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Running an MSP or IT Service Provider is incredibly hard 😖
(yet also VERY rewarding at the same time 😁)
Join Pete, Scott, Richard, and Andrew for this light-hearted, entertaining show full of lessons, mistakes, stories, & craziness from the trenches of running and selling our own MSPs.
Each week, we'll dig into the latest MSP news of the week and we'll then deep dive into a HOT topic that's super relevant to the MSP space.
(including Marketing, Sales, Pricing, Packaging, People, Service Delivery, Mindset, and more).
Andrew Moon: Can you believe it?
It's Wednesday again, back on air crazy.
Another week on by.
We're halfway through
February today as nuts.
Scott Riley: Happy Valentine's Day.
Andrew Moon: Yeah, so we got the,
uh, the flip flop weather going on.
You guys are freezing today.
I'm gonna have shorts and t-shirts
today, so hopefully we don't lose
internet cuz it's super windy here too.
So, uh, hopefully we don't get any
power lines go down during our show.
So anything going on
with you guys this week?
Anything new and exciting?
Richard Tubb: Nothing tech wise, we
were talking about all the sort of weird
and wonderful experiments that run.
I'm doing the cold plunge thing at
the moment, as I know, actually,
I know a few people in the Ms
P industry who are Todd Kane.
He's, uh, just on 30 days
of it as well, hasn't he?
But, uh, yeah, no, nothing tech related.
So,
Andrew Moon: Gotcha.
I think Nigel's into that too.
I think he does that when he,
when he gets done surfing, so
Richard Tubb: but Nigel's
Pete Matheson: I try itt, the I'll
go gym in morning, have my shower,
and I'll try and put it on for a bit.
I've, I've so many good things about it.
No, no, no.
It's too, too cold.
Andrew Moon: I'm with you Pete
Yeah, I'm, I'm right with you.
I'm right with you.
Well, anyway, I thought we would, uh,
since we've got some good feedback
from last week's show, uh, we were
sans Richard, which was, uh, uh, it
was good to have Robert on to tell us
what he's been up to, but I think you
have a lot more to, to chime in and
add to the topic this week, Richard.
And I think, Scott, you said
you got some, some feedback.
So you guys are, if you're watching
on the livestream today, Scott's in
witness protection program today.
So bear with him
Scott Riley: I sure am.
We've got, we've got no lighting.
I'm wearing a baseball
cap to make it worse.
Yeah, it's really dark.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um,
Andrew Moon: a new friend behind you too,
Scott Riley: I have, yeah,
there is little, if you can
see live, we have a cat.
Andrew Moon: I'm, I'm gonna zoom
in so we can all see the cat.
So
Scott Riley: brand new
addition to the family.
There he is.
It's just
Pete Matheson: chilling out on the.
Andrew Moon: in the wind sill.
Scott Riley: Hello.
Richard Tubb: Yeah.
Scott Riley: He's purring as well.
I can hear him.
But yeah, he's been here five days.
He's a rescue cat and, uh,
everyone's just loving him.
He's getting busted over all the time.
He's, he's dying settling really
nicely, which is, it's awesome.
It's really nice.
So, yeah, no tech stuff this week, I
don't think from here it's half term,
so we're away with the, you know, just
holidays from, from work this week.
Um, kids are off school and
new cat, so yeah, it's nice.
Really nice.
Andrew Moon: looks like he's chilling
and, and well made himself at home, so
Scott Riley: yeah, yeah.
He's definitely, well, we found
him, uh, he keeps breaking into
the room where the food is.
We found him like in the middle
of some bags of food, get out.
So he, he, he knows where the food is.
Andrew Moon: Yeah, they figured
that out pretty quick, so.
Scott Riley: Yeah.
He's smart.
Yeah.
Andrew Moon: Well,
Scott Riley: But no, he's good.
It's, it's nice.
But yeah, we did, you know, we've
got some really interesting feedback
after, uh, last week's show.
So I was chatting to a good friend
of mine and he was saying, Hey, you
know, I noticed on the, the UPSer
show that you did a, you did an
awful lot of talking about what we
would traditionally call upselling.
Um, and, and I thought the
purpose was up observing.
So, you know, we had a great conversation
with Robert and, and all the, the,
um, you know, the products that they
had in their stack and what they
wanted to drive customers towards.
And again, as we always talk about
that spreadsheet of customers down
the left, products across the top,
get the, the check marks in and you
know, who, who have you sold which
products to and who needs the rest?
Um, but the feedback that was really
interesting cause they said how much of
that was just upselling was just you as
the MSP just selling more products to
the client whether they needed it or not.
And this isn't specifically at Robert.
So Robert, I, I'm sure you, you're
watching all this thing, um, this
isn't specifically about you, but it
was just the, the conversation that
we were having was to say, yeah, make,
make sure you get that matrix together.
And then go and sell as many of those.
And, and the feedback was, well, how
much of that is about the client?
How much is it about you as the
MSP and, and your margins and your
revenues and, and where's the balance
drawn between actual service or just
selling more things that you can make
a margin on or selling things that
make your life, is the MSP easier,
but is it what's best for the client?
And I was like, oh, that's a really
great thing to cover and, and, and thank
you for, you know, for the feedback.
And, um, I, I wish you'd have
fed back live because actually,
you know, that would be something
that we'd love to dive into.
So we, you know, we had a chat about this
in, in the week on WhatsApp and I think
it's just, it's a lovely place to go.
And because we, we didn't have
Richard last week as well, I
thought it's a nice place for us
to just pick up on, on observing.
Cuz of course, the whole perspective,
I guess is, is serving better or is
serving more, you know, Making tech
do stuff for the client that makes
the client's business better in some
way, not just selling them more stuff.
Right.
And, and again, I just wanna
be a hundred percent clear.
This isn't specifically about Robert or
Cara or any of those types of things.
It's just the conversation.
Um, because I think we were all
enthralled last week with Robert's
growth and, and, and what's happened
at over the last, you know, couple
years since he's been part of team.
It's absolutely outstanding.
Yeah, I just,
Andrew Moon: Golf, swing that off.
So whoever wants to take that.
Richard Tubb: jumped all over it
when we're in the WhatsApp group.
So we, we've got a little WhatsApp
group for, for the four of us.
And, uh, when Scott shared the, the
feedback in there and I jumped all.
Over it.
Didn't ask Scott, cuz this is really
common, uh, objection is the wrong word.
Again, that's using sort of sales
terminology, um, and, and it's sales
terminology and the whole idea of
sales that, that I think we probably
need to tackle a little bit here.
You know, we've to touched upon it in
the show before, but where we've talked
about for a lot of MSPs, for a lot of
people in general, sales seems to be
categorized as persuading somebody to buy
something off you that you are selling.
And you know, Scott and I are, are big
fans of the Go-Giver, uh, book series
from Bob Berg and John David Mann.
Selling is not about persuading
somebody to buy something off you,
whether they might need it or not
need it, you know, and this whole
concept, ofer serving clients as
opposed to selling to them, it's a
really, you know, fundamental change
in your thinking once you get there.
Once you realize that actually
we're not here to sell to people,
we are here to help people.
And, and going back to, to
your friend's feedback, Scott.
The reason I jumped all over it, and
it's a common objection from MSPs,
is, well, you know, we're just trying
to sell more, uh, to, to clients.
No, I would say one of the fundamental
tenants of managed services that
I've learned, you know, over 20 odd
years of doing this is, and we've
talked about it on the show before,
but you wanna lower your cost of
support and increase your revenue.
Now, that is not in conflict
with helping the client.
