Welcome to our podcast all about a fastrowing company trying to do something a little different we cover everything Halo from our culture and our business ethos and how this has attributed to our success as well as even some of our new features my name is Rosa and I'll be here to guide you and this is the Halo way welcome to the Halo way podcast today I am joined by CEO and founder Paul Hamilton and we will be discussing the history of Halo the Halo way and McLaren so do you want to explain a little bit about um where you started out um maybe about your sort of career path from where you started out at Uni and how you ended up here yeah sure um so I started off at University I did a degree in computer science and economics M didn't know whether I wanted to go down the sort of it side or the financial side um ended up going down the financial side started off on a traine chared accountant contract with ernston young mhm um quickly realized that that wasn't the working environment for me it was possibly too hierarchical um and not yeah you couldn't quickly enough I guess make a difference potentially maybe that's the Crux of it and at the time I um I actually read a book Maverick by Ricardo semler which was all about an organization which was almost the total opposite of of erston young at the time and I remember thinking that's the kind of place I want to work um so it kind of solidified my thoughts to to leave arson young and actually pursue something else so I left arson young and I was actually just kind of a freelance it person um met some people ended up working in a managed service provider for a while um and that was when I met Alan who was the original founder um of of netel or Halo netel desk as it was back then and the two of us started um basically building the business and uh Taking It ultimately to to what it is today mhm was there ever a moment in creating that that you thought ah I don't think this is going to happen not really um so just to explain I guess the journey so back in 2004 M when I first started getting involved in the help desk and and and building out particularly on the commercial side but I also programmed probably more than 20 hours a week maybe even 30 hours a week so I was heavily programming as well as selling supporting um maintaining um traveling to implement for clients this is when it was just myself and Alan um and it but while doing that so between 2004 and 2008 we were also doing a whole lot of other stuff we were installing networks we were right building websites um as I said we were pretty much uh acting like a we had a managed service provider business um and because we were I guess had our fingers in lots of Pies we um there wasn't really a point when it was just a very gradual process and it got to the point I think so in 2008 that was when we both went fulltime on net help desk we thought right this is the future this is what we this is the most lucrative thing we should be spending all our time on this in terms of maximizing opportunity of course it's difficult because you do make yeah you make friends and when when we were working back then and our our clients we we were helping you end up like the relationships you form you don't want to let them down and so we yeah it was a gradual process I guess to stop doing all the work we were doing so that we could then focus on net help desk um as it was back then so it wasn't just an overnight switch where we were like okay let's cut all the contracts stop doing what we were doing and focus 100% on that up desk You could argue that's possibly what we should have done but we uh yeah we we guess like like to think we're nice people we wouldn't let people don't like that so um so it meant that what we ended up with is we were never worried about it it because it was a gradual process and by the time when we did go fulltime it was kind of already established enough and it was clear that it was going to be a very uh worthwhile exercise to just focus on that fulltime mhm I think that's something that some people forget is when they see a company and they suddenly see it everywhere they're like wow where did this come from where did all the popularity come from but actually this company has been going for a very very long time and I think it's only recently we've had that kind of explosive growth um possibly with the rebranding mhm yeah um so it takes a long time to to create a product or a platform that is is ready for it it's Target well in our industry anyway I mean it's complex software it's uh in terms of what we do in Enterprise service management and uh PSA systems it's it it takes a long time to build something that's like best of greed um and we feel it's taken us maybe 20 years to to get to that point um yeah when Allan started writing it back in 1994 um up until 2018 so we had you mentioned the Rebrand in 2018 we had a big so we recognized that okay we've done the technology side we've done the product side it's ready now let's focus on the actual commercial strategy side and we wanted to well I guess from my point of view I wanted to do it that way around and I again comes back to you'll read all about sort of Halo's long-term plans and long-term thinking MH um for me it's just about doing things in the right order um and there's no point I mean you could formulate the best commercial strategy in the world and and maybe put something to Market that's maybe not ready for the market or not as as good as what it could have been um but you then end up firefighting the whole time and you just spend all your time kind of just satisfying the demand that you've created from your goto Market strategy that's possibly too early um whereas if you just work on the product and platform side first make sure it really is the