EP246 – Why Slowing Down is the Fastest Way to Scale – Success Stories with Mark Stevens & Ian Luckett

IAN: In this episode of the IT Experts podcast, we help you work out why slowing down is actually the fastest way to scale.

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: Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Welcome to the IT Experts podcast.

Today, we've got a very special, we always have a special guest on, right? That's the most important thing here. But today we've got one of our clients, Mark Stevens. I'll get him to introduce himself in a moment. And I thought I wanted to do a podcast all around slowing down, being deliberate, having confidence to get yourself into a position where you can scale quicker by having the world automate and get systemized around you. And I thought I could sit here and chat about it myself, which would be fine, that'd be absolutely great. But I thought, no, I'm going to see who do I know who can help me put some special source into this. And I know one of our clients who has absolutely adopted the program here at the Growth Hub extremely well. And, just done really well in this area. So I thought, do you know what, Mark? Come on the podcast and let's see what happens. So Mark Stevens please tell everyone who are you, what you do, and who'd you help.

MARK: Yeah. Thanks Ian. Thank you for having me on. So yeah, my name's Mark Stevens. I'm managing director for Mark1 IT in a little place called Melter Moy Bang in the Midlands. And who do we help? We help the small to medium enterprises up and down the UK to get unstuck with their IT, to get out their own way and let us deliver their IT services and solutions for them.

IAN: Fantastic. And, getting out of their own way straight in there. Lovely little link straight off the bat. When you, and I know that we've spoken about this, I think on previous occasions, Mark, but when we're talking about you, you made the decision that you want a scale, grow the business and get it into a much more profitable, stronger automated place. Just briefly just explain to us, or just share with us some of the thought process around. What holds you back from a fear point of view? Because there's loads of, what we call shitty little voices that sits in everybody's heads. You've always done it like this. You've always do, you know what? I did turn it this morning, right? And it reminds me of some of these little things that come up. I'm sure everybody else does this. Add a cup of tea, wash the cup up, put it back in the cupboard. Which way round did the cup go? Upside down, right?

MARK: Yeah.

IAN: Why does it go upside down? Because my nan told me that if you put them the other way up, dust gets in it. Okay. I use that cup probably twice, if not three times a day, how much dust is getting in that cup? But still, I turn it upside down because it's always what I've done. I've always done that thing and why the hell am I'm still doing it and I'm not even conscious that I'm doing it. Do you know what I mean? Isn't it funny that these things these belief patterns that kind of come through are just stuck with us all the time. But, from a business owner, from an MSP, we don't take what we do lightly, right? We know it's bloody hard work, growing really hard running an MSP Right?

MARK: Really hard.

IAN: Where does a lot of this come from yourself? We talk about the techie business owner, but what does that feel like in the real world?

MARK: That's a great question. What does it feel like? It feels like, you don't start your career or maybe some people do start their career thinking that I'm going to go out there and I'm going to run a business. And you know what? I'm not going to run any old business. I'm not just going to sell flowers or sell some fish on the market, you know, I'm going to run an MSP. What kind of madness? What kind madness is that? I think when you make that active decision that you're going to run your own business, there's a degree and an air of confidence that you need to do that, to get out of bed and to make that active decision that this is what I'm going to do, and ultimately you start that business with the mindset of you have the confidence, you have the capability, you have the skills to do a great job for those businesses that are out there that, that need your services. There's a bit of a problem that comes along with that confidence, and it's something that I touched on a while back in a previous discussion yourself around ego. Yeah, the ego. If you read the book, if, for those of you that haven't read the book, ego is your enemy. Brilliant book. Strongly about especially for those business owners that are oozing confidence and maybe too much confidence. And that's caused a few challenges, which I'm alluding there to my next point around control and any sort of fear of losing control over quality or the delivery as time goes on. Because you start to recruit people. You may be, we're just starting out here, we're just growing a company. So how do we know we're recruiting the right people? And not only are we recruiting the right people are we able to evolve, within ourselves to let go of that control and then start to recruit the right people that then build and form that trust. There is a innate concern that these people, won't do as good a job as what you can do, which is always one of the biggest fears and something myself and my peers within the growth of, we're always talking about. So I think a couple of those areas have been one of the most biggest challenges just around trying to get the right people, me trying to change into the kind of leader that the company needs to select the right people for the company and for our customers. But then as well, learning how to lead in the right way, without trying to, again, micromanage and control, and also listen to feedback from them and take that on board. Don't just think, oh, they're not good enough. They're not doing X, Y, Z they're failing here. Actually sometimes you've got to take a bit of a closer look to home. Think to yourself. Am I onboarding all these people correctly? Am I ensuring that I give them the best onboarding experience possible? I'll be training them correctly. So there's a lot of areas there that I feel are really important. And sometimes you've got to look in the mirror. And you've got to listen to the feedback and then just start doing the right things.

