How Introvert MSPs Can Be Better At Networking Than Extroverts

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Greetings my friend. You're in the right place to grow your msp. And this is what I've got coming up for you today. How to ace networking. Even if you're an introvert, why you should be thrilled and not scared when a super MSP comes to your town. And my special guest is going to reveal what's working best in search based lead generation for MSPs right now. Welcome to episode 361 powered by MSP marketingedge.com Paul Greens MSP Marketing Podcast. I want to start today by sharing something personal. For most of my career I thought that I was an extrovert. I mean, after all, I was a radio presenter, literally on the radio every day for 10 years. And now today I speak at conferences. I did Scalecon this year, I did MSP Global again this year I host this podcast. These are all the activities of an extrovert, right? Well, it turns out no, because a few years ago I had a guest on this very podcast because who said something that completely stopped me in my tracks. They explained that extroverts gain energy from being around people while introverts lose energy from being around people. And it made me realize that every networking event that I'd ever been to and every conference that I'd ever spoken at, basically every room full of new people that I'd ever walked into, I'd come home and I needed a very long lie down. And my partner at the time used to find that hilarious. I would literally come back from a two hour networking and I just needed to be on my own and recover. And neither of us really understood it at the time, but now I understand why this happened. I am an introvert who has learned to be extroverted when the situation demands it. And that's become normal for me. And because that's normalization over 30 years, that's why I thought I was an extrovert. Now I know that a lot of MSPs are in exactly the same position. So today I want to show you how you can do the same thing. Because the benefit for you is you, you can go out and do more networking. You might even get up on a stage and speak at a public event, which might be a nightmare idea for you right now, but very powerful if you have the power to do that. Because experts speak, experts go networking, right? So let's understand what's actually happening. If you come away from. Let's focus on networking. If you come away from networking events and you feel completely drained, you're pretty Much guaranteed to be an introvert. And the vast majority of MSPs that I've spoken to over the years, not all of them, but let's say 70, 80%, are definitely introverts. It seems to be this. The channel is an introverted channel. And of course, being an introvert is not a weakness or a flaw, it's just how you and I are wired, right? We are wired to be introverts. And the difference between introverts and extroverts is fundamentally about energy. So as I said, extroverts, they get energized by social interactions, so they go and look for more of that social interaction, whereas introverts are depleted by it. Now, both introverts and extroverts can be brilliant and can perform well in a room full of people. It's just the introverts, we need to go and do some recovery afterwards, right? So recognizing this about yourself is the most important step because once you understand this, you stop fighting it and you start working with it. So the goal is not to try and turn yourself into an, into an extrovert. You can't do that. The goal is to go and do the networking or the public speaking or whatever you do and, and then protect yourself so you, you can recover and you can go and do it again. So here's a couple of ways that you might do this before the event. You need to protect your energy. And this is something that most advice about networking kind of ignores, it kind of bypasses or doesn't acknowledge it. And this is where as an introvert, you can make the biggest practical difference. So you need to treat a networking event not just like something else you've got to do, but you treat it like an athletic performance performance, because you wouldn't run a race if you hadn't slept well or you had low energy or, you know, you hadn't eaten properly. You wouldn't do that. You couldn't be an Olympic athlete without looking after yourself before the Olympics, right? And you can apply the same logic to an event that you know is going to drain your introvert batteries. So the night before networking event or talking or anything like that, you've got to sleep really well, you've got to eat properly, you know, don't book a networking breakfast on a Friday when you've got a massive project on for a client because you know already that's going to be a brutal week, right? And if you've got no recovery time before that networking event, you're going to go into it at a disadvantage so, you know, you kind of, when you're thinking of going to a networking event or if you go to regular ones, look in your calendar, what's around those events. If you're going, let's say, for example, you're going to join bni and that's, that's a regular Friday morning. And you know, that's a thing then, then every Friday, then you need to make sure you don't do social events on Thursday nights or you don't have team meetings on Thursday or whatever. If you've got that and it's there, you've got to protect the time that comes immediately before it and obviously immediately after it as well, where you, you need the recovery. It would be a pretty dumb thing to do a networking event on a Friday morning and then have a whole afternoon of client calls that afternoon. So you've got to give yourself some space both before and after. Before to prepare and after to decompress, right? And then I think the other thing to do is to set yourself some realistic goals so that you turn the networking into an event where you know what you want to do. So if your idea of networking is go