EP247 – The Do’s and Don'ts of MSP Marketing with Neil Shaw & Ian Luckett

IAN: In this episode of the IT Experts podcast, we are going to give you the definitive list of do's and don'ts in MSP marketing.

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. Today we are literally going to tell you what to do and what not to do with your MSP marketing. We have had enough of all this stuff and fluff that goes on around the outside. And I had an amazing conversation with our guest today Neil Shaw from MSP Clarity and he's not just going to sit here and tell us stuff about what you should be doing because Neil's done it. Neil, ex MSP, business owner of now MSP clarity, welcome to the show this afternoon.

NEIL: Hi Ian. Thanks for inviting me on.

IAN: No problem whatsoever. So we've had a couple of great conversations now and just share with the audience today, Neil, why am I talking to you? What is it we want to extract from you? Who are you, what do you do? Where have you been? What have you been doing and how have we ended up here today?

NEIL: Okay. How long have you got?

IAN: Not long enough, the past three and a half hours.

NEIL: Yeah. I'll go quick. Name's Neil Shaw been in the IT game for 30 years this year. Bit of an anniversary. I'm not sure if I'm happy or sad about that, but there we go. For seven and a half years, I owned an MSP in the East Midlands did really well, and in January this year I exited took a few weeks off. It was meant to take longer off than I did, but I took three weeks off and started MSP Clarity. So now I want to help IT owners, business owners MSPs, whatever gain clarity and direction over their IT systems and how they supply them and operate them with their clients and basically grow and scale at pace and hopefully replicate some of the success I've had over the last seven and a half years.

IAN: Great stuff. What was your role in the MSP Neil?

NEIL: At first it was everything because it was myself and my business partner. So it was jack of all trades, wear all hats. And then as it we progressed, become, it became more operational. So everything except for accounts. So operations, a bit of business development, key account management, mentoring, the apprentices you name it. I turned my hand to it. Until I was able to work my way to become obsolete, essentially, which is where we all want to be.

IAN: Fantastic. And then you've left the team, and moved on from yeah, from there, which is great. I haven't done this for a while, but we've got a script and I'm going to ignore it right now , if you were talking to an MSP today about the things that you went through and the things that really made a difference and the things that were yeah, let's keep this positive, in hindsight, looking back, what are some of the things that you wish you'd done sooner that made the biggest impact in any part of your MSP? I know that's quite a big question.

NEIL: So from a operation point of view, I guess it would've been to clearly define our offering a little bit sooner than we did. So we did for a while, like most MSPs do, it was a finger in the air, how much do we charge for this? And as the client scaled, you didn't always keep on top of it, so it would be set out a stall of what your rate card is.

IAN: Yeah.

NEIL: Whether it's price per user or price per kind of load the amount of tickets they're going to bring in or whatever. But I've set that out so it was a bit more structured. It worked well as we did it, but I think a bit more structure would've been good.

IAN: Yeah.

NEIL: Definitely work harder and sooner on building the brand. For me, marketing the PR side of the business was far better than the marketing, the general sense generalistic marketing, so definitely PR, building the brand getting your tone of voice, who you're trying to market to, why you're trying to help them, and how you're trying to help them and really clearly communicate that. And I think that would've probably brought us, I don't know, 12 to 18 months further down the line, if that made sense. So where we were after seven years, we probably would've been there after five, five and a half.

IAN: Why? Just that just let's just put a couple of metrics. How big was the MSP when you left? If you are happy to share turnover?

NEIL: Yeah. So we had around 150, 160 actual MSP clients. Yeah. But we'd acquired business Central Practice, which had around a hundred and 20 odd clients. So there was knocking on 300 in total as a complete MSP actual bums on seats within the industry within our MSP. There were about 35 ish when I left. And that's grown all the time. Since I've gone.

IAN: Where was the turnover roughly? If you happy.

NEIL: So up until when I left it was knocking on 5 million around there, it depends Right? When you look at a month every month we were growing. So if you take the last month, it would probably been about five the month before, probably a bit less. We're always growing up, which was a good thing.

IAN: Thanks for sharing that. And I think this is really important point right now because when you're out there in your MSP and you're looking for some help and support, and you're obviously listening to the best podcast to do just that Neil wasn't running a lifestyle business from his bedroom. That's what I want to get at and that's why when we had the conversation and I met up with Neil, was just a bit of networking we were doing, was just having a chat just to see what was going on. I thought, oh my word, I can absolutely dive into this man's brain and just pull anything out that I can and it's going to add value, which is why I wanted to go deep on the marketing because we had a really good conversation about that. I think, well done for getting it to get, getting it to that point. I know you're very happy with where you ended up, from an exit point of view, good level of team and all of that kind of great stuff. So that's all good. With your marketing then, in your MSP, because obviously you know up till about generally I'm going to be speak, generally speaking now, up to about a million maybe up to two marketings is an enabler, but once you get over 2 million, it then turns into a bit more of a sales type of function, doesn't it? And it becomes a bit self, but from a marketing point of view you just said, I wish we'd, focused a little bit more on the marketing. Why do MSPs get bored of marketing or fed up with marketing or just, I think, what's the thing?