best thing out there that people can can can use then then work on your go to market strategy um and and that's basically what happened in 2018 so we completely it was at the point where we'd Rewritten it from the ground up in terms of all the front end interfaces and the apis and put it all on complete like modern technology Stacks um and in terms of the commercial strategy it was basically to instead of having one platform that kind of was was advertised to to all segments of the market we we honed in specifically on our very different Target audiences so PSA very much for managed service providers audience is very different the Integrations are very different um the buying processes are very different um and and then on the Enterprise service management side um again it's just like and the skill sets that are required are so different so so it's not just it's not just that we've got different products with different website I mean it's entirely different teams as you'll know that our development we we have segmented our development team into specific groups of people that Focus purely on on the the individual platforms that they they look after um and that was a big part of the strategy and and the Rebrand so Halo PS net help desk became Halo PS a Halo itm and we've now got Halo CRM as well for customer service um yeah and I think so the explosive growth really has uh you might think well people do ask like oh what happened back then what did you do all so you'd realize you've been doing something wrong for for 15 20 years and then all of a sudden you got it right it's like no it's not it's not like that at all it's just that's when the product was ready for a a new kind of go to market strategy mhm and how did you obviously net help desk is quite intuitive as to what what what it is but how did you come up with Halo like it's sort of something that people see they see our building they see this big halo on the side and they're like what is this company yeah um there's no romantic story really it's I'd love it if there was I mean it it's we literally went through hundreds or even thousands of words I was on a flight from London to New York on route to Puerto Rico actually of all places um had a a visit there with a a client sort partner and yeah it was on that flight we we' set ourselves the goal like we right by the end of this flight we're going have chosen a name and we we just liked the sounds of Halo um it kind of yeah rolled off the tongue nicely um there's some interesting things you can do from a marketing point of view in terms of halo effect um and I think as an overall group level yeah name it's it's I mean you can't really imagine things without it now but just and at first it did I mean it felt so weird mhm um but it's yeah you just can't imagine anything else you hear um vague rumors where people ask oh why is it called Halo and this oh well it's because you know it's all encompassing or you know all our products make one nice sort of circle together you know they have these intersections of where they meet um that will be part of why why why I liked the word in the first place is because I would have thought there's parallels with the the word and the meaning behind the word and the uh and what we do so I would have thought yeah that's quite an appropriate um word for a yeah an overarching group of service management platforms so I think going back to your degree it's quite interesting because you've studied these two things side by side and you said oh I did the sort of the business side and then I wasn't actually that interested so I started doing the tech side but it kind of almost seems that you spent quite a long time working on the tech side and now you're actually looking at the business side do you do you think that that's there are things that have translated from that degree sort of all these years later that's a good question and I always wonder um particular when you read books and things it's not just when what you study at Uni it's even if you read a book you and you really like the book and then you you maybe recommend the book and and you never really know what your life would have been like if you didn't read the book yeah that's true um because a lot of it sometimes is because well let me put this other scenario so you read a book and you don't really like it and it you put it down but is it that you don't like the material because it's not you and so if it's a book that you really like and you can't put down it's like stuff you resonate already like still well already with true yeah and maybe so I and that's often yeah I don't know how much you actually learn and how changing a book can be that you really like and can't put down you read it from cover to cover um but there's certainly been and so going back to University yeah I it's difficult to know I mean there's so much that I know for sure I don't really make use of I did some maths modules and uh some very theoretical um computer science bits and pieces MH um but I mean it it's it's such a I think um life in your skill sets it's such a complex puzzle essentially with so many thousands or millions of parameters that all get put together and they all come from somewhere um and I to think that University wasn't just about me growing up as an individual and that I actually did learn some stuff that has been useful to apply um in my career as well but it definitely is interesting as you say how because it wasn't deliberate or by Design at all that I've started off using kind of all the technical side and then because there wasn't really a huge amount until the products ready for Market I mean you do yeah you do I was selling it and I was um yeah uh very much interest in the commercial side I was responsible for a a website