We're not about just saying,
Hey, we've got a new product.
We've got a new solution.
Sell, sell, sell to you.
How many of us, you know, on the call
here today, or listening to the show
have been in a situation where we know
that the client is left vulnerable or
it's hanging by a thread or something
terrible was gonna happen to the.
but they just don't get it.
You know, back in my day it was
things like antivirus and backups.
Fast forward to today, it might
be cybersecurity and things like
that, but that is about where, you
know, the client needs something.
You've got the solution
that's gonna help them.
Uh, and it's not about persuading them,
it's about putting that in front of them
and, you know, sharing with them, this
is how you are gonna get peace of mind.
And then in answer to your friends,
uh, uh, Scott, if they don't get.
Or they don't want it.
Okay?
But at least you've got a clear mind
that you've put in front of them.
Hey, here's a solution
that's gonna help you.
But so I think for me, the difference
between upselling and observing.
Observing is when you absolutely
know the client is gonna be
better off with this solution or
service, and no conflict at all.
It's gonna help you lower your
customer support, help keep the client
safer, help increase your profits.
For me, there's absolutely no
conflict, uh, there, but I'm, I'm
really interested in what, what
everybody else thinks about this.
Pete Matheson: Richard, I think you
had a very good comment in the, um, I
think it was in the WhatsApp group as
well, but um, in terms of obviously,
you know, the, the kind of products
and things you are, you are, you are
selling or upselling or UPSer because
there are some services that you know
that they're going to need regardless.
And if you can supply those services,
you know, lots of MSPs will supply
telecoms and connectivity and all
these kind of things that they're
already buying from somebody else.
And just like you said earlier, it
does make sense to, if you can bring
that in-house with yourself because
then it's one supplier, they phone
one person when something goes wrong
and you as the M S P and I all the
time we'd have phone calls saying,
you know, my broadband's gone down.
And we go, well it's with bt, you need to
phone bt cuz they just won't talk to us.
And that causes the client more
problems, it causes us more problems
cause we can't do anything with it.
So we had a process, we would go.
In those particular examples, cuz
obviously the pressure's on at that
stage of saying, let's move you over to
us because if that happens in future,
we can then deal with all of it.
You phone us, we can run the line
tests, we can actually go and fix it.
We can book the BT engineers come out
and fix the problems if you need them.
But because you, um, the, the, like,
the opportunities, because people aren't
really looking for those opportunities.
They don't really do anything with them.
And so this is where the whole like UPSer
and upselling kind of thing comes from.
And the, we mentioned it last week as
well, but noting down like any contractual
renewal dates for, okay, we're with
bt well how long's left on your BT
contract, how many months left until
the end of your phone system contract?
Let's have a discussion with you
before it renews so we can actually
get the opportunity to quote whether
we're, you know, one of three or
if you wanna kind of put us up, up
against someone else, then absolutely.
But, um, it makes sense for you as
the M S P because it means, obviously
you can sell more services, but
you can be more helpful, you can be
more responsive, more reactive, more
proactive with lots of things going on.
And we know that, you know, most
MSPs know, and hopefully they know
they can do, um, the services a lot
better than lots of other third party
the big, big third parties could do.
You're not just another number, you can
give a much more personalized service.
So it's a win for the client
and a win for you as well.
There's, there's no
exactly like you're saying.
There's, there's no like, sales pitch.
It's just, Hey, here's a problem.
We have a solution.
Let's, let's see if we can work it out
and try and, you know, time it correctly.
As long as the, you know, the economics
and uh, financial, financial kind
of things will work out properly.
But, um, yeah, I I think
that's very important.
It's, um, e exactly like I said, it's
not a, it is not just a sales pitch.
We're not flogging things you don't need.
It's just for us and very much
like you were saying, we had the
security stack, the lease line
connectivity, um, online backup.
Just make sure we got ticks in
all the boxes because they are
services that, well, every business
we serviced, they all needed.
It's not like we're trying to go out here
and find things that don't exist just
to try and make a bit of extra money.
I mean, when you wanna make the extra
money, you kind of go through and say,
okay, let's start crawling through and
finding some old machines so we can
see if we can flog some old machines,
you know, new machines to people that
need to upgrade to try and get a bit
of extra revenue in before the end of
the quarter or whatever it's gonna be.
That's kind of the, when you're trying
to push things a bit further, but
no, the, these are all legitimate
services that they need to have
that you can then provide for them.
Yeah.
I, I feel like I've
talked for far too long,
Andrew Moon: Yeah.
Richard Tubb: hit them out on
the head, Pete, I would say yeah.
Andrew Moon: Yeah, we'll welcome a
couple people to the show real quick
and then we'll move over to, uh, Robert.
Chime in too.
So Brent Collins from
Little Rock, Arkansas.
Welcome, glad to have you Brant.
Uh, if you guys aren't familiar
with Brant's work, uh, Brant
and Strick, DJ Strick, uh,
we're partnered up for a while.
That's how I get to know Brant.
Uh, so good to have you tuning in.
He's a fellow tech guy too, so
Carlos Riviera tuning in from
New Jersey, New York City.
So glad to have you, my friend.
And let's dig into some comments
from, uh, Roberts, uh, also said,
yeah, we observed our clients only
because they needed the services,
not because we just wanted to sell.
And I think, you know,
that's the heart of it.
Um, yeah, he said, we told
clients they didn't need certain
services and we removed them.
So again, that's part of that service.
Um, and, and yeah, this is
the nail on the head here.
It's about the relationships.
Um, and if you have those good
relationships, The customers know
when you're, you know, they know
when you're trying to serve them.
Um, and I think that,
that, that's super key.
Ian also said, yeah, we consider the UPSer
to be key to calling yourself an msp.
Um, and that's one of the things
that, that I've kind of seen, maybe
it's me, but I've kind of seen
disappear, if you will, in managed
services not talked about a whole lot.
Is vendor management as part
of your managed services.
Like when I was running at a decade
ago, that that was a large part of
the sell to manage services is that
we would manage those relationships.
Exactly what you talked about,
Pete, that if, hey, if your copier
goes out, I don't do copiers.
You know, there's a third
party vendor that did copiers
for the attorneys we serviced.
I had no desire to get
into the copier business.
But if your copier breaks, you guys
know what happens in a law firm.
Everything grinds to a halt.
You call us.
Because you, how many times have
you guys dealt with a copier guy
and what do they say when the co,
when the, when the copier guy says,
okay, there's a problem with this.
Who, who do they usually blame?
Richard Tubb: The IT people
Andrew Moon: Exactly.
So you might as well
handle that relationship.
Like, I don't think I've had a single
time where you deal with a copier
company who didn't blame it on the IT
guy and you know, it's the network.
It's something else.
So, but
Richard Tubb: the, or the worst
version of that, Andrew, is when you
get a phone call as the MSP and you
say, we've gotta, and maybe this is,
I'm dating myself a bit with this
reference, but we'll sort of get it.
We've got a engineer here
from the copier company.
He wants the administrator
password to be honest.
And you're like, whoa,
Andrew Moon: yeah.
Richard Tubb: That's a reason why you
wanna be managing those vendors so you
can set expectations and manage the
whole process, not not letting some
crazy copier dude onto your network.
Andrew Moon: and I, and I think that
that's key to getting, talking about that
as you're selling your managed services,
because we kind of glance over that.
Yeah, we'll call the copier guy,
but help them understand how those
scenarios go and why it's important
for you to manage that relationship.
Because they will pay for that
convenience of their staff.
Not having to call and everybody's
down for two hours pointing fingers
as to who, who the problem is.
