MSP 501 Profile: The Fulcrum Group on the Entrepreneurial Spirit and Being Service-Oriented

By | Managed Services News

Dec 21

Founder and CEO Steve Meek on changing technology and evolving operations, and being the Spock, not the Kirk.

Company Name: The Fulcrum Group
Company Hot 101 Rank: 11
Founder and CEO: Steve Meek, CISSP
Headquartered: Fort Worth, Texas

Primary Services:

  • Network infrastructure
  • Servers 
  • Storage & virtualization
  • Voice over IP
  • On-premises & cloud
  • SPOT managed IT services
  • IT outsourcing
  • Cloud services

Twitter: @TheFulcrumGroup

SMB Hot 101 honoree The Fulcrum Group is doing big things. Founder and CEO Steve Meek operates by several principles that drives the business and has put them on the path to success — ultimately landing them on the new SMB Hot 101 list this year.

The Fulcrum Group's Steve Meek

The Fulcrum Group’s Steve Meek

Meek stresses the importance of caring for and helping the people you work with, and the ability to exchange ideas. These may sound simple enough, but the ripples from these principles touch a whole host of things. 

We sat down with Meek to get a sense of how The Fulcrum Group is evolving and growing their MSP business.

Channel Futures: What do you love about the IT channel? What do you dislike about it?

Steve Meek: There are two key things I love about the IT channel.

1. The people. As a population, I believe vendors, business owners and team members are progressive and always looking forward. Many of the basic human beliefs in a service provider represent how I see myself and things I want to see in others. A general care for people we work with and the desire to help others, even if we do not directly benefit, are essential. Something about the combination of entrepreneurial spirit and service-oriented function means I have met many like-minded people, many of whom I now consider friends. Some of these people I have known for over 20 years through multiple organizations, and we stay in touch and see each other (though not as much as before COVID-19).

2. The ability to exchange ideas. It is easy for business owners like me in smaller organizations to fall victim to cognitive biases. Thank goodness the various communities allow us to engage with others on similar quests for learning, growing, understanding and research. Most channel people are willing to exchange ideas, and I’ve found three common areas:

  • Technology is always changing. Disruptive technologies frequently sneak out and other firms can act as early warning systems. Sometimes it is for tools that help us work better, smarter or faster. Other times it is new technology to help end users. Either way, clients get more value.
  • Our operations. Corporate and MSP IT are constantly challenged to provide a great experience, project manage and document every day. They are also charged with looking to the future and to staff reasonably, and respond quickly. Oh, and to secure everybody. Comparing thoughts on how other firms operate can help tweak something, or light up a completely new idea. Whether they are larger or smaller than we are, there is something to learn.
  • Client business ideas. When we talk, we may not share a specific client’s name, but we do discuss solutions and industries. This is a great way to uncover new innovations and trends that might apply to our own client base, as well as compliance experiences. It extends one’s management team to anybody who will take a minute to chat. How cool is that?

CF: What is one thing you wish vendors would do that they don’t?

SM: I think an opportunity for improvement with vendors is ramping up new partners and getting their solution deployed properly. For MSP engineers, we support a variety of technologies, and sometimes challenges get in the way of best practices. Their solutions would benefit from a simple list of settings (so partners could create their preferred settings). Or, a good-better-best or common setting for 10-50, 50-100 or 100+ employees (targeting solutions in the SMB space).

Vendors invest lots of money in facilitating video training or webinars on their solutions, but rarely offer …

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