in, shake 50 hands, hand out 50 business cards, that's just going to kill you, right? Whereas if your goal is to go in and find three new people you've never spoken to before and have three genuinely interesting conversations about their business, right, that would be a really good goal. And actually you can go in without the pressure of feeling like you have to work the room or you've missed out. That's what I used to do with my networking. I was setting myself the goal of I'm going to introduce myself to three strangers, even though that's uncomfortable, even though my heart is going boom, boom, boom, boom, boom in my chest as I do it. But the thing is, we're all there for the same reason, right? It's like speed dating. We're all there for the same thing. Not that I go speed dating anymore, but you get the idea. So. So you introducing yourself to a stranger, that's okay. That's what this environment is for. So that would be a good goal. I'm going to introduce myself to three strangers, shake hands with them, I'm going to talk to them about the thing that they love the most, which is them and their business. That would be a really, really cool. And yet I've kind of skipped over something there because actually, for many introverts, the hardest moment is already, well, just walking into the room because the room always seems to Be full of people who already seem to know each other. There are conversations FL flowing and you know, it's the worst thing, isn't it, where you walk in and there's two or three people talking and you don't even know if, if you can join their conversation or not. Although the secret on that is to look at the body language. They taught me this when I was in BNI like 20 years ago. I did a couple of years in BNI and it was great for the business I owned 20 years ago. But if for example, you walk in and there are two people and they're facing each other directly on, they are not open to someone joining that conversation. Whereas if their body language is their, their bodies are angled so there's almost like a space where a third person could join. That's an invitation from those two people for you to go and join them. So once you, once you learn the body language, trust their body language. You'll see which conversations have a space for someone and which ones don't. But the, well, the most effective thing you can do is find someone who's alone, right? There's always someone who's on their own and that you are saving their life when you go over to them and introduce yourself. Because it could be their first day just as like it might be your first day and actually you, you. I've made many good friends over the years. People I'm still in touch with now 20 years on from going up to the lone person in the room and having a genuine conversation about all their favorite things, which is them and their business. So as I say, don't try and work the whole room. That's just exhausting. You get shallow interactions, they don't go anywhere. I would aim for three meaningful genuine conversations that's always going to be better for you than 15 brief ones. Quality over quantity, that is, is I think the secret of being an introvert when you are networking. So that's at the event itself. Oh, and one final thing on that introverts have a built in superpower which is we tend to be better listeners. So actually when you're going networking, you, you, you know, it's like networking is like sales. The more you talk about yourself, the less people remember you or the less they're less likely they are to take action. The more you talk about them, the more likely they are to remember you and the more likely are to do some kind of action. So as an introvert it's our superpower to use our listening ears and listen to them. And ask follow up questions and that kind of stuff. So that's all of that at the networking. But as I said earlier, you've got to build some recovery time into your schedule afterwards. And recovery time doesn't have to be just, you know, lying down. I was kind of joking when I said I had to come down and lie in a darkened room. What I actually used to do after networking was go walking. Because for me, a solo walk, spending some time either listening to an audiobook or just spending time in my head after I've had three real conversations is a good way for me to recover. So you may have your own thing. Yours could be walking the dog, it could be watching a TV show, it could be running a marathon, you know, whatever it is that you need some recovery time as an introvert. Do that, that prep at the beginning, have, you know, go in with clear expectations that you're not going to work the whole room, you're going to do three quality conversations and make sure you have a recovery event afterwards, whatever that is. And even as an introvert, you, you can go and ace networking like that. So networking as an introvert is not about pretending to be something you're not. Don't pretend to be an extrovert, just be you, right? In fact, that's good guidance for all of your marketing. Be the genuine, authentic self you in your marketing, your sales, because people will buy into you, but only if you're being yourself. They can detect when you're trying to be something that you're not. But being an introvert at networking is about taking it easy, understanding what happens with your energy and making sure you do some prep to protect yourself. And if you get that right, you can be consistent. And networking works best when you are consistent, when you turn up really regularly, right? Because you build relationships with strangers so they get to know you, they get to like you and they get to trust you. And that's where the referrals and the work and the leads start to come from. Networking. And you know what? The introvert who protects themselves and shows up consistently will always outperform the extrovert who burns bright a couple of times at networking and stops attending those