EP259 - How to Attract Endless Customers Into Your MSP with Marcus Sheridan and Ian Luckett

IAN: In this episode of the IT Experts podcast, we've got a special one for you. We're going to share with you how to get endless customers coming towards your MSP.

INTRO: Welcome to the IT Experts podcast, the only podcast to help MSPs scale to 1 million, and if already there, get to five and go faster at the end of the day. Isn't it all about building a business that works for you rather than you for it? I hope you enjoy the show.

IAN: So good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Welcome to the IT Experts podcast. Possibly one of the most exciting podcasts I'm doing. I'm going to try and keep my feet on the ground. One foot is at least anyway, as I welcome the amazing Marcus Sheridan from ‘They Ask, You Answer’.. now, ‘Endless Customers’ into the podcast lounge. Welcome, Marcus. How you doing today?

MARCUS: Ian? I'm doing great and I got a feeling we're going to have an incredibly productive conversation one that helps your audience take immediate action. And I think that's what it's all about, right? It's like we want stuff that we can do and that we can do right away that's going to help our business.

IAN: Absolutely. Absolutely. And thank you very much for your time today doing this. I'm sure if it's early morning there, but you're over one side of that big bit of water and we're over the other. So thank you. Thank you again for that now. I think to start with, I think the most important thing is to is to set the scene here, Marcus, you've authored two incredibly amazingly successful books, both of them I've read. And that is an accolade in itself because I don't read books because I just don't have time. I don't sit down long enough and it just doesn't get my attention. But these grappled me and one of our clients mentioned it. They ask you answer about four years ago. But in your own words, just explain to the audience why they need to understand the kind of, the principles, the concept of this amazing marketing content, it's the generation of that connection with your audience, why things have just changed so much and what you did with these two great books.

MARCUS: Yeah, I think we've really become digital buyers. And if everyone just looks in the mirror, they can generally see that in some pretty interesting trends that are noteworthy in the world today. One let me just share a couple one is the typical buyer is 80% through the buyer's journey. Before they reach out and talk to the company itself. So in other words, before they fill out that form on your website or before they call you and say, Hey, I'm interested in having a conversation, they're generally about 80% through that buyer's journey. That number's it is growing all the time. Yeah. And that's not going to slow down, It was much lower 20 years ago than it is today, and it's going to be higher in 20 years than it is now. And so people are not going to slow down this desire to become informed. So many folks these days are what I would call INFOVORES. They're just trying to get all the information they can. So as to be more informed in essentially not make a mistake with the purchases. That's one major trend. Another major trend I think is very noteworthy is 75% of all buyers today say they would prefer to have a seller free sales experience. And what does that mean? It doesn't mean that we hate salespeople, it just means we don't want to talk to a salesperson until we're ready, until we're confident, until we're comfortable, until we feel like we're informed. And again, until we feel like we're not going to make a mistake. So when a company understands these two things, you say to yourself, okay, I need to win the 80%. I need to make sure that as they're learning all these things, that they're going to learn it from me. Now, of course, what's really been the curve ball, if you will, if I can use that analogy? The change in the tide has been AI and what it will do to the way you and I search, for the better part of 20 plus years, Ian marketing has not changed very much actually.

IAN: No.

MARCUS: We had to make two entities happy. We had to make the customer happy and we had to make Google happy.

IAN: Yep.

MARCUS: Now, of course, there's other factors there, but those were the big two.

IAN: Yeah.

MARCUS: And the way we made Google happy is we either produced content and we might call that content marketing or SEO, right? Search engine optimization or we gave Google money, and that is called paid ads. And where it gets very interesting is every single day, more and more people. Are shifting over from searching on Google and looking at a mountain of Blue links to get their answer to just getting their answer. Yeah, and of course that's where AI ChatGPT comes into play. We know right now studies have been out that say one in four people prefer ChatGPT Over Google. I have polled my last 3000 audience members. I speak full time. And so over the last month I've spoken to about 3000 people. And of those 3000, 50% of them said, I now prefer using ChatGPT over Google because I poll every single audience. So what does this mean for the future, Ian? What this means is that the future of your business is going to be very different the last 20 years. In terms of the way you get found, known and recommended. And if AI isn't recommending you, and if you're not the answer, instead of just one of the blue links, you're going to be in trouble. And the other problem is, at least currently, you can't pay your way out of it. You can't just say, I'm going to throw a bunch of money and I'm going to get visitors to my website. By doing that's not going to be the case in 3, 4, 5 years when people are no longer using Legacy Search IE, legacy Google, and have transitioned to this immediate answer environment ecosystem, which we're clearly headed towards.

