Let’s get this out in the open straight away – niching is not about turning people away or putting your business in a box. It’s about getting clear on who you help, how you help them, and making sure your marketing speaks directly to them in a way that resonates. One of the stories Ian shared perfectly summed this up – a smoked meat restaurant that had crafted a name for itself by focusing purely on one thing: slow-cooked, smoked meats. The manager wasn’t just someone running a restaurant – she knew the ins and outs of the process, the timing, the flavours, and what makes it exceptional. That’s expertise. That’s niching. And it’s a brilliant metaphor for your MSP business. When you’re known for something, people remember you. They seek you out. They refer you.
Throughout the episode, we reminded listeners that niching is, at its core, a marketing exercise. You’re not changing the structure of your MSP. You’re not excluding existing clients or rewriting all your service offerings. You’re simply putting a wrapper around your message that clearly communicates the value you bring to a specific audience. Whether it’s accountants in the North West, architects in the Midlands, or hybrid-working legal firms in London – if your MSP can solve a clear problem for a group of people, and you can talk about that in their language, you’re already halfway there.
Ian explained that one of the biggest blocks MSP owners hit is thinking they have to do a full business overhaul to niche effectively. But in reality, it’s about small steps. One message. One landing page. One campaign. That’s all it takes to start seeing what lands, what generates curiosity, and what brings in the right leads. And that’s key – the right leads. Leads who already understand what you do, who are pre-qualified, and who are much more likely to convert. It’s easier, more efficient, and ultimately more profitable.
We talked about clients who’ve seen significant growth simply by getting tighter with their niche. One MSP doubled his business over two years after focusing on a sector he’d previously worked in. His background gave him credibility. His language mirrored that of his audience. His content hit the mark. Suddenly, he wasn’t chasing leads – they were coming to him. Another client narrowed his niche down to a specific profession in a specific location – and it transformed his marketing from generic and vague to clear, direct and compelling. This kind of shift is possible for every MSP – but you’ve got to start by looking in the rear-view mirror. Where have you been? Which sectors have brought you the best clients? Where do you already have expertise, even if you’ve not yet capitalised on it?
AI can help with this, too. Use tools like ChatGPT to map out the pain points of your ideal niche, how your MSP solves those issues, and how to speak to them in ways that cut through the noise. Within half an hour, you can have a rough blueprint for your niche strategy. And don’t forget the power of geography – you don’t always have to go industry-specific. Sometimes being the go-to IT provider for a specific area is more than enough to build traction, reputation and referrals.
The real kicker in all of this is the value of your business. A well-positioned, niched MSP is worth more when you come to exit. It’s more attractive to buyers, less reliant on you as the owner, and easier to grow because you’ve already built a repeatable, scalable marketing engine. And for those worried about stepping back or scaling out of the day-to-day, niching makes it easier to teach your team how to sell what you do – because the messaging is clearer and the target is sharper.
If there’s one message we want you to take away from this episode, it’s this: you don’t have to niche your MSP overnight. But if you want more leads, better leads, and a more valuable business in the long run, you need to start somewhere. Try one message, one audience, one clear offer – and see what happens. And if you’re not sure how to do that, we’ve got plenty more episodes that walk through building your funnel and your marketing engine, step by step.
You don’t need to be everything to everyone. You just need to be the right solution to the right people. That’s the power of niching for MSPs.
Connect with Ian HERE on LinkedIn and also Stuart by clicking this LINK
If you’re ready to take the next step in supercharging your MSP, take the Scale with Confidence MSP Mastery Quiz. This tool is designed to help you understand where your MSP stands and what steps you can take to scale profitably and effectively. This will provide you with insights and guidance tailored to your specific needs.
OR to join our amazing Facebook Group of over 400 MSPs where we are helping you Scale Up with Confidence, then click HERE
Until next time, look after yourself and I’ll catch up with you soon!
IAN: In this episode of the IT Experts Podcast, we revisit the whole concept around do I niche, do I not niche? What do I need to do to generate more new business in my MSP.
INTRO: 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 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.
IAN: So good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Welcome to the IT Experts podcast, again, we've got Stuart back in the house. Good morning Stuart.
STUART: Morning, Ian.
IAN: How we doing?
STUART: I'm very good. Very good.
IAN: Fantastic. So we're going to be talking about
STUART: We're not actually... because you are going to be talking about, we are turning the tables today and I'm going to interview you. Because you've been doing some incredible work over the last year with all of our clients on their marketing and I think it's time we revisit the whole concept of niching, ‘cause it's where you start to a point of how do I get my marketing working? Ergo, how do I get more leads? Because every MSP comes to us and goes, I want more leads, I want more leads. And we have to go through, we've talked about 'em, there's many podcasts. There's a lot of stuff to do before you are scalable to cope with more leads and also put the time and effort and money behind building your marketing. So niching, Ian, where are we at with, how do MSP business owners think about where to start with niching and their marketing?
