To grow your MSP, scrap these pointless tasks

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Welcome to Episode 285 of the MSP Marketing Podcast with me, Paul Green. This week…

• To grow your MSP, scrap these pointless tasks: One of the curses of the MSP owner is the never-ending list of things that you need to do. Use the 80/20 rule to identify the things that make the biggest difference to the growth of your business.
• Don’t be scared to present that cyber security webinar: Speaking at a seminar or a webinar can be an incredibly powerful way to attract prospects, warm them up and persuade them that your business is the one they can trust.
• Why so many MSPs fail at LinkedIn ads: LinkedIn is an insane lead generation and prospecting tool for MSPs, but which things should you do? I’ve hunted down one of only 90 certified LinkedIn experts in the world to find out.
• Paul’s Personal Peer Group: There is a word that you must never, ever use when you’re talking to prospects or clients. It’s a word that must be banished because using it can damage your chances of a sale or your retention. Can you guess what it is?

To grow your MSP, scrap these pointless tasks

Growing an MSP can sometimes feel like a game of poker, can’t it? If each and everything you could do to grow your business was a different card in your pack, choosing which cards to play can be overwhelming. And doesn’t it seem like the hand you’re dealt, everything that’s on your to-do list, just keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger. So how do you decide which cards to play with and which to leave? How do you make sure you can quickly identify the things your MSP can do to become a real winner?

The biggest problem with being an MSP is having a massive to-do list. Just shout back to me now as you are listening to this or watching it on YouTube. How many things do you have to do today or tomorrow? I’m guessing it’s like 20, 30, 40 things. Because that’s one of the curses of the MSP owner is there is a never ending list of things that you need to do just to look after your clients, never mind actually growing your business. And the net effect of that is that you can get to the end of another day and another, and another and another, and you’ve done the work that your business needs to do, but you haven’t grown the business at all. This is a common problem for MSPs and frankly, it’s a massive problem.

The goal is to make a little progress every single day, and it feels frustrating when you don’t, doesn’t it?

This is why I think sometimes you need to take an 80/20 approach to your list of things that you could do, and I’m sure you’ve heard of 80/20 before. It’s also known as the Pareto principle named after Vilfredo Pareto. He was an Italian economist in the 19th century, and he was busy harvesting peas in his garden when he made an interesting observation. He noticed that some pea pods had a lot more peas in them than others did. So he counted the number of peas in each pea pod. He clearly didn’t have a lot to do that day, but he found that 80% of the peas came from only 20% of the pea pods. And what was really interesting was he then later noticed the same pattern in how wealth was distributed in Italy in his home country. He found that 20% of the people in Italy owned 80% of the land, and these 20% were very wealthy. The remaining 80% of the population owned only 20% of the land.

Now, don’t get too caught up on the 80 and the 20, the actual numbers themselves, just take from this the big principle that input and output in anything rarely match. For example, if you were to look at all of your clients, I bet the vast majority of ticket noise comes from the minority of clients. Many MSPs find that most of their hassle comes from a small number of their clients.And side note, these are the clients that you should fire, but let’s have that conversation another time. In fact, you can apply that to your staff as well. 80% of your hassle will come from 20% of your staff, right? If you apply the 80/20 principle to your task list, you can assume that 20% of the work that you do as the business owner is giving you 80% of the results in growing your business. The trick is to spend 80% of your personal time on those 20% tasks. Now I have way too many things that I want to be doing at the same time, but I learned a long time ago to be utterly brutal in prioritising them. We have an MSP Marketing Edge company development roadmap, and from that, I pull out the 10 things that will make the biggest difference when completed. And I call this my 80/20 list.

