The BMK Vision Podcast

"We run EOS" usually turns out to mean "we bought a tool." Josh Peterson sits down with Michael Caito — the CEO who built Restaurants on the Run into a $40M pre-internet DoorDash, sold it to Grubhub, then bought MAP, the consulting firm that had coached his own company for fifteen years.

Michael Caito is the Owner & CEO of MAP (Management Action Programs), and in this conversation we explore EOS vs MAP, why self-implemented operating systems stall into to-do lists, and why every MSP business should be built to sell — even if the owner never intends to sell it.

----------

🎙 What We Cover in This Episode

- Compare EOS and MAP where it actually matters: facilitation, cadence, and manager training

----------

👤 Guest Links

Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelcaitomap/

----------

🚀 Subscribe & Follow BMK Vision

YouTube (Video Podcast):

Learn More About the Vision Platform:

Apply to Be a Guest:

----------

🔎 SEO Keywords

- MAP vs EOS

----------

📝 Credits

Host: Josh Peterson

Your ticket surveys come back 95% satisfied - and Josh Peterson doesn't care. In this BMK Vision Roundtable, Josh and Gary Boyle bring in customer discovery expert Bob London to settle what actually measures client loyalty, and the answer isn't a score. It's a conversation most MSPs never have.

Bob London is the creator of Radically Authentic Discovery (RAD) and a former CMO with 3,000+ customer discovery conversations behind him, and in this conversation we explore why surveys mislead, how "seller's itch" derails discovery calls, and how curiosity becomes a competitive edge. Along the way: the board-meeting question, the mute-button discipline, and where a listening tour fits for MSPs still shaping their go-to-market.

----------

What We Cover in This Episode

- Why 95% post-ticket satisfaction scores tell you nothing about loyalty

----------

Guest Links

Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/boblondon

----------

Subscribe & Follow BMK Vision

YouTube (Video Podcast):

Learn More About the Vision Platform:

Apply to Be a Guest:

----------

SEO Keywords

- Customer discovery

----------

Credits

Host: Josh Peterson

Owner-led sales: a necessary stage, a deliberate strategy, or a cop-out? Josh Peterson and Trevor Dierdorff, Founder & CEO of Amnet, take the question head-on and land somewhere more useful than either extreme.

Trevor Dierdorff is the Founder & CEO of Amnet, a Colorado MSP he's run for 26+ years, and in this conversation we explore why sales and sales management are different professions, why his salesperson hires failed, and how an intentional culture became his real competitive edge.

----------------------------------------

What We Cover in This Episode

- Why owner-led sales frustrates Josh - and where it's genuinely justified

----------------------------------------

Guest Links

Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/trevordierdorff/

----------------------------------------

Subscribe & Follow BMK Vision

YouTube (Video Podcast): https://www.youtube.com/@beringmckinleyvision?sub_confirmation=1

----------------------------------------

SEO Keywords: Owner-led sales, MSP sales management, Hiring a sales manager, MSP company culture, Hiring for culture fit, Managed service providers, MSP marketing, BMK Vision Podcast

----------------------------------------

Credits

Host: Josh Peterson

A listener sent The BMK Vision Podcast a one-line challenge: "Your 33% service salaries to service revenue benchmark just means fire people. Admit it." In this roundtable, Josh Peterson and Gary Boyle take the accusation head-on — and concede more ground than you might expect.

Gary Boyle is Partner for Strategy & Business Development at Bering McKinley, and in this conversation, we explore what the 33% payroll benchmark actually measures, when the math really does point at headcount, and the decision owners must make before either answer is right.

⸻

🎙 What We Cover in This Episode

⸻

👤 Guest Links

Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/garyboyle/ Company Website: https://beringmckinley.com

⸻

🚀 Subscribe & Follow BMK Vision

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/blog#speaker-form

⸻

🔎 SEO Keywords

⸻

📝 Credits

Host: Josh Peterson Producer: Bering McKinley Episode: #108 - Does the 33% Payroll Benchmark Just Mean Fire People? | BMK VISION ROUNDTABLE

After 20 years inside ConnectWise and AutoTask, two MSP operators decided they were done waiting for the unified PSA the industry kept promising — so they built one. In this From The Trenches episode of The BMK Vision Podcast, Josh Peterson talks with the founders of IgnitHQ about what it actually takes to start a PSA from scratch in 2026.