but I guess the focus because you know that the product isn't yet kind of comp competitive in the marketplace then maybe you're you're always a bit that's where your main focus lies so I think yeah I'd say that uh for the first 10 years or so probably I was definitely using the stuff I'd learned in the computer science half of my degree um um but also mention to Alan my co-founder they he he the amount he taught me in terms of actually the applied side so yeah it's all very well having the mindset of a programmer but you need to know how to actually use the tools in front of you and um learn all the syntax Etc um so yeah uh but then in the last 10 years it's been all about commercial strategy um resourcing allocation of resources within an organization prioritization um bits and pieces that I definitely would have learned on the sort of the economic side of my degree yeah I think to be fair I guess when you look at the graduates and the people that you've employed actually you might be the only person who's used anything in their degree um because we all have a very wide range of different degrees and I don't think there's probably one or two people who have it relevant skills it is interesting I mean two-thirds of our developers probably have math degrees we do have two or three who probably have Computing computer science but yeah most of them don't you're right um and then in terms of the the general consultancy sales I mean it's everything from history to Modern Art to geography and I don't know what about yourself Japanese Japanese jaanese yeah and and that's I guess what Halo is about it's about creating opportunities for anyone from any background we don't really care what experience you already have it's all about attitude work ethic curiosity is really important so people who are actually like curious about what their job entails and they see something that because the best way what I find the the way you learn the most is having that Natural Curiosity because you you you literally want to know the answers because you are naturally curious and you mhm you don't have to like force yourself to want to learn because you know that you need to it's just Natural Curiosity yeah that's something you can't really teach whereas all the skills eventually you can teach them if somebody's willing enough to learn but the attitude is really really difficult to to teach there um so we talk a lot internally about the Halo way and we do have a big sign behind us that says the Halo way um this is also another one of your Creations would you mind explaining a little bit about the Halo way and what it is yes um again I'd love to say that because it's become quite a powerful symbol of our organization and increasingly as we move forward we're we're becoming not just known for the technology and the service management platforms that we deliver but equally like the way we deliver like the the way our organization is created and how we're different and there's many kind of on the face of it looks quite strange uh strange ways to to run a business that uh that we've adopted um and anyway We've Ended up kind of calling that the Halo way and it's um it has become this almost this movement almost that we were associated with and maybe one day we'll have a a book um called the Halo way who knows but um it's yeah it wasn't really by by by design it was it's just happened in fact it was one of our colleagues Tim Barton wines who kind of first started coining that phrase nice um something would happen he oh it's the Halo way and it's and it's just it just stuck and now it gets used yeah all the time but um and we we like it because we are proud of what we do and especially in our industry the fact that we are so long-term focused yeah it's extremely rare in the technology industry um it's almost all about um yeah you can you can you can sell out to kind of private equity organizations pretty early on a lot of the time um when you if you build a software platform that's proving to be quite lucrative then and you can cash out for multi-million pound deals quite quickly in in in a lot of cases um and I think to find an organization that has the history that we've got and the long-term future plan that we've got cuz I'm I talking someone a couple of weeks ago um it's in the Bay Area uh somebody um yeah very sen you in Google and the the the thought of a 10year plan they're like another 10 years bloody hell and um so and it's just very very unheard of really that uh usually people are working to kind of I guess three-year plans is probably the normal um but in technology and and you can just see it from all our competitors in terms of the the Legacy Frameworks and Technology the software itself it begins to kind of look and feel a bit clunky because it's written on like cod bases from mhm I don't know a lot of them are maybe 2007 to 2012 perhaps uh and all of our so we're like 10 10 to 15 years newer in some cases and you can just see that from the speed the yeah performance of the application the the ease of the intuitiveness of the the configuration and I mean it's part of the selling point of the the platform in itself is how how easy to to use it is yeah it almost sort of looks not like a video but kind of like a video game in like Aesthetics that you're just kind of clicking these buttons rather than actually yeah having to think about anything that's going on behind it I mean it's built on the engine that kind of drives the modern social media Network so it's okay yeah people are very excited and because when they see something that's familiar to them but also like very modern Cutting Edge they uh they absolutely love it so so that's yeah I think a long-term thinking is really important because it takes return on investment if any