Communication Over Technical Skills: Simon Robert’s Journey from Age 7 to MSP Owner | Ep051

Episode Information Show NotesFrom Age 7 to MSP Owner: Simon Robert’s IT Journey Simon Robert’s IT career started earlier than most, at just 7 years old, he was already fixing computers his father brought home. Now, as President of Novbox in Las Vegas, Simon runs a managed service provider that helps businesses stay secure and operational. In this episode, Simon shares the honest reality of running an IT business. He talks about the stress of being a “one-man army” for years, why admitting “I don’t know” actually builds more trust than pretending to be an expert, and how communication saves client relationships when things go wrong. Episode Highlights: Starting Young Simon began his IT journey at age 7, disassembling and repairing broken computers his father brought home. This early hands-on experience gave him confidence and skills that would shape his entire career. The One-Man Army Problem For 10 years, Simon ran his business alone. He describes the impossible stress of choosing between multiple emergency calls happening simultaneously and why having a business partner changed everything. Honest Communication Wins When clients leave or when something goes wrong, Simon picks up the phone immediately. He shares why confronting problems early, even at 7pm, prevents bigger issues the next morning. Break/Fix vs MSP Model Simon explains the fundamental difference between being an IT firefighter and providing managed services. The MSP model eliminates billing drama and gives clients peace of mind. IT Specialization Reality Just because someone works “in IT” doesn’t mean they do everything. Simon uses the electrician vs plumber analogy to explain why IT professionals specialize and why that’s perfectly okay. The Vegas Tech Community After moving from Quebec to Las Vegas years ago, Simon has been actively building connections in the local tech community. He believes in turning LinkedIn connections into real friendships. Key Takeaways: 1. Admitting “I don’t know” and asking for help builds more trust than pretending to be an expert in everything 2. Communication is priority #1 – confront problems immediately instead of avoiding them 3. Having a business partner or team prevents burnout and enables business growth 4. The MSP model provides stability for both provider and client compared to break/fix 5. Building genuine relationships, both online and in person, creates lasting professional networks 6. Know your strengths and confidently refer out what you don’t do well 7. When clients leave, call them to understand why instead of hiding from the conversation About Simon Robert: Simon Robert is the President of Novbox, an IT managed service provider in Las Vegas. With over 30 years of experience starting from age 7, Simon specializes in helping businesses maintain secure and reliable IT infrastructure through managed services. Listen to learn how honest communication, genuine relationships, and knowing when to ask for help can transform your career – whether you’re running your own business or working in corporate IT. TranscriptionManuel Martinez: Welcome everyone, my name is Manuel Martinez and this is another episode of Career Downloads. Where each episode I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest to learn more about their experiences and their background, to really try and uncover any actionable advice that you can use as you’re managing your own career. So I’m excited for today’s episode, I have with me Simon Robert. And this is a very interesting story, so him and I actually connected on LinkedIn, we actually met in person, you know, just in an informal setting, got to know each other, to know about each other a little bit more about his career. And he has kind of established his own business. So again, this is going to be something different than all of the other traditional ones where you know, a lot of people are working for corporate jobs. So I think there will be a lot of, you know, good insights into the way that he managed it and you know, some of the different things that he does for his own career, managing his own business as opposed to kind of working for someone else. So with that, I’ll go ahead and introduce Simon. Simon Robert: Hey, nice to see you in person again. Manuel Martinez: Again. Simon Robert: It’s so nice. I was so happy, you know, remember a couple of months ago, we chat a little bit on LinkedIn. And I said, hey, do you want to smoke a cigar with me? Yes, of course. You agree directly. I was like, this is so nice to have the possibility to have a platform like LinkedIn that we can connect and after that do something in person. That’s amazing. And thank you very much for the invitation to your podcast. Manuel Martinez: Yeah, of course. And I was glad that you kind of reached