‘We celebrated our 20th anniversary back in April and we’ve grown up to $5 million in revenue. Going through organic growth I thought, ‘We can steadily keep growing this way slowly or I could look at companies that would be a culture fit for us,’ says Wayne Hunter, CEO of AvTek Solutions.

After hitting $5 million in revenue and acquiring his first business, Wayne Hunter has a growth plan in place to get to the next level.

Hunter, CEO of Allen, Texas-based MSP AvTek Solutions, acquired Jonesboro, Arkansas-based AllyIT last month to deliver comprehensive solutions to clients in an expanded coverage area. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“This is the first time that I’ve purchased a company,” Hunter (pictured above) told CRN. “I’ve sold companies before but this is my first actual acquisition and part of my growth plan for AvTek. It’s exactly what I was looking for. I didn’t want to buy a company and say, ‘Everybody in that company go away,’ and just take their customers. I wanted to not only grow my business but grow my organization. And we’re enabling the owner of the business that we’re purchasing to grow.”

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Six employees came over in the acquisition making AvTek a 19-person organization.

To position his company for future growth, Hunter has hired more sales and marketing team members, a chief security officer, operations manager, services manager and a VP of sales is on coming this fall.

“I’ve steadily brought people on to build out the infrastructure and support,” he said.

Once he has the new roles in place and the trajectory set for his company, he plans to look at acquiring more companies in 2025.

CRN spoke with Hunter about the growth his company is seeing, how he’s implementing AI and automation into his business and what he wants from vendors.

What is your growth plan for the company?

We celebrated our 20th anniversary back in April and we’ve grown up to $5 million in revenue. Going through organic growth I thought, ‘We can steadily keep growing this way slowly or I could look at companies that would be a culture fit for us.’ About two years ago I began laying out a plan. The first part of the plan was to get our organization’s culture in the right frame so that would support acquiring companies. I’ve steadily brought people on to build out the infrastructure and support like a chief security officer, operations manager, services manager and VP of sales. I’ve been steadily taking hats off but at the same time building the culture of what we’re going to do. If the transition plans are where we expect and the sales team is up and running, then I’ll start looking for the next one in 2025.

What is your biggest challenge in the business right now?

It’s probably the client acquisition. Building a service organization is easy to me, but building a sales team and a marketing team…it’s a different set of people in how they approach things. What I learned was how I sell it not how salespeople sell. You’ve got to quit trying to put the round peg in a square hole. You can give the guideline but you’ve got to be okay letting other people do it in the way that they’re successful, as long as they follow that guideline. It made things a whole lot easier but that’s a tough transition for a business owner.

When it comes to your customers, where are you seeing the most IT spend?

Right now it’s cybersecurity and compliance readiness. But cybersecurity awareness is tough. Before I started doing podcasts and short videos, people thought, ‘Who is this yahoo calling me out of the blue trying to educate me on this?’ When I changed that and started doing LinkedIn and Facebook videos and putting them out there consistently, now when we send them things I have people listening. What I’ve learned is it’s not that they don’t want to listen, it’s are you credible?

Where are you seeing the most benefit when it comes to using AI and automation in your business?

It helps drive what we already do. If you’re going to do AI, you’ve got to now get in that business layer, understand their business and see how the business works. AI allows us to automate what we’re already doing, making the same process workflow we have more efficient. I’m not changing something. I’m just optimizing what I’m already doing to drive my EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization).

What do you want more of from your vendors?

The area that I’m most focused on with my vendors is new logo acquisition. I’m big on marketing development funds and really driving client-facing engagement. That’s a common thing that all partners say but the difference is I reach out to every one of our vendors for marketing develop funds and a marketing plan. I’m after development finds and we’ll give the actual information to show what’s happening with it. MSPs can’t do lead generation like a big vendor can, so the biggest thing is looking at how can vendors get more creative to help the MSPs that are producing? MDF allows us to be more in the face of clients which generates more celebrity status and branding, therefore generating new logos. That’s what MDF is to me. It’s not a free lunch, it’s branding. A lot of these vendors just hand it out. I want them to really be engaged to go do those things.