of these big big tech companies out there did want to completely rewrite their platform so you're talking like it's going to be at least five years before you get a return on investment from that project and it's too long a Time skill for them to to consider doing it so it just gets shut down but oh okay terms of rep proposal but uh yeah but that's not the only I mean there's so many I could go on for hour the benefits a long-term thinking but um well on that note sort of um is is there a kind of vague 5 to 10 year plan or 3 to 5e plan that you have for Halo sort of what do you imagine the future is like the Halo future what we do is we kind of we look at what we have done and what we currently do and we think if we keep on doing what we're currently doing for 10 years where will we be okay yeah and we firmly believe that we will be the market leader in the PSA space uh and the Enterprise service management space um we're very committed to only doing what we do and this is part of the the success really so if you if you at Halo PSA for example um we're only ever going to do PSA we're not interested in doing rmm Solutions remote control um any of this kind of endpoint management stuff and what you end up with is in terms of the technology Partnerships you have with other companies when they know that you are you're I mean we're already best a breed PSA platform um and we're beginning to get that recognition from other partner uh other companies out there and their positioning their ecosystems around us as the PSA platform yeah knowing that we're not going to be going into any of these other areas cuz if we did have a strategy that all right let's do PSA get that best of breed and then start working rmm and remote control and everything MH but they wouldn't then want to because that's then yeah it's quite dangerous for if we start eating into their ecosystems yeah but generally speaking the market struggles to make much money from PSA platforms we yeah it's it's incredible really if you look at the biggest companies all most of the the profits they make are from kind of peripheral um products that would go around your PSA platform and that's right which is interesting um because the margins I I'm almost embarrassed a lot of the time when I explain to people and you do and it it is embarrass like genuinely is embarrassing when you see the margins involved in our industry and how much profit we're making compared to other Industries yeah and I and and we and we even like in some cases a quarter of the price of some of our competitors and delivering better product and service but still delivering such high margin and you just yet the the market and society's kind of condition to think that you just have to go with all these kind of big tech companies and pay a premium for yeah pretty below par um service in some cases um and they yeah and they're they're making charging so much more money and you think some a lot of people say to me well pricing is not not a great Str it's not a great strategy to try and win business based on price um but for us it's it's not doing that it's not it's not that like we genuinely our cost base is an absolute fraction of our competitors so as long as you're doing it for the right reasons um we have a fraction of the cost base we we don't people have said why aren't you based in like the bay area where the real estate is 20 times what it is in in suffk we're perfectly happy with we love love being based in suffk we attract great talent um there's no reason to relocate people say yeah but if you do your business it'll be instantly valued by a mult like you'd find it staggering how just by people would trust your organization more um just because it's based in the Bay Area or Austin or wherever um but again so if you're thinking long term yeah okay if if we're going to sell next year year after three-year plan perhaps yeah maybe that we do that maybe we move the business somewhere else and artificially INF increase the value of the business but because we think long term and we're not interested in selling out at all um we're quite happy with the what we're more than happy with what we got in suffk it might well be the other way around that right now people don't know where Stow Market is but actually we sort of end up putting it a bit more on the map that people are like part fun genuinely that's part of the fun is we're we are we're going to we're already putting suffk on the map but you've not seen anything yet like what we're about to do for suffk is uh yeah we're talking iconic buildings by the A14 um yeah we really are um visualizing uh putting suffk in the Global Tech space yeah worldwide so yeah it's already getting like a lot of recognition by local people I have sort of friends in the air and they just go what is that building like it's just I mean this building we're in is is spectacular but the plans we've got and yeah we visualize we're going to have a road called the Halo way and we're going to buy a bit of land and um we it will have our own access Ro called the Halo way or called Halo way um to an iconic building which we'll be we'll be proud of and suff will be pray of it's very exciting um so back to creating the business um if you could do it again uh what would you do differently or is there something that sticks out that you thought ah that was a mistake and I would yeah I wouldn't do that again I think I'd probably be even more extreme in terms of not focusing on the market side at all until so basically do the product side even more focused MH yeah and then cuz we probably would have got there a bit sooner like maybe 2015 or instead of 2018 and then do like the the the go to market strategies and the commercial strategy um do you think the market was ready in 2015 