So every day, just like you, I have to battle noise and complications to spend more of my time on those things, my 80/20 things and kind of ignore all the other things that are vying for my attention. And I’ll be honest, it’s not easy, it is a daily struggle every day, but it’s really worthwhile. My best evenings are where I’ve spent the day focusing on tasks that will grow my business and not just run my business. So how can you do this in your MSP? Well, I believe it starts with being very, very organised about what it is that you want to achieve. Do you have a long list of things that will help you to win your clients, retain them, and upsell them more services? Can you split that list down into a series of tasks, even if that means that there are dozens and dozens of tasks to be done? And can you then prioritise that list? So if let’s say tomorrow you had 60, maybe 90 minutes to work on growing your business, you would know exactly what you needed to do.

That I think is at the heart of making progress in growing your business. Once you are very clear on what you need to do, in what order, and you can find time every day to work on those tasks, you get the important things done. And does that mean that you have to dump some tasks and they never get done? Yes, a hundred percent it does. And is that scary? Yes, it is a hundred percent, but the reality is that you are never going to get all of those tasks done anyway. You only have 24 hours in the day the same as everyone else, and you need to spend at least six of those sleeping, ideally, seven, maybe eight.

But in terms of getting things done, it’s better you focus on getting done the things that move the business forward rather than the small things that don’t move the business forward. So let me ask you a big question. Something you should just pop in your brain, perhaps sleep on it, reflect on it in the days ahead. What is the noise and complication in your MSP that stops you from focusing on the tasks that make the biggest difference? We all know it’s important to service the clients, well, that’s absolutely critical, but it’s also really important that you grow your business at the same time. If your business isn’t growing, then it’s going the opposite way. And actually that’s a very dangerous place to be. What are the things that are stopping you from doing this and how can you remove them?

That I think is at the heart of making progress in growing your business. Once you are very clear on what you need to do, in what order, and you can find time every day to work on those tasks, you get the important things done. And does that mean that you have to dump some tasks and they never get done? Yes, 100% it does. And is that scary? Yes, it is 100%, but the reality is that you are never going to get all of those tasks done anyway. You only have 24 hours in the day the same as everyone else, and you need to spend at least six of those sleeping, ideally, seven, maybe eight.

But in terms of getting things done, it’s better you focus on getting done the things that move the business forward rather than the small things that don’t move the business forward. So let me ask you a big question. Something you should just pop in your brain, perhaps sleep on it, reflect on it in the days ahead. What is the noise and complication in your MSP that stops you from focusing on the tasks that make the biggest difference? We all know it’s important to service the clients, well, that’s absolutely critical, but it’s also really important that you grow your business at the same time. If your business isn’t growing, then it’s going the opposite way. And actually that’s a very dangerous place to be. What are the things that are stopping you from doing this and how can you remove them?

Don’t be scared to present that cyber security webinar

Up to three quarters of MSPs would rather lose a toe than have to speak in public. But did you know that speaking at a seminar or a webinar can be an incredibly powerful way to attract prospects, warm them up and persuade them that your business is the one they can trust? So using a cybersecurity webinar as an example, how can you be relaxed, confident, and even enjoy presenting? Oh, and keep all of your toes intact?

One of the MSPs I work closely with has made the smart decision to aggressively pursue a vertical, in their case, lawyers. They’ve changed their website and their social media to be more relevant to the owners of law practices in their city. They’ve built up a database, they’re sending emails, LinkedIn messages, and direct mail, and they have someone making follow up phone calls. All of this is great that all the correct things to get the right message in front of the right person at the right time, as people only buy when they are ready to buy.

Recently, I suggested they start to put on regular webinars about cybersecurity for lawyers, and that’s when we hit a wall. The owner, who would have to present these webinars, is pretty reluctant to do them. Why? Because of one word – fear. Or put another way – what if – as in, What if no one turns up? What if they’re bored by my content? What if they ask a question that I can’t answer? What if I make a mistake and every lawyer in my city laughs at me forever? etc.

Now the reality is here that none of these things will happen. And if they did happen, no one will remember, no one will really care, it’s just a webinar. But I do understand where my client’s mental block is coming from.

Fear is a horrible emotion and it can push otherwise highly competent people into inaction.