NEIL: I think traditional marketing, doesn't really work for MSPs. And the way I sum it up is imagine if you are doing paid ads like a Google AdWords or anything via LinkedIn, not, no, not so much LinkedIn, say Facebook ads or whatever. If you're selling fidget spinners. Let's say, or a consumable item, you are in market for that item, you Google it, the paid ad pops up. Yes, I'll have that now. Nobody does that with MSPs. We are all IT support. It's, you're always in a 12 month contract, a three year contract, even if it's month to month, you can't exit straight away. You've got to plan the migration to your new MSP and research them and maybe go out to tender or whatever. So I think traditional marketing is very much a set piece that people try and do, but for MSPs it has to be more of a journey. You take your prospects on over months, you can convert a client maybe in three to six months. Our longest one, I think, took four years of just gentle touch points, and they got there in the end. It just took them a while to get there. So that's it. I think essentially it's more, it's a tweaked approach to marketing. It's not just your typical, spray it out and see what happens. You've got to be really focused.

IAN: And you've got to be consistent as well, haven't you? Because what we see a lot of the time is that you talk to MSPs about marketing taking 12 months and you can see their eyes roll over and they glaze over and it's oh my God. And then what will happen is the next month is they'll get a big referral and it's see, don't need marketing. I'm all right mate. And then you carry on, you crack on with that, and then that's all right , and then it all dries up again. And then you go, oh, where's the marketing book again? And they brush what the plan. Yeah. Get it out again. And then they look at it and they go, ah. Where do we start again? Is that typical what happens?

NEIL: Yeah, I think so. With marketing it's consistency. It's showing up, it's being where your prospects hang out as they, the cliche as it sounds, adding value. It's about, it's not about saying, oh, today we, we saved a business from going under due to a cyber attack or whatever it's how we can help you in the future, how we can almost as business advisors, we can take your business forward using technology in a cost effective way. We're not just here to turn things off and on and to come out in the van and replace a cable, we are your, we are trusted business advisors. We're an extension of your team, and that's the message you've got to get across. It's really about how you help them make their business better through the use of technology.

IAN: Amazing. Love it. Love it. Let's get into it. Let's get into it. First of all, we're going to do the 10 don'ts of MSP marketing. And I'm just going to let you lead this because you've been very kind in, in putting this together. And you'll be able to speak from the heart on exactly, yeah, exactly what happens. What's in it, number one, or what's in it number 10, I don't really know. Let's just do the first one.

NEIL: Yeah, I'll go through it. Don't use generic, we do IT message. There's so many people out there that just go, yeah, we're great at IT. We're better than the rest users. It's the worst thing you can do. You've got to be really specific on who you help and how we help them. And why they should use you over another IT company. So niche down into a sector or a market that you really excel at and understand...

IAN: Which we'll talk about in a minute.

NEIL: Yep.

IAN: So no generic. Yes. We'll turn up. We've got a van. We can be there. We are. Best customer service. Any of that kind of jazz it's got to be. Oh, they get me. They understand my business. That sort of thing. Cool. Okay. Love it. That's number one.

NEIL: Yeah. Don't rely on word of mouth. Now it's probably a bit of a hypocrite for saying that because we grew massively through word of mouth, but that was a form of marketing through the brand building. So when I say that is, referrals are great up to a point. But you do get to a point where you have the droughts where a referral doesn't come in for a few months and then, like you said earlier, you have to go back to let's dust the playbook off. Oh, okay. Yeah. It's going to take six months to generate some traction. You've always got to have a marketing function in the background, ticking away, ticking the boxes, even if it's just to keep you present in front of mind. So don't just rely on customer A, B, C, giving you some good leads, because it'll be like buses.

IAN: And there are ways, I'm sure we may touch on this again later that. There's a referral that comes in the door that you're not expecting, but there's also relationships that you can nurture with your existing clients. Not necessarily super deliberately, but at least becoming an expert in a field, we've got one client who is known in his sector as that's the only guy who does it in this sector, right? That's a form of referral. Yeah. And if you get your sales process right at the end of it you can then close a referral at 90, 95%.

NEIL: Absolutely. Yeah. We found that what we were really good with accountants and solicitors, real professional services, bums on seats.

They really appreciate that time is money because they charge by the hour, the minute, whatever. And it was just showing that we know how to we know their products, we know their client base, we know how they operate and we really excelled in those industries.

IAN: Brilliant. Great. Love that one. What's next?

NEIL: Right. Number three, don't ignore your website. Now, for me again, it's a bit of a contradictory one, I guess if people you spoke to me before, but the website for me is more of a, it's a shop window, people shouldn't be googling IT support near me. They should be googling the name of your business, in which case they'll find your website. So the SEO side of it. And that you do need to put some effort into and keeping it up to date. But generally, your website is there. It's the first thing that people see online when they've Googled your company name, it pops up. Does it wow them? Does it show them do you have empathy towards their problems and do you understand their business? So rather than we are your IT department, we're great, or we're in this area, you should use us. It's, we specialize in IT for XYZed, XYZed users for these reasons really go for it. So it doesn't have to be clever SEO or even, wordy blogs or whatever. It just has to be really, who are you talking to and why? And that's obviously through your website.

IAN: And it's like the, I'll talk this about the LinkedIn, the little LinkedIn profile is the 2025 business card. The best bit is I can know loads and loads of information about you, your connections, what you do, your tone of voice and everything like that, without even talking to you. So if I don't want to talk to you, I haven't got to talk to you. Unfortunately, I spent many years at networking events talking to people I don't want to talk to. And I watched LinkedIn have been around then because it's oh, it could've saved me a lot of my life. Yeah. And then probably a few follicles in the way.

NEIL: And, yeah.

IAN: And I think the MSPs can, I think the problem is that we know many multi seven figure MSPs and their websites, I think are still on dos.

