Remote vs. Onsite IT Support: Making the Right Choice for Your RIA – RIA Tech Talk Episode #11

Todd Darroca

Hello and welcome to the RIA TeckTalk podcast, brought to you by RIA Workspace. I’m Todd Darroca, and alongside of me is ass always, Mr. Copilot. Mr. David Kakish. I know he’s going to say, don’t call me Mr. So I always call him David. And together we’re on a mission to simplify the complex world of technology for RIAs like yours. Now in this podcast, we’ll be your tech guides breaking down those ever confusing tech topics into plain old English for you. So join us on each episode as we dive into the latest tech trends, share our expert insights and help you navigate the ever-changing world of RIA technology. And so today, David, we are talking about remote versus onsite IT support and what is the right choice for your RIAI got a couple of FAQs, frequently asked questions here that we get most often. So David, I’m going to dive right into those. You all set for that?

David Kakish

Yeah, absolutely. Well listen, Todd, good to talk to you. And you’re right, every time you say, Mr, I look behind you and I look for my dad. add, I guess before you start asking the questions, I do want to put it out there that we work with a lot of RIAs nationwide. Most of the RIAs we work with are between five and 25 employees regardless of assets under management. So we don’t work with a lot of, let’s just say solo advisors or RIAs with a hundred plus employees and so on. And so for the sake of today, think of, I don’t know, Todd Private Wealth or David’s Private Wealth, an RIA with nine 10 employees or something like that. That’s kind of a typical client that we’re talking about. I think that’s very relevant because again, there’s a lot of solo RIAs that’s not really who we work with a lot. And there are some RIAs that are very large and that’s not who we’re working with. Think if you’re an RIA with approximately five to 25 employees, regardless of a UM, that’s who we’re talking to and that’s who this is really geared towards. Okay, got it.

Todd Darroca

Alright, sounds good. So let’s start with is onsite support needed for most of the RIAs out there?

David Kakish

So Todd, I guess let me ask you this. You’re not an RIA, right? Nope. What would your thought process be when you ask that question?

Todd Darroca

I always say if I can get the IT guy right down the hall, I’d rather have him on site. But if it’s cheaper and I can still get the same level of service from somebody who’s in Chicago or Austin, then I’ll do it. I’ll do the remote one. So that’s kind of both sides of the coin there. But yeah. Yeah,

David Kakish

So it’s really interesting because a lot of times we’re based out of Chicago, but we work with clients nationwide and we do have the ability to provide onsite support when and if it is needed. Typically, the way we do that for our clients is, let’s just say we work with a client, Austin, you’re in Austin. Let’s just say Todd’s private wealth is in Austin. You’ve got 10 employees. If you want us to be on site, we can set it up so that we’re on site twice a month, let’s just say the first and the third Tuesday of every month for a half a day, we have a network of vetted partners. And so in your local market will have somebody that does that. And the landscape has really changed in the last five years and especially after the pandemic is that people are working remotely, even the ones that are working in the office don’t have onsite servers anymore.

And so in order for me to help you with a challenge that you have, let’s just say your email, I don’t need to access a server that’s in your closet because you don’t have that server in your closet anymore, right? And so what’s really interesting is even though we offer both plans, our flagship plan is the first plan without the onsite support because people look at the pricing and they’re like, yeah, no, it’s okay. We don’t want to pay an extra $1,200 a month to have somebody sitting here twice a month. And from our perspective too, a lot of times when that person is sitting out there sitting in your office twice a month for half a day, they’re usually twiddling their thumbs because all that stuff is already taken care of. So you probably don’t need it.

And a lot of times when I talk to an RIA that’s already working with a local provider in their local market, and usually they’re contacting me or us because they’re frustrated with that local provider, I ask, I’m like, Hey, in the last two years, how many times were they on site? Oh wow. You know what? They’re a 15 minute drive. They haven’t been on site a single time in the last two years. So that’s very common. And what’s happened is, again, I think the main driver for that is a lot of the servers and the infrastructure is no longer sitting in your office. It’s sitting at a data center, it’s sitting at Microsoft or Redtail or Orion or Schwab or whoever that is. And so the only infrastructure you have in your office is a computer network firewall and then a wireless access point. And that’s about it. And that’s typically what’s sitting out there. So

Todd Darroca

Is there any major disaster recovery that would require you to, let’s say they do go remote, but then you’ve got to find somebody there? What kind of examples or do you have any stories of like, well, this is the only reason why we’d really send somebody physically was because of a fire, literal fire or things like that? Anything like that ever?

