Mike McGhee Lives His Life by the Three F's — And What a Life This Legend Has Had

Some people collect titles. Mike McGhee, Senior Vice President at eplus, collects relationships — and after four decades in the technology channel, the return on that investment speaks for itself.

In this episode, Van sits down with one of the people who helped shape his own career in technology, a Richmond, Virginia native who has been attending the same church since 1971, still golfs with his high school crew from Freeman, and will tell you without hesitation that faith, family, and friends come before everything else — including the job.

But don't let the warmth fool you. This is a guy who helped build Slate Technology into a powerhouse Mid-Atlantic VAR, navigated a Cisco layoff on the eve of 9/11 from a hotel room in San Diego, guided the acquisition of Slate by eplus, and is now overseeing multiple regions — from Southern Virginia deep into Texas — with the same philosophy he's carried his whole career: surround yourself with people smarter than you, never burn a bridge, and always leave it better than you found it.

Mike and Van go deep on what it actually means to build a career on relationships rather than resumes, why "who you know" gets you the seat at the table to show "what you know," and how the lesson of a father's dinner bell echoing across a Richmond neighborhood still shapes how Mike thinks about presence, accountability, and showing up.

They also get into where AI is really landing with customers right now — and why the honest answer is "all over the map" — before wrapping with the story of a first date involving stuffed grape leaves that Mike's wife has apparently never forgiven him for.

If you work in technology sales, if you're early in your career and trying to figure out how the game is actually played, or if you just want to spend 45 minutes with someone who has genuinely lived what he preaches, this one is for you.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:11

Folks, thank you so much for joining us today on the podcast. Um, you know, as I go back through the different guests that I've had and the the really entertaining conversations, I have to tell you straight off the bat that this is probably one of the most preemptively thought-about podcasts I've ever done. Uh, my career in technology, as you guys know, has been varied and very successful and wonderful. And the gentleman we're gonna have on today had a lot to do with me getting that off the ground years ago. So it's with absolutely uh true pleasure that I introduce Mr. Mike McGee. Mike.

SPEAKER_01 0:54

Van, thanks for the time. Uh thanks for the buildup. I hope in some way, shape, or form I can live up to it. Uh been a great association with you and a lot of people in the IT business for a long time. Uh, so I'm interested to see where this conversation and journey is gonna take us.

SPEAKER_00 1:09

Yeah, me too. I am. You know, let's, you know, one of the things that I want to share from your perspective, take me back to the beginning, okay? Where did you grow up and what was that environment like that kind of shaped who Mike is?

SPEAKER_01 1:27

Wow. Um, you know, Van, for me, as long as I can remember it, it's it's been my life's been built around three things faith, family, and friends. Um, you know, parents who were uh um present and around, uh, two younger brothers. Uh so I'm the oldest of three. Uh we all still call Richmond home, uh, even though we may go in different different places. It is.

SPEAKER_02 1:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:53

Um gone to the same church since uh 1971. Still there now. Have a lot of I've done a lot of leadership roles in that church, just wrapped up a six-year run on one. Um Freeman Rebel graduate. Um still play golf and hang out with a ton of those guys. They're my they're my inner circle. Uh went to U of R, um, still hang out with a lot of those people, but more high school. Um so I'm a I'm a homer in that aspect, right? Um love Richmond, great place to go up, grow up, great place to to be from, great place to live, um, and remember it finally when I travel to other places and see different things. So um, you know, if I'm gonna if I'm gonna you know wrap that first part up with one word, I'd call myself blessed, right? Yeah, uh blessed by having all three of those things uh you know wrapped around me and kind of the core that I that I work from.

SPEAKER_00 2:49

Yeah, you know, it's funny, Mike, that you say that you're that your your parents were present. I think a lot of things today with young kids, they don't have that presence with them. You know, it it's a different time from when you and I were growing up. But the part that I can remember just like you is that my mom and dad were there. You know, you you needed to talk to mom and dad, you went down the hall and mom and dad were there. It wasn't there somewhere else. The family was the family. And on Sunday dinner, buddy, if your butt wasn't at that table, you were in deep crap, man. It wasn't gonna go well. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:25

Oh shoot, dude. Our ours was was nightly, right? If you weren't playing a sport in school or whatever, um, you were outside. Right. Right. And my dad had a bell, and it was a sizable bell. And I could be at Mayberry Elementary School, which was near where I lived. And when that bell rang, you had about five minutes. It wasn't let's run one more game. It was hustle back so you could eat because you were you were fighting for the food. And uh and so yeah, that was important. And and you know, you you referenced growing up today, right? Yeah, it is so complex growing up today with social media, with cell phones, all those things that just this interrupt and uh and change the game. I mean, you know, I graduated from high school, went to the beach with a bunch of guys for 10 days. Yeah, and I remember my dad saying, I want you to call collect twice and keep it short.