for Halo or do you think the timing was like a a better time the Halo it's uh I mean it certainly is with yeah I guess the lifestyle changes and and just the way of working that it's almost like we're trailblazing in some ways and we saw what was coming into I know Co came along and but we have created an an environment that's like ideal for the current generation of University levers but that was never the intention it's just like that's always and in fact I'm not going to take any credit for that if you if anyone goes and reads Maverick by Ricardo semler this was a book published back in I think it was I don't know if it was like around 2000 but uh based on a the story of a Brazilian businessman who inherited a company back in the 8S I believe and he spent a good sort of 15 20 years developing a business way of working a democratic meritocracy based environment which is kind of what we've got today um and that's kind of the world has adopted to become a place that almost expects that a bit more in terms of hybrid working and and just I don't know putting people in control of their own Destinies a bit more than just having controlling bosses who are managing your schedules entirely yeah um and I'd say those guys were like pioneering it back then yeah absolutely yeah but a huge inspiration like there's and it when I read that book while I was working at eron Young and realized that ER young wasn't the environment for me um I didn't like think okay I'm going to go and create a business like Semco which is this company featured in the book um it just slowly happened like completely subconsciously so when I I employed my first person in 2011 so that was around the time I guess when Allan retired because he then felt um comfortable with the idea of yeah not letting me down by because I needed someone to keep supporting what I was doing and so and I started employing people that was when Allan took more of a back back seat um became more of a silent partner um and then but it was very slow initially it was one one person in 2011 one in 2012 a couple in 2013 couple more 2014 um and of course when you're an organization with only five people you don't have any issues with democracy politics or uh and I'd even say when you get to 20 people again probably you're just one team that's just everyone it's almost telepathic everything that goes on between the connections and everyone just knows what everyone's working on all the time and so you don't really need to focus too much at all on how you're structuring the business or even think about it much whether you want hierarchy or if if you want a flat structure or um but what I would say is over the years without me really thinking about it too much and it was only really last year when I completely reread Maverick after about 20 year uh 20 years between and at which point we had sort of 150 staff globally and and you do begin to you you have created this organization we're all of a sudden um structure is very important and working environments become very important to like productivity and worker happiness and um and and what I realized was that Halo is almost like a carbon copy of this company that was created and and this is where I'm saying like I don't know if it was me reading that book that seeded things in my mind that if I ever was in a position where I was then going to build a business mhm create an structure with hundreds of people then I just would naturally I wouldn't have been able to do it if I didn't read the book yeah or even if I ne had never read read the book would I still do it and just that I naturally think similarly to Ricardo simar that would be interesting to know if we could watch your life side by side and see what happened yeah exactly and uh yeah that kind of thing does does interest me but um no I'm more than happy to thank Ricard for uh any Inspirations that uh that he's given me by sharing his experiences by what worked what didn't work mhm it probably allowed me to FastTrack um some of yeah yeah the book I guess some of the I mean it's very much still a trial and error process and absolutely and by all means um Halo's sort of not not a perfect organization it's we hope it is um yeah one of the better organizations to work for but there's always challenges um yeah and I think it's it is just a an iterative process and you keep remember even 20 years in there's a a chapter in Maverick where he talks about he still feels himself like he's not even halfway there to achieving the perfect Democratic working environment yeah and I think that's just part of the mentality in terms of where he set the bar and we're the same as you know like I'm pretty Relentless in terms of um my goals for for an ideal working environment I think so one of the Beauties about Maverick is that it does empower all of the employees to start making decisions for themselves and I think there's a point where they paint the office because they want to and they have complete control over what that looks like but I think towards the end of the book isn't there a point where they decide that Ricardo is not actually useful for the organization anymore and he he leaves uh yes there is um and that probably will happen yeah maybe a bit of a controversial question but I mean you do you do over the I mean from my point of view my role is reinvented certainly every two years possibly every year like because you you grow in the the complexity of the organization we still try and keep things as simple as possible that's part of the the Halo way in our philosophy is that business is very simple working with us um hence the all-inclusive pricing and everything else that where we keep things simple um and but yeah I think we will get to a point and probably when we're Market leading