Reality check here. The reality is if you’ve been an MSP for three years or more, you know more about cybersecurity than any ordinary person, like a lawyer or a business owner, meaning there’s almost no question they could ask you that you couldn’t handle. And they will turn up and they will be engaged so long as the content seems relevant to them. And really the only way to get better at presenting is to do more presenting, do more webinars.

So I believe you should just do the cybersecurity webinar because, big picture, it’s an insanely cool and powerful way to show that you are THE local technology expert while engaging with hot prospects. My final thoughts on this, never forget that fear is an acronym standing for Fictional Events Appearing Real.

Why so many MSPs fail at LinkedIn ads

Featured guest: Joshua Stout is a distinguished digital marketing strategist with over seven years of experience, specialising in LinkedIn advertising. In his previous role, he played a pivotal part in building a LinkedIn-centred agency from the ground up, leading the Ads Service from its inception and transforming it into a multimillion-dollar operation. During this time, he oversaw the operations of the team while acting as lead strategist, managing over 1,000 ad accounts. Currently, as the Director of Advertising at Influent Social, Joshua continues to leverage his extensive expertise to drive impactful LinkedIn campaigns for a diverse range of clients.

His expertise has earned him the title of LinkedIn Certified Marketing Expert, a recognition held by fewer than 90 professionals worldwide. Additionally, Joshua has been honoured as a LinkedIn Top Voice and featured in Marquis Who’s Who, acknowledging his significant contributions to the field of digital marketing.

LinkedIn is an insane lead generation and prospecting tool for MSPs, and yet I know many people who really don’t know where to start with it. There’s a lot of noise out there and lots of things you can do, but which things should you do? I’ve hunted down one of only 90 certified LinkedIn experts in the world. In the next few minutes, he’s going to tell you how to use LinkedIn ads, how to achieve more with less work, and how to leverage advanced strategies to get better results.

Hi, I’m Josh Stout. I am one of less than 90 LinkedIn certified marketing experts in the world. I helped grow an agency from the ground up and I’ve overseen a thousand different ad accounts in my time on LinkedIn.

And thanks so much for joining us on the show, Josh, because we are going to talk about LinkedIn ads today and it’s possibly one of the hardest aspects of LinkedIn to get right. I’m going to be honest with you here, I’ve been doing full-time marketing, getting on for 20 years, I’ve never really cracked LinkedIn ads, I’ve worked with dozens of MSPs who’ve tried LinkedIn ads and we’ve never really cracked it. And my definition of cracked it is, we’ve got something that’s generated leads that has turned into prospects, that have turned into clients that have turned into revenue and profit. And I know it can be done, but I’ve always struggled with that and that’s why we’ve got you on the show to try and answer that question. Let’s just delve a little bit into your credibility and your background. So you said you were one of 90 LinkedIn certified marketing experts?

Yeah, so last year I was selected as part of the class. They flew me out to London, I went to their headquarters there where I received my official certification. We had to go through a series of workshops, but it’s also quite rigorous to get in. You have to submit an application, you have to record a video of yourself saying why you should be in, you need to find three references, and then you have to do an interview where they put you on the spot and you have to do a presentation.

Oh, that’s really cool. There only being 90 of you in the world. Do you all kind of have to agree not to fly on the same plane or something like that in the same way that there’s only about 10 people who know the recipe for Coca-Cola and they’re not allowed to go on the same plane. Is it a similar thing to that or maybe I’m just making it up.

It’s so diverse, people are coming in from all over the place, so no, it’s not really like that. That’s probably why they don’t get us all to go to the same events at the same time though, maybe they want to make sure that they keep us safe, right?