SPEAKER_00 4:19

Yep, yeah. No, I I I know it's today, it's so insane. It I think, and you know, and I know that now in the age of what we do in our careers, we live on our cell phones. You know, everything I do comes to my cell phone. If there's one product on the planet that I could get rid of, it would be damn cell phones, Mike. You know, they have changed the family dynamic overnight. I swear. I can be at the end of the stairs and text my son upstairs and he'll instantly respond. I can call him 15 times and you think he's dead up there. You know, it just doesn't happen.

SPEAKER_01 4:53

It's a good news, bad news. We had dinner with you guys the other night. I was in a hurry to get into the car, left my phone in the back of somebody's car that we were with, but couldn't remember where I'd placed it. So after we left you guys, I was all over the place trying to figure out where my phone was. I went home, I found it on my iPad, I knew where it was. I thought it was left in the parking lot of that daggone courtyard Marriott when it was in it was in Grace's car. But but I you feel naked, right? I mean, you're so conditioned, you feel naked without it.

SPEAKER_00 5:25

It's straight up truth. That that's a fact. You know, when you were young, was there a moment, Mike, or a person or an experience that made you seriously think about what you wanted to do with your life?

SPEAKER_01 5:41

Wow, I would say no. I've always been a person who believed you learn two ways, right? You emulate things you like, you don't emulate things that you believe are the right way or the way you want to do it, but you file them away just as importantly in your head. Yeah. But but I I wouldn't necessarily say an inflection point. You know, I I didn't see myself going into sales when I got out of school. I went into an operational role. I was looking at banking and some other things. Um, and so it it took a while for me to get to the sales career that led me to sales leadership. I I wouldn't I wouldn't call it a defining moment.

SPEAKER_00 6:19

Yeah, I don't see you sitting on the other side of a teller window going, Would you like fives out of that, sir?

SPEAKER_01 6:24

Yeah, I was a teller for two or three years in college. It was pretty easy to make sure I was balanced every day, and I met some great people there. Um, but just you know, 1983, when I got out of college, whoo, long time ago, it wasn't a robust market, right?

SPEAKER_02 6:39

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:40

Uh and and so there were a number of things I looked at, and I looked at leave enrichment at one point in time, but I believe things happen for a reason, and why I ended up staying here happens for a reason. It then connects to other things of of how things happen in your life and how they work out.

SPEAKER_00 6:56

Oh, I agree. Yeah, I I think is we meet people in our lives, and and I do mean our lives because there are people that I literally met in the mid 80s that I haven't talked to, Mike, in in 30 years, that are will call me up on the phone now and go, Hey, do you remember? And I'm like, Oh god, yeah, I know who you are. You know, what's gonna I'm gonna be in town, I'd love to have dinner with you. And I'm thinking, Skip, I haven't seen you since we were, you know, that big. And it's crazy the impact that you and I and others make on our friends, and those relationships carry us forever. That's that to me is what's important. Yeah, no, no doubt. No doubt. Yeah. How do you find your way into the technology? What happened, Mike? That all of a sudden you're like, you know what? Uh uh I look back at this, and was that an intentional thing, which you told me it's not, but now that we know it kind of happened, how did it happen?

SPEAKER_01 7:59

Um, I used to play racquetball with a group of guys in my early 20s, um, 20s into 30s, five not you know, four or five nights a week. We met at a place called Courtside West and and beat each other up for a couple hours. Love playing competitive racquetball. And I met a guy there who um had an entrepreneurial spirit, spirit, and uh we started a little company called Data Techniques that he funded and I ran, and that was in you know, in and around a lot of consumable supplies in the computer-oriented world. Oh, gotcha. And then led us into networking, um Novell. You know, you got to go back a while to really know a lot of Novell. Yep, and uh and as I got married and had a child and started looking to do things a little differently. I ended up getting an opportunity to go into Bell Atlantic and left that small company uh stuff at that point in time. But that that's kind of how it started. And after that, I've had a lot of jobs. I and it was all based on networking. Who you know before what you know. Yeah, I gotta update my resume because it's a requirement. But outside of that, I don't think I ever had to, you know, go send a resume to apply for something. It was all about networking.

