What does it take to build a business that survives for more than 35 years, adapts through multiple generations of technology, and continues growing year after year?
For Mike Vertolli, CEO of ComTec Systems, the answer isn't one breakthrough strategy.
It's adaptation.
It's taking calculated risks.
It's finding ways to create measurable value for customers.
It's retaining the clients you already have while continuing to earn new ones.
And perhaps most importantly, it's being willing to fail forward.
Mike's entrepreneurial journey began in the early 1990s when his stepfather died while starting a telecommunications business. Mike and his mother took over the company at a time when Microsoft was emerging, the internet was beginning to transform business, and telecommunications was entering a period of enormous change.
More than 35 years later, that company has evolved into a technology and consulting organization serving businesses through technology, energy, and tax consulting.
In this episode of the Glovisor Podcast, Joe Abreu talks with Mike about building a business that lasts, preparing for success instead of only planning for failure, creating customer value, improving operational efficiency, embracing technology, and developing the mindset required for long-term entrepreneurship.
The Family Business That Became an Entrepreneurial Education
Mike didn't follow the traditional path into entrepreneurship.
After high school, his stepfather became seriously ill and eventually passed away. At the time, his stepfather was building a telecommunications company, and Mike had already been helping with mobile phone installations.
After his stepfather's death, Mike and his mother took over the business.
It was the early 1990s.
Microsoft was emerging. The internet was becoming a major business conversation. Telecommunications was changing rapidly.
Mike decided not to follow the traditional college route. Instead, he learned by doing.
The company began with telecommunications and business communications, but Mike quickly learned that staying in business would require more than simply continuing to sell what had worked yesterday.
Technology was changing.
Customer needs were changing.
The market was changing.
So the company had to change with it.
That willingness to adapt became one of the defining characteristics of Mike's entrepreneurial journey.
Building a Business That Can Survive Change
A business that lasts for decades cannot remain dependent on the conditions that existed when it was founded.
The technology that existed in 1990 looked very different from the technology of 2000. The technology of 2000 looks dramatically different from today's environment.
For Mike, adapting to those changes has been part of the company's identity.
ComTec gradually expanded beyond its original telecommunications roots.
The company added technology services, then energy, and eventually tax consulting.
The common thread wasn't simply the industries themselves.
It was the opportunity to help existing customers solve additional problems.
Mike explains that the company's expertise in deregulated markets created opportunities to help clients find additional savings and improve their businesses. Rather than abandoning its original expertise, ComTec built additional services around the needs it was already seeing.
That creates an important lesson for established business owners:
Growth doesn't always require finding an entirely new customer.
Sometimes growth comes from understanding the customer you already have more deeply.
The Entrepreneurial Lesson Most People Learn Too Late: Prepare for Success
One of Mike's most revealing observations involves one of the biggest challenges he experienced as an entrepreneur.
It wasn't failure.
It was success.
Mike explains that one of his biggest problems came from being so successful that he wasn't prepared to capitalize on the opportunity.
That experience changed the way he thinks about entrepreneurship.
Most business owners spend considerable time thinking about what could go wrong.
What if sales decline?
What if a customer leaves?
What if the economy changes?
What if the next investment doesn't work?
Those questions matter.
But Mike believes entrepreneurs also need to ask a different set of questions:
What happens if everything works?
Do we have enough cash?
Do we have the people?
Do we have the infrastructure?
Can we fulfill the demand?
Can our systems handle the growth?
Can we deliver the same quality of service at a larger scale?
Success creates its own operational problems.
A company can fail because it doesn't have enough customers. It can also struggle because it suddenly has more demand than its systems, people, or finances can support.
Preparing for success means building the capacity to capitalize on opportunity when it arrives.
Finding Money Where Businesses Didn't Know It Existed
ComTec's evolution has also been driven by another powerful business principle: increasing profit isn't always about increasing revenue.
Sometimes the money is already inside the business.
It is hidden in inefficient contracts.
Excess energy costs.
Technology that isn't being used efficiently.
Tax opportunities that haven't been identified.
Vendor relationships that haven't been optimized.
Operational processes that haven't evolved.
ComTec's current three-pronged approach focuses on technology, energy, and tax consulting, with the goal of helping businesses identify savings and efficiencies that might otherwise be overlooked.
Mike describes the environment as particularly challenging because energy markets are volatile, regulations continue to change, and technology is evolving rapidly.
In that environment, finding savings can have a meaningful impact on the bottom line.
The lesson for business owners is simple: before assuming you need more revenue, understand how efficiently you're using the revenue you already generate.
Profit Growth Isn't Always About Selling More
Entrepreneurs are often taught that the path to growth is straightforward:
Get more leads.
Close more customers.
Increase revenue.
But revenue isn't the same thing as profit.
A business can grow rapidly while becoming increasingly inefficient.
That is why Mike focuses on the combination of growth, savings, and efficiency.
If a company can increase revenue while simultaneously reducing unnecessary expenses, improving technology utilization, optimizing energy costs, and identifying available tax opportunities, the effect on profitability can be significant.
This is particularly important during difficult economic periods.