IAN: Do you know, before we delve into that, I want to reflect back to a meal I had last week where we were taken out by my, I was taken out...
STUART: This one of your taken by one of your barbecues...
IAN: It was almost a barbecue, but it was actually, I'm glad you mentioned that. It was a meal, we went out and my son said, we need to go to this new restaurant. It's great. They do ribs and burgers and all this sort of stuff. I said, okay, great. So anyway, we went off to this restaurant and all they did their specialty was smoking. Steaks and smoking, the briskets and this sort of thing. And it was incredible. They'd spent all day during the day smoking this food, and in the evening they served it up and it was just most divine thing you'd ever tasted.
That's niching. And niching is all around us...
STUART: Being known for something specific that you're brilliant at.
IAN: That's right. That's absolutely right. And this woman, she came and spoke to us and we were obviously trying to grab all of her hacks so we didn't have to come back and spend the extortion at price. Oh, for your own barbecue. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So it's like, how'd you do this and how to do that? And her experience in, she blew us away. She goes what you normally do is we cook it to a third and then we put this, and then we put juices with it, and then we do this, and then we do that. And this, she was. The manager restaurant, but she knew the in-depth process of how to get this smoked brisket.
STUART: Absolutely. 'cause she was an expert.
IAN: Yeah, that's right. But when you look at food, you don't go to McDonald's to get a spaghetti, right? You don't go to an Italian restaurant because you want a Chinese food, there's niching is all around, whether it's what sort of car you drive, what sort of holiday you want, what sort of restaurant you want to go to, everything like that. So the most successful businesses who are getting into a position where they're more valuable are embracing and being confident enough to take the niche.
STUART: And that for me is actually being clear about what you stand for.
IAN: Yes.
STUART: Is it geographical? Is it technical specific? That'll do, something, yeah, you'll get something out there, technology specific, is it problem specific or is it audience specific? Yeah. Like accountants or lawyers or architects.
IAN: And so many times, MSPs just they boil the ocean and they think that they've got to tilt the whole business model. We can't serve everybody again. Now, every MSP can serve any business, factor in terms of their technology stack and what they offer. But the art of niching and the art of understanding your target market with, in depth with their language, with the, to build that rapport and is a marketing exercise. And yes, you can have more than one niche, but the thing is that, that everybody this big brick wall just comes up and smacks 'em in the face and says, oh, but I know I need to do it, but I just don't know. Now, we've got a couple of clients who, one of them who has almost doubled his business in two years, and he's in a very tight niche because that's where he came from. He was an IT manager in this particular sector, and the first thing we did with him was tightened the language up to help him. Basically close 80% of an inquiries that came in...
STUART: Because that language echoed with the audience...
IAN: Exactly.
STUART: 'cause of that Yeah. Industry that they were in. And every industry has its own jargon, doesn't it?
IAN: Yep. Yeah. And may I just remind you now, if you are listening to our dulce tones here this is an example of niching. You would not be listening to this podcast if we were generic business coaches talking about how to scale and how to sell more eggs in your chip shop, or how to do something that wasn't relative to an MSP. So we have niched in the MSP sector. That's why what we talk about and the feedback we get on the podcast is, oh my God, you've just hit me right between the eyes with what? Yes. Because we know you, we know what's going on in your head, and we know what's going on in your head right now, and we know what's going to happen when you finish this. And that's the power of niching in this particular sector.
STUART: And knowing your audience...
