EP274 - Inside the MSP Growth Hub - Insights from January 2026 Client Intensive Event

IAN: In this episode of The IT Experts Podcast, we go under the hood of the MSP Growth Hub, where we give you a roundup of our January 2026 Intensive events.

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, got Stuart back in the house and we've got all of the coaches eventually in this podcast when it gets wonderfully edited together. How are you doing today?

STUART: I'm fantastic.

IAN: Great stuff. Today we're going to talk about the event we've just had, the January 2026 Intensive.

STUART: Yes, yes yes yes.

IAN: Which was amazing, where we got all of the MSP Growth Hub clients together. This is not just another sit and watch peer group session. This is a, this is called Intensive for the reason, isn't it?

STUART: And we got that feedback.

IAN: We certainly did.

STUART: From some of the newbies who went, wow, that was intensive.

IAN: Oh my word. Yes. Where's my hair? I've got less hair than Ian now, which is great. Stuart, before we get cracking explain what is the Intensive, why do we do it, why is it important and, and kind of what's the structure?

STUART: Well, it's the fundamental pillar of the, the way in which the MSP scale system functions. So three times a year, all the clients come for two days of Intensive gathering which is a mix of content and community and socialising because it, it just takes relationships to another level. And if you're not in the room, you're missing out in kind of more than 50% of the value of what we do because it's content over lined with peer. Peer. Well, in the coaching terms it's called observational learning. The power of observational learning is you are learning from observing and listening and hearing and feeling what others are doing, who are doing exactly the same thing, on the same journey as you. And that just multiplies, magnifies the, excitement that you can get the insight that you get rather than doing it alone. And so it's such a powerful component of the MSP scale system. And the beautiful thing on the back of it is what we always a surprise by, but shouldn't be because we hear it every time, is just how powerful it is for the clients and how much the, the increasing connectivity of relationship and trust that is drawing between what you might consider from an outside perspective competitors and they are willingly working with each other to lift each other up following the frameworks that we underpin, their confidence to scale. And that means that all boats rise, everybody wins. And we get that delight of seeing some massive success turn up in their numbers and also their confidence in how they show up and the type of business that they have that they can enjoy with their family.

IAN: And it's amazing, isn't it? Because, you know, we teach our clients to fish.

STUART: Yeah.

IAN: The end outcome, the last session of the Intensive is where they rebuild their plan.

STUART: Yeah.

IAN: For the next 16 weeks, isn't it? So it's not, it's not an event that you just come along and sit there and chat and then just like rock off after having some great food and a bit of drink maybe. The output of this event is a refreshed, energised plan that they know that they can then deliver and talk a little bit about that process right at the end.

STUART: Yeah, it's completely scripted, such that you and facilitated so that you are expanded in terms of thought and idea and then it's channeled and facilitated for you to think about it specifically in your business. The fact that you are on a table or surrounded by people doing the same thing and going, oh, that's interesting. I didn't realise I needed to do this. And you're like, oh, I didn't think of that. Brilliant. I'm going to add that to my list. And that is the power of the structure of it. And so this time we were focusing, there's three core pillars to the MSP scale system. This one is harness ambition. And so this one was all about looking at, the theme of this one was about business maturity. And for that we were looking at structural maturity. We were looking at team and people maturity, and then we were looking at operational maturity. And we had three great content sessions linked around three core planning and facilitation sessions, which allowed us to flip between ideas and awareness and then implementation and actionable learning, and then finally documenting it to say, right, what am I going to do next for my next 16 week plan until we meet again. And so we had a great session from Peter on corporate governance.

IAN: Yes.

STUART: A similar session from Julie on maximising team performance and dynamics.

IAN: That was interesting.

STUART: Which was the structural side and the people team side, which always, you know, we had the real concept of risk being magnified to the whole concept of dysfunction. What dysfunction looks like in a high performing team or a low performing team. And then we focused on operational maturity and we were really excited to be able to host Darren Strong from Scalable

IAN: Yes.

