Successful MSPs simplify EVERYTHING

[00:00:02] Speaker A: Like Ferris Bueller said, life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. So right now, stop, listen and grow your MSP. [00:00:14] Speaker B: Here it is, the audio highlight of your working week. Are you ready for a download of smart ideas to help you grow your MSP? Well, here's what we've got coming up today. I'm going to challenge you to simplify everything in your business. Were going to talk about the link between what you do each day and achieving goals. And my special guest is going to tell you how to generate leads by using pr, public relations and getting local journalists talking about your MSP. Welcome to episode 251 powered by mspmarketingedge.com. [00:00:48] Speaker A: Dot Paul Greens and MSP Marketing podcast. [00:00:51] Speaker B: The business that you chose to be. [00:00:53] Speaker C: In, you know, managed services, its already. [00:00:56] Speaker B: One of the most complex kinds of businesses on the planet. Just stop and think about everything, everything. [00:01:01] Speaker C: That you have to support all the. [00:01:03] Speaker B: Different clients, the different setups, the different technologies. And yet I see loads of MSP's making their lives even harder by overcomplicating things in their business that could and should be simple. So let's talk about how you can make your business easier to run and more profitable by simplifying everything. So I'm in a bit of a simplification mission right now. We've had some fairly major development projects in our business over the last twelve months, and while I was focusing on those and, and constantly reducing complication within those projects and just making everything simpler, I realized we could do this across the business because we've been going for eight years. And what happens is, when you've been going that long, you kind of hold onto legacy stuff, things that we're just doing things because, or something that worked really well six years ago, that there's now a better way of doing it. And for me, it's a really exciting thing to just go through the business like a tornado and just simplify everything. So I've given myself a new job title. I am head of simplification and I'm using this as an opportunity to review everything we do in the business, asking this big question, how can we make this simpler? Because that's actually a very powerful question to ask. Is this a question you ask yourself in your MSP regularly? Just because you can handle high levels of complication doesn't mean that you should put up with high levels of complication. In fact, I truly believe that the simpler business is, the more fun it is to run and the more profitable it can be. And I guess there are two main places where where you can simplify your business. The first is your operations and what you do now. At the risk of starting you down the road of looking at your tech stack. Cause I'm always hesitant to suggest an MSP reviews their tech stack in case it becomes a bad case of tech stack fiddling where you're attracted to the shiny thing. Maybe you should just be asking yourself, does my PSA allow me to run the business as simply as possible? Is my RMM easy to use, but also powerful enough to do all the things we need it to do? Look at your standard operating procedures, and these are the manual for how you run your business. So what kind of business are they encouraging you to run in their complexity? Now I'm sure you're all over automation, which surely must be the ultimate way of simplifying something, because you're removing the humans from it. But other suggestions include removing steps where you can, asking yourself why something is done and whether it's just for heritage reasons, like I was saying earlier, rather than because it's useful today. And I think the most useful thing to do is to talk to your team, the people who are actually running these processes, who are following your standard operating procedures, and ask them what needs to be simplified. Ask them what surplus to requirements, what job do they hate doing every single week? And then focus your attention on reducing or removing those jobs. So the first main place where you can simplify everything is operations. But what's the second main place? Well, surely that's the clients. And by that I mean can you simplify their technology setups? Now I appreciate your immediate knee jerk reaction to this might be, no, I can't, Paul, and you're mad, but hear me out, because I've worked with a few MSP's over the years who insist on a standard setup for a client. So when a new client joins them, they must migrate all of their technology to the MSP's preferred way of doing things. So for example, that might be having a standard router or router in every single client. Now the exact same router made by the exact same manufacturer in every single client. Can you see the huge benefits of that? As a business? You and your technicians become utter experts on that specific type of router. If you pick up an error with one of the routers that you're looking after, then you can proactively go and prevent that error, or check for that error in other client spaces, which is great. And you know, as you know, I'm not a tech person, but this has always made sense to me as a way of reducing down the complications within an MSP. I appreciate it. Probably reduces your options a little bit in the sense that if a client won't change their technology, they're never going to switch over to you. But I suspect that's more than made up for in the increase in profit and customer service from having a single type of technology to support. Tell me, is this something you do in your MSP? If you could wave a magic wand and simplify anything tomorrow, what would that be? [00:05:33] Speaker A: Paul Green's MSP marketing podcast. [00:05:36] Speaker B: Still to come, free publicity in the mainstream media can be a very powerful way to get brand awareness in your local area, and sometimes you can use it to generate leads as well. But perhaps