SPECIAL: How MSPs can make more money

Paul Green's MSP Marketing Podcast

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Welcome to a very SPECIAL edition of the show, Episode 260, celebrating 5 years of the MSP Marketing Podcast with me, Paul Green.

This episode’s been released five years to the day since we launched the podcast on the 5th of November, 2019. It’s a birthday! Amazing. Well back then, producer James and I figured it would run for a few months when we launched the first episode.

“Hello, this is Paul Green and welcome to the first ever MSP marketing podcast. Now, my aim every single week is to give you some motivation, some ideas, some clever stuff that you can take that other MSPs are doing around the world and you can bring it into your business and really make a difference to your business quite quickly and quite dramatically.”

Five years on, I’ve talked to some of the guests who’ve appeared over the years and asked them a big question – What’s the best idea you have to help MSPs make more money? We’ve split their answers into four different sections, starting of course with Marketing and Sales.

Hi guys, it’s Jamie Warner here, CEO of eNerds and Invarosoft. And here’s my tip for how your MSP can make more money. Well, the good news is I’ve got two tips and as an MSP owner, this is coming from experience. I’m actually in the saddle selling at the moment. So my first tip is that you must learn how to increase your percentage success rate of converting new customers. Your only goal is to essentially convince that new client opportunity that your MSP is going to be a step up from where they went before. That is why clients look to change. They don’t look to change for technical reasons. They only look to change for a step up in the service experience. So that’s your job, to figure out what are the things that you can say in your IT services presentation that will demonstrate that your service methodology is a step up from where they’ve gone before.

Now, obviously in the Invarosoft world, we use our customer experience technology to demonstrate to that customer how visually they’re going to get a step up in their service experience. And interestingly, we also use our QBR or our roadmap, TBR, whatever you want to call it. We use the methodology and the software that we use to do that and we demonstrate that to the customer as well, so they can see how our methodology and how our roadmapping and our gap analysis and our reporting is going to be a step up, and we show them examples of that when we are presenting our services. So that’s tip number one and that’s going to help you sign up more clients and grow your MSP.

The other thing that doesn’t get spoken about, so tip number two, is that you absolutely have to treat your clients as a pipeline of opportunity from a QBR perspective. So every client essentially has a huge amount of things that you need to help them improve. It might be new switches, routers, firewalls, a project to go to the cloud with Office 365, whatever it happens to be. Put all your clients in a list, down the left hand side of an Excel spreadsheet, look at how much you think you could possibly sell them. Workstations and desktops tends to be a big part of that. And then look at the enormous pipeline you’ve got. Now, these are things that clients actually need. These are not things that they don’t need, and so the best MSPs that grow faster, there’s this concept of sales compression. It’s understanding you have a pipeline as it relates to the QBR side of things, going out and actually having a conversation with the customer to get them to make decisions.

Which is what we do, the buying psychology of good, better, best when we present those recommendations to get buyers to make decisions faster. And if you can squeeze your pipeline down into a shorter period of time, lo and behold, you sell more faster and you grow faster. And let me tell you, as someone that speaks to a lot of MSPs, it’s the ones that are more sales efficient and the ones that with my first point are focusing on how they can convert those customers that grow faster. And in the last year, eNerds grew a million dollars in revenue and we signed up $70,000 in new MRR support, so just support in that last year alone, so it works. I wish you well. Good luck.

Hey, this is Nate Freedman from Tech Pro Marketing and I was the guest on episode 84. My tip for making your MSP more profitable is to have a live chat agent on your website. In my own study, 20% of leads prefer to engage through chat rather than a form or call, and 100% prefer speaking to a real person. Plus websites with live chat have been shown to have a 35% higher conversion rate compared to those without. So by offering a live chat option, you’re not just meeting expectations of your customers, but you’re actively increasing engagement and lead conversion rates by providing immediate personalised responses.

Hey there, this is Adrian Savage from EmailSmart. I was the guest in episode 99. My idea is to make sure you keep in regular contact by email with your customers and prospects, ideally at least once a week using a reputable email marketing platform. Send them a quick tip that will help them, something they can do quickly and easily. And in the same email, always mention one of your services along with a call to action, because if you don’t keep at the front of their mind, they won’t come back to you.

Bonus tip, make sure you regularly remove the people who haven’t engaged recently from your email list. Remove the people who haven’t opened anything in the last three months, and ideally the people who haven’t clicked anything in the last six months. Otherwise, you’ll be hurting your email reputation and your emails might not get through.

Hey, this is Megan Killion from MKC Agency and I was a guest on episode 238. My tip is to regularly ask your clients for referrals. In particular, I highly recommend getting a CSAT system in place that’s going to automatically ask your clients when you finish a ticket, if you did a good job. Then have your service delivery manager review those and see who’s doing well and pass it over to sales account management, or whoever’s going to be in charge of reaching out to clients to get referrals, that they should be touched in with and asked for referrals.