Yeah, maybe it is that. So before we go on to talk about LinkedIn ads, let’s just talk about LinkedIn in general. So I was looking at some stats the other day, and I forget the numbers, but essentially if you were to look at a chart from let’s say about 2015/2016, up until today, so over about eight or nine years, it was just solid growth for LinkedIn, solid growth in user numbers, in engagement, in the amount of content that’s been posted. It’s like LinkedIn is the one social network that has just really solidly grown and grown and grown. Facebook went much higher, but has drip dipped down. Instagram obviously has done a similar kind of thing. We don’t talk about X these days, but there’s all these other social platforms that have their ups and downs, and yet LinkedIn seems to have just been a very solid growth over a number of years. Is that what you see? You are obviously more on the inside of LinkedIn than the rest of us. Is that what you see from the inside as well?

Yeah, absolutely. And I would say the biggest pop of new members and engagement that happened on LinkedIn was during Covid. Because LinkedIn was gradually growing, except I think a lot of people saw it as a job site. You are looking for a job looking to get a higher promotion at another company, something like that. Everyone used LinkedIn. But when Covid hit and everybody had to go home and you couldn’t go to conferences and you couldn’t go to meetings and you couldn’t go door knocking anymore, people had to figure out a way to continue networking their business. And I feel that LinkedIn was just waiting for everybody. They’re like, come my children, we’ve been a business networking platform this whole time, we have these capabilities for you. And immediately LinkedIn started seeing, I mean, initially it was a huge growth, but then a steady 20% growth year over year to where they have over a billion active users now, hundreds of millions of decision makers. So it solidified itself as the professional platform to be on and really elevated itself over just being some type of job recruitment platform.

Yeah, I completely agree with that. And a lot of the MSPs that I speak to when we talk about LinkedIn, because a massive fan, I think it’s a great place for people with small amounts of marketing time to go do marketing. It’s like everyone you could ever do business with is there. A lot of the MSPs I say that to, they say, oh, well, if there’s so many people there, if there are so many other MSPs there, surely we are just part of the noise, or surely people are just going on to sell and no one’s going on to buy. What kind of stuff do you see in terms of how people are using LinkedIn? Are they just going to sell, or actually, are they using it just as a communication tool?

Yeah. Well, first of all, I want to say it is very active on LinkedIn for MSPs. During my time at my previous agency where I helped grow over a thousand head accounts that I saw on LinkedIn, the second largest vertical was MSPs. So obviously the audience is active on LinkedIn and MSPs can reach out to them, but it is very competitive. So in 90 to 95% of the accounts that I’ve audited, and that’s a realistic number, 90 to 95% of the accounts, there are just nuances in the settings and configurations that people don’t know that tend to lead to wasted budget or strategies that are going to be ineffective. Because it is a communication platform, but what makes it so powerful is the ability to specifically target decision makers on LinkedIn, having the most up-to-date professional data out of any other platform in the world, and then the mindset of the user. When people are on LinkedIn, they’re considering their business, they’re considering their roles, their jobs, professions, so being able to get your message in front of them is going to be most effective. And I’ve pretty consistently heard it from LinkedIn called the “middle of funnel hero” because people want to consume content on it. So it’s all about how you’re structuring your strategy, how you’re appealing to the people that you want to show your message to, and ultimately how you’re converting them.

Yeah, I mean, that fits perfectly with the three-step marketing strategy that we recommend. In fact, it’s part of our MSP marketing Edge service. So the first step is to build audiences, and LinkedIn is the first audience I always suggest you build. The second step is to grow relationships, which from what you’ve just said there, the middle of the funnel hero, and that’s done through content. You put content in front of people until the day they’re ready to have a conversation about switching, which is of course the third step. And that is to convert relationships, that’s what you have to come offline, you have to pick up the phone, you have to talk to people, and obviously go and meet with them.

Let’s look Josh specifically at LinkedIn ads because I know that is your particular specialty. So as we know MSPs, it’s a B2B advertising proposition. We’re trying to reach decision makers, other business owners, and a lot of us see ads on LinkedIn that we just scroll past really quickly. And certainly if you’re an MSP, MSPs see the same ads as I see, we see all the big vendors, all the big names, I mean they must be spending thousands of dollars a day on these adverts, and we all just kind of seem to skip over them. Is that the biggest problem with LinkedIn ads or is it, as you say, it’s not understanding the nuances of it and the little settings and things you can adjust?