you're not confident about how you'd contact journalists or make story suggestions to them. Well, my special guest has been doing this for a very long time and he has some excellent ideas for you that's coming up in the next five minutes. If you have a clear vision for where you want your life to go, you can use that to affect the actions that you take within your MSP every day. Because actually the things that you do every day grow your business or they dont. It really is as simple as that. So lets explore the link between what you do every day and achieving your goals. Hey, Im Paul Green from the MSP Marketing edge, the leading white label content marketing system thats trusted by over 700 msps around the world. Check if your area is available now at mspmarketing Edge. Let me tell you how your vision for how you want your life to be directly affects the goals that you set for your MSP. Which directly affects the strategies that you choose, which directly affects the tactics that you choose to deliver those strategies, which of course directly influences what you actually do on a day to day basis. Let's start at the very top of that again. So everyone has a vision for their future life, whether they've written it down or not. I write mine down and I read it every morning. But I know that I'm the minority in this. If you do have a vision for your life, by the way, write it down. For most people, this vision for a future life involves spending more time doing the things they love outside of work with the people that they love. [00:07:20] Speaker C: That's probably your other half, your kids, your family. [00:07:23] Speaker B: And of course, the vision often is about generating more cash to make it easier to do those things or to allow you to buy back your time. Now, some people turn that vision into hard, smart goals for the business. [00:07:35] Speaker C: You know, smart, it's an acronym. [00:07:37] Speaker B: It stands for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time bound. And you can use those smart goals to define the correct strategy for growth. But once you've got a clear strategy, the specific tactics actually become crystal clear. And the question of, let's say, for example, should I use LinkedIn? Which is a common question I get from MSP's that becomes really easy to answer when you understand the goal that the business is working towards and the strategy that's been set to deliver that goal. The choice of tactics then leads on to your daily activities. And this is the thing I really want to talk about the things you do every day, because I want to help you make a mental connection here. Your ability to change your life in the future, which by the way, anybody in any situation can do, your ability to change your future life is directly affected by what you do in your business, in your life, every single day. Lets take a non MSP example. If you wanted to be a muscle ripped Adonis, then youd expect to have to lift weights every day and eat protein and all of that stuff, right? Its no different within your business. If you want an MSP that onboards a new client every month, at least every month, then you need to build a marketing machine. And just like getting ripped, thats an ongoing process with tiny actions every day that really add up over time. You wouldn't expect to turn into Adonis just by going to the gym once. So how do you expect to onboard a new client every month? Just doing a piece of marketing once? You've got to build a marketing machine and then every day you need to do something within that marketing machine that either wins you more new clients, get those clients to buy from you more often, or get those clients to choose to spend more. That's how you connect your daily activities to the amazing future life that youre going to have. [00:09:29] Speaker A: Paul Green, MSP Marketing podcast still to. [00:09:33] Speaker B: Come do you struggle with holding team meetings with your technicians? Perhaps because one of them is a bit disruptive? Well, some MSP's do. And actually one of them has asked me to suggest how to improve their disrupted team meetings. Ive got a really good idea to share with you and thats coming up in the next five minutes. Maybe youve seen a competitor featured in a local newspaper, radio station or tv station and youve wondered, hey, how do I get my MSP free publicity like that? Well, my guest today is at the very heart of generating PR results, public relations, free publicity. And he's going to tell you exactly. [00:10:11] Speaker C: How to do it. [00:10:12] Speaker B: Today's special guest will tell you why press releases are still a valid tool for MSP's in 2024. And also how to cut through and get in front of the journalists you most want to reach. [00:10:24] Speaker D: Hi, I'm Mickey Kennedy, and I'm the president and founder of erelease's press release distribution. I specialize in helping people get earned media through press releases, and I've been doing this for a little over 25. [00:10:35] Speaker C: Years, and that makes you royalty in the terms of PR and media, I think, Mickey. And, you know, I had a PR company which I started seven years after you started yours, and I'm pretty sure we used e releases back in the day to get some press releases out. So it's awesome to actually be speaking to you all this time. [00:10:52] Speaker B: For those people listening to the podcast on audio only, have to check out. [00:10:57] Speaker C: This interview on YouTube as well, because Mickey has, quite frankly, the wildest pair of glasses that I've ever seen. Can you describe the, Mickey? [00:11:05] Speaker D: Sort of like intense rainbow glasses. I got them for pride three years ago, and I happened to get headshots then. And so every time I showed up to a podcast after June, people were like, oh, you don't have the glasses. So I had to start putting them back on. And I just realized now it's my thing. [00:11:24] Speaker C: It is. It is. You'll be a 95 year old man in a. In a care home somewhere, and people will still expect