Never Give Up: Tech Dreams and Business Advice with Morrelle McCrary

Lincoln Parks (00:01.522)
Hey everyone, welcome to the I'm Local podcast. Today I'm excited to have a guest, a friend, a colleague, Mr. Morrell McCrary with Ram Tech PC Solutions. Morrell, welcome to the podcast.

Morrelle McCrary (00:15.874)
Thank you. Thank you for having me. Yeah, it's been a, it's been an adventure, man. It's been a journey.

Lincoln Parks (00:23.122)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So let's jump in with that, you know, an adventure and a journey. So let's start from the beginning and just tell everyone, you know, how did this all come to be? Ram Tech, you know, how did this, let's start from the beginning.

Morrelle McCrary (00:40.645)
Oh, man, that is a that is a loaded question, Lincoln. Let me tell you, man, I have I've always been interested in technology and marketing. Like those are my passions. Even with the Clayton State for both of them, right? I went to work for a few IT jobs where it was like big name companies and

you know, kind of work my way through as a tech to an engineer, to management. And the only thing, the real, the thing that really like. Flip the switch for me was I was working a gig, man, and they sent me out to go do some client work for them. And I built a relationship with one of the clients that I kept going to see to install printers and computers and so on and so forth. And I said, Hey, this is like late nineties, right? Early two thousands.

Lincoln Parks (01:32.668)
Right?

Morrelle McCrary (01:34.486)
I said, hey, look, can I ask, what are they charging to send me out here? Cause I'm out here for like two and three hours, just chit chatting with you guys, having a good time installing these computers and printers. And they were like, oh, well, yeah, they charge us about 200 bucks an hour.

Lincoln Parks (01:42.547)
Right.

Morrelle McCrary (01:53.558)
So that's when the light bulb moment happened. And I thought, well, I know what they're paying me. And it's definitely not that. So I talked to a CPA friend of mine, he was actually going for his CPA license and he was entrepreneur as well. And...

Lincoln Parks (01:56.01)
That's right.

Lincoln Parks (02:04.817)
Right, right.

Morrelle McCrary (02:16.298)
you know, he and I both kind of kicked it around and said, all right, well, if you're going to do it, here's the right way to do it. I'm gonna get you set up. We're gonna do it the right way, blah, blah. And I was like, okay, cool. I got everything set up, got everything off to the ground running. And this was in 99. And went nowhere. I mean, just, you know, typical small business minds that is like, I'm in business now. And then you have no clients.

Lincoln Parks (02:24.884)
Yes.

Lincoln Parks (02:32.378)
Yeah, yeah, that's right, right. Now we got to get some clients.

Morrelle McCrary (02:42.654)
Right, right. Now we got to get some clients to pay some bills, right? Um, so yeah, it just kind of started from there, man. Just, you know, word of mouth. I kept my full time job, you know, until it, I mean, it was just to a point, I think it was like 2001, 2002. Um, you know, I just, I kept it for a while, you know, and I pushed it. I pushed it a lot. Um, and then I transitioned to another job that was here in Henry County, right?

Lincoln Parks (03:06.36)
Right.

Morrelle McCrary (03:11.29)
And I kept Ramtech going on the side. Um, during that time I brought on Cameron. Cameron is now my VP and, um, he he's been with me for a long time. You know? So, you know, it's all about cultivating a team. It's all about treating people like people. Um, you know, and everybody's like, well,

Lincoln Parks (03:24.548)
Yeah, yeah.

Morrelle McCrary (03:34.198)
What was your goals? How did you set this? How did you do that? I mean, I always said three goals. I mean, you've known me long enough. I always got three goals and each one of them has subheadings underneath those subheadings, right? But if you keep your eyes on those main goals, you will, you will achieve them or you'll get real close. Um, so my goal, and I said it forever, it was like, I want to be the biggest IT firm on the South side of Atlanta. I want to be that, that guy.

Lincoln Parks (03:37.481)
Right.

Lincoln Parks (03:52.842)
That's right.