IAN: Yeah. It's such an interesting time because it's, and I sound, I don't sound, I feel really old every time I have these conversations with people about how quickly AI's moving and, I talk to my kids about this and you go, I remember a time when we didn't have a mobile phone and I'd say to my wife, I'll meet you at the pub at seven. I met her at the pub at seven. It wasn't five past seven, it wasn't 10 to seven, it was seven. And I knew she'd be there. Why do I know that she was going to be there? Because she told me she was going to be there. I didn't need to track her. I didn't need to WhatsApp her. I didn't need to do all of this stuff. And to them, it's completely alien. And to live in a world these days where you can say, I remember a time before AI is really? It's what? But, and then seeing the speed of it and the accuracy and, we've been training chat now for what, two years? Two and a half years, something like that. And, for the inspiration and the polishing, it's amazing. But you know what people think and you'll get a couple of name drops in there. Our good friend Paul Green mentioned there was a keynote I was watching where he's was mentioning the word slop, which is just so much crap that's just coming out from people's content, straight from AI, straight to the screens. We need to make sure we maintain that. And one of the things I really want to get out of today's show is helping MSPs and the IT support businesses understand that, the 80% that Marcus has just mentioned, which by the way has gone up in, gone up 10% in the last two years because probably has, as they ask you, answer is 70 and now it's 80. And I'm not at all surprise, you go on holiday and you want to go to a restaurant, what's the first thing you do? You got a trip advisor. You go to the one that's got the most amount of reviews, you don't even know any of these people. You don't even met them. You probably wouldn't even want to spend five minutes with them. But they're telling you on where you to spend your money. So it's that trust, isn't it? Let's just, let's talk about, the relationship for an MSP with their end customer is one of you are my technical expert. I don't know what you do, but I know what you're going to do to help my business. So therefore, I need to trust you. I need to like you and, I need to know and trust as we say, but we know that MSPs are not the most extroverted, outgoing technical people and telling them, Hey, we're going to do some LinkedIn posts today, guys, let's go and do some speaking. It's like they turn around and go the other way. So how are we supposed to now operate this big machine that's not out of control, but out of our control to help build trust, build those relationships? When we haven't even spoken to them. How do MSPs do that?

MARCUS: If you think about if somebody is having, let's just call it problems with technology, right? And they know they need to find help with this, there's a series of questions that they have. And in every industry there is a shared pattern of the way buyers get their information. Specifically, we know there's five subject areas that potential buyers or customers look for when they are vetting a company and trying to choose a business to work with.

IAN: Yeah.

MARCUS: And here they are as buyers consumers, what we want is, number one, we want to understand pricing and cost, and we do a lot of research on that. Number two, we want to understand problems IE fears, we want those addressed. What could go wrong in other words, right? Number three, we love to compare things online. So comparisons and versus we're constantly comparing things, companies versus companies, products versus products, et cetera. Number four, you mentioned it, reviews. We love reviews. What's interesting about reviews, Ian is oftentimes. We don't just want the positive reviews, we want the negative reviews. And many people start with the negative. Because again, they want to know what could go wrong. And then finally, number five. Best, best, most top. We love to research and find out who the best for that particular thing is. So that's why there's a lot of, I could see somebody searching, best MSP for hospitals. That is absolutely a common search. And the question is, what is AI recommending and what is Google showing? So your job is to say. All right, I know the buyer's asking these questions. Now I have a choice, choices is I could be the ostrich with my head in the sand and not address them, or I can openly talk about them. Yeah. And I can tell you the ostrich doesn't become that most known and trusted brand in their market. And if you want to become the most known and trusted brand in your market, and that's the payoff of that endless customer system, then you've got to be willing to say things that others aren't willing to say.

IAN: Yep.

