EP150 – Why Your Story Is Important
with Matt Newton and Ian Luckett

INTRO

In this episode of the IT Experts Podcast, we talked with Matt Newton about why your story is important.

Welcome to the IT Experts Podcast, the only podcast to help MSP's scale to 1,000,000. And if already there get to 5 and go faster at the end of the day, isn't it all about building a business that works for you rather than you for it? I hope you enjoy the show.

So, good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Welcome to the IT Experts podcast. And today we've got a really special show. I mean, most shows are pretty special, to be fair. But today is a really good one because we're going to be diving in and picking the brains of a guy called Matt Newton. Now, Matt is a serial 7 figure MSP leader and a digital transformation evangelist. Now there's not many people have had that length title on this show, so get your notepads ready. Welcome to the show, Matt.

MATT

Hello, Ian. Good to good to be here.

IAN

How you doing today, you alright?

MATT

Yeah, I'm good, man. I'm good. I'm fair to Midland, that's all. You can hope for, isn't it?

IAN

Fair to me. I wasn't expecting that this is going to be one of the pillar shows and we're where we're going to be helping you to take your story your why all this kind of fluffy sort of tosh that you hear people talking about all the time. And we're going to be putting it into some tactical and some practical tactical things that you can do in your business that's going to help you get more engagement out your team drive. It get more excited about the business that you're running rather than getting ground down by it and that's we're going to, you know, Matt's got a wealth of experience in this areas. He's done it with a couple of MSP's now and we're going to pick his brains and learn all about why your story is important. But before we get into the main bulk of the show map do you just want to explain and just share with everybody kind of who you are what you do who you help what your previous has been and what you're kind of looking at now really.

MATT

Yeah, sure. Yeah. Thanks, Ian. Yeah. So I've been in managed services for 25 years or so. Started justafterthe.com bubble burst. I was working for an ISP and got made redundant and for what I'm going to do next and fell into IT services as a result of that and never looked back it was obviously. The best thing that ever happened to me. really. So yeah, so you know, I started off you know, 25 years ago working for a small IT services provider that you know before it became an IT service provider was fixing typewriters as well as getting involved with photocopier and such. And then I'd become an IT service provider. But yeah, doing a break fix then, you know, did that for a few years as a manager and then thought one minute, everybody's driving better cars than me. I should be doing this for myself. Yeah. That's a good driver. Yeah. So then we so then myself and a friend, John Force, another couple of guys. And we created OSHA and we grew that from, you know, from zero to about seven and a half million revenue. And then we exited to the access group in 2021, work with those guys for a while and then and then now I'm basically well in the process of launching a new venture, but also annoying my family by being around too much over the last 12 months. Doing a bit of travelling and now just about to get things going again.

IAN

Love it. Love it. So, look, we've got an absolute wealth of experience here. Zero to a seven and a half million pound MSP. You know you didn't do it on your own, did it with your team. We can learn all about that in in today's show and the power of the community that that you know, the reason that I'm talking to Matt today was he actually reached out to one of our clients. And to say he didn't know was one of our clients at the time and reached out to an MSP and said, hey, you know what's going on? Been interested to see what's happening and just have a chat, see what you know, see what people are up to, you know, just networking. Really. That's all it was and our client went well he got to talk. To this guy, he's like, so energetic. And he's got these really good ideas. And when we started talking to Matt, there's so many different types of podcasts. I'm sure this isn't going to be the only podcast we're going to be doing. So many different types of experience that we could pull out of it, and it's lovely to share and give back.

So thank you for your time and effort today. You know what we're going to be talking about is about, you know, you the business owner. Why are you doing what you're doing? What's the point of it? You know, why is it so important that we set that moral compass and that direction and that vision and we talk about Mission, mission and values and all of this sort of stuff? And how do we bring it together? Because, you know, there is one thing that's certain about all MSP – that you can have exit at some point, whether it's your choice or whether it's somebody else's. So what's the plan for Brexit? What does between now and exit look like, even though those things might change? So what does you know when we talk about your story, you know, Matt, I think if I asked you this probably five or six years ago, maybe even longer than that, you probably have, what the hell you talking about. But in the terms of the context and the importance that you had of this on your life and your business, what do what do? You mean when we talk about the MSP business owners story what's that all about?