sessions. So be prepared, have real conversations and give yourself permission to recover afterwards. And I promise you, you can ace networking as an introvert. Paul Greens MSP Marketing Podcast so networking is just one of three 36 marketing actions that I recommend that you take if you want to transform your MSPs lead generation and know where your next client is going. To come from. Right? Because you need to generate leads, warm them up and turn them into clients. And I've listed all of the actions that you need to take on a free wall planner. It's a physical thing that you actually put on your wall. It's quite a big thing. And it's designed. The idea is that you, when you're sitting there thinking, well, what marketing should I be doing? You can just kind of look at a, look up at it on the wall and there's some actions that you can take. So I post this to you at my own expense. You don't even have to pay postage and there's no cash. I'm not going to try and sell you anything. I do this to invest in a new relationship between you and me. So if you want one of these, just go to mspwallplanner.com or if you're watching this on YouTube right now, just search scan the QR code that's on screen. Let's talk about something that I know genuinely terrifies a load of MSP owners and yet that terror is not justified. I'm talking about the moment you hear that a large, well funded, acquisition hungry super MSP is moving into your area and your instinct there is to panic, to worry that this competitor is going to crush you with their deeper pockets and, and their greater resources and maybe even a big national brand behind them. But actually, today I want to completely reframe that reaction because in my experience, a Super MSP arriving in your town is not a threat. It could actually be one of the best things that could ever happen to you. So let's start by talking about what a Super MSP actually is. I'm not just talking about a large msp. I'm talking about a business that has been built specifically through acquiring other MSPs. [00:12:39] Speaker B: Right? [00:12:39] Speaker A: And you must get the emails and the letters right? There's like so many groups now running around. They're backed by venture capital or private equity or whatever, and they're consolidating the market. They're buying up established MSPs across the country. And I've had guests on this podcast over the years who are doing just that. So I'm not criticizing that model. It's a perfectly sound business thing to do. You go and buy a bunch of good businesses and you put them together and you've got a super business. It's a good thing to do, right? It's a way of growing a business. If you've got that kind of private equity background and that that's what, when I'm referring to super MSPs, that's exactly what I mean. So that they tend to be big businesses that have formed quickly. Obviously there's a lot of debt involved, but that's where they come from. And these businesses, because they're pulled together relatively quickly, they do tend to have significant resources, they've got a lot of scale advantages and they can offer things that smaller MSPs can't. So you might, for example, have a local competitor that a Super MSP comes and buys and instantly that local competitor can do genuine 24. 7 support. You know, they might have suddenly a whole load of consulting services that they hadn't got before. They might have enterprise grade infrastructure, they might have their own knock and soc and all of those kind of things, right? So when you, when this happens and you hear that, you know there's a, there's a big Super MSP and it's buying up a competitor in your area, I can understand that your reaction to that would be, right. And I work with 700 MSPs around the world in the MSP Marketing Edge, so I know what this is like. And I often have conversations with our members who say that, oh, one of our competitors was acquired by Super MSP and a lot has changed, right? So, and I understand that it's a big fear, but let me tell you why I believe that fear is misplaced. Because you need to look at what actually happens when a Super MSP acquires your local competitor. And not just what happens in the short term, but what, what happens over the next two to three years. There are several things that happen almost immediately and most of them create opportunity for you. So first of all, the people change in some way. So the engineers, the account managers, all of the support staff that the clients of your competitor have known and trusted for years, some of them start to move on. So some just choose to leave because they just can't be bothered, right? If you've worked for a business owner and for five, six years and then suddenly that business owner sells and they go, and now there's a management team and you know, you kind of reporting to someone who reports to someone 600 miles away, obviously that's a, that's a massive change. It's a different kind of job, the whole culture change. So a lot of people just can't be bothered. And we all know that technicians, there's plenty of technician jobs out there, right? It's, there are more jobs than there are technicians. So that some, some of them will just want to Go. This can be good for you because if you're hiring, you can just hire technicians that used to work at your competitor. In fact, the best, the best people that can leave in that situation are account managers because account managers have all the client relationships, right? But so some people just want to leave, some are restructured out, if you know what I mean. They're just kind of pushed out Sometimes. There are different models for super msps. Some super msps keep all of the local resources or even run it as a, as a, you know, as an independent unit within the business. Some of them, they just don't want to put all the work into one one business. So they buy the business and they get rid of the local office and they get