Getting the hang of sales and marketing took Automates from $270K total annual revenue to over a million. That’s 735% growth since 2022.
Tommy Thornton, CEO of San Diego-based Automates, started his MSP business by renting a client’s kitchen space for $120 a month. Depending only on referrals caused Automates’ growth to stagnate, until one day, Thornton had enough.
Here’s how asking for help, setting his ego to the side, and a new goal mindset led to Automates’ exponential growth.
The Hard Reset
The realization that he couldn’t do it alone was huge for Thornton. He hit a point while running his MSP that made him realize the business wasn’t growing fast enough. “We only had three employees. Our revenue was right around $300,000. I looked at [my current general manager] and said, “This is not going to work. Ten years from now, we’re going to be at $700,000 a year and look back and wish we’d done something differently,’” Thornton explains.
In that moment, Thornton decided to hard reset his MSP. He told his employees, “Let’s come in here tomorrow and build a business with a completely new mindset.” That moment changed everything for Automates. They started looking into software, different client strategies, and proper office spaces. “Then, we steamrolled right into TMT and [CEO and founder] Robin Robins,” Thornton says. “We had a little bit of revenue and a little bit of growth. We had some great ideas, but zero knowledge on how to do sales and marketing. That’s what really took us the rest of the way.”
Ask the Right People, the Right Questions
This fire to make his MSP better was sparked by Thornton’s creeping doubts that things would never improve. “I would go home at night thinking, ‘This is never going to improve. I don’t own a business; I own a job.’ But in that pivotal moment, I had a complete mindset shift because I’m not going to live forever. I have a limited amount of time and so, I needed to make some movements. I took a leap of faith.”
That was also the moment Thornton checked his ego and pride and decided to ask for help. “It was coming to terms with and recognizing that I don’t know it all. I make mistakes. I was failing. I didn’t know how to properly run a business or do sales and marketing. I had to get out of my own way and recognize that I needed help,” he says. “And when I started asking the right questions, I realized how many people are out there and willing to help and give advice. Start asking the right people, the right questions, and no one’s going to turn you down.”
Building a Great Team
A high-quality team was essential to get Automates past its first million in revenue. For any small shops or solo entrepreneurs looking to hire their first team members, Thornton’s advice is to “hire admin.”
“I’ll save you some time and some hardship,” he says. “Do not hire a tech as your first person. Hire admin—someone who can offload the invoicing and accounts receivable from you, so you can focus on being a technician [for the time being]. Most IT people, including myself, are not the best financially. That’s one of the things that now, I can drive a wedge against smaller IT companies, because many of the clients will complain about their billing practices.” Hiring an administrator first will take billing off your plate, ensuring that it doesn’t get neglected and allowing you to focus on the technical stuff.
Your second hire, however, should be a technician, says Thornton. This will allow you to split the load of incoming technical work.
Thornton’s other piece of advice, relevant to MSPs regardless of size, is to “look for people smarter than you. Get out of your own way. Drop your ego to the side a little bit and hire people smarter than you.” Beyond that, Thornton focuses on a personality match first, over a list of skills.
Change Your Activity, Not Your Goal
Failure is an inevitable part of goal setting. However, a critical lesson Thornton learned was not to move his goalposts when he didn’t reach a goal. “If you haven’t hit your goal, the goal isn’t the problem,” says Thornton. “It’s your activity that’s the problem. That was a big [lesson] for me—that I needed to change my activity.”
But that doesn’t mean Thornton never fails anymore. (In fact, if you never miss a goal, it’s an indicator that your goals are too easy to hit.) “We make mistakes every single day. But the mindset is now that these mistakes have become lessons; before, they were just failures, and demoralizing. Now, we look at them like, ‘OK, that didn’t work. Let’s try something new.’”
Want More?
Tune into the full episode to hear Thornton spill his sales and marketing secrets to success, including how he has made canvassing work for Automates. If you missed highlights from our last episode of My First Million, find out how one MSP learned to ditch indecision.