STUART: To come in and bring, you know, his amazing smarts to the whole concept of operating maturity, because they exist to help MSPs harness the power of the PSA, so that every aspect of the business is connected to the system. And if it's connected to the system and you're getting the right data, feeding between sales from in marketing, from finance, from procurement, account management, help desk projects, it means you as the business owner, have got better insight on the finance, the profit, the efficiency, and the value being created such that, eventually one day after it's been a great vehicle of profit and, and return for you, you can sell it at maximum value. And the great phrase, or one of the great phrases that Darren was losing, you know, you didn't lose margin in finance. You lost it in operations.

IAN: Wow.

STUART: Just because your finance system tells you you're not making a profit or you made less profit, where did you lose it? And in many cases you're losing it in operations. And so then we, we did a deep dive and we did a great exercise for it. Got them looking at just one aspect of operations on the help desk involving the dispatcher role.

IAN: Amazing, amazing. We're going to hear from Julie and Peter in a minute.

STUART: Yep.

IAN: But for you personally, what was some of the big takeaways? What was the impact of the event on you?

STUART: Again, like, like I said at the beginning, it just took the Growth Hub's Raison Detra, which is helping people accelerate success and scale with confidence and the community side of a) we are having more people in the room than we've ever had before. But secondly, well probably primarily for me is the level of the conversation that was going on and the way in which people were helping and the way they came out. Even we have people going, right? Well, as we're part of the MSP Growth Hub, we're going to do this little group together on this other thing that they are doing with another vendor.

IAN: Yeah.

STUART: Because you said then we know each other and we know that we can trust to share you know kind of inside knowledge of what we're doing. And that kind of just, well, that's why we started this, wasn't it?

IAN: It's exactly it.

STUART: So, yeah, that was my big takeaway, just the depth of the community, the depth, the trust between them, and that just magnifies everything else that we do. So, Ian, that's me.

IAN: What about me?

STUART: What about you?

IAN: Yeah, I mean, I kind of echoing, I mean it was the biggest room that we had, which is two things, which was amazing. Which was number one, you know, welcoming in new members without kind of overwhelming them too much.

STUART: And we nearly need a bigger room.

IAN: We nearly need a bigger room. Yes. Nice.

STUART: We'll do that another time.

IAN: We'll deal, do that another time. And also the, the other thing as well that kind of struck me was we had this, I wanted to get a photograph of all the clients and I were at the front and they just kept saying, Ian, you got to move back, you got to move forward. You've got to move forwards. We can't get everybody in. And it was like, what, what? And then we just turned round, didn't we? And we saw that there was kind of like 65 MSP owners and some of their teams in the room. And that was...

STUART: It's like a wedding photo, isn't it?

IAN: It was a wedding photo. Yeah, and it was a real, a real moment for me because, you know, when we got together, you know, five years ago, whatever it might have been because I know the detail, I'm sure you tell some people at another time. Help more people, change more lives, make a bigger impact.

STUART: And have more fun.

IAN: And have more fun.

STUART: Yeah.

IAN: And we certainly did that and it was amazing. And, you know, also we got some lovely kind words, but then we got people coming up to us saying, can I do a video? Can I tell people?

STUART: Yes.

IAN: I mean, and there was the one that just smashed them all, which was the new clients Chris and Simon, who, who had just uncovered a hundred thousand pound hidden profit in the first 60 days, I think it was, which was just like, yeah, okay.

STUART: That's cool.

IAN: More of you please come forward, which is great, but that's, but that's why we do what we do. And again, I think, you know, echoing your thoughts about the community. And I really feel that this year there's, there's starting to be a bit of a step change on, on support and helping guidance for MSPs, you know, as the MSP model is changing, AI's coming in you know, recruitment's getting harder, people are getting harder to find, and also, you know, generally, you know, whether I, you know, whether I should or not say it, but, you know, a lot of the MSP owners that we have are, they're not in their twenties and their thirties. And you know of that age, which is great, without, you know, without being rude, but you get more deliberate. When, I remember when I turned 50, you just, all of a sudden you get super, super deliberate. You go, whoa, hang on, I'm like, kind of like over halfway here, you know, there's probably more behind me than there is in front. And you get more deliberate about the people that you hang around with, what you want to learn, what you want to achieve, you know, the legacy, which is the word that we use a lot of the time on, you know, on what we want to create with the Growth Hub And it just comes together with this, with this intensive event. And obviously, you know, Ian's shitty quiz as well if you haven't experienced Ian shitty quiz.

