who retained the Databranch brand and team. David now serves as an advisor, supporting the organization he built and mentoring the next generation of MSP leaders.

Josh Peterson is CEO of Bering McKinley and host of the BMK Vision Podcast. With decades of experience guiding MSPs through operational maturity, financial structure, leadership development, and acquisition readiness, Josh helps owners grow their companies with clarity and confidence through the BMK Vision Operating System.

🌐 Learn more: https://beringmckinley.com/vision

In this From the Trenches episode of the BMK Vision Podcast, Josh Peterson sits down with Nelson Archila — a driven young MSP founder whose journey from Inglewood to entrepreneurship is built on resilience, persistence, family support, and a determination to build something of his own.

Nelson shares how growing up in a challenging part of Los Angeles shaped him early, forcing him to choose who he wanted to be long before adulthood. With strict, loving parents and high-achieving older sisters guiding him, he learned to stay focused, stay accountable, and keep his goals in front of him. Technology quickly became his passion, and studying computer technology and Homeland Security at Cal State Dominguez Hills set the foundation for his career.

He talks about his first exposure to IT through a warehouse job that took him into military bases, and how his curiosity for technology eventually led him to pursue IT full-time. Nelson tells the story of landing his very first IT role at a scanner company — a job he earned only after calling more than 30 times and showing up repeatedly until they agreed to interview him. That same persistence led him into the MSP world in 2019, where he fell in love with helping clients and learning different environments.

The conversation digs into Nelson’s decision to start his own MSP and the moment he asked himself, “Why not me?” He explains how fear of selling, shyness with new prospects, and anxiety around billing nearly held him back — and how overcoming those fears became the key to unlocking his confidence. He also shares how his father became his accountability partner, how the chart of accounts changed his understanding of the business, and why he now believes he’s ready for “Round Two.”

Nelson outlines his plan to specialize in law firms as his primary vertical, how early legal clients gave him clarity, and why choosing a niche will help him grow faster. He talks through prospecting, building trust, pricing properly, and learning from every business owner he meets. He also shares his long-term dream of opening his first office — a milestone he wants to reach within three years.

This episode is an honest, relatable look at what it takes to start an MSP from scratch. Nelson’s story is proof that success in this industry doesn’t come from perfection — it comes from persistence, belief, learning, and the willingness to keep going.

👉 Learn more about the BMK Vision Operating System: https://beringmckinley.com/vision

Growing up in Inglewood and overcoming early challenges

Parents, accountability, and staying focused

Discovering technology and entering the IT world

Landing his first IT job through persistence

Joining the MSP world in 2019

The “Why not me?” moment that sparked entrepreneurship

Overcoming sales fear, shyness, and billing anxiety

Using the chart of accounts to gain financial clarity

Specializing in law firms as a vertical

Prospecting with confidence and building trust

Pricing properly and learning to hit “send” on invoices

Building toward a future office, team, and culture

Nelson Archila is an emerging MSP founder based in Los Angeles. After earning his degree in Computer Technology with a Homeland Security track, he entered the MSP industry in 2019 and quickly fell in love with client service, problem-solving, and learning new environments. Nelson is now preparing for “Round Two” of launching his own MSP, specializing in law firms and building a company focused on people, service, culture, and long-term growth.

Josh Peterson is the CEO of Bering McKinley and host of the BMK Vision Podcast. With decades of experience coaching MSP owners around the world, Josh helps companies grow through operational maturity, financial clarity, leadership development, and the BMK Vision Operating System.

🌐 Learn more: https://beringmckinley.com/vision

This episode brings together policy, intelligence, technology, and lived experience. Josh Peterson sits down with Erica L. Shoemate, MPA, a national security and AI policy strategist whose work spans the FBI, the U.S. Intelligence Community, Big Tech, and frontline maternal health advocacy. Erica offers a rare look at how systems are built — and rebuilt — to protect people, strengthen trust, and ensure equity in both public institutions and emerging technologies.

Her journey from intelligence leadership to AI ethics and maternal health policy reveals the complexity of designing systems that keep humanity at the center. For leaders navigating policy, innovation, or advocacy, this conversation provides clarity, urgency, and a blueprint for responsible impact.

