EP213 - Happy New Year 2025
with Stuart Warwick & Ian Luckett

IAN: In this episode of the IT Experts Podcast, Stuart and I review 2024.

INTRO: Welcome to the IT Experts podcast. The only podcast to help MSPs scale to 1 million 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.

IAN: Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Welcome to the IT Experts Podcast, the last one of the year. And we've got Stuart, we've come in between Christmas and New Year, nudge nudge, to record this special show for everyone. Haven't we, Stuart?

STUART: Oh, we have, we have.

IAN: How was Christmas?

STUART: How committed we are to come in between Christmas and New Year to come and nudge, nudge, wink, wink.

IAN: Did you have a great Christmas?

STUART: I did. I did. I feel like I put on 24 pounds. Really? I probably have put on at least 22.

IAN: Excellent.

STUART: But it's been a great week. Good stuff.

IAN: And, at this time of year, obviously, we want to review the year. It's been an incredible year for everyone, really, not only for our clients, for the community, for, interesting times in business, we're not going to get into all of that. But what we're going to do today, we're going to, we're going to review what we've seen and heard in 2024 and then we're going to, we're going to have a chat about what 2025 brings not only for the growth hub, but also for the MSP channel, world business, all that sort of things. You didn't know we're going to talk about that. I've just mentioned that. Let's just think, let's just go for it. But anyway how's the year been for you? What's been your highlights this year?

STUART: Oh, it's been enormous because we built a community of nearly 50 MSPs. The vibe in the room because of that is amazing. And we just a couple of weeks ago, we did the, the last pods of the year. Yeah. We had the eight week alignments a few weeks ago. And just the love in the room, the vulnerability in the room, the results shared in the room. The ambition that's stretching, as people become more confident and see what their business can actually do and the profit they're making and how they're going to reinvest it, what they plan for 2025 or 2026. Do you know what? It's just been awesome.

IAN: It's getting people thinking, isn't it? Cause we did an event a couple of weeks ago. The business growth blueprint thing. I can't remember what it was called now, but we had 10 MSPs in the room. And when we, unscrewed their heads and got them thinking about having a plan. That's when we see the light bulb go on, isn't it? Because people like wander along. One of the guys mentioned to me yesterday said, before I joined, it was just, I just stopped. I thought I was at the end of my capability. I didn't know there was any more thinking to have. And What you are amazing at my friend is getting them to think and you orchestrate a brilliant session this week with our boardroom clients, getting them thinking, getting, and that just getting people having a plan, working around that plan, stretching, you always talk about stretching the gap and stretching the thinking on how they do it. How do you do that? Because that's one of your special skills, isn't it?

STUART: It is one of my special skills and I love it because I love to see the light. Go on behind the eye? Yeah. And that goes back to when I was teaching maths years and years ago. You were a maths teacher! I was in the private sector in an after school maths club. How very posh. Yeah, I was. I'm rubbish at maths, but I used the system. And you know what, that probably joins up, having created the Scale with Confidence system for MSPs, together. It's applying that system, and actually if I go back, and you've just sparked this idea actually, if I go back to 1994, when I was working for Kumon Educational, which is the maths franchise, in fact I was working with the original MD in the UK to set it up, and I had to work the system as well as I was marketing manager, I was responsible for promoting it, and hiring the team, hiring the instructors. I was putting ads in the Sunday Times and the Telegraph to advertise the fact that we were recruiting eight students and instructors. And I had to learn the system of how kids learn maths through this system to apply it as the instructor. And get the results and the results from the kids were amazing. But the foundational ingredient was confidence. Yeah, you have to take them back to the place where they are most comfortable, which sometimes even for a 10 year old might be one plus one and build up the foundations. And actually that's what we do in the MSP Growth Hub. We take our business owners back to Groundhog Day, not Groundhog Day, Ground Zero Day and build up from there. And that's what the scale system does that you created this year, which is that linear journey of putting it all together. The Thank you, my friend, for the compliment. And you've just sparked an idea of actually where what I do today comes from what I did so many years ago. And I know the same is similar for you, which is why we do what we do. And so to see this, see the impact that we've had this year on, nigh on 50 MSP businesses so that we can have more impact, change more lives, have more fun and do the other thing that we do. It's just remarkable. And yeah, here's to 2025. The point is, it's when you, there's a little child called Ahmed I used to run this centre in North Finchley. He was petrified and his mother nearly didn't do it because she dragged him in the room. But when he did this initial test, there was a little thing that went on in his eye when I said he got 100%. And that's the thing that We see in our business owners, in our MSPs that join us, when you do that growth planning session, or when you do that reset, or when they get that piece of it, or they ask that question that they didn't want to ask, and they get the answer that they really didn't expect to get, you see that little shift in their eye, and it's like a door opens. And that's them stepping into that next level of potential in them. And that's what I saw in that little kid back in 1994. And that's driven me in terms of leadership of people, all my career, and I do put it back to those little experiences back then.

