TMT’s 18th Annual IT Sales and Marketing Boot Camp opened yesterday to a sold-out crowd of more than 1,300 people and hundreds of virtual attendees at the Hilton Anatole Dallas in Texas. The three-day event features industry experts, celebrities, and peer speakers; over 70 business-building sessions; and an expo hall filled with the IT industry’s hottest vendors.
TMT is the IT industry’s leading marketing and sales consulting firm for IT service providers.
New this year, the event includes numerous sessions led by MSP members of TMT who reveal their best-performing strategies to get more leads, clients, and profits, along with their playbooks on how to run a successful MSP.
In the opening keynote, Robin Robins, founder and CEO of TMT and MSP Success, drilled down into the business and marketing strategies of the top-performing MSPs that organically grow their companies to $10 million plus. “There is a pattern to success,” she told the audience.
Despite the perennial challenges every MSP faces around marketing and customer acquisition, MSPs who scale to $1 million, $5 million, $10 million, and beyond have something in common, Robins said. “You don’t go from one of these stages to the next doing more of the same thing, in the same manner, with the same customers. It’s got to change.”
Pointedly, she said, “If you want to grow, you cannot follow the herd.”
Three Force Multipliers to Grow Fast
Robins highlighted three force multipliers that MSPs who want to grow fast should implement:
Be market-driven, not operations-driven. “Being market driven means you start by identifying a problem, a sector of the market that has unmet needs, that has unsolved problems, that is being underserved, and you create the economic engine to deliver the solution to that problem,” she said.
MSPs have to focus on bigger ideas, she advised, not just tech. “You’ve got to be about moving your customer forward and connecting with them on a level that is unique, that is meaningful to them. That’s when you’re going to get some tremendous growth.”
Develop high-value clients (HVCs). This is a key multiplier, Robins stressed. “If you want to give yourself a huge strategic advantage that’s going to allow you to grow fast and be profitable, you want to pick more valuable customers. Everything evolves around this.”
Models, mentors, and success environments. MSPs that want to grow fast need to lock in a working model, whether that’s for lead-gen, sales, marketing, etc., and get everyone on board, Robins said. “The key is following it completely, entirely, and without skipping steps.” Once that model is working, only then can you start incrementally perfecting it.
She also stressed the importance of having mentors. “Every highly successful person has this in common. They have somebody who believed in them more than they believed in themselves. And so you need to find a mentor.”
Finally, MSPs need to put themselves in successful environments, such as high-performing peer groups and member organizations. “And lean into it, because it is brutally hard to run a business.”
All the sessions at this year’s event, themed Robin Robins and The Marketing Factory, provide actionable strategies on how to implement these force multipliers of growth in your own “marketing factory.” Attendees will get tips on how to outpace the competition, drive more website traffic, increase SEO, reduce tickets, boost leads, and streamline operations.
Here are just a few of the highlights from Tuesday.
Dispatches from Day One
4 Essential MSP Pricing Tips to Increase Profits
In his breakout session, Mike Bazar, CRO of Vector Choice, an MSP in Atlanta, shared these pricing and packaging tips to increase profits.
Set seat prices intentionally. Too many MSPs will pick a number because “it seemed right” or because that’s what other MSPs charge. Instead, set your seat price based on your costs, plus your target margin (which should be between 60 and 70%).
Start doing annual price increases. It’s much easier to raise your clients’ rates 5% per year versus a big hike every five years. Bazar noted that most MSPs are more scared of price increases than their clients. Raising your rates as your company grows and inflation increases is critical to staying profitable.
Play your winning A.C.E. Use the guiding metric of Attract, Convert, and Expand. Attract bigger and better customers with your sales and marketing. Convert break-fix or project-based clients into managed services customers. And expand—get more money out of your existing clients by updating your packaging, increasing your prices, and cross-selling.
Know What NOT to Do. Bazar noted some common, lethal pricing mistakes. First, don’t sell anything you don’t know about or aren’t proud of. You won’t make a sale that way. Second, don’t help clients with every issue that comes up for free. You should have hard edges of what’s included in your stack—anything outside of that qualifies as a project. Bazar likes to use the Rule of Five: if it impacts more than five users, takes more than five hours, or has more than five major steps, it’s a project.
Free Up Techs’ Time and Reduce Delays by Using AI to Manage Tickets
Rodney Holum, CEO of Coulee Techlink, an MSP in Holmen, Wisconsin, shared his strategies for utilizing AI to reduce incoming tickets and limit strain on his technicians. “By leveraging AI, we were able to increase our revenue significantly faster than we were by increasing our number of techs,” Holum explained.
Implementing AI allowed Coulee Techlink to move from a small, overworked, overstressed team of technicians to a larger team of techs that are far less stressed. Holum’s team went from continually asking him to hire more technicians, to saying they didn’t have enough to do, just by creating their own AI ticket solution.
Key components of Coulee Techlink’s AI ticketing system:
- A push ticket system, which grades tickets based on how long it has been since a tech last touched it and urgency.
- An AI “auto dialer,” which pushes tickets directly to technicians, rather than allowing them to waste time cherry-picking the most interesting tickets.
- AI summarization, which gives technicians a summary of a client’s entire back-and-forth communication. This cuts down on technicians’ time spent rereading correspondence.
How to Build a Killer Marketing Team (In the Age of AI)
AI has changed a lot when it comes to marketing, and the composition of your team is no different. Mike Stodola, CMO at TMT, spoke to attendees on how to identify, attract, and retain top-quality team members—and how AI has changed the hiring order MSPs should follow.
Here are a few key takeaways:
Know when you need to hire a marketing person. If you don’t have the time to consistently do the marketing tasks you need to do to grow your business, it’s time to hire a marketing person, Stodola said. You should also hire someone to take over marketing if you don’t have the skills, ability, or desire to tackle marketing tasks—and do them in a way that represents your MSP well.
Know what each role is responsible for—and hire accordingly. Many businesses who aren’t marketing-savvy make the mistake of pinning results on marketing staff who are responsible for tasks. For example, marketing coordinators and administrators are doers; they’re responsible for prepping physical mailers and cleaning lists. A marketing director, however, is responsible for creating goals, strategies, and campaigns—and results. Make sure you’re hiring the right position for your desired outcome.
Hire the most senior position you can afford. Before AI, marketing experts advised hiring a marketing admin for your first marketing team hire. Now, though, AI can take all the low-level tasks off your plate that used to be a marketing admin’s job. Instead, hire a marketing coordinator or CMO, who can visualize and spearhead your marketing initiatives.
(Note: you need someone who will be “in the trenches” with your team for this role, not just a manager!)
More Delicious Growth Secrets to Come
Those are just a few of the highlights from day one. Today, five of TMT’s fastest-growing MSPs of 2024 will compete in the annual Better Your Best Competition. They’ll share how they added six and seven figures to their business last year and make their case to be the TMT spokesperson of the year. The winner will also be awarded a brand-new luxury car.
This article was written by Sarah Jordan and Colleen Frye.