Yeah, there’s definitely a lot of noise on the platform. Creative is one of the essential components of having a successful campaign on LinkedIn, because you need to know how to put designs in front of people that are going to stop them from scrolling and get them to read your message. That’s really important aspect of advertising on LinkedIn. But I wouldn’t say that that’s the most critical downfall of using the platform is the noise and all the competition. I would say typically it’s the structure. It’s the way that people are setting up their campaigns and they’re lacking that nurturing component. Or what I see all the time is people trying to activate leads on top of the funnel. They’re using lead gen forum using book a call, call to actions already, and they’re trying to target cold audiences to do that. That by far is the largest error on LinkedIn.

When you’re able to really figure out tests and optimise based on what you’re serving your audience, what’s driving the volume, continue reiterating those practices to figure out what’s resonating with them. And then like you said, build out that middle of funnel effort to nurture and educate and ultimately convert. I mean, MSPs have a long sales cycle, so if you’re not staying in front of the people that you know are relevant and the people that are going to make the decision on conversion, then you’re losing out and you’re spending a lot of money that’s not going to be effective for you. And that’s tended to be the biggest area of opportunity.

Okay, that makes sense. So bearing in mind the fact that, as you say, it’s a long sales cycle and we know it can take 6, 12, 18, 24 months from the point someone says hello to you to the point they actually sign a contract, what would you focus an MSP’s LinkedIn ads on? Would you focus it on trying to get people into their CRM? Would you focus them trying to sign up for their LinkedIn newsletter? Would it be something else? What would you go for?

It would be a mixture of those tactics. One thing that I’d probably say way more than I should, is use variation. And one of the biggest attributes of being able to advertise on LinkedIn is content. So absolutely, I would be running news that are focused, ads that are focused on newsletter. I would be using blogs, I would be using white papers, I would be using content. And more than anything, if you want to stay ahead of the curve right now and you really want to capitalise on the best assets that LinkedIn has, have people or experts at your company be posting about their expertise. Don’t do it for likes, don’t do it for engagement. Just post your expertise. Because we can include that in an ad campaign and we can run thought leader alongside your company. Every company is going to say that they’re the best at what they do. So a lot of people are going to hear that, and you need to say that, and you need to show the content that proves that. But if you can also elevate the voices of the company explaining why they’re experts at what they do, people trust people, and that builds brand equity. So using a combination of those in your funnel and in your strategy is going to yield much higher results, and you need to stay in front of these people long-term. So it’s not just using that content, not just using the newsletter, yes, use all those things, but it’s also realising that you need to stay in front of these people so you’re top of mind when they’re ready to convert. And that’s a big missed opportunity I typically see.

Yeah, so essentially you’re saying stamp your authority and keep stamping your authority until the day that they’re ready to have that conversation. And of course, on that day, if they’ve seen 15, 20, 30 things from you on LinkedIn, even if they’re not top of mind, they’re lurking there in the background. And if you then add that into they’ve opened some of your emails that maybe you’ve had some direct messages on LinkedIn, maybe you’ve even spoken to them on the phone or you’ve sent them a letter or a postcard in the mail, all of these things come together and with the LinkedIn ads and the LinkedIn content, and they all help you seem like you’re everywhere. So for the person who’s ready to buy or ready to think about buying or switching, there’s certainly the first conversation you want to have is the person who seems to be everywhere. I love that.

Final question for you, Josh, and that’s about kind of ad spend. So what we’ve just been talking about there is potentially running ads, constantly running ads to people that aren’t going to buy until 2026, 2027, 2028, and there’s a lot of cash going into that. What’s the right mindset do you believe for an MSP who’s looking at ads? Should they be looking at spending a little bit of money on a regular basis, or should they do a big splurge and a big campaign and then pull back and then repeat it? What do you think is the best strategy?

