Stop Wasting Money: Are You Focused on the Right Problem?
There's an expression, and it goes like this. If you're a hammer, everything is a nail. And this applies to anyone in in an engineering role. If you give an IT engineer a problem, they're gonna figure out a solution, and that's gonna be the solution you get. And this is relevant.
Speaker 1:I'll get to it just a moment, but I'm gonna tell you a story. So wow. About 25 years ago, I was working as a network engineer for a excellent you know, very established, computer consulting and, you know, a very established computer consulting company in Los Angeles. And so we sold we sold servers and network hardware, and we did on-site support. And for the small SMB businesses, we would do everything from, like, PC and desktop support all the way up to their server infrastructure.
Speaker 1:This cloud didn't exist. Everybody had email servers on-site. You know? I mean, everything was on-site. And then we so we went everywhere from the SMBs all the way up into Fortune 1500 and Fortune 1,000.
Speaker 1:And, usually, in that case, it was augmented expertise for their IT teams, specifically related around migration projects. So maybe you were migrating from, Novell to Windows NT, or you were migrating from, group wise to Exchange, or you had a a s 400 to a s 400 migration upgrade. So upgrades and migrations, really. You know, we were the hired guns that were brought in to do to do big migrations and to provide that, like, expert guidance and and, an overlay for the IT teams. So the story is personal.
Speaker 1:So, we have a customer. And, by the way, I mean, put how old this is. We you buy a computer, and the computer wouldn't have a network card built into it. Nowadays, network cards just come built into every computer. Like, you cannot get a computer that doesn't have some sort of networking cape capability, even Apple.
Speaker 1:So Apple laptops don't most of them don't have an The desktops all have, like, a port on the back. Laptops don't. But if you plug a USB thing in, it works just fine. But, anyway, so desktop computers, everything has has a network port built in. Server, same thing.
Speaker 1:You could buy a server that didn't have a network port plugged into it. Like, why do you need a server without a network port? So, you go out and you buy a card. And, early generations of these cards, like, the the really sexy ones were, 3com 509 b's. And then, of course, there were lots of clones because the 3coms were really expensive cards, 100 to $150, something like that, memory serves.
Speaker 1:And you could go out and you can buy, like, knock off, like, other stuff for maybe 50, $75. And, you know, that doesn't seem like a lot. But when you're talking about now you've got, you know, a 100 computers, you know, times a 100 100 cards, like, that stuff adds up real quick. Anyways, so I go out. I get a job order.
Speaker 1:I get a dispatch. I go out to this business in the accounting company, and they've got, they've got a computer. It's just not working right. It's just not connecting to the network. It's not doing what it's supposed to do.
Speaker 1:It cannot indicate with a server. I can still remember it. I I remember I remember the customer, where they were at their office. I remember this very vividly seared into my memory. Can't get it to work.
Speaker 1:And and they had a they had a great program where we all the engineers were, like, paired. So we had our buddies, and this is back in the days of, like, Nextel. We had, like, their walkie talkie phone. You're like, you know, I'm having this problem with this computer. Right?
Speaker 1:And, I end up after, like, after, like, not getting anywhere with it, I end up bringing this this desktop back to our office. We've got a cool setup in the back with this, like, warehouse industrial space where, we all have, like, workbenches, where we have, like, power strips and test gear and, like, all this different stuff and multiple monitors, and we can do assemblies. And so I break this thing back to try to get this thing to work, and I'm literally working on it, you know, in the back of the warehouse. And as time passes, I just accumulate like, like, more engineers, like, more more guys, right, end up coming around. And there must be, like, 3 or 4 of us.
Speaker 1:I think there were 4 of us, honestly. Like, trying to figure out why this this network card wasn't working and what was wrong with it and how to get it to work. The son of the owners, who was one of the, like, main salespeople for the business, you know, how long have you been working on this? At this point, I'm probably 3 hours in, and these other people are probably you know? Like, I mean, there's a there's a there's a, like, a selection of, like you you know?
Speaker 1:Like, everybody's been there from, like, 30 minutes to, like, an hour and a half, like, working out with me. And everybody's like, you know, we've been working on this, you know, blah blah blah. We just can't see. We're just, like, crazy. And he's like he's like, oh, okay.