MATT

Pointed towards the fact that we kind of got together through myself, reaching out to one of your clients and that was from this year to Get Me Out of the house as well. You know, as I said, we've been with myself and the family been travelling post exit and but I wanted to kind of make sure I kept engaged and with the sector. And you know, got the brain going. So I started reaching out to local MSP. So I'm based in the West. Problems... So we're going to talk about it, but our MSP was legal, specific and accountancy. So we were very sector specific and I've kind of lost touch with some of the MSP's knowing who the MSP's were in my local area because, you know, we weren't competing geographically. So I've kind of reached out. So I've been seen probably about, I don't know, eight MSPs locally and had a chat with them and just to kind of understand where they are at share some of my experiences and just as you say network. And what I discovered is, I mean, I discovered some MSPs locally that in the pro, you know that were maybe, you know, a million and a half in size or something. When we started OSHA, you know, 10 years ago or whatever, and they were still sat around that position. Really. You know, really lovely companies, great owners. You know, passionate owners doing a great job for their clients, but they hadn't really, you know, moved the revenue forward. And the other thing that I discovered, you know, you know which I was kind of was expecting was, you know, these got, you know these eight, seven or eight MSP's that I've visited, it's quite they're quite homogeneous really in terms of you know I'll do a bit of research on their website before you know and when you look at them from the outside. You know, there's very little in the way of differences between them. So yeah, so. Because obviously we're, you know, we're all selling the same tool set. Realistically you're just packaging it slightly differently. So when you, when you, when you see that and you understand that we're selling the same tools and we're doing the same things, you know what, what makes you stand out from the from the other people that you're competing against, when you're pitching in whatever way to a potential client, whether it's, you know, over the phone, face to face or bumping into them in an event or whatever. What makes you stand out? Why would they want to speak to you and really, that's what we talked about and what I talk about in terms of what is your story as an MSP. We compete, you know. I'm very much punching upwards in terms of the loveliness of my wife –

IAN

But, but this is actually about your wife's podcast, isn't it? Because you almost said to me. Ian, you need to help me get out of the house. Otherwise this is just not going to end well.

MATT

But that’s where that was going was that when I met my wife, you know, many, many years ago, I told her a story about me. And she told me the story of her, you know, this is how we meet our future wives and husbands. This is how we make friends. We share stories. That's what humans do. You know and business is no different to that. You know you want to engage with people that you like, but also you want to engage with people that can you know it's a transaction, solve your challenges, create opportunities for you. So that's what it is. It's a case of, but you know. But what, where MSPs in the main kind of the position they fall back on is I'm comfortable talking about tech, you know, and it's talking about those the same items that everybody else is talking about Office 365 and such like so yeah. So you know when I talk about the story it's case of you know what is your company all about? What does it do for your customers?

IAN

We're going to come into some of the detail in that in a minute. I was actually at the Managed services summit yesterday, the one in London and it was refreshing to hear so many people now starting to talk about the importance of selling and educating and driving business outcome solution. You know, marketing, selling, whatever. That, as opposed to just selling the tech people, are now starting to, and this is techies now realising that they've got to stop talking about Office 365 and they've got to be talking about, you know, business improvement, collaboration and all of that kind of stuff, which is really exciting and it's and you know and we, you know talk about differentiation and there be many MSP's. Probably the ones who aren't listening to this show I'm going. No, we're all the same. No, I'm just going to compete on price. No, I'm just the same as everyone else. And they'll just be, you know, whether they're an MSP or at an IT support company. They'll just be, you know, competing in the good old Yellow Pages, you know, on the same thing talking about the same stuff. And it'll be a race to the bottom on price, cause that's basically what happens. Either you decide to be ambitious change do things a little bit differently. Stay ahead of marketing trends. Stay ahead of people are buying stuff completely differently now than they did before the pandemic. People are talking differently. They're communicating differently. They're networking differently. The world is a completely different place. So you got two options. You either stand still or you do something about it and this is one of the things. Now I heard Simon Sinek, I know you've got some time for his methodology, you know, all starts with why, which is really exciting but how do you start with this sort of stuff so you know with someone sitting here listening like that sounds really inspiring, Matt. I'd love to grow my MSP to 7 million. I get the whole story thing. But what the bloody hell do I do to find the story? What does that look like? How did you start to approach it?