MARCUS: And show things that others aren't willing to show. And it starts with these five subjects. Now, obviously the most controversial for MSPs is the money conversation. This is ever since I started teaching about trust, transparency, the psychology of the buyer, I've had resistance with this subject, and yet at the same time, I've helped many companies make many millions, and that's not an exaggeration on addressing the subject of cost and price. Now, let's, for those that are listening to this and saying, you don't understand my business, you don't understand my buyer, first, you got to understand that everything I'm about to tell you is going to help you win more trust. And if I said to you, is trust fundamental to your business as an MSP today? You'd say, of course. If I said to you, is it going to be fundamental in 10, 20 years, you'd say, yes it is Marcus. So I'm going to show you how you can become the most known and trusted voice in your market. Whether or not you follow, it's up to you, but it's a proven system. So if you're open-minded, you're going to be into it. If you're close-minded and you're the dinosaur, you know you, you'll reap what you sow. And I just want to be honest because this is the future and this is where it's going. So when it comes to cost and price. If somebody has a problem, okay, and they know they need to buy something, there is a first question that comes out of their head. It's the first question out of your head, Ian. Yeah, it's the first question out of my head, and of course the question is roughly what's this going to cost?

IAN: Yeah.

MARCUS: The first question of the buyer's journey, so that question, if you look at the buyer's journey, that question's like the gateway to the buyer's journey. And if they can't open that gate, then they don't go down the path. At least they don't go down the path with you. Now, let's also analyze each of our own behaviors. If I said to your listeners, have you researched how much something costs online at any point in the last year, they'd all say yes. Now, if I said, and when you're researching cost and price. You can't find it on a website. What's the emotion you experience? They'd say, I get very frustrated if I said, why do you get frustrated? You'd say because I'm the buyer. I'm trying to make a buying decision. I'm trying to give you my money. You're making it really hard. Yes. So in that moment of frustration, do you, as the buyer, do you as the search, or do you say to yourself, I'm sure it's on this website somewhere, I'm just going to keep on looking for it. No, you're not going to stay on that website. In fact, we know the average person will stay on a website looking for cost and price. For about 10 seconds until they leave. Okay. Now, if I said to you in that moment of frustration, do you, as the buyer, do you as a searcher, do you say to yourself of course they're not talking about cost and price, they're a value-based service business. I'm going to call them on the phone instead. Again, the answer is no, because what's going to happen, what's going to happen is the buyer you're going to continue to search and you're going to search until you find what you're looking for. And generally speaking, whoever gives you what you're looking for, they are going to get your business. And if not your business, they're going to get first contact, first phone call. Now, that's how we all behave, Ian. That's how we prefer it to be done. Notwithstanding. If I asked your listener base right now, how many of you heavily address the subject of cost and price on your website right now, the high majority would say no, we don't do that, or We couldn't do that, or You don't understand. Again, I do understand. I've been in this game and I've definitely had a lot of folks. I wouldn't say necessarily a ton, but I've certainly had some great. I've done some great work within the MSP space. I've got some really cool case studies that applied. They ask you answering endless customers. So I've seen this work now. Let's keep going with this because your audience isn't sold yet, Ian, and it's my job to convince them of the right path. There's three reasons why if someone's listening to this right now, they don't want to talk about cost and price. Let's debunk. Each one, right? First reason why they say I can't do it is because every job is different, as they say in my wonderful friendly land of the UK they say it's very bespoke, right? We have a very bespoke solution, which I love that phrase...

IAN: A cup of tea with our little finger holding out.

MARCUS: Yeah. I love the phrase, I love the word bespoke. It makes me sound more intelligent, right? Which is actually true. It someone has an English accent. It's naturally everybody's that's why Simon Sinek is so smart. It's because of his accent. It's not because of his content, it's because of his accent. It's quite funny though. He is actually quite smart. Both reasons. Alright every job is different. Let's talk about that one. If I came to you as an MSP and I said, can you help me understand all the factors that drive the cost of your service up. Could you explain that somebody? Yeah, of course. I could explain it. Could you explain the factors that would drive the cost down? Yeah, of course I could explain that. Could you explain to me why some people in your industry are more expensive and why other companies are less expensive? Yeah, I could explain that and we could go on and on. Could you gimme a rough sense of what your average customer spends? I'm seeing a big range. Yeah, of course I could do that. And this is stuff that we do all the time when we're talking to people, potential customers in person. Now, that's the first one. It's actually very easy to address the whole conversation of why it depends and if you don't address it, the issue, Ian, is that it commoditizes your service offering because if someone is too ignorant to know the difference between MSPs, what they end up doing. They end up choosing based on price. That's what commoditizes ignorance, giving price or talking about pricing better stated doesn't commoditize something. Like uneducation not helping someone understand value, that's what commoditizes, so in the course of explaining why things cost, where the cost within the world of technology and MSP, that's the starting point. Now, number two reason why we don't talk about cost and price is we say my competitors will see it. What's funny about that is if you talk to most people that have been in the game any period of time, they'll tell you that they've got a pretty good sense as to what their competitors charge. And if you've got a good sense as to what they charge, they've got a good sense as to what you charge isn't a secret. And besides that, we should not be allowing the competition to dictate, whether or not we win the trust of the buyer. In fact, they shouldn't be our compass. Our compass is the buyer, not the competitor. Third reason why folks listening to this say we can't talk about is because we tend to be on the more expensive side, and if they see we're more expensive, we'll scare them away. No, what we all just agreed just a minute ago, Ian, was the thing that actually scares us away as buyers consumers is when we go online and we can't find something, when we can't get basic information, that's what scares us away. You know when my swimming pool company, for those that don't know me, I started with a swimming pool company. When we embraced, they ask you answer. We were the first company, pool company in the world. To discuss how much does an in ground fiberglass pool cost?