IAN: And I think that's the point of this podcast is slowing down and stopping getting up in the plane, having a 30,000 foot view, look down on it and go hang on a minute, things have got to change, because if you keep doing the same thing, it is you expect a different result, then that's madness. You've been on an incredible leadership journey and I we see this from strength to month. The questions that you are asking, the way that you are approaching things and doing, and some really, very vulnerable conversations that we have. But when did you get to the point when you had that moment where you went, things can't carry on the operations of this business can't carry on with the way they were. Because you've had a few challenges with recruitment there, there was almost a point where I thought you were running another recruitment agency just to keep it, to keep the business going for a while.

MARK: Yeah.

IAN: We don't need to go into too much detail into that. But I think it's fair to say you've been unlucky with some of the people who've walked through your door.

MARK: Yep.

IAN: And that's caused, again, it's like dent in that confidence, isn't it? And I'm going, oh my God, because you can't. So when was the moment when you thought, we need to step back at this and just have a look at a different way?

MARK: Yeah. So that moment for me was approximately 18 months ago.

IAN: Yep.

MARK: I realized that our staff turnover was too high. And despite all the conditioning that I had done, self conditioning, since probably, which commenced around probably 2021 - 2022, which was during those COVID times. And a lot of that, just to step out slightly of the main topic here was during COVID, we weren't set up properly. We weren't quite set up as a, what I would class a traditional MSP, where our MRR gave us a high degree of stability. Our MRR was significantly lower. And that presented financial challenges during COVID because a number of projects and a number of works had yeah, just stopped, had pretty much stopped. So looking back and in retrospect things probably ebbed and flowed in quite a normal fashion around 2021 and I'll say 2022 and I'll get to the 18 month stake in the ground, but around 2022 was where I realized that we were in a position where we needed to get ourselves back into a strong position, financially and for the good of the company. And unfortunately being if there's anybody out there that's ever experienced financial pressure, and true financial pressure, the stuff that keeps you up in the middle of the night and impacts your sleep, then you understand that can have an impact on how you operate and behave day to day. It certainly helps drive some of the decisions that you need and have to make and it took us a long time, and with obviously the support of the growth hub, for us to get back into a strong place. But 18 months ago, approximately I just knew again, the staff turnover wasn't where it needed to be. I couldn't build those relationships. I think I know being clear, I was envious of my peers that told me stories about members of staff that had been with them for six years. And I'm looking at my at my leave list, and how, and length of service, and I'm thinking, I'm struggling to get past 18 months here.

YEAH: Yeah.

MARK: What am I doing wrong? What am I not doing? Yeah. And this, back to the topic of the podcast, about slowing down. It's fine trying to focus and accelerate your growth, and that's one area of the business, which of course we want to do. But there's a fundamental flaw in the process of trying to scale a business when the foundations are not formulated. They're not strengthened.

IAN: Absolutely.

MARK: They're not hardened. And so slowing down. Looking inward.

IAN: Yeah. Get the mirror out.