You know, we manage that relationship.
So I think, you know, that's a, for
instance, like you said, Richard, pointing
that out during your sales process.
This is what we do for you.
It's not just about, you know,
fixing printers and emails.
We manage your relationships with your
vendors even if you don't sell it.
So I think, you know, a large portion
of being able to raise your per seat.
Is, make sure you talk about those things
cuz I, I don't, and again, maybe it's me.
I don't see enough MSPs talking
about that portion of what you
provide to, uh, as a managed service.
Richard Tubb: I think they become, we've
become nowadays focused, ironically, given
the topic we've got here more on the, the
technical, we've become focused on the
services, not and the solutions, but to,
to rewind a bit, uh, you know, I've said
this on the show before we got so good
at doing the vendor management piece.
I mean, uh, you know, old school Ms.
P here, but we basically, uh, looked
at managed services to the point of
view that the client saw us as looking
after anything with a plug on it.
Andrew Moon: Yep.
Richard Tubb: you know, anything
can add to electricity, go into it.
Oh, it's probably, we'll,
we'll, we'll give the, uh, Ms.
P a accord for it.
We got so good at doing that.
The, our clients started phoning us.
For things that were like
wildly outside of our remit.
So they would phone us for things
like, Hey, we've got a leak in
the, uh, in the ladies' toilets.
Do you have a good plumber?
And instead of laughing it
off, we said, absolutely.
Go, go and speak to these guys.
Cuz we were really good at networking
and building, uh, that network there.
But that all came around because
when they phoned us about their air
conditioning, uh, when they phoned
us about their copiers, when they
phoned us about their telephone system
c around, whatever it might be, we
said, we can look after that for you.
Now, we didn't necessarily
do the work ourself.
We built what, what would be
called by a lot of people.
There's a strategic alliance.
We buddied up with other people
to deliver those services.
And some people might say, well, what
on earth has this got to do with it?
What an earth has a
plumber got to do with it?
It's got nothing at all to do with it.
But you move from being
seen as that IT guy.
To being seen as that trusted advisor.
That's the real value here.
And actually you may not even be the best
IT guy in your part of the world, but
if you can build up that trusted advisor
relationship, that is really powerful.
And people would definitely pay for
that in the same way they pay for
their accountant, solicitor, lawyer,
you know, all of that type of thing.
So I think it is, it's going
back to what Robert said, it's
all about the relationship.
Andrew Moon: Yeah.
Just, you know, that that integration
there of, of the relationships, you
know, just to give you for, you know,
and that's why I think, you know, the,
the way that I teach LinkedIn is not
just to get on there and sell, get on
there and connect with people that could
help your clients and, and, and have,
like you said, build a deep network.
Uh, and I think, you know, that's
where you, you move out of that
conversation with just being the IT guy.
Uh, when you got battery backup going off.
Pete
Pete Matheson: Um, yeah, I
think we just had a power cut.
Gimme two minutes.
Andrew Moon: go ahead.
Yeah.
And, and,
Scott Riley: It was gonna be you.
Richard Tubb: Yeah.
Andrew Moon: I know
I'm waiting for it, so.
Um, you know, just to give you,
for instance, I, I went and met
an attorney and I, who I had
connected with on LinkedIn and
said, Hey, let's go have coffee.
You know, cuz I, that was how I did it.
Thursday afternoons was dedicated
time for me to go network, build
connections, build relationships.
So I went in and I was waiting for
him and I noticed on the receptionist
desk, she had like six cleaning company
contracts that they were going through.
So I was chatting with her a little bit.
She said, yeah, we're, you know, we're
trying to pick out a cleaning company.
And I happened to recognize one
of them who served pretty much
all of the rest of my clients.
So I got on the elevator with
the attorney and I said, yeah.
I said, I said, oh, Susan said
you're looking for a new, uh,
cleaning company for the office.
And he said, yeah.
He's like, I have to do that when
I have to pick one out whenever
I come back from our meeting.
So I went through and I told him, I
said, you know, so-and-so company here.
I know the guy well.
He actually cleans.
Four other attorney's offices for us
and two other apartment communities,
uh, said they do a fantastic job.
And he's like, thank you.
You just saved me probably an hour
or two of my time when I come back.
And a bill of an hour for an attorney.
What is that?
2, 3, 4, $500?
You know, the owner of a law firm doesn't
wanna be picking out a cleaning company.
So you bypass that process and that, you
know, needless to say, I was able to sign
that contract because you show your value
while outside of being just the tech guy.
I am a business problem solver.
We are here to help you.
Um, you know, kind of
a general contractor.
And I think that that's, we've
kind of gotten away from that.
And again, maybe I'm just seeing
it wrong, uh, but too much of the
conversations are around, you know,
cyber solutions and we've gotten away
from the thing that actually the secret
sauce that actually makes us as an s p
different, that's how we differentiate.
Uh, between each other really
is the, the level of service.
So
Richard Tubb: Agreed.
Andrew Moon: yeah, Ian said, yeah,
manage service providers, managing,
manage my services, connectivity,
domain registration, usual stack
of tools, printing, et cetera.
So,
Richard Tubb: He ends on mark there.
That's a good point.
Andrew Moon: yep.
You got another comment there, Scott?
Scott Riley: Yeah.
So I wonder, uh, do you think we, like
us and, and our community, we're in
our own little echo chamber of, of
being that kind of supportive modern
thinking MSP, where it is all about the
relationship and actually the challenge
that we're gonna have is that there are
still those MSPs going out there that
are just trying to sell every single
service that they can because they get
more margin because the sales guys are
on commission because the vendor's doing
great rebates or a trip to Greece or
whatever it is, you know, that quarter.
Um, so I mean, it still happens.
We know it still happens.
So what it's, the challenge I guess
for us is, is we go out and approach
those clients and speak to them, and
we say, Hey, you know, we genuinely
think you need A, B, C, D, E.
We we're standing up against a load
of other people who've gone in and
go, yeah, and you need this and
this and this and that and this.
And Oh, I noticed that you
haven't got a pink one of these
and you need two of those.
And I see that your hexagonal
tag not adapter needs adjusting.
Yep.
So here's, you know, five of those.
Um, and, and like for most clients,
they're just, I don't, I dunno,
this is, these is just techy words.
I don't know what those mean,
but you say I need them.
So did the last five guys and,
and then it, that's how we end
up just in this price discussion.
Again, not value discussion.
And so I'm just interested to hear
like, what are your thoughts on that?
Because I think, um, you know, I don't, I
don't doubt any of, of our community, we,
we are very much thinking of the service
and serving and, and, you know, doing
that the right way with the right heart.
But I think we're in a, in an industry
that is traditionally and, and still does
just sell stuff for because, because
we make more margin or because we get
more commission or because I'm behind
target this month as a salesperson
and so they need to sell stuff and
that they're just gonna go sell it.
That's who we're up against.
And so how are we being more,
how, how are we gonna separate
ourselves in our messaging, you
know, when we talk to these clients.
That's, that's the bit I'm interested in.
Richard Tubb: I tell the, the,
the story, I've, I've shared
this story probably before.
Hell, if you watch this show long enough,
you're gonna hear all of my stories.
But, uh, years ago when I was
running the msp, so sometimes it's
not what you do sell, it's knowing.
When to say no, that's not.
What we do that can earn
a lot of trust as well.
So the, the story I'll share with
you, you know, many years ago we
were dealing with a ceramics company.
They called us in, uh, for
a managed service contract.
And we were pitching against, uh,
two of the other, one of the other,
uh, west Midland's biggest MSPs.