SPEAKER_00 9:16

Yeah. Did you ever do what are your thoughts on this, Mike? And I I want to know if you don't have the whole skill set for the job you're trying to get, do you walk in and tell them, hell yeah, I can do it? Yeah. Is that your thought process?

SPEAKER_01 9:30

Uh at some levels, yes. I mean, I've always believed one of those people that you you have to take the experience you have and try to scale yourself forward. And I'll, you know, I'm an analogy guy, right? I'm always willing to lean out over the surfboard. Sure. And I'm not gonna put 10 toes out there for for myself, for my company, for the people around me, for my customers, because you know, when you put 10 toes on the end of the board, good chance it'll come up and whack you in the back of the head. Yeah, and I don't want to do that. So I think you always have to reference sell. I did this so I can do that. We did this so we can do that, uh, and continue to scale yourself forward there. And you and you have to be confident about it. I mean, we live in, you know, we're in the most ever-changing business or industry that I can imagine, right? If you don't like change, don't be in our don't be in our business because it's constant.

SPEAKER_00 10:26

Yeah, that's a fact. For my younger listeners that that tweet me all the time, guys. I hope and gals, I hope you picked up two things so far. One is relationships are everything, okay? Relationships are everything. And two is be confident, okay. If there's nothing I can show you about Mike and what we're doing, his delivery as we're talking about stuff is because he believes in what he's telling me, you know. So those are important things for you guys to take away. And uh, Mike, I often segue to the younger folks who are constantly going, Man, you've been in this career for so long. What do I do now? I go, it's different than it was in the 80s. Things are different.

SPEAKER_01 11:09

Yeah. Well, it it things are still largely based on who you know, right? No problem who you know gets you the ability to tell what you know. We were in a QBR with one of my our AEs yesterday, and I asked him about this individual who I'd met a number of times who separated from a client of ours. And and his comment was he said he's put in a hundred applications and gone nowhere. And I just went, stop, right? See, we got to get back to who we can help him, but but we gotta know he has to understand who he knows, right?

SPEAKER_00 11:47

Right.

SPEAKER_01 11:47

Filling in applications and shooting them in is not a not not a really good way to get to where you want if you have a rough idea of where you want to go. Roger that.

SPEAKER_00 11:57

Mike, tell me about a time when you fell flat on your face and just everything just fell out from under you, and you went, shit, what am I gonna do now?

SPEAKER_01 12:09

Um, you know, a good example, uh, I've I worked for a company called Amtiva. They were an internet telephony software play that Cisco Systems acquired back in like 2001, right before the internet blew up the first time, right?

SPEAKER_00 12:25

Yeah, I remember.

SPEAKER_01 12:26

And and so um I was a I was a road warrior then working with one of my mentors, a guy named Gene Scott, one of the most favorite people in my life. He's he's taught me more than he would ever know, as well as a lot of sayings of his that since he's retired, I use them all the time. Um, but Amtiva was great. Um, Cisco moved forward, but when that first service provider world blew up, right, everybody in my group at Jettison Cisco, they that was Cisco's first uh uh you know riff, so to speak, around the service provider stuff. And they'd never done it before and they they treated us great. And I immediately went to work for one of our partners staying on the road. Uh and on 9-11, I'd flown to uh the West Coast, San Diego, on uh the 10th day before. Got up, you know, doing my workout because you can't sleep right in the gym, yeah, yeah, yeah. Looking at the TV and seeing this who came up with that screwed-up idea for a movie.

SPEAKER_02 13:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:27

And and then our world changed. And I remember going home after that and telling my wife, uh, I'm going to figure out how to get back to not being a nationalized seller. And I had a couple of uh you know uh job opportunities in there that I took to get myself off the road, but yeah, I could easily tell going into one of those that it wasn't going to be where I was. And at the end of the day, I I got back to connecting into who I knew, um, uh, which led me to uh my one of my other mentors, Rusty Breedon. And Rusty and I have worked together twice. And you know, you you you make some mistakes, but at the end of the day, when you do, you go back to the people you trust and the network that hopefully you you have, and hopefully you haven't burned bridges in that process, right? Yeah, yeah. Because there's a there's a way to leave and a way to do things and a way not to. Uh, and I got together with Rusty for the first of two job environments, and Rusty was the person that brought me here to planet or slate that led me to E Plus, and to, you know, fundamentally that was 2008. So I get to you know finish my career on a on a lengthy run. Um and that's you know, that's really a negative that turned into a positive with who I knew.