MARK: Reviewing your, yeah, reviewing your leadership style and understanding that we need to make a change and we have to make a change, otherwise we're never going to be able to scale this business, or we will scale it, but it won't be sustainable growth. It'll be growth that will lose, because we've had several comments from clients over the years around, our staff turnover high staff turnover rate. And that has and that knocks your confidence, I think, personally as well because the one thing we learn, Ian, is that people work for people. They don't care whether we're called. Mark won. Ian won. Stuart won. They don't care. They're here to work for me. And that's another point. That's a very interesting topic because you have to get comfortable with the fact that people work for you. And I don't know why I found that uncomfortable. I have absolutely no idea. I've no idea. I don't understand that. But I did, I found it uncomfortable. I thought it was nonsense. I thought, no...

IAN: Did you just not say, did you just not believe that it was true or did you feel that. No, you work for the company, you don't work for me. Like you are not worth like your, like you Mark weren't worthy that someone was going to help you out, was that the feeling or was it the fact that you just worked for the company? You don't work for me for crying out loud.

MARK: Yeah. I think a bit of both to be honest. I think you do, yeah. Why do people want to help me achieve my goals? Why? Why would they? Why do they care? If one of my goals is financial freedom to pay off my mortgage, or maybe to travel the world, whatever it is, why do they want to come and help me? I believe I understand now that it's a reciprocal relationship. It's about them coming to join the company so that we can help them. Achieve their goals. And we talk in the hub many times around the vision, the mission, the values, I don't think there's a session that goes by where, no, those words don't come out of your mouth. And the importance is unbelievable. And it is misunderstood. When you first go on this journey with the Growth Hub you absolutely don't understand the value of it. You don't, no. As time goes on and you experience the challenges, and again, you look at your peers and you see them being successful in different ways to you, you then begin to understand, okay, maybe we need to start listening to this properly. Not just hearing it, not just hearing the words, but actively listening and then doing something about it. And that's what I did. There a lot of self-help books in terms of self-awareness, was a large part of the process. Listening, active listening when we're in one-to-one sessions is absolutely key. And taking that feedback on board, even if you don't want to hear it. Take it on board and ensure there's a solid onboarding process. Now that's still work in progress. We're getting there, Rome wasn't built in a day, but we're certainly getting more effective there and ensuring that, which is a relatively new process. We've put in that there's a rhythm, we call it the staff rhythm and review, and it's a quarterly process where we sit down and it's a performance appraisal. So you go into your six month probationary period. We only used to have three, which was a grave mistake. We now understand that six is essential. And then you go into this cycle, this staff rhythm and review where your quarterly reviews are in alignment with the financial year for the company.

IAN: Brilliant.

MARK: And the performance of the company and your performance are directly tied together. So whatever the goals are for the company, which we put together during our annual strategy meeting. Those objectives and key resources, as we call them, the OKRs. I know different businesses use different models. They are then broken down and then attributed within the objectives for each member of staff. So we're giving them a journey. We're giving, we're not just employing people, maybe not delivering as good SOPs as what we could be doing or actually taking them on a journey with us. And that is something that I have not understood and not valued enough within the early days of running a business. Whereas now I'm crystal clear and yeah, the proof is in the pudding. We're already seeing a much higher level of staff retention now and happiness.

IAN: Yeah.

MARK: And joy, within the workplace.

IAN: And that's so important. So you've basically got, a people process now, which started with you, and you're looking at your self-awareness. And, I say all the time, that the most successful business owners or business people in the world will be the ones who are the most self-aware, understanding the difference between listening and hearing, understanding, why people want to help that. And, it's okay to make money, guess what you can do when you're making money. You then reinvest in the people, you reinvest in the systems, you make the business even more amazing, more fun to work at. And you are absolutely spot on what you say. People leave people don't leave companies. They leave the people. If you ever think of a time you've left a job, you've left a job because your manager's been an absolute twink and never got on with them. It wasn't the company. And you've also worked at the same company where you've worked with someone who's amazing and they're just so much fun. But then they've moved on.

