EP212 - A 2024 Podcast Year in Review
with Ian Luckett & Stuart Warwick

INTRO: In this episode of the IT Experts podcast, Stuart and I review the top five podcasts from 2024.

Welcome to the IT Experts podcast. The only podcast to help MSPs scale to 1 million, and if already there, get to five and go fast. 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.

IAN: So, good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Welcome to the IT Experts Podcast. Today, we've got a special show, back end of the year, right at the end, creeping into Christmas. We are going to be reviewing, Stuart and I are going to be reviewing our Top 5 Podcasts of 2024. Welcome to the show, Stuart. It's been a little while.

STUART: It has been a little while. It's good to be back. Busy, busy, busy. It is. It's now Christmas.

IAN: That's right.

STUART: I won't do my Mariah Carey.

IAN: Don't. Please do not. That will be. We've spent a lot of time this year building up our listener base. We do not want to destroy it at this time of year. That is true. Thank you very much. We always have a bit of a reflect at this time of year, don't we? And have a think about what's happened during the year. What's happened, what the plan is looking like for next year. That's next week's show, so look out for that one. We've got some great stuff planned to help you get 2025 off to a flying start. But today's episode, we're going to be reviewing the top five top podcasts. And I'm going to be diving into, unpacking Mr. Warwick's brain today to find out why were these...

STUART: Popular is the word.

IAN: That's the word, thank you. Help me with the hard ones. I'm getting all nervous. You're not normally here. And why we should care about these sort of things. So let's just get cracking with number five.

STUART: Let's do it.

IAN: Straight in at number five. We've got Episode 168 which we recorded with the amazing Claire Jenks. And it was called So You Think You're Busy? How to Get Out of Overwhelm and Get Out of Your Own Way. And as I say, this was our fifth popular podcast this year. We talked about overwhelmed planning productivity and a bit of imposter syndrome as well, which is something we talk about quite a bit, isn't it? At the growth hub.

STUART: It is. And it's no surprise that this is in the top five because it's all about, basically it doesn't say it in the title, but it's time, isn't it? It's, ah, I think I'm so busy. I haven't got enough time. And if we had a pound for every time we talk about time and I haven't got any time and I need to get more focused, we'd be millionaires. We would, we’d be millionaires. So it's no surprises. Yeah. Overwhelmed planning, productivity, and sometimes a little bit of imposter syndrome. And the thing is, it's like all the great, we talk about cliches all the time on here and how there's so much truth in them and we roll our eyes when we hear it and it's oh, not the more the time thing again. But time actually is the only one of the only finite things that we actually have and we're running out of it every single day. So what we choose to do with it, which we are in control of, even though we think most of the time that we're not. Because we let other stuff get in the way. But actually we're just saying yes to things that are more important. And here's the rub. I think that's where Claire's getting at it and why it's such a good podcast. Is that, is it? That you're saying yes to it because it's important to you or are you saying yes to it because actually you're not valuing your time and you're saying yes to other people's demand on your time. And I think that's the only question that you have to think about. What do I say yes to? And what do I say no to? There's no reason why it's in the top no, that's why it's in the top five. Yeah, no surprise. That's the word.

IAN: That's the hard one. And it's very true, isn't it? Because people, whether you use a call booking system, or you're just constantly saying yes to your team or your clients or everything like this, I've got into a bit of a habit now of every week going through on a Monday morning, looking at it and going, who is crept into my diary? Who doesn't need to be there? And, either...

STUART: Because you'll talk to anyone.

IAN: Because I will talk to anyone, but that wasn't actually an invite to talk to anyone. I will talk to anybody who will help. MSPs get better results quicker. Feel free to talk to me, but don't sell to me. Please don't sell to me. And please don't come onto LinkedIn. Oh, I'm going to go on one and start to sell to me. It does annoy me and that you won't get a response. Anyway yeah. And I just get people out the diary who have managed to get in there because sometimes you can book things in your diary. Oh, it's important now, but it might over the course of a couple of weeks or even a month, it might not be that important anymore. And I think when you've got the, we coined this phrase, didn't we? About. two months ago now. What's going to help our clients get better results quicker? Simple as that. And if we're doing something within our nine to five or how many hours we decide to work that's not going to help our clients get better results quicker we don't do it. Right? So, that's the kind of the premise around that and having to look at your diary in a week and going right, what do I need to shift?