you to have the. The rainbow glasses back from 2021. So let's start at the beginning, Mickey, and let's talk about what are press releases? What's a press release distribution company. What do you do? [00:11:40] Speaker B: And what, when a business owner, like. [00:11:42] Speaker C: An MSP, is sending out a press release, what is it that they're hoping to achieve from that? [00:11:46] Speaker D: Basically, a press release is a. An announcement written usually in the third person. You can have a quote where you could talk in the first person, and it's an announcement that you're sending to the media. You can actually physically send it to the media by email or mail, but predominantly to get the maximum amount of coverage, use a newswire. And here in the United States, there's two major newswires, PR Newswire and business wire. They probably control, like, 90, some percent of the marketplace. And we partnered with PR Newswire about, I think, around 15 years ago. So all the releases that go out through Ruz go out through PR newswire nationally with PR Newswire it's about $1,800 approximately to move a 600 WordPress release. And through us, it's about 25% to 30% of that cost. Mostly because our audience are smaller. Companies that peer into newswire doesn't spend time reaching out to because their budgets are too small. But in aggregate, we're able to drive a lot of sales to them because we do like 10,000 to 12,000 releases a year. So, you know, it gives us an advantage for being able to purchase at a really good rate with them. And, you know, as far as what the goal of this is, is to get earned media, and that's to get actual articles written about you based on what you're announcing. Examples of types of releases that people generally really do or like when you have a new product or a refresh of a product or service. You know, basically if you have a big milestone in your business, like you've reached, you know, a certain milestone of number of customers or an anniversary or things along those lines, and, you know, the, the ultimate goal of sending this out is to see yourself in print or online. And generally it results in eyeballs looking at you. Potential leads, potential sales. And even more importantly, you can take that earned media, that link to an article and share it with your own leads and share it with your own audience. Because the thing that happens with the earned media is it's a huge credibility boost. It's like third party corroboration. When a journalist writes about you, it's a huge signal of trust, and as a result, it really makes you look good and it makes people want to work with you. [00:14:17] Speaker C: That's a, that's a really comprehensive answer, and thank you. And I think you're right. It's the credibility these days that's really more important. Certainly for an MSP, you know, if you can get your local newspaper, your local radio, maybe even your local tv station to talk about something that your business has done, is that going to generate leads? Maybe not. But is it going to get people talking? Yes, your existing clients may see it or hear it and say, hey, you know, we heard you on the radio. You can also take that coverage and you can use it again and again and again across all of your marketing for massive credibility. Because even today in 2024, where, let's. [00:14:50] Speaker B: Be honest, is anybody can get any. [00:14:52] Speaker C: Message to any person quite unlike how it was back in 1998, even today, the media has a certain amount of credibility, and people still perceive that journalists pick the very best experts, the very best stories for people to consume let's examine that change in the media. So you started in 1998. Back at that time, I was working in a radio station in the UK, Mickey. And I remember if you go back to then, there was no Google. I don't think Google itself had even launched in 98. Certainly Google adwords didn't exist. There were no real social media networks. So it was, as we said, the media. And what made the media rich in the 20th century was they controlled the distribution of messages. Now obviously come forward 26 years, that's completely changed. Distribution is easy. Everybody can reach everybody. So what value does a service like yours still have for reaching those journalists? [00:15:47] Speaker D: Right? So the thing that happened is when I launched my business, I just did email distribution to journalists that I had reached out to and established relationship when they said I could send them releases. What has changed at that time is media databases have come out and people are buying or licensing these databases. And, you know, a yearly subscription can be anywhere from eight thousand dollars to twenty five thousand dollars, depending on the database, the size of your company. And as a result, when a golf club company buys access to this database and then realize only 2700 journalists are interested in golf products, they're like, well, you know, there's like tens of thousands of financial analysts and banking people and business editors, let's send it to them because, you know, business owners and people in banking, they like to play golf. And as a result, there's so many off targeted press releases and pitching going on through email. The journalists email are just, it's terrible. They have a hard time wading through it. PR firms, which usually rely on pitching through email and phone, have found that email is just hard to get through. Often they're having to call and tell them how to find a pitch they sent via email or just pitch over the phone because they're, email is just out of sorts. And the great thing about the wire is that they can log in with their journalist credentials and look at their industry feed and they can actually even customize it. So if I'm someone who covers, you know, electronics, I can exclude, you know, certain keywords, like I'm not interested in anything that mentions like stereos or consumer retail outlets like Best Buy and things like that. So I can basically customize it. So