Lincoln Parks (04:00.842)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's right

Morrelle McCrary (04:03.326)
I want to be the household name for every business that needs IT services and cybersecurity solutions. I want to be that guy. How do I get there? And that's when you start putting the roadmap together with marketing and training. And I mean, you gotta, you gotta keep your skillset fresh. You gotta do all these things to stay relevant to your industry. Oh yeah. Like I said, man, it's been a journey.

Lincoln Parks (04:12.521)
Right.

Lincoln Parks (04:19.21)
That's right.

Lincoln Parks (04:23.794)
Right, right. Yeah, and you know what, and I've been there for a lot of that journey, which is why I'm so, wanna get your story out to other people and other entrepreneurs that, they may be getting started or they're working their full-time job and then have a side hustle on the side that they're trying to do that they eventually wanna turn into.

a business, a real business. So you mentioned this earlier, you talk about Cameron being on with you and he's been on with you for a long time. Talk a little bit about that expansion. How did that happen? Would you just, you by yourself, and then Cameron comes on and then boom, now we got seven, eight, nine employees.

Morrelle McCrary (05:17.842)
That was probably the easiest piece. I was still working nine to five or eight to five at my day job, right? Where I was an IT manager. Um, Cameron was still in high school. And then when he graduated high school, he went to college. So he just worked in between classes and it was a part-time gig for him at that time, right? Um, so really, I mean, I had enough income coming in to take care of my family with my regular job.

And I technically had Cameron running the business and he didn't even know he was doing it then he was technically running the business when you know, he was coming in part time and he would make enough to pay for him his salary. Right. So that, like I said, that was probably the easiest piece because I didn't need the income from the business at that time. And it gave me somebody that I could, you know, send out during the day to go get stuff done if needed. Um,

Lincoln Parks (05:53.29)
Okay.

Lincoln Parks (05:58.654)
Right.

Right, right.

Morrelle McCrary (06:15.742)
I will say the rubber hit the road Lincoln when it became time of, okay, all right. This is requiring way too much time for me during the day. You know, I'm on the phone with Cameron when I'm supposed to be on the phone with, you know, my, my day job people helping them, supporting them. And I was like, well, all right, I'm torn now because, you know, I believe in doing things the right way and if you don't do it, do it right the first time. So you don't have to redo it. So I'm a big proponent of that. And

Lincoln Parks (06:32.006)
Right, right.

Lincoln Parks (06:41.715)
Yeah, yeah.

Morrelle McCrary (06:44.87)
I realized that my focus wasn't 100% on my day job. And I was very transparent with my manager at the time. And I told her, I said, hey, look, I've got a side business. So if you guys have a no moonlighting policy, then I'm gonna need to know upfront. But it never really got into, it never really broke down to it where it was like taking over my day job.

Lincoln Parks (07:04.906)
Right.

Morrelle McCrary (07:15.198)
It was fielding a few phone calls while I was at lunch or step out on the break and feel some phone calls and help Cameron with, you know, whatever issues he came across. But it was that time. And it was like the timing. I mean, it was, you know, we've met through a lot as, you know, as a country, I mean, we've been through 9-11, we've been through all kinds of crazy things that would make businesses close doors. Um, so it was rather. Right.

Lincoln Parks (07:15.23)
Right.

Lincoln Parks (07:23.186)
Right, right.

Lincoln Parks (07:31.016)
I know.

That's right. That's right. Yeah. That's right. And a man and many of them have. Right.

Morrelle McCrary (07:44.11)
So around 9-11 and I was working for a bank. And of course we know what happened with banking after 9-11 happened. So that kind of tanked and the economy tanked. And I got caught up in, you know, a being able to go be a work from home dad type situation. And I had two young kids, you know, three and two, I believe, three and one, something like that. Oh, they were, I forget now, it's been so long ago. But.

Yeah, with those babies at home, that was my motivation. I mean, I keep this sign behind me because that's. Those are not my words, but I feel them. I feel them every day.

Lincoln Parks (08:24.448)
And those are good words to have behind you, man. Every day you walk in and you see it. Yeah.