David Kakish

Well, it’s really interesting because on the previous, literally right before this call, I was talking to a prospect, they’re based out of Portland, and he was telling me, he is like, Hey, look, we want to make sure we have business continuity in place because there’s a law firm and we had a storm and this law firm couldn’t work for a week. And he’s like, we don’t want to have that. We’re five people, but we don’t want to have that if that happens. And I go, no, no, no, it’s all built in our clients. They can be as productive in the office as they are at home. And even if their whole office is wiped out for whatever reason, they can work from home, they can go to a hotel and work and they can be fully productive. They might be missing their setup with four monitors in the office, whatever that is.

But still, you’ve got your computer, you can be up and running, you can be productive and do that. And so after so many years of doing this, the biggest one where people want to, they want the onsite support, it’s usually two reasons. They’ve got 20 employees and it’s just part of their culture to have an IT person in the office. And so that’s where we put, we have somebody that’s sitting in the office twice a month, again that’s just, Hey, we want you to come and look at our conference room or this or that. But again, those tend to be RIAs with 20 plus employees. So that’s number one. And the other scenario where there is onsite support is like they’re opening up another branch office, let’s say in Phoenix, and they want it to be ready for five employees that are going to work out of that office. They just want somebody to plug everything in and get it up and running. And typically that’s a half a day or a full day. We already pre-configure everything remotely, and the person that’s on onsite is just kind of plugging in the internet and the firewall and the wireless access point. So those are really the two main reasons we ever do anything on site. But yeah, so this is a long answer saying you don’t need onsite support because you don’t have all the IT infrastructure anymore.

Todd Darroca

Yeah. So let me go back to you made a point about if somebody is opening a new office or there’s a new hardware. So if I’m opening up that new office for five and 10 employees and I have all these brand new pieces of hardware that may be both Apple and Adele or something, do I need somebody onsite there? Is that better than a remote or are they both kind of the same?

David Kakish

No, you don’t. Let me tell you how we do it sort of. I mean, you can, right? It’s optional, but anytime you have somebody that’s on site, right? There are fees that are associated with it. So here’s how we do that. Typically, again, let’s go Phoenix. You’re going to open up an office and you’re going to have five employees that you’re supporting in your Phoenix office. There’s the network infrastructure that you’re going to need, and then there’s the computer infrastructure for the user, for the employee. The network infrastructure that you’re going to need in that office is going to be number one in network firewall. Number two, it’s going to be a switch. And number three, it’s going to be a wireless access point.

Todd Darroca

Got it.

David Kakish

It. That’s it. And those, we pre-configure all those things remotely. And then in order for us to have that up and running, if you want us to be on site, great, it’s a half a day or a full day, we bill you for it, and we’ll have a vetted partner be on site to plug everything in. Most of our clients, they already have somebody in that market. And so will happen is what will happen is let’s just say Mary is the office manager. We’ll walk her through where to plug everything in, and then she’s up and running, and that’s what most of them end up doing. But there is 10 to 20% that say no, let’s just have somebody here on site to kind of plug that. So that’s the network infrastructure. So Todd, I’ll pause there. Does that make sense?

Todd Darroca

Yeah, yeah. No, that does I, I’m thinking about the office manager, Mary. If somebody said, Hey, can you go do this technical thing? I can just see that person, whether it’s Mary or Marcus, they’re like, oh God, what do I have to do technical stuff? This is not in my, but it sounds like, yeah, you can

David Kakish

Here, we’ll ask her like, Hey, where’s the plug coming in from Comcast or from the internet? There you go. Plug that into the firewall, right? Here’s the switch, plug this into the firewall and then here’s this. Plug it into the wireless access point. Those are the three main things we ask him or her to do. But again, if Mary or Marcus doesn’t want to do that, no problem. We have the ability to do it. So to be fair, we’re not asking him to configure the wireless access point on the firewall. I just want to put that out there.

Todd Darroca

So when it comes to all this remote stuff, you’ve got Microsoft and other cloud-based apps. Is somebody remote supporting me enough? Or for example, if I had some big technical cloud-based software, some investment tool or even some CRM, can a remote support be enough or do I need somebody there too?

David Kakish

Yeah, it’s a great question. Let’s use Salesforce Orion as a problem. Those are very specific applications for the wealth management industry. Well, guess what? Salesforce and Orion are all web-based applications. Whenever if I come on site, it’s probably going to be slower for me to support you than if I do it remotely, right? Because remotely I have access to my different monitors. I can look and I can quickly troubleshoot it. There is not, so to support you on something like Salesforce or Orion or even your email, there’s no advantage for me being on site. If anything, there’s a disadvantage because of the travel time, even if I am local, right? It’s going to take me 30 minutes or an hour to get there. So because again, it’s not running on that server in your office or anything like that.