the feed I'm seeing is very targeted. So it's still, it's becoming more and more the main place that journalists are going and looking for stories because it's the main place that's not crammed with spam and off targeted stuff. So it really is great for that reason and the fact that there's only two in the US, it makes it very easy for journalists to just fish in two ponds. It does make it difficult for, you know, new players to come in because the journalist is like, I don't really want to go to a third place. And look, look, I like being able to see too. And as a result of basically being a duopoly in the us market, you do pay a premium. Like I said, not unusual to pay between $1,600 and $2,000 for a national press release of five 6700 words. And so it can be very expensive as a result of that. [00:18:36] Speaker C: Yeah, I can imagine the irony that as the world has opened up and communication, as I said, from anyone to anyone, is possible that what happened is the journalists have become completely overwhelmed. They're focusing their attention on essentially a filtering, a relevance filtering, which is what these wire services offer. And for those listeners and viewers outside of the US, there are versions of this in many countries. I'm sure there's. I'm a bit out of date with the media in the UK because I left that in 2005, but I'm sure that there'll be a different version of this and I'm sure there'll be a business like Mickey's business in the UK and in other western countries as well. Let's turn and look at specific story suggestions that MSP's should be. Should be, be placing Mickey. So you know about MSP's. Obviously, they're trying to reach typically local or niche or vertical business owners, decision makers in the kind of people that they want to work with. And one of the most common questions that I get from MSP's when we're talking about publicity in PR is what kind of story suggestions should I be sending out? You mentioned earlier a couple of good ideas like product releases and big milestones. [00:19:43] Speaker B: What other kind of b. [00:19:44] Speaker C: Two b story ideas do you see that work? [00:19:46] Speaker D: Well, I think that ones where you have data generally work very well. For example, doing a survey or study within your industry is a great way to position yourself as a thought leader, an expert in your industry, because you authored the survey. I recommend that for clients who just feel like I don't know what we can do, I don't feel important enough. I always tell them that this is one type of press release that generally always gets earned. Media, you want to ask some meaningful, timely questions that people in your industry would want to know right now, like, what are people's positions on AI in your industry? Or what are the threats to your industry? What are things around that? What are the challenges of MSP owners right now in your industry? You can look at trade publications to get a sense of that. You could also get a sense of what you would ask people if you were at a trade show or conference, like, hey, have you noticed lately that it seems like this, that could potentially be a question to ask, because the reason you're asking it is you have seen it in print yet and you're not sure if this is just affecting your company or if it's something that could be industry wide or regional. And as a result, these are all questions that are right for asking. And, you know, once you put together the survey, reach out to a small or independent trade association in your industry, and they exist in every vertical and every fraction of verticals, even in PR, everybody knows the big guy, but there's 470, some, last time I checked, public relations trade associations in the United States that are not the big one that everyone knows. And so you do want to see if their membership sort of fits you and then also you want to see what the size of them is. I usually like 700 members or more because the goal is to get 100 people to complete the survey. I then approach that association and say, hey, could you send this link? I use Surveymonkey and I said, could you send this link to your members? In exchange, I'll mention you in a press release. I'll be issuing over the wire through PR newswire. The smaller associations, not a lot of people know about them. They don't get media attention. They often see this as a win win, you incorporating them in the press release, if they seem a little hesitant, sometimes you can enhance it by co branding the survey as long as they don't want to get involved and start rewriting questions and all of that. And they're usually not, they're usually small and lean and they're easy to work with, you know, and I do tell them the goal is to get at least 100 responses. So if we don't, I go back to them and see if they can push that link on social media, maybe do another email send. But generally I find that a lot of people are willing to do a survey for an association they belong to when they don't normally do surveys. And I then, you know, look at the results, figure out what the AHA moments are. What's the most shocking or surprising thing here? And I generally focus the press release on that. Maybe one other question. I do believe in building out a page on your website where you put all the questions and answers and include that link in your press release, because a really good journalist will go through and see if there's other questions that they might be able to build a story on around as well. And generally when we send that out, you have an amazing quote by you as to why you felt the numbers skewed a particular way, putting a little analysis on you. Generally we're looking at four articles, but sometimes as many as 14 articles from one survey. And that's something that anybody can do. It's a great way to position yourself. It generally always works. Just making sure that you ask meaningful questions. It's one of the ways to really stand out and grab some of that media attention and that authority. So that as you put that on