STUART: And I think that's the thing it's less is more, to slow down to go faster for you. And so what you've just said there is a great tactic. Start the week, whether it be Sunday afternoon, Sunday evening, Monday morning and go, do I want to do all the stuff that I've got in my diary? I pin key emails that come in to my top of my email so that I got, I must make sure I answer that in the first two or three days of the week. So it gets done rather than just disappearing, A – it's rude, maybe not getting back to people, or B – I miss a deadline, or something that's important for me to get back to someone else. And that's just one simple tool that we've got at our fingertips to control A – manage priorities and B – manage time. And if we get the two of those synced up. What do we do? We go faster, we have better results, we get more time, we get more profit, we get more freedom, all of that good stuff. So I think it's that. And this is a little bit of a clue and I'm not going to reveal what it is. What we're going to be talking about a year in review next week show to 2026. Yes. No, 2025...

IAN: 2025. Let's not give a year away. I think the last thing just on this subject here is, and I've been guilty of this in the past and probably even today, of not blocking time out for you to do the work. So you might, I've got a podcast, I've got this, I've got a bit of client delivery, I've got, go and see that client, this client, whatever it might be. But you don't allow yourself time to. So do your emails, and catch up with the team and respond to inquiries and things like this and saying, oh, it's all right, I'll do it in the evening, that'd be fine. It's not all right, really, because that's your personal time and making sure you've got that time blocked out to do that. So there we go. So that's number five. Thank you very much. Thank you. Amazing.

And we're now going to fly into number four, which was Episode 184, which I did with the amazing Jay McBain. And this was all about the future of running your MSP in an AI world. Now, AI, this big shiny ball about a year ago, everyone was playing around with it. And over the year, I feel that it started to calm down a little bit. And some people, some MSPs are now saying, I'm going to wait and see what happens with the vendors and their systems and their products, which was Jay's take on it was that it shouldn't really affect the MSP. The MSP shouldn't really get fed up, get caught up too much with the whole AI thing at the moment, because it's in the tools that they're using where they're going to get the benefit. It's almost got us. Exciting as security is at the events that you've seen this year. Everybody wants to know about the keynotes around AI, but then a lot of the time that we're talking to MSPs actually boils down to operational efficiency, right? Which is what AI is going to help us do. And it's also going to help us be creative with ourselves and marketing. ‘Cause it gives you great thinking. But good old fashioned SOPs, good old fashioned using the tools that you've bought to do the jobs that you wanted to do. There is no replacement for making sure you do that and have a review on that, isn't it? Because we hear that all the time, don't we, where people have bought a load of tools and all of a sudden they're either not working well or they haven't implemented them properly or they haven't really got into working with that vendor about how to get the best out of this tool. So don't worry about layering AI on top of everything else. Are you using your toolset properly? And that's a common conversation in the growth hub, isn't it?

STUART: Massive, massive. I think it's not to get overwhelmed by the whole thing, because it's, you have to think about adoption. And AI is the narrative of the moment, and it will be next year and for the next couple of years. But we're only just. Tapping at a retail level the power of it, and everyone's got excited about it, but as chip power improves and the whole Nvidia squeeze and the technology develops, what is possible, but what is actually at mass market level is a two different things. And yeah, over the next five to 10 years, you have got to be at an SMB level embracing it and assessing how it, how your business needs to change. But it's not a pivot on a sixpence thing. Yeah. And so there's some really cool AI tools And they are that. They're like hammers that you can use, as you just said, to be more creative. Speed up the processing time of what used to be really transactional hard work. Writing copy or getting the bulk of copy written. Researching, manually researching, the internet. Manually, going through lots of search threads. Now you can condense information in seconds. But it's what you do with it and what you empower your people to do with it. And yeah, it does come back to good old fashioned SOPs. Yes, they can be augmented with AI but it's your people. How do they use AI to be better at frontline service? Yes, we've got automated agents coming but they're not there yet engaging with a bot on a chat bot now is a better experience than it used to be. And that just makes the life better. So I think as a small MSP that's scaling up to a million, or even, still that sub five million, yes, talk to your vendors, listen to what they're saying, incorporate it where it's relevant, but ultimately it comes back to, the keys of leadership, SOP, efficiency, and thinking about how we just do things better, continuous improvement.

IAN: Exactly. So use it as a as a supercharger rather than something to create more, because as soon as you start creating, you don't model's built, the MSP model's...

STUART: And I think I don’t overthink it, the vendors are talking to the technologists to create new products. So do what you do with PSAs and antivirus and email security and everything like that. Just sit back, listen to what they're saying. They're doing the hard work on your behalf and then utilize the right tools to make your business better at the level that you need to make it better.

