Uncle Marv’s IT Business Podcast: Practical Business Advice for MSPs and IT Professionals

Susan Nemeth, Co-Founder and COO of Aportio, joins the IT Business Podcast to discuss AI-powered email and conversation automation built for MSP service desks. Aportio helps IT providers reduce inbox backlog, classify and route incoming work, and improve shared-inbox workflows—while also supporting more consistent discovery and pricing for complex customer solutions.

Guest: Susan Nemeth

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🌐 Website: https://www.itbusinesspodcast.com/
🎙 Host: Marvin Bee
🛒 Uncle Marv’s Amazon Store (gear & tools I recommend): https://amzn.to/3EiyKoZ
☕ Support the show: https://ko-fi.com/itbusinesspodcast

If you found value in this episode, share it with another MSP, IT provider, or tech entrepreneur. Your support helps keep practical, no-nonsense IT business conversations coming every week.

Anson Dorsey, CTO and Co-Founder of QuellSecure, joins the IT Business Podcast’s PitchIT 2026 series to discuss active ransomware containment for MSPs and IT providers. QuellSecure deploys as a lightweight endpoint agent that monitors file-system activity, aiming to stop malicious encryption after only a small number of files are affected—helping reduce operational disruption and recovery exposure.

Guest: Anson Dorsey

=== Chapters

=== SPONSORS: 

=== SHOW MUSIC: 

=== Connect with Uncle Marv

🌐 Website: https://www.itbusinesspodcast.com/
🎙 Host: Marvin Bee
🛒 Uncle Marv’s Amazon Store (gear & tools I recommend): https://amzn.to/3EiyKoZ
☕ Support the show: https://ko-fi.com/itbusinesspodcast

If you found value in this episode, share it with another MSP, IT provider, or tech entrepreneur. Your support helps keep practical, no-nonsense IT business conversations coming every week.

Dan Spray, founder and president of Precision IT and Consolidated Consulting, joins me for part two of our conversation about building and operating a scalable, multi-unit IT services business. Dan shares the technology stack and operational discipline that help his organization support clients across a broad footprint, including HaloPSA, NinjaOne, Meraki, UniFi, Huntress, Petra Security, and Domotz.

Our main focus is how automation, standardized network design, and AI-assisted integrations can help MSPs troubleshoot faster and operate more proactively. Dan explains how his team uses Domotz for Layer 2 visibility and network diagnostics, then connects data from multiple platforms to triage tickets, identify issues, and give technicians a clearer path to resolution before spending valuable time chasing the problem.

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=== Guest: Dan Spray, PrecisionIT

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=== SHOW MUSIC: 

=== Connect with Uncle Marv

🌐 Website: https://www.itbusinesspodcast.com/
🎙 Host: Marvin Bee
🛒 Uncle Marv’s Amazon Store (gear & tools I recommend): https://amzn.to/3EiyKoZ
☕ Support the show: https://ko-fi.com/itbusinesspodcast

If you found value in this episode, share it with another MSP, IT provider, or tech entrepreneur. Your support helps keep practical, no-nonsense IT business conversations coming every week.

If you’ve ever wondered how far you can really scale an MSP without selling out or moving to a big tech hub, Dan Spray’s story is a roadmap. He started in a small Norfolk, Nebraska shop building white‑box PCs and selling dial‑up internet, then bought the business and evolved it into Precision IT with a strong MSP and ISP backbone. Over time, he layered on recurring revenue, proactive monitoring, nationwide coverage, and a “nothing is out of scope” mindset that focuses on solving technology problems first, then deciding how to package and price later.

That approach led to a portfolio of business units: Precision IT (MSP), Precision AV/low‑voltage, an outbound sales and SDR company, a hardware/access control firm (Hazard), a digital marketing agency, a voice AI platform, and several SaaS products—now rolled under a venture studio called Click Theory Capital. Dan shares how he structures these entities, how clients engage with multiple units, how his team handles back‑office provisioning and multi‑location builds, and what broke along the way as they scaled to hundreds of locations and thousands of endpoints.

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=== Guest: Dan Spray, Precision IT / Click Theory Capital

=== Companies / Vendors / Products / Books

=== SPONSORS: 

=== SHOW MUSIC: 

=== Connect with Uncle Marv

🌐 Website: https://www.itbusinesspodcast.com/
🎙 Host: Marvin Bee
🛒 Uncle Marv’s Amazon Store (gear & tools I recommend): https://amzn.to/3EiyKoZ
☕ Support the show: https://ko-fi.com/itbusinesspodcast

If you found value in this episode, share it with another MSP, IT provider, or tech entrepreneur. Your support helps keep practical, no-nonsense IT business conversations coming every week.

