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Welcome to Episode 281 of the MSP Marketing Podcast with me, Paul Green. This week…
Happy April Fools’ Day. Have you ever wondered if you’re missing out by not doing marketing for your MSP themed around today? I mean, loads of big companies do April Fools’ jokes, that makes it an opportunity right? In my opinion, no. I believe your MSP should avoid April Fools’ Day like the plague, the same with Thanksgiving, Christmas, and any big national or international event. And let me tell you why.
This podcast episode and YouTube video has been released on the 1st of April, 2025, and when I was younger, I always used to really look forward to April Fools’ Day. As a child, it was to play jokes on my family who never found the jokes funny, but then as a young adult, I really used to enjoy the big April Fools’ jokes that companies would try and pull and they would do full page adverts in newspapers.
If you were around in the nineties and naughties, you might remember this.Things like Taco Bell in the US, they announced that they bought the Liberty Bell and they were renaming it, the Taco Liberty Bell, it’s Genius. Or Burger King, they actually launched a left handed burger, so clever. The big tech companies have done this very well in recent years. Samsung said it was going to launch the Galaxy Blade Edge, a phone that’s so thin and sharp that you can also use it as a kitchen knife. And then Tinder, the dating app, they launched a fake height verification tool on April Fools’ Day, although as a former Tinder user, a nutter spotting tool would actually be much more useful.
You might look at all of these gags put together by marketing departments of these big companies and ask yourself, I wonder what we should do to promote our MSP on April Fools’ Day? And there is an easy answer to this. Nothing. And it’s the same answer I would give you if you asked Paul, what should I do to promote my MSP around Thanksgiving… Valentine’s Day… Christmas… the Super Bowl? In fact, any big event that millions of people celebrate at the same time.
The reality is when you do something at the same time that everyone else is doing that thing, then you’re just adding to the noise.
It’s very hard to cut through when everyone is doing the same thing at the same time. And that’s why I never recommend that MSPs jump onto awareness weeks around cyber security, stuff like that, because you have exactly the same problem. If many MSPs are doing the same thing at the same time. It’s impossible to stand out unless you have a massive budget or a massive marketing department, massive marketing resource, something like that. And you don’t have that to what’s the answer?
I believe you should ignore big things that are happening and instead focus your small amount of marketing time and resource into setting up a good solid marketing system for your MSP. If you are constantly building audiences, growing relationships and converting relationships, then you will generate more leads, prospects, and clients in the long term, than if you were to do the odd marketing stunt now and again. And I know that that’s not the sexy, exciting answer that you were hoping to hear, but this is the reality of marketing an MSP in 2025. You can only do exciting, wow, standout things once you have the basics in place. And the vast majority of MSPs simply do not have those basics covered.
Having said that, there is one thing that you could do which can be fun and it can also really make you stand out, and that’s to celebrate a big event many, many months before it happens. So for example, if you send a Christmas card to your clients or your prospects at Christmas, you’re just part the noise. But if you send a Christmas card to them in March and the whole message of the Christmas card is, Hey, we are so on top of tasks that need to be done, that this is the first Christmas card you’ll get this year. Imagine if we were applying our approach to your technology. I mean, that would be a really cool card to send out, right? You could do a Valentine’s card in September because love for technology or good technology exists all year round. You can have some real fun with that, but caveat, that is just a gimmick and something like that will never be as powerful as getting that marketing system set up, so you’re constantly generating new leads for your MSP. That’s the thing to do first. That’s where you should get started.
Perhaps one of the hardest questions that I could ask you is what makes your MSP different from all of your competitors? And I don’t mean in terms of operations or tech stack, I mean from the point of view of the prospect, what makes you a better choice than all your competitors?
Let me share with you three key differences that you can turn into a competitive weapon to make sure you are never scared by this question ever again.
MSP Alliance estimates there are 150,000 MSPs in the world, and as you and I know, an MSP can support any business anywhere in the world, in theory anyway. Which means that when an ordinary business owner or manager has finally given up on their incumbent and they’re ready, willing and able to switch, with so much choice, why would they pick you? This is really a question about differentiation. What makes you a better choice than the other MSPs that they could look at? The problem with differentiation is that you must look at it from the prospect’s point of view and not your point of view. You know that you offer very good strategic advice that your team’s technical superpowers are better and that you have a superior tech stack, but the prospects don’t care about these things.