• How national security, AI policy, and ethics intersect

• What Erica learned leading intelligence work within the FBI and U.S. Intelligence Community

• The reality of shaping trust and safety and digital risk policy inside Big Tech (Twitter, Amazon, Meta)

• Why ethical frameworks and human-centered innovation matter now more than ever

• How lived experience as a high-risk mom drives Erica’s maternal health advocacy

• The mission and impact of the Maternal and Infant Health Equity Coalition with March of Dimes

• Systems thinking: translating complexity into clarity and chaos into strategy

• Building safety, equity, and trust in emerging technologies

Erica L. Shoemate, MPA, is a national security and AI policy strategist — a systems builder for safety, equity, and trust. A former intelligence leader with the FBI and across the U.S. Intelligence Community, she later shaped digital risk, trust & safety, and regulatory policy across Big Tech, including Twitter, Amazon, and Meta.

Now, as Founder & Principal of The EN Strategy Group, Erica helps mission-driven organizations design ethical frameworks that keep humanity at the center of innovation. A Global AI Policy Fellow with the AI 2030 Institute and policy architect behind ChatBlackGPT’s MVP, she bridges the worlds of technology, equity, and advocacy — translating complexity into clarity and chaos into strategy.

She’s also a nationally recognized maternal health advocate, serving as Ambassador and Maternal Health Policy Co-Chair (VA Lead) for the Maternal and Infant Health Equity Coalition in partnership with March of Dimes. Her lived experience as a high-risk mom fuels her fight for systems that protect people — not just products.

She leads with empathy, precision, and a futurist lens — turning lived experience into systems-level change.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erica-nicole-shoemate/

The EN Strategy Group: https://www.enstrategygroup.com

YouTube (Video Podcast):

https://www.youtube.com/@beringmckinleyvision?sub_confirmation=1

Learn More About the Vision Platform:

https://beringmckinley.com/vision

Apply to Be a Guest:

https://beringmckinley.com/bering-mckinley-podcast-blog

In this episode of the From the Trenches series, Josh Peterson sits down with Tim Taylor — a 40-year IT veteran, early MSP pioneer, author, and founder of Tim Taylor Consulting.

Tim shares what the industry looked like before the term “MSP” even existed, including mainframe programming, Novell networks, pagers, handwritten timesheets, and selling hardware before managed services became the standard.

Through decades of experience, Tim explains why hourly work used to be highly profitable, how he transitioned into managed services, what broke profitability for so many MSPs, and why mindset, pricing confidence, and focus are the biggest drivers of growth today.

This is a rare, candid conversation full of history, perspective, and practical wisdom for any MSP trying to grow past the early stages and operate with intention.

👉 Learn about the BMK Vision Operating System: https://beringmckinley.com/vision

Early career in mainframes and PC installation

Building Novell networks in the 80s and 90s

Starting a break-fix IT business with only $500

The first managed services contract

Why hourly billing was profitable and predictable

The shift from hardware margin to service margin

The rise of MSP tools and “shiny object syndrome”

Copier dealers entering MSP and disrupting the market

Why so many MSPs stay under $1M

Pricing confidence and overcoming limiting beliefs

The owner’s real job: selling and building relationships

Three KPIs every MSP should track

Growth mindset vs. technician mindset

Why constant PSA/RMM switching destroys profitability

This conversation offers an unfiltered look at the early days of the IT services industry and the lessons that still apply today. Tim’s perspective on pricing, sales, mindset, utilization, focus, and leadership gives MSP owners a roadmap for building a healthy, sustainable, and profitable business.

Founder, Tim Taylor Consulting

Tim Taylor is a 40-year IT veteran and pioneer of the early MSP movement. He built his MSP from scratch in the late 1990s, scaling it with break-fix, hourly work, and eventually managed services. Today he runs Tim Taylor Consulting, helping small MSPs (typically under five employees) stabilize, price confidently, and grow with structure and clarity.

🌐 Website: https://www.timtaylorconsulting.com

📬 Email: [email protected]

CEO, Bering McKinley

Josh Peterson is the CEO of Bering McKinley and host of the BMK Vision Podcast. A leading consultant to MSPs worldwide, Josh helps owners scale by improving operations, service delivery, financial structure, leadership, and strategic planning through the BMK Vision Operating System.