Very, very well known, huge
sales machine, and one of the
nation's biggest MSPs as well.
And we were the small guy just going
into there and they said, Hey, you
know, talk to us about managed services.
Uh, and they said, oh, and by the way,
we need a CR r M system, a customer
relationship management system.
And we said, okay, uh, we don't do that
ourselves, but we can introduce you
to our partner who does deliver crm,
and we will, you know, if you've got
any technical queries, well we'll deal
with them directly, no problem at all.
And they said, okay, thanks.
A couple of weeks later, they came
back and they said, Hey, you, you've
won the managed service contract.
And we were like, wow, thank you.
Um, can we just ask why
did we win that deal?
And they said, oh, . Well, when we
spoke to the other two companies, we
said, uh, can you help us with the crm?
And they said, no, and that was it.
We don't do crm.
So sometimes I think to your point, Scott,
when you say, no, we don't do that, and
let us introduce you to somebody you can,
that can build a lot of trust by showing
that you know where your limits are,
that you know that the best thing for the
clients is not necessarily to collage your
way through it, but to introduce them to
a partner who can do it better than you
and better value for the client as well.
Uh, so I think in answer to your
question, Scott, maybe that's one of
the ways that we differentiate ourself
from the paku Sell, sell, sell, uh,
by, by knowing when to stick with our
core competencies and when to introduce
the partner into the conversation.
Scott Riley: I think once we're,
once we're in a relationship,
I think that's definitely.
I think it's, it's during that sales
process or that, you know, that bidding
process where, you know, they, they've
got a bad experience with their, their
current msp, they're maybe shortlisting
three or four different MSPs.
And it's, it's in that time where
you've got the opportunity to go in
and, and, you know, differentiate,
differentiate yourself different,
can't even say the word, just stand
out from the pack from all the other
guys who are just saying, yeah, south
to sell product, front a product.
Here's my stack, here's my stack.
It's the best thing for you.
Um, and just, yeah, I'm just really
interested in, in, in, you know,
how you think we can stand, stand
in front of those other, I'm gonna
call them bad MSPs, , I'm sure no
one, no one set down to be a bad msp.
Um, but you don't what
me, you get my point.
Pete Matheson: Uh, I think from,
um, having sat on a few like boards
for like tender processes and things
recently, It has massively opened my
eyes that the other MSPs and the other
IT companies that are, are out there.
Um, I mean, we all think
that we are, we are amazing.
Our company's different,
we're best than others.
Our supports like unique,
all these kind of things.
And, um, I, I think that's true to
a certain extent, but a lot of the,
the gaps that I saw between these
different companies, lots of it came
down to actually just listening to
the customer and to their problems,
to their points, the, the specific
issues they wanted to raise.
Because going through this process,
the one that, one that tendered was
the one that listened and took action
based on the feedback they were getting.
Whereas the others were, you know,
blinkers on just going down their,
their supplied route, which going down
kind of what we've just been saying
of like, no, your way or the highway,
and you kind of have to know when
to step back, but also you have to.
When to listen and to try and make
your, your conversation, steer
that towards how it's gonna fix the
things that they're talking about.
And, and even simple things like the,
the budget question of, you know,
what can you do for this budget?
That was such a i in my eyes and I, I
really hope we did this through my MSP
and you kind of question yourself when you
see these kind of things, but, um, only
one company asked if there was a budget.
The one company that did get,
uh, that told the budget was,
um, the one that came in.
Um, they did come in over budget, but
they came in and said, well, this is
what we can deliver for the budget and
here's the bit that's above and beyond.
There was one other company that later on
found out what the budget was, but still
blew past it with no explanation of how
they could reduce the cost or prioritizing
the work or anything along those lines.
And the rest of them
completely blew past it.
Cause they didn't even ask the
question of what the budget was.
And that was just like one aspect.
Um, some people were leaving things out
of the quotes that they'd been asked for.
Um, One of the attenders
we did for, for a school.
And people that work with schools
will know that they sometimes need
like lighting and sound equipment
for like the, the halls and the,
those kind of things initially.
Yep.
Lots of MSPs don't do that, but lots
of school-based MSPs do do that.
Um, but some of them don't do
that and they literally just
left a gap in their proposal.
They mentioned.
No mention of the thing
that they needed in there.
No.
Like, like you were
saying, no recommendations.
Nothing along those lines.
So I think in terms of the, you
know, the question of how do
you like differentiate yourself?
It, it, it feels really silly, but
even just basics, just, just listening
to the client because lots of people
just don't listen to the client.
Um, so you've got the people that don't
listen to the client and then you've
got the MSPs that are just bad MSPs
like you say, and they come in with bad
advice, do the wrong thing, don't put in
supported, you know, hardware or software,
anything on those along those lines.
And I think it very much is
the differentiator to be.
Just listen with intent and make sure
you're responding to and addressing
anything they're raising up and
not just kind of skimming over
things just cause you don't do it.
But actually saying, oh hey, exactly
as Richard said, that we don't do that.
And either here's why, because there's
a better way of doing things or you
know, whatever your reasoning or
here's someone who could do it for
you, that we can recommend that we've
used before, whatever it's gonna be.
Um, but it is a super difficult one
because yeah, you're quite right.
We, we all think we're special, uh, when
real realistically we're probably not.
But then also I think we've got a
bit of a, um, uh, you know, unreal
expectation of everyone out there
is literally, you know, doing the
exact same stuff we are doing even
though it's the same kind of software,
but it's it's not in the same way.
Um, and that's the thing that all
of us say, our services are U S P,
our service is like the only thing
that differentiates us because we
are selling the same stuff generally.
Andrew Moon: Yeah.
And that's, it's hard to sell the
fact that you're a better service than
somebody else in that sales process.
You, you, you know, cuz you're
basically saying, I'm great, they suck.
Um, but I, I, I think
Pete Matheson: even, even feedback
because you, you can get feedback
from tons of clients that have
no idea what it is saying.
You're amazing.
Five stars.
Well, they could be the
worst company in the world.
They just have clients that are,
you know, absolutely clueless
as, as far as they're concerned.
Maybe they're lucky they haven't had
a, a breach or a hack for them to, you
know, have any form of bad opinion.
But it's, it's super difficult
to, you know, be able to tell.
Andrew Moon: Yeah.
And I, and I think, kind of touching
on your point, Scott, the last
couple years that I had my Ms.
P, we refocused on, you know,
completely changing the sales process.
I did everything in my power
not to talk about the tech.
During, during those sales process,
I wanted to know business outcomes.
What is the business outcome
that my service provides
for who we are selling to?
And you get to know, and that's, you
know, I fought it for a long time, not
nicheing down, but when you do that,
like, you know, I solidified, yeah,
we had others, but I had property
management companies and attorneys.
I knew the ins and outs of every
business challenge that they had.
And that's what I addressed in the
sales process with new prospects is
you address the business challenges
you've helped others solve, analyze.
To Pete's point, you gotta listen
and find out what their particular
nuance is to the problems and
challenges that they're having.
and then it becomes, you know,
this is how our service helps
you solve that business outcome.
Um, you know, and, and I think that's
kind of pulling away from the, the normal
sales process that we all have seen.
And, you know, we still see, I
still see the same sales process
when I got into the business way
back in 2004, almost 20 years ago.
Um, but I think that's what the business
owners wanna see the business outcome
of what writing you a check means.
And I think, you know, that's
where the vendor management,
I would sell hard on that.
I would sell hard on the vendor management
and talk about our executive concierge
service where we went above and beyond
what anybody else was going to do.
that's how I separated
ourselves from the pack.