Morrelle McCrary (08:27.63)
Right. So, um, it was just, you know, you had to feed those babies and I had to do what was required to do that. So I, I didn't, Cameron had enough to sustain him, but he, there was not enough in the business to sustain both of us. So there was a lot of late nights. There's a lot of, you know, leftovers. There's a lot of, Hey, let's go over to your mom's house and eat dinner because we were broke.

Lincoln Parks (08:38.451)
Yeah, yeah.

Morrelle McCrary (08:56.914)
You know, I mean, there's a lot of those, those times that, you know, and this is the conversations my wife, Jennifer and I have now is like, you know, you remember back when we had to go to my mom's house to eat dinner because we didn't have anything to eat or we didn't have enough money to go out and do what we wanted to do. It's like, you were a business owner, but you didn't have anything. I was like, yeah, you're right.

Lincoln Parks (08:57.33)
Yeah, yeah.

Lincoln Parks (09:18.686)
That's right. That's right. That's right. Look, man. And I'm glad you said that because, you know, when that's one thing that why I wanted to do this podcast was I wanted to share the stories of people like yourself who've been in the community. You know, you started from scratch, and you built your business to where it is now. And you are like that name in Henry County. At this point, you know, you Yeah, no, I mean,

Anybody everywhere I go to ram tech piece to loosen this morale, you know, they always think we twins are we brothers and stuff like that So so it is so every time you know So I think you're at that point where it's like man, you know everywhere you go. It's ram tech PC solutions I mean, I know it's more that could be done However, I feel as if as if you're there, which is why I want to transition into this question here and

Morrelle McCrary (09:57.164)
I still get that.

Lincoln Parks (10:18.386)
And I know you touched on it a little bit, but what is like that one hurdle that or some advice that you can give an entrepreneur right now or a small business owner right now that they're like, man, I'm on the verge. I'm ready to do this thing. I'm ready to move forward. Like what's that one thing that you could share with them? Yeah.

Morrelle McCrary (10:39.725)
That's easy. And I use it every day. Divert that energy to something else.

Lincoln Parks (10:45.482)
Hmm, yeah.

Morrelle McCrary (10:46.934)
And I say that for multiple reasons, right? I'm at the gym, I'm working out, right? I'm lifting heavier weight than I have lifted in my entire life. Like you would walk by the weights and go, wow, he's gonna lift all that.

Lincoln Parks (10:56.594)
Right, right.

Morrelle McCrary (11:02.766)
and you see people and they wear it on their face, they're struggling, they can't get that weight up. Take that energy from your face, direct it to your body part that you're working and get through the job.

Lincoln Parks (11:13.139)
Right, right.

Yeah, that's powerful

Morrelle McCrary (11:17.398)
So I take that same mentality with work. When we first jumped on this call, I told you, yeah, my energy is low. I hadn't gotten any sleep.

Lincoln Parks (11:25.994)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Morrelle McCrary (11:27.334)
I know to stay in my lane because I'm the energy here. If I come in and I bring negative energy, if I don't bring any energy at all, my teammates are gonna pick up on that and they're not gonna push. Right? So I don't let my face show it. Every day you come in, you focus, you come up with a task list. I'm not gonna show you all my tasks, but this is one page of my task list, right?

Lincoln Parks (11:38.602)
That's right. That's right. Yeah.

Lincoln Parks (11:53.339)
Yeah, yep, you're deep.

Morrelle McCrary (11:55.622)
and I keep it and if I mark off three or four in that day, I don't let that beat me up. Used to I let it beat me up. Oh, I didn't get to this task. Didn't get that done. I have deadline stuff that I meet, right? I don't miss deadlines on purpose. But there are some things, you know, like, I got to get this done and I need the focus. Let me close the door, knock it out. So you come in with that same level of mentality, that same energy that you put on your face when you lift the heavy weights and you divert it to something else.

Lincoln Parks (12:02.59)
Right. Yeah.

Morrelle McCrary (12:26.466)
That will get your job done.