STUART INTERRUPT: Hold that thought for a moment. Ian, it's Stuart here. I just got a quick pit stop here for everyone that could really move the needle. If growing your MSP is on your radar, but it feels somehow a bit foggy, a bit difficult to get your arms round the concept, then download our ultimate MSP growth guide because it lays out all of the best support options that are out there in the channel so you can fast track what really works for you and make a clear decision. Alternatively, you may be the kind of person that likes to see things up real. For yourself in action physically. So why not come to one of our events where you can do exactly that? And we'd love to meet you, so there's just a head up for you down in the show notes that you'll find the links to be able to take the next step. But otherwise, let's get back to the good stuff and back to the show.

IAN: Cheers!

With the process that you've put yourself through or you've been going through and with the team as well. How, by having that rhythm and review and having that more awareness around the people and stopping and slowing down, how's that helped you to let go of all of the detail of where you were the bottleneck to start with?

MARK: That's a great question. The biggest change has been taking a good, long, hard look at what are the bottlenecks within the business, which areas of the business are causing activity growth to slow down and ensuring that we're recruiting into those gaps. It's too easy to, and we've all, I'm sure every MSP owner and business owner has read lots of guides and books and plowed through websites to look at ways to grow your business. What should that hierarchy, what's that structure, what's that framework to evolve through and fundamentally, by taking a step back, slowing down, I was able to identify the gaps within the business to be able to put together very rigorous role profiles.

IAN: Nice.

MARK: To give a high degree of clarity and for us to create clear accountability for each of those roles.

IAN: Yeah.

MARK: And. Since we went on that journey the results have spoken for themselves. It is aided customer satisfaction. It has aided the processing of quotations to get out to clients faster. It has aided quality control within the service desk, and it has hugely aided what we call welfare checks. So this is something that we implemented which is understanding that everybody can have, slightly going off on a tangent here, but every member of staff can have their own challenges. And who joined us approximately a year ago, she joined as admin and took over the HR admin responsibility as well and something that we were very keen to implement. We had a few members of staff that were going through some personal, very challenging times, and we wanted to implement, she's almost seen as the motherly figure within the business.

IAN: Do you need one of them?

MARK: Yeah, absolutely. And the welfare checks where she sits down goes into a meeting room, asks them how they are, it only has to be 20 minutes, half an hour. And maybe they don't want to talk about it, but if we spot something going on with a member of staff and we think maybe, they just seem a bit off today then and it actually happened today. It actually happened today, we had, a couple of things happened today that so we said, okay, let's get that welfare check done today, and just check in. And as crazy as this sounds, there was I'll let you decide in whether you want to cut out this bit. And as crazy as it sounds, there was a time when, and I remember speaking to Stuart Warwick. And we were talking about some of the challenges that we'd have with I was talking to him about the challenges that I'd have with staff retention, and I mentioned to him that I realized there was an element of my personality, which had been conditioned from my father. And that was that if you ever were falling over, if you were ever struggling, it's, he would metaphorically grab you by the collar, and tell you to get up and get on with it. Get up, get on with it, that approach. I'm not sure works so well in 2025 and certainly doesn't work with everybody. Still works for me because it's the way that I've been conditioned. A good old kick off the backside every now and then.

IAN: Yeah. Yeah.

MARK: You're not we're not too dissimilar in age in, so it probably works for both of us being born in that era. But, it's understanding, I was understanding through the self-awareness that when people were struggling, I put them under more pressure, which was the strangest thing. And Stewart Warwick made a comment of, that's almost cruel. And it, and he said it tongue in cheek and he laughed, right? We did. We did. We laughed. But let's not, let's call a spade, there's a little bit of that there. There's a little bit of that's cool, that when people are struggling, we push them harder. And that was another piece that, you know, over the last 18 months of the other piece of the self-awareness, which is that's just not going to work. That's just not going to work. And it, whereas actually when people are struggling back off, get that welfare check put in because it's not me talking to them. Let have that discussion and then, take that feedback and see what we can do to help. And sometimes as well in that, that can be even though we know it will impact service delivery, even though it'll impact the business, let's just give them a bit of time off, just to recoup, just to get themselves back into a strong place, because ultimately, if they are an A player or B player, we need those within our business as well, right? Then we need to look after them.