Richard Tubb: I think there's a good,
there's a good analogy, Andrew, in
the insurance market and something
Pete was saying, you know, we all
essentially sell the same type of thing.
Whether you agree with that
or don't agree with that.
If I look at the insurance market when I
want new house insurance or car insurance
or whatever it might be, I go onto
one of these screen scraper websites,
you know, the comparison websites.
I find the cheapest quote, and then
typically, you know, if, uh, I'll
look at that and it's like, great.
But then if there's a quote that's
almost the same price or even in
the same ballpark, and I look at the
reviews and or the, the social proof,
the testimonials about that insurance
company and people are saying things
like, they made it super easy for us.
In other words, these guys
weren't your typical insurance.
So-and-sos who do everything in their
power not to pay it unclaim to you.
So when all things are equal or even
close to equal, I'm gonna go with
somebody who has got a reputation
for offering better service.
And to Pete's point, you know about you
and we're do all doing the same thing.
It it, the secret source is whether
you can demonstrate and you can get
the social proof, the testimonials
get across to people that when things
go wrong, we're gonna have your back.
Uh, and I think that goes a huge, huge
long way for people, you know, going,
okay, you might be a bit more expensive.
Uh, and, but we know that
you're gonna have our back when,
if and when things go wrong.
And that's the differentiator.
And I think actually going back to
something, what Scott said earlier on,
when you know people are, are overselling
and stuff, there are lots of different
ways you can differentiate yourself.
But actually that's one of them
by saying, we're definitely gonna
have you back when things go wrong.
Not just talking about it, getting
other people to talk about it.
I think that's, that's a
big part of the puzzle.
Andrew Moon: It is.
Yeah.
Carlos Riviera said, uh, the key I think
is to make it easier for the client.
Exactly.
It's easier for the client
to call a single point of
contact for all their IT needs.
That's the value we should be getting.
Yeah, for sure.
Um, Tim Co.
Tim, Tim, coach, uh, had a quick
question here, said the issue
with vendor management is time.
It's fine if it's a few minutes
to manage, but what do you do
if you spend hours, days, weeks,
working with a managed vendor?
How do you suggest managing that?
Richard Tubb: Love that question.
Can I, can I jump in there?
Ashu, you've got some ideas on it as well.
Pete?
Uh, the, the thing to mean, it's
a great question from Tim, like,
vendor management, great, but
what if the client starts throwing
all of these different third.
Uh, you know, line of business
and third party applications.
This is where you build the
relationships up with your, uh,
preferred third parties, and then
everything gets a lot, lot smoother.
Uh, so some really good examples of
this, I think from, from my world
in the past might have been, um,
accounts, packages like Sage and
QuickBooks and things of that nature.
Uh, they tended to be a little bit of
a pig to deal with, but we built up
relationships with third parties who
did specialist support for those things.
And then when we need, when the client
had a, a, you know, an issue that we
couldn't solve ourself, it immediately
got escalated to our trusted partner and
they dealt with it on, uh, the behalf.
So I think that's a, that's a really
short answer to what can be a lung and
complicated, uh, sort of situation, Tim.
But from my perspective, if you build
that relationship with the third
parties, it's gonna remove a turn of the
friction, uh, of doing business there.
And you are gonna come off
looking like the hero as a result.
Scott Riley: I think one of the.
Pete Matheson: to make sure we, sorry.
Scott Riley: Alright.
We might have been about
to say the same thing.
You go.
Pete Matheson: Well, I was gonna say
my, my, my add-on to that is just to
make sure you're billing for it and, and
even have a category in your ticketing
tool to categorize the, you know, vendor
management or something because, um,
as things do start to balloon, yep.
Sage exactly was one of those ones
that we repeatedly had issues with,
particularly at certain times of the year.
And, um, yeah, you, you don't know
what you don't know, so just make
sure you're tracking those hours so
at least you can go back to the client
and study and go, okay, we've spent,
you know, X hours this month speaking
to these two suppliers of yours.
What's going on?
Do we need to, you know, do, do
we need to do something else?
Do we need to find someone else?
Or what, what can we do
to reduce those hours?
And in some cases with, with some of our
clients, we did just say, if you wanna
bring the, uh, you know, cost is gonna go
up unless we stop doing these phone calls.
Um, so in some situations we just
stopped calling Sage because we all know.
Horrendous sage can be sometimes.
Uh, and we just left that with
the client and they were happy for
their staff to, to do that if they
wanna waste their staff's time.
But it's one of those conversations
I think you just need to have.
Richard Tubb: Pete, how dare you.
Besmirched Sage.
You realize where I am.
I'm in New Castle upon time,
which is the home of Sage.
How dare you?
Pete Matheson: I, I'm assuming
you know how bad sage is.
Surely Sage just needs to die.
Death desk, God,
Richard Tubb: No chance.
That's, we're zero users
for what it's worth.
Scott Riley: can, can, can
we line sage up next to, uh,
Richard Tubb: 15 minutes
away from, from where?
I'm in the studio right now.
Scott Riley: I feel like we should,
we should gather all of sage together
and just stick it in a car park next
to w h Smith's, which is is one of
those stores that we have here in the
UK that I just, I don't understand.
You sell Parker pens that nobody wants.
You sell papers that people just
walk in and read and walk back out
without buying, and you sell notepads.
I mean, we've all got Amazon.
What, how, how is it still in business?
I don't understand.
High street shops are
closing all over the place.
That one's still going.
I'm gonna stop ranting anyway.
My point for Tim, um, Tim, I think one
of the other options that you could.
Not saying it's right for everybody.
One, the other options you could
consider is putting a, uh, a limit on
the amount of time that you would spend
on certain vendor tickets each month.
Um, so you might say, look, okay,
we, we'll include you vendor
management, but there's a 45 minute
sort of cap if you like, for doing
that interaction each week, month,
whatever time period you want.
If we have to spend more time than
that, then there will be some chargeable
time that goes against that, and
I think everyone can understand.
We're saying we do
everything we're saying.
We look after all your vendors, and
there's a reasonable expectation of the
amount of effort that's involved in that.
They know themselves if it's a
terrible vendor, and they'd have to
spend six hours on the phone trying to
deal with an issue, and they're just
gonna lump that on you, and you are
gonna do it as part of the service.
They know what they gain.
Right.
So you could, you can quite happily
say, know that there's, there's
a cap per ticket or per incident.
Per time period, whatever it is.
And above that, we we're
gonna have to charge extra.
And that way, again, back to Pete and
Richard's point, they'll start to see
where things are, you know, costing
more or that time is being taken up more
and more and probably distracting from
the great managed service that you do.
And some of those tickets
are gonna be sold.
They, oh, you never
solved that stage problem.
No.
You can see from the hours we've spent
and how to bill you on it that it's
not really within our gift to fix.
So again, it helps just separate out,
yeah, this is the stuff that we do.
This is stuff we're gonna have to charge
X before and, and not, doesn't just leave
you hanging with the Well, I've said
I'll do it and now I'm gonna have to do
it no matter how many hours it takes.
So I just thought that might be
another tack you could have a look at.
Andrew Moon: What we did with attorneys.
We, you, and, and again, I think
that's the key with nicheing down and
understanding the markets you're in.
Like you guys said, you
know, Sage is a pain.
Okay, you, I account for
that in my managed services.
You, you account for the PIA factor of
whatever tools they're dealing with.
Uh, so for me, I factored that in there.
And, and again, that's up to me to
explain why our price is the way it is.
And that's why it's important
to tell those stories.
We have other CU customers using Sage.