NEIL: Yeah. Word 95 kind of thing.

IAN: That's right. Yeah. And it's just thinking I don't need it because look, I'm doing all right without it. But it's, again, it's that, how many people could have looked at your website and gone well? In actual fact, if this guy's supposed to be, or girl's supposed to be at the forefront of technology and they can't even do their own website, I'm going to go somewhere else, know about that idea.

NEIL: Yeah. In the tech sector and your tech looks terrible then. Yeah.

IAN: Yeah. And Mark Copeman, our great friend from Wingman Marketing is no white teeth, people, no smiley tea I think that's what he calls it. If you've got a website and everyone's smiling and cheesy and having a great day and all this sort of stuff.

NEIL: Unless it's dentist, maybe.

IAN: Yeah. Yeah.

NEIL: Good shout. Good shout. Yeah. Like that one.

IAN: Right? Number four.

NEIL: Yeah. Don't use fear-based marketing. This has been one that I've always tried to stay away from. So give you an example. You're trying to get someone across the line on cybersecurity. You tell them how bad it is. If they get hacked, how the business is going to close down, they're going to lose their firstborn child remortgage the house or whatever. All these kind of things that they're going to have to do. I hate that. I would rather, try and, get, communicate the values of why cybersecurity is good, and how it will help you in the future because you will save money. It's not an if, it's a when you'll get hacked and yes, that is quite scary, but putting these things into place will mitigate those risks. It's not going to cost an arm and leg, it's not an enterprise, price tag it, we're going to add onto this solution. So I think educate your prospects, your clients and add value, you're there is to advise them on tech. You're not there to scare them, as far as I'm concerned anyway.

IAN: Yeah, no I totally agree with that and I just constantly bleed on about what business outcome are you helping them solve with your technology. And it's so important. So great to see that one in here. Yeah. Next up?

NEIL: Yeah, don't chase every business with a computer, which I think is really important. And it's something I've spoken to quite a few MSPs about, essentially they'll accept anybody that's willing to work with them. From one man band up to maybe a larger business, but they'll charge very low rates or they just won't have thought about their offering properly. Try and niche down. Who do you want to deal with? Who'd you get excited about dealing with? You could say accountants and solicitors aren't particularly exciting to deal with, but actually when you dig into the business, for us it was really good to understand how they tick, where they get their business from, how we could add value. And it, it definitely works rather than just casting the net wide. And going, yeah, we can sell it to anyone. Sure you can, but you'll never be the jack of all trades. Trying, really focus on one industry or one kind of technology or whatever it is that you want to become masters of. Because IT sport, is IT sport, turn off and on again.

IAN: Yeah. Because you've got this whole thing, haven't you, of selling to let me rephrase the question and rewind a minute, while my mouth is running faster than my brain. What's your view on chasing a prospect or going into a target market or a business that hasn't previously had IT support or MSP because you've got to there's almost in my view, there's almost like two sales there, isn't it? You've got to sell the concept of why you need IT support, and then you need to sell the concept of why we are better than everybody else. Would you recommend that people avoid businesses that have grown and haven't got IT support, or do you think it's a bit of an opportunity?

NEIL: This is a whole other podcast because if you think about it, it's a really difficult time for MSPs right now. And I'll quickly explain what I mean. Originally it was turn things off and on, right? Simple as that. Go out in your van, change your cable, whatever. Then the internet came along and then it was I don't need a backup. Oh, hang on, I've lost all my data. I need a backup. I don't need cybersecurity. I'm not going to get hacked. I get hacked. I need cybersecurity. And then you've got the next evolution, which is AI and automation. So right now, I would suggest MSPs go for, there's plenty of business out there for everyone. So whether you want to go for accountants like we did, solicitors, architects, whatever, go for whoever you feel comfortable with. Don't try and break into a market that potentially could be really difficult when you've got to keep on top of automation, business continuity cybersecurity a lot. There's too much and a lot of MSPs, like the people that you know, the people who are watching this podcast, they're not going to be the biggest MSPs probably, they're going to be either startups or fairly small. They're already juggling. Too many balls spinning, too many plates, whatever, want to throw at it. So I think don't try and be, don't try and invent, reinvent yourself into an industry that's going to be hard to get into. If they want support, they'll find you. If you promote yourself in the right way.

IAN: And as most MSPs we know are very high up on the S and C DISC scale. So they're very detailed, they're very steady, everything's got to be right. And that means that naturally going out and selling and promoting yourself is very difficult. However, if you are an expert in talking about what you're saying and exactly the C word you just mentioned, that you are comfortable talking in that space, you are going to be, that's why you close referrals at such a high rate because you're not doing all the selling stuff at the beginning. You're doing the bit that's comfy, right? You haven't got to do that bit, but you've got to do the selling stuff and you've got to do that promotion.

NEIL: Yeah. They already no, and trust you, don't they? They, the prospect or the client like, no, and trust you, so therefore you're a trusted advisor and as long as you are not clearly trying to fleece them or have them over a barrel and it's good quality information you're giving them, they'll make a good decision off, off the back of them.

IAN: Love it. Nice one just realized, the time and and how many we've got through. But let's keep cracking. Because this is gold. Loving it.

NEIL: Cool. I'm glad you're saying that. We haven't got the end yet, so bear with me.

IAN: I know.

