EP179 - Ask Stuart #14 - What Do You Want from Your Business? with Ian Luckett & Stuart Warwick

INTRO

In this episode of the IT Experts Podcast, we help you work out what is it that you really want from your business.

Welcome to the IT Experts Podcast, the only podcast to help MSPs scale to 1,000,000, and if already there get to 5 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 the big guns in the house we've brought back into the house. Mr. Warwick. Hello, Stuart. How are you today.

STUART

Hello, Ian. Great to be back.

IAN

Good, good, good, right. Today, big subject and one that was actually created came from one of our recent accountability, but the question is, today what is it I really want for my business? What does winning look like for my business? How’s the journey of the MSP, you know, going from literally your first customer, your first check to you know, multi 6 multi 7 Figure MSP, that we sometimes hear and sometimes come across, have lost their way because they've lost their personal vision and their drive. And why am I doing this? And it's been a really interesting episode trying to get this together, hasn't it?

STUART

It has been because, it comes up with every single person we work with, and in fact, every single person we're talking to, there is some fog around, what a success, you know, where are we going, where am I going with this business. ‘Cause it's kind of easy when you start out because you start out, you either accidentally take over a business because you're in it and the owner retires and you buy them out. Possibly it lands in your lap or you see an opportunity and people start working with you and success is like, well, just turning up every day and doing it and suddenly, you've got a business. You've possibly got a couple of techs working with you, and then you get to this point that we encounter and that's what today's about. Yeah, Well, I'm busy. I'm busy. Okay, so, if you're going to be less busy and build the business, why are you doing it, and where are you going, and what does it kind of look like?

So, you know, the question is when people have got, you know they , as you say they're in that could potentially be an overwhelmed, but they're just working in the business, we talk about this quite a lot. Why do people need a personal vision? Why do they need to know? What's winning? Is it not just enough that I can just run this business, pay for a few holidays, pay for my kids to go to school, have a nice car, have a nice house and is it alright for me to do that? Can I just chuck along and do that?

STUART

You can, you can, but I think there comes a point when we want more and whether you call it comfort zone. But you know when you started the business you were out of your comfort zone. It was like you had to earn so much to pay for the electricity, the rent, put food on the table for your family, really, and that was your motivation. And then you get to a point where it's comfortable and human beings are designed to want to find secure, safe places where they're comfortable and they're happy. But this state of happiness isn't the end result. And we've spoken to so many multimillion exit MSP business owners. Who have all said the end result wasn't what they were chasing. Yes, they got a 7-8 figure check out of their sale process of their MSP. But then they were bored. And actually what they all realise, it's about the journey. So what does success look like for you on your journey of being an MSP business owner? And so if you've got to that 2-3-£400,000 mark, and you're busy and you're perhaps beginning to go, what's next?

IAN

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

STUART

You know, do I do this for another 20 years, the same thing being busy because they're also tipping point because the thing that changes that makes you go, I can't put up with this anymore. It’s because you've got to a tipping point, a tipping point of so many clients that you can handle on your own or you can handle on with just a couple of less experienced engineers. It's like, well, something now has got to change and that's where our way we're wired hits a brick wall with perhaps what we want. Because now we've got to stretch ourselves out of being secure and what we know, you know, we know the technology, we know how to do everything. We know our clients to suddenly go, and we talked about this on every podcast. It's like now I've got to let go. So if I'm going to let go, why am I doing it? And is it worth me letting go? And so you've got this whole friction going on push and pull, yin and yang be unsafe. Be safe. Be unsafe by making a decision of what to do next and when you get clear, then on what success looks like in the future, and it might just be in the next two years, you can go. Ohh right. That's why I’m going to hire that finance person or that third line engineer for 45 grand because I want to achieve X.

IAN

Do you ever find that some people struggle to identify what winning looks like, so we'll say, what does winning look like now? It's really clear for us, you know, and what we did when you know what, how we set this business out. And it was around a legacy and helping so many people and all that kind of good stuff. And we know that many MSPs, most MSPs have, are inherently help us. They want to help people. They want to help people with their technology, because they know stuff that other people don't. But do you ever come across situations where people sort of go. If I don't really know where to start with working out what I want, you know I'm kind of how can we help people on the podcast who are listening to that going, I kind of, I see what you're saying, right? It sounds all very interesting, but unless you tell me exactly what I got to do or how I do this and why I need to do it, it's kind of not going to sink in, is it?