IAN: And, as we just mentioned a couple of minutes ago, what's going to help our clients get better results quicker? What's your thing? Is it embed technology into your clients quicker? Is it to increase your customer service? What is it? And then is AI going to help you achieve that thing, that purpose, that mission?

STUART: And it's all, it's not going to do it for you, it's going to enable you to do it possibly quicker, possibly better, probably slicker, with maybe less man hours. But I think the key for me is it's key narrative, but don't get over, don't pivot everything on it. Fantastic. For the sake of it.

IAN: Love it. Great stuff. Number three. You'll be pleased with number three. It's you! Hooray! Woohoo! Stuart, Ask Stuart Episode 143, number four this was, how to get more out of my team. Wow, this must, this was one of the early Ask Stuarts. It was. Which was how to get more out of my team, oh, my word. Talking about AI, we need to build a bot in the growth hub that answers all these questions, because we get asked them a lot. And we love talking to him about it. And the amazing thing about the whole team thing, the whole leadership thing is that it's different every time, isn't it? Because the way people approach it, we're talking here about productivity, accountability, leveraging of your team, You know how to get those missing minutes as it would be out of your technical team.

STUART: And this doesn't surprise me that this is in the top three is because most MSP business owners have got a team. And that team is probably the most expensive resource in their business. And it's How do I get the most out of it? How do I get the best ROI off it? How do I enjoy it the most? Because they're human beings. So if you're not enjoying working with your team, then have a look at your team, and have a look at how you're showing up with your team. Sadly, we have had a number of conversations this year where business owners are scared of going into the office. They're actually being bullied. Bonkers. Bonkers, eh? They avoid their team because, they probably don't use the B word, but they find their team difficult to engage with. And actually, who's got, you know Who's got the power? Yeah. And that's a different subject, about imposter syndrome and confidence and leadership or being a leader when maybe you're an introvert. It doesn't mean that introverts mean that you can't be a good leader. You just got a different style. You've got a different energy level. Yeah. extroverts. That's untrue. So, no surprises, this is a big one. How do I get more out of my team? Engage, I got this great email and I really enjoyed writing it years and years ago about the Pied Piper. The Pied Piper sang the tune because the town was being overrun by rats and it was they were eating their food and it was insanitary. And he played this tune that got their attention and they followed him out of the town and over the cliff and, okay, I know it's a fairy tale and all that. However is, what is your opinion tune that you're going to play that's going to get the attention of your people and get them behind what it is you guys do in the way that you do it. And that's your differentiation, the way that you do, what you do in your way, in your marketplace. And when you get that Piper tune playing correctly, that's when it, everything seems to get easier. Now, you, I don't say go out and get an oboe or get a clarinet and start trying to learn it and play a tune.

IAN: You could do.

STUART: But just to be precise here, to be very specific, that's not what we're saying. It's all about your vision, your mission, and particularly the power of your values. and how you bring them alive. And that's how we're then with great roles, great structure, accountability, performance management process, that's then the structure that helps you keep it alive and keep it structured and keep it formal. Yeah, no wonder that was in the top three one of the most powerful levers to get leverage in your MSP.

IAN: Fantastic. Good stuff. Thank you very much. Number two, our great friend here, Mr. Mark Copeman from Wingman. So 147, Episode 147. Now this was interesting because this was actually how to get the best out of the MSP global event with Mark, which was quite interesting because the actual podcast was about an event that happened last year rather than this year, but nevermind. Let's talk about this. Now the purpose of this event was all around obviously promoting the event, but it goes deeper than that, doesn't it, Stuart? Because. There are amazing communities out there. There are amazing events. There are amazing opportunities to connect with other people, to learn from other people, to work out, what's the best way for me to do my sales and marketing, account management, build my team, whatever it might be. And this was obviously a promotional episode for the event, but it's, it's getting out of your shell, isn't it? Getting out of your office, getting out and realizing there is an incredible world out there for MSPs to connect and learn from.