NEIL: Don't over promise and under deliver. I suppose I was always really keen on making sure that our service desk, communicated good or bad news, it was about staying in touch. Similar, bit different to the over promise and delivery. It was better than, rather than say, oh, we'll have it sorted in 10 minutes, just tell them we, won't have it sorted in 10 minutes. We'll check in every 15 minutes, every half hour, every day. Whatever the problem is, we'll check in a timely fashion. And don't over promise. Don't go to someone and go, yeah, we completely put you in the cloud in two weeks and we can completely do everything you need to do. And it'll change your life and it's going to cost you 10 grand. And not be able to deliver on it. So I would always like to underpromise and over deliver, I guess is the way forward.

IAN: And the great thing I learned very early on in my career around that it was more of a slant on a leadership thing was just do what you say you are going to do.

NEIL: A hundred percent.

IAN: Don't do everything that somebody wants you to do. If you've got a meeting on Friday and you haven't prepared for it, tell them. I'm prepared for it and just move it back.

NEIL: Our whole USP that is so difficult in the MSP market was just, we do the job, we're paid to do better than the other guys. It was as simple as that. It wasn't trying to reinvent the wheel, it was just do the job, turn up. There's nothing worse than booking a tradesman in on a certain day and then not showing because someone other, the job's over ran. It was just be present, be there, do what you say you're going to do, and do it well.

IAN: Love it. I love the next one. Number seven. Go for it.

NEIL: Oh, don't spam LinkedIn dms or cold emails? Absolutely terrible. I used to go through a stage of replying to most of them because I'm, I think I'm a nice person and didn't want to let them feel left out. I'm much more harsh with the block button now, but yeah, not being sincere in what you are talking to them about. You see it on LinkedIn every day. Hi, great to connect. I'm looking to see, explore synergies as soon as someone says that they're trying to sell you something it's just as simple as that. Be authentic and so the used word, but be authentic. Don't play the numbers game. Just go. If you, if there's a client or a prospect, you are after a company you are after. Be sincere.

IAN: Yeah.

NEIL: Explain to them how you can help. Show up, show a bit of interest in them. Be a real person. Don't chat GPT at those double dashes. Don't fool anyone. And as much as everyone uses it every day to do things, just be a real person because I think with AI, especially on LinkedIn and stuff, and there's cold call messages and that it's just going to blur and people are going to want to reset and go back to almost like snail mail where they'll want to have some personal touch. I had a great one this morning. It said hello first name, and it's like, cool, your AI and automation is completely cocked up there, but you, you don't know because you've got no way of seeing that. So yeah.

IAN: It's a real shame actually. And I'm full up for being vulnerable about the growth hub as well. Is that, but before the pandemic direct messaging on LinkedIn was one of our most successful ways to spark a conversation. And then during the pandemic, everyone set up these companies where they can all automate cheap banks. Whatever they need to do. And I just know damn well that there'll be some bloke from the eastern world who will press a button and he'll start liking my post and I'm just waiting for him to sell to me. And sometimes like you, Neil, I always used to reply back going, Hey, nice pitch, we haven't even had a drink yet. Should we get married? Sort of thing. And it's, yeah.

NEIL: Yeah. Exactly.

IAN: Yeah. Do you buy stuff like this? No. So why are you expecting me to buy your stuff? Yeah. When I don't even know who you bloody are. Yeah. And it just amuses me...

NEIL: But I'm no fluffing is what you're trying to say. They're not even trying to fluff

you before you know you deliver. That's it.

IAN: Maybe we should move on.

NEIL: Okay. Next one, number. Don't forget to follow up with the leads. So yeah, really important. You have a great conversation with somebody or an email with somebody, and then you just completely forget either because your CRM system's rubbish or you're just not very good at understanding the kind of sales process or how the leads funnel in. Just be present again if you want to follow up with somebody, make sure it's a personal email or a phone call, show interest in them. I've not heard from you a while. Why is that? Is it something stopping you making a decision? Not a problem. If so, just know where you are, where we are, and just be, don't be pushy, just be available when they're ready. And there, if you do that consistently with enough prospects, you'll get enough leads and enough conversions just by being a decent person.

IAN: Yeah. And an old quote that I always use on this is, all the money's in the follow up. The amount of webinars that I've done over the years where you've had single numbers of people on it. But yeah, tens of numbers of people of of have registered to come on it. That's still a lead. Just because they didn't turn up doesn't mean to say they're not interested.

NEIL: No. It's like networking. It's not who's in the room, it's who they know outside of the room. Yeah.

IAN: And there you go to a point anyway, move on before I start coming into that one.

NEIL: Number nine. Don't col don't neglect your existing clients in your marketing. So I suppose a good example of that is if you add another product to your stack, whether it be SaaS backup for 365 DNS filtering, whatever, you have a whole sea of potential clients there that may not be buying it off you. And I set up really early on in, in my MSP a white space matrix. Down the side it was clients across the top, it was all of the products we sold. And as we added a product on, it was a literally an excel spreadsheet, a green box if they've got it. And it was a clear sell. If they hadn't, and if there was a lot of white space, I would want to know why. So then I'd go, okay. I wasn't really into campaigns as in let's just fire out eshots or newsletters. They didn't really work for us, so it was more of a pick up the phone, speak to the md, the whoever it was that was in charge of making decisions and go, got this really good product. Would you like a demo? As always, no pressure, but because we built up a trusted partnership with them, they knew we weren't trying to sell to necessarily make a profit, which we are. But it was also to sell the benefit of the product and say how it can enhance their business. So yeah, definitely there's a lot of sales possibility in your existing client base that you may not be aware of.