They had this problem.
And like you said, Scott,
the customers know, okay, we
had that exact same problem.
Okay, how many hours did that cost you?
The cost Amaya client over
here, 25 hours of his time to.
. Okay, well it cost us the same amount.
Okay.
That's part of our service.
So we just, we factor in having
to deal with those things.
Uh, practice management software
for attorneys, same thing.
Whenever there's updates that have
to occur, you explain that to them,
that we realize that, you know,
these particular softwares do yearly
updates and they're pretty big, so
we're gonna have some extra time.
And doing backups and recovery, you know,
just making sure everything's there.
And then if there's new features
that roll out, we're gonna
have increased tech support.
Cuz people are gonna be asking
questions, where did this go?
Or Why did this move?
But when you explain all of that
to them in a sales process or a tbr
r at some point, letting them see
pa painting that picture is key.
Rather than going through and saying
line item with all those things out.
Uh, that's where understanding the
industries really came into play.
Um, and, and again, taking
those things off of their plate.
People pay for convenience, you're
paying extra for the convenience
of us having to deal with that.
Um, and we would go back, like to like
what you guys said, uh, we would go back
and review periodically our contracts.
So we didn't let it go three years
before we did a price increase.
We, you know, we knew, okay, we
looked at all of those things
and we had that broken out.
And ConnectWise, any vendor
management had its own category.
So I could go through and see each
one of my clients, how much vendor
management are we actually doing.
So to Pete's point, having those
educated conversations, here's the
data, here's the data we're looking at.
And again, you know, whether or not
you're in line with how you quoted
it in the first place, or whether or
not you need to adjust the price or
like pizza, pick a different vendor.
Do we need to look at somebody
else that's not so labor intensive?
Um, and those conversations in the
sales process are super important
because then that takes you away from.
. Okay.
You do Office 365, you fix printers.
You, you do everything else
that the last five quotes said.
Um, and I think that that's, that's
super important to get that across,
uh, in, in that sales process to
Richard Tubb: There's
Andrew Moon: that you got your back.
They, we got their back.
Richard Tubb: key point I'd like to
make, Erin, this is something, you know,
I learned the hard way and I picked
up from one of my great friends and
mentors, Carl Chu, that is making sure
that if you are, uh, offering to support
a client's, let's say line of business
application, third party application,
whatever it might be, the, the client
has a support contract in place with the.
So what you don't want in this situation
is, as we just said about like sage
or whatever it might be, the client
going, oh man, this is a real pain.
We don't want to go through this, so
we're just gonna hand it to these guys.
Um, you know, they cannot, your
client cannot abdicate responsibility
for support, for update on that
product, whatever it might be.
So when you go into it, you can say,
you could actually say within your
contract or within the sales discussion,
Hey, we will extend support to you.
On any product that you've got a support
contract for, we will take it out your
hands, we will handle the ticket, we
will handle all of that, all of that
type of thing for you, knowing that
you've got the third party experts there.
Now, back to one of Tim's earlier points.
Once you start to build this catalog
of really trusted suppliers, you
can then make recommendations.
You can say, actually, Sage
is not a good fit there.
Let's introduce you to our friends
at zero, or whatever it might be.
And, and that's the way we
started to lower the cost of
support, increase the revenue.
But you cannot, you cannot take on board,
uh, you know, that third party line of
business product where, uh, they say,
oh, we need an update for this, right?
Where's the original disks?
Oh, there's a floppy disk somewhere
in that drawer over there.
And you're like, A what?
? You can't, no.
You know, it's gotta
be a supported product.
So,
Andrew Moon: Yeah, and I think
that's key in the discovery process.
You know, we made that part of
our discovery process as we're
going in bef, you know, because
we all have that conversation.
Okay.
The next point is to do our network audit.
You know, that typical thing.
But that's part of the process is,
you know, finding all of those things
out before you know well beforehand.
And you know, you line out all of those
line of business apps, you make sure of
those things in the discovery process.
And one of the things that we did as well
is talking to the people you're going
to be supporting before I give a quote.
And that was super key for me
to understand how the business
thinks, how the business operates,
because I, and I also know, we all
know that there is a PIA factor.
That you, a variable that we may have
to add in here to take this client on.
Um, but I think, like you said, Richard,
finding all of those things out and
making that super clear in that discovery
process so that when you sit down and
you're ta actually talking, you know
the numbers of it, they understand
the full scope of what you're doing.
And to Pete's point, like
that's the differentiator.
You, you said that one vendor at took
the time to bother to find more details.
Only one.
It, it, we don't, it, it's, we don't
have to do anything spectacular
really to elevate ourselves above
the rest of the, the folks out there.
That's just the, it's just the nature
of the, the, the business that we're in.
Um, but I think yeah, that's,
that's super important to have all
of that in the discovery process.
And to, to, uh, Tim's point here,
how often do you suggest reviewing
the contracts with your clients so
that you are not getting blamed?
So anybody have any
tips for for Tim there,
Pete Matheson: We, we'd always
do it on a quarterly basis.
So even though we had annual contracts,
just review them on a quarterly basis.
Um, and when I say review them with a
client, so we would review them internally
to check our data and make sure that
it was kind of within acceptable usage.
Um, and if there was any issues
for three months con, sorry, yeah.
Three months consecutively.
Then we'd have a discussion with
the client and say, okay, we need
to figure out what's going on here.
Let's have a discussion.
Is there something going
on behind the scenes?
Do we need to look at changing vendors?
But yeah, e every three months for us,
Richard Tubb: We looked at it
regularly, we, and, and it goes back
to something that we keep banging
the drummer about on this show, and
that is if you capture the time that
you're spending on these different
things properly, you can go in and say,
actually we have spent an inordinate
amount of time managing SAGE products.
We're picking on Sage a lot
this last week, it was Microsoft
this week, it's Sage next week.
Pete Matheson: Your friends.
Richard Tubb: Nice, nice
to our first vendors.
But um, yeah, so once you're categorizing
that time, you can actually easily
pick out, look, we're spending an
inordinate amount of time dealing
with this vendor for this client.
If we continue on this basis, this
profit, this project, this customer, this
client is not gonna be profitable for us.
So in answer to Tim's question, similar to
Pete, we would go back to them regularly
and say, actually, we're looking at this.
We really recommend you move.
To zero for your accounting because
it's gonna be easier for you.
It's gonna be easier to
support and it's the future.
But if you do decide you wanna
stay with Sage, we've gotta let
you know we're spending a lot
of time managing them for you.
So our contract is gonna go up
by this much, uh, in the future.
But if you manage it, if you measure
it, you can manage it properly.
So it all comes down to
managing those tickets.
Pete Matheson: A, a added to that
slightly if, um, so, cause we had a
few of those discussions, like, okay,
we recommend this or you do this.
Um, this will fix the ongoing problem.
If they then said, no, we don't
want to do that for any reason.
I appreciate for accounts, it's
obviously a big change to do that.
Um, Within our contract that gave us
the right to say, okay, that's fine.
Now, that is now excluded
from our contract.
It's kind of on a, um, to a certain
extent on a best efforts basis.
So we'll do kind of what we can, but we
are within our rights just to say, no,
sorry, that's, that's now not covered
and we can charge for it because, um,
e everyone has one of those, like an
access database that was put together
by someone like 20 years ago and
they're like on their last legs and
you're not sure what's gonna happen.
We have one of those and um, even still.
Richard Tubb: We, getting back to
the theme of this show, we were
talking about UPSer a brilliant
example I would say of how we did
that with exactly that scenario, Pete.
