Robin Robins, founder of TMT, kicked off Boot Camp with her opening keynote Tuesday evening. She covered the inflection point facing MSPs, the threats to keep an eye on, and the strategies driving profitability. Dan Tomaszewski, CEO of TMT, followed with a closer look at the new chapter for TMT under Kaseya’s leadership, new offerings for partners, and a commitment to the future.
Here’s what you missed.
The Approaching Inflection Point
“We are at Andy Grove’s inflection point,” Robins said. “If you’ve ever read his book, Only the Paranoid Survive, his definition is a point in the life of a business or an industry where its fundamentals are about to change. The change can mean a new opportunity to rise to new heights, or it may signal the beginning of the end.”
While most changes in business are gradual, a strategic inflection point means 10 times the usual degree of change happening all at once. AI is driving MSPs towards this point at a breakneck pace. “I think we’re at the beginning of what [Grove] calls the valley of death—that’s where the old strategy starts to decline in growth, profitability, and efficacy, and the new strategy isn’t quite clear. I don’t think we’re quite there yet, but we see it coming,” Robins said.
“The next 36 months are going to demand a lot in strategy from MSPs that are in the one-to-10-million-dollar range,” Robins said. “Private equity [is busy] rolling up and creating super MSPs, which are getting stronger and starting to come downstream and go after your customers. It’s going to be a lot harder to compete. If you are an undifferentiated, generalist MSP, that window is closing; it’s already started [getting] harder to get customers, to make money.”
How to Survive, and Thrive, at the Inflection Point
Robins advises MSPs to look at four key areas to remain competitive:
Specialization. “MSPs are going to want to start specializing in a vertical like dentistry or defense contracting,” Robins said. “The numbers [show] verticalized, specialized MSPs tend to grow 11% faster than other MSPs. They also tend to have about 30% higher gross margin, because they can charge more because they’re perceived as specialists.”
Operationalization. “Start operationalizing AI internally, without cutting costs or prices. Greg Crabtree’s labor efficiency ratio [says] your total cost of labor divided by your gross margin should give you a ratio of two dollars of gross margin for every dollar of labor. For a short period, we anticipate seeing MSPs getting a higher labor efficiency ratio, [but] market forces will impact that [eventually]. So, for now, operationalize AI internally without cutting your prices. Hold on to those margins for as long as you can before the market drives it back down to 2-to-1.”
Compliance and Security. “Adopt the Willie Sutton marketing philosophy: go where the money is. Cybersecurity and compliance are undisputed profit growth and value-building sources. SMBs now allocate 14.8% of budgets to cybersecurity, which is up 10.2% since 2022. It’s the fastest growing budget category, with cybersecurity services growing at 18% through 2026. And MSPs who specialize in healthcare are charging on average 20 to 30% more than all their peers due to the HIPAA compliance.”
Trust-Based Marketing. “AI slop is becoming a recognized marketing term,” Robins said, “with 66% of consumers now blocking, filtering, or choosing not to do business with a company because their content was clearly generated by AI. They can read it’s fake, and nobody likes it.
We are in a trust recession, and AI is making it worse because people don’t know if it’s really you who wrote that article or answered the phone. The MSPs who are going to win are going to double down on trust-based marketing, not running the same digital playbook as before,” Robins said. This doesn’t mean not using AI at all, but you must be willing to refine and elevate it to deliver real value.
The Greatest Profitability Drivers and Biggest Threats
“If your profitability is not where it needs to be, there are six things that we’ve identified that have the greatest impact on profitability—not revenue, not sales, but profitability,” Robins said.
These six things are:
- Clearly defining your target customer profile
- Selling full-service managed services contracts
- Properly charging for onboarding
- Strong account management (QBRs, vCIO, IT budgets)
- Discipline in creating and adhering to an annual budget
- Service operational maturity
On the other end of the spectrum, the biggest threats Robins anticipates challenging MSPs right now are:
AI-powered MSPs. “That is not companies with AI bolted on,” she said. “It is where AI is literally built into service delivery and it’s doing the majority of the work to drive profitability, speed, and customer service. That’s significant because when you can get more work and more productivity [with] fewer bodies, labor costs [go down].”
Private equity rollouts. “They’re creating competitors that are going to be tough to match, especially if you’re in that one to $10 million range,” Robins said. “They operate with structural advantages. They can go to vendors and negotiate lower tool costs. They have entire teams devoted to developing AI usage. Private equity backed MSPs last year grew 2.6 times faster than organic MSPs who didn’t grow through M&A.”
Pricing pressure. “Over the last year or two, your overall general costs of doing business have gone up significantly. Your customers are dealing with that too; their margins are getting pressured, [which makes them want to] cut costs. [That means it’s more important than ever for you] to make a solid argument as to why somebody should invest and spend the money.”
Listening, Innovating, and Growing with Partners
In his keynote presentation, Tomaszewski emphasized Kaseya’s dedication to TMT and TruPeer members, saying, “My commitment to this program is to ensure [it] grows with you. We’re going to tackle AI and give you the right [tools] to tackle that in your business. In a year or two, when there’s a new thing, we’re going to help you tackle that too. We’re going to help each and every person here run a high-performing, profitable MSP.”
To support this, Kaseya has already introduced new value adds for partners:
Improvements to the MAP program. “When I took over, one of the first things I heard from our community was how complicated our MAP program was,” Tomaszewski said. “It was complicated, cumbersome, and from an MSP perspective, it didn’t help drive what we needed. Now, you’re going to see a clearer [interface], with fewer clicks, faster automations, and a simpler structure.”
An evolving digital marketing program. “We built this new version of digital marketing on what works, but we’re also designing for what’s next. We’re adding to and enhancing every one of our layers and programs, to really make sure we’re guiding you, supporting you, and that this program is going to continue delivering excellence,” he said.
As a part of this initiative, Tomaszewski announced that in Q3, the MSP Success Digital program will roll out a brand-new version of SMART numbers to provide deeper business insights.
Strengthening the peer communities. “The best part about this community is that we can learn from each other; we can strengthen each other if we work together,” said Tomaszewski. “I want to work with each of the different teams [within this organization] and create more focus groups and task forces so we can tackle challenges that we’re working on and continue to strengthen what we’re doing inside of our community. It’s no longer just sales and marketing; it’s not just operations. It’s how to run a successful MSP.
This program will be for everybody. No matter which peer program you’re in, you’ll continue to get all our frameworks and content. It’s going to be built to make sure that we help you grow faster and [support] you with the new challenges that are coming on a regular basis.”
Tomaszewski closed by reiterating his request for partners to communicate with the MSP Success team and let them know what they’d like to see from the program. “This is your community; we all work for you,” he said. “The strongest communities I’ve seen throughout this industry were built by people who lean in, challenge each other, and commit to growing together. That’s what TMT built. We’re carrying that forward. It’s not stopping, it’s not changing.
Let’s start this new chapter together. We want to hear your voice. We want to know where you want to go. We’re going to earn the trust and make sure that we’re there alongside you—I look forward to doing it with all of you.”
Don’t miss yesterday’s article on day 1 of the TMT IT Sales & Marketing Boot Camp. It’s your roadmap to outplaying, outsmarting, and outgrowing the competition.