essentially so when we do um become Market leading in both areas that and that'll probably coincide quite nicely with terms of our projections for that point I mean I'm 42 now um and I I can still see myself being hugely motivated to carry on with this project for another 10 years um but after that who knows so um yeah yeah I can I it will certainly be in a position I mean even right now to be honest if if I left I have no doubts whatsoever that there's enough competent people in Halo to carry on and execute the strategy we've got I've got no question no questions about that at all would you describe yourself as an entrepreneur at all um I probably wouldn't uh I I think I'm probably incorrectly but I think of entrepreneurs as people that create create things or invent things and um yeah that kind of creative creativity side whereas I'm not creative at in any way whatsoever I'm not creative oh okay um I have a passion for efficiency and I'm very competitive and I love a challenge um I enjoy seeing people flourish and growing teams of people and a achievement I I enjoy all these things which are all very important for I'm very curious so I question everything so all these things very important for I think why I've been able to to grow the the the business to the point it is today um but ultimately I I don't know it's I wouldn't really say it's too entrepreneurial yeah okay if you could give some advice to to people starting out in business or people who who would like to sort of choose their own future in the same way that you have what sort of advice would you give them the biggest bit of advice without a shadow of the doubt is just like believe in your like like honestly people can achieve way more than what you ever believe you could um so just that sort of belief and not and it's difficult because you don't know what you don't know yeah and I remember when I was a teenager when I was at Uni and you just even when I started doing this I remember thinking and yeah you do your first site visits where you're kind of meeting with directors of it and you feel like you're you shouldn't be there feel like but then very quickly you kind of realize that actually no you're you're just as qualified you and in terms of what you bring to the table in these meetings um you kind of bring bring more than what they do in some some extent some cases um and you so you begin to get comfortable with yourself and but yeah so what I've learned over the years I suppose is that someone with six months experience can can achieve better outputs than maybe some people with 20 years experience and it's just about you've I mean obviously you need the passion and the the work ethic side to want to be able to achieve it and do it um and you need the freedom to do it which again is great for Halo in the sence that people do have the freedom even yourself I think for example recently hosted a Q&A session at one of our events yeah um and that was just where you'd demonstrated because you'd proactively put yourself in a position where you were hosting a quiz like internally and and it was recognize that you had talents for just doing like ad hoc Q&A sessions um hence that you then even though you'd only you not even sort of been here a year you'd got been identified as someone who has that talent and um would be ideal for for hosting a a Q&A um out of all the people with all the experience um in Halo some with over sort of 10 years um myself with almost 20 years um time is time really doesn't matter it's it it's about people's passions and I think so going back to what advice I would give someone it's that if you want to and you're passionate about something it really doesn't matter whether you've got one month experience 20 years experience you can you can just go and get it and believe in yourself and by the way you do not need external teams of people and almost everyone I speak to when they have kind of sold out to private Equity or or VC um they almost all regret it they they thought that there was something that they needed from these external leadership teams that have okay they they they've they've gone through the mill they've done it time and time again they know what they need to do but you also can figure it out it's it's business isn't really isn't that difficult yeah it it can get complex but not if as long as you you just got to believe in yourself and remember just keep keep things simple and um business in itself is is not difficult and you you don't it doesn't get much more advanced than what you learn at in your uh your business course at school really it's just about almost like your your uh four Ps um in your marketing subjects and uh uh managing resource uh it doesn't get p particularly difficult I wouldn't say it's just about finding the finding the motivation uh and the the E work ethic to just be able to get your head down and get it done but yeah so that would be my biggest uh bit of advice would be believe in yourself and you'll be amazed at what you can achieve I think that um the point about hosting that talk with Theon Dublin you did come to me and I thought but why me and then I was like I'm not going to question this I was like I'm just going to do it he said you can do that I was like perfect um um and I think that's the same thing of of just sort of going with things that you think oh well somebody has a vague belief in me and actually I realize I probably can do that so I'm not going to spend time overthinking this um absolutely yeah and that's uh I can think of several examples this year another ones this brings to mind is um so Richard in our he so we had uh We've basically become a McLaren partner recently in 2023 biggest deal of its kind in in itm history um which was a big deal for us and uh we had an event