STUART

Hmm, there's a really simple answer to that is work out what you don't want, because, actually it's hard to focus on what I do want because it could, well, I want, I want £10 million in the bank. Yeah, that's not very realistic. I want a Lamborghini. Ohh. And we start arguing with ourselves. And because that's not what most people want, they want to be happy, safe, secure, put their kids through great schooling, go on great holidays, have great memories, be healthy and happy. You know, stuff that kind of money helps you achieve. But if you can't get past that question of what do I want because you get in your own way of it. So you just ignore it. Actually, if you start with, it's easier sometimes say, well, I don't want. Yeah. Well, I don't want lamborghinis, I don't want to build a £10 million MSP. So if you don't want a £10 million, what do you want? I want a really profitable small business with a great team that helps people where I can choose how many hours a week I work in it. You know, maybe one day a week, three days a week is completely up to you. Suddenly we're getting a bit of clarity.

So the next question is, what does a highly profitable MSP look like? That isn't 10 million. Well, probably 1.5 maybe or 1.2 with 20% net profit, that would be a great business and because the MSP business model is such an amazing model with the recurring revenue, the recurring fit from a great customer base is that once you've built it, it should sustain itself. If you're any good, all you've got to do is work on keeping yourself relevant from a technology point of view and inspire your team to evolve the packaging and the offering such that you stay relevant and easier said than done, but once you've got it to that level and you are that strategic leader, that strategic visionary, and I know many people on this podcast will go. What's one of them cause? I don't want to be one of them because that that sounds corporate, but you have got a vision, your vision was to set out and help people with your technology. You've done that. You're doing that. So what's your next step? And we've got a number of clients who've been kind of spent a couple of years moving away from break fix, trying to get their head around being a pure MSP business model. And the transformation in how they think about life and business in just 18 months of working on that transition where you're literally waiting for the phone to ring so that you can earn some money to fix people's technology to 1 where the money is coming in on the 1st of the month every month and you're in proactive contact with your clients to talk about their technology road map and start planning the next phase of the next journey, their technology, infrastructure and support that doesn't take long but 18 months is a huge amount of time, to consistently work at shifting your how you think about life and business and those guys now have got profit, they're paying down debt on the balance sheet that they might have had from loans that they borrowed and now they're they're properly in profit and they're thinking what do I do next? Yeah. And actually that comes back to this question. Okay, great. You've made that transformation to that early stage of the MSP business model. What is success like if we compound the success you're now seeing and that's possible.

IAN

Yeah. Yeah, I love that. And I was just asked that question. You smirked and I thought, Oh my God, what's going to come out of his mouth now? And I love that whole. Just start off with what you don't want because when you were talking then. I was thinking I don't want to be busy working 70 hours a week. I don't want to be dealing with all the technology because it's doing my head in. I don't want to be doing so. So it doesn't necessarily be, I don't want to build this big business or I don't. It can be all the things that you're not enjoying. So where you're getting stressed and you're getting overwhelmed when you're getting moments and all of that stuff. Write those down and that will give you and it might be that question is I don't want to be that dad. That wasn't at the Christmas shows, the summer sports days, the picking up from school that so, okay, if you don't want to be. Therefore, what do you need to do to allow you in your business to be that dad that is there at the time and yeah, simple as that.

STUART

Before we move on, I just want to roll it back a little bit. Just what you just mentioned there about, you know, the dad or the mum who's not going to be around for the you know for the shows and the sports, those and all that sort of stuff, there's actually quite a deep challenge here around personal pride, isn't there about fear of failure, fear of like, I'm not good enough to be doing this. I'm not you know, I'm only running this sort of business. And when you start getting involved, you are listening to this podcast, #1. Thank you very much, we appreciate every single person and #2 it means that you're in the community, you're in a growth minded mindset around growing your MSP and you will be seeing and hearing other people who you think are incredible amazing so. Stressful and sometimes being around those people. Isn't actually that helpful because I'm feeling a bit bad about myself today. I'm not feeling very great and I actually don't think I'm really worthwhile in this position. So there's a let's touch on that kind of vulnerable sort of bit of this wasn't really what I set out. I'm really busy, what husband or wife and moaning at me because I'm working all these hours and things like this. How can we motivate and inspire those people to get some clarity around right, let's move from there to where we want to be and let's get focused on that winning question.

STUART

It's another simple statement, not a question this time.

IAN

And this and this is completely unscripted. Now, I love this, I'm fishtailing you all over them, all over the place. Stuart, keep up, keep up. Come on.

STUART

I'm trying. I'm trying. I'm getting there. I'm getting there, find your own tribe and again, you might say, well, what the hell does that mean. That's a bit of a cliche, but it's not and as you were talking, I was thinking back to our last eight week alignment, where there was some really quite vulnerable sharing going on about Lost Mojo.

