MSP Success launched a new podcast! The first episode features Brandis Kelly, president of the Midwest region for DigeTekS. Here are some of her key takeaways for MSPs looking to hit the million-dollar mark.
You Need Doers, Not Just Dreamers
Whether it’s marketing initiatives or business-wide policy changes, whenever you’re trying to get something major done in your business, you need implementors and visionaries. “You can have a dreamer,” says Kelly, “but you also have to have a doer. You can’t just send the person who’s got great ideas [to marketing events]; then you don’t have anybody to actually implement. At the end of the day, how many times have you heard: ‘It works if you work it?’ You’ve got to do the work.”
Building A Quality Team
As most business owners know, your team is the lifeblood of your business. Unlike most business owners, however, the way Kelly built her team wasn’t at job fairs or on hiring websites. She says, “We went to hire more people—SDRs, marketing admins, list scrubbers, etc. I had an avatar [of the person I wanted to hire], just like when you have an avatar of your ideal client. I reached out to a friend of mine, [asking where to find people like that], and she said, ‘Here’s where you go look.’ It was Facebook mom groups, yoga studios, and church groups. I’ve had wicked success doing that.” By looking in places already narrowed down by demographic, Kelly was able to pre-filter her candidate pool to be closer to her ideal candidate—before ever reading a resume.
But that’s not all Kelly did off-script. Instead of hiring a new candidate directly into a full-time role, she had an alternative strategy. “I wanted someone part-time,” she says. “Kind of like a try-before-you-buy scenario. Maybe we don’t put them on full-time, full benefits right off the bat—let’s do part-time. Maybe they’re a stay-at-home mom and they want to contribute a little bit to the household income. They have this value—a purpose. That has worked well for us.”
After getting a feel for a new hire’s skill set, Kelly describes transitioning them to full-time—and more. “If you hire someone that’s great in their role, even as an appointment setter, if they’re great, they don’t stay there. They’re going to move up that ladder, and that’s okay! That’s how you build a team. Now they know what it takes, just like I knew what it took when I was looking for [someone to fill that role]. Now they can help to hire; they can do those interviews, and that’s off my plate,” she says.
Gunning For Your First Million
Want to make it to a million? Focus on your team, Kelly says. “I think your team is everything,” she says. “I would say there’s probably no way you can get to a million without a good team. And you definitely can’t make a million in profit without a good team. So, I would hone in on your team. Focus on your team, treat them like real people, and listen to what they say. Take the feedback. You don’t have to do everything, but actually listen—even as the owner, you don’t know everything. You have to be learning; learn from your team.”
Kelly adds, “This is a huge core value of mine; it’s paraphrased from Richard Branson’s: ‘Train them well enough that they can go anywhere; treat them well enough that they don’t want to.’ Now, we pay well, but we’re not paying our team millions and millions of dollars. But, we also have a lot of amazing benefits, and we treat them well. We listen to them, we take action, and we help keep our team together.”
This core value has resulted in employee longevity, which even filters down into client retention. “[Our clients] aren’t talking to someone new all the time,” Kelly explains. “And [our team] knows their environment as well.”
For more advice from Brandis Kelly, including detailed marketing insights, check out episode 1 of the MSP Success Podcast. And for more business insights from MSP mavens and industry experts, subscribe to the MSP Success Podcast on your preferred podcast platform.