STUART: It did go to another level.

IAN: It went to another level. I kind of got a bit of not, there wasn't backlash, but it was probably retribution from the client. So any clients listening to this, you beware there will be a new revised quiz format for next time and it's going to be even more fun. But no, it's just, you know, extremely grateful to be doing what we're doing.

STUART: Yeah, very much so.

IAN: With you and the team and our clients.

STUART: And the Intensive's just top it off. Every 16 weeks you get refilled and like clients just ready for the next phase.

IAN: Absolutely. Let's hear from Julie and Peter now.

STUART: Yeah. Let's do.

IAN: Okay, next up on this week's podcast is our incredible leadership coach. Julie, welcome back into the podcast lounge. Julie.

JULIE: Hello. That's nice. Nice introduction.

IAN: Did you like that one, excellent stuff. Well, number one, she's not a stranger in the podcast lounge because Julie, you still have the most listened to episode of The IT Experts Podcast before all about having difficult conversations. So if you're having difficult conversations with your team. Go and listen to that show. It's incredible. But in anyway, bringing into line what we're talking about today, Julie, we've just had the amazing Intensive, as you know, and you did as usual. You did an incredible session. You delivered an incredible session. Talk to us about what you were helping the MSPs in the room do this time.

JULIE: Yeah. We were focused on maximising team performance, but I have a phrase of the day, in fact, it's my phrase of the week which is, it's not just the function, it's the fields, okay. And really this is, you know, a lot of what we were talking about here is about actually, you know, we can set up all these things, these systems and processes and, you know, we think we've got everything down and we know how to do stuff. But actually for people to help us and the team to do the things that we want to do, we have to have the feels as well. And it sounds a bit pink and fluffy, but it's not. And that's the, the profit is in the people. And so what we were talking about was. Specifically around the five co behaviours of a cohesive team, because if you don't get those right, then you are going to struggle. You're going to have a dysfunctional team and so, you know, needing to build up, how that team trusts you, how you work together, how you have good, you just talked about difficult conversations there, how you have difficult conversations, how you get people to commit to what they're meant to be doing and what you're meant to be doing, and how you get people to be accountable and to have those conversations so that you can all focus on the results that you, that you are trying to achieve together. And that's the feels not the function. And, and so what we were saying was you've got to look at the team and ask yourself the question like, do we trust each other? Have we got accountability? Can we have those difficult conversations? because if the answer is no, you need to do some stuff around that. And in order to help everybody to do that was to look at, well, how do I need to show up if, if I'm going to do that? I need to be or, or do. And we dived into one area, which was called radical, which is a wonderful thing, which is about caring for people and having empathy. Oh, dare I say those were the words?

IAN: Yeah, be careful on the fluffy words, please, we don't want too much love today. Thank you.

JULIE: But, but how can I actually have some empathy, but also to challenge directly and the balance of having the difficult conversations, the things that need to be said. We've able to, you know, understand where people are coming from so that you don't cause the conflict and you don't make it difficult so that people then work together, have good conversations and things get done. You know, and then, you know, it's that smoothing, oiling of the wheels, that means that everybody comes to work wanting to do the thing that they're supposed to be doing, and just getting on with it, you know.

IAN: How does this actually show up with what you are seeing with our clients and other MSPs, it's obvious, you know, what you've just discussed there is lovely because that's kind of the end result of what you want to do. But in terms of how does this present itself in day to day, someone's listening to this and going, that sounds really great, but I don't actually know, have I, I don't, I don't know if I've got a cohesive team or not. I think they're all right. I think that they do what I want them to do. But , I came up with this phrase last week in one of the podcasts, which was a "Huffometer", which was every time that you huff or you puff or you moan about something, that's a time when you need to look in the mirror and go, what's happening here? So what does a "Huffometer" look like on this one?