SPEAKER_00 14:48

Yeah, Rush is such a good dude. I mean, such a good dude. Yeah, that's funny. It um I I think about uh 9-11, and I was literally at the time, uh, right before I moved up to Virginia, I'm listening to Bubba the Love Sponge on the radio in Tampa. Okay. And he's talking about, you know, all kinds of crap. There's a little plane that ran into so-and-so, and then the next thing you know, every TV station in the world had the World Trade Center on it. I mean, like five minutes later, and the president came on the phone on the TV and and it was we didn't know what was gonna happen. Was it nukes next, or you know, who knows? And I think sometimes the impact that that had on all of our lives, you and I, you know, witnessed it, but I think some of these younger kids who really don't know about that, man, it changed the world we lived in it forever.

SPEAKER_01 15:49

Everybody know everybody who was involved in that knows where you were that day. Yeah, and I was stuck in San Diego. I got home Saturday.

unknown 15:58

Right.

SPEAKER_01 15:59

Oh, I don't doubt it. Yeah, I'm I'm you know, in the Grand Hyatt, 38th floor, looking out into the San Diego Harbor, right? And and over to Coronado. I mean, pretty big armada, but I didn't necessarily realize what it was like for my wife here with three children, right? Yeah um, and you know, got like I said, got back home flying a red eye into New Jersey uh and drove a car from New Jersey down to Richmond. I remember pulling into the Richmond airport parking lot to drop it off, and there were license plates from all over the country for people who'd done something similar to get back. Yeah, get back to the back. The reality is the the world changed that day.

SPEAKER_00 16:39

Yeah, yeah, it's crazy, totally. You know, e Plus, you know, incredible reputation in the channel, Mike. Um, you know, I know the story of how things came about. Tell me how you became E Plus from where you were.

SPEAKER_01 16:59

So, you know, I worked for some great people at Slate in uh uh Casey and Denise Robinson and Nigel Buttery and and Rusty, and and when we got into that process, um Rusty had had retired. And you know, Casey I don't think Casey and Nigel expected to sell the company exactly when they did, but they brought me into the process out of the gate. They said, hey, you're gonna be critical because when this happens, we're gonna go away, and you and Mike Carillin and Bob Wooten are gonna be the guys at the front of the table. And so that process started, uh, and myself and Mike and Bob were active in it. You know, you get into that process of selling a business like that, you date a lot of people. You know, the analogy I've used with a bunch of folks is at some point in time you're gonna get to the in the bachelor series, the honeymoon suite with some folks. And as I as I got into it, I realized E Plus had been somebody who had been calling Nigel once a year for about 10 years. No beginning. Wow. E Plus had presence here, but they didn't have the level of presence that that we did, right? We were a mid-Atlantic-based business, so Maryland into the Carolinas a bit. Um, so yeah, when you enter into a process like that, you have to serve the process. Sure. Which means you got to go through and talk to a lot of people, and we had a way that we did it with Casey and Nigel kicking it off, and then myself and Mike and Bob explaining our areas of the business. Um, and we went through the process and did all those things. At the end of the day, I think they knew that E Plus made a lot of sense, but it took a while to serve the process to get there.

SPEAKER_02 18:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:44

Um, and then as you get into that and you know you're almost at the final goal line, and you know, we're having a due diligence session up in uh up in Herndon with the E Plus executive team, and and here's the reality a lot of the folks who were there then are still there now. And the best part for me is they act the same way they did then, right? There, they have been true folks. But I remember a moment when we were sitting in that room and Mark Marin, our CEO, um, looked at me and I'd I'd kind of gone through my piece because it it went first in the order we did stuff.

SPEAKER_02 19:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:25

Uh, and he said, uh, so how long are you gonna be here? I said, Well, I'd probably say five to five to seven years would would be a a good goal. I said, uh, you know, depends upon if I'm having fun. Um, because I I'm I'm a half full guy. I you know, work is work, but I like to have fun when I work, and and uh I said, my job's real important to me. It's number four. And and he looked at me, not with a that's not ranked high enough, but like, tell me more. I said, Well, number one, two, and three are faith, family, and friends. My job's real important to me. Um, but that's that's kind of how I prioritize it. And that kind of established my connection with Mark that's continued to develop and go from there, but that that's who Mark is, too. And so, you know, we went through that process. We went through the acquisition with E Plus. There's a lot of shock with folks and as you get into something like that and adjusting to going from private to public and all those things. But there was a lot of people there holding our hands the whole time. You know, my current boss, John Benjamin, Benji, we called it making the sausage, right? You had to you had to integrate it. And there we go seven or eight months later and bringing in ABS. And we had to go through a level of sausage again. And very fortunately for this region here in Southern Virginia, um, we were able to get through and get 90 plus percent of that done before COVID hit March of the next year.

