Believe it or not, I started writing this article in the summer of 2022. At that time, Google began teasing their entry into the digital billboard space via their platform Display & Video 360 and it seemed like the comeback was on for “Out-Of-Home” (OOH) ads as they are typically called. The reason I never finished the article back then was because, while the idea was interesting, it just wasn’t practical yet. Inventory was somewhat minimal and I couldn’t imagine the majority of MSPs buying these ads this way after trying it myself.  So why now? I was staying at a hotel in the NJ-NYC ..read more

Growing a Managed Services business is a marathon, not a sprint. Knowing that your time horizon is long, the value of forward-thinking decisions becomes great. Time can also compound the benefit of these thoughtful decisions, which may accrue in the form of equity value in your business. If you are a technical MSP Owner or Executive, you can likely relate to this in terms of technical debt. This is when you have to constantly rework an infrastructure over time due to short-sighted decisions that were made along the way. When this is avoided, the rate of improvement dramatically increases and s ..read more

Good, Better, Best Packages While I could sit here and try to convince you that three is the magic number and that “Good, Better, Best” service tiers are the way to go, thankfully I don’t have to. That’s because my friend Nigel Moore, Founder of The Tech Tribe, has already done this in his book Package Price Profit. As he so eloquently puts it:  “We humans love choice. But funnily enough – not too much of it. We all love shopping, but we hate being sold to. Having a number of options allows your clients to feel like they are going shopping and helps them feel like they are in control of t ..read more

If you are one of the MSPs that has worked with me over the years, then you already know that I am what many would call “frugal.” I don’t like to part with money if I don’t have to and I apply this same logic to every marketing project I take on. While marketing might seem like a frivolous luxury to most, it doesn’t have to be that way. You can take a practical approach that aims to reduce any and all excess, which I call the “zero-waste” method. Over the years I have identified a few of the most common areas of waste that I have seen and created rules to avoid them. While this is not an exhau ..read more

Communicating Industry Experience  One of my favorite Authors and Marketers, Seth Godin, once said, “People do not buy goods and services. They buy relations, stories, and magic.” As much as I don’t want to believe it, this proves to be true in marketing time and time again. But what does this have to do with an industry case study? I believe that these three ingredients can lend themselves beautifully when putting together an asset to provide your prospects. I will explain:  Relations: People buy from people. A good industry case study should clearly explain the value of the relatio ..read more

Local Talent Shortages Being an IT Technician for an MSP is not for the faint of heart. As a matter of fact, it’s a grind. Why? Well for starters, you have to log in everyday knowing that you will face problems that you’ve never seen before, and service customers that are already experiencing a high degree of stress. In my experience, the best team members are not necessarily the most technically trained, or well educated (although this helps). They are the people that have nerves of steel, and simply bring the right attitude to work everyday.  The problem that MSPs face today is that the ..read more

An Abundant Resource It is my opinion that there has never been a better time for acqui-hire opportunities in the MSP market than there is now. The set up for this is fairly simple. As Canalys has recently reported, there are now over 335,000 global providers of Managed Services, many of which have less than 8 technicians and average around $1 million in annual revenue. With this abundant pool of providers, many are losing momentum and hitting a growth ceiling in their local market, or are struggling to earn a healthy enough margin to compete. In these situations, an acqui-hire becomes an attr ..read more

From Opportunity To Necessity What was once an opportunity for differentiation is now becoming somewhat of a necessity for MSPs. I am talking about vertical specialization and an MSP’s willingness and abilities to support the adoption of industry specific products, tools, and services. I believe that more SMBs are coming to the realization that these niche industry products are the ideal solution for their problems (whether their MSP agrees or not).  This is being influenced by their industry peers, events, and vendor landscape, similar to what we experience in the IT Channel. For example ..read more

What Is A LinkedIn Influencer Ad?  Okay, I know what you’re thinking; “What the heck is an influencer ad?! I’m selling IT Services, not organic face wash made from beeswax.” Let me explain further…  Sponsoring Employee Posts You may have noticed that LinkedIn is pushing a lot of updates recently to help build up “influencers” on their platform. This started with the launch of their creator mode, which has led to tons of new features and experiments aimed to help these creators build their personal brand, as well as the brand(s) they represent.  Now, it appears that they have tak ..read more

The Future of Search For the greater half of this year, I have been trying to get a pulse on where we stand in terms of search as a means of acquiring traffic and thus new leads and customers. Anecdotally, my Google search activity has been plummeting. I have largely shifted all of the normal queries that I would make throughout the day over to ChatGPT 4, which has dramatically decreased the amount of time that I spend clicking through websites and consuming the web directly. Instead, I ask it to search the web for me and return back precisely what I am looking for, which saves a ton of time a ..read more