JULIE: Yeah, so love it. So the "Huffometer" would be going off because you got people who are spending more time like dithering about not making decisions, and you are like, why don't they just get on with it? You might have people knocking on your door asking you questions because for things that you are like, oh God, they definitely know how to do that, but they don't have the confidence to make that, take that risk. And so they're just not actually kind of like getting on it because they're too scared to take a risk, get it wrong, might say you might have people that you might have a high turnover of staff because they're leaving and you're like, why are they leaving? And they're leaving because they're not comfortable. They're leaving because they're not happy. You know, we need to put our big girl and boy pants on and realise that if people aren't happy, they're going to go. And it's, and as a leader, it's, it's generally something to do with what we're doing. You will probably see in meetings people maybe agreeing, but then nothing actually happens. And or just arguing the toss about everything and not agreeing because they don't see that clear, like, this is what we're all together in. They don't feel together in whatever it is you're trying to achieve. So you've got like a gaggle of people all doing something but not really feeling like you are actually doing it together. You know? It's a bit like the England football team, you know, they all turn up like being Madonna's, but nobody actually works like a team. You know.

IAN: I'll leave that one out there for you to get some social abuse about the England football. I think we'd all probably agree. It's quite difficult, isn't it? Because a lot of the time, you know, and I suppose gently, suggesting a pointing of the finger is, is that the reason that the team are behaving like this is because it's probably how much, how we've trained them over the past. You know, and that's how, how we've accepted this behaviour and we've not necessarily acknowledged it, but we've just let it kind of run and then it becomes a behaviour that's normal, isn't it?

JULIE: Yeah. I mean everybody that nobody comes to work to do a bad job. Right? You know, contrary to popular opinion, nobody does really, no. And so everybody comes in originally they want the job and they want to do a good job, because that's, that's what they're there for. And it makes people feel good when they do a good job. So what we all do is we survive. We just get on in the way that we think is the right thing. And if we don't have the right guidance or we're not told where the boundaries are, or we're not communicated about what is it that is expected of us. What we do is we do what we think is the right thing and, and it's the right thing according to Julie, as opposed to right thing, according to, you know, everybody. And so we are go, of course we're going to go off and veer off somewhere and do something that isn't, you know, right, because it's kind of according to me and the agenda of me, and I get what I want. But that's not a team, you know. Equally, you know, the leader of any team has got to take ownership of like, what, as you said, what am I training people to do? So what boundaries have I set? What communication have I given them? What direction have I given them? And how safe do they feel to, to get on it? You know? And if the answer is, oh yeah, you know, I'm really picky and I'm really like, I poke my nose in and I'm a bit of a control freak and I don't really tell them what I want, but I certainly moan about it when I don't get it, then you are going to get people who don't do what you want to do because they're too frightened. And we had a lovely conversation with one chap, and I won't mention any names. But he had a bit of a revelation when we were there. This just goes to show why these conversations are important and he said, you know, I used to think that my team were rubbish. I used to moan about and being rude word insert there, you know? Because he, he thought they worked.

IAN: Not good.

JULIE: Hey, not good. Yes, exactly. And then he actually in the session said, I have had a revelation that this is about me and that this is about me understanding how I need to set this up and understand people. And that's why I say it's function and feels because I, yes, I can do function, but if those people don't feel comfortable trusting of me and I trust them, if we don't all come together and be accountable, we don't feel good about each other, then, the job doesn't get done. And then I get frustrated and think they're not doing it and blame them for not performing when in actual fact I maybe set them up to fail. And he had that realisation that I had set up to fail and I needed to change and he is, it's like a, you know, talk about swingometer, let alone a "Huffometer" because he is at a massive swing of like, crikey, this is how my brain thinks. But that's not conducive to a good team sometimes. So I need to change the way I think and just adapt myself a little bit to build the team, to build the trust. And so it's not to say that, you know, we've all got to be pink and fluffy, but we do have to look at what is the impact of me on people, because you want them to want to do the job and be able to do the job by being confident enough and that's, you have to set that environment up. And so, you know that was really good to see that this chap had said, Ooh, well, actually a year ago I was thinking it was them, but now I realise this is also my responsibility.