SPEAKER_02 20:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:58

So we had we had normalized ourselves under one brand, and it really provided a foundation to continue to grow the business uh in Southern Virginia.

SPEAKER_00 21:08

Yeah. Yeah. One of the things that I uh am just floored about is the fact that those little conversations like you're having with Mark, those things connect instantly and you know who you're dealing with. I mean, you instantly know who you're dealing with, and it doesn't have to be a five-hour conversation. I mean, my I've had buddies that I've known my whole entire life. We could go for a car ride, say we're going to Raleigh. We may not say two words. That was the most enjoyable time I had because I knew he was right there with me. You know, and and that's kind of how things are. But uh, you know, all the things that Slate has done and that you've done with Slate bringing in ABS into this and now into E plus, what a wonderful legacy you have to look over your shoulder and go, Yep, you know, I kind of helped this happen down here. You try A lot of people's lives, Mike.

SPEAKER_01 22:01

Yeah, and you know, I appreciate that, Van. I I really don't look at it that way. I mean, obviously, you gotta you gotta surround yourself with people smarter than you.

SPEAKER_00 22:10

All day.

SPEAKER_01 22:11

And uh, I you know, I like to talk. Um so for me, I I have to occasionally pull back and go, you know, wait a minute, God gave you two ears and one mouth for a proportional reason. Um, and and what I'm really trying to do, especially in mentoring Dave and and him now being in the R VP role here in uh in Southern Virginia, is Dave's a super sharp guy. It's hard to believe I've worked with Dave for 18, almost 18 years now. Yeah, I need to be quiet and let Dave do his job. But to be able to go through that process with him and now with a couple of other R VPs and Alex and uh and with Doug down in Texas, um, you know, I I gotta do more of the same, right? And it's really about surrounding yourself with with people, giving them the the runways, the lanes, the tools, the resources, the people to go to go do their job and let them execute.

SPEAKER_00 23:07

Yeah, no. Fact, I you could not have picked a better person than David Evelyn to be that guy, uh, aside from the fact that he is one of the most personable people that's out there. He man, yeah, I don't think he could tell you anything incorrectly if you put a gun to his head. He's just that kind of guy, listens, balanced. Uh, I just love him to death personally. But uh, you know, he and I have a different kind of connection that we won't go into here today, but uh we're we're bonded into that. But you know, I think it's important too, Mike, that you know that you know, you are a wonderful storyteller. Okay, and that is valuable because people remember stories. You know, when when I go to speak and I'm running events and stuff like that, I try to put things into stories because people don't remember Bullet 579, they don't remember that crap for the most part. You know, you and I are different when we're looking at things, it's like my boss Peter's so different about that. He'll pick all those things out, but stories stick with people, analogies stick with people. You are the friggin' master at doing that stuff. And I mean, you are Mike. I listen, I've known you a long time, and I'll sit back when you're talking to folks or doing things in the room, and I'm just grinning ear to ear, going, I need to remember that shit and write that down.

SPEAKER_01 24:33

I actually have a pile of quotes, quotes sitting on my desk when somebody throws one out that I like so I can write it down and and refer to it and make sure I give credit where credit's due. And you know, it's you know, my boss John Bengiovini, he's big on tell a story. Yeah, right. You'll you'll always hear you, you'll get a lot more if you if you put it into a story. And then now the the older I get, I do realize I have to I have to uh change the currency level on some of my stories because the one bullet Barney Fife analogy, and do you want me to use it here? I know I've lost the I know I've lost the audience when I look at the younger folks and they're going to their phone googling, who is this Barney Fife guy?

SPEAKER_00 25:19

I do it all the time. I go up in the middle of a presentation and throw something out. No one cracks a smile, and I'm like going, that's too old, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_01 25:28

You know, I don't I don't feel my age till I look in the mirror, right? I mean, I I like staying young. My wife and I are heavily focused on uh being young and keeping up to Chase Grandkids, and so uh that's that's pretty important to us.

SPEAKER_00 25:42

Yeah, I think that's great. That's hysterical. You know, as a senior VP, you know, you're responsible for people, strategy, outcomes. You know, at the same time, uh, you know, your leadership philosophy evolved over the years. What does it actually look like today versus 10 years ago, Mike?