Ray Cline from Tech Knowledge Worldwide joins me to share how an MSP-led community turns “community over competition” into real impact through TEKSGiving. We talk about how this group of MSPs and IT pros comes together for one intense weekend to rebuild the full technology stack—access control, networking, Wi-Fi, cameras, and cabling—for nonprofits, with this year’s project focused on the original Ronald McDonald House in Philadelphia and a $300,000 goal in donated products and services.

Ray also walks through his consulting-first approach at Libertas Consulting and why most businesses have little idea where their IT dollars actually go. By analyzing contracts, subscriptions, and infrastructure, he cuts waste, saves clients real money, and then earns the role of trusted advisor instead of “just another vendor.” If you want to grow your MSP, build deeper client relationships, and use your skills to give back, this conversation will show you practical ways to do it.

=== Chapters

=== Guest: Ray Cline, Tech Knowledge Worldwide / Libertas Consulting

=== Companies / Vendors / Products / Books

=== SPONSORS: 

=== SHOW MUSIC: 

=== Connect with Uncle Marv

🌐 Website: https://www.itbusinesspodcast.com/
🎙 Host: Marvin Bee
🛒 Uncle Marv’s Amazon Store (gear & tools I recommend): https://amzn.to/3EiyKoZ
☕ Support the show: https://ko-fi.com/itbusinesspodcast

If you found value in this episode, share it with another MSP, IT provider, or tech entrepreneur. Your support helps keep practical, no-nonsense IT business conversations coming every week.

NSITSP just hit its five-year mark, and I break down why this professional society still matters for MSPs, IT consultants, and service providers who want a real voice when security headlines, compliance rules, and industry standards start to shape how we work. The organization has grown from a grassroots response to unfair blame on “the IT people” into a formal professional society with elected leaders, active committees, and a clear mission to advocate for our profession, educate both members and policymakers, and help define what it means to be a true IT service professional.

Looking ahead, the focus is on “build, grow, influence”—expanding structured continuing education with unit credits, showing up at more trade shows to talk membership and standards, and digging into complex issues like AI ethics and CMMC that impact every MSP whether you’re solo or running a larger team. If you’ve ever felt like “nobody represents us,” this update is a call to get involved: check out membership, find a committee that fits your interests, and lend your voice so our profession isn’t defined by people who don’t actually do the work.

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=== Shout Outs

=== Companies / Vendors / Products / Books

=== SPONSORS: 

=== SHOW MUSIC: 

=== Connect with Uncle Marv

🌐 Website: https://www.itbusinesspodcast.com/
🎙 Host: Marvin Bee
🛒 Uncle Marv’s Amazon Store (gear & tools I recommend): https://amzn.to/3EiyKoZ
☕ Support the show: https://ko-fi.com/itbusinesspodcast

If you found value in this episode, share it with another MSP, IT provider, or tech entrepreneur. Your support helps keep practical, no-nonsense IT business conversations coming every week.

I kick this one off with a real-world vendor story from my own MSP, talking through changes at Intermedia, CORE program fees, and what those decisions mean when you’re trying to protect margins while keeping clients fully supported. From there, I roll into a quick “know your network gear” segment that breaks down hubs, switches, modems, routers, firewalls, and Wi‑Fi access points in plain language you can use to train your team and design more secure, reliable networks.

Then I bring on Paco Lebron, CEO of Prodigy Techs and co-host of MSP Unplugged, along with Nancy Enriguez, MSP founder, author, and head of community for MSP Unplugged, to dig into TechCon Unplugged 2026. We talk dates, location, why all the content is in one room this year, and how workshops from Cyber Matt Lee and the IR Games crew will give you tangible cybersecurity and incident response takeaways. Nancy shares how she’s shaping the MSP Unplugged community around presence and peer relationships, while Paco explains why the “magic happens in the hallways” and why being in the room with other MSPs still matters for business growth.

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=== Guest: Paco Lebron

=== Guest: Nancy Henriquez

=== Events

=== Companies / Vendors / Products / Books

=== SPONSORS: 

=== SHOW MUSIC: 

=== Connect with Uncle Marv

🌐 Website: https://www.itbusinesspodcast.com/
🎙 Host: Marvin Bee
🛒 Uncle Marv’s Amazon Store (gear & tools I recommend): https://amzn.to/3EiyKoZ
☕ Support the show: https://ko-fi.com/itbusinesspodcast

If you found value in this episode, share it with another MSP, IT provider, or tech entrepreneur. Your support helps keep practical, no-nonsense IT business conversations coming every week.