MATT

I mean to kind of take you back to, I'm I love to talk about differentiators because and Simon saying is is great in terms of the why and when you get into like become a larger MSP and you've got you know. You've got a super marketing director in place, they'll talk about proposition and that's what we're talking about. We're talking about the proposition. But when you're when you're a small MSP owner, potentially from a tech background, it's difficult to kind of get your head around in the way of all. What is a proposition? And it's also though difficult to convey that internally as well, because what we're talking about, we're talking about a story, but we're talking about a story that we tell ourselves. We tell our potential clients, we tell our existing clients. And we also tell our staff as well. So we were, we were blessed with Russia in terms of an absolutely phenomenal team and that that team was phenomenal. For multiple reasons. Because of their own capabilities and the passion they showed. But that passion came from the work that we had done, understanding what our story was and what their role was within that, you know so. So we're talking about proposition. We're talking about Simon. Next, talk about why, but we diluted that into a story because we thought talking about a story because we thought it was easily transferable. You could get easy on board with it.

IAN

Anyone could tell it?

MATT

No matter who you were and it was easy for people to start thinking in that way. But to take you back in terms of but what, But that leads into differentiator. To take you back to my early days of managed services, it wasn't managed services we worked for. We were a little myself and my best mate who became my colleague and then became my partner at USHA. We worked for a small IT services. And the and in those it was break fix. As I say it was a typewriter repair company that became an IT services company. And if for those that kind of know my background in the company it was an unusual enterprise because it was just you know there was it was just the way it was run was very ad hoc you know.

IAN

I'd love to dig into that another time.

MATT

But it became more professional. But yes, so I differentiate that at that time I've started with sales and market. In there and the differentiator at the time was we were just more organized than anybody else from a sales and marketing point of view. Before I joined that, that, that small company, they weren't, you know, recording data, they weren't recording contract renewal dates. This is in the year of this is in the time of all you know, contract renewal contracts were paid up front for the year and it was you know. Very much hardware, you know, maintenance that you were selling and our differentiated there was wasn't really necessarily product or anything. It was more people, we were more organized from a sales point of view that allowed us to grow to about four and a half million or something when I left. So yeah, it we were just more organising our salespeople just better and that that was our differentiator and that was enough. But then as time went on, managed services started to show its face, and I and a couple of competitors that are still around started, you know, using things like Hound Dog, which was the the old RMM software. If anybody remembers that, I mean, it was bought by someone bought by someone and bought by somebody. Again, in terms of it's. But it's still the same. Product so RM people will start to use RMM products to be able to manage you know proactively and to and manage endpoints and whatever else. So that became a differentiator. So you know the early days, it was a case of being organised and then it was being managed, you know, doing managed services and you're differentiated for a number of years became really whether you were better than everybody else at doing it. So you were better at being proactive and you could go out. And you could do a sales pitch you know and say look, this is we know we answer the phone quicker. You know, we respond quicker, we get to sight quicker, we maybe do the proactive stuff.

But we're now at the point, you know, most of the people, you know, listening to this session, you know, hopefully everybody, they're doing all those things really, really well already. So the differentiator of just being good at monied services in a way, it's kind of dropped off. Although there's a range of people in terms of the quality of the service. They provide them. So when we came to when we set up on our own as USHA once again what you know we, you know no longer could we just say ohh we pick up the phone quicker as a differentiator. So we had to think a little bit differently our first one was that our contracts became monthly. We were the first people in the certainly the West Midlands to do monthly contracts. When I say monthly paid monthly rather than paid for a year upfront and that was big for us because we weren't asking for people. We were a fledgling company to pay for a service that they didn't know, didn't know how, what the quality was going to be like. So paying monthly was a bit more comfortable for them. So that was a differentiator. And then we and then we moved on to thinking, right, OK, what else you know what's next and for us it became cloud and then it became sector or so. But so why did we start thinking in this way if I talk about why we start thinking about it then the kind of then the practical steps of what we did, why do we start thinking about it that way, it was sales, wasn't it? You know, we wanted, we wanted more leads. We wanted more sales and we were just absolutely sick of competing on price. We were believed we were a quality provider, but what we would do is do a quality job, put a quality quote in that was really comprehensive.

IAN

Okay.