SPEAKER_01 26:05

Wow. Well, 10 years ago, obviously the geography was so much smaller, right? Um, it was you know, Maryland into the Carolinas. And at that point in time, realistically, I had responsibility for you know Southern Virginia as it stayed. So, you know, now you look at okay, take take where you were, how do you apply that when you're looking at multiple regions? Southern Virginia is a heavy-duty public sector commercial enterprise blend, right? And we have high density across that world, and we do it without having what I'd call tier one market, right? Richmond, Tidewater, tier two markets. When I go into the other places, we have tier one markets. That changes the mix of the customer base that you have. We're actively looking at broadening public sector and making some investments in both of those areas, timing a little different. Um, obviously, when you look at Houston and Dallas, we're talking about Uber tier one markets, right? Yeah. I mean, you know, we we could just continue to organically add people and spread out. Um, but they're heavy-duty enterprise bases. So the markets look a little different, how you deal with the partnerships are a little different. So you've got to flex and modify, but try to go from your strengths and your strongest partner relationships and figure out where you're programmatic versus opportunistic in that aspect. Uh, and and then you also look at how do I potentially fill some of those geographical gaps? Because if you look at a air quote ownership perspective, Virginia to Tennessee and over to Texas and down, uh, and it's really, really hard to try to go grow that business by planting individual flags in territories where you don't have people or offices. Yeah, it's just not a real effective way to grow the business. So we're constantly looking for organizations like a slate, like an ABS, like a FutureCom that we bought in Dallas that we can bring into the company, integrate, go through the sausage making process. So, in a perfect world, I'd like to do one of those in the southeast uh before I I hang the cleats up because I've got a pretty good story to tell about coming into this company from a smaller private and how it's worked out.

SPEAKER_00 28:30

Yeah. I I think it's very true, Mike, uh, that you can't plant a flag on different hills as you're growing along without leaving the Marines behind. You know, you'll never hold that space, you know. So um I wish you tons of luck. I know you're gonna be successful. That doesn't concern me. I just want to make sure that that you have the fortune to find those right companies that are gonna gel because your persona and how you have drawn people in. Man, you are a friggin' talent scout. Look at Scott Cobb. Give me a break. You know, I've known Scott 20 plus years. I when I was with NetApp, I was selling him NetApp, you know, and that's how he and I became friends. And and now we sit around and chat like we're two old guys sitting in rocking chairs. I'm like, dude, you're not that old.

SPEAKER_01 29:20

You know, and and obviously, um, you know, I might have approved getting Scott on board, but I only get partial credit, and I've got a great relationship with Scott and to see him scale like he scaled, right? Um, but but my buddy Todd Lasseter, who's over at NetApp now, Todd, Todd and Pete Tate are the guys that came to me and said, I want this guy on my team, right? We had we had a void and we we put him onto the team, and what Scott's done has been phenomenal. And there's a lot of those stories out there, right? You gotta you gotta listen to your listen to your people. And then you talk about you know selling Scott NetApp 20 years ago. Well, Scott's telling the story in here in the office here the other day, where Phil Green, one of our most successful reps in the Carolinas, I think sold him Gateway Computers. Phil pulled up the phone the other day and had Scott's contact in there. So, you know, at the at the end of the day, it's a it's an intertwined business, and I still go back to. Yeah, you gotta treat people the way they want to be treated, you got to focus on your relationships, and you can't lay gas to the bridge. Um, because that bad news is gonna haunt you.

SPEAKER_00 30:27

It's really gonna haunt you. Yeah, no, that's a fact. You know, recently we brought Cloud and into your team. Uh, we talked about the AI infrastructure workshop. From your seat, how are you seeing where customers are thinking about AI right now, Mike? Um, and where do you think the real opportunities are today?

SPEAKER_01 30:50

You know, Van, it's it's all over the map. As you know, this is a daily conversation in some way, shape, or form. Right. Um, you look at each region differently, level of public sector versus not. Everybody's talking about it. Our goal as a company at E Plus is how do we meet them in the right place on that journey? Because you have the folks that are advanced and deployed, either deployed in the cloud or deployed on-prem or in a hybrid fashion because they're ahead of the game. You got people who are doing it with SaaS solutions, you got people who are just evaluating, hey, we have to be involved with AI and what does that what is that going to look like for our company? And then before you do anything, you got to look at what are my use cases.

SPEAKER_02 31:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:37

And then I got to figure out how I'm securing the data. So security is in every part of our business, right? I mean, we're we're basically become a billion-dollar security company here at E Plus. Yeah. So it's all of those frameworks and and trying to understand where the customer is, where they want to go, and how do we meet them. And we can't be all things to all people. And hey, I'd love to be selling AI pods at big dollars every, but you know, that's not where it starts. Right. And we want to have the conversation with our customer to understand where they are. Hopefully, we can meet them and help them on that journey. And that is certainly picking up across my area. Um, so that when the opportunity presents itself to sell something that is at a level of scale because they need to do it with a with a colo provider or on-prem, that that we're the partner of choice.