When demand is strong, inefficiencies can hide because revenue growth masks them.
When the economy becomes more challenging, those inefficiencies become much more visible.
That's when operational discipline can become a competitive advantage.
Who Can Benefit From This Approach?
ComTec initially built its expertise serving smaller businesses, including thousands of clients with fewer than 100 users.
That experience created what Mike describes as a "white glove" approach.
As the company grew, however, its clients expanded into much larger organizations, including Fortune 500 and multibillion-dollar companies.
The common denominator isn't necessarily company size.
It's change.
Companies that are expanding, acquiring other businesses, growing rapidly, or facing significant operational complexity can benefit from outside expertise.
A small company may not have the resources to keep every type of expertise in-house.
A large company may have extensive internal resources but still have gaps created by acquisitions, complexity, or scale.
In both situations, an outside perspective can reveal opportunities that are difficult to see from inside the organization.
Prove Your Value Before Asking for Trust
One of ComTec's most interesting approaches is how it structures its relationship with clients.
Mike explains that the company doesn't make money until the client achieves savings.
The company first identifies the potential savings, benchmarks the opportunity, optimizes it, implements the changes, and demonstrates that the savings actually exist.
Only then does ComTec bill based on the savings achieved.
This approach is designed to make the relationship budget-neutral and reduce the risk for the client.
More importantly, it creates a foundation of trust.
Instead of asking a prospective client to pay first and trust that the promised value will eventually arrive, ComTec's approach is to demonstrate the value first.
That creates a powerful principle that can apply far beyond consulting:
Don't just tell customers what you can do.
Show them.
When businesses can demonstrate measurable value before asking for a larger commitment, the sales conversation changes.
The relationship becomes less about promises and more about evidence.
The Difference Between a Service and a Trusted Advisor
Trust became a recurring theme throughout Mike's discussion.
ComTec's contracts are designed to be relatively light, and the company emphasizes demonstrating results before asking clients to make significant commitments.
Over time, that approach has helped create long-term relationships.
This matters because customer acquisition is expensive.
A business that constantly loses customers must repeatedly spend resources replacing them.
A business that retains customers while adding new ones creates a very different growth model.
Mike describes the company's formula simply:
Add clients.
Do a great job.
Try not to lose clients.
The simplicity of that formula shouldn't obscure how difficult it is to execute.
It requires consistent delivery, communication, customer feedback, and a culture that pays attention to the client experience.
The Client Success Team Behind Sustainable Growth
Mike attributes much of ComTec's growth to its client success team.
Their responsibility isn't simply to solve problems after they occur.
They serve as the eyes and ears of the organization.
They learn how clients perceive ComTec.
They identify areas where the company can improve.
They make sure existing clients have a strong experience.
And they feed that information back into the business.
That creates an important feedback loop.
The customer isn't merely someone who purchases the service.
The customer becomes a source of information that helps improve the company.
For entrepreneurs, this is a valuable distinction.
Customer retention isn't just about keeping customers happy.
It's also about learning from them.
The businesses that listen carefully to existing customers can discover what needs to improve before those problems become reasons to leave.
A Healthcare Organization That Went From Struggling to Thriving
One of the strongest examples Mike shared involved a large nonprofit healthcare organization that was struggling financially.
The organization invited ComTec to look at the business and essentially ask:
"If you were us, how would you run this differently?"
That opened the door to a comprehensive review.
ComTec benchmarked the organization's technology providers and identified opportunities to reduce costs. Over roughly two years, the organization migrated to more advantageous plans and achieved approximately 30% savings in that area.
But the transformation didn't stop with cost reduction.
The organization also centralized its call intake and improved operational efficiency.
According to Mike, the changes contributed to an approximately 80% increase in new patient acquisition compared with the level of patients they had previously been losing.
Energy costs were also reduced substantially, and the organization was introduced to tax credits for which it was eligible.
The combined impact reportedly added several percentage points of gross sales to the organization's bottom line.
The relationship continued for many years.
For Mike, the most meaningful part wasn't simply the savings.
It was seeing an organization that had been struggling become a thriving community resource.
The story demonstrates why operational efficiency should not be viewed simply as cost cutting.
The right technology, processes, contracts, and financial strategies can create capacity for growth.
Sometimes the cost of not having the right tools is greater than the cost of the tools themselves.
The 10-Time Inc. 5000 Lesson: Growth Requires Consistency
ComTec's achievement as a 10-time Inc. 5000 company provides another important lesson.
Inc. 5000 recognition is associated with sustained rapid growth, but repeating that achievement year after year requires more than one successful period.
Mike describes the pressure this creates: once you achieve growth, you have to grow again.
Then again.
And again.
ComTec has maintained a model of incremental growth, adding clients while focusing heavily on retaining existing relationships.
Mike describes approximately 15 consecutive years of 20% to 30% growth.
That kind of consistency doesn't come from one viral marketing campaign or one massive customer.
It comes from a repeatable business system.
Add customers.
Deliver value.
Retain them.
Learn from them.
Improve.
Then repeat.
