In this concise interview, Professor Pete Alexander talks with Perryn Olson, Chief Strategy Officer of MyIT, a Louisiana‑based IT firm serving construction, auto dealers, and medical practices. Perryn explains his role overseeing sales, marketing, and account management, and shares why he enjoys the IT sector despite its resistance to change, highlighting the constant need for learning and certification. He stresses the importance of standing out in a commoditized market, referencing Seth Godin’s Purple Cow and the mantra that good technology is invisible. Perryn offers career advice centered on never burning bridges, illustrating the point with a past client who later became a major account. He reflects on how the COVID‑19 pandemic exposed the risks of short‑term shortcuts versus firms with solid foundations. He recommends a former telecom sales colleague, Chuck Mutes of Black Tie Auctioneer, as a guest for the podcast, noting his adaptive shift to virtual nonprofit events. Perryn recounts his first jobs in retail (Champs Sports, Bath & Body Works), which shaped his preference for accessible leadership and a personal company culture. He describes MyIT’s recent growth from 28 to 80 employees through a merger, emphasizing the need to retain a small‑town feel. The episode closes with a call to connect with Perryn on LinkedIn.
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This is Professor Pete Alexander with the Winning at Business and Life podcast, where business leaders share their insights. It is 6 questions in 7 minutes because successful business leaders are busy and rarely have more time to spare. So let's get to it. Question number 1: In a few sentences, please tell me who you are and what you do.
I'm Perrin Olson. I'm the Chief Strategy Officer at MyIT. We're a Louisiana-based IT firm. That specializes in construction, auto dealers, and medical practices. And I head up the sales, marketing, and account management teams.
Perrin, it's great to have you on the show. Question number 2: What's the best thing about working in your industry?
It's not a dying industry. You know, technology is taking over a lot of industries and changing the world, and we're kind of part of that. One note that I did learn going to IT, moving from the marketing agency world to IT, was IT guys don't like change, and I'm a bit of a changemaker, so I tend to shake the trees a little bit at the office.
That's interesting. I can, I can see that because IT, yeah, that they're set in their ways with certain technology, and so you come in here and shake the, uh, shake the leaves up a bit. It probably could be a bit of a challenge at first.
Yeah, definitely. And especially with security, they don't like to see new holes come up, and, um, it's just the nature of the business. It constantly evolves, and there's a lot of training involved, and Oddly, in IT, most of them don't have college degrees. Some of the best techs are just kind of self-taught. They're constantly learning new technology, learning new certifications, things like that. And, um, it's definitely a career for lifelong learning, like a lot of things are actually.
Absolutely. Question number 3: I have a book with all the answers for business. What chapter would you think most companies should read?
How to stand out and be different. Um, one of my favorite books of all time is Seth Godin's Purple Cow. Essentially, it's everyone's selling a cow. How do you stand out? How do you have people drive thousands of miles to get your purple milk? And in IT, we're commoditized. You know, one IT firm is like another. Internal IT versus external IT, what we are, people think is all the same. And essentially what we do is invisible. You know, we help with efficiency, we do cybersecurity, it's all invisible. And that's a good thing. There's actually a quote we added to the wall was, "Good technology is like magic. It's invisible." And the right clients, when they come in, they're like, "Oh, I get it." And I can almost tell a good versus a bad prospect because of that quote.
I love that quote. That's really, you know, it serves for a really good metaphor. It's fantastic. Question number 4: Other than the generic work harder, have a great attitude, and care for customers, what advice or insight would you give to other business leaders?
Really, the best advice I got young in my career, because I started doing sales straight out of school, was don't burn bridges. In New Orleans, where I'm at, this is really a big small town, and one of the clients I remember just wanted to curse out one day because she just dropped the ball, blamed me to her dad who was the CEO. I switched careers, went to a new company, and she was the CEO now of one of our largest clients. I'm really glad I didn't burn that bridge 10 years earlier, and it keeps coming around. Certain people that you just take the high road on, eventually they come back and it's full circle. And I think that fits in business. Um, you know, I've been at MIT almost 4 years now, but I've known the firm for 15 years beforehand. And there's been a lot of people that we've worked with in and out over the years, and just, it's about relationships and taking the high road. And I came to MIT because I knew they took the long view of things. And there's certain things that are painful today that we know long-term will be better. And I think that's actually showing the last few months of living in the coronavirus world, that some of the companies that took some shortcuts along the way are getting hit harder, struggling a lot more than the companies that had good roots and capital in the bank, things like that.