IAN: And another golden tip to layer on top of that one is when you've done that exercise that Neil was talking about at the beginning, and trust your customers. You are sorry. You're trying to get to know the language of the prospect that you're working with. Go and test it with your clients. And say to them, is this what we do? Is this what we help you do? What else do we do for you that I've missed out in this marketing? Because remember, your mom and your dad are unlikely to buy services from you, but your clients did at one point and it's, they're just amazing. Because they want you to win, right? Oh yeah. And just go and ask them, go and do some market.

NEIL: Especially if you're decent people doing a good job, people won't have a bad word to say about you. And that will just spread like wildfire with, within their network and their clients and their contact.

IAN: Fantastic. Finally number 10. Finally number 10 on the first part of the show.

NEIL: The first part? Yeah. Hold tight.

Don't try to do everything yourself. It might go against what I said again earlier on. Obviously marketing isn't just one thing, it's multiple things. It's in no particular order. It's paid for marketing. It's free marketing, it's networking, it's using cold calls, direct emails, whatever. What I would say is the things that work for you once they consume too much of your time or you've made the process really slick. Outsource it. So for us personally working with a really good PR team was absolute gold. So we tried every form of marketing, paid ads, LinkedIn ads. We didn't do Facebook because it's not really our target audience. Cold emails everything, cold calls. A lot thing that worked for us. The best was making ourselves really well known for what we do and what we do well in our local area. And then pushing that wider the PR team I work with outsourced really good value for money. They, I was on local radio a few times, always in the relevant online publications, whether it be Business Desk or whoever. And just really good because I, they just take what I'd done either myself on LinkedIn or wherever and they would talk about it and get it out to the, into the wild. So it was a really good use of time and resources.

IAN: I'd like to dig into that. A little bit not today, but a little bit another time. I think that'd be really interesting. Because it's a different, it's a different kind of marketing, isn't it really? But that's cool. Okay. For everybody wondering why this show's not going to finish at half past, there's a reason for that. Because we're only halfway through, so we are going to carry on. And if it's too long, then you can whack it through ChatGPT.

NEIL: Put it at two speed, or you have a pause, go for a lil' break, get a cup of tea, whatever.

IAN: Yeah. We could do that. So it's all good like this, that is I think it's just really interesting just listening to what you've done or what you haven't done and the things that, and the advice that you've got there, Neil, which I think has been, which has been brilliant. Now I think probably what we might end up doing here is overlapping some of the things that we have spoken about, but we do have 10 dos of MSP marketing, don't we?

NEIL: We do. Yeah, exactly. So would you like me to start?

IAN: I think that would be a great idea, just because it would mean that we could crack on with the show.

NEIL: Yeah. That's it. Let's go for a new day. He dawns upon us. Do define your ideal client profile very quickly, like we said, don't throw it at wall and see what sticks. And just blanket everybody really go after, who is it you want to look after? Who do you want to work with? So is it a business owner in this industry? Is an engineer in that industry that has oversight of the technical aspect of the business? What is it and who do you want to serve? So keep it really focused. For us accountant, solicitors of this size in this area go.

IAN: Okay. What if I know there will be I think we're at about 400 downloads a week at the minute. There's probably at least 352 who have said. Do you know what? I have no idea what niche to pick. I have no idea. How would you advise an MSP to start to pick a niche?

NEIL: Okay, so if you are already an MSP owner, you've already got clients in multiple industries, probably. Who do you like working with the best? Whose software and systems do you know the most about? Very quickly, it got to the point where, for example, with accountants, our service desk and technical team could fix problems with things like Sage, quicker than Sage could. So rather than use Fall under the SAGE support, they'd come straight to us. We'd try all the try and tester stuff. We could go back to Sage and you know what it's like talking to some vendors, it can be days and months of pain.

IAN: Yeah.

NEIL: We'd say to them we've done all this and it got to, to the point where Sage were like, yeah, if you've said you've done it, you've done a good job. We'll believe you. And same with other vendors in other industries. So I think it's who do you like working with? And it doesn't really matter. There is definitely a conversation around you need, logistics may be, you may have 10 people in the office and 300 lorry drivers not potentially good for an IT support company because you've not got many bums on seats. But try and look who you work with and then really push forward with that one, I would say. Excellent.

IAN: No, thank you for that. That's all good.

NEIL: Number two. Do you highlight business outcomes and not tech specs? Yeah, talk about the good things. What's the outcome for the client? What is the benefit from it? What's the value you're adding? Are you going to keep things. More reliably and quicker and more accessible, make it more, more safer. What are you going to do? No one wants to know if you are using a Sophos firewall, a unify one or a dray tech that should have been thrown away in the late nineties. Others are available. Other routers are available. Yes. And firewalls. They're all fantastic in their own right. It's don't, no one cares about that. I'll give a good example. One of our really good clients and a good friend of mine, an accountant he doesn't care about tech, he just wants it to work. So if he spoke to our IT first line support, for example, as soon as they start talking about tech, he literally either puts the phone down or just tells him to shut up. He just wants to say, how long is it going to be? How long do I have to go out and do something before it be fixed? It's all one back.

IAN: Yeah. And a couple of things just to, the kind of insights we get from the guys at the growth hub is, if you can demonstrate in your sales pitch, how are you going to help them save more money, reduce headcount, make it more efficient, make the business more profitable. You'll be onto a winner.

NEIL: Yeah.