Ann Cloyd, CEO and co‑founder of Deep Tech Inc., joins me to share how she took a Mac‑focused niche supporting New York art galleries and turned it into a 30+ person, dual‑platform IT services company serving both Mac and Windows clients. She walks through why she positions Deep Tech as an outsourced IT department instead of “just an MSP,” how staying hands‑on with clients and committing to on‑site visits has built long‑term relationships and word‑of‑mouth growth, and why acquisitions became her preferred path to scale without losing that in‑the‑trenches feel.

We also dig into Ann’s vision for Tech Bloom, a nonprofit apprenticeship program that pays women to learn tech support through real client work, mentorship, and a strong professional network. The big takeaway: if you want your help desk and day‑to‑day support to be a real growth engine, you need to treat relationships as a core asset, show up in person when it counts, and think creatively about building your own talent pipeline—whether that’s through acquisitions, apprenticeships, or partnership with programs like Tech Bloom.

=== Chapters

=== Guest: Ann Cloyd, Deep Tech Inc.

=== Companies / Vendors / Products / Books

=== SPONSORS: 

=== SHOW MUSIC: 

=== Connect with Uncle Marv

🌐 Website: https://www.itbusinesspodcast.com/
🎙 Host: Marvin Bee
🛒 Uncle Marv’s Amazon Store (gear & tools I recommend): https://amzn.to/3EiyKoZ
☕ Support the show: https://ko-fi.com/itbusinesspodcast

If you found value in this episode, share it with another MSP, IT provider, or tech entrepreneur. Your support helps keep practical, no-nonsense IT business conversations coming every week.

I sat down with my buddy Stan Louissaint to talk about a reality most of us are already feeling: MSPs are under fire from shadow IT and shadow AI popping up in client networks. We unpack why employees and even attorneys are spinning up their own agents, apps, and AI workflows just to get work done, and how that can leave us and the business completely out of the loop on risk, support, and compliance.

We hit real examples, like an attorney quietly building an AI-driven app in the browser and an intern using Claude and VS Code to develop internal software, and use them to highlight gaps around approval, system requirements, data handling, and ongoing ownership. From there, we shift into the practical side—bringing owners into policy decisions, watching the new risk surface created by SaaS and AI tools, and tightening things up with Microsoft OneDrive and SharePoint settings so storage issues don’t bite you later.

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=== Guest: Stanley Louissaint, Fluid Designs

=== Companies / Vendors / Products / Books / Events / Organizations

=== SPONSORS: 

=== SHOW MUSIC: 

=== Connect with Uncle Marv

🌐 Website: https://www.itbusinesspodcast.com/
🎙 Host: Marvin Bee
🛒 Uncle Marv’s Amazon Store (gear & tools I recommend): https://amzn.to/3EiyKoZ
☕ Support the show: https://ko-fi.com/itbusinesspodcast

If you found value in this episode, share it with another MSP, IT provider, or tech entrepreneur. Your support helps keep practical, no-nonsense IT business conversations coming every week.

I start by sharing a real-life update on my mom’s health and how that’s pulled my attention away from work and the podcast, because I believe family and personal life have to come before business—even when you run an MSP and a show that people count on. I talk honestly about what it feels like to keep pushing through while your head isn’t fully in the game, and why I’m finally letting the community in on what I’ve been dealing with.

From there, I walk through several “confessions”: clarifying what I said about ThreatLocker and Microsoft updates after testing and confirming the issue was on my side, admitting my part in vendors calling my wife’s cell, apologizing for missing a DNS change email, and even revisiting an early-2000s server incident where I lost customer data before I truly understood that RAID is not backup. Those stories lead into a bigger conversation about how rarely IT pros simply say “I’m sorry,” how cliquish some peer groups and conferences have become, and how often MSPs oversell managed services and security stacks while under-delivering on real outcomes. I also touch on vendor and swag booth etiquette, podcast etiquette, and why community still matters more to me than endpoint counts or flashy growth.

=== Chapters

=== Companies / Vendors / Products / Books

=== SPONSORS: 

=== SHOW MUSIC: 

=== Connect with Uncle Marv

🌐 Website: https://www.itbusinesspodcast.com/
🎙 Host: Marvin Bee
🛒 Uncle Marv’s Amazon Store (gear & tools I recommend): https://amzn.to/3EiyKoZ
☕ Support the show: https://ko-fi.com/itbusinesspodcast

If you found value in this episode, share it with another MSP, IT provider, or tech entrepreneur. Your support helps keep practical, no-nonsense IT business conversations coming every week.