SPEAKER_00 32:29

Yeah, yeah, gotcha.

SPEAKER_01 32:30

But the expectation that we're gonna, you know, sell a lot of AI pods of whatever type of reference architecture right now, that that's not reality in most cases.

SPEAKER_00 32:39

No, it's not. Yeah, no, it's not. I and true, as we discussed the other day with your team. Um, you know, it those conversations are all over the map. The trusted advisor role in AI is let's find out what you're trying to solve today, because it's not what I can get AI to do. AI can do anything. The question is, what are you trying to solve today? And then it grows from there. So yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:06

And in a lot of cases, that that conversation needs to happen with somebody we're not typically talking to, right? Yeah, and so we've got to leverage our contacts and our successes to get that warm door referral, who you know, getting you into that conversation in a different fashion, and then bring in our trusted resources because we've got a great group of people running the AI practice there.

SPEAKER_00 33:30

Yeah. You know, and in that different level, it's not the CIOs, it's not the CEOs, CFOs, those are not the guys this conversation happens with. There are new job titles being developed, like emerging technologies director, uh, AI director. You know, these things are all cropping up because you know, a year ago I didn't even hear these names. And every time I get into a deep conversation, I'm talking to the emerging technologies director or SVP of emerging technologies. And those are conversations we'd never had because hell, they didn't exist. Correct.

SPEAKER_01 34:11

So correct. I mean, in a lot of cases, we're doing some stuff in the collaboration area that's got a lot of inherent AI built into it, but we're talking about the people who own that contact center, yeah, right? That's typically run outside of IT. So, you know, we're in those conversations and doing those things, and uh, you know, the goal is just to continue to have more of them and lean in so that we're able to meet that customer where they are and help them as best we can.

SPEAKER_00 34:36

Yeah, for sure. Hey, you know, if you sit down today with the 25-year-old Mike McGee, okay, think about, you know, exactly what would you tell him that you've learned in your experience talking to the 25-year-old Mike McGee.

SPEAKER_01 34:55

Wow. Um, it's all about the people you surround yourself with, right? Professionally and personally, right? You know, what what are you grounded in? What are you committed to? I mean, uh I in my 20s, I changed jobs, uh the 20s into 30s really changed jobs a couple of times. And uh maybe I shouldn't have, but at the end of the day, one reason or another, it led me to certain places, right? And I never never fell down so hard that I couldn't get up.

SPEAKER_02 35:23

Um skin my knee.

SPEAKER_01 35:25

Yeah, yeah, skin my knee. You know, I mean, I I got introduced to my wife through a fraternity brother. He married her older sister. So, you know, he and I for now, I'll be married 35 years on Monday uh to my wife Leanne. So uh she's she's probably kept me out of a few ditches too.

SPEAKER_00 35:42

Yeah, good one to do that, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:44

But you know, it's it's uh again, it it is a lot about who you surround yourself with.

SPEAKER_02 35:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:51

Uh and then I'm a creature of habit. I get that from my dad. He did a lot of things the same way, right, wrong, or indifferent. All right. I'm an early riser. Praise the Lord. I can't stay up that late that much anymore. So, you know, my team knows they can pretty much get me between six and 10.

SPEAKER_02 36:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:09

Uh and uh, you know, and everybody else in my world. Um, but you know, it's just develop some consistency and and understanding that your reputation, your credibility that you build and you build it early, right? Um is what you take with you wherever you go, right? And that that's that's really your your value prop. Um and uh and that as however you're doing that as a 25-year-old, because there was no social stuff when I was growing up. Yeah, there were no cell phones. Um be very be very aware of what you do in those areas, right? Because it's out there, it's in the public domain, um, and it can you know reach up and and haunt you if you're not careful.

SPEAKER_00 36:57

Yeah, yeah, that's good advice back to you, Mike. Um, you know, I I think uh a couple of the things that I always remember that my dad had shared with me, my father, uh, and my listeners know this. You know, my dad was uh World War II veteran, yeah, hero, cover of Life magazine, the whole bit. Dad shook your hand. If my father shook your hand, it was a done deal. He's gonna kill himself to do what he promised you he was gonna do. And you know, everybody that was anybody in the towns and stuff that I grew up as a kid knew who Paul Flowers was. Uh and they didn't know anything more than his reputation to be that guy who said he was gonna get X done, and it damn sure happened. Um, you know, wonderful analogy that you shared too is that those relationships, and again, we come right back to that, are everything. You know, and if my listeners don't take anything away from our conversation today, remember that the people that you entrust with your life, and I mean that because everybody has a group of Indians that are managing you, whether you think you do or not, those people are gonna be who you become going forward, you know. So, yeah, I feel the same way about my wife, Mike. You know, I've seen some pictures of you guys out in the mountains and climbing hills and everything else, and she seems pretty much like she's gonna keep your guardrails up when she needs to.