IAN: And the other thing as well with around the selling, the tech specs, if you do go out and you put your packages and pricing together and you start specifying everything, as soon as you change a vendor, you got to tell them again. And it just makes a mess. You, just have the backup, the security package and leave it as that. We see so many times, MSP's time sell up in knots because it's I told them this, now I've got to go back. You've got to do a task you never need, don't even have to do. They don't care. Because it's, you've got to remember that as an MSP, you are going out to that business. You are putting your arm around them and you're going, we are the experts. Come with me, I'll show you how it's done. And they're going...

NEIL: Exactly.

IAN: Okay. Because they don't know what they don't know.

NEIL: Exactly.

IAN: Yeah. And then they rock up and then you start talking to them about a lot of stuff that they don't really care about. And then when you change it, you type, you get yourself in a pickle.

NEIL: Yeah, you do. Yeah. There's a load of other things to, yeah.

IAN: Yeah. This could be a whole miniseries. It could be there go probably many, probably will be. You could turn it to an audio book, actually.

STUART'S INTERRUPT: If scaling your MSP is your goal, but you're not sure which road to take, then you'll really want to get hold of the MSP growth guide. It's the shortcut. Most MSPs wish they had much earlier on to work out what the right support is for them. Even better, if you like meeting up in person, why not come to join us at one of our live events, see the system, meet the people, get inspired, get to kick the tires and see exactly what we get up to at the Growth Hub. So, details are on the show notes below. Go have a look, click and come and join us and we look forward to seeing you another time, but let's get back to the show.

IAN: Thanks, Stuart.

NEIL: Oh there we go.

IAN: Let's do number four instead. Is it number four or number three? It's number three, have you done? Oh, number three. Sorry. Yeah.

NEIL: Do you use case studies and testimonials? I really believe in this. I know the new funky word. I think funky description is social proof, or maybe it's been around for ages. I'm just a dinosaur and didn't realize I don't know. But yeah, social proof case studies and testimonials. Your clients are should be your biggest advocates and champions, therefore, get them to write something down if they won't do it. Just because they're lovely people. Send them a bottle of wine, bottle of vodka, whatever it is they need to get them across the line. But generally I'd like to think that if you do a good job, you attract good clients and good people. So they're more than happy to spread the word about you. Everyone's busy, their business is busy, so to get them to do it proactively is difficult. So ask them, give them a template. Could you quickly give us some words? Even if it's a quick phone call, transcribe it, whatever, just get it off them as quickly as possible. Get them to sign it off and get on with your life. There's no reason why a case study should take any more than probably half hour to an hour of everyone's time. Just get it done and get it dusted.

IAN: And before I tee you up for number four. Which will be a surprise now and everyone will be anticipating. The best thing about case studies and testimonials when you get this right, is they become the stories that you talk about when you are in a conversation. Oh, yeah. Had a client did that? We had a client who got hacked and we got their, oh, we had a client who we saved this much. Really? Oh, tell me more. You want me to sell to you? Yes, please. It's so important, those stories that resonate. Storytelling so powerful.

NEIL: It's that important. When I even go out just for, with friends and family, I tend to start telling them stories just because of how sad I am, really. It's they're just flowing the lines between work and life balance of blurred.

IAN: Oh, I'll tell you the bit. Now, my eldest son he said to me, and he regretted this because I caught him back straight on it the other day, was he said, dad, could we just get to the end bit? And he's oh. So you've obviously been, he's been, sensitized to check GPT. So he said to me the other day, he goes, oh, can I just run through this with you? I said, yeah, sure. Could you just get to the end bit? And he looked at me and yeah.

NEIL: Doing the math without showing the working out.

IAN: That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Long division did that Anyway. Why did we do that? Talk about number four, Neil.

NEIL: Yeah. I'll do .Do you create helpful educational content. Now, this should be part of your every day your, you should be documenting what you do. So if you can turn that into a quick video a good example on one of the tangents we could go down with it is. If there's a regular problem that happens over and over again, get one of you guys or girls to create a quick how to video record their screen, whatever, whack upon your website, even email it out. Just say, we've had this happen loads of times for our clients, probably taking up five to 10 hours a day a week, sorry, of hour time and your time. Here's a quick video. And it's really good to supply your clients' internal knowledge bases as well. So each client can have a generic bunch of knowledge, which is covers all aspects, but one specifically for their business and build. It will pay over time. Because ultimately we do want, we are there to help them, but if they can help themselves and leave you. The MSP to do the good stuff. The important stuff, not the turn it off and on simplistic things, I always used to say back in the day that someone would call me out to pick a mouse up off the floor that they'd, oh, I've dropped my mouse on the floor. Can you pick it? Put it back on. We now empower our clients to check the cables yourself. Yeah. It's not rocket science.

IAN: Yeah.

NEIL: So yeah, definitely create educational pieces. Just help them empower themselves.

IAN: And also that's a great way if you've got to keep somebody warm in your sales funnel for your marketing funnel for a year or two years by drip feeding one of them a month. You are staying top and center and adding value and they're just going to go, this guy's just sent me a, I wish somebody had sent me an email. Each time teams gets bloody updated, I can never find anything.

NEIL: Exactly. Exactly. And some people say it's a sneaky form of marketing, but if their current MSP isn't educating them and you are educating them and they're not even paying you for it, then you are in the door. It's as simple as that.

IAN: Yeah, exactly. Exactly right. Okay, number five are the dos.