Then use your outreach to those clients, and be super specific -say something like, “Hey, it’s Megan from MKC, I know that you love when Tammy helps you guys out with your scheduling. She’s been so great and helpful for you and I know that we’ve delivered you about $1.5 million in new revenue this year. I’m just wondering, do you have any MSP friends that could benefit from a million and a half dollars in revenue in the pipeline?”. That’s it. Just ask for the referral and get out there and kick some butt.

I am loving these and this next bunch of ideas is all about looking after your clients.

What’s up everybody, Justin Escar from the Virtua Consulting Group. You may have heard me on episode 75, 100, 181, there may be another one who knows. Congratulations to Paul Green for celebrating five years of the Paul Green MSP Marketing podcast. Big shout outs to you, Paul and your entire team. Can’t wait to see what you do over the next five years.

Now, what’s my hot tip for MSPs to make more money? It’s not getting new customers, it’s about selling to your existing ones. The things that are really important today. So as we end 2024 and get into 2025, I’m talking about three things – security, identity and compliance. Sell not just the licences, but the services to your existing customers to make them more secure, help them with their identity and get them more compliant. I guarantee you, you’ll have a leg up on your competition if you take advantage of those things. Want to start small? Look at email security. There are great tools out there right now beyond spam protection that will help you and help your customers be more secure. So take advantage of what’s out there now. Look at your existing customer base. It’s not always about the new shiny, it’s about what you have now and how you can maximise your profit from it. Again, I’m Justin Escar from Virtua Consulting. Can’t wait to see you all soon.

Hi, this is Tony Capewell from Your Cloud Works and MSP Dark Web and I was the guest on episode 125 of Paul Green’s podcast almost three years ago. First of all, congratulations on five years of providing outstanding advice to the MSP world. It’s been an incredible resource.

My idea is the cost of acquiring a new customer is far higher than the cost of keeping an existing one happy. It’s easy to get caught up chasing new clients, but in reality, focusing on your long-term customers brings more consistent, sustainable profit. We do follow our structured regular marketing plan, but we’ve made it a priority to nurture our existing relationships, ensuring our clients are satisfied and feel valued. Our regular client check-ins and proactive support also allows us to upsell cyber security services with ease. So yes, continue with a structured marketing plan, but focus on client retention and you’ll save money while increasing loyalty and lifetime value.

Hey, this is Richard Tubb, The IT Business Growth Expert, and I was a guest back in episode 21. Now my idea is to do client floor walks. This is where you or one of your engineers visits your client site, not to fix an issue or close a ticket, but just to pop by to see how your client is doing. Stroll around, speak to your client’s team and ask if there’s anything you can help with. Not only will this increase your visibility with a client, but don’t be surprised if you end up with a few new projects or up sales opportunities as a result. Pro tip, take some cakes with you when you go to site. No client in history has ever turned away an engineer bearing cakes.

These are so good, aren’t they? Next up, we have other ideas for you to make money.

Hey, Greg Jones here from Kaseya. I was included in a few of Paul Green’s podcasts and I just want to say a massive congratulations to Paul and the team at MSP Marketing Edge for reaching their five year anniversary of delivering fantastic content to help MSPs across the globe. This week, I want to share my little tip on how your MSP business can make more money in the market at the moment.

My idea is focus on compliance. Most recent surveys out from the likes of Canalys, IDC and Gartner are saying that that market is going to be worth about 75 billion by 2028. That’s a huge piece of pie, and we want to make sure you get your slice of it. So focus on it not only to upsell and cross-sell your existing partner base, but also as well, it’s a great draw to attract net new logos, net new business into your MSP. The SMBs, SMEs, or even some of the smaller enterprises who are struggling with compliance with the likes of NIST 2 and DORA, a lot of them have got to be compliant with certain things by the likes of January, February of next year. A huge opportunity for you to make a little bit of extra cash. I hope that adds some value and again, a huge congratulations to Paul and the team. Take care.

I’m Ben Specter from Zomentum, and I was a guest on episode 137. Now, imagine a proposal that not only targets every single one of your client’s pain points, but also does a really good job showcasing your unique value. Here are my tips for a really compelling proposal template that should win more business. First up, make sure we understand your client’s needs. Start by thoroughly assessing their needs and their goals and ensure that your proposal aligns with these.

Next up, we want a clear and concise executive summary. Provide a brief overview of your services and highlight how those services are going to solve the client’s pain points. Then we want a detailed scope of work, clearly outline the services that you’re going to be providing, including timelines, deliverables, and any milestones. This is going to help ensure that there’s no confusion and dispute later on.

We want to then really highlight the value proposition and how your unique values that your MSP delivers are going to solve their problems the best. We then want to move on to the pricing structure. No proposals complete without some pricing. Ideally, we want to provide some case studies and social proof. Try to make these as relevant as possible to your client. This might be by way of their vertical or their geography or something else that makes that case study particularly relevant.