STUART: Yeah, completely. I think the premise of getting ready for going to any event is, what does success look like? And success looks like, how can I connect? With the right people that are going to help me that we just we're just talking about AI. Yeah, actually is that something I'm really worried about or interested in so actually I'm going to spend my time at this particular event Going to talk to AI as opposed to just being Let anyone and everyone talk to me, and then it's the end of the day and I've run out of time at the show. So what does success look like when I go to a show? What does success look like in building my network? And we can bring that across to networking. For somebody that has no sales and marketing skills, Sophisticated maturity the shoe leather sales plan we talk about. And that is essentially saying, go out and talk to people who are locally in your network, whether it's going to industrial estates and dropping off leaflets, whether it's going to local business networking events consistently so that you show up and people get to know you and you build a relationship. It's saying what Mark was talking about was how to get the most out of a great event. The. Lifts your level of knowledge, connects you with some great people, and people buy people, don't they? Yeah, absolutely. In terms of you deciding what vendors you want to work with, how do they talk to you? How do they treat you at that show? How does that translate to when they talk to you on the demo, when you have the demo a bit later? Obviously price then comes into it, we don't all buy on price, we buy on value, don't we? So I think no surprises that was really popular because events are a big part of the industry and we're very lucky to have that many kind of powerful industry events and vendor led events that are a great fun, a great way of bonding and catching up with our peers and also it supports that knowledge base as well.

IAN: Great, thanks for that Stuart. Now straight in at number one.

STUART: Yeah.

IAN: She'll be delighted with this. Our leadership coach, Julie Hutchinson. Amazing the art of having a difficult conversation. Episode 144. This was just, I don't quite know what happened with this. This got 10 times more listens to downloads than number two with Mark's podcast. It went off the scale, this one, and we, it just absolutely hit the hit the nail on the head.

STUART: And there's no surprises.

IAN: None at all. Yeah. Getting out your own way, shadow of the leader, how to have that difficult conversation and MSPs really do struggle, don't they, to sometimes we talked about it a minute ago about how they gauge the team but then how they actually hold people to account and hold their feet to the fire when things go wrong and things like that. It's a tricky one, isn't it?

STUART: Yeah, how do you have a conversation that feels difficult when you're going to have to talk to them about stuff but they're not doing the way you want them to do it without being ranty and angry or avoiding it. And talking around it or just not just having no meetings or conversations at all about it because it's a lose isn't it the employee doesn't get the feedback you don't give the feedback you stay frustrated they stay ignorant and in the dark and they carry on doing what they've always been doing nobody wins. And so how do you have a conversation in a positive way about a difficult thing? And Julie's a master of helping deconstruct what's required, with the grow model, the bin model, the don’t won't, can't. It's enlightening when you just start to realize, ah, that's what's going on when this employee does this or that or the other. And the minute that you know, the clouds part on that stormy day of having a difficult conversation or the thought of having it, it just suddenly takes all the pain out of it. And it means, when we have better conversations we go faster. Yeah. We spend less time talking about stuff we shouldn't talk about. And it's like the thing that if somebody's name comes up again and again, if you're in a management meeting. And the same person's name, or the same vendor's name, or the same software name keeps coming up again and again. There's a clue there, isn't there? Absolutely. What are you going to do about it? And to do it, usually you've got to go and have a conversation with someone about it and say, Oi! Yep. This is having an impact. What is it that we, you, I, need, impact and need? to do about it to change the output.

IAN: And it's so difficult, isn't it? Because, you know that you might know that someone in your team swinging the lead or they're not quite doing what they need to do. And you're going to you might have approached it once before, and they might have bitten you back because they might have sensed that you were a bit nervous about it and things like this. And one thing that someone taught me many years ago was when you have conversations and different, listen to the podcast, right?

Because It's why it's there. And it was an incredible framework was about just replacing. I with we, and take out the personality because it's, oh, I want you to do this and I want this and I want that. And I remember one of my bosses said to me once, he goes go and write the email that you're going to send. You're not going to send this email, right? But put everything in there and just unload and unleash and just blast them. So I wrote this email, he says, don't send it, he says, and then come back to me. So I wrote it out and it was like, oh, I don't want this to happen. And you've done this and I feel like that, I don't want this sort of stuff. He goes, what? Now go and rewrite it and take the words I out and replace it with we as in the business and this is me as the team and everything like that and he says how much softer does that look and I think we ended up sending it but it was just softer because it was the business.

STUART: I thought you were going to say he was going to now just delete it, now you've got it off your chest. No. Now you're feeling better.

IAN: No we went for it. We sent this email but it's just taking that personality out of it because the business is what does the business want? What does the business want from you? How are you connecting your team with the business? the targets that you're setting and there'll be something frustrating about them not meeting the targets or behaving in the way of the values of the business or anything like that. Yeah, a worthy winner,

STUART: A worthy winner. But the other thing just to add to that is whilst it says it's the art of having a difficult conversation with Julie Hutchinson, is this about having difficult conversations with you, Julie? No, anyway. I digress. It's actually about how to have a positive conversation. Because I think many people view sitting down one to one with someone to talk about their work and their performance that it is by definition going to be a difficult conversation, because it's like awkward and I don't want to talk about you. And I don't know what I talk about how I feel or how you feel or in relation to work and results So actually the gold of this podcast is that it's been It's basically the art of having a positive conversation, regardless of what the topic is...