IAN: It's funny, isn't it? Because it because that, I'm now visualizing the comfort zone diagram that we have where people go to their comfort zone, into the fear zone, then the learning zone, and then into the growth zone. And, when they when their eyes open, and they go into that next. next stage and then they go, Oh, basically the mic drop moment was people get stuck and they get, they freeze when there's a gap between the challenge that's too high and the support that's too low.

STUART: Yes. And you need to do one or two. And fear creeps.

IAN: Yes. Yeah. And that's, and then you freeze, you got this whole freeze and Julie said it much better than I am going to. So I'm probably going to absolutely murder this right now. But it's just really interesting what we were talking about here because you either have to increase your support level and go and learn and go and ask someone or you have to break the task down the challenge down into bite sized chunks, yesterday we were doing a bit of a year review. We were asking our clients, what was your highlights of the year? What you most proud about and things like this. And some of them saying, I just can't believe now I've got a plan. I've got structure, I've got order, I've got, a process and a way of doing things. So I'm not in not in overwhelm anymore. And if you can increase your support level, whatever you do, just use the I.T. community and the people out there on LinkedIn to ask for help. There's hundreds of people, now there's been a pop up of hundreds of different supports this year. Go and test them all out or you can break down that challenge, then you're going to help yourself move further forwards because you get stuck when you've got that thing and then it's oh, how do we move forwards? And that's the bit that you know, I love doing with our clients is when you stretch that thinking and you get them. Get them working on their plans and they know what to do. And then they're making decisions. I've decided not to implement that PSA just yet. I'm not ready. I need to build the maturity in the service desk first, and then I'm going to do it. And it's like bloody hell.

STUART: And look how decisive that statement is. I know you're just, echoing what somebody would say, but that was decisive instead of Oh, I'm not sure. And then. Stay standing still, not actually doing anything with that information do I do something with my PSA or do I not do something with it? And I think that's the key, is be deliberate. And this year is, if there was anything you were doing over this new year period where we do all reflect and just because it's that physical end of the year is how could you, what have you been afraid of doing? Even if you don't think you're scared or fearful, because of course blokes, you're not scared of anything, but as a business owner, what have you actually been putting off, what have you been avoiding that actually deep down, he's getting in your way In terms of tapping your future potential your future success because there's something. If you're not happy with your progress, even if it's marginal, and you think this is hard work, or I could this could be this vehicle, this MSP could be providing more value to me in some shape or form, it might be more time. So you're not in the business so much or it could be profit and revenue. So you can go on better holidays and stuff. Yeah. Work out what it is that's getting in your way that you're avoiding and do something with it. Be more deliberate. That's my year in review, I think.

IAN: Yeah, and then, and then apply what I just said about, okay, so do I need to encroach? Do I know how to do this? I'm driving a car. Do I need, do I know how to do it? Do I need to get someone to teach me how to drive the car to do this particular piece, whether it be marketing or leadership or whatever it might be? And what is it? What does the chunks look like? I think that some of the, we had, again, we had conversations yesterday. We run our cadence of 16 weeks, but for some clients, that's too overwhelming. And as a matter of fact, two yesterday out of 30 that we coached were, do you know what, I'm actually going to turn my 16 week plan into a monthly plan because it's too much. It's too far away. It's too long way. I get distracted. I go off and do another shiny ball thing. And the things too big, the challenge is too big. So that's a really good point. I'm going to break it all down. And you eat this business development cake. We've said this many times before three things you need to build a decent business, know your numbers, build a great team, get leads, period.