at the McLaren Technology Center um and Richard who's only been with us for six months um is interested in like graphics and and adori after effects and he was Keen to kind of do some work on the I mean the auditorium they've got is world world leading it's phenomenal and the facility at which we were hosting this event but he was Keen to just take charge of like the visuals the lighting the uh sound and he produced like a Hollywood block Buster which is they're now using that as an example of the kind of thing you can achieve wow and they've had film and production companies come in and not deliver content to that the level at which Richard did who's only really done this as a a hobby and as I say he's only got six months um experience with us and and the the fact we not many organizations would trust someone yeah with only six months experience um but and again it just you can see how passionate he is about that and I just think you've got to let people uh follow their passions yeah um and you it always produces results so I was more than happy to to let Richard have a go at that and what he produced was phenomenal yeah that's definitely one of the things I enjoy working here is there's a wide range of opportunities and if you see something and you say I want to have a go at doing this and there's nobody doing it they say well yeah just have a go if it fails it fails but there's nobody doing it right now why not give somebody who potentially doesn't have the skills right now but is interested in just having a go at doing that yeah and that's the same with the obviously our podcast like Nina's never really done editing before I've never hosted a podcast and here we are yeah that's that's very much the Halo way um even like going right back into the early days when someone joins like have the support desk it's a Lo balanced environment deliberately so that people get a random selection of tickets yeah rather than because if you didn't do that and you left it to individuals or triage based a lot what a lot of organizations will do is they'll think oh this person's good at this so I'll let them do that uh yeah which really all that does is delay the point at which they become highly skilled at well in our case at the entire platform because they they would only they'd end up becoming really good at certain bits but not really knowing much about the other bits and then yeah yeah that's and that's why and people often say how do your staff become so knowledgeable after like 12 months MH it's because they literally get thrown in the deep end they learn everything about everything um they yeah there's no nothing gets left unturned um in terms of the the knowledge that we we threw at them um and I think it's interesting because we haven't sometimes there're a slightly different strategy so it's not the case that we're always load balancing and there have been times where you could pick the tickets that you do and it's very um immediately clear the people who want to learn they'll be sitting there taking those breaching tickets taking those really hard tickets because they want to learn that not because they're going to close off 10 easy tickets um and it's just really interesting to see when you do that kind of style of thing which people want to learn and they'll learn so much quicker and the people who just sort of end up the bottom because they're they're just not interested MH yeah absolutely cool so we've talked vaguely about the McLaren partnership and it's definitely something a bit out of the box um for a company like ourselves to be working with them sort of how did that come come about sort of what motivated you to do that um so part of our G to Market strategy so as I said before that we spent many years getting the platform to the point where it's it's ready and uh competitive in the marketplace and and and best of breed in in many areas now um what you then need to do is get it in front of everyone um so part of of the demand gener awareness side I guess is to you well we we did consider lots of different ways to do that I mean there's there's billboard campaigns there's loads of different sports there's uh golf tennis football um obviously Formula 1 um and for us in terms of our audience I mean it people sea level it people Service delivery managers Service delivery directors MSP owners um generally speaking if you were to pick a sport that is most consistent across all these areas formula 1's Not a Bad Thing to pick I mean it's formula 1's all about technology yeah um it's and I think uh so that's part of the reason why so first of all we were quite keen on the idea of of Formula 1 um in terms of why McLaren or in terms of the timing so the timing because now it really is we believe it's the best Enterprise service management out there yeah and better than service no better than Avanti um and on the PSA side again best PSA platform um better than connectwise Cas all these guys uh and and that's what we're frequently told we're now in the tendering processes we're winning more than we're losing against all of the competition um and it's uh and I think that's the Tipping Point for me when you know it's like well how do you know when it's ready it's like when you're winning more than you're losing on a tendering process when you know it's a level level tendering process um that's when you think okay right we've we've AB we've nailed it now we've got the technology right yeah let's now get in front of get let let the world know all about it um so that was do with the timings the timing's right and in terms of why McLaren so we we already had a relationship with so one of the McLaren companies McLaren applied they've been a Halo customer for a while before the partnership but that wasn't I I wouldn't yeah