IAN: That's amazing. And I know that you had so many, many more conversations like that in the room over the two days of the Intensive with, you know, these kind of revelations. But, that is brilliant. Thank you, Julie.

And just before, as we were planning on this. If you want to hear more about this, Julie and I are going to record a podcast very soon, all around the dysfunctions of a team and how to take your team from where they are today to where you really want them to be in helping you do that. So fantastic. Thank you, Julie, for that short little snippet. We'll catch up with you on the next one.

JULIE: You're welcome.

IAN: So, Peter, welcome to The IT Experts Podcast. Your first time in the lounge.

PETER: Indeed. Yeah.

IAN: Brilliant stuff. Well, look, welcome again and welcome to the MSP Growth Hub. For those who don't know, you haven't heard your tones before, who are you, what do you do and why are you here?

PETER: So, I'm Peter Williamson. I am, I still run a technology-based business. I employed Stuart as a coach for about 12 or 13 years and was fully indoctrinated by him.

IAN: Crikey.

PETER: So yeah, and after working with him and moving on, leaving that business behind, owning not needed kind of stuff. He asked me to come and, and get involved. I think he's preached for long enough that you've got to grow your business and bring other people in and

IAN: Absolutely. Here we go.

PETER: Here we go.

IAN: And here you are. So you've had an interesting time working in the tech space, haven't you?

PETER: Yeah. Yeah.

IAN: And great to have you here. Looking at, you know, a lot of things around the business coaching, onboarding new clients and things, which is great. But your first Intensive delivering, this time in, in January. Great couple of sessions. What was your take on the vibe that was going on in the room this time?

PETER: Oh, it was brilliant. It's nice. It's the first time I've been involved. I've kind of watched along before. You can see the room growing, more people joining and just the way they bounce off each other. The energy that's in the room and, you know, the way they chat and ask each other questions is fantastic. And I think that's one of the massive values that you get out of the, coming to the Intensive is like-minded people having conversations and, and helping each other through the challenges they face.

IAN: Yeah. And you know, I was only talking to one of our clients yesterday and they, a new client and they came in and they sort of said, well, we didn't really know what this Intensive thing was all about. And they sat there after day one in the barn kind of trying to decompress and have a drink and whatnot, and they just said, wow, how, how have they managed to create that environment? It was unbelievable. And that was, you know, I've got goosebumps now talking about it, because it's just, that's what this is all about. Now, unfortunately, you got the graveyard after lunch shift and you were talking about governance for you. So talk to us about what you were talking about and why were you talking to the MSPs around this?

PETER: So it's really, for me, is part of my journey of growing a business and running it. You know, I, I started as a, a 30-year-old managing director. I didn't really understand all the bits and pieces that went behind running an organisation and actually had a couple of things crop up, which kind of shook my belief in my own abilities.

IAN: Yes, yes.

PETER: So, and it was around governance. It was around compliance. And for me, it was something that I needed to make sure that we as a business had absolutely nailed down. That, you know, we had the i's dotted and the t's crossed, and it gave me the ability to rebuild confidence in growing and running the business. So I'm a charter director. I went through that process again. Badge on my chest to kind of say that I know what I'm doing. And so for me, talking to small businesses, medium sized organisations and saying, these are the things that you need to kind of get in place to make sure that your business is, you know, operating within good governance and making sure that you're in compliance with, with, you know, the law and, and what have you, and have the confidence that you, you know, manage and run the business. So, yeah, what I wanted to talk about really was, for me, the biggest thing around governance is making sure that you're in controls of the risk, in control of the risks that your business faces, right? So I think I'm truly understanding where you are as an organisation, looking at all the different types of risks that you might face, whether it's regulatory, legal, supplier, people, and making sure that you're putting in the right level of mitigation is really important. So one of the things that I did was sit, sit the, group down and go through a how to create a risk register.