Todd Darroca

Do you see a lot in your line of business where you do have to change a mindset where like you said, the 10 to 20% who just need that security blanket of somebody onsite with them? Are you finding you’re having to change that mindset pretty regularly? Or once that person is in that mindset, there’s no way that they’re getting out of it kind of deal?

David Kakish

Yeah. Well, it’s really changed. After the pandemic. It’s really, really interesting. What’s happened is people went from working in the office to working at home and they became very comfortable with, oh wow, you know what? Remote support. Plus, they didn’t even want the technician to be on site during the pandemic, right? No, no. Support me remotely. So after the pandemic, that’s totally shifted, and the way advisors relate to this is they were doing ria, were doing a lot of their meetings with clients in person, and now they’re doing so many of ’em over Zoom and over online video. And even their own clients, they might be 30 minutes away. They’re like, Hey, it’s more convenient. You don’t have to waste time to come into the office and stuff like that. So that might shift has really shifted. Now where it’s hard for us, and I mentioned that briefly to you, is if somebody is in Milwaukee, for example, and they’re like, Hey, listen, we only support a local economy, and so we’re going to only work with a local company.

Well, this is fine. We’re not physically in Milwaukee. But then again, neither is Orion or Wealthbox or Salesforce. And so for us, we feel like we’re just very specialized with RIAs, but there is occasionally where they say No, it’s a business decision that we need to work with somebody that’s local. And yeah, I respect that. I appreciate it. And we don’t. But most people in this space fundamentally understand that, oh yeah, in order for you to help me, I don’t need you to jump in a car and drive 20 minutes and be physically in my office. You can do it remote. Again, the crazy part is even the people that are working with that local IT company, it’s very rare that IT person ever comes onsite. In the last two years, he has not been on site.

Todd Darroca

So how often would somebody, if I needed someone onsite, how often could I expect him to be on site? To the point here, are you

David Kakish

Asking about us or in general?

Todd Darroca

I guess just in general, if I did want onsite support someone to be at our office, how much would I expect them to be there? We’re just talking about here a local person that could be down the road just a block away, but they’re still not coming in because they’re just going to do it from there. So even if I get an onsite support person, whether it’s we’ll start with your business, but if it’s somebody else’s business too, should I expect them or set the expectation I want you here two times a week, or is it just like an hour a week kind of deal? Yeah,

David Kakish

Yeah. Well, so you’re asking a really good question. The really important thing is the old way of thinking about things is like, oh, they were checking our systems. When he comes on site and he’s coming on site once a week to check the systems, now we’re checking the systems continuously, right? 24 7 every day we have an agent on the computer, it alerts us. We know what’s going on. We look at that, right? So I mean, we’re monitoring the system on a regular basis. We’re not waiting once a week. They’re like, oh yeah, let’s go check out the systems. We know in real time what’s going on with those systems. Here’s what I’m going to tell you, the cadence, if you are 20 and less employees, these companies are very comfortable with having it all remote. That’s just sort of the mindset. Certain companies with 20 plus employees, they actually like to have somebody in there, and that’s why we have the cadence of twice a month for a half a day.

So every basically thing of it as that, again, that first and third Tuesday of every month from eight to 12, they like to have Todd, the IT person there for a combination of different reasons. That would be the cadence five years ago before the pandemic, certain companies like that to be a half a day once a week, and everybody’s sort of moved away from that. And so that’s why we have a plan where we can have taught our IT person in your office physically twice a month for a half a day. And that seems to be work really well. But again, that’s for companies typically with 20 plus employees that want to have somebody that’s on site. The other piece that we see a lot is there’s typically somebody on site, an employee that’s very focused on the software applications. How do I better use Orion or Wealthbox? So they’re actually in it, but they’re very focused on the software, but they know a little bit about hardware and they can sort of alleviate and go plug in the projector in the conference room and stuff like that. So we see that quite a bit.

Todd Darroca

So how much would that, I guess what’s the differential cost here? Am I going to look to pay a lot of more money for that security if I have someone on site? Or is it about the same?

David Kakish

Yeah, no, it’s a bump in price, so forget us for a second. Even if you’re talking to a local IT provider and you want somebody that’s physically there, there’s typically a significant bump in price because it’s pretty inefficient for them to have somebody there. Now, from our perspective, the monthly bump in price is $1,200 as of right now. That’s what that is. Don’t hold it to us. If you’re listening to this in two years from now.