your website, these articles, as you share the links to these articles with your leads and your clients, it's going to greatly increase your authority. That signal of trust that comes from being in the media is really going to get out there and you're going to find that your churn rate will go down because people are less likely to shop around if they realize I'm with the right company. And the people that you normally don't convert, you know, whatever that percentage is, you're going to find that you're going to move some of those over into customers just because of that earned media and putting that in front of them. [00:24:36] Speaker C: Yeah, I absolutely agree. Even existing clients are happy to see you as the MSP owner or the manager appearing in the media and being a thought leader and being an expert, because it reinforces that they made a smart choice to join you in the first place. I mean, even from just the idea you've been talking about there, my mind was racing, thinking, hang on a second here. There's just so much content we can create out of one activity. So if you take the pr stuff and put that to one side, just the survey, right? So you've got the survey itself, could become a blog article, could be also be something you put on LinkedIn, even though very few people will respond. It's another piece of content, then you've got the actual results. It's another blog article, it's another piece on LinkedIn. The actual press release is another blog article. It's another piece on LinkedIn. And then, of course, once you've been. [00:25:20] Speaker B: In, even if you're just in one. [00:25:21] Speaker C: Media title, you can then do a blog post and a LinkedIn article or a newsletter about how stories you've been featured in relevant media recently. So just what's that four, five different pieces of content just from one piece of activity. And that, I think, is what makes pr really, really sexy. So thank you so much for that idea, Mickey. That's a really cracking idea. [00:25:42] Speaker B: Just tell us very briefly, again, you. [00:25:44] Speaker C: Did mention at the beginning, but tell. [00:25:45] Speaker B: Us briefly, what's the pitch for e. [00:25:47] Speaker C: Releases, and also what's the best way. [00:25:49] Speaker B: For people to get in touch with you? [00:25:50] Speaker D: The website's ereleases.com. you can contact us through chat, phone or email. You'll only talk to editors. We have no salespeople, no commissions. All of our social media is on the lower right. I do have a free masterclass where I go through about a video of about an hour of the strategic types of releases people should focus on. Because I will be honest with you, the biggest criticism of press releases is they don't work. And I will agree that 97% of press releases do not work. And so what I've done is I've condensed the 3% that do regularly work, and that's in that masterclass of less than an hour long video. Because I know that, you know, people aren't, people aren't going to be watching twelve and 20 hours courses anymore. So it's [email protected]. plan, again, completely free and a great place for someone to start, because if you go through that and brainstorm half a dozen strategic ideas for a press release, you'll be able to build a pr campaign of meaningful releases, and you'll have more hits than misses. And so you're not with that 97% of press releases that fail, but you're focusing on the 3% that do succeed and that you will have good outcomes as a result. [00:27:10] Speaker A: Paul Green's MSP marketing podcast Paul's personal. [00:27:15] Speaker B: Peer group all right, now this is my favorite part of the show, where we help you with marketing and growth questions that are causing you problems. Producer James what have we got this week? [00:27:26] Speaker E: Thanks, Paul. Well, this week it's Martin who owns and runs his MSP in Arizona, and he says that his business is actually fairly successful, but the thing that's keeping him up at night is his team. His question is, what's the best way to hold a team meeting when you have some staff who are a little disruptive? [00:27:47] Speaker B: Yeah, well, it's really important, in my view, that you don't use team meetings to try to change the behavior of individuals. Typically, the worst performing staff listen the. [00:27:56] Speaker C: Least at team meetings, don't they? [00:27:59] Speaker B: So I would use one to one s to tackle your problem staff and to change behavior over time. In my view, team meetings should be saved for things like just passing on information or training on new technologies, or updating your team on the progress of the business, or just generating ideas and encouraging enthusiasm. The best kind of meetings really involve your team actually doing something. Cause it is really boring for them to listen to you just droning on. [00:28:27] Speaker C: For half an hour or even longer. [00:28:29] Speaker B: So here's an idea. Present them with a problem. Break them into small groups. If your team is big enough to do that and let them brainstorm ideas. Now, you don't have to act on those ideas, although trust me, they will come up with some brilliant ones, but it will help them feel involved and therefore just more engaged with the business. That's a good thing. Now, if you've got a question about anything in your MSP that you'd like help with, just go to the contact [email protected]. oh, and while you're there, if you'd love to attract new, better clients into your MSP, you just have to get our content marketing system. It's trusted by more than 700 fellow MSP's around the world. And you can check if your area is still available right [email protected]. [00:29:13] Speaker A: Dot coming up, coming up next week. [00:29:15] Speaker B: Thanks so much for listening this week. Next week. Why it's so important to get the right message in front of the right person at the right time. [00:29:24] Speaker A: Round the world, around the world. The MSP marketing podcast with Paul Green. You're still here. It's overdeveloped.