The lesson is particularly relevant for entrepreneurs who are focused on rapid expansion. Sustainable growth is often less glamorous than explosive growth, but it can create a stronger foundation for a business that intends to be around for decades.
Client Retention Can Become a Growth Strategy
One of the most practical insights from the episode is the importance of client retention.
Entrepreneurs often spend enormous amounts of energy trying to acquire new customers.
But every customer who stays reduces the pressure to replace lost revenue.
Retention also creates opportunities for referrals, additional services, testimonials, and long-term relationships.
ComTec's own growth illustrates this principle.
The company doesn't simply focus on bringing in new business. It has invested heavily in making sure existing customers have an exceptional experience.
That creates a virtuous cycle.
Satisfied customers stay.
Long-term customers generate additional opportunities.
Strong relationships create referrals.
A good reputation attracts new customers.
New customers become long-term customers.
Growth becomes cumulative.
For a business owner, one useful question is therefore not just:
"How do I get more customers?"
It is:
"How do I make the customers I already have want to stay?"
AI Is Changing Efficiency—Not the Need for Good Business Decisions
Mike sees artificial intelligence as one of the major forces changing business efficiency.
Businesses across industries are evaluating how AI and other technologies can help employees become more productive and automate or streamline certain processes.
But Mike's perspective isn't simply about adopting AI because everyone else is talking about it.
The question is what the technology can accomplish for the organization.
If a company can use technology to make the same number of employees significantly more productive, that changes the economics of the business.
If technology allows the organization to accomplish the same work with fewer resources, that can also change the economics.
The important question is therefore not:
"Should we use AI?"
It is:
"Where can technology make our people and processes more effective?"
That requires understanding the business first.
Technology should serve the business strategy rather than become a distraction from it.
The Entrepreneurial Advantage of Looking Ahead
Mike's career has required him to anticipate where technology and business communication were heading.
The company began with telecommunications.
Then came internet-driven change.
Then increasingly sophisticated business communication platforms.
Today, businesses are dealing with cloud communications, AI, automation, energy volatility, changing tax regulations, and rapidly evolving technology.
The specific tools keep changing.
The entrepreneurial skill that remains constant is adaptability.
You don't have to predict the future perfectly.
You have to remain willing to learn, observe, test, and adjust.
That means entrepreneurs should spend less time trying to preserve the business exactly as it is and more time asking:
What is changing?
What will customers need next?
What technology is becoming important?
What inefficiency is becoming more expensive?
Where is the market moving?
What capabilities will we need two or five years from now?
That mindset can help a business remain relevant even when its original market changes dramatically.
"Fail Forward": Why Calculated Risks Matter
Mike's final message to entrepreneurs centers on what he calls "failing forward."
Failure is inevitable in entrepreneurship.
Not every marketing campaign works.
Not every hire works.
Not every product works.
Not every investment works.
Not every strategic decision produces the intended outcome.
The danger is allowing the fear of failure to prevent experimentation.
Mike's approach is to take calculated risks, observe what happens, and learn from the result.
If something works, duplicate it.
If it doesn't work, eliminate it.
Then try again.
This doesn't mean taking reckless risks.
It means accepting that uncertainty is part of building a business.
Every failed experiment can provide information.
Every difficult situation can reveal something about the company.
Every mistake can become a lesson.
And every successful initiative can become a process worth repeating.
That is the essence of failing forward.
The Long-Term Business Growth Lesson
Mike Vertolli's story offers a different picture of entrepreneurship than the idea of a single breakthrough.
His business was built incrementally.
It evolved as technology changed.
New services were added when customer needs created opportunities.
The company expanded its expertise.
Client relationships became a central part of the growth strategy.
Savings and efficiency became as important as revenue.
Technology became a tool for adaptation.
And failure became a source of learning rather than a reason to stop.
The result is a business that has survived for more than 35 years and achieved repeated recognition for growth.
For entrepreneurs building companies today, the lesson isn't necessarily to copy ComTec's exact model.
It's to understand the principles behind the journey.
Adapt.
Create measurable value.
Prepare for success as well as failure.
Listen to customers.
Retain the relationships you've earned.
Use technology intentionally.
Take calculated risks.
And when something doesn't work, learn from it and move forward.
Build a Business That Can Outlast the Next Change
The future of business will continue to change.
Technologies will evolve.
Industries will transform.
Customer expectations will shift.
Economic conditions will fluctuate.
New competitors will emerge.
Artificial intelligence will reshape workflows and business models.
The entrepreneurs who build lasting companies won't necessarily be the ones who predict every change correctly.
They may be the ones who develop the ability to respond to change repeatedly.
That is perhaps the most important lesson from Mike Vertolli's 35-plus-year entrepreneurial journey.
A lasting business isn't built by finding one perfect strategy.
It's built by creating a company capable of learning, adapting, delivering value, and earning trust over and over again.
For more conversations with entrepreneurs, business leaders, and experts exploring the strategies, systems, communication skills, and mindsets behind business growth, visit Glovisor and follow the Glovisor Podcast.
The goal isn't simply to build a business that succeeds today.
It's to build one that is ready for what comes next.