Today I’m talking to Paul Green, the founder and owner of a marketing firm for MSPs called IT Support Marketing. If you struggle with marketing and generating leads, Paul says it’s not your fault—the MSP model encourages us to be lazy with marketing! I thought that was a bold statement so I asked him about that, and along the way he also shared some low-cost ways to consistently generate leads for your MSP.
That’s later in the show. First, our new 1 Thing segment, where we hear from an MSP about 1 thing that’s made a difference in their business. Today we’ve got Derek Gabriel of Ignite Solutions.
Listen here
1 Thing (#MSP1T)
[01:00] The importance of being connected to a community.
[01:43] The world is a smaller place thanks to technology. In-person events like trade shows are so important.
[02:18] Knowing who subject matter experts are can be a huge help to as you partner and learn new things.
We want to hear about your 1 Thing! Was there a book you read or a process you implemented that really changed things for you? Maybe a speaker you saw or a tactic you tried had an impact. Let us know.
Tell us about your 1 Thing in a voice memo and email the recording to [email protected]. Not only could you be podcast-famous by being featured on the show, we’ll also send you a much-coveted #franklymsp t-shirt.
Interview with Paul Green – Three Audiences Every MSP Should Build
[05:27] Paul talks about how the managed services model encourages us to be bad at marketing.
[05:44] One factor is that there is an enormous amount of monthly recurring revenue coming in. The second factor is that MSPs have insane retention rates.
[06:28] Businesses that have to rely on selling new stuff all the time get good at marketing or they don’t survive.
[06:56] But it can be easy to procrastinate on the marketing for many MSPs. That actually creates tremendous opportunity for MSPs who do it.
[07:38] The most common marketing question that Paul gets his how to get new clients.
[08:07] The second question is how to build a great team and keep a great team.
[08:48] A lot of MSPs don’t have a sales and marketing resource. When they do bring on a sales and marketing team they tend to grow faster.
[09:24] Try to avoid boom and bust marketing. This is marketing only when you need a client. Have consistent marketing all year round.
[10:25] Constantly doing marketing—but not constantly paying for marketing—is the trick to growing and getting new clients.
[10:51] Try to build three key audiences. You want potential clients to opt into your email marketing. You can giveaway some type of lead generation material.
[12:02] Paul builds his database by giving away a book.
[12:14] The second audience you should build is a LinkedIn audience. It’s easier to build the audience around a person rather than s business.
[13:46] Build your third audience around Facebook. The best way to do this is through a Facebook group.
[14:29] When you have an email list and a LinkedIn audience and a Facebook group you have three different ways to touch your prospects, three different ways to interact with people.
[15:20] People only buy when they’re ready to buy.
[15:36] By building different audiences you can reach people when they’re ready to buy.
[16:11] You have to look at marketing for your unique MSP and decide what resources you have available.
[17:38] Put in 30 minutes a day as a minimum. In an ideal world, you’d have 60 to 90 minutes.
[18:09] If you’re focusing on LinkedIn, try to make 25 new connections a day. You can put up a video or put out content and reach out to people.
[19:06] Create content that educates ordinary business owners about the issues you can help them with.
[19:40] Educate and build a relationship, because when people are ready to buy they make emotional decisions.
[21:19] Building relationships like this consistently over a long period of time will get you more business. You will spend time, but not a lot of money.
[22:37] DOA: delegate, outsource, and automate. This is what business owners really need to do to get ahead.
[24:39] You can outsource marketing. Sales can’t really be outsourced but marketing can.
[27:05] Marketing is about momentum. Businesses that get good at marketing grow faster.
Links from this episode
- Ignite Solutions Group
- Derek Gabriel on LinkedIn
- Webinar: Building A-Team Alliances to Extend Your MSP Capabilities
- PeoplePerHour
- Fiverr
- Upwork
- IT Support Marketing
- Get Paul’s free book
- Facebook group: MSP Support Marketing
- Paul Green on LinkedIn
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