IAN: Yeah. And I think that's the biggest thing that. That we've seen growth, from yourself is that self-awareness. And, you can't treat, 25, 30 year olds the same way you can treat a 50, 60-year-old.

MARK: Absolutely not.

IAN: They're wired differently. And I say that with the greatest respect having two sons that are under 30 at the minute, and why don't you understand this? And it's you had it so easy and that, oh my God, if you have that conversation one more time in my house as he's sitting there with a fancy car on the driveway when we had one car between us in our little house, saving up for an ice cream at night. It's just a different thing. But I think what's lovely to hear, and thank you very much for being so vulnerable on that is, understanding those people have but haven't more important is having a mechanism in place where you can then identify and support them. So Mark, we started the show off talking about your lack of confidence at the beginning, and why would people want to, what, why would they want to help you out and things like that. What are some of the things that you've heard, your team now who are work in progress they are, getting where they need to be, there's no such thing as the finished article, but where they're now starting to respect you more, and feel more included and, all of these other things are going up. Where's some of the moments where someone said something to you and then you've gone, that's made it all worthwhile, hard thinking that long, late nights, soul searching and all of that kind of thing. Have you had any examples of that you could share with us?

MARK: Yeah, I think a couple. I would say that the change in leadership style from myself has enabled people to spread their wings and not feel so suffocated, lovely and controlled. And a fantastic example of that would be , and I have a understanding that I know when she's made a mistake because she goes, a little bit quiet, little bit withdrawn. And I'm like, is everything okay ? Everything alright? And she looks at me at the corner of, and I'm like, we need to catch up quickly, don't we? But I'm like, look, everything's fine. That my intentions are different to my intent, is the best way for me to phrase it. She knows that by living the company values and being transparent, that she'll get the best out of me and I will support her with whatever mistake she's made. And look, we all make mistakes, right? We're all human.

IAN: Yeah.

MARK: It's inevitable, but it's how we deal with those situations as and when they crop up. So what that meant was is that far more likely to come to me to, and I help her to get unstuck and untangled and to correct situations when they happen, and again, there aren't many, but in the past she perhaps has been hesitant to approach me. But we now have that much greater understanding and that much greater relationship, and that's allowed her to spread her wings to go on and deliver quarterly management accounts for the company, which is something which she has under took. It's something we wanted for the company. But we were looking to outsource and she said many years ago I did this for a different company. So let me see what I can do. And I have to say, yes, she owns up to using AI and some of our legacy data to combine that with modern day data, but the results in, oh my god they blew me away. Absolutely. It was incredible.

IAN: Windows to your business as well, isn't it? Your headline numbers and your accounts and the window to your business. And that's where you think, what's the point of me sitting down and talking to this person and having a chat with 'em about that? Because they're going to go and they're going to work so much harder for you. But the thing that I, we recognize within our team particularly, it is just that when people are engaged and when people are motivated to come and work for you and help for you, they don't stop thinking at five o'clock at night. That doesn't mean they don't stop working. We don't want them to work. We want them to have their work life balance. This business is built for a vehicle to work for us, not for us, for it. Yeah. But if you're walking up the road and you go, oh my God. We could do that would be amazing if we could. And that's what you want these, you want the, you know that inspiration because they want you to win. They want everyone to win. And then you allow those thoughts to flourish, and then you allow those thoughts to, to come through. And then guess what happens. Yeah. We'll embrace it. We'll put it into this meeting and we'll chat about it and it'll either become a thing or it won't become a thing.

MARK: Yeah and look, happy staff are productive staff, right? Yeah. And productive staff is a productive business. And a productive business well should equal happy customers. And that's the end of the game here.

IAN: Yeah, exactly that Mark. Absolutely. Brilliant brilliant show. Thank you very much again for being so vulnerable.