NEIL: So yeah, do leverage local SEO and Google Business profile. Now I've, I can't really speak too much with authority on the local SEO because. I did it for our website and I used a tool to check it out and it seemed to be pretty good, but the Google business profile, I think has got some weight behind it. You want good pictures on there. When it comes up, you want to show, it's almost like a mini website through Google. And if they go in directly to you and they're putting your RL in, it doesn't matter who's paid for what. You're still going to be front and center. Get some good pictures. I put a picture of the getting into the carpark as DAF as it was. Because we had a sign on the side of our building, which you could see from the moon. I kid you not and people would still not get into our business because they couldn't figure out where it was. It still baffles me to this day. So yeah, this is where we are. Here's a picture of a map with a line off the main road or whatever. All your services when you're open, who you look after, it's essentially another website, but just not as.

IAN: It is actually a it actually, we use it I say we use it. You're all going to go and check now and I'm going to get shot in the foot. I'm on there. Now we sometimes previously maybe we used to post on it weekly. Just some updates on what's been going on. And I think when someone googles your business, it does come up on the right hand side, and if I want to check out someone's address, it's straight there, straight phone numbers. I'm not go into their website or anything. I think it's really good.

NEIL: Yeah, it's like google reviews as well. They're there and I think. I think not many businesses really utilize them because there's nothing worse than having two or three or five Google reviews off friends and family. You either got to go, you've got to play all in and go for it or not at all.

IAN: Yeah.

NEIL: I think, I can't remember what we got up to, but I was thinking, yeah, they're all people that friends and family that have done them. Yeah. Yeah. But it doesn't really hold the weight, yeah.

IAN: Yeah. I know, we know some MSPs have, who have got they put an incentive with their interest. You can see your view on this incentive within the service test that if, when they fixed the ticket, if someone gave them a Google review, then the person here that got the most or the best or the most valuable Google review, got a prize at the end of the month and you could get quite a few Google reviews doing that.

NEIL: That's the whole gamification.

IAN: Yes.

NEIL: Which is another podcast I'm sure you've either done or will do at some point. Yeah.

IAN: Yeah. Brilliant. Number six.

NEIL: Do build a referral or partner program. Now this is where we really shun and we did really well. Referral side of things again make your clients your biggest advocates. Make them they're the ones that sing you praises. It's free marketing. They're also free social proof. It's the whole, it's the whole package. They're a super food in terms of marketing. If you've got a client that's trusted in their industry talking about you favorably you've already got warm leads. Anyone that comes to you is interested in working with you essentially. So definitely, referrals are a massive thing. They're just not always consistent. That's the thing. And then the partner program that worked for us phenomenally. Again, it could be a whole podcast, but I'll try and keep it quick. We worked with a software vendor that sold software for a particular industry. They couldn't figure out how to host it in the cloud. We host it in the cloud. And they actually said you're doing a better job for less money than us, so can you be our official partner? So then that opened up. I think they had 2000 clients. Not all exactly what we wanted, but some of their larger ones we won. So just by being a partner to them and offering nothing more than a cloud-based infrastructure with support for that and then hand it over to them it was gold because then that enabled them to sell more. Because they had a slick cloud-based platform, supported by us. So they didn't have to bother recruitment or anything like that. They literally we worked it out to a monthly fee per person. And that was it, like a project fee to set it up and off you went. So yeah, definitely partnering with somebody. So if you work with accountants what can you do to make their life easier and what can you do to help their clients and really get that two way partner program working, because there's nothing worse than a one-way referrer.

IAN: No. And it's one of those things. You've got to demonstrate it and and it's the other thing as well, you look over the last few years, when you could go to anywhere in the world and you want to have something to eat, what's the first thing you do?

NEIL: Ask someone.

IAN: No. Go. TripAdvisor. TripAdvisor. Google it chat. GPT isn't it? Now I'll help you with the hard ones, Neil.

NEIL: Thank you.

IAN: Do TripAdvisor it, what's the best restaurant in this area that looks like that? And you go on all the reviews of people you don't even know you want to buy something on Amazon. What do you do first thing you do, or eBay, you go on there and you look at all these.

NEIL: Have a bit of a laugh. If it's Amazon, it's always a bit of a laugh reading their reviews, but yeah.

IAN: Yeah, it is actually. Yeah, because it's like it's almost as if you own the company. Yeah.

NEIL: Yeah.

IAN: Number seven. We're nearly there.

NEIL: Yeah, that's it. Hang tight everyone. Do invest in LinkedIn for outreach and branding, as much as it is turning into the Facebook for business and it does annoy me a little bit because it was once a great tool and now it's probably still great, but people are getting a little bit disillusioned with it. Yeah, I think it's again, it's free. You don't need to pay for the sales navigator or the pro or whatever it's called nowadays. Literally just be consistent. Again, don't worry about the time of day you post or anything, just showing up and posting consistently. And I always, and I'm going to forget what they are now, but I always go for four things. It's the personal piece, the educational piece, the corporate social responsibility piece, and the how to do something piece or whatever you want to do. Yeah, just build yourself up content calendar over 30 days, which you can replicate. Each week or each day, pick a different one of the four, five or whatever, however many you want to do. There's some great people out there. Again, have a look on LinkedIn and see who you think does a good job. Not necessarily in your industry, but just out there and mimic them, but for your industry and how you want to do it.

IAN: Absolutely. Brilliant stuff. Good. Good. What's the next one? Number eight.