IAN: Yeah.

MARCUS: Of course. I didn't say the exact price, but I gave all the explanations of what drives cost up and down and a different sense for projects, et cetera, et cetera. Make a long story short, because of advanced analytics, we know that one single article that I wrote over 10 years ago generated over $35 million in revenue for my little swimming pool company in Virginia. All because we were the first one to discuss cost and price.

IAN: Yeah.

MARCUS: Now there's a few things that have evolved around this. Like the big issue, Ian, is someone hears this and I swear, I don't know why, but they'll say, Marcus said, I got to give my pricing. I did not say that y'all. What I said was you have to educate the market.

IAN: Yep.

MARCUS: You have to un help them understand what drives cost up and down. And yes, you should give general ranges so as to address that initial gateway question, roughly what does it cost? Okay. This is also why within the MSP space, what is going to be table stakes in the next few years will be pricing estimators. I'm telling you it's coming. I've been working with my friend Paul Green on this because I got an AI tool called Price Guide and Paul has built one specifically for MSPs.

IAN: Yep.

MARCUS: And so we've worked with him on this. Here's what we know when it comes to pricing estimators and I've got almost a thousand customers with this tool now across a myriad of industries. What we know is that it generally triples the leads you get on your website the day you add it. So hypothetically, if your website is getting five legitimate leads per week, right now, if you add a pricing estimator, you're going to be getting roughly 15 a week. Now do the math on that, Ian. We're talking if someone closes, let's say two out of 10 leads. All right. And you're getting now 10 more leads a week. That means you're getting two more closes or customers per week. That means a hundred customers per year. If you take the average lifetime value of a customer, how much revenue does that equate to? And what's wild to me, Ian, is people will wait until all their competitors have a pricing estimator because they're so afraid because they've never seen anybody do it before, and then they will end up losing a tremendous opportunity because what will become you know what is now unheard of, will become the norm. Just like in 2000 many MSPs said, I don't need a website. What happens to all those companies? They all ended up getting a website. This is going to become table stakes and the conversation of pricing will be table stakes. Mark my words. It's going to happen.

IAN: Absolutely. And I can't believe that bloody Paul Green has got a reverse. He gets into my podcast wherever he is. He's just, and it is the Paul Green, you all know through MSP Marketing Edge. And he's a good friend of ours, as because we just constantly take the Mickey out of here and he is doing some work with Marcus, which go and check that out. We'll put some links in and things like that. It's really interesting actually a, the whole thing. We were just talking about the cost and price, because before I actually read, they ask you answer. We were just like that. And very much of the opinion that, people don't understand the value. So if you put the price in, they're just going to think it's too expensive and they're not going to get it and all of this kind of thing. But that's because we were missing the whole education piece about it, and now, we've got an amazing, another little plug. The ultimate MSP growth guide, guess what that does? It educates you because

MARCUS: Very cool.

IAN: It might not be a right fit, and that's cool because you might, we might want to refer you to somebody else and now we have that...

MARCUS: Ian, what you just described is a very big deal. Over 90% of MSPs do not address the singular question that oftentimes wins the most trust, other than pricing, which is who are you not a good fit for? The moment you're willing to say who you're not a good fit for as a business, is the moment you become dramatically more attractive to those who you are a good fit for. So this is like you showing that example. Plug that again. What was that called?

IAN: It's The ultimate MSP Growth guide. So I love that it's choosing the right support when you are ready. So we only want people who are ready to grow your MSP.

MARCUS: So smart and what you're doing there is, correct me if I'm wrong, in many ways you're teaching potential clients.

IAN: Yep.