IAN: Absolutely.

STUART: Go listen to it.

IAN: Stuart, that was the top five podcasts of the year, which has been great. We love putting the podcast together. It's so much fun. We're having some amazing guests and some really great feedback as well on it. Our 200th episode this year with our good friend Paul Green. That was a giggle.

STUART: That was.

IAN: What's been your highlights of this year?

STUART: Oh, there's loads of them, as you would expect. But I think in. Looking back across the year, I think the fact that we've exceeded helping 50 MSPs, in the community. So in total, we're probably, north of a lot more those that have graduated from us over the last six or seven years of working with us individually and collectively. So there's helping more MSPs have more impact, change more lives have more fun and help more people do that. But the other bit is we so streamline the business. Yeah. And that gives us more time to do more with. All of our great MSP clients, we spend more time coming up with new ideas. As a result, our accountability system is transformed as we've taken it from spreadsheets to a dynamic system. Our maturity score has changed and is going to change again. Yes, it is. Yeah, to get even more granular and more specific in terms of helping people's clarity of what they need to do next and also their accountability to what they need to do To up that maturity score, which will improve the profit, freedom, time, choice of the business. And things like the Future Leaders Program, us getting that time to step back and go, okay, what else do our clients need to get results faster? And that's at the core of our mission is how do we help our clients scale to a million, or if they're already there, go faster to five, to have more time, profit and freedom. But how can we help them do that faster?

IAN: Yeah.

STUART: And It's amazing what you pack in a year.

IAN: It's been yeah, it's been one hell of a year. And it's like the business and the structure is not unrecognisable from last year, but there were some really big parts that we've bolted on. And as you just mentioned about the future leaders.

STUART: And our team, the evolution of our team with Julie and Claire Joanna and Gail, Phoebe, Zee...

IAN: Hannah and Catherine and all the others as well, we're just surrounded by women, how amazing.

STUART: But an amazing team that allow us to show up at our best for our clients.

IAN: And for me I think , it's been, the thing that's probably been the highlight for me this year is that throughout all the events and the podcasts and everything, we get people that come up to us, and go, hey, love the podcast. And, It's when you, when we resonate with them and we really intrinsically know, what the MSP is going through. Yeah, but we get them. Yeah, that's right. They realize that we get them and understand what's going on. And people feedback on this podcast we love about it is it's just, there's no bullshit. You just tell us exactly what we need to do and away we go, bringing things in like the application of the new client runway where we're now helping our clients actually tactically do the sales and marketing in their businesses. Got off to a bit of a bumpy start with a bit of low engagement, but now we've just taken the can off that and it is now flying, which is just amazing because, we're transforming people so much now that they're getting that. It's just that confidence. It's just oozing now, isn't it? Within the client base.

STUART: Teaching them to be marketing directors of their business so they know exactly what it is they need without having to necessarily have the skills to do it. They just employ the right people or vendors. Exactly.

IAN: So yes, interesting 2024, 2025 is going to be incredible for those clients of ours listening to watch out, buckle up, have a good have a good rest because January is going to be an interesting time, lots of new things coming in. And as always, if ever you want to have a conversation about whether it's the right fit to join the program, just contact us. Hit the website, hit us on LinkedIn. Anyway, that's I think that's it for us.

STUART: Yeah, time to get the mulled wine out.

IAN: Time to get the mulled wine out and the mince pies out. Chocolate hampers and all that great stuff. Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas with your families. And having a great time. It's been a great 2024 and 2025 we've already decided it's going to be even bigger and better. Yeah,

STUART: It is.

IAN: Enjoy. Speak to you soon.

STUART: Merry Christmas.

IAN: Bye now.

OUTRO: Hang on a minute just before you go And if you're curious about how this episode links with the ability to scale your MSP to a million or if you're already there Accelerate to five then we want to invite you to come and take the MSP mastery quiz and in just three minutes You're gonna get a 360 degree scan of your business where you can identify the one or two tactics that help you find more time Engage and align your people and help generate more leads in your MSP.

It's really simple, just click on the link in the show notes. And if you have enjoyed this episode, we'd love to get some feedback from you by means of a rating, review on Spotify or iTunes or your podcast platform of choice. We really appreciate every single one of them. Now you can go and enjoy the rest of your day and we look forward to catching up and connecting with you soon.

All the best.