IAN: Yeah. Powerful.

PETER: Yeah. And look, and, you know, ultimately bringing everything back to the MSP scaling system, you know, being able to scale with confidence and understanding that you have, you know, all of the things, all your ducks in a row, making sure that you mitigate as much risk as possible, helps you grow and develop your business. So, yeah, I thought it was a really good, really good opportunity to talk to the guys about that.

IAN: There was a few light bulb moments weren't there because you know, obviously we've got a group from small MSPs to some multi seven figure, you know, large, large number of team working in there. And I think at a point we deliberately made it so that your session was structured for everybody so that they all could see the importance of this. But there was certainly some light bulb moments wasn't there about, 'wow, yeah', I didn't think about that. And am I mitigating that and, and all of this kind of stuff.

PETER: Yeah. I think, one of the real big things was, you know, a lot of these MSPs have one or two major customers that they really heavily rely on. Understanding what the risk is around, you know, if we lose that customer, what does that mean for us as an organisation? Okay, so. How do I make sure that I don't lose that customer? Well, really good solid account management, making sure you're providing the right service, but there's so many other things that you can look at that, that make sure that you are, you're offsetting that risk and you're doing the best you can.

IAN: Yeah, well look, it was a brilliant session and really enjoyed it and enjoyed the, I'm sure you enjoyed the table conversations that happened afterwards as well. We've already started talking about what we're going to do in September, which is actually just stunned, Stuart, because normally, you know, my preparation is just at the last minute. So for him to have me thinking about the, the September Intensive, and we haven't even done the May Intensive yet, is. It's quite a frightening place for him, so we'll let him worry about that.

But, look, welcome to the family. Lovely to have you here. Some really key subjects and we're already talking about how we're going to upgrade that account management and that risk conversation to help you to get more clients in your MSP back end of the year. So, thanks again and we'll catch up with you, I think, on a podcast real soon.

PETER: Thanks Ian.

IAN: Cheers.

PETER: Cheers.

IAN: So that's the end of the show, Stuart. Great insights there and we love to share because no matter what happens, where you are at your different journey, being an MSP owner, what level of support you are getting, who you are listening to, who you are not listening to. We just want every MSP to win.

STUART: We do.

IAN: And that's why we share what kind of, what we believe is good practice in terms of support. If you are getting support out there, then number one, amazing. If you are not. And you need some, then just reach out to someone. And if you don't know who then come and reach out to us and we'll help you. But what's the final words for yourself, Stuart?

STUART: Very simple. It's a great reminder for us doing these, these podcasts post-event of just how powerful and also how amazing it is, what we've created and we just want to help more, more go faster. So my iteration, if you're not getting the support out there that you need, either ask for more or find something that does suit you.

IAN: Absolutely. And if you don't know what suits you still come and ask us and we'll be able to guide you to some experts that we trust.

STUART: Absolutely.

IAN: Fantastic. Lovely. Catch up with you on the next one.

STUART: Will do. See you then.

IAN: See you soon.

 TEASER: In next week's episode of The IT Experts Podcast, Stuart and I help to demystify the whole AI hype. Is it going to help you or is it going to hinder you? That is the story and that is the question of next week's show. Tune in to find out.

OUTRO: Oh, but one last thing just before you shoot off. And if you're curious about how this episode links with the ability to scale your MSP to a million or, or if you are already there, accelerate to five, then we want to invite you to come and take the MSP Mastery quiz. And in just three minutes, you're going to get a 360 degrees scan of your business where you can identify the one or two tactics that can help you find more time, engage in, align your people and help generate more leads in your MSP. It's really simple. Just click on the link in the show notes and if you have enjoyed this episode, we'd love to get some feedback from you by means of a rating review on Spotify or iTunes, or your podcast platform of choice. We really appreciate every single one of them. Now, you can go and enjoy the rest of your day and we look forward to catching up and connecting with you soon. All the best day.