So we, we used to do a lot of work
with, uh, clients, uh, in engineering,
manufacturing, those sort of things.
There is always, isn't there a
machine on the workshop floor?
You don't even know the machine's
there, but it's like a compact machine
from like 1991 that still uses floppy
disks, but it runs the only software
that can power up, let's just say the
laser cutting machine or something.
So you've got two options
there, aren't you?
The first option is you become an expert
on laser cutting machines and say,
actually things have moved forward.
We think you should have this
quite difficult, quite niche.
Very niche indeed.
Or you can observe the client by saying,
if that machine blew up, how would.
Replace it and they'd be like,
uh, you could say to them, okay,
we would do regular image based
backups of that machine that can be
restored onto dissimilar hardware.
So if that fails, you've got a fighting
chance of being able to buy a new pc,
restore the image onto it in a away we go.
Of course, it's never that quite that
simple, but there's an example of
where you could choose key machines
within a client's network that
absolutely they cannot be without.
And you can observe that client by selling
them works station backup and disaster
recovery for those particular machines.
And we, we did that quite
successfully, again, lowered our
cost of support because who was
gonna get blamed when it went wrong?
, it was gonna be us.
So we, we made it to cover ourselves.
Pete Matheson: A and that all works
perfectly right up until the point
where it's, uh, and by the way, the
machine needs domain admin privileges,
Richard Tubb: Or no?
The, the one we had, Pete was right,
where can we source a machine that's
got a parallel port a five pin cereal
port, and, and then the younger engineers
in the office are like a what now?
And we're like USB port, but bigger.
Andrew Moon: Yeah.
Pete Matheson: I I wanna throw a, um, a
question out there if I can do guys, um,
kinda on the observing side of things.
So, um, I was chatting with, uh, with a
guy, he's, he sent me a message the other
day saying I might be turning down a 30
grand 365 licensing deal because they want
to annual commit, but wanna pay monthly.
He's a small company, he can't
stomach the o obviously the, the
potential risk of if they go under
and stop paying them or something.
H how could you turn that around?
Like, should that just be a stage
you just him turn around and say, no,
that's not for me, we can't do that.
Or are there any other creative ways
you can think of for that person to be
able to, cause you know, 30 Ks a good
chunk of business for, for essentially
a, a one man kind of M S P and it's a,
it's one of those tempting things and
the only things I could think of really
is, um, certainly like credit checking
your client, making sure that they, they
are good and have good credit history.
So, you know, there.
good for it, so to speak, but
there's always that risk, so
we know that it could happen.
Um, someone else mentioned getting
insurance, but someone also mentioned
that getting insurance was extremely
expensive to get that kind of level of
cover, apparently more, more than what
you'd probably lose from not having it
Um, so yeah, just, just thought
I throw that one out there.
If anyone's got any clever thoughts
on o obviously if one of these things
is like small, small MSPs trying
to grow and you get those kind of
roadblocks in the way that really,
really stops progress in some stages.
Scott Riley: It's interesting, isn't it?
Because that's worth.
Hmm, what'd you say?
30 grand a month?
Pete Matheson: Uh, good question.
Um, I don't know.
Yeah, I'm not
Scott Riley: no, no.
If it, if it's, did you say it
was 30 grand a month in licensing?
Pete Matheson: It was a 30 K 365 licensing
deal on an annual commitment monthly paid.
So maybe that's a 30 k every.
Scott Riley: Oh, okay.
Cause it was like, it's 30 K a month.
That's
Andrew Moon: Yeah, that's a big
Scott Riley: way into
Pete Matheson: Oh yeah.
Month will be, yeah,
Scott Riley: yeah, yeah.
So,
Pete Matheson: like two and a
Scott Riley: the reality is the
margin is worth 305 pounds a month.
Pete Matheson: Yeah.
Scott Riley: that licensing, you'll
get an extra rebate of 4%, which,
depending on where you're up to,
you might get all that 4% as cash.
You might only get 3% of it's cash.
Like 400 pound a month.
If you, if you were just not comfortable
with it, I think I, I believe it and
just say, Hey, buy direct, or, you
know, um, you could, if you're with PAX
eight, you could get PAX eight to do
the invoicing and they will just pay
you the rebate or the margin on it.
And so which goes, you are not
doing the invoicing at all.
They'll charge you the overhead, uh, for
the billing, so you get less percentage.
But in reality, the risk is
then with pack eight, I believe.
Um, so that's certainly an option.
Pete Matheson: oh, interesting.
Scott Riley: Um, you could invoice
factor and you could charge the
client for the invoice factoring.
Um, so essentially get credit for it.
Um, and the credit is with the
client and then they are paying the
additional 4% or whatever on top.
Um, it's not much of an incentive
for the client, if I'm honest.
Um, yeah, I, I think I would look at.
Certainly with distribution, I'd
look at your distributor and say,
do you do a scheme where you build a
client and I just get the rebate or
the margin or whatever, because th
those schemes do exist, and that way
Pete Matheson: interesting.
They, they're with eight, but they,
they weren't aware of that with PAX
eight, so that's a very interesting one.
Scott Riley: have a chat.
Definitely.
It, I, I haven't done it myself, but
I'm very aware that it was available.
Maybe it's changed with nst,
but I would, I it's certainly
been my phone call to make
Pete Matheson: Awesome.
No, there you go.
Handy
Andrew Moon: 400 pounds a month.
What does that equate to in dollars.
Scott Riley: $400
Andrew Moon: Okay.
That's
Scott Riley: It's almost one one.
Andrew Moon: Yeah.
I mean,
Scott Riley: It's, it's not a,
Richard Tubb: It's one very small
manage service contract, isn't it?
So your time might be better
off picking their new client up.
Scott Riley: know, the risk is if they
go pop the, the MSP stuck with, you know,
let's say they go pop six months in.
Okay, well, they've still got another.
15,000 pounds to pay
out of their own pocket.
And, and the, and the
upside was 400 a month.
It's, it is quite a risk.
I, I totally understand it.
Um, so yeah, speak to PAX eight, see
if they're still doing, we bill and
we pay you the rebate or whatever.
Richard Tubb: You make a
really good point, Scott.
We could probably, Andrew, do a whole
show about the value that distributors
can add to the MSP's relationship
that is massively overlooked.
Uh, especially with the new breed of, uh,
I wouldn't even call them distributors,
but you know, similar thing, PAX eight
are doing incredible stuff for the MSP
industry and a lot of, you know, uh, we do
some work with PAX eight and the biggest
challenge they have is educating the MSPs
to say, Hey, we can help you with this.
Um, so we could probably do an
entire show about that, couldn't we?
Andrew Moon: I think so.
Uh, cuz one of the vendors I don't, did
have you, did you guys ever use Char Tech?
I think they're, they're a
Richard Tubb: They weren't really
in the uk, but are aware of them.
Yeah.
Andrew Moon: Like, that was another
one that every, I had debate two
and four, you know, about hardware.
Uh, we did our hardware as a
service through chart Tech and.
I did it for a while.
We white labeled our own stuff.
I had a vendor that would build machines
literally half a mile from my office.
Went down that road.
Um, but yeah, I think the,
the value there for that was I
didn't have to worry about it.
I didn't have to worry about warranties.
I could literally, you know, somebody
gets hosed with a virus on their machine.
I could go in to Jar Tech, request
a new box, and I would have it at
9:00 AM the next day from shipped
from California with my image on it.
For that customer.
Yeah, I paid a premium for that,
but I didn't have to worry about it.
Like there was, I didn't
have to deal with warranties.
I didn't have to deal
with any of that crap.