Guest Introduction

🎙 What We Cover in This Episode

⸻

⸻

⸻

📝 Credits

"I've been giving onboarding away for years and I close a lot of deals. My competitors who charge for it lose deals. So why would I fix something that doesn't seem broken? What am I actually missing?" That's the listener question. In this Roundtable episode of The BMK Vision Podcast, Josh Peterson and Gary Boyle answer it directly — and the answer is not what the asker wants to hear.

Giving away onboarding feels like a sales strategy. It is actually a positioning decision. Gary's first move is to stop the framing: how do you know that was why you won? How do you know the competitors who charge are actually losing those deals? The asker has built a sales story on data he does not have. And underneath the sales story is a structural problem he has not named — when an owner gives onboarding away, the operating reality is almost always that there is no real onboarding to give. The free price tag is the financial signature of the work that never got built. The episode walks through the new-MSP client who could not sell until he had a real offer to put in front of prospects, the doctor-patient frame for what buyers are actually paying for, why one month of recurring revenue is a number not attached to reality, and the close that names the whole frame: the thing that works in the short term is not the thing that works in the long term.

🎙 What We Cover in This Episode

⸻

⸻

⸻

📝 Credits

"Do either of you actually believe an owner can fully get out of the day-to-day of an MSP and not have it fall apart? I've tried twice. Both times something blew up and I had to come back in." That's the question a listener sent. In this Roundtable episode of The BMK Vision Podcast, Josh Peterson and Gary Boyle answer it directly — yes, it's possible — and then walk through why the asker's two attempts didn't hold.

Getting out of the day-to-day isn't a decision. It's a construction. The owner who never asked "how do I get big enough that I don't have to do everything," and instead just asked "I want to get big, full stop" — that owner gets there. The owner who treats stepping back as a single decision typically watches the structure underneath them collapse at the first stress test. Gary's line lands the whole question: yeah, your business is doing fine. Let me know what happens after your first hire. The first hire is when the game changes — and the structure most owners need to build before that hire never gets built. They train the task without transferring the accountability for the outcome. Six months later something blows up, the owner re-engages, the cycle repeats.

🎙 What We Cover in This Episode

⸻

⸻

⸻

📝 Credits

"I didn't get into this company to pay myself less." That was the disdainful read from one partner in a three-person MSP partnership when the advice came up to cut owner W-2 and tie additional comp to profit. In this Roundtable episode of The BMK Vision Podcast, Josh Peterson and Gary Boyle take the position apart and walk through why the cut is not punitive — it's diagnostic.

The W-2 floor that covers the owner's household nut is the same floor that mutes every signal the P&L is sending. Year after year of substandard profit becomes background noise because the W-2 number keeps moving. At some point the owner forgets how the business actually makes money. The cut is the only thing that makes the next unbilled hour, the next un-captured product cost, the next half-point of service salary feel real again. Gary's reframe lands harder underneath the math: are we actually owners — or employees who happen to own the company?

🎙 What We Cover in This Episode

⸻

⸻

⸻

📝 Credits

"I fired a client doing 15 grand a month. I've replaced maybe half of it so far, and I'm kind of pissed about it." That question came out of a peer-group room, and it is the most common form of buyer's remorse in MSP ownership. In this Roundtable episode of The BMK Vision Podcast, Josh and Gary walk through why the regret is almost always a measurement problem, not a decision problem.

The short answer: you were not supposed to replace the revenue. You were supposed to replace the gross profit. At BMK's 65 percent AGP target, a fired $15K client running at 35 percent AGP becomes two $4K clients — same gross profit, less servicing load, less capacity drag. Underneath the math, the deeper truths land: top-line revenue lies, net profit lies, AGP per account is the tell. And the toxic client tax — the cultural drag on the team — almost never shows up in the financial review that justified the fire in the first place.

🎙 What We Cover in This Episode

⸻

⸻

⸻

📝 Credits

"Hire green and train them up is a cop out." A frenemy of the show sent that line in an email, and Josh and Gary spend this Roundtable episode taking the position apart. The senior MSP sales hire most owners are chasing is a unicorn — and even if one exists, the affordability math rarely supports it.

In this conversation, Josh and Gary walk through the harder truth underneath the senior-hire fantasy: below five million in revenue, you don't know what good looks like, and you will be tricked. Salary surfers, the pedestal-prevents-accountability dynamic, and the ninety-thousand-dollar mistake that drags on for six months — all of it is real, all of it is common, and all of it points toward the same answer.

🎙 What We Cover in This Episode

⸻

⸻

⸻

📝 Credits