Lincoln Parks (12:28.654)
Man, yeah, that's powerful, man. I hope people took heed of that advice because that's great advice. So let me ask you, Merell, is there in the community, I know you've been a part of the chamber, heavily part of the chamber, and you're making things happen. Well, look, I know.

Morrelle McCrary (12:49.13)
You too, Mr. Past Chair. I'm just following your footsteps.

Lincoln Parks (12:56.866)
You've been in this community, man. Everybody knows you already. You're on that path with the chamber right now. What are some things that you see for the future in Henry County local community from an IT or technologies perspective that you feel like we may be lagging behind on and we need to move forward?

Morrelle McCrary (13:05.435)
Yeah.

Morrelle McCrary (13:19.862)
Man, so that's a loaded question, right? The reason I say it's a loaded question is, I always feel like Henry County is a little delayed. And I love my county, I love my city, I love where I play, worship, and sing, and work, right? I love everything about where I live. There are some disadvantages to how fast we're growing, right? I mean, I had to move my business out of McDonough five years ago because I couldn't get enough bandwidth.

Lincoln Parks (13:28.658)
Wait.

Lincoln Parks (13:38.206)
Yes.

Morrelle McCrary (13:49.986)
for my company to operate. So when you look at, okay, where do I put my business? I had to look at, well, number one, the majority of the customers we have are healthcare related customers. They're gonna be near a hospital most likely. So hospitals typically have good power and good internet.

Lincoln Parks (13:51.754)
Remember that.

Lincoln Parks (14:05.086)
Right.

Lincoln Parks (14:08.53)
right.

Make sense.

Lincoln Parks (14:15.626)
That's right. That's right

Morrelle McCrary (14:16.766)
So I said, how close can I get to a hospital and closer to the customers that we support and get the services my business needs? That's why we ended up here. So that's number one, infrastructure, lack of infrastructure, right? And that's number one for me. You hear a lot of people say traffic, there's no one. Traffic is what it is. I mean, that's what it is. You go to Atlanta, there's traffic. You go to North of Atlanta, there's traffic.

Lincoln Parks (14:32.68)
Right.

Lincoln Parks (14:36.954)
Oh, yeah. Infrastructure. Yeah. Right.

Morrelle McCrary (14:45.282)
Quick story, I went to a Microsoft conference and I had a friend that's lived in Alpharetta and I mapped it from this friend's house, it was 10 minutes up the road. Whereas I'm an hour and 10 minutes from my house to Alpharetta, right? I said, hey, let me spend a night with you. That way I can just drive 10 minutes and go to this conference. And she goes, well, you might wanna leave 30 minutes early.

Lincoln Parks (14:56.99)
Yeah.

Lincoln Parks (15:02.375)
Right.

Lincoln Parks (15:08.616)
Right.

Morrelle McCrary (15:14.442)
And I said, but it's 10 minutes up the road. And she goes, well, it's going to take you 30 to 40 minutes to get there. And sure enough, she was right on. She was spot on. But again, traffic, but I never want to bring up traffic because there, there are some DOT plans in place to get the traffic done. The problem is by the time we get the traffic done, we now have a population that's done tripled since that study was done. So we're a little behind in that aspect, which is fine.

Lincoln Parks (15:17.349)
Right.

Lincoln Parks (15:22.506)
Good grief.

Lincoln Parks (15:32.423)
Wait, wait.

Lincoln Parks (15:41.482)
That's true.

Yeah, yeah, that's right. That's that is true

Morrelle McCrary (15:44.338)
I don't mind more people, more people mean more customers, right? And that also means more taxpayers. So if there's more people, more customers, more taxpayers, I think that's a good economy. I'll deal with a little bit of traffic for that.

Lincoln Parks (15:58.538)
Mm-hmm. I agree. I agree. Any day. I'm fine with that. So, okay. So let me ask you this. What is, and we're going to transition, you know, wrapping up. What is your local go-to spot? I mean, this is the spot that you kind of like, man, we got to go here. You know, you and Jennifer, it's like this is where we got to go. What's your local go-to spot?