MATT

But we would be just basically undercut and the and the client would go with that, that that cheaper price potentially you know. For a solution that probably wasn't the match of ours. So it was just we just found it really difficult. It was a, it was a, you know, we would always call it as a knife fight. It was a knife fight on price raised to the bottom and it was really, really dispiriting, really dispiriting. And I know you do some amazing work with, with, with MSP's across the country and we've talked before about part of your role. He's keeping them energised, keeping them energised, keeping them, you know, up for the challenge, because. Running an MSP is a slog. It is really a slog. No, honestly, it really is. And it's hard work and running a successful one.

IAN

Yeah, it's not easy, is it?

MATT

Doesn't get much. You know easier because you, you know. More, more challenges and you're growing. But it is a real slog. And part of what feeds into that challenge is basically just the race to the bottom and and being just and not feeling like you're being seen for the value that you're giving.

IAN

Yeah. Don't feel, don't you? You say you don't feel appreciated to you by all the effort you're putting in. You're not getting that.

MATT

Now this is the thing. So all of that kind of led to you know, we go through waves of just being, you know, having enough, especially if it's something that you've put time and effort into doing proposals and so on. You know, so yeah. So we it was it we it came from wanting to do grow, you know grow the revenue, do a better job. Get clients that were more interested in technology. You know, they're interested in investing, saw it as an enabler of their business rather than a cost. We've all seen that it it's kind of the Maslow's hierarchy of needs kind of pyramid, but for IT services, there's a lot of clients. But that kind of don't really see, you know that historically didn't see technology at the top of that pyramid as being crucial to the success of their business. So we wanted those kind of clients that really saw it as key. So yeah, so that's what led us to kind of thinking well, we need to take stock of things. So we basically, in conjunction, very much a team effort. But we we had a marketing guy that I still worked with today that came in and kind of facilitated some conversations and with myself and my sales director out, you know, which also my business partner and what we really do in in practical terms, we wanted to get to the point of. We started off by trying to understand what we want from the business. Yeah, you know, what's the, you know, the whole bag big hairy, audacious goal.

IAN

Yeah.

MATT

What do we want to get right at the end of it and then kind of work back from that?

IAN

Okay.

MATT

Okay, budget wise, what do we want to get out from it in terms of revenue growth? So we, you know, there was an element of looking at the figure was it wasn't just about, you know, the fluffy stuff as you and also my ex-business partner would call it, it's marketing. It's just pictures just, you know. Let's just get out there. And start selling. But yeah. So but he very much came around to the idea of it how important it was. So we started off, you know, having conversations around that. Then we started looking at our client base, so you know talking practically now you know what you know, we've started talking about why we why we saw you know, why we came to this, this, this conversation about a story and then practically how do we start kind of looking into it. We started looking at our data. Place looking at looking at our customers, who they were, you know literally, you know, analyze sector size and so on. And then we did you know the Persona work of OK well, who's running these businesses, you know let's let's delve down into you know what their challenge is, what their opportunities. Are and all these kind of things. What's the pain that they're feeling? And we did the did the Persona work, which and that kind of exercise did two things. It allowed us to understand what our base was and is there any opportunities for, you know, to pursue niches, you know, what's the commonality between those clients, which is crucial, absolutely crucial, which is to, you know, think about marketing and the messaging which we'll, I'm sure will come on.

IAN

Yeah, yeah.

MATT

To talk about. But then we start, but we start it started to put us in their shoes. In the way of you know, when they get up in the morning, what challenges are they having to deal with You know they're growing business is the same as we're growing businesses.

IAN

Yeah.

MATT

You know, they've got family, they've, they've got an exit at some point in mind.

IAN

Yeah.

MATT

They've got the challenges of growing. They've got the challenges of recruitment, all these things that we stress about, they stress about too. But let's kind of note those down and try and dig into those a little bit.

IAN

See how your technology can help, yeah.

MATT

So it was it starts with the client. You know this is the thing. It starts with the client and everything should start with the client we spend. I mean, once again MSPs primarily are growing are grown from tech people. There's some outliers that are that are kind of salespeople, you know. I know some of the ones that start by salespeople and fully enough, they've grown quicker because is a funny thing.

IAN

Why? Yeah.

MATT

Yeah, there's one. There's one I've got in mind particularly, who was a big competitor of ours. But I won't name him, but did a great job. But you know the sales guy first and foremost started selling before we had any IT. People just outsourced it to another outsourcer, you know and now he's running a £20 million.