out because one of the things that you’ve done and I’ll be honest, I’ve started to do it a little bit more too is when I see people and I interact and I see that they’re locally in Vegas, I do a lot of what you do. I’m like, oh, I see you’re in Vegas. It’d be great to meet up for, you know, hey, maybe you want to do a coffee or do a lunch or to kind of grow my IT community outside of the people that I normally work with, which is also outside. So thank you. Simon Robert: Yeah. And you know, like we’re a little city. People thinks that Vegas is very, very a large city, but it’s not L.A., you know, we’re about one million people here. So that’s pretty nice to connect with other people in IT. So that’s amazing. So I’m doing that too. So each time I’m connecting with somebody in the IT, I want to go take a beer with me. Yes, of course. So that’s nice. So it gave us the opportunity to connect and build our IT network in Vegas. Manuel Martinez: Yeah, definitely. And then also do things again, it doesn’t, I think one of the things that people think is, you know, it has to be just IT related, right? Like, I mean, we talked a little bit about IT, but it was really just kind of getting to know more about you, you know, what you’re doing, you know, like you were very passionate about cigars and I, you know, I’ve had a couple here and there, but it was, you know, kind of you teaching me and you know, the people that you have outside in that kind of ecosystem, which is really cool. Simon Robert: That was nice. I’m part of that cigar club and every Wednesday night we smoke a different cigar. So that’s pretty cool. And it forced us to connect, you know, instead of being in our backyards alone smoking the cigar we’re smoking together, it’s like a family. So I appreciate that. So I’m very happy that you have the chance to experience that. Manuel Martinez: What I do with all my guests is if you don’t mind kind of telling me a little bit about where you grew up and then eventually kind of what sparked your interest in technology. Simon Robert: So I grew up in the Repentigny. This is a city in Quebec. So it’s very not so far away from Montreal. It’s a southern city and it’s very special because a lot of people don’t know about Quebec. It’s a French province of Canada. So like, let’s say like 70 or 80% of people speaks French and sometimes they only speaks French. They don’t speak English. So it’s like being in Paris, but like in North America. So I grew up there in my city. Everybody was speaking French. So we’re like, it was so special. Like the first time I went to Montreal, Montreal, it’s more bilingual. I will say there’s a part of the eastern part of Montreal speaks French and the western part will speak more, more English. So I was like very amazed of, wow, there’s people speaking another language even in my, in my province. And I start working in IT. I’ll say my passion start when I was maybe like six, seven years old because of my father. My father was bringing the computers of his clients. So it was not working directly in IT, but there was some computers that were broken and my father were helping his customer by bringing back the computer trying to repair. So I was observing what he was doing. And after that, that was nice because a couple of times he said, oh, that computer is broken. There was nothing to do. You can keep it, Simon. So I was using my screwdriver, removing all the parts, trying to repair, trying to fix the issue. And most of the time I was able to fix the issue, like using a spare part from another computer, making sure that they were compatible. And then voila, I was able to repair computers at seven years old. And after that, my father was so amazed because he didn’t have to do the repairs. He said, hey, Simon, I got something for you. Manuel Martinez: Keeps you busy. Simon Robert: Yeah, exactly. So he was happy. He was doing business and he was doing like, he didn’t have to do the repairs. I was doing it for free. So he was happy with that. And there’s a good thing with that because I was not like so near to my father because my father was like more like, I’ve been like that. I don’t say to my kids, I love them. You know, it was like more cold. Because I was working with him, repairing the computers, I had the opportunity to have a lot of time with him. So that’s pretty cool because I’m sure that if I didn’t have the patience for IT or for computers, I will not be as near to my father that I am right now. Manuel Martinez: So then would you say that kind of your, because you mentioned it before, right? With the cigars and with the bonding with people, do you think that technology, and I’ve seen a little bit of kind of what you do and the connections that you have, is that something that you think probably, I know at seven years old, you weren’t thinking like, oh, this is a way for also for ...