IAN: Absolutely. And knowing, who are they, what’d you d, who'd you help, how can you help them, how can you overcome their problems, and all of this sort of thing. But just going back to client number one who was who's in this tight niche. So he's got an incredibly ridiculously, insanely high closure rate now, and any inquiry comes in. The inquiries that are coming in are so highly qualified. It's like pushing an open door because they know what he does, they know how it can help him, 'cause his website's really clear. And now we are doing some work with him to attract new business, which isn't actually that hard because not only has he got all of his existing clients in the existing community and the existing sector talking about him anybody who comes towards him who's in that sector is like magnetically drawn towards him because he's the person who's doing it. Another one of our clients he wanted, he did the typical thing. I'm going to niche into professional services, okay. Go on to ChatGPT and I think there's currently 14 different types of businesses, completely different who fall under the professional services banner. So professional services is not wide enough. It is you dipping your little toe in and you're making yourself a little bit more specific, but who would recognize, who, if you were to open up the window in the morning and shout out. Calling out all professional services businesses, how many people would actually go, oh, that's me. Yep, that's me. Accountants? Yes. Accountants in Luton. Yes. Accountants in Luton who have problems because they've got a hybrid workforce. Oh my god. Yes. That's me. So we went really deep into this niche and even further, and further, and got in a local area and got super, super tight on that particular niche again. And everything that he's done, whether he's been getting curated content from vendors and marketing people, he just tailored it, branded it, tailored it, and just tightened up that language. Some of the challenges that, or the frustrations that people have is that, obviously you're not getting enough inquiries, but the marketing money people, there's a lot of MSPs out there who have been burnt with marketing spend. They've used an agency or they've got a VA or they've done some stuff and they've put it out and it's not tight messaging, it's very generic, and nine times out of 10, if that fact, 99 times out of a hundred, it'll fall flat on its face and it'll deliver nothing...
STUART: And there's no call to action so nobody knows what to do about it.
IAN: No. You're actually asking to, but that's a whole different podcast. You're not actually asking them to do anything. Yeah. You're giving them this guide and then they're going, oh, that's a bit generic. But it's, is it about me and people's attention? We've got like seconds, even less now. I think as the years go on to get people's attention so that they go, ah, this is clearly for me. It's overcoming my problem and this is how I can do that. And also, when the leads do come in, the quality of the leads are just not good enough, people aren't educated in what they do. Your brilliant book that we follow very tightly is they ask you answer Marcus Sheridan. And he talks about, nowadays it's like 75, nearly 80% of the buying decision is made without even contacting you. They haven't even got in contact with you. So if you haven't got educational content out there that's relating to a problem that they've got. They are not going to move towards you, because it's about build, people buy from people that will never change because they know and trust you. The leads, the quality of the leads that will come through will be, a lot greater as well.
STUART: What happens then when you overcome this?
IAN: When you overcome it, all of a sudden, your speed of growth just speeds up because you are, all of a sudden you are absolutely bringing in one new client a month. Like our onca framework we were talking to our clients about with the last intensive was all around a framework around where you spend a lot of time positioning, getting the language right, getting the copyright, getting the resonating language correctly. But then, you start to, generate those more leads and ultimately what will end up happening is that your actual business, when you come to exit, will be worth more because somebody who's in a niche in a particular niche or a business sector, the business is going to end up being worth even more because it's even more valuable to somebody who works in that sector.
STUART: Because you can demonstrate the consistency of new business coming through without it relying on you. Whereas for many many MSPs, it's about the personal reputation and the networking of the individual business owner, which obviously isn't scalable if you are trying to exit or step back. Yeah. And you've got to teach your team and building a team to actually go out and do that for you, which is another separate podcast in itself, if you're going to get going with this how do we get started?
IAN: How do we get started? First thing that I would do for any MSP business owner out there right now, I would have a little look in the rear view mirror and I would go, where have I been? What experiences have I had, have I got a sector where I could become a thought leader in that area? So you could have been an IT manager or you might had some really great profitable. Successful clients in the past where you've got two or three that have left some breadcrumbs behind, right? And then, and...
STUART: So it could be what manufacturing it could be the oil industry, it could be anywhere?
IAN: It could be anything but , you've got to make sure that they've got a problem that your IT solution can overcome. If you went out there right now, and I was having a conversation with somebody the other day about a group of financial advisors, but they were all one men bands, you probably know who it is, all one men bands, and they all needed cybersecurity essentials. Yes, it is a niche. Yes, it is, an area you could focus on. But have they really got a problem that you've got? No, they've got a compliance issue. So they've got an issue where they've got to get cybersecurity essentials to meet the compliance. So they get the cybersecurity essential, but they're not going to grow. They're not going to all of a sudden have 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 people. When you play the rule of the roulette wheel, which is what a few of our clients do with, I've got this, I've got this client, got this new client. I took 'em on board. They're a bit small, but I know they're so ambitious to grow. They're the ones that go from 10 to 30 to 50 to 70 seats over two to three years. You don't even have to do anything. You just sit there and you just watch the money coming in and the laptop's going out and everything like that. But when so when you are in that particular niche, you can put your expertise over that and they build more confidence in your ability. But use AI, get AI to do the heavy lifting. Go into ChatGPT and just ask it. This is my background. You could even probably put your LinkedIn profile into AI and say, if I was going to niche, my IT business, what would you suggest my expertise and experience come from? And then just go deep. Please tell me what pain points these people have. Please tell me how IT companies can overcome these pain points and you just go deeper and deeper. And all of a sudden within, I'm going to say 20 minutes, you could have yourself a list of a playbook and a bit of a work stream of where you could start to get moving forward.