🌐 Learn more: https://beringmckinley.com/vision

🌐 Bering McKinley: https://beringmckinley.com

In this episode of the From the Trenches series, Josh Peterson sits down with Michael Milhouse, President and Co-Founder of Bridgepoint Technologies, for a candid look at what it really takes to build, stabilize, and scale a $3–$5M MSP.

Michael shares his journey from old-school COBOL programming in the 1980s to leading a 32-person organization with multiple service lines—including managed services, custom application development, and a SaaS offering. He breaks down how Bridgepoint transitioned from break/fix to 90% managed services, why the Customer Success Manager (CSM) role became central to client retention and revenue growth, and how implementing EOS® aligned three equal partners around accountability, structure, and measurable execution.

This episode delivers practical, hard-earned lessons for MSP owners who want to move beyond the owner-operator phase and build a scalable, predictable, and healthy business.

👉 Learn about the BMK Vision Operating System: https://beringmckinley.com/vision

Breaking into IT in the 1980s and early programming work

Consulting career in Chicago’s financial sector

Founding multiple IT consulting firms before launching Bridgepoint

Co-founder dynamics and aligning three equal partners

Scaling to 32 employees across MSP, SaaS, and app dev

Moving from break/fix to managed services

The evolution and value of the CSM role

Running Strategic Business Reviews (SBRs) that clients actually engage with

Understanding revenue mix across recurring, project, and hourly

Chart of accounts complexity when managing multiple business lines

The “3–5M Valley of Death” and why it stalls MSP growth

The mindset shift from technician to leader

Why EOS requires a facilitator and not self-implementation

Level 10 meetings, scorecards, rocks, and partner accountability

Communicating vision and strategic direction across the organization

This is a real, practical conversation about the struggles and breakthroughs MSP owners experience on the path to operational maturity. Michael’s transparency around CSM strategy, EOS implementation, service delivery, financial organization, and leadership growth makes this a must-listen for owners ready to scale beyond $1M–$2M and build a truly mature service organization.

President & Co-Founder, Bridgepoint Technologies

Michael Milhouse is the President and Co-Founder of Bridgepoint Technologies, an Illinois-based MSP and technology solutions company offering managed services, custom application development, and a SaaS platform (ToodleBox). With more than 30 years in IT—beginning with COBOL programming and mainframe systems in the 1980s—Michael has built and scaled multiple consulting and technology organizations. Today, he leads a team of 32 professionals focused on delivering modern IT solutions and long-term client partnerships across the Midwest.

🌐 Website: https://www.mybridgepoint.com

📍 Based in Lombard, Illinois

CEO, Bering McKinley

Josh Peterson is the CEO of Bering McKinley and host of the BMK Vision Podcast. A leading authority on MSP business operations, Josh has spent decades helping Managed Service Providers build scalable, profitable organizations. His work focuses on service maturity, financial structure, leadership development, and the BMK Vision Operating System — a framework designed to help MSP owners grow with clarity and intention.

🌐 Learn more about BMK Vision: https://beringmckinley.com/vision

🌐 Bering McKinley: https://beringmckinley.com

In this episode of The BMK Vision Podcast, Josh Peterson sits down with Erica L. Shoemate, MPA — a policy strategist, maternal health advocate, and former Head of Site Policy (Americas) for safety and cybercrime at Twitter (pre-X). Erica’s career spans federal work, intelligence, public service, and tech, and she brings a unique lens to how policy impacts people, workplaces, and communities.

Erica shares the unlikely beginnings of her interest in policy, sparked by civics classes and a deep curiosity for complex systems. She and Josh discuss how policy shapes both large-scale government decisions and everyday small-business realities — including Josh’s own story about an ADA situation that opened his eyes to real HR policy implications.

The conversation also explores:

Why proactive policy design prevents brand risk and culture damage

How federal, state, and organizational policy layers interact

Maternal health challenges in the U.S. and the mission behind the Kira Johnson story

Erica’s advocacy work with March of Dimes and For Kira, For Moms

The role of implicit bias in maternal care

Erica’s time at Twitter 1.0 and what it was like shaping global safety policy

Building a Prisoner-of-War (POW) content policy in real time during the Russia–Ukraine conflict

Balancing freedom of expression with the need to prevent platform harm

How internal trust & safety teams actually make policy decisions

Why underrepresented groups face disproportionate harm online

The value of diverse perspectives when building new products or features

Erica also discusses her work today through Lead Within Strategy, where she helps organizations understand policy impacts, navigate risk, and design systems that support both people and outcomes.