rid of the local staff and all of the work moves 600 miles away. So suddenly all of those people are on the market, which is great for you, but you have to kind of look at the bigger picture, which is that familiar faces are disappearing. And this matters so much because if you think about why clients choose an msp, it's never about the brand, is never about what you do or the technology stack or any of that. It's all about the people. Someone chooses to buy from an MSP and chooses to leave an MSP because of their relationship with the people they've got to know like and trust those people. So when the people that they know like and trust move or leave, then a lot of the trust goes with them and that kind of sets in motion and the fact that when the contract comes up, they're less likely to renew that contract, which is good for you because it means they're going to be in the market looking for a new MSP and actually you are a copy of what they had before. So previously they worked with a small business that was owner operated. That all changed. The people that they, that they were working with have moved on and they are going to look around for an owner operated business that they can work with. Not all of them are going to leave, but some of them are going to leave, which is really cool. And if it's not the people leaving, then it's the change to the service model, right? So even an msp, a super MSP that keeps local, keeps local resources, is going to want to move that MSP onto a standard psa. There'll be a standard psa, there'll be a standard tech stack, there may even be other kind of standardization. So even if this doesn't directly affect the, the customers, they will sense change in the background and Your local competitor will be distracted by standardization, by falling into, into, into, into line with the way that the Super MSP does things. Right? It could be also things like, for example, you might have a competitor where they've got an account manager that's looking after 40 clients. But it could be that the standard for that super MSP is that they look after 100 clients. So suddenly the local account manager has less, less time for the clients. You see what I mean? So there's, even if there's stuff that the actual clients and the customers don't, it doesn't directly affect them. They will feel the effects of the change that's happening at that msp, if that makes more sense. The more corporate driven and the more standardized your, your super msp, your new Super MSP competitor is, the better that's going to be for you. And then the third thing is that pricing is going to go up because super msps do like to push prices up because of course they've got debt to service. So even if they're funded by private equity or a family office or something like that, those guys need to see profit. So when you're buying revenue, you've got to grow that revenue. It's one of the, if you like, the downsides of being a Super MSP and driving the Super MSP is you report into someone, you don't really own the business, you're building that business on behalf of another entity and they need to see growth, they need to see year on year growth, particularly when you're buying revenues. So the easiest way to do that is to push prices up. And typically super MSPs go very expensive, the prices go up fairly, fairly quick. Right. The other, the other thing actually, which is interesting is the kind of client mix changes as well. So super msps tend to want the bigger businesses, they want the more lucrative clients. So they might buy a business that's got a bunch of 20 user clients, 20 seat businesses and, but they only want 50 seat minimum. So they are going to push the price up for those 20 seaters way higher just to make sure the revenue's up or to even price them and push them away. And again, those people are going to go looking for a new msp. It's exciting, isn't it? When you look at it like this, you see actually this Super MSP coming in. Sure it changes the marketplace, but it changes it in a good way because there are going to be some people that are unsettled and they're going to leave and you might hire those people and there's going to be some clients that are unsettled and you might pick up some of those clients. That's pretty exciting to me. So let's talk about practical things that you can do then. When you hear that a Super MSP is buying one of your competitors, the first thing to do is obviously not to panic because you know it's just going to mean a reshuffling of the market and it creates opportunity for you. But you can do some early research. So do some research on the MSP that they are acquiring. Have a look at what kind of clients you think that they have won. And you should know this if it's one of your, you know, regular local competitors, but also go and research the super msp. So of their previous acquisitions, what did they do? What happened to that client base? What you know, did they change the name? Did what have they moved the resources? There's all sorts of things that you can find. Obviously AI, you can do some really in depth research on that, but you want to get a grip on what you think is most likely to happen. And if, for example, it reveals to you that they're not going to want the smaller clients, that they are going to remove a whole bunch of people, you know, there's some opportunities coming up that you can jump on and then you need to ready yourself for those opportunities. And the two opportunities are taking some of the people who have been reshuffled and taking some of the clients. So the people one is all about reaching out to those People. Get on LinkedIn directly, connect with everyone that works at that competitor that's just being acquired by the super msp. That's your opportunity is just to build a relationship with them on LinkedIn. Now this is not out and out poaching. This is just connecting with people on LinkedIn. You may choose to just message