Instead, they want to know stuff like, Will everything just work? Will my staff stop complaining that their computer is slow? Can I get support if I’m working late at eight at night? Ordinary decision makers pick an MSP based on how they feel about them, and they do this because their brain cannot judge which MSP is better just by fact alone.
Non-technical people find it very hard to assess the competency of a technology company. Make their life easy by giving them a clear, emotional reason why they should pick you.
Here are three ideas to help you do that:
Idea number one is to be the face of the business. Now we know that people buy from people, so give them an authentic person to buy from. This is what I do with my MSP Marketing Edge. There are actually 13 of us on the team, but I’m the pretty face of the business. I’m all over the website. I do the podcast, I do the YouTube videos, I write all of our content so it’s in my voice. And you can do exactly the same in your MSP. And it’s more than just putting your photo everywhere. You want every little bit of communication and content that comes out of the business to reflect your own authentic personality.
When you use your personality to guide your marketing, something special happens. First, your marketing becomes utterly unique. There’s no one else like you and never will be. And another MSP using their personality to guide their marketing will always get a different end result. When prospects consume personality driven marketing, they very quickly decide that either you’re not for them, which is okay, or better, they form a bond with you before they’ve even met you, which is insanely powerful. They get to know you, to like you and to start to trust you months or even years before they consider buying from you. This, just off the back of authentic personality marketing. In fact, their business becomes yours by default and there’s nothing any of your competitors can do to beat that.
Idea number two is to pick a vertical or a niche. Now the power of a vertical can be summarised in three beautiful words, PURE MARKETING FOCUS. When you market to a specific niche, you reach more people and you can have more influence with less effort. Let’s say your MSP’s marketing positions you as an expert in technology for CPAs – accountants, and you show this with a website that’s just about technology for accountants. You’ve got testimonials and case studies from accountants. You’ve got downloadable guides about the software they use every day, a LinkedIn profile that’s only connected to other accountants and only posts about technology for accountants and regular blog content and LinkedIn newsletters, again about technology for accountants.
Any accountant looking at a new MSP would have to check you out if they were aware of you, right? In addition, you’ll find closing the sale easier. Most B2B buying decisions are not made on price alone. Sure, price is a factor, but it’s not the factor. Instead, buyers are looking for the right mix of factors in their IT support partners and one of those is the perceived quality of what you do. And remember, people perceive specialists to be of a higher quality. In fact, they expect to pay more for this.
Quick side note on this, the vast majority of MSPs with a vertical run it alongside their general business, and this is highly recommended as it allows you to dip your toe into the vertical to see if that works for you. Do consider setting up a separate website for your vertical because a page on your general website is okay, but an entire website really sends a message of perceived specialism. If you want to go all in, this method is to marry your market. You stop looking for new general business and just go for the vertical. Now, this is very brave and should only be attempted when you know 110% that you have a good vertical and that they will buy from you. Side note over.
Idea number three, go further than anyone else on the small things that matter the most. Earlier I mentioned that ordinary business owners, ordinary decision makers say things like, Can I get support if I’m working late at eight at night? And that’s an example of a small thing that makes a massive difference to people’s lives. What are the small things that matter to your prospects and how can you go further than anyone else? Can you offer spread out payment terms on hardware by perhaps picking a different distributor that allows you to do that? Can you partner with a business like Uptime Solutions to give you 24 7 help desk while you sleep? Can you send a technician to your client’s site once a month just routinely and they mop up all of those little small tech problems that clients don’t report but they still get annoyed about? And printers, I’m looking at you.
Oh, and on that last one, I know that you don’t want to send a technician to site to find problems because that’s a profit suck. Most MSPs feel that way, and that’s exactly why it would be a smart marketing differentiator. Imagine writing this on your website. We are the only IT support business in your town who will visit your office every month to fix all the small but annoying tech problems before they can interrupt your staff, and we bring cookies.