MARCUS: How to make a buying decision. And what we're saying to the MSPs is, also teach your clients how to make a buying decision. This is, it's so incredibly effective to do, and having a tool like that, an estimator is just extraordinarily powerful. I talk about in endless customers self-service tools, which in many ways are the future of the way people buy. A self-service tool is a tool that goes on your website that allows someone to take an action or get an answer that previously they would've had to have gotten by talking to someone first. Now, a pricing estimator is a classic example of that. Another example of that would be a recommendation tool or a, what we call in the book of self-selection tool. Let give you an example. There's a lot of people, Ian, that are like, should I be working with an MSP or should I be handling this in-house? That's a huge percentage of the potential clients of MSPs. Correct. Would you agree with that?

IAN: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

MARCUS: Now, the issue is if they ask you and you give an answer, they're more likely to think it's biased because it's coming from you.

IAN: Yeah.

MARCUS: Whereas, let's be hypothetical. Let's say you had a tool on your website and that tool says, is working with an MSP right for me? Get your honest assessment here. Okay. And what they do is they answer a series of questions. And those questions would be key indicators that either yes or no, and it needs to be both, it is or is not right for them. An example of this, again, with my pool company, with my pool company, there's three types of inground pools in the world. Basically. There's concrete, there's vinyl liner, and there's fiberglass. I sell fiberglass. In the US, 18, 19% of the market chooses fiberglass. I have a tool on the site that through a series of questions, interactive questions for the potential customer, they can get a recommendation based on your answers. We would recommend that you get a vinyl, a concrete, a fiberglass pool, and every single day. What's wild, Ian, is we actually recommend to people don't buy fiberglass.

IAN: Don't buy one of our pools.

MARCUS: Yeah, that's right. But by doing that, we become the voice of trust for humans, for legacy search and for AI. See, this is possible for anyone. And oh, by the way, Ian, anybody that's listening to this right now could go to Claude or ChatGPT and say, Hey, can you help me build an interactive tool for my website that helps people choose whether or not they should work with a managed service provider. I want it to be unbiased. And I wanted to give them a clear recommendation as to what they recommend and why they make that recommendation in terms of yay or nay. After they've completed the tool, you could build that right now with AI and. You don't have to hire a developer to do it, everyone, right? Those are great tools for AI to build very quickly without spending 10,000 pounds by hiring an agency to do that for you. All right? This is what's possible these days. It's what buyers want. They want to feel like you've given them more control by you giving them more control, they actually become more invested in you, that's called sunk cost fallacy. And as that sunk cost, because they've invested more time working with you and your tools before they even met you. Now they love you. And oh, by the way, when you meet with them, you're not convincing them that they need to work with an MSP because they said, Hey, I already did that little tool on your website. I know I need to work with an MSP and I'll, I did that estimator tool. I really appreciate that. You were the only one that was willing to do that. And so I've got a sense for pricing. I know I know I want to get a quote from you guys, can we make this happen? That's the ideal right there, Ian. That's what we want.

STUART INTERRUPT: Hey, just a quick one from me, for everybody that's listening, Stuart here. If you're serious about growing your MSP, but you're not sure what helps right for you, then just grab our ultimate MSP Growth Guide. It's a really simple way to check out what's out there for support that could really help you work. There's no fluff. There's no filler, just facts. Or alternatively, if you want to meet us face to face and see how we do things up close, come along to one of our events. They're regularly put on, they're all in the links below. Go check them out, and now it's back to the show.

IAN: Thanks, Stuart.

Perfect. As we know, this conversation could go on as long as the audio book. What I want to just touch on now is many men and that's brilliant. And I think if you're loving that, then you guys need to get hold of this book because it's got, every single page has got as much golden nuggets and value in for MSPs as that MSPs, they, 90% of MSPs build their businesses through referrals. When someone comes and starts working with us, they normally say, Hey, I just need some more leads. They come in and then before they know it, they spend the next 18 months getting their business in order without doing anything on sales and marketing. Then they come and that's what the session we've got shortly with our clients is where we are walking them through the marketing journey and the marketing functions. Which is amazing because you see their eyes light up and we're helping them with that. But if we were to just help them with one part of marketing today, which is how do you educate through your content? I think this is one of the hardest things. They go, oh, how do I put what do you mean I've got to put a post together, a LinkedIn, I've got to write an email. Yeah. How can we help them just go, here's the formula this is why it's hard, this is what you need to do and this is what you're going to get. What does that look like, Marcus?