them, say, hi, I've heard that your, your business is being acquired. If at any point that turns out not to be the right business for you anymore, just message me back and we'll go and have a coffee, right? I think that's a reasonable thing to do. You're not hard marketing them saying, come and join me. You, you're just telling them that the door is open if ever they want to have a conversation. And it might not be that you ever have those vacancies, but you're just laying that trail for the day that they wake up and think, yeah, I don't want to be here anymore. And that's really easy to do with the people what about winning the clients who are being reshuffled? Well there it's about being proactive for, for the next couple of years so that when the clients kind of wake up and it's a contract renewal and they're like, yeah, do you know what, we're not going to stay here, we're going to go elsewhere. You've got to make sure that you're doing all of the right things with your marketing. And this is where we bring it back to the basics. So I have my three step marketing system which by the way you can find more about on my website if you go to MSP marketingedge.com three step. There's a short eight minute video there that explains my whole three step lead generation system and the marketing problems it overcomes. But basically it is build audiences, grow relationships and convert relationships. So that's where you build up audiences typically on LinkedIn and your email audience. You grow relationships by putting content in front of them on LinkedIn and sending emails and you can do direct mail as well. And then you convert relationships by, by typically by running marketing campaigns and by phoning your prospects to see where they are. And in fact what the opportunity creates with the super MSP is for you to try and target who are the clients that may come up. So you basically try and find out who the clients are. So you could do this by looking up the, your competitors website as it used to be on the, the Internet, Wayback Machine, you know, the Internet Archive and you can go and have a look for testimonials. You can obviously then connect to those businesses on LinkedIn. You may hire one of the account managers that used to work there and you can ask them tell me about the clients. You know, you have to find your own level of this that you feel comfortable with. Some msps I work with are very aggressive and they have no qualms at all when a big corporate competitor comes in about finding out who the clients used to be and directly targeting those clients. And then there are other people I work with who don't feel they're quite comfortable. So you do this to whatever level of comfort that you have. But essentially you know that some of the people and some of the clients are going to be reshuffled. And you know what, wouldn't you be a great home for them? Wouldn't you be the place that you would want those clients to come to because you're great at what you do, right? So shouldn't you try their first for to get those clients to come over to you? So you can continue to look after them as well as your former competitor used to look after them. And I think during your sales process, you need to double down on communicating the things that you do that a Super MSP can never replicate. That's personal relationships. You know, you're an owner, operator and a lot of people really look for that from an msp and you are genuinely, you care, you care about the clients and their outcomes. So double down on those things, make them more visible, more deliberate and more consistent than ever. And you know, the Super MSP that comes into your town is not your enemy, it's just a market force. It's how business is being done in the channel right now in 2026. And for some groups it's a great way of growing and building their business, but actually it creates opportunity. In most marketplaces where this happens, handled correctly, you can find frustrated clients and frustrated staff who used to work or be a be a client of your competitor and you can persuade them to come over to you with just a little bit of preparation and the right mindset that a Super MSP moving into your town is a massive opportunity. The Ms. MSP Marketing Edge Member Update so if you're an MSP Marketing Edge member, I hope you know by now that we offer world class support. And I don't say that lightly because at our price point, which is 149 pounds a month in the UK or $199 a month for the rest of the world, we have what we believe to be the highest levels of support. For example, where else could you pay a marketing vendor that kind of money and get unlimited one to one calls with members of the team, plus live weekly group calls with me and a very lively community that's only for our members. Plus of course the usual support you'd expect over text and email. So all of that is included at no extra cost for our members at our very, very low price point. And our support has been world class for a number of years. And that's all down to my team, my wonderful team, Sarah, Amy, James, Ben and everyone else who looks after our members. So if you are a member, just go into your portal, go into support and you can see all of the support options in there, including my team's live calendar to book yourself a 15 minute one to one call. And if you're not yet a member, come on, what are you waiting for? We only work with one MSP per area, but we do have two memberships available. One of them helps you to win business owners as clients. The other one helps you win it. Directors for co managed clients. And you can see both of those@msp marketingedge.com membership Paul Greens MSP Marketing Podcast so if I asked you to guess what's working really well for MSPs right now in search based lead generation, you would obviously guess it was something to do with AI. And of course that would be the right answer. As we know, AI has some amazing tools