STUART: A blueprint. A blueprint effectively.
IAN: Pretty much a blueprint.
STUART: But the other thing that I find that people overlook on the niching thing is, geography. And if you speak to many SSPs that they started in a local town, a local area of a city, and what if you were the go-to it, support, security, whatever you want to call it. Whatever you stand for in business. Yep. Provider in, it could be eight or 10 postcodes if you are in the City of London, or Manchester, or Edinburgh, or it could be your town or Southern Yorkshire, rather than the whole of Yorkshire, there is so much business to go around. You just have to stand for something. Yeah. And shout about it, don't you?
IAN: You do. And what people, as I mentioned earlier, niching is a marketing exercise. So you can have 10, I wouldn't recommend it to start with please, but you could have 10 different landing pages talking about 10 different sectors in your same city. Just last week, we received our first lead through ChatGPT, because it went and sucked a lot of data from our website. We did and it said, Hey, and they were a great lead. They were well educated in what we did. And they have been all over the website and this is where it's scraping it from. I'm sure that Googler, there's a certain amount of quaking in their boots. But the whole SEO thing, having to get the blog with the right keyword and hoping that someone's going to punch in those exact words so that I come up as a match is I'm going to say that's yesterday, that's all yesterday. Now it's, they're dragging intelligence. They're thinking about who can help this, the AI is doing the hard work for you. It's doing the heavy lifting for you. If you've got five or six landing pages on your website, they're all are calling out different sectors in different locations. Guess what's going to happen with, with the AI models, they're going to go, Ooh, this person's working in that area of doing that, and it's just going to be even more prevalent and even more relevant to those people at the end of the day.
STUART: So Ian here's the question because you mentioned it and I think sometimes probably people don't actually hear it. Why does this not need a full business overhaul?
IAN: Because it's all it is
STUART: Because it feels like a massive thing to do, doesn't it?
IAN: It does feel like a massive thing, and the reason it doesn't need a big business overhaul because the business can serve any business sector that you want to, that you want to work in, hopefully you've done some amazing account management and you know which businesses are really profitable, you enjoy working with, they get IT, they understand you. And there's just this instant thing of, I love IT because I know it's going to help my business go faster and me make more profits. So as long as the fundaments of the business and your account management system are all in place, then what will end up happening is that these people will be drawn towards you, but you don't need to all of a sudden stop working with people. You don't need to all of a sudden change all your packages and prices, because all you need to do is just change the wrapper that you are in.
STUART: It's a communication exercise. It's a positioning piece.
IAN: So let's go back to the steakhouse, right? Did the steakhouse provide a drinking and an eating establishment? Yes. Soda, McDonald's, soda, pizza, hut , so all the different type, so you are still providing IT to all these other people, but it's just the wrapper that it sits around cars, different types of cars. Some people like sports cars, some people like trucks, some people like lorries. Will it still get you from your house to Sainsbury's or another supermarket? Yes, it would do because it's a vehicle. You've got to look at the fact that your business is a vehicle that provides amazing IT support and the wrapper is the niche. So it's just about changing that wrapper.
STUART: Perfect. Perfect. We could go on for hours on this.
IAN: We could.
STUART: And marketing can take weeks and weeks to explore and complete. But I think you've really reminded us all about how important niching is because actually it makes it so much easier to resonate more clearly with a specific audience so they can go, ah, I need to talk to that person, and take that first or second or third step towards you in becoming a new customer.
IAN: Here's the test. Go and find a niche. Go and find someone who cares about what you do. But I want one message, one landing page, one event, one call to action. Go and try it out, see what happens when you get on the phone with those people. Simple as that.
STUART: Perfect, Ian. And if you're not sure how to do that scroll back in some of the other podcasts because we talk about how to build your top of funnel, how to build your middle of funnel so that you actually build the engine that will give you that steady flow of quality leads.
IAN: Absolutely
STUART: Amazing. Ian. Lovely stuff. Amazing. How does it feel to have the tables turned?
IAN: It's quite interesting,
STUART: Isn't it? It's fun on the other side.
IAN: Absolutely. Great podcast.
STUART: Fantastic.
IAN: That's it.
STUART: See you next time everybody. We'll see you then.
IAN: Adios. Bye-zy bye.
OUTRO: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. 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, or if you are 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 going to get 360 degrees scan of your business where you can identify the one or two tactics that can engage in, 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 day.
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