That's it, right? If anybody teaches you it's anything else, they're lying and they're trying to complicate things. But we know how that works, obviously works with MSPs because there's things that we need to get you unstuck. So If you are eating, trying to eat the elephant in one chunk, you are going to joke and you're going to stop and you're going to get, you're going to need more than a glass of water to swallow it down. So break it down. And I think being deliberate and measuring what success looks like. And I think, yeah, I think that's a really great point this time over the new year, where you've huffed and puffed and moaned and groaned and sworn this year. Fix those things next year. What is it? Because the world's going to change, right? People are now coming out of all their wonderful little fixed interest mortgages, life's going to start getting harder. We've got an amazing government in now. Sorry, we've been hacked. Which are going to bring challenges that we have got no control over. This is the thing. Whatever they do, whatever government they are, we've got no control over what they do. And we've just got to adapt and try and get ahead of the curve, try and get ahead of all the other MSPs who are providing shocking service that we hear about every single day, who don't listen to this podcast, so I don't care about insulting them, because there's a lot of MSPs that are absolutely crap, and they provide awful service, and I'm really pleased that they do, because it means that everyone who listens to this podcast can thrive and overtake them and out market them and win, and then go and buy their database and then deliver great stuff. Calm down, why did I do that in a, I can't even say what accent it is because I'm going to go and insult all those people. But one of the things we've talked about this year is maturity of the MSP, isn't it? It is. What that looks like and how we, it's breaking the measure down, isn't it?

STUART: And that comes back to the thing about thinking. The thing we bang on about all the time, businesses grow to the size of the thinking of the owner. That maturity is recognizing that you need to grow up because you can't stay being a kid for the rest of your life. Life changes. We've both got kids that have gone through that and are going through that. And it's a challenge. That transition from teenage boy or girl to, to man or woman that's independent and responsible for themselves in this world. It's the same as a business owner. You've got to, you go from mature immature startup running around to then becoming more mature, more deliberate, both as a leader and as a business. And I think if there's anything people can do over New Year is use that time to think. About what I need to do deliberately. We talked about fear earlier. What am I afraid of? And what am I scared of? Or what am I, how am I holding myself back? But actually, what am I going to think into more deliberately? And make some, deliberate decisions. And one is, having made that decision, great. You could call that a New Year's resolution. And we know how many of those go down the toilet. But they wouldn't go down the toilet if you joined an amazing community.

IAN: Yep.

STUART: And if you got yourself held accountable. To that New Year's resolution. So I think most people's resolutions fail because They're on their own.

IAN: Yeah, so they're too big give up what we just said too big a chunk I'm going to I want to lose so many pounds. I want to grow the business by this much I want to do this X Y Z you set this vision and you shouldn't be doing this every year, by the way No, you should because that's when people tell you should be doing it You should be doing it every flipping month really in every quarter at least in any business have an annual plan have a three year plan

STUART: We refresh it every 16 weeks.

IAN: Yeah. Now, let's talk about assets. So I've got a little funny story that, that you've heard a few times before now. I went to a, I was at a property conference a couple of years ago, a couple of years ago, a few years ago now, many years ago. And this guy said to me, he said, what I do every single morning, I open up my top drawer of my bedside table. And in there is all these little pound coins jumping around. I'm sure there's You know, pound coins, cryptos, whatever you want to put it into this year's language, bouncing around. And I open up this drawer and they all jump out and they go off to work for the day. I open up the front door and they all run off. And these little pound coins bouncing down the road. And then they're going out to work. They're going out to work and to go and find more pound coins and to do their thing, right? They're going to do their thing. And then at the end of the day, they knock on the door and they all come back again. It's brilliant. So I open up the top drawer and they all jump back into the top drawer again. But the problem is they won't all fit. Because they've been out, they've been working, they've been investing, they've been working on, whatever it is. So I have to open up the second drawer now and they all jump back in. And the point of what he was trying to make was every single pound that you have in your business or your personal life needs to be sweated and needs to go and earn more money and to, to deliver its own ROI.

STUART: Become more valuable.