it would be it wouldn't be very sensible I think to just school with McLaren because of they're already we've already got connection M um and it's an entirely different company anyway McLaren racing compared to McLaren applied which provide yeah services or software platform that all the teams use I believe um but we spoke to all the teams up and down the grid and we created a short list I won't go into detail of like which teams we talk to it wouldn't be very fair but um we connected we resonated really well with McLaren there's a lot of similarities and parallels with they've actually got a very Democratic workplace um themselves and it's fairly flat structure they just wanted to get things done and it was clear and they very much listen to us in terms of what we were trying to achieve and they would create a package or proposal based on what we're looking to achieve rather than maybe the other way around where the team would just say right this is what we've got would you like to go ahead so it was it was very much a two-way um interactive process to to figure out the best strategy for um yeah for working on the the awareness and for us on the the Enterprise side um and I mean we're very pleased so far it's it's definitely definitely working extremely well yeah people do I've realized there's three levels of a Formula 1 knowledge we went live with the partnership at the Canadian Grand Prix which was I think that was the first one in June mhm which McLaren didn't do too well there they were consistent with the rest of the the season for before that which was pretty much back of the Grid or dnfs second or probably the second worst team on the grid and I think they they'd admit that as well mhm um Canada was like that but then so literally a week after that or yeah was it two weeks maybe two weeks after we signed on on on the dotted line there's the most dramatic turnaround in Formula 1 history so Austria they brought some upgrades to lal's car MH um I don't know if he got a Podium or fourth but he yeah he did he did absolutely exceeded all expectations MH and then people were thinking oh was it a fluke well Silverstone which is the next race that was when Oscar got his upgrades as as well cuz they only had time to to get them on land's car at Austria and they got a Podium at Silver and both cars did really well and it was clear that wow McLaren are actually the real deal now um and they're it wasn't a fluke in Austria they're and and since and since then they have been the second uh best team well other than Red Bull have completely dominated um for the last couple of years now um McLaren I know the fastest team out there um so in terms of going back to the three levels of knowledge I have some people say what is it that you're doing that's make allowing McLaren to be so much faster and and assuming that it's something that we've done instantly that's translated into On Track Performance um so there's there's there's that level of knowledge and there's also then the level of knowledge where people actually believe that I knew exactly that the upgrades were going to perform to that level that was part of the reason why we chose McLaren because we knew knew that the upgrade and of course I can't even claim that credit cuz all the teams they all say don't how familiar you are with Formula 1 but there certain stages of the season when you do all teams bring upgrades to their car sometimes it work it works sometimes it doesn't work um and there was something about inter I spoke to many people within the McLaren team um and again part of why what the access that we had and that they were willing to to allow us to have conversations with so many people including Zach himself and um Andrea the team principal uh and it was there was just something very believable when they said their upgrades are going to be making a difference and but anyway it's uh so there's it's quite interesting and humorous sometimes when people do just think that it's purely because they've associated with Halo that that's translated into instant success on the track do you correct them do you tell them otherwise or do you just let them in true Halo fashion transparent direct honest absolutely see it's it's uh nothing to do with with us fair enough I think I just say I no comment so we're going to do some quickfire questions there are going to be two choices and it's your kind of gut instinct as to which one you prefer okay are you ready ready incident or request incident uh Maverick or seven habits Maverick uh new Halo building or the McLaren Technology Center oh my God McLaren Technology Center it is currently we're not spending half a billion we're not going to spend half a billion on a building um the Halo podcast or Halo LinkedIn Halo podcast that is the correct answer uh Halo football or Halo games night Halo football um and PSA or itm oh oh it's like saying who's your favorite child um I thought maybe we'd get you to do a quick answers whilst you weren't thinking about the other ones I I wearing an itm shirt I don't have an agenda here but CRM very wise okay um so finally we like to give everybody a parting gift for being on the Pod um so if you don't mind closing your eyes and holding out your hand it' be great if you could guess uh what it is it's a Matchbox car a Formula One a McLaren toy car it's pretty accurate uh you can open your eyes we couldn't find a bright red a bright red bright orange one this is the closest thing that they had I do love the ELA yeah thank you very much no worries thank you for being on the Pod thanks for listening to this episode of the Pod if you like what you heard feel free to check out the links below if you have any questions or would like to be a guest on our pod email us at podcast imagin halo.com