Yeah, and it's interesting, as you're talking about that, it reminds me that it really is a small world, especially in a particular industry, because it's much easier for people to move from company to company that's in their own industry. And so if you burn bridges in one of them, chances are it's going to get, uh, come back to bite you because there's going to be people who know of your— you burning the bridges at the previous location. So I think that that's very wise what you're saying.
Oh, most definitely. And you don't know who's moved to what company. You know, if the average person spends 3 years at a company, 10 years from now they're at 3 different companies at that point. And who do they know? And References on a resume might be one thing, but I'm going to go to LinkedIn and see who do you know in common. I'm going to ask them, hey, what do you think of Pete Alexander Alexander Alexander? And that'll tell me a lot.
Yes, I've done the same thing. If I'm directly connected with somebody who knows this person, that's the person I'm going to reach out and just simply ask, so what do you think? So, you know, and that's, it's a simple question and people got to realize that. So I thank you for sharing that because I think that is very wise, especially as people are looking at new opportunities now. So Question number 5: What other business leader like yourself would you like to acknowledge and invite to be on my podcast?
I was thinking, who would you want to talk to? Because you've done this a while, um, and somebody just always makes me smile and has a very unique background. One of my former telecom sales reps has actually gone into the auctioneering business, actually the family business, and he does private events. His name is Chuck Mutes with Black Tie Auctioneer. So he has the perfect voice and it's just exciting to talk to whether he's on stage or on podcast. And it's actually really interesting to talk to him right now because he's actually converted some live events for nonprofits to virtual events and he's still doing auctioneering via Zoom.
Wow.
I'm always impressed how people can transition business models, evolve them, especially in something like this. It's something like a live event for a nonprofit because nonprofits are getting hit hard right now because they're not making income They missed a lot of the big events from the spring, and he's able to transition. And obviously, this, as a relationship standpoint, he didn't just sit back and say, my business is dead. He said, how can we make this work? He's got some nonprofits that have worked with him, and, oh yeah, let's do it. And it's been great, and he's good. And he also thinks like a business person. So when he works with a client— because I introduced him to a friend one time who runs a family charity and he shows, look, here's the return on investment. Your gala should run this much money, should admit this, and just talk through all that stuff. But he's just, he's a fun person to talk to, understands business, and it's just exciting. He's one of these very optimistic people as well. So it makes me want to talk to him.
He sounds like a great guy. I will reach out to him. Thank you for that referral. And finally, question number 6: please tell me about your first job.
My first job in high school, I started working at Champs Sports in the local mall. Played sports, was sports editor for yearbook and newspaper in my high school. I was kind of obsessed with sports. Little did I know what retail sales really was back then. I actually lasted 2 years, but in the first 3 months I was the most senior exec, or senior associate as we were called then, and really just saw the store evolve. And had one more dabble in retail working more in stock years later. In college I worked at Bath Body Works, stock boy, essentially. A friend's sister was the system manager and knew I had some experience doing that. After those two jobs, I swore I'd never work for a big company again, actually. So I always want to have a CEO that I can call, someone down the hall, or somebody just I can Zoom with or Skype with, somebody I can at least have access to, because I just felt the bigger company wasn't a good fit for me.
Well, kudos to you for realizing that early on in your career, because you could have spent most of your career in a big company, realize, and then finally figure that out. So good job on that.
And it's interesting now as we've actually become— went from a 28-person company to an 80-person company in the last few months through a merger. And my CEO no longer is down the hall, he's 5 hours away. But it still has that, you know, kind of small-town feel because we're both Louisiana firms that are working together and we're all part of the same team. And it's— the culture fits very well. So I've had to make sure, because I told them that story actually early on, I want to make sure that, you know, we're not going to grow into that. Because our, you know, our plans are growth, and me being in charge of marketing and sales, that's a big part of what we're doing is growing the firm. But that's one of the main tenets of us, is keeping that personal feel.
That's a great part of the culture, I'm sure, and something that you should hang on to as much as possible. So Perrin, thank you so much for being on the show. How can people find you?
The best place to find me is LinkedIn. My name is pretty unusual, and it's pretty easy to find, just P-E-R-R-Y-N. And love to connect with people on LinkedIn and Just send me a message so I know you're not a robot.
Exactly. This is Professor Pete Alexander with the Winning at Business and Life podcast. For more insights and ideas, please go to LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook, or iTunes and search for the Winning at Business and Life podcast. Thanks for listening.