So tell me which of those three differentiators would work best for your MSP?
Featured guest: Devin Sizemore is the author of Connection Expansion: You Are One Connection Away From Massive Success In Your Life And Business.
Devin is driven by a passion for meaningful experiences, both personally and professionally, he has spent his career building and growing businesses that align with his values. From launching his first marketing agency right out of college to creating innovative consulting practices and a cat cafe, his journey has been defined by a commitment to “adding value” and making a positive impact.
As a firm believer in the power of connections, he is dedicated to helping others succeed through the art of building relationships. The next chapter of his life is focused on fostering a community where one million connections can create lasting, transformative change.
What if there was a marketing strategy that very few MSPs use but could make you unbeatable? What if the strategy could be implemented in just a few hours a week and not only brings you in new business, but makes hundreds of people genuinely think that you are the nicest person in IT?
My special guest today has a unique way of looking at marketing and how you can use human relationships as a powerful marketing weapon.
I’m Devin Sizemore. I am the super connector who helps you become a super connector.
Oh, what a great intro. Welcome to the show, Devin. It’s great to have you here. And we are going to talk about building super connections for your MSP. And I’m going to have to start by asking you, Devin, what is a super connection?
In the world of networking, we’re always so focused on chasing prospects. We have to generate revenue, and so often that’s where we focus. I like to flip that on its head and go, let’s build strategic connections that open up opportunities to lots of prospects. So we go about networking different. It actually makes it easier for you. You’ll get more out of your current network, you’ll build a much bigger and successful future network, and at some point you in your own network will become the connector. And the connector is the person who knows everybody. And so a great outcome of the whole system and process not only is revenue generation, filling meetings, all these other things, but is you become the go-to for everyone in your network.
Yeah, I love that. Well, we’re going to park that for just two minutes and we’re going to come back to that idea in a second and look at what the benefits are of being a super connector and then how you actually do it.
Let’s just delve a little bit more into your background. So in the past, what have you done that’s got you to this position of advising MSPs and other kinds of businesses, how they can be super connectors?
I’m a serial entrepreneur, as some of your listeners may be too. I had a marketing agency straight out of college, bought some agencies and sold, had a cat cafe, a manufacturing company, a coworking space. And in all of these spaces, what I found is I kept finding myself in crowded marketplaces where I was presented with a bunch of traditional marketing strategies – that do work, right when fully optimised and tracked correctly, they work – but I wanted to find a way to be unique and I wanted to be the authority in rooms where none of my competition was playing. And that led me down the path 15 years ago to start building the foundation for the connection expansion system, which exists today. How do we strategically get into these rooms so that you’re not competing?
What’s a cat cafe?
Great question. Yeah, so a cat cafe, I like to relate it to trampoline parks. People can usually think about that. So the cat cafe, you pay per hour to come hang out with the cats. It’s great for people who have allergy issues with their spouse, but they still want to be around animals, senior citizens who can’t have cats, college kids who can’t have animals so they can come and hang out with them. There’s no pressure to adopt, although that’s part of it. So it’s a business my wife and I launched and then we sold it to an employee after six months. So super fun project, very random, but a cool business.
Well, I’ve had a number of cats over the years and my experience of cats is that they’re quite aloof and if you are sitting giving them attention, then they’ll turn their back on you. So I can imagine your cat is full of cats ignoring the humans, which is the main reason the humans are there. But hey, there we go. Maybe someone should open a dog cafe one day and you just have all these dogs just adoring you waiting for food. That could be your next venture there, Devin.
Now you said something really smart about 40, 50 seconds ago you said, you said something about rooms. I want to be the only person in the room talking to someone. Can you say it again?
Yeah, so I want to be the authority in a room where none of my competition’s playing.
I love that. I want to be the authority in a room where none of my competition is. So what does that actually mean? I can grasp the concept of that, but in a real world, what does that mean? Does that mean being in a networking group where there’s no other MSPs or does that mean dominating?… no, okay, you’re shaking your head. So tell me what that kind thing means.
