The BMK Vision Podcast

The night two critical PHP flaws leaked before their patches, Josh Peterson asked Gary Boyle what was really happening. Gary's answer: AI has made attackers faster than any MSP can patch, the open-weight models they run have no guardrails, and the frontier models defenders use refuse the targeted vulnerability work attackers do freely.
Then Gary turns the question on MSP owners. Most MSPs became brokers of security, handing backup, cloud and antivirus to someone else, and a thousand unpatched endpoints mean something different when the bots never sleep. He argues against freezing AI development and for learning the tools, because AI security expertise is the differentiator MSPs have chased for twenty years.
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What We Cover in This Episode
- Unpack the PHP flaws that leaked before their patches- See why security is just code, and why AI can read it- Compare open-weight models with no guardrails to frontier models that refuse- Learn why hackers and developers scanning code do the same thing- Hear what a Bitcoin red team spending $10,000 a day revealed- Rethink patching when a thousand endpoints meet unlimited bots- Decide whether to freeze AI development after a breach- Question whether your MSP is a broker of security- Turn AI security expertise into a real differentiator- Find forgotten API keys before they become a surprise bill
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YouTube (Video Podcast):https://www.youtube.com/@beringmckinleyvision?sub_confirmation=1Learn More About the Vision Platform:https://beringmckinley.com/visionApply to Be a Guest:https://beringmckinley.com/blog#speaker-form
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SEO Keywords
- AI cyberattacks- MSP cybersecurity- MSP security responsibility- PHP2Shell- AI guardrails- open-weight AI models- API key security- unpatched endpoints- MSP differentiation- managed service providers- BMK Vision Podcast
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Credits
Host: Josh PetersonCo-Host: Gary BoyleProducer: Bering McKinleyEpisode: AI Cyberattacks - Who Owns Your MSP's Security Risk?

Josh Peterson gave Claude a ConnectWise API user with write access to his time entries and did not lose a minute of sleep over it. Then he asks Gary Boyle the question every MSP owner is now facing: where is the actual security risk, and how much of it should you accept?
Gary's answer starts with where API keys really leak and ends with a cheat code. An MSP that already trusts ConnectWise and QuickBooks with everything cannot single out the LLM as the bigger risk, you cannot stop data leaving a small business anyway, and the owners who stay AI-first while their competitors lock everything down are the ones pulling ahead. Together they work out what a sane risk assessment looks like, and where an MSP should be on the levels from one to four.
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What We Cover in This Episode
- Decide what a Claude integration with ConnectWise actually exposes- Separate one-shotting an app from plan, code and goal- Find out where API keys leak, and why pasting one into an LLM means re-keying- Ask why an MSP that trusts ConnectWise and QuickBooks would fear the LLM more- Recognize when a locked-down Claude has become unusable- Accept that you cannot stop data leaving a small business- Weigh the two forms of risk: leaking data, and holding clients back- Place your MSP on the levels from one to four- Pick two practice projects: dashboards and the PSA-to-accounting connector
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Subscribe & Follow BMK Vision
YouTube (Video Podcast):https://www.youtube.com/@beringmckinleyvision?sub_confirmation=1Learn More About the Vision Platform:https://beringmckinley.com/visionApply to Be a Guest:https://beringmckinley.com/blog#speaker-form
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SEO Keywords
- MSP AI security- AI risk tolerance- Claude for MSPs- ConnectWise API security- API key security- LLM data security- AI governance for MSPs- AI-first MSP- managed service providers- BMK Vision Podcast
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Credits
Host: Josh PetersonCo-Host: Gary BoyleProducer: Bering McKinleyEpisode: MSP AI Security - How Much Risk Should You Accept?

An MSP owner finds a buyer, signs a letter of intent and starts thinking about the number. Hartland Ross has watched hundreds of those deals from the middle, and he argues the number is only half of what a seller agrees to. The terms decide what you are actually paid, and how long you stay.
Hartland is Founder and Managing Partner of The Host Broker, a brokerage for MSPs and IT services businesses based in Vancouver, British Columbia. In this conversation with Josh Peterson he walks through LOI break fees and exclusivity, how to choose a buyer on fit, how long sellers really stay after the close, and why earnouts exist. Josh brings two deals he saw up close: a $200,000 break fee paid when a buyer walked away, and a seller who realized days before closing that the buyer would inherit his $100,000 hardware investment.
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What We Cover in This Episode
- Unpack a $200K LOI break fee, and why most never survive- Explain how exclusivity works once an LOI is signed- Decide whose LOI to work first when there is no asking price- Turn the tables and interview the buyer- Rank offers on fit before money- Handle a seller who becomes the problem after the close- Set realistic expectations for how long a seller stays- Weigh price against terms in an earnout- Spot a buyer who needs the earnout to finance the deal- Settle hardware as a service equipment before closing
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Guest Links
Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hartlandross/Company Website: https://www.thehostbroker.com/
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Subscribe & Follow BMK Vision
YouTube (Video Podcast):https://www.youtube.com/@beringmckinleyvision?sub_confirmation=1Learn More About the Vision Platform:https://beringmckinley.com/visionApply to Be a Guest:https://beringmckinley.com/blog#speaker-form
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SEO Keywords
- selling an MSP- MSP earnout- letter of intent- LOI exclusivity- seller transition period- MSP acquisition- MSP exit strategy- MSP valuation- The Host Broker- managed service providers
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Credits
Host: Josh PetersonGuest: Hartland Ross, The Host BrokerProducer: Bering McKinleyEpisode: #129 - Selling Your MSP - My Price, Your Terms