MARK: Thank you.

IAN: It's been all about slowing down, taking stock, getting that, getting in that plane, having a 30,000 foot view. If we've got people listening who are a little bit concerned about, I don't have the confidence to do this, my team may not be stepping up for me. I know I need to get out of my way, everyone keeps telling me I've got to get out of my own way. But I don't know what that means. I don't know how to start. What's your kind of advice that you would take in a couple of three points to go from where you were to where you are now?

MARK: I wonder whether it is individual, whether everybody's journey is individual. But absolutely that sort of 30,000 foot view, I'm thinking what are the three main key points? I think make sure that you've got someone in your life that you respect and admire and ask them, how do you experience me? Ask them the question and listen, how do you experience me?

IAN: Wow.

MARK: And really listen to them and ask them maybe, do you think I have an ego? Now we all have an ego, right? But by asking that question, it's a very wide question. It's a very broad question, and. Listen to what they say. And because fundamentally, to get unstuck, the first thing you've got to do is address yourself. That's number one. Look inside, look into that mirror, and look, back in the day, I remember people saying, talking to yourself is the first sign of madness.

IAN: Yeah.

MARK: Yeah.

IAN: And now we all meditate in the morning.

MARK: And now we're always talking to ourselves.

IAN: Driving electric cars, vegan food, and everything. Oh, the world's gone crazy.

MARK: So we're all mad, which is fine. As long as we're all mad, then that's okay. Absolutely. Yeah. So that would be the first one. Do that self-awareness piece. Really take a long, harder look at yourself and find someone that you can confide in that you know that you trust their opinion. Yeah, that'd be number one. Number two, once you've done that, is then, find the confidence and be vulnerable to have that discussion with your existing staff. You know that yeah and I'm going to make an assumption here, that these are people that you want within your business. If they're not, then don't procrastinate, just do the right thing. There's something that I didn't do well enough over the years and just, you know, help them to move on. So that you can get the right person into your business. So have that discussion with your people. And then thirdly, start to become, when you become more self-aware, start to become, more people centric, people focused within your business. So how can I improve the working environment? How can I, are there little treats bits like we do, we fill the fridge up every month with cans of Pepsi Max and water and bits and bobs like that. We have to stay away from the unhealthy stuff. We get too much criticism for that. What can I do to improve this working environment for the people, make them want to come to work. Make them truly enjoy and focus on them and stop thinking about yourself and what you can get out the business. You know about my vision, my plan, actually make it your plan. Your vision. And share that with the entire team.

IAN: Yeah.

MARK: So they're my three tips. That is how I would commence this journey. And hopefully that can be some use to people.

IAN: I think it's been amazing, Mark. It's been really great. So thank you for sharing. Thank you for sharing your journey. We look forward to working with you and really taking the business to a whole new level. Now, the journey that we've been on, and helping you with this is just been incredible and we're super grateful to be part of that. So wishing you and everyone at Mark one amazing success. If you want to reach out to Mark grab him out on link LinkedIn. If you want to have a conversation with him he's such a giver probably too much to his detriment. However that's the culture and the values in the growth hub. But yeah. Thanks again. Any final thoughts?

MARK: Just looking forward to, if we look at this as though we've now I remember, yeah. So to use a phrase, how do you grow how do you grow an oak, where you've got a, you've got to plant the acorn first, right? So I'm looking forward to seeing what the oak looks like, and I get little visions of that from my from some of my peers that are already at that 1 million plus Mark and have got that SLT and that team. Look, the future's bright. The futures. I'll let you finish that one...

IAN: Orange, because that's one of the colors of the growth hub Mark. Fantastic. Thanks ever so much. Thanks again for your time and yeah, hopefully that's been a help to the listeners out there, we shall look forward to catching up. Keep thriving and seeing you soon, mate. Take care. See you soon.

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 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 a 360 degrees scan of your business where you can identify the one or two tactics that can help you find more time. 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.