IAN: Exactly. Any cost that we've got going outside of business, whether it be people, tech, particularly this year has been a year of everybody's bought the latest PSA or RMM or security tool or all of them and they all, some of them all do similar things. So you're complicating yourself by looking at your assets and buying more and more stuff. that could be doing the same thing, rather than having a great account management conversation with one of your vendors and go can you do this? Does it do that? How'd you do this? How'd you do it? So stepping back from your tools and your, and your stack as it would do, but also people, right? People are massive cost in MSPs. So ask yourself the question, if you're opening up your top drawer and your people are running out, are they going out and adding value in your business?

STUART: And if they're not, how could they do it better? Or how could they start doing it? And wasn't there that great story last week? From one of our clients. And actually there was, he offered, what? 600 Pound as a voucher? Or a hotel overstay. And he had a, what you might call, a plodding, Yes. Plodding along, which he was frustrated by, but he got an idea from one of the pods within the community, and so he offered him a 600 night away in a five star hotel in their sort of town, village, so the guy knew about it, for him and his wife, if he could get the Got engaged, although he didn't say get engaged. He said help me do this by this time and I'll send you away.

IAN: Ticket performance on his helpdesk.

STUART: Absolutely blew this guy's away guy away in terms of yeah the offer of this non cash reward and the guy was transformed, wasn't he? Unbelievable. Yeah, absolutely transformed and the guy and however, one of the clients went 600 quid? Are you having a laugh? How much? And, but , however, the reply was, but the work he's done has saved me hiring a 40 grand a year tech.

IAN: Fantastic. There you go. Jaw drop moment.

STUART: It was a draw jaw moment. Absolutely. Because he decided to step up as a leader and use reward and recognition to motivate this guy. And he got it right.

IAN: Yeah.

STUART: Some people are motivated by non-cash rewards, something that he wouldn't spend 600 quid on himself from his wages for him and his wife, because it probably fell out of his comfort zone. But somebody said, do X, and I'll send you to that hotel, and dinner, and wine motivated the hell out of him.

IAN: We could ramble all day about this, couldn't we? We literally could. We're not very scripted today, which is why we're jibber jabber in a little bit. But that's what it's all about, right? Stuart, what's on the agenda for next year for the Growth Hub and the and the community to help?

STUART: Simple. Grow the power of it, grow the community. The bigger it gets, the more impact it has on people's lives the fun and Community, I suppose it is really, together we're stronger. I know they're all cliches, but we get reminded from time to time because we've got to head down. Yeah. Thinking up new ideas delivering, all aspects of the business ourselves. But sometimes we come up for air. And properly listen to what's going on in the room and what our clients are saying and realizing the impact it's having rather than focusing on what's the next thing they need? How are we going to, how are we going to expand the training and the thinking which is us being technical effectively. But when we step back and properly listen and see the impact that these guys are having, we just want to do more of that. More of those four things. Change more lives, have more impact, have more fun and that third one

IAN: We can I've got it here really down help more people change more lives Have a bigger impact have more fun.

STUART: And it normally trips off the tongue, but this morning I think I'm just too stodgy.

IAN: Yes, too many Christmas pies.

STUART: Yeah too much wine. Just not quite fun.

IAN: I'm going to ask you in a minute, while I ramble for a second on what's the biggest impact thing that you've done in the Growth Hub this year, but I want to, I just want to share the thing that I've done this year that, that I think have made the biggest impact is holding the client's hands with our new client runway sales and marketing framework. Yeah, they got stuck, they get stuck. They're always stuck with sales and marketing. And what we did this year was we went, hang on. These scores aren't moving. We track a maturity score. They're not moving. Why are they not moving? Why are they not moving? We've got the frameworks. They're not doing it. I just put my hand out and said, guys, I'm going to walk you through this. We are going to walk through how we do this, how we market our business, how we, it's a professional services business, very similar to MSP, how we do it with that. And light bulbs have been going on all over the place around that. And I'm really, I guess I'm really proud about that for what we've done, because all of a sudden they get it, they understand it. And now I've probably created a rod for me on back, I think moving forwards, but Hey. How do we get our clients results quicker? And that was one of the things. Yeah really pleased about that. What about you? What's, what was the big thing that, that you think's caused a big impact in the community this year?