IAN

Right. Fair enough, yeah.

MATT

This turnover business.

IAN

Wow. Wow.

MATT

So, but it's mainly started by technical people and of course technical people want to talk about the the tech, don't they? That's what they feel. That's what they get excited about. But you've got that that doing this work, thinking about the client, first picturing what their challenges are, you then start thinking about the client and to and thinking about what their needs are. And soon as you start doing that, everything is revolutionized everything. And I'm talking about your sales pitch. Your marketing, your marketing strategy. You know the, the way that your client base your client base, think about you the way your staff think about their job rather than thinking about fixing tech, they start thinking about helping clients with their challenges. So yeah, so that was the that was the first start for us, which was that, that Persona work you know and sketching that out. And then it was just a case of, right, okay, we've got, we've got a persona, we've got a list of challenges where, what's the, you know and those challenges will also be more macro, you know what's happening in their in their industry micro, what's happening day-to-day. And then it would be, yeah. Well, what do they need? You know what? What do they need to do this to? What outcomes do they need, not what tech? They don't care about technology. Literally. They do not care if anybody takes anything from this. I would tell my sales team. Day in, day out, people don't care. About us, they don't care about the technology. That we're good. With they don't care about the only bit that they do care about is. I mean, they don't really care about Microsoft stuff. You know what they care about a lot of the time is they'll have a line of business. ABC, XYZ, whatever it is, that's the engine of their business, they care about that because that's tech to them.

IAN

That, it's their engine, isn't it?

MATTT

Yeah. So, yeah, so we did that Persona work, you know, started with the client and then yeah, how, you know, what do they need? And then it then you start thinking about you. Then you start thinking about how do we fulfill that need? And then suddenly you've got a story arch, haven't you? You know that you can paint. Then you can start thinking about what you need to do it will help you affect choose your service portfolio you. Know that's the thing rather than ohh I'm going to ohh that's brilliant. That new widget. I'm going to sell that to everyone. I did a little bit of Somerset accent where I said widget then. I don't know why.

IAN

We've got all sorts of AI stuff going on this. Have. Yeah. So yeah, so.

MATT

There's a widget I'm going to sell that, but you don't even know whether people need it. You know, so. So. So yeah, so that was the practical thing about we started and kind of got that going.

IAN

And then so once. You've got all these different elements. Then how did you start to bring it alive. What was the thing that turned it into loads of stuff that Matt's gone out and done to something that's useful for people to use and remember and to embed within the business.

MATT

I mean, we storyboarded it, we storyboarded it and for the simple reason that what, what did we want to come from that we wanted to be able to we storyboard it to I mean the step before was to basically validate what we were doing in terms of a service portfolio.

IAN

Okay.

MATT

Right. And there and there's loads of, you know, I can talk about. So I started a sales and marketing guy, but I came an ITIL guy and became an operations guy and I can wax lyrically about a service, ITIL, service catalogue. But yeah, I mean it basically the first thing we did was we validated our service catalogue in the fact that is, is it fulfilling? Actually, the needs of our clients.

IAN

With it going back and lining up with the you talk about lining up the it's the link between the client and your services. So that storage just connects with is this what they want? Is this how they consume technologies? Is this going to help them overcome their needs and their pains? It's a great a great way of kind of let you run with that because you're getting to the thing on all the different things that you did and how you connected it together. And I'm guessing you involved your team in this as well, yeah.

MATT

I mean 100%, I mean the the thing for us, I mean we I was part of a partnership. So there was four of us who owned the business you know, so you know everything had to be collegiate and you have to take you know which is great cause you ended up you basically. Well, if I was just on my own or one of one of my partners were on their own, you put maybe think slightly differently. You think about this is what I'm going to do. Because we had, I had actual, you know, fellow owners. It meant you have to be college and you have to think we got we got all move this along together and there and therefore you naturally then start involving. The wider team, rather than just the –

IAN

Yeah. Yeah. Just on that point, Matt.

MATT

Board members.

IAN

Did you all have the same belief outcome, understanding that of how this was going to impact the business, no. So you didn't, right?

MATT

Massively no. Massively no.