Richard Tubb: It's going back to the
original conversation we had, isn't
it Andrew, about why as an msp, how
would can we differentiate ourselves?
Well, we can, and I think it was Ian
who said, um, you just wanna make
things li life easy for the client.
In this instance, we are the
client and the distributor.
is, you know, the people who
are selling well, you know, what
can they do differently for you?
What do PAXs eight do better
than your West Coast or tech
data or whoever it might be.
Andrew Moon: Yeah.
Yeah.
And I think just those things
that you save as an msp, I
didn't have to worry about that.
And that allowed me to concentrate
on growing that en that allowed
me to concentrate on providing
best, better customer service.
So yes, I could have made a little
bit more money had I done it myself.
But again, we don't always look
at that cost versus our time.
You know, we're, we're taking away
our time, but you're also taking away
your ability to grow your business.
So that's even more cost
that we don't factor in.
Yeah, I like that.
Uh, we'll definitely.
, maybe see if we can get, uh, some
folks from PAX eight to jump on.
I, I would like to explore
myself what they do.
PAX eight wasn't around, uh, when
I had my M S P and I think they're,
or what are, what other ones are
out there that are doing similar
type things with consolidation, with
billing and those types of things.
Pete Matheson: I mean, the are
all doing it now, aren't they?
The West coast, the tech data,
the cnxs, they're, they're
all doing the con consolidated
economy, the MSP building now.
Andrew Moon: Yeah.
And I
Scott Riley: as a general, uh,
spokesperson for PAX X, someone pretty
much all of their launch briefings here
in the uk when they're attracting new
partners, um, I'll answer you and say,
no one's doing good as well, Andrew.
It's PAX eight.
Or, or, or the highway.
Um, but no, genuinely that.
They are doing a really good job.
Um, I know quite a few of the UK folks
if he wants to get a UK person on, but,
um, they're also, they're doing a huge
conference in Denver in June, um, which is
their, their fear, their first conference.
Uh, so I'll be heading over
there for that as well.
But they, they're a great bunch.
They just, they actually give a crap
about MSPs and what MSPs need, and
that's just a, a breath of fresh air,
you know, for a lot of distribution.
Um, I know some are better than
others and I'm, I'm genuinely not
gonna retire, but say I'm not, cause
I know some of them are really great.
Um, but, you know, some of the
experiences just been box shifting
mentality and, and it's still there.
Clunky old portals, you know, old
paperwork processes, manual approvals,
licenses that don't appear until over
the weekend cuz someone's come in on
Monday morning and pressed a button.
Just so old school and, and
just no knowledge of the
products that they're selling.
So like, you, like I'm stuck
with this, it's not working.
Oh, cool.
Have you raised a ticket with the vendor?
No, I, I, I got this through you.
I'm, I was hoping for some PAX eight
have like vendor support capability
in all of the products that they sell.
They have 98% automation.
So anything you buy through the portal is
automated and delivered to the end client.
It's, it's, it's really good.
I'll shut up cuz otherwise I'm
just standing like a, for PAX eight
Andrew Moon: no, that, I
Scott Riley: don't pay
Richard Tubb: Concludes.
Scott Riley: I, I do the eight
once a month anyway when I
do their partner watches.
It's lovely people, but, um,
they, I I sure they would be
delighted to, to come on and chat.
Andrew Moon: Plus one.
I've, I've interviewed Matt
Lee's been on my show a couple
Scott Riley: Oh yeah.
Matt Lee's a
Andrew Moon: love Matt and yeah, pa,
kudos to them for picking up Roby.
Uh, that was just an
amazing pickup for them.
I've known Rob since my
level platforms days.
I, you know, I think we
connected like way back in 2000.
So yeah, it's quite a ride.
Scott Riley: keying, uh, beyond,
I think he's gonna be the keynote.
Andrew Moon: that's what I just saw.
Yeah, so I, you know, I think there's lots
of exciting things and I, I think there's
lots of ways for MSPs to be able to take
that next step as a version 2.0 or 3.0
wherever we're at with the MSP industry.
Um, and I think it is, it is going to
be, uh, you know, with partnerships
like PAX eight that are gonna allow
you to scale at the speed that you
wanna scale, assuming that's your goal.
So, good deal, guys.
I, we got the little bit past the hour
and I know you cut, guys got a jet,
but yeah, this was a great discussion.
I'm glad we, uh, did a part two of UPSer.
And if you're listening to this
on the podcast, please reach
out with questions for us.
If you think of any questions.
And if you're tuning in over there
in YouTube land, be sure to like
and subscribe while you're there.
I forgot to say that last week.
So, . Yeah, we'll do our,
our typical plug there.
Um, but yeah, reach out if there's
anything you guys want to cover.
Uh, next week I think we have
scheduled and ask us anything show.
So bring your questions,
bring those tough things.
We'll see what we can to, to answer
those tough questions next week.
So thank you Ian for tuning in live.
Uh, Tim, coach I just connected with
last week, so they're doing some
exciting stuff, like that's another
vendor that I think, you know, again,
there's some really, really cool stuff
being done in the space and I think
it's gonna get even cooler with all
the tech people that got laid off.
That's a hundred thousand smart
people that are in the market
now, building cool stuff.
Um, who else?
Robert Gibbons.
Carlos Rivera.
Brant, if you're still on,
thank you for tuning in live.
Anyone else who's watching this
or listening to this later.
Uh, thank you so much.
We appreciate all the love
and support for the show.
So any parting thoughts from you guys?
And we will go ahead
and wrap for the week.
Pete Matheson: Only passing thought
is, it looks like Scott, Scott
like shrinking throughout the show.
You.
Scott Riley: I just, I told you, I dunno,
I dunno what they've done to this chair.
Right.
But I, I'm just sliding off the front.
I've, I've just gone, you know
what, I'm just, I'm just gonna uch.
Andrew Moon: He's gonna slide with it, so,
Richard Tubb: Oh, we should put it
out, um, to the audience as well.
I'm on assignment next week, so I'm
not, I'm not gonna be, uh, a part of
the usual, um, uh, fantastic four.
Yeah.
So, um, who, who's gonna,
who's gonna step in?
I mean, we got great feedback
about Robert Gibbons.
I, I genuinely thought it was like
Mel Gibson or George Clooney when I
saw the screenshot, but it was Robert
Gibbons who joined us last week.
So, yeah.
Who's, who's it gonna be?
Who's the special guest
staff for next week?
Andrew Moon: We will find out.
Richard Tubb: the audience can, uh, some
Andrew Moon: Yeah, if you guys don't
have anybody that, uh, you'd like
to see on the show, uh, let me know.
We'll see if we can get that done.
I know Robert's gonna fill in for you
when you're gonna be gone in March.
He already agreed to that.
Um, so I think what, March 22nd,
I think he'll be on the show then.
So,
Scott Riley: And I would just say if,
if there is feedback or like response to
anything that we've done in one of the
shows, like, please let us know, because
again, this entire show today was inspired
by some feedback that we got last week.
And so it's great to just
hear, you know, how different
angles, different perspectives.
Oh, I don't agree with what you guys said.
Or actually I've got a different take.
I love that.
You know, let, let us know.
Andrew Moon: Yeah, same here.
Same here.
All right guys.
That wraps us for the week.
We appreciate it.
Again, uh, check us out on
all the social channels.
Let us know, give us some feedback.
We appreciate it.
Uh, if we don't see you around
on social media, we will
see you on next week's show.
Richard, you have a good week off as well.
Uh, be safe and I'll see
you in a couple weeks.
See you guys.