STUART: The big thing this year has been our distilling of many of our trainings into frameworks. So one example is the account management framework. It's one page that links the strategic and the tactical. Things you have to do to smash it out. In terms of building a strategically focused, but tactically active account management. TBRs, QBRs is the soundbite that everybody hears. But how do you join the dots up to make it powerful, linked to your numbers, linked to your people and linked to your marketing such that it's a seamless a seamless asset? In your business. And so we've done that across the whole scale, with scale system to just distill all the different trainings into one step page frameworks. We're doing it in finance, we're doing account management, we're doing sales and marketing with the NCR. And now, next year, and this is the thing really excited about next year, is the Future Leaders program.

IAN: Yes. Yes. I forgot about that.

STUART: Which is the add-on piece to the program to help develop the leader, the leadership capability in, the next tier down below our business owner MSP clients. And so basically putting the framework of how to be, how to step from tech or employee to leader in the business and start forming the management team and the SL team that perhaps doesn't exist in the MSP that is needed to take it to the next level. That's a what we've done this year. That's amazing. And be how it's also facilitating what we're going to do next year.

IAN: And, I know that we're gushing all over the place here on what we've done in the growth hub, blah, blah, blah, all that sort of stuff this year. But, for those who are, pondering about support, just listen to the to what we're saying around the frameworks, and there's loads of places that you can go and get this support to build a leadership. But it's important or to do sales market, which is why it's important or to have that account management, which is why it's important. So we only talk about things that are really important. And we are if you need to have a conversation. But just before we wrap up, Stuart, what's the thing that you're really proud about this year?

STUART: Where I started at the beginning, just the impact of the community. The maths teacher thing. Yes, the impact of the community. And just the way in which lives are changing.

IAN: Excellent.

STUART: It's just amazing to be able to see clients that were stressed that are now not stressed. And they're walking taller, the shoulders are back. They're going on better holidays. They've maybe moved to a four day week if that's their goal. They're employing people. It's just... Impact.

IAN: Yeah. Brilliant. I think for me, I think it's two things. I think number one, our team. They've just really stepped up this year and usually and fair play to them to be hanging on to our coattails at the speed we've been going. But they've grown, they're learning. And some of them I said, why are you still here after seven years? Some of them have been working with me, before we met not seven years. It's because every year. It's going to be our best year. Every year we change, we innovate, we move, we grow. We've now got Claire on the finance. Julie's absolutely loving it and getting some incredible results with the clients on the leadership side of things. We're recruiting also a little bit of a, yeah…

STUART: We are. We’re after an amazing business coach to join us. That's got the skills to be a cheerleader for our clients to come in and use their great coaching skills, strategic coaching skills with an emphasis on business. And I don't think they have to be an MSP expert. I think they have to be an amazing coach that likes to develop the potential of others and we want them to come in and use our frameworks and cheerlead and. Lift up our clients to the next and get stretch their thinking. Yeah. We want somebody to come in and help them stretch their thinking the way we've been doing so we can help more people have more impact, change a little more lives.

IAN: The other thing for me.

STUART: So it's you partner.

IAN: Yes, it is.

STUART: The other half, the dynamic duo.

IAN: The dynamic Duo, Batman and Robin. That's the last thing I think for me, the proudest thing is being able to be in a business where number one, it doesn't feel like work. And you've got a great. community of people around you who are comfortable enough to stretch themselves and to push and to see that change, which is just great when they come in the boardroom here or any other events and things like that. So look, just wishing everybody, thank you again to everybody whose earbuds we have tintalated, tintalated, tintalated, careful, steady. Is that the word? Titillated.

STUART: No, that doesn't sound right.

IAN: Anybody's earbuds we have infiltrated this year on the podcast. It's been great fun putting it together. We've been having some great fun. If you got a success story from the channel and you want to be on the podcast, just let us know, right? We'll come and have a bit of fun and do this ourselves. You've been a great guest as always, Stuart. I love catching you out by saying, this is what we're going to talk about. And then we're going to talk about something else. Absolutely loved working with you again this year, mate. It's been incredible. Next year is going to be. Even better because we've already decided, right? And just wishing everybody in the community amazing new year and all the super success in 2025. Final thoughts?

STUART: Thank you partner It's been a blast. Bless you. Thank you. Everybody. We'll catch you next year.

IAN: Yeah, lovely, all the best. Take care now.

STUART: Bye

OUTRO: Oh, 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, 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 going to get a 360 degree scan of your business where you can identify the one or two tactics that can help you find more time to 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 now.