IAN

So this. Is a thing that came up when, you know we talked to a lot of people in the channel is I've got this great ideas I've been listening to Matt on this podcast. It sounds really good. I want to do it and your business partners going that is a complete and out a load of old waffle. I'm not dealing with it. We don't need to do that. Just get out there and sell. Well, how did you overcome that? How do you respond when someone asked that question about, you know, it's absolutely the right thing to do and you want, you know, and you're aligned and you know exactly what you want to do in the business, but there's this one little thing, how do you work on that?

MATT

I mean it was. I mean if there's any partnerships listening to this, I mean it's a, it's a challenge. I mean as I say there was four of us that own the business and I was I wasn't the majority shareholder as well you know. So it was a, it was a challenge. I was a I'm a passionate marketeer, so I believe in marketing I believe in, you know in the customer journey has evolved and you've got to basically, you've got to educate before you sell. You've got to get, you've got to get them, you know, you've got to engage with them at the beginning of their buying cycle, not just, you know, you know, engage with them at the end.

IAN

Yes. Love it. Yeah, yeah.

MATT

And then be surprised that you weren't chosen. You know, but.

IAN

Yeah. Oh, did that happen?

MATT

So why was a big into marketing And I and I believed in spending the pounds to do it, although in the end most of the effective stuff that we did was FOC, you know, because it was just, you know, us creating content. But the way that we did. It is that as a partnership. Yep, if somebody else comes in and says something, you actually quite often take more notice of it. Because so where is it instead of it's me kind of saying boys, we need to do this, that and the other need to spend this money and I'll and I'll, you know, put together a convincing reason for it. But having a bit of validation from an external source.

IAN

That's helpful. Yeah. Okay.

MATT

He's just he's mega helpful, you know, and I wish we'd have got into coach, you know, having a coach we, you know, we, you know, we would have we grew nicely, we grew 30% every year pretty much not far off 30% for the for the last three years. But I mean, we would have been in a in a much different place if we'd have. If we'd have took on coaching earlier because a lot of the time we had to reengineer. I mean we had to build the plane while flying it reengineer as we went on, you know, so so.

IAN

Not not that navigate.

MATT

It was that it. Was that external validation was key, you know, we I believe in outsourcing. You sleep because I'm an outsourcer, so you go outsource what you don't know and we expect our clients to outsource IT, support to us. And although I'm a Jack of all trades master of none. Okay, I believe in marketing but I got somebody better at marketing in tow come help us with that strategy really. And it also then it just helps get everybody on board.

IAN

Do you know it's funny you should say that we working with quite a few clients right now and the ones that are kind of relevant to this and a couple of guys actually who have been working with us for about 18 months now, one bit shorter. But they literally said that I'm either got to do this and grow this business. So I'm got to sell it cause I'm sick of it. I'm sick and tired of it. I'm not energised. I don't really care about it anymore. It's burning me out and these guys now and this is kind of what puts hairs on you. Hairs on your arms stand up when all of a sudden you're seeing the profit rising from period to period. You're seeing them get energised. Oh my God, I actually enjoy working in this business right now, you know? And they're both 7 figure MSP. So they're both serious businesses. But that are supporting many mortgages and households and things like that. And you know to have some sort of says, you know what? I'm just. I'm just sick and tired of this. To go from that to go Oh my God, I just realized I've recruited 4 people this year and my turnover has gone up like 47%. So how has he done that? We just got more efficient. No sales and marketing. Neither of them have got any sales and market in them. So it's really funny, they'll say, oh, we need more leads, need more leads from an actual fact. If you dig into your existing business, bit of account management as we kind of spoken about before building some efficiencies, get the story right. So everybody's more efficient. It's amazing how much the, the, the boat and pedal faster.

MATT

And it's also, do you know what, it's always surprising how much revenue grows when everybody's enjoying. It yeah, yeah. Yeah. You know what, honestly, and this is the thing once again on my tour of at local MSP's you can see various people at various stages of yeah, of kind of being tired. Of it or you know and one of them. I think the neutral guy actually I that that brought us together. I had a conversation. With him not long ago, and he feels so. Much energised because we've got …

IAN

Ohh man, he's flying.

MATT

Yep. He's got he's got some operational help here and he's doing what he enjoys, you know what, and and literally I you can't.

IAN

He has. Yeah, yeah.

MATT

I mean, part of being off, you know, doing nothing for the last 12 months pretty much. Do you know what I've become a little bit miserable because what I love to do is I love to, to run IT services companies. I love growing teams. There's nothing better than you.