MARCUS: The easiest way to do this and arguably the most effective, the most time efficient way to do this. I've created a free tool. It's built as a custom GPT within ChatGPTs and for those that don't know what a custom GPT is, it's essentially a tool that's been built within the ChatGPT ecosystem that uses ChatGPT, but it has a very specialized skillset. Now this particular tool I believe it's called Endless content titles by Marcus Sheridan. And all you have to do is if you go to ChatGPT and you do a search in GPTs for Marcus Sheridan, you'll find the different GPTs I've built for you in your business.

IAN: Amazing.

MARCUS: The very high majority, an MSP could use. I've got one that'll help you create the perfect pricing page. I've got one that'll help you create a series of videos that no one has ever created within the MSP space. It's called Show What Others won't show. It's very powerful and all you have to do is you go into the Custom GPT and the one that is the one for titles. All you have to do is say, I'm an MSP. I'm located in this area. Here's my URL. I want you to come up with content titles for my business, and it's as if I am with you by your side, giving you direct advice from my brain. Because for years, people will tell me, I'm doing the ask, you answer, I'm doing endless customers. I look at their content titles and I'm like, Nope, you don't get it. And this fixes it all, and I'm giving it all away for free.

IAN: Amazing.

MARCUS: So now you can go and I, like I said, just putting your business, your industry where you are, and it will create these titles. Now, once you have the titles, you're like, wow, what I want you to do, is every day I want you to pull out your cell phone and I want you to look at one of those titles and then I want you to just answer it on your phone without overcomplicating it. Literally talk to your phone. Start with a question. Are you wondering, are you asking yourself? Are you thinking about, do you wish you could know whatever it is, and follow the titles that you've been given?

IAN: Yeah. Yeah.

MARCUS: And then answer it like you would a customer sitting with you in the cafe and do it in a relaxed way, and take that one video and hire someone to upload it to your social media channels in your YouTube page and put it on your website. That's it. It should not take more than 10 minutes a day if you don't have 10 minutes a day. Oh, by the way, it shouldn't take multiple takes because if I came up to you and I asked these questions, you would just riff it out. So you do this in one take, and then you send it off to your video social person, whoever it is, whether you're, you've outsourced it or in social, I don't care. But now you spend 10 minutes a day and you're becoming one of the premier thought leaders in your space.

IAN: Yep.

MARCUS: And every time you put this out there, it's a trust signal that AI should recommend you, that humans can recommend you as well. Extremely powerful.

IAN: Absolutely. So in terms of, that's given us the how, but in terms of the principles of you building the, what does educational content look like when they're faced with this wall? What are some of the principles that that you embed within both books to help with build that trust in terms of the topics and the frameworks and the methodology.

MARCUS: That's the thing. That tool is going to give you all the topics. Okay. That's going to break down the big five in your industry in a way that you couldn't have done it yourself. So it handles the core framework of saying and showing what others won't. That's the big five we mentioned earlier. It's going to make it for you, your business as an MSP. Now, when you do these though, the key, the natural principles of communication, and this is a mistake that a lot of people in technology make, is they just don't know how to dumb it down so that the audience understands what they're saying. What makes me an effective communicator, Ian, is I say things in a way that people can understand them. I am not the smartest marketer. I'm certainly not the smartest when it comes to AI, but I'm very known on the speaking circuit, I'm known as a, you might call a thought leader. And I say that because it's true, it's not a brag, it's just true. I accept it for what it is. And it happened because I understand how to take a complex subject and explain it in a way that people understand it.

IAN: Yeah.

MARCUS: So the issue that almost anyone has within the world of technology is that oftentimes they suffer from the curse of knowledge.

IAN: Yep.

MARCUS: The curse of knowledge is knowing what you know and thinking everyone else knows what you know, and then talking to it like everyone else knows what, just the majority of people don't even know what an MSP is. They don't know what it is I owned a business for, it wasn't until I was a professional speaker 15 years after I started my pool company. I even knew what an MSP was.

IAN: Yeah.

MARCUS: So that's a classic case of an acronym that leads to the curse of knowledge that leads to many people saying, I don't even know that. See, a lot of people when they go online and they search, they're not searching for an MSP, they're searching for a solution to the problem that they're happy. It just happens to be fixed by in most cases an MSP, right?

IAN: Yeah. Yeah.