Speaker 1:Okay. Okay. He's, like, looking around. He's just like he's like and at that time, we had a structure where there was a t and m rate, and then there was a there was a discount tiers based on, you know, the amount of hours per month that we had, like, on a with the with the business. And this particular customer had a $135 an hour retainer with us.
Speaker 1:And he's like he's like he's like, hold on a second. And he goes, how many hours have you been on this, and what's our hourly rate with this customer? And at this point, I mean, I I'm ashamed still to to to admit it. I mean, it's funny now. It's been so long, but, like, at the moment, it was like this thing.
Speaker 1:He's like, how many hours are you into this? At what cost? And how much would a different network cost card how much does a net different network card cost? Right? Never had it occurred to me up into that point that the solution was like, I could just go get the expensive network card and put it in there, and it would work instantaneously, which, by the way, it did because we had these whole things in, like, in in inventory.
Speaker 1:Just on my own time, I was probably almost $500 sent, like, $500 worth of hours into this project. And then and then, like like, plus 3 other engineers. And so, I mean, like, all in. You know? There's, like, a $1,000 worth of of potential non built labor from, like, this business.
Speaker 1:And, again, it's funny now thinking back on it. It wasn't so funny at the time. So we got, like, a $1,000 worth of engineering time trying to fix a $50 network card that could be solved by just putting a $150 network card into it. Right? And it's something that in the moment when it happened you know, again, I remember the customer.
Speaker 1:I remember their office. I know who it was, where they were located. I can remember, you know, standing around the workbench. I know who was there with me. I can remember I can remember, you know, the sales guy coming back and, like, asking about it.
Speaker 1:Like, it's very I mean, it's 25 years ago. It is a very vivid memory for me. And just having that moment of, like, oh, yeah. Like, probably shouldn't be trying to figure out how to fix this network card. The real thing here is just replacing it.
Speaker 1:So moral of the story that I took out of this and and one that I try to think about and maintain ever since then is, are you working on the right problem? Are you solving the right problem? You know? And this applies everywhere. You know?
Speaker 1:This is a this is a technical thing, but this this goes into all things in business now at this point that I've been involved with, which is are you a hammer and it's you're just trying to hammer the nail, or do you need to go find a screwdriver? And is that gonna be the solution for you? And or in the case of the story, was the right solution just going out and getting a 3com 509b and put it in there? And and after that, by the way, I learned that lesson. And after that, I carried network cards with me.
Speaker 1:So I had a box and a trunk of my car that I took with me on all of my engineering calls when I was out of dispatch into the field. And so I always had network cards with me. And they were the expensive ones. They're the nice ones. They were ones that instantaneously worked all the time.
Speaker 1:And I never gonna have that problem where I spent too much time working on fixing a card. And I used to I would tell a customer. I just tell them straight out, like, hey. This is what a replacement card costs, and this is what it costs per hour. My proposal is we will go through the obvious things.
Speaker 1:But at the 15 minute mark, if this is not solved, my recommendation to you is we and I I would give them the option. They could tell me keep going, not keep going. Let's try to solve it. But I we know and you explain it in in terms of, like, all they really see is this computer is not working, and I want the computer to work. And if you would give them some parameters, it was like, this is kind of the experience with it, and here's your option.
Speaker 1:This would cost as much. This would cost as much. We can try to do the cheap route first. But at this point of trying the cheap route with no guarantees or no fix, let's just do the real fix. And and from that point forward, that was my approach.
Speaker 1:And guess what? Everyone is happy because they knew that you were looking out for them and even and and just being able to say, this thing is gonna cost as much. It makes sense for you at this point. This is just what this looks like. Like, I will check-in with you in a few minutes and tell you where we're at, and you can say yes or no.
Speaker 1:And you still have control, and you still have power, and you still have the final say, and you get to decide what to do. But now I'm arming you with enough information that you can actually make that decision, and it's not just I don't know what's wrong with this computer. It's not working. Make it work. So I'm Max Clark.
Speaker 1:You know, I still am trying not to be hammered for every