Guest Links:

Instagram: @thepolicygoddess

Website: https://leadwithinstrategy.ai

LinkedIn: Search “Erica L. Shoemate MPA”

About the Host:

Josh Peterson is the CEO of Bering McKinley and host of The BMK Vision Podcast, where MSP leaders share real stories, lessons, and insights from the trenches.

Learn more:

https://beringmckinley.com/vision

Independent assessor Dan Collins breaks down how SMBs should think about compliance (PCI, SOC, HIPAA), where MSPs fit, and why the vCISO lane is the biggest growth play. You’ll leave with a clear map of assessor vs. MSP roles, policy realities, insurance pressure, and sales metrics that drive enterprise value.

✅ Enjoyed this episode?

In this episode of the BMK Vision Podcast, Josh Peterson sits down with Dan Collins of 360 Advanced, an independent security assessor serving the mid-market. Collins explains how assessors validate environments against standards like PCI, SOC, HIPAA, and StateRAMP/FedRAMP requirements—while MSPs remain the hands-on implementers and remediators. The conversation tackles real-world friction in healthcare and dental, why “teeth” in enforcement (and insurers) change buyer behavior, and how incident response should flow when things go sideways. It also spotlights a major opportunity: the Office of the CISO (vCISO) as a high-margin, MRR-friendly service motion MSPs can add without “hands on keyboard.”

🔗 Resources & Links

⏱️ Chapters

🔍 Primary Keywords

🔍 Secondary Keywords

🏷️ Tags

#️⃣ Hashtags

Douglas Grosfield shares his winding path from law enforcement and personal protection to founding Five Nines IT—leading with cybersecurity and a lean, partner-first model. MSP leaders will learn how clear goals, 90-day planning, and right-fit partnerships create profit and lifestyle freedom.

✅ Enjoyed this episode?

In this episode, Josh Peterson sits down with Douglas Grosfield, Founder & CEO of Five Nines IT Solutions, to unpack how a security-led, ultra-lean MSP model can scale profitably while giving owners their time back. From bodyguard work to building and exiting a VAR, Doug explains why leading with cybersecurity, setting clear goals, and orchestrating expert partners beats trying to be “all things to all people.”

🔗 Resources & Links

⏱️ Chapters

🔍 Primary Keywords

🔍 Secondary Keywords

#️⃣ Hashtags

Josh Peterson and Ryan Alters dive deep into one of MSPs’ longest-standing challenges — billable utilization — and the misconceptions that keep teams from mastering it. This episode breaks down how to calculate it correctly, why it matters more than ever in 2025, and how dispatchers, not just techs, drive the results.

✅ Enjoyed this episode?

Josh Peterson and Ryan Alter tackle one of the biggest myths in MSP operations — billable utilization. After 20 years in consulting, Josh reveals why the same time-entry problems still plague MSPs, how to calculate utilization the right way, and why dispatchers, not techs, really own the number.

💡 In this episode:

Get clear on what utilization means, how it drives profitability, and how to stop believing the lies MSPs tell themselves.

🔗 Resources & Links

⏱️ Chapters

00:00 – Intro & welcome

🔍 Keywords

msp utilization, billable hours, utilization formula, connectwise metrics, msp profitability, msp dispatcher, time entry management, managed service provider, msp kpis

#️⃣ Hashtags

#beringmckinley #bmkvisionpodcast #dontbethatguy #mspbusiness #utilizationrate #connectwise #mspsuccess #itconsulting #mspcoach #timeentry #servicedelivery #mspgrowth #businessmetrics #mspleadership #mspoperations #bmkvision

Josh sits down with Bill Haber to demystify cyber risk for small and midsize businesses—what it really is, why insurers care, and how MSPs can guide clients without the fear-mongering. You’ll learn a practical path: assess, remediate, insure—minus the jargon and overpriced “gold/silver/bronze” bundles.

✅ Enjoyed this episode?

👉 Why “assess → remediate → insure” is the sane order of operations

Visit https://beringmckinley.com for more MSP resources.

🔗 Resources & Links

⏱️ Chapters

🔍 Primary Keywords

🔍 Secondary Keywords

🏷️ Tags

#️⃣ Hashtags