to help MSPS generate more leads. And you know what, my special guest today is in the trenches right now testing out these AI tools. [00:27:30] Speaker B: Hi, I'm Tom Malesic and I'm President of EasySolutions. [00:27:34] Speaker A: And thanks so much for coming onto the show, Tom, because you are one of the unicorns of the channel. You're both an MSP owner and you're the owner of a marketing agency and those two things never normally come together. So that's why I wanted to get you on the show and explore what you do with your own marketing as well as what you're finding generally. What kind of marketing stuff is working well right now. Do you want to give us just a kind of a brief potted history of you and how you came to be in this position to, to own both of these businesses? [00:28:02] Speaker B: Yeah, Paul, you're right. It is a really weird combination of businesses, but it kind of made a lot of sense to me. So I started in 1997 as a website developer and people didn't even know what a website was in 1997. So eventually, you know, as I'm building websites for local businesses, they just made this assumption that said, well, the website's on the computer, so you must know how to work with computers. So if you can build my website, you must be able to fix my computer. And that wasn't really a true statement because I'm not an IT guy. I couldn't fix their computer. So I'm starting to, I'm just subbing stuff out to somebody else, like I'm just referring it out. And eventually I was like, this is stupid. Why am I giving away all this business every year? I should just, I'll hire an IT guy, you know, that works for me and I'll just start to pick up customers that way. And then the guy that I was giving the work to came to me like six months later and said, hey Tom, just want to buy my IT company. And I said, well, that's a good idea. So that's, that's how I got into the business. [00:29:00] Speaker A: That's amazing. And that's Obviously, you know, in, in both terms of tech and marketing, that's ancient, ancient years ago, isn't it? It's ancient history going, going back to [00:29:08] Speaker B: then almost 30 years. [00:29:10] Speaker A: Well, well, exactly, yeah, I was trying not to say that because you and I are both, for Those watching on YouTube, both you and I are rocking the, the silver hair, the silver fox look. So obviously we know what's happened with, with, I mean it's not even it anymore. It's, it's obviously managed services now. But in terms of marketing in the, in the nearly 30 years that you've been involved in that, what, what are the big, big jumps and the big changes that you've seen? [00:29:33] Speaker B: Yeah, the big changes are really just the promotion of the marketing. So having a great website and then just the evolution of Google where it used to be so easy to rank on Google with just down and dirty tactics and now it's much harder and now with the advancement of ChatGPT, Claude Gemini, right now we have to get exposure and leads from the large language models which is, which is a whole new world for people. [00:29:59] Speaker A: It is, it is and I'm going to date stamp when we're doing this interview. We're doing it right at the beginning of June 2026 and I say that because it's not going out obviously for a few months and everything changes in AI so quickly because you know, you know, as, as we're recording this today, Google has announced it's completely changing the search, the search process, the search feature for, for the first time in I guess two decades. But we, you and I haven't actually seen that yet. By the time this comes out I should think that's live. But yeah, it's, it's a completely different world in terms of the SEO. The aeo. AEO didn't exist until two years ago. Obviously pay per click has changed as well. Yeah, it's, it's fascinating how much has changed. So what are you, what are you doing right now that's working best for msps? And I know that you work with all sorts of businesses, you work with almost any kind of business but I also know you do do marketing for msps. So what's working best right now to, to generate leads for MSPs? [00:30:55] Speaker B: Yeah, MSPs have a very unique challenge because they have, they generally are going after a higher ticket customer. So I find that most MSPs like they don't want a small business that has less than, than 10 computers for managed services. So that's requiring the pool just keeps getting smaller and Smaller of the number of those business that exist and then the number of those businesses that go to Google and type in managed services near me or IT support your town is less. So they have this very unique challenge that not all small businesses have. But what's really working well, I'm going to say is local town pages. So the more on your website that you can have like let's say your main keyword is IT services. So you need a town page that says IT services town name, right? And we need lots of these. So it's no longer good enough that if the three big towns near me. So I live in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and my three big towns are Lancaster, Harrisburg and York. But that's not good enough just to have three town pages because those are big towns. Now I need town pages for any town that has like 2,000 people in them so that Google starts to proximity where, where your business is and where your service area is. So for this really applies to any business that has kind of a, a geographic area that they serve. So that's, that's been a big help. The Google business profile page has been a big help, right? Like you need lots of reviews, right? Hands down, those are my big things. [00:32:35] Speaker A: And am I right in saying that for the AI recommendations, even though AI prefers to get its information validated off site, when it comes to an MSP, no one's talking about most MSPs on Reddit or anywhere else. So it is looking at the Google reviews and it. And if