Robin Robins, founder and CEO of TMT and MSP Success, announced that Mario Zaki, CEO of New Jersey-based Mazteck IT, was voted the winner of TMT’s annual Better Your Best Contest. As the winner, Zaki will be TMT’s spokesperson of the year. He was also awarded a brand-new luxury care (a “Shaguar,” of course).
The Better Your Best Contest showcases how MSPs who are Producers Club members, the highest membership tier of TMT, successfully implemented marketing and business strategies to propel revenue, profits, and influence for their MSP businesses. On Day 3 of the 17th Annual IT Sales and Marketing Boot Camp taking place this week in Nashville, all five finalists in the Better Your Best Contest took to the stage to make their case in front of the audience. They also shared advice on how others could implement those same strategies. After the presentations, attendees cast their votes for the winner.
Dressed like Mario from the Super Mario game, Zaki recounted how he “leveled up” his at-home, break-fix business to a three-person MSP with an office and over $142,000 in monthly recurring revenue and $2 million in overall revenue in 2023. And just in the first quarter of 2024, Mazteck onboarded eight new customers with almost $28,000 in monthly return revenue. Now he takes vacation without his laptop.
Previously, as a solo business owner, Zaki said he had been “content” for 15 years. However, he wasn’t achieving best-in-class growth, worked long hours, and could never take a vacation with his family without bringing his laptop. One day, he opened a fortune cookie that read: “Don’t be afraid to take a chance when the opportunity of a lifetime appears.” Earlier that day, he had received a marketing letter from Robins with a dollar bill attached. He saw that coincidence as a sign.
He joined TMT, attended a Rapid Implementation Workshop, and began advancing through the levels of business. He converted break-fix customers to managed service customers, bought and scrubbed a prospect list, and started implementing marketing campaigns consistently. He also availed himself of his accountability peer group and adopted a “marketing mindset.”
His parting advice to the audience was: “Don’t be content. Be super. If there’s one thing I want you guys to remember from my presentation today is that growth and comfort will never coexist.”
Before presenting the award, Robins brought to the stage last year’s TMT spokesperson, Adam Spencer, CEO and founder of 911 IT, who recounted his presentation in front of some the Shark Tank stars at Boot Camp in 2023. “I almost got eaten by the sharks,” he joked. “One thing they told me was you’ve got to be more aggressive at growing your business. … Now we have almost as many sales and marketing people as technicians. This year we have already brought in 82 raw leads, 58 have been qualified, we’ve had 36 FTAs [first-time appointments], and last month we brought in $13,000 in new MRR. And we still have open opportunities. I’m living proof that marketing works.”
In addition to Zaki, the other finalists were: Brandis Kelly, president of Midwest division, DigeTekS; Nathaniel Kemberling, president and CEO, BroCoTec, CEO Mike Farlow and Hunter Farlow, marketing director, ComTech Network Solutions, and Todd Clark, president and vCIO, DenaliTEK. Collectively, the five Better Your Best finalists achieved an average increase of $1,014,484 in topline growth and an increase of $355,377 in bottom-line profits in 2023.