IAN

And lost the way. And one of the things that came out of the back end of that was today has been amazing because it's just reminded me again, yeah, that I'm not the only one struggling with these things. Yeah. And that it's okay to struggle. But when I'm struggling, it's not very far around the corner when I'm actually thriving. Yeah. And I'm on top of it. And I've got my mojo. And I have to remember that it's valuable for me to step out of my business and come to these whole day events because I need to get out of my own way. And we say that a lot on these podcasts. But it's what in it's what makes us love, what we do. Because when you hear those statements and people are just reinforcing for themselves allowed that they shouldn't struggle alone, but they need to take the time out to come to what we do to get the clarity, the confidence, the inspiration and the mojo to go back into the. You know the foray of being a business owner because being a business owner is very different. Being an employee, yeah, being employed or being a consultant, it's unique and it comes with a unique set of struggles. And to your point about people getting vulnerable. I'll help you with getting vulnerable. Thank you and the simple statement is find your own tribe. Get involved with the group. So you're not alone. And suddenly that takes the pressure off the hard ones.

IAN

You know, we could sit here every single week doing a podcast, and different things would pop up. And one of the things that just reminds us of what we do at the Growth Hub and everyone can do this all over the world, is look back at what you've done. We stop our clients, there you go. I've got you now and I stop the clients and in their tracks when they come and, uh, we're going to look back at what we've achieved because you know when you're looking forwards you can see the horizon and everything's going forward, but you move forwards at a certain rate, but you don't really understand. Know your progress and your success until you look back and you go. Wow, look where I was and where I am now. What a great place I'm at. You know, whereas if you're always looking forwards, then it's a lot harder because you're never going to get to that horizon. You're never going to end up at the, you know, at the rainbow at the end of the end of the rainbow at the end of the thing, it's the gold, isn't it? The end of the rainbow. Anyway, that doesn't really exist. So if I've ruined anybody's life chasing rainbow dreams there or whatever. But you know, it's around looking back and stopping at that progress and measuring that progress and then the Stewart says making sure that you're not alone. And when you hear other people going. Yep. I've been there. Seen it. Done it. Yeah. Just keep trucking through or do this or do that.

STUART

Yes, yes, yes.

IAN

That's the amazing thing about this channel isn’t it?

STUART

And gives you energy being around, you know, for most of us being around other people, even if as technical business owners, we can be less people orientated than, you know, technical, you know stuff orientated. Sometimes you have to be amongst like minded people. I think this is the thing it's being amongst like minded people where you can listen to people doing the same thing as you. Yeah. On a different day in a different, you know colour. But it's the same stuff and you can go. Ohh yeah. Okay, I've been there, done that. And again back to that eight week alignment we did and the list of reflective successes that that one individual had, where previously at the start of that day they were just like rabbit in headlight and when they started to kind of release the anxiety and the the frozenness the list was enormous of what they've actually achieved. And I think that was the catalyst for releasing their state of mind for them to then realize a what they've achieved and by sharing honorably and being supported. Yeah. And empathised with and having equivalent story shared with them. What they were feeling wasn't as bad as it it is powerful.

IAN

Really powerful stuff, right? Action time. What we got to do. How do I work out? What I want from my business, what are the tips we got for people today? What’s the process?

STUART

Work out what you don't want, so you can work out what you do want and that brings you back to that old chestnut of start with the end in mind. Yeah, you know, what does success look like? Even if it's just at the end of this year?

IAN

Yeah, I was going to say time frames. What's the how would you start off?

STUART

Yeah. You know, many people are thinking three to five years time, but sometimes that just seems too far away. Yeah. So let's start with, you know, what would a great success look like this year. And it might be hiring my first engineer. It might be letting you know, hiring someone to take over the finances. It might be getting my first PSA every MSP that's looking to scale doing this year, the first piece of advice is get a proper PSA integrated into your business properly. Don't just buy it and use it as ticketing system.

IAN

Yeah, yeah, that is. We hear that every day, don't we? We we hear that every day. So we looked at start with the end in mind. You know, success looks like break that down into personal and business

STUART

Yeah, for sure for sure. Like we talked about, you know, you don't want to be that dad. That's conspicuous by their absence at every school event. So if you look at, you know, your relationship, you want to be a you want to cook, you know, two nights a week at home with your partner. Then great, cause you're always moaned that cause you're never there for dinner and it's always in the microwave. It's like, what do I want for my relationship primary relationship? What do I want from my kids? You know, relationship with my kids, my family, my friends, my hobbies, my career, my business. If you if those two are separated, my health. You know, many MSPs get to a point where they have neglected their health. They're overweight or they're very unfit. They've got really bad diet.