you've got all of those towns and you've got town pages on your website and you've written proper pages, they're not just carbon copied, you know, templates, the same page? [00:32:58] Speaker B: That's correct. [00:32:59] Speaker A: Am I correct in saying that that's really, really good for AI recommendations? [00:33:02] Speaker B: Really great for AI recommendations. And then if you really want to up your game and air recommendations on those town pages, you're going to have instead of your H2 tags, right? The Bold. The bold words. You have bold, big bold words. And then you have a paragraph and then further down you have big bold words and a paragraph. Those big bold words. Instead of just having more like a headline, turn that headline into a question. [00:33:24] Speaker A: Can you give us an example? [00:33:28] Speaker B: What should I look for in a managed service provider? Not in that. So that's a question versus a statement would be things to look for in a managed service provider. [00:33:39] Speaker A: Got it, Got it. And what's the, what's the. I understand the difference of what you're doing there, but explain for us just that tiny Subtle shift in language and what effect that has. [00:33:51] Speaker B: Yeah, so the subtle shift is, is that people go to ChatGPT and type questions in. So the difference between ChatGPT and Google is you're not typing big questions into Google. Right. You're typing in keywords. Sometimes you're typing in bigger things, but for the most part, when you go to ChatGPT, you're not typing in keywords, you are just, you're typing in a. You're typing in paragraphs. Right. Not just even a sentence. So the more your sentence can be searchable, that's a question. The more ChatGPT goes, oh, this person has the answer and then you get cited or. Because a lot of times people, people say, hey, who is the best IT support company in Lancaster, Pennsylvania? And so if you don't see those kind of things, then you don't show up in the list. [00:34:39] Speaker A: Yeah, that makes, that makes perfect sense. And actually what, of course, increasingly people are doing as they're learning more, and by people, I mean ordinary people, not channel people, as they're learning more about how AI can really give them a customized thing. They'll say, hey, based on what you know about me and the fact we've got 30 staff in two locations and we hate this and we love this, which is the best IT company for us. So I guess your job as an MSP is not just to have those kind of questions on the page, but we, when we're looking at things like reviews, is actually to guide your clients to provide reviews which start to answer specific questions of. We've got 30 staff. And we found the experience with these guys to be brilliant. Because then, because the AI, and this is the thing for most MSPs, there's not a lot of information online. You know, you look up any information about how to get more AI recommendations and it's all, get on Reddit, get on Yelp, get on this. But that almost doesn't apply to small MSPs because no one is ever talking about you on Reddit. It just doesn't, it just doesn't happen. Exactly. So you actually, this is good because you get to steer the, the AI to. Yes, and I, I agree with everything you've said, by the way, which I know it's irritating when, when everyone agrees on a podcast, but you've. It's absolutely spot on. Give us those questions. Direct. Direct the review and the AI is going to go, oh, hang on, there's the question that I've been asked. Here's a review of someone saying they've got 30 staff. I stitch those two together, that. That's all I can find. So I'm going to recommend you, and I don't. The cool thing is, if you go Back to like 2002, 2003, getting higher up on Google was all about tricks, wasn't it? Sneaky tricks and stupid little things that Google then spent 10 years getting rid of, like keyword stuffing and all that kind of nonsense. What's really cool about AI is there are no tricks. There's just giving AI the good, solid, basic information that it wants. [00:36:27] Speaker B: Well, not yet. We just don't know the tricks. Trust me, there will be tricks. AI will prevent us. But our job as marketers, especially digital marketers, is to find workarounds that Google hasn't figured out yet. So those talent pages completely work today. Will they work five years from now? I don't know. Maybe, maybe not. But make no mistake about it, the more content you have on your site, the better it is for AI. So I wouldn't worry so much about trying to put stuff on Reddit or all those other sources. Those large language models. Absolutely. Are looking at your website now. If you can generate backlinks from other sites and you wrote an article that another publication has put in, that helps with. With. It helps for Google. So here's the thing, people. Oh, well, Google's dead. Google's not dead. Like, what works for Google is working for ChatGPT. It's just, you have a new nuance with ChatGPT, but more content is better. More backlinks are better. More people yapping about you is better. Right? You send, you create a press release and send that out through, like, Newswire. That helps you. Right? So it helps Google, it helps ChatGPT. [00:37:38] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And as we were saying, the new Google search is going to be more like a chat GPT search anyway and may already be live as this goes out. Tom, let's just finally look at your book. You wrote a book. We've had a glut of. Of really cool people on the podcast recently, all of whom have written books, and you're the latest. So you wrote a book called they're looking for you, the no BS Guide to marketing that actually makes you money. So I love the title. Tell us, tell us about the book. What inspired you to write it, and give us your. Your AI Tom. Overview of that. Of that book. [00:38:12] Speaker B: Yeah, you bet. So I think a lot of times businesses would call me and they'd