Turn client relationships and automation into lasting success 

John Kistler founded J&B Technologies in 1993. Since then, he has navigated economic cycles and technology shifts without losing sight of what built his business: keeping in touch with his clients and providing them with quality service.  

Today, J&B Tech operates with a team of 10 and has maintained an average of 7.6% year-over-year revenue growth for the past three years. MSP Success sat down with Kistler to learn more about his success and how he keeps pace with technology while maintaining performance. It turns out the winning strategy may be a well-balanced mix of AI automation, superior service and patience. 

MSP Success: What are the top three growth indicators you use to measure your company, and why? 

Kistler: Our top three are MRR, ticket count and sales from leads. Each offers insight into how we are best serving our customers. When it comes to MRR, every year we lose a company due to a merger, death or closing. We make sure we are constantly increasing our MRR with both new and existing clients.  

Every year we need to get better at servicing our clients. We are currently creating more automations to help with that. If ticket count stays steady or even drops, there’s more profit for the business. As we grow, that money gets passed along to the techs for raises. Happy techs keep clients happy, which gets us referrals for more clients. So, the cycle continues.    

Our leads and sales numbers let us know if our advertising is working or if we are out of touch with prospects. We track these numbers over a two-year period since trends longer than that tend to cycle out. For example, AI wasn’t around two years ago but is now a daily staple.  

MSP Success: What is one key secret to your success over the past year? 

Kistler: We make it a point to stay in close contact with our clients. We continue to give them relevant information to run their businesses. Clients are contacted multiple times a year to make sure they are doing well. We always ask if anything has changed or if they are anticipating any upcoming changes so we can prepare. Most importantly, we keep them informed of new risks and scams to keep an eye out for.  

MSP Success: What has been the biggest catalyst for your growth? 

Kistler: This year we hit a real sweet spot. A lot of MSPs have been bought and are shedding non-profitable clients while raising prices as service declines. That’s a recipe for unhappy clients. We simply tell them why we think they’d be better served with J&B Tech. 

MSP Success: What were your biggest challenges this past year? 

Kistler: Costs. All of my costs are going up while all new clients want their costs to go down, and that is a difficult situation to sell into. It usually means the clients are trying to cut back on services because they don’t think something bad will ever happen to them. 

MSP Success: What tools or frameworks have made the biggest difference for your business? 

Kistler: We’ve invested in automating a lot of our business processes. A little over a year ago we implemented Rewst, which helped us create automations for our scripts. It made us faster and allowed our techs to know where to focus their attention. When we switched over to n8n and utilized AI we were able to make an AI-human sandwich. AI would check something and a human would verify it. Having AI flag what needs human eyes helped us lower ticket numbers, increase our service level and quiet down client environments, resulting in fewer issues.  

MSP Success: What advice would you give to other MSPs looking to grow? 

Kistler: Get to know your clients better. Stay in touch with them and help educate them about your products and services that they need. Make sure they know how to stay safe and current with today’s technology and security environments, especially when it comes to AI and AI-generated attacks.  

MSP Success: What is the top lesson you’ve learned that has been instrumental to your company’s growth? 

Kistler: There are two key lessons I’ve learned. The first is that until your company is worth more than $4 million, you need to be in your business helping it grow. Learn how to divide your time between working in your business and on your business. Growth slows when everything is delegated because the top sales advocate is no longer working with clients. 

The second is to have patience and perseverance. Running a company is a long-term goal. Owners and employees who want success faster just keep pushing and never settle down into a cadence that helps them grow. There has never been a better time to be in the MSP business than today. Except for tomorrow, that will be an even better time.  

For more great interviews with MSP leaders, read our previous MSP Spotlight featuring Matt Disher, Standards, relationships and service: how to build a strong MSP.