MARCUS: So these are the things that people have to understand. Lesson there. When you produce this content, remember it's dumb not to dumb it down. It's dumb not to dumb it down. The goal is not to sound smart. The goal is to be understood if you can be understood, unlike the majority of your competitors, which you're going to speak above their potential customers. If you speak at a level they can understand. Then you're going to have significant success.

IAN: Absolutely. Love that. And one of the things I just want to touch on that, we are very fortunate, in the industry that we are in, we've got a team. And we get that we're a media company, right? That's like where this is all going. And when we originally adopted, they ask you answer you got this long list of things as I read an audio book, I'm typing away there. You've got this long list and then you've got this, you look at this list and you go, oh my God, I need, look at all these people. I need to recruit. And then you go, no, I don't need to recruit them. These are just functions. Just share with me your principles around the fact that it's every single person's responsibility, ability, opportunity in the business to help create the content, build the trust, connect with people. We say to our MSPs, go to see your service desk at the end of the week and find out what their biggest pain was. Write it down. How did it overcome? Do a bit of content about it. Talk to me about the team and the role and the functions that you recommend with this.

MARCUS: Yeah it's a really great point, Ian, and this is why you do great work for your clients because you see it across the board, it's way more than just marketing because everyone within the company is in sales and everyone's in marketing. Everyone that is a subject matter expert can and should be participating with marketing so that they can take the information that's in their head and get it up on that digital screen. So that it can address a question of worry, of fear, an issue of concern that a potential customer has. The fact of the matter is too, oftentimes we leave it up to that person or person, sons in marketing to do this. They're not thought leaders, they're not experts. At least they're not subject matter experts when it comes to technology, they're marketers, so let them do marketing. Their job is to help you look smart. Your job is to help build the brand of the entire organization, through the information and the expertise in your head, and deliver a tremendous customer experience. That's your job as the team member of the organization that you're currently a part of. If you're the CEO of your company, your primary job is to ensure lead flow because everything starts and stops with leads. You have no leads, you die, period. Full stop. That's how it works in business. So that's why the primary duty of any CEO is to generate dang leads. That's it. And you do all these things. You create a culture where everyone realizes we impact the brand, I am part of the brand. And ideally what happens is maybe an hour a month each one of those subject matter experts meets with someone in marketing who interviews them. You can take that interview, you can transcribe it, you can turn it into an article, into a video, into a post, and all that person did was show up and use the thing that's in their head to explain something in a way that the masses could understand and get a problem resolved. That's powerful. Most companies sadly don't do that. It does help to, obviously, if someone's listening to this right now and they're thinking, ah, this makes sense, we should do that. But if you don't take the time to explain these things as we've explained them today to your team, you're going to get resistance. And so you got to help them understand the what, the how, and the why. Absolutely.

IAN: Absolutely. And it's really interesting the change that's happening, in just two years or three years, it's gone from 70 to 80%. Some MSPs are saying that within the next five or 10 years, the number of MSPs is going to be reduced because of AI. I don't necessarily believe that. I think there still needs to be some intervention in that. I think they'll become slicker, more profitable and a different model.

MARCUS: I actually agree with you. I do think AI is certainly affecting certain industries. I think MSPs will be affected less, there could be greater need, in fact. But. At the same time, that's why MSPs should be experts when it comes to integrating AI into technology because that's what the companies are going to be looking for. So if you're an antiquated MSP, you're going to probably have problems. But if you're a very forward thinking, progressive when it comes to how you're integrating AI into your services and helping your clients to take advantage of artificial intelligence with their technology. Then you're probably going to be very successful, more than ever, maybe.

IAN: Yeah it's quite interesting. We've, since in the last couple of years, we've never had, we've never been in the position where we've closed people. We've had as many people that we've closed into the program or join the program from an intro call from the first contact. And when you look and you reflect on that, you think. Wow, how did that happen? But then they've been following the podcast, they've been watching the videos, they've been on LinkedIn, they've been at a few events. And that's this 60 to 70 to 80%, isn't it? That's right. And then you walk in, I'll be interested to get your view on the, the future of sales. So we talk about sales and marketing, but it really should be marketing and sales, shouldn't it? Because if the marketing does its job properly and you're educating and you're doing all of these great things we've talked about already, then it should just be either I'm going to buy it myself or actually just going to need an order taker. Is there, do you see the sales functions feathering off as time goes on? What's your kind of take on that?