Morrelle McCrary (16:18.349)
Uh oh.

Morrelle McCrary (16:27.326)
I will tell you man, there's a few. If you're thinking about food, I mean.

I can't really answer that. Winky, you got to edit this out, man. I got some clients that'll feel some type of way if I answer wrong. There's a lot of good ones though. I mean, here we kind of see out a lot of Gems right? So Italian Oven, that's a hotspot. That's like when I go in there, they know me by name, right? Serafino's, like directly across the street from them. That's another hotspot. They're really good. 15 Street Pizza. I mean.

Lincoln Parks (16:40.635)
It's all good.

Lincoln Parks (16:51.518)
Right, yes, I was just there, yes.

Lincoln Parks (16:59.186)
Yes.

Morrelle McCrary (17:04.43)
That's another one. Mellow Mushroom room. I mean, we got a lot of hidden Gems in Henry County that we hit regularly. Empson's Deli, I'd pop over there for lunch. So I mean, there's Papi's Cuban restaurant. I mean, I'd pop over there for, there's so many, Lincoln, there's so many, so.

Lincoln Parks (17:05.065)
Can't beat it. Can't beat it. Yes.

Lincoln Parks (17:12.143)
I agree.

I, oh man, yeah, yeah.

Lincoln Parks (17:25.202)
Right. Yeah, I did. They're a ton. And you name you name some good ones. So, you know, I need to go over to Poppy's because I hadn't been over there in a little bit. So I need to I need to pay them a visit. But so, OK, in wrapping up, where can people find Meryl McCrary? They want to do business with Ramtech. You know, they're listening to this and they're like, man, I love.

Morrelle McCrary (17:36.834)
Man, you need to, you need to.

Lincoln Parks (17:52.447)
I need some IT changes, I need something. Where can I get in contact with you?

Morrelle McCrary (17:56.45)
So that's the easy one. I always tell people, look, if your IT guy doesn't talk to you, doesn't spend time with you, and doesn't treat you like you wanna be treated, we will welcome you to the Ram Tech family. Ram Tech, we are 100% customer service driven. We just happen to be some IT people that love people, right? So if anybody's looking for us, you can find us on

Lincoln Parks (18:10.846)
Yes.

Lincoln Parks (18:20.906)
That's awesome.

Morrelle McCrary (18:24.79)
Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, web. I mean, I'm probably at some chamber function and you've seen my face. Just pick up the phone and call us. Just call Ram Tech as we always say. That's what we hear our customers say. Just call Ram Tech, let them fix it. Yep, just call Ram Tech, let them fix it.

Lincoln Parks (18:31.935)
Yes.

Lincoln Parks (18:36.286)
Gotcha.

Just call Roundtip.

You're right. Because I hear it all the time. So hey, Morrell, look, man, I really, we could get into so much more. I just wanted to. Yeah. Yes. It goes by fast, but I wanted to really just thank you for, for being on and being a part of this community and sharing your vulnerabilities and where, where you were with your business so that people that are watching this or listening to it in the future.

Morrelle McCrary (18:50.683)
We're trying to sweep out real fast.

Lincoln Parks (19:10.366)
they take some of those nuggets and they can implement it in their business as well. So, you know, I appreciate you being our man and best of luck. Continue for Ram Tech.

Morrelle McCrary (19:14.86)
way.

Morrelle McCrary (19:20.726)
Yeah, thank you, man. I appreciate you having me. And you know, one last word for the viewers and listeners. Don't give up. I mean, if it was easy, everybody would do it.

Lincoln Parks (19:32.006)
That's right. Yeah.

Morrelle McCrary (19:32.098)
Don't give up. Don't give up on your dreams. Don't give up on your hopes. You get up, you go to work, and don't let money be your focus. Let taking care of people be your focus. You will thrive.

Lincoln Parks (19:44.254)
Great advice. Way to wrap it up, man. I appreciate you, Mara.

Morrelle McCrary (19:48.662)
Yeah, man. Take care.

Lincoln Parks (19:50.73)
Alright, have a good one.