David Kakish

We haven’t changed it for a while, so I imagine it would be pretty close. So we present our prospects and our clients with two options, right? Option one and option two. Over 90% of the time, they go with option one without the onsite component because it’s for two reasons. They feel like they don’t need it, which I agree with. And then B, they’re like, man, that’s just a lot of money, and we’d spend that elsewhere. So yeah, I tend to be very transparent with pricing. I don’t like to waste the prospect’s time or my time or Hey, here’s what it is. If you want to do it, great. There’s a cost associated with that.

Todd Darroca

And so you guys do offer onsite support. Let me ask you, have you ever had a situation where the company’s like, Hey, we’ve got a local guy here, but we want you to work with the local IT guy. Do you guys typically do that, or is that something where it’s like not really, just because we haven’t trained that person, we don’t know what their skillset is, and that’s a liability kind of deal, or

David Kakish

We will, but we have to vet them out, especially from a security perspective. So that’s just something that we’ll look at that, but we definitely need to vet them out because we’re just, at the end of the day, we feel like the buck stops with us. And if we’ve got somebody, they might think that Todd knows what he’s doing, but Todd’s clueless, right? Todd might know more than know that RIA, right? Yeah. We talked to Todd, we’re like, oh my goodness, this

Todd Darroca

Todd guy sounds like my dad. He’s like, why am I paying this person? I can just do it. I listened to Kim Commando forever, so I know how this works. And he’s always like, I’m smarter than that. I could make just as much as he could. So No, totally, totally makes sense. So the big takeaway for when it comes to remote onsite support, what’s the big thing that you want someone to walk away with here? David? The big takeaway, I kind of know what it is. It’s kind of like onsite support may not be the best option for you right now, depending on your size, but what’s your final thought here?

David Kakish

Yeah, so I think what you really want to look at, I think what you really want to look at, whether it’s onsite or whether it’s remote or anything like that, is does that IT provider, does that IT partner have other RIA clients, and does he have knowledge of the RIA industry and knows how to support other RIAs? I don’t get too hung up on remote versus onsite because for me it’s like we do it. Here’s how we do it. It makes sense. Typically what happens is a new RIA breakaway, RIA, they start, they work with a local IT provider. Within one to two years, they’re reaching out to us because they’re frustrated with their local IT provider for two reasons. One, just slow response slash bad customer service because again, you’re small at five employees, but your requirements for cybersecurity is big. So slow response times customer service issues. And the other thing is just not understanding unique challenges of an RIA. And so it generally, I mean, I know the progression. Todd goes and starts as RIA, he works with a local IT partner in the Austin market. Within two years, you’re frustrated, you reach out to us and we talk, and then you end up working for a very long time. So I think it’s like, Hey, whoever you’re working with, whether they’re local or not, do they understand the unique IT compliance requirements of an RIA, do they know

Todd Darroca

And do you want to take that chance too of saying I’ll give them a chance to figure it out? Do you really want that to be the thing you want to have them test out on?

David Kakish

Yeah. Yeah. So my experience, Todd, it’s almost like this third secret language. They’re like, oh my goodness, we’re talking to RIA workspace and they know what Red Tail is, or they know what is, and they’re like the local person has no idea what that is, and they know that we need to have email archiving and journaling. I don’t have to explain it. So it’s like this secret handshake that they say, oh wow, he’s got, it’s like when you meet a friend that you’ve known for a long time, but you haven’t seen him, right? You’re like, oh my goodness, where have you? So that’s typically what my calls are like. And so they’re actually, I enjoy it. They’re a lot of fun.

Todd Darroca

Yeah, we know your business so you can do your business. That’s kind of how RA works, right? We know how to talk the language so well, hey David, it’s a great chatting with you. And I think if anybody these frequently asked questions, we do have them on the website, ria workspace.com. Just go and search the resources and specifically the title remote versus on site IT support making the right choice for your RIA because that’s what we talked about today. And so we’ve got all those questions and also some really helpful graphs at the bottom of the blog post to really kind of help you make that decision a bit easier. So, hey, look, that’s the end of our episode today. We want to thank as always, David for joining us here today and you for listening in. Hey, do us a favor and hit that like and subscribe button. It really does help us out. And also visit us on the web ra workspace.com. And thanks again for listening to the RIA TechTalk podcast. Feel free to reach out to us anytime, whether it’s in the notes or email. We’d love to hear from you. And stay tuned for more RIA Tech Insights in our next episode. We’ll see you then.