We then need a clear call to action. A lot of people forget to make sure that they’re highlighting what are the next steps. Do you need a signature? Is there another meeting? What is the call to action from the proposal? And last up, professional design. Make sure it looks great.

Hey, I’m Anne Hall from IT Agree. I was the guest on episode 152. My idea is that the everyday business risks faced by MSPs can be effectively managed to reduce your revenue leakage so that you can make more money. You can do this by using the right sorts of contracts, including service specific contracts and using them properly.

Don’t think about contracts as being there only for the worst case scenario, if you face litigation. Your contracts should also help you with other risks, everyday business risks. Things like responsibilities for reselling cloud services, including Microsoft 365, and cyber security services, the age old in scope / out of scope issue, and responsibility for cyber attacks, and more. So your contracts can and should help you to reduce revenue leakage so that you can make more money.

Hi, this is Jane Matthews from Wild Cat Careers, and I was a guest in episode 247. My idea is for you to ensure you create an attractive employee value proposition. This will help you attract and retain the best talent to grow your MSP. Think of a tap that you turn on that allows you to choose the best talent. That talent provides the best service to your clients, and in return grows your profits.

We’re nearly done for this special fifth birthday show, and let’s finish with three big ideas you really should listen to.

Hey Paul, it’s Henry Duncan from LanWare. I was a guest on episode 194. So my idea on how your MSP can make more money is really simple. You need to take your profit first. What I mean by that is the standard way that we’re taught to run our businesses is wrong. We take our sales, we minus our expenses, and then we see what’s left over in the end for profit. This model is crazy. As profit is given the lowest priority and plays second fiddle to everything else in your MSP. Then we wonder why we don’t make any money.

It’s time to give your profit a promotion. You need to take your profit after your revenue and then manage your expenses accordingly. Unless you do it this way round as you grow your business, your costs will get out of control and your profit will erode. If you want more information on this, there’s a whole methodology that sits behind it and it’s from a guy called Mike Michalowicz, so check it out online.

Hi, my name’s Andy Edwards. I was on episode 2, many, many moons ago. That is actually quite a while ago. And in episode 2, I spoke about relationships, business relationships, how to get on with people and why sometimes we don’t. But Paul’s asked me to give tips to help MSPs make more money. Well, here’s what I would normally say for business development, business growth, four things.

First of all, more successful businesses tend to have more customers, so get more customers. Sounds easy, doesn’t it? But to get money into a business, more customers is a good idea. However, there are three other elements.

Second element would be, when you get a customer get them buying as much as possible, as much as possible, whatever it’s that you do, make sure that they’re aware of whatever it is that you’ve got so that they can buy it. If they buy something you do from something or somewhere else, then that’s a failure on your part. Make sure they are fully versed with what you are able to provide for them.

The third one is to get them back more often. Now, quite often you can tie people in pleasantly through monthly subscriptions, even annual if you want, but get them coming back more often, and that is a component for increasing your revenue.

And the final one is, well, don’t lose them, to be honest, if you do the first three right, then the last one, don’t lose them to a competitor is almost guaranteed, but not completely. So that’s it. Get more people buying more often for longer.

If your business development activities increase in each of those areas by just 10% – 10% more people than last year, buying 10% more, 10% higher price than last year, coming back 10% more often and staying for 10% longer, you’ve just increased your turnover by 46%. So I can think of nothing better than the perfect strategy of getting more people through the door, getting them to buy more when they walk through the door. Get them back more often and make sure you don’t lose them. That’s my tip.

Hey, this is Brian Gillette from Feel-Good MSP. I was the guest on episode 133. My idea to make more money in your MSP is to stop looking for more advice. Go to the last piece of advice that you got that was good advice, but you haven’t yet executed. And ask yourself, did I not execute it because it was impractical, because it was intimidating, because I was afraid because it seemed too hard, because I have an excuse for why I can’t do it yet. Whatever the case is. And do it afraid, as they say in therapy. Take that idea and execute it all the way wrong, but get to the end of that task then see what happens, rather than looking for another piece of advice to throw onto the pile of things you should get to, but that you might not ever do.

Mentioned links

• This podcast is in conjunction with the MSP Marketing Edge, the world’s leading white label content marketing and growth training subscription.
• Join me in MSP Marketing Facebook group.
• Connect with me on LinkedIn.
• Connect with my guests: 1. Jamie Warner, 2. Nate Freedman, 3. Adrian Savage, 4. Megan Killion, 5. Justin Esgar, 6. Tony Capewell, 7. Richard Tubb, 8. Greg Jones, 9. Ben Spector, 10. Anne Hall, 11. Jane Matthews, 12. Henry Duncombe, 13. Andy Edwards, 14. Brian Gillette
• Got a question about your MSP’s marketing? Submit one here for Paul’s Personal Peer Group.