be asking for something that they shouldn't be asking for, right? They have like the world's worst website, no traffic on Google and they want to, and they want to talk about geofencing. Like, help me understand why you think geofencing is the best tactic for you when you don't have any foundational stuff done. So the book is all about getting the foundation right, building an absolutely amazing website that is clearly your best salesperson. And people don't think of it that way, right? We'll spend $100,000 or more on a good salesperson, but we're like trying to nickel dime and spend five grand on our website. Like it makes no sense whatsoever. So it's about what makes a good website, why you should have, why you should really treat it like it's your best salesperson. And then it's looking at all the tactics that, that your customer is looking for you, right? Which you only really have. You only really have three right now, right? It's kind of two, but it's kind of three, right? You've got organic Google, you've got Google Ads. And now I'm going to put in, I'll put in ChatGPT in that, right? [00:39:18] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:39:19] Speaker B: So, so those people are actively looking for what you do. Like let's do the easy stuff first, the stuff that has the highest conversion rate. You know, we can do email marketing later, we can do Facebook ads later, we can do geofencing later. Right? But if you don't have those three things done, like everything else sucks. So like do the fundamentals, right? And people just want to chase shiny objects. Like I, I liken it to baking cupcakes, right? Like we can make a cupcake. And that's, that's your, that's your website and that's SEO and that's Google Ads. But what people call me for is they're like, I'd like to buy the sprinkles from you, Tom. Like, well, you don't have a cupcake to put the sprinkles on yet. So I love that. I just, I just want them to do the good solid foundations. [00:40:05] Speaker A: Yeah, and you're absolutely right. In fact you could, you could take that even back to two even earlier foundations of most MSPs don't have an ideal client profile. So they don't know exactly who they want and they don't have a unique sell selling proposition. So they don't know why that ideal client would choose them. And you know, you have those basics in place. Well, we were just talking about that in episode 350. You know, for those listening, watching Right. Now go back to episode 350 and we did a marketing audit about, you know, which started exactly those things and getting those foundations. Right. And Tom, you've given me more work to do now because I'm going to have to, to go and do another marketing audit talking about the things that we've just talked about today. So thanks for that. [00:40:42] Speaker B: Thanks for creating your messaging on your website has to speak to that ideal client. And the problem that most people have is they just want to talk about themselves. Right? They want to say, oh, we've been in business for 25 years and we're the best. But they don't talk about the problem the customer has. Right. The problem the customer has when they buy from an IT company is like IT companies, they don't call you back, they don't fix stuff fast. And you just, you're, you're escalated from one incompetent tech to another. Right. So the more you can articulate response time, security, how you're going to be treated, which I know it sounds ridiculous, but it's more about the customer service aspect than the you can actually fix the problem aspect, at least in the marketing side. [00:41:28] Speaker A: Right, I agree, I agree. In fact, in, I think in customer satisfaction and retention, it's much more about how you connect to them and how well you at look, look after them. You can be, and I'm not recommending this, but you can be really bad at tech and, and as long as you're really good at communication and customer service and making them feel good, you'll get away with it for a lot more years than other industries would get away with with not being very good. Maybe, maybe you should rename your book from they're looking for you to maybe you should call it they don't care about you. Because the reality is up until the moment, yeah, maybe that's the sequel. But as you and I know right up until the moment where they're just to seriously say, maybe we should sign a contract with these guys. That's the point. They start to want to see what's your accreditations, what your qualifications. All the rest of it is just relationship building and how they feel about you emotionally. So there we go. Tom, thank you so much for coming on. So just briefly, tell us a little bit more about that book. Where do we get it from? And for those people who have listened to you or seen you on YouTube today and think this guy's cool, I want to follow him. What's the best way to find you? I'm guessing on LinkedIn. [00:42:32] Speaker B: Yeah, you can find me on LinkedIn. There is no other Tom Malesic on LinkedIn. You can also just go to tomlessig.com and you can reach me there and get to the different companies that I own. You can look at the IT business, you can look at the marketing company. I'm also a professional EOS implementer. So if you want to help running a better business, I'm happy to talk to you about that too. My book's listed on there. You can buy the book on Amazon. So. So the website you go to is tomolesic.com and that will get you to absolutely everything. [00:43:01] Speaker A: Coming up, coming up next week. Thanks for being here for today's show. Next week we're going to look at lead magnets. These, of course, are things that you give away to encourage more people to enter your CRM. And yes, they're still very valid in 2026 for MSPs. In fact, next week I'm going to tell you which lead magnets are working best right now for MSPs around the world. Around the world. The MSP Marketing podcast with Paul Green.