IAN

Yeah, yeah.

MATT

Know my team was. A lot of it were graduates that I recruited and then developed and they're now superstars in different companies across the UK what you know, there's so much pleasure with that and from that, you know, they're you're engaged, you're happy they're. Happy, you know, and suddenly obviously. Just good stuff comes. From it.

IAN

Yeah. And it's personal growth, isn't it? Cause we, you know, start of it, what's it all about, what is it in for you, you know, what do you want to achieve and I I'll never forget, I think it was zig Ziglar or one of the guys there who said no it wasn't it was it was Alan Watts, there goes he said if you woke up every morning that you know if money was no object what would you do every morning what would consume your day. You know, and for, for myself. And I know Stuart, it would be just want to help people. And help people. How cool's that you could get someone to do something different, and this subject is, you know, it is a really, really key one because this is the cornerstone of the direction of your life. It's the cornerstone of the direction of your business and all those other people, I mean, how many people did you have in that business when you know when it was -

MATT

We had 65 or something or other. Yeah, yeah.

IAN

Six to five people. So you think of the ripple effect of your energy.

MATT

Ohh honestly well, do you know what, look at you can't look you. Got hair standing up on my.

IAN

There you go. Got it. Gotcha. Gotcha.

MATT

Because, arms look like this. This is everybody, I mean, we've got to pay the mortgage and everything you. You know, but for me, I was just that, you know, we the, the, the financial side of us, we just grew as a result of just doing a good job you know and I bring everything back to either meet and meeting the lady or the man of your dreams, or bring it back to football. It's that young player that basically, you know, starts getting a bit of, you know, get gets the big premiership wages. You know and then maybe gets offered a move somewhere else for more money, you know. But the advice to all young footballers is just keep playing your football, keep enjoying it, work hard and the money will come. Don't change it, you know, and it's. And it's the same with anything in business, just absolutely enjoy it and do a good job for people and to bring...

IAN

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

MATT

It back to the story it kick started this this period where we really, you know, looked at what we were all about, what would our what were our clients, what were our clients needs and truly started speaking to them in every in every way you know in, in our marketing, in the way our account manager thought with them and the way we dealt. Well, the way we spoke internally, yeah, it kicked on our revenue growth massively and that was very much linked to and very closely connected with just the level of engagement of our staff. Yeah you know we went through I we went through and after growing...

IAN

Yeah, employee engagement.

MATT

For a while. We struggle to get good experienced people in from a sales point of view and everything. So we took a step back and we went and we I run a graduate programme where I get loads of grads in and I would into, I would basically get them to stand up and tell them a little bit in front of everybody, tell, say, a little bit about themselves and whatever else and then I would choose two or three to take on and we built our business on grads that and it was hard work to begin with because you had to cover for them. It's hard work training them.

IAN

Yeah. Yeah, you're. You're the, input.

MATT

Yeah, but the combination of their, their youthful exuberance, you having a clear story to tell as to look at these people, look at their business challenges and look how we're going to help them. Yeah. Yeah. That led to absolute rather than your story being we want to sell more. Stuff. Yeah. You know, Office 365's got a new component. Al, how do we sell that to them, Your staff Rrtention's not going exactly fly when you, you know, basic on. That's the your level of engagement with them. You know, you've got to get people engaged and you, but you've got to start with being engaged yourself because they will, they will feed off you. You'll feed off your energy, and clients will as well. So yeah, it honestly, it just does come back to enjoying it, doing a good job, listening to your customers, you know, being generous with your, with your time being generous with your content, don't start putting. Don't try and put out an advert saying buy my IT services. You'vegot toa put out content saying, you know, listen. Hey, you know, I see you, Mr. customer. I see your challenges. And these are this is kind of content that will help you overcome those challenges by the way we do IT services.

IAN

Yeah, if you want to have a chat about overcoming those challenges, Matt, it's been an absolute pleasure and just before we wrap up, I just want to remind you know, this is all this is kind of one of those podcasts that goes down a little bit on the mindset thing, mindset, sort of the theory and content category as it would be. And I want you listening to go back and have. A listen to episode 111 with where Stuart and I talked about getting out of your own way and this was a really great episode where we find a lot of MSP business and get stuck. They kind of lose a bit of confidence. They lose a lot of trust in their team, and that episode will move all of that out of the way so that you can then go back to the beginning of this episode with Matt and start to implement some of the great things that he did and look forward to, to driving your business for towards so what was the results then? What was the end outcome of all of this great work that you did? Then, what was the deliverables? Effectively, if we were gonna put it on a scorecard?