IAN

Go and listen to a podcast I've just done with Rachel Williams on that because that will certainly give you a jab in the ribs.

STUART

Completely. That and that blew my head away the last 14 years of a well lived life. Yeah, in your 80s is unwell, 14 years of being ill, which can be avoided. Yeah, but you have to work that out in advance, but amazing. So again, what do you want from every area of your life? Even if it's just one small thing.

IAN

Yeah. It's an illness, yeah.

STUART

That you'd like... Perhaps it's just one thing. You know, it doesn't have to be this big wheel of stuff. And once you're clear about what either you what you don't want, and therefore what you do want. What does the plan look like? So what is that first step? I can move towards not being passive, so being actively working towards that thing, so maybe it's I need to put an ad indeed. And see if I get any responses and if I don't get any responses, maybe I need to change the headline of the ad, or look at how it's been set up and then if I start to get some response. Do I like you know, really simple things that put you in control of that next step whilst you maintain 95% of your time doing what you're doing today.

IAN

And it's around that gap analysis, isn't it if you take and I know that everybody would want to achieve this one, but you know, if you take it, you know I want to be home earlier. I want to be more present at home. I want to you know not worry so much about the business when I'm not there. How can I do that? What's stopping me from doing it? It could be the fact that you're not in delegating to your text you might have the wrong people right? The wrong people in the right roles, and you might need to make some changes around with your people. It might be that your systems, as we say, your PSAs myself. Correctly, you know all of those types of things, so getting to this real mindset of analysing the gap and what's the cause and effect of things that are happening and what's stopping you from being able to achieve go home early, take more holidays, take more profit, you know, whatever it might be and just break it down really simply.

STUART

And that little phrase there of what's stopping me? I think many don't recognise that. Actually there is something stopping them because a lot of none of it's rocket science, you know, everything you just said is like, yeah, I want some of that. Yeah. I need to, yeah, do all of that stuff. So why aren't you? Yeah. What is stopping you? And in many cases it. Fear. Fear or failure? Well, if I do that, it might not work out. Therefore, I'll lose money. Therefore, the business might fail. There's that whole magnification of disaster. That we play out in our minds, therefore we stay, as I said at the beginning of the podcast. So we stay safe. So we don't do anything even though we know what we want and we know we want to do, but we're not doing it. So working out where fear is stopping you from making those small moves to change your life and change your business.

IAN

Just before we wrap up goal setting. So you going to go set a goal? It's going to be too big. It fails. It doesn't work. The whole podcast's been a complete in that waste of time. What's the 101 rules around setting goals? You've you know, you've sat out and you worked out what you want in in the year. How do we break that down then into, you know, maybe 90 day, maybe monthly chunk. How do people go around just resetting their goals and getting focused action.

STUART

I'd rather point people to accountability, because it's easy to ignore ourselves. And I think make yourself accountable, maybe to your partner. Yeah, maybe to your kids. Maybe to your business partner, maybe you need to join a group where you are held accountable. You know the Tech tribe runs accountability groups, you know, join one of them, join up with some MSP's that you know locally. Maybe there are the local tech tribe group, you know, meet ups, find somebody, find a buddy. Maybe it's your best mate down the pub. And say I'm going to do this, do it with me. I don't, I don't know, but I think I think most people know what they need to do. Yeah. And they choose not to do it. And I I think it's accountability. Fear of embarrassment, of not doing what you said you were going to do.

IAN

Yeah. And justice, hold your feet to the fire. Brilliant episode. Stuart, it's been great fun sitting here watching you squirm your way through some of these questions that I've been sliding around at you. Any final thoughts before we wrap up today?

STUART

Only just it's so important to get clear about what success looks like for you, even if it's just this month. But more importantly, if you're running an MSP, get clear about what you want for you, your family, over the next three years and break it down. Yeah, break it down to what you want this year and but start with what you don't want. I think it's so much easier to then work out what's in the gap there between what you don't want and what you do want and just do it. Be selfish.

IAN

Brilliant stuff. Thanks, Stuart. Great show. Catch up with you and everyone else on the next one.

STUART

Will do.

IAN

See you soon.

OUTRO

Ohh. But one last thing. Just before you shoot off.

And if you're curious about how this episode links with the ability to scale your MSP to a million or you're already there, accelerate to five, then one invite you to come and take the MSP Mastery quiz. And in just three minutes, you're going to get 360° scan of your business where you can identify the one or two tactics that help you find more time engaging along 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 everything for one of them now you can go and enjoy the rest of your day. And we look forward to catching up. Thank you all the best.