SPEAKER_01 38:29

Yeah, she she's doing everything. She she's doing a great job keeping herself young, and I just get to draft off of her uh in a number of areas, so that's a good thing. And yeah, we're blessed with three kids, all married, three grandkids. Um, they're all successful in what they're doing, they're all churched in their own way, which is important to us because my wife's a preacher's kid. Um a lot of influence there. Uh so yeah, yeah, we're we're blessed. We got most of them around us. One son down in Durham with his wife and two kids, heading there on Sunday for a six-month-old granddaughter to be baptized.

SPEAKER_00 39:05

That's awesome. I have one more question, Mike. Tell me about the first date you had with your wife.

SPEAKER_01 39:10

Tell me about uh so that was fun. So I gotta go back to my fraternity brother who had married her older sister. She graduated my wife went to Lynchburg College, now Lynchburg University, had moved here. Um, they invited me and her to Mother's Day uh at their house. So that's where I met her, and I'd known my brother-in-law's sister for a long time. So it ended up talking to her a lot. So that that Mother's Day thing ended, uh, and then I asked her out, and I and my wife didn't have a really wide palette at the time. Uh, and I took her to a restaurant down in the fan that I can't remember, but it was a Greek restaurant, and I ordered some stuffed or wrapped grape leaves, and I think to this day she'd tell you she she choked them down.

SPEAKER_00 40:06

Was it Stella's?

SPEAKER_01 40:08

No, it wasn't Stella's, it was somewhere more over on the Carey Street side, and like I said, I I can't remember it. Um, but yeah, so that that's kind of where it started. And uh I I like to refer to it as a low-key marketing approach that I that I took with her, and uh, because I'm about four years older than my wife, so that keeps me younger as well. And uh so yeah, so I don't think she's had stuffed grape leaves again ever since.

SPEAKER_00 40:33

Imagine that. You tried to kill her on the first date, so yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:36

Yeah, pretty, pretty much.

SPEAKER_00 40:38

That's funny. Any parting thoughts, Mike? Anything that that you'd like to share? We didn't talk about it.

SPEAKER_01 40:44

Yeah, this has been a lot more fun than I expected. Yeah, I remember my my older son the other day after you made the post on LinkedIn, he goes, You are doing a podcast? I said, Well, no, I'm a I'm a guest on a podcast, Reed. Um, so I hope I didn't hope I didn't embarrass my kids here. Um, I appreciate you getting me, you know, the the way you do it is great, uh, and the ability to uh you know to to share some stories and talk about it in a fun way. I mean, like I I go back to where we started. Uh I am blessed, blessed by the people around me, both personally and professionally, uh, and all those type of things and and long-term relationships with folk like yourself. Um, my whole goal in the whole thing, leave it better than I found it.

SPEAKER_02 41:28

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01 41:28

Right. If I can do that, uh then I'll have I'll have done my part, and at some point in time I'll ride off into the sunset. Yeah, and hopefully I'll be more accessible than all these other guys I know who've retired, and I can't seem to find them anywhere.

SPEAKER_00 41:42

I know it's true. It's just you know, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:45

I guess if they're that busy in retirement, good for them. I'll try to do the same thing, Mike.

SPEAKER_00 41:50

I appreciate you taking the time. I know you're busy, and this is this just means the world to me. And I I really enjoyed chatting with you. I truly do.

SPEAKER_01 41:57

It's been a pleasure, my friend. We'll leave it with a little woo.

SPEAKER_00 42:02

And and for those of you who don't know our connection with Rick Flair, you're gonna see a couple pictures that I may have AI'd Mike around. Hit hit the the internet in the next few days when we talk about this. Gotta love the next point. I do, in fact. Folks, thank you again for being on the show today and listening today. I, you know, incredible guest in Mike McGee. Just love this guy to death. And if you shoot me those tweets and send me the emails, drop me notes, let me know things that you want to ask as sub-questions and other folks you would like to have on. We always want to have interesting, fun people like Mike on. And if you have a suggestion, please let us know. Thanks again for listening. Mike, take care. Thank you, Van.