MARCUS: I definitely see the sales function remaining quite strong for many. Services, especially complex services for stuff that is, very transactional. I don't think there's as much of a place there, every MSP knows that oftentimes the client thinks they need something. You go in there and you look at it and they need something very different. They were mistaken, they were wrong. People are inherently, even though they will consume a lot of information, they still miss stuff. And they misunderstand things. And so they're going to need that really strategic guide, I've got a sales coaching company and I am seeing tremendous opportunity. I don't think that's, it's going down. The issue is this, most salespeople are not effective at challenging what the client thinks they need. And MSPs have to improve that, right? Okay. Because what you can't be is an order taker. You've got to be an authority. An authority that's respected by the client. They have to see you as a strategic guide, advisor, and sales is a part of that. If you don't reach that level with your authority, you're going to have a problem. And truth be told, and you know this is a Pandora's box, we don't have time to talk about it, but. When it comes to the world of MSP, most salespeople within that space have sales trainings on average two times a year or less. I'm not talking about sales meetings, I'm talking about sales trainings. Two times a year or less. So what does that mean, Ian? They're practicing selling on their customers, to me, that's a crime.

IAN: Yeah. Yeah. I get that. Yeah.

MARCUS: Big issue. As someone that has all a huge amount of now clients that we just do sales and leadership communication training for, we're bringing that back. Because it was a big, it was like a dearth of it in the marketplace. But yeah, if you're listening to this right now and your sales team is doing anything less than one sales training a week, you're losing a ton of revenue for your company because you've gotten lazy. When it comes to your sales culture. And yes, you should be hard on yourself for that because it's not Okay. Especially as a CEO, that's not, okay.

IAN: Business is just moving so quickly, isn't it? Even in six months time it'll be changing and it'll be adapting and people will be saying different things. And if you are, what you're saying is that if you are still training in the same thing that was happening a year ago or six months ago, you're missing out. What's happening dynamically. You've got to be dynamic in this, haven't you?

MARCUS: You've got to be very dynamic, especially with what, what's happening with the changing buyer. But certain elements of communication are very evergreen. And we just stopped training those.

IAN: Yeah.

MARCUS: There's way more sales training in the 1980s and the nineties than there are in the 2020s. That's not okay. Because everything starts to become very transactional in the way that it feels. And you got salespeople that don't understand how to do discovery. If you understand how to run an MSP business very well, your discovery is such, and it's so powerful that it makes the person say, oh my gosh, no one has asked us these questions. No one showed us this and helped us realize this, that we've talked to, and because you've generated so much respect because you've discovered things that they had no idea of.

IAN: Yeah.

MARCUS: Versus again, just being an order taker. Now you, that relationship is really built to last and you've become indispensable. That is a lost art that we see.

IAN: Amazing. Marcus incredible conversation, as I said, could have gone on for much, much longer. Thank you again for your time and expertise. Thank you for putting two of the most amazing books, I think, out there in the marketplace to help people with this subject of marketing and trust and all of that kind of great stuff because it's so hard. What final thoughts and actions have you got for our MSP audience today?

MARCUS: I really hope that you try some of these tools that we've talked about. Listen, if you're having a lead problem, I can tell you right now, quickest fix is an estimator. There's no question about that. Also, if you want to do something that is going to help you level set and see where you are, I've got a tool that's called aitrustsignals.com. It's very powerful and it gives you a free score that shows you how likely AI is to recommend you. And so you can find it @itrustsignals.com and that'll be a starting point for many of you because you'll get your score and you'll see action items to take and the things that you need to fix in terms of your digital presence. Because when the day comes where the shift is made and everybody's gone from legacy Google to AI answers, you want to be the one that's being recommended. You're going to be prepared for it. Whereas your competitors are not. All right. So I would say do that and look forward to the future. Don't be a Debbie Downer. Don't be a doomed dare. It doesn't help you. And even if AI is the end of the world, gone it, take advantage of it until the Terminator comes. And then we're all gone anyway. But otherwise, it's your responsibility as a leader of your company to make sure that you're forward thinking and not stuck in the 1920s.

IAN: Absolutely love it. And I think, Marcus, that's the mic drop until the Terminator comes. Keep going, keep cracking on, keep working. Super appreciate your time this afternoon. Great to connect and have a bit of fun in the meantime. Wishing you all the success, but not only customers, but I'm sure you've got the next thing planned and all of these estimating tools and everything like that, we'll drop all of those links into the show notes. Please go and check them out. And and that's it from me today. Thanks again, Marcus. I look forward to catching up with you really shortly. You take care yourself. 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 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.