Josh Peterson built a working app in Claude in a day without writing a line of code, and he already has clients who could use it. So he asks Gary Boyle the question every MSP owner is starting to ask: why not build tools like this for clients and charge for them?
Gary's answer starts with a map of the AI journey and the stage he calls the danger zone, where a build is exciting, easy to make and hard to support. Together they work out what an MSP has to settle before it sells software nobody on the team fully understands, and the decision every MSP now faces.
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What We Cover in This Episode
- Build a working app in Claude without writing code, and see why that changes the MSP's role- Recognize the parallel between selling websites in 1998 and selling AI tools today- Place a business on the AI journey, from patient zero to level three- Spot the danger zone, where a build is easy to make and hard to support- Plan for the day the tech who built it is out and nothing is documented- Set a goal before you build, the same way you would plan a business- See why the first change request is where an unsupported app fails- Decide whether your MSP becomes an AI software company or keeps reselling Copilot
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Subscribe & Follow BMK Vision
YouTube (Video Podcast):https://www.youtube.com/@beringmckinleyvision?sub_confirmation=1Learn More About the Vision Platform:https://beringmckinley.com/visionApply to Be a Guest:https://beringmckinley.com/blog#speaker-form
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SEO Keywords
- MSP AI strategy- sell AI apps to clients- build apps with Claude- AI software development- AI automation for MSPs- AI danger zone- proof of concept- Microsoft Copilot- managed service providers- BMK Vision Podcast
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Credits
Host: Josh PetersonCo-Host: Gary BoyleProducer: Bering McKinleyEpisode: MSP AI Apps - Should You Sell What You Built in Claude?

Who decides whether an MSP is qualified to hold the keys to a client's business? Right now, mostly nobody, and Josh Peterson suspects insurance companies are quietly taking the job, the same way an insurer, not the FAA, decided which plane he was allowed to fly.
MJ Shoer is Chief Community Officer at GTIA, the IT channel association formerly known as CompTIA, and ran his own MSP for close to nineteen years. In this conversation he argues the industry has to regulate itself before regulators do it instead, and explains the self-regulatory organization GTIA is building with Texas A&M to accredit the whole MSP business.
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What We Cover in This Episode
- Compare how an insurer and the FAA decide who flies, and what it means for MSPs- Unpack why an insurer might pay $30K of a $50K incident cleanup bill- Weigh what government regulation could do to small MSPs- Explain why it is easier to become an MSP than a genealogical researcher- Introduce CRITS, the consortium GTIA launched with Texas A&M- Map what an accreditation of an entire MSP would measure- Connect AI and cybersecurity, and the new Managed Intelligence Alliance- Debate whether the Trustmark was ever worth more than a logo- Set the bar: a checkbox on every cyber insurance form- Trace how CompTIA became GTIA
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Guest Links
Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mshoer/Company Website: https://gtia.org
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Subscribe & Follow BMK Vision
YouTube (Video Podcast):https://www.youtube.com/@beringmckinleyvision?sub_confirmation=1Learn More About the Vision Platform:https://beringmckinley.com/visionApply to Be a Guest:https://beringmckinley.com/blog#speaker-form
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SEO Keywords
- MSP accreditation- MSP self-regulation- MSP regulation- cyber insurance for MSPs- GTIA- Cybersecurity Trustmark- CRITS- self-regulatory organization- MSP standards- managed service providers
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Credits
Host: Josh PetersonGuest: MJ Shoer, GTIAProducer: Bering McKinleyEpisode: #127 - MSP Accreditation - Self-Regulate or Be Regulated

Josh Peterson opens with a claim most MSP owners will recognize: the owner who says he can't sell and the owner who says he's great at it often end up with the same pipeline. The difference, Josh argues, is not talent. It is the steps both of them skip in the first meeting.
He walks Gary Boyle through the order of selling and the four things every first appointment has to produce before you leave the room: a budget, a time frame, the next meeting date, and a referral request. Then he shows how to stop chasing prospects by making the proposal a formality rather than a surprise.
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What We Cover in This Episode
- Sell yourself first, the company second, and goods and services last- Build rapport by getting curious about the person, not their golf trophy- Ask for the referral at the end of a first meeting- Set the next meeting with a command instead of a question- Anchor the prospect's deadline and work backward from it- Estimate revenue from headcount to open the budget conversation- Frame the IT budget as a share of the prospect's revenue- Deliver proposals instead of sending quotes, and trial close before you write them
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Subscribe & Follow BMK Vision
YouTube (Video Podcast):https://www.youtube.com/@beringmckinleyvision?sub_confirmation=1Learn More About the Vision Platform:https://beringmckinley.com/visionApply to Be a Guest:https://beringmckinley.com/blog#speaker-form
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SEO Keywords
- MSP owner sales- MSP sales process- first sales meeting- set the next meeting- sales call next steps- order of selling- IT budget- referral request- trial close- MSP proposals
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Credits
Host: Josh PetersonCo-Host: Gary BoyleProducer: Bering McKinleyEpisode: MSP Owner Sales - Never Leave Without the Next Meeting