MATT

Yeah, no. It's so just to make it really, I mean really simple, probably four or five kind of deliverables came from that. First it led to our sector specialism. It led to us to make sure that to we focused in legal then became accountant because we realised we were in a position to help law firms very, very well you know and we and we were passionate about that. So it led to sector. Specialism, which in itself then you know, led to better marketing because you know hey we were talking about you know digital transformation of law firms, the challenges that they face in term. In terms of, you know, delivering services digitally, all this kind of cool stuff that we could talk about because we were, we were focused on their sector and then by the way we provide IT services that can help you do this. And it and it led to a much better sales process. You know, a process that we controlled because we would start with you know, we would engage with a with a client and we would say hey, this is what we found is happening in your industry. This is what we found as those challenges. Do you agree with that and it became the quality, the discovery process of whether you were a fit with the client. Became a lot more natural, a lot more two way rather than us, just kind of selling them stuff. So the sales prospect became a lot hugely improved.

IAN

Conversions obviously increased them.

MATT

Yeah. And the OR the conversion rate, I mean, I would say, you know this, my, my, my marketing guys, but if you ask them what their what our conversion ratio is, I'd say my conversion ratio is pretty much one in one, OK and they Would be stats where they proved. That it wasn't but the reason and I would say. Oh yeah, but I wasn't really after any of those because I’ve qualified those out in my mind. You know, the ones I've qualified. In my mind. You know, we always closed because we did that qualification. Really, really effectively, we you know the marketing real content, I'm a huge believer in content marketing and content marketing strategy. It doesn't it doesn't necessarily get you super quick results all the time. But I'll tell you what it fuels growth on the long term and then the other thing was yeah but better client relationships and more engaged stuff which we which we've already talked about.

IAN

Fantastic. That's absolutely brilliant. So look, you've got this great achievements in your rearview mirror. What's in your sights now? What's going on in your world right now?

MATT

Well, you, you, you kind of you, you introduced me as a as a digital transformation evangelist and which I am all SME's are challenge are really struggling to kind of use these digital tools to kind of improve back office operations. All these tools are being sold to and given that they're struggling to engage with their clients digitally, you know, in terms of whether they give it on board and then digitally or giving them updates or whatever it is so that digital transformation is really a struggle fo SMA's and that's led me to to launch a an automation business. So you know I'm offering automation Services managed automation services to SME's. So basically automating their processes really quickly and cost effectively and at the same point offering that you know if there's any MSPs out there that want to offer that service to their clients and make their proposition their story a little bit more engageing, then, then reach out and then the only other thing is I am on the lookout to get back into managed services. I'm a glutton for punishment, Ian. Clearly. But yeah, I've. I'm looking for MSP to get involved in some way or other. You know, as I don't even know. In what way that would be invest it. Buy it. You know, work for it.

IAN

Get in contact with Matt and see.

MATT

Yeah. Yeah, so.

IAN

What happens?

MATT

That's where I'm at the moment.

IAN

No, that's brilliant. Well, thank you very much for your time today. If you wanna get in contact with Matt, we'll drop your e-mail address and stuff, if that'sokay with you in the show notes. So they can just contact you there or LinkedIn or wherever it may be. Really inspiring story. Love it absolutely and cause a lot of things we're talking about. And you've brought it to life absolutely beautifully today. So thanks ever so much for your time. Good luck in your future ventures, wherever they may take you in this wonderful channel that we live in, and hopefully, you know, at the end of the day, we can help your wife, get her house back. Alright mate, look after yourself. Have a great day.

MATT

Yeah, cool. Alright, buddy, take care.

IAN

Cheers now. Bye.

OUTRO

So I hope you enjoyed the show. If you did, I'd love it if you could leave a rating and review on your favorite podcast platform. If you want to learn more about how to take your MSP to a million or if you're already there, go faster than comm and join Stuart Warwick and myself in the scale of confidence Facebook group. The link is in the show notes. You can enjoy the rest of your day and I look forward to connecting with you soon.