NEIL: Nurturing leads with email sequences. We weren't particularly good at this because we were more, rather than the automation side of things we would check in personally, but make sure that follow ups are done well. And they progress the sales process for you. Be on top of that essentially. Make sure that if there's a lead come in you, when it's, when the follow ups going to go out, what it's going to say, what you're trying to bring back from it. Are you trying to close them or trying to get them one step closer? Is it an educational piece? Because you think they're going a bit cold. What is it you want to do? And get that sequence really nailed down so that it's, you can automate it, but again, depends on how many leads or how many you're sending out. You could get it done fairly inexpensively yourself.

IAN: Yeah. And also tracking, as you say, tracking those leads. Just digging in on that a bit is around that lead scoring. What are they doing? What are they watching? What are they reading? What are they clicking on? What are they interested in? And then filtering them out and giving them more of what they want. Someone came into our world and they said, oh, I've got a really bad team. The last thing I want to do is start talking to them about sales and marketing. Exactly. You know what it's.

NEIL: Yeah. There's so many options out there for seeing what they're doing, especially if you are capturing the data in a bit of a A and B testing if you want to go down that route, absolutely

IAN: Brilliant stuff.

NEIL: So quickly do track metrics that matter. Really boring, but make sure you focus on the things that matter. So qualify qualified leads conversion rates and customer lifetime value. Concentrate on those. How are you retaining your clients? Who are you retaining? All of these data points will point you towards what is your golden target client, because you are converting more leads the qualified, you're converting them and obviously you are keeping them. They're retaining, you're retaining a client for a long time. One thing, when talking to marketing bus companies, they always say, what's your lifetime value? And if you say we've never lost a client, so I don't know, hundred grand, 200 grand, 300 grand. They ding, all well, 10% of that 30,000 pounds. It's hang on a minute. My cost of acquisition at the minute is a bit of my time. I ain't paying 30 grand. So yeah. It's yeah, just focus on what you know works for you and repeat that.

IAN: Yeah. And it really is again, we were talking about this, we coach the clients every two weeks on marketing, on the implementation of the framework rather than just doing it, we left them to do it on their own. And guess how that went? Yeah. So I help them now with a hand or a neck hold, one of the other every two weeks, which is amazing, but it literally is if you're engaging with anybody to provide any support on marketing, and the one question really to make sure with the with any marketing when you're bringing anybody in to help and support is to ask them, how is what you are going to do, help me get more calls. Period. End off. I don't want clicks and likes and comments. It's how are you going to get me the calls? Because they missed the middle of funnel bit Al.

NEIL: Yeah, absolutely.

IAN: Yeah. Can we do number 10? Now?

NEIL: We can. We're on to number 10, the last one. Do align your marketing with your sales team. Not all MSPs will have a sales team. There could still be a bunch of techies that are jack of all trades, wearing multiple hats, spinning the plates, whatever. But whoever your sales function is or sales team is you need to make sure that the tech you are selling and how you support it is echoed through the people talking about it. So there's no point in having, someone sells something and then you can't deliver it because they don't align. Yeah. Okay. We all use similar technologies and similar stacks, especially with Microsoft, but there's different ways you can skin a cap. So if a sales team has said X, Y, Z, and your A, B, C and delivering it, you need to make sure that it works. So definitely get your tech team, sit down with your sales team and just go okay, if you're going to sell this is what it can do. Now you do the magic and sell it.

IAN: Amazing, brilliant stuff. That's great. Yeah. I think we're done.

NEIL: Deep breath. Woosah.

IAN: That was amazing. Neil, thank you ever so much. It was an absolute whistle stop, but every single minute was a bucket ladder value. Because I know that MSPs and MSPs struggled with this. Off the top of your head, what would be the three things that you would Advise every MSP to do in terms of summary off the back of this podcast.

NEIL: So whitespace Matrix, look at the quick wins, get the whitespace matrix up. Down the side, your customers across the top the products that you offer, fill them in, who has what If there's some white space, why is the white space, why are your clients not buying all your services?

IAN: Yeah.

NEIL: Get that done and dusted. Secondly, I would say if you're not niching down, focus on who you enjoy working with. As we said earlier, make sure that if you work well with them and you seem to know a bit more about that, interesting the other ones. Go for it. Yeah. Put some more effort into that particular area for clients or whatever. And thirdly, just carry on doing a good job. It worked for us for the total time that I was there. Just do the job you paid to do a little bit better than the other guys. A bit more attention to detail, a bit more accountability communication, communicate well with your clients even if it's good or bad news. They'll still love you for it. Even, you can't connect to your VPN for whatever reason. It's not a problem. I'll report back in an hour. Before you know it, they're in on holiday in Cyprus, able to watch their favorite websites.

IAN: Lovely stuff. Again. Thank you, Neil for your help today, putting this show together and thank and it's been absolutely brilliant.

NEIL: Yeah, really enjoyed. Thank you.

IAN: If people want to continue the conversation, learn a little bit more about your story, learn about what they should be doing now, or what you are doing at MSP Clarity how do they get in contact with you? Easiest

NEIL: way, just drop me an email. So I'm on LinkedIn. You'll find me on there or neil@MSPclarity.co uk.

IAN: Fantastic. All the best with everything that's going on in your new world.

NEIL: Thank you.

IAN: I'm sure that on the back of this podcast there will be lots of questions and advice and support that you can provide the channel, which I know you're a massive advocate in doing just that. And yeah, we look forward to catching up with you real soon.

NEIL: Yeah, you too.

IAN: Thanks again, mate. Take care. See you.

OUTRO: 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 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.