A general rule of thumb in marketing is you should spend about 7-15% of your annual revenue on your marketing efforts. It’s an investment, not an expense. And I don’t say that in a way to say like, take 10% of your annual revenue and dump that all on LinkedIn. From something that you just said, marketing works best in an ecosystem. It really builds your brand to make sure you have those elements of demand generation, demand capture, direct touches, all those things influence conversions. Now on LinkedIn specifically, you can run a pretty healthy budget, maybe somewhere around $5,000 to $10,000 a month on LinkedIn, and that’s going to help you drive a lot of volume and build a lot of frequency. Now, you don’t have to spend that much. I’ve managed campaigns all the way down to $500 a month. You can still put a fundamental structure in place to engage your top of funnel audience and build trust and credibility in your brand.

That long-term play on LinkedIn, you can segment your audience, people that maybe have not visited your website or company page in the last three months, so it’s been over three months now. You can use low cost ad types such as text ads or follower ads, dynamic ads to put really low cost touches to stay in the subconscious of your interested prospects. So yes, obviously the more budget you put behind it, the more volume you can drive, the more low hanging fruit you’re going to find, and the more frequency you can build. But you don’t have to have an enterprise budget to still run a campaign on LinkedIn and make it effective for you.

Which is music to everyone ears, I think. And obviously we’ve got to remember the lifetime value as well. So an MSP, it might take you a very long time to win a client, but you keep them for 5 to 10 to 15 years paying monthly recurring revenue. So to the average MSP, a new client is worth a $100,000, $200,000, maybe even a quarter of a million, would you spend $2,000 to $3,000 to win a quarter of a million pound client? I mean, everyone would say yes until the point they actually come to put in the LinkedIn adverts on, I guess. But there we go.

And again, rule of thumb, probably around 10%, right? You know that that’s what a client is worth, be investing that in finding them and bringing them in.

Yeah, no, I like that. And actually, if you do that consistently, I’ve always said this to MSPs, if you know can onboard a new client every month, wouldn’t you spend that money to onboard that client? And the answer is yes, but of course it takes time. You can’t just switch it on Monday and you get the new client on Wednesday. If it was that simple, then everyone would be doing it.

Josh, you’ve been amazing. Thank you so much for sharing an insight. So tell us what you do to help MSPs with their LinkedIn ads and how can we get in touch with you?

Yeah, absolutely. So again, I am extremely familiar in the MSP space. It was the second largest vertical at my previous agency. I’ve overseen hundreds of accounts on LinkedIn, so what I can really do is come in and fundamentally help you build a strategy that’s going to not just yield results, but try to exponentially grow them over time, by having the right structure in place. If people want to learn more about that and how I can help them, all you have to do, you can either DM me on LinkedIn, it’s linkedin.com/Joshua Stout, or you can go to influence.co, go to the advertising page and book a call. I’d be happy to talk.

Paul’s Personal Peer Group

Michael in Texas is making a concerted effort with marketing for his MSP.  He’s watched some previous podcasts on YouTube and found a video of me getting upset by an MSP using a particular word in their marketing. He’s asked: Why shouldn’t I use the word “user”?

Oh, I got upset did I, well, sometimes I do like to wear my heart on my sleeve.

The thing is, I get frustrated when I see an MSP using the word “user” in their marketing, or even perhaps when they talk to clients or prospects, because user is a horrible word to ordinary people. A user is someone on drugs or someone who exploits other people.

The word “user” must be banned from your marketing, from your sales, from any conversation you have outside of your business. And instead, use these words – people and person. Companies don’t have users, they have people. It’s such a simple thing to change, and yet it’s going to make such a big difference.

Mentioned links

• This podcast is in conjunction with the MSP Marketing Edge, the world’s leading white label content marketing and growth training subscription.
• Join me in MSP Marketing Facebook group.
• Connect with me on LinkedIn.
• Connect with my guest, Joshua Stout on LinkedIn, and visit the Influent website.
• Got a question about your MSP’s marketing? Submit one here for Paul’s Personal Peer Group.