Yeah, let’s do it. And let’s go real specific for your listeners, right? So in the MSP world, let’s say that you want to go after accounting firms. Let’s say that that’s a great niche for you. There’s a lot of data there, typically a lot of machines. So maybe that’s a world you want to play and you just want to go after accounting. You can do the same thing in medical, pick a vertical, it doesn’t matter. But let’s say accounting. The traditional method is you ask for, Hey, I’m looking for accounting firms, CPA firms, bookkeepers, whatever it is. Ideally they’ve got half a dozen employees because we want enough machines for it to make sense. Great. That’s the go after the client method.
That’s not going to get you in a room. What will get you in a room is looking at where do accounting firms gather. Where do they seek education? What kind of continuing education do they have to get? Well, they have to have credentials that are renewed. So now we can start looking at associations. We can look at consultants that coach accounting firms. We can look at software providers that only service those people. We can look at vendors that sell to them. Now, if we could find one consultant who coaches accounting firms on how to scale and grow their practice, and we could become the partner with them where now we’re at their event, we’re the only MSP in the room, and they’re saying like, man, these are the best, they’re the most responsive, the most uptime, the most uo-to-date on current industry trends. And now you’re at this event being advocated and edified by the event host with no competition in the room. You are literally in a room full of ideal clients being edified and positioned to succeed. But you can’t just fall into the room. You want to network your way into that room so that the edification is very real and this is a very organic promotion.
I love that. That is one of the smartest things that I’ve heard today. I absolutely adore that and it makes perfect sense. And of course, if you are in that situation and you are an expert or you’re a perceived expert at managed services for that particular industry or whoever you’re talking to, you can expect to charge more as well. Because that’s one of the side benefits of being perceived as an expert and a specialist is the ability to charge more.
You have run something called the connection expansion system. Tell us how what you’ve just been talking about there fits into that system and what else is part of that?
So the connection expansion system is the full system. So it will serve you from a very first touch networking meeting all the way through how you nurture your database and relationships long term, and everything in between. So the email scripts you send after meeting someone, how we book meetings, how you run a meeting – a connection meeting, not a sales meeting – how we follow up from that, how we add value, and then how we nurture the network to generate the results we’re looking for, which is more connections.
If you are listening and you’re going, man, you know what I love word of mouth business and I love referrals, great – check the first box. Second, if you’re going, man, that’s unpredictable though, and I would like to bring some predictability to that side of my business – okay, check that box. The next thing is, are you willing to nurture relationships long term so we can get ongoing connections to unlock those bigger rooms? That’s the system. It’s all the language, it’s how we shift our ask, and then it’s how we follow up others focused and drive value to our network so that our network can then provide the value we’re looking for.
That makes perfect sense. There’s a ton of work there. I mean, what you’ve reeled off in a couple of sentences sounds like years worth of work. So for any MSP, watching this on YouTube, listening to this on the podcast, where’s a good place to get started and give us some small things that you can do to start going down that route.
So a quick action exercise. There’s two, I’m going to give you both.
The first exercise is to change your ask – this will dramatically get more results out of your current network in the meetings you’re already doing.
Most of the time the ask is your ideal client profiles, what you’re asking for. we want to switch that to the things that have access to our ideal clients, just like in the accounting example, but if we go to medical, it’d be the same thing, right? I’m looking for coaches and consultants who help medical practices scale and grow. That becomes your ask. Now, what happens is instead of someone having a hard time referring you, because when I refer you, I’m teeing you up to sell someone which creates friction, I’m now looking at my database going, man, you know what, I know two or three people who play in this medical world as consultants or service providers, let me connect you to them and now you guys can have a strategic conversation. The ability to book a meeting super easy, the leverage way more impactful, and you’re going to get way more out of that. So that’s the first thing, shift your ask. Stop asking for just clients and focus on these bigger asks. The second thing is let’s use what you have. I’m going to guarantee you already have a network. Your network might be three people or might be hundreds, but you’re probably successful, you probably have a database of some people. Let’s just get into meetings with those people. You can send a check-in email, which everyone in my database gets. It sounds like this. Hey Bob, I hope you’re doing well and having a great day. It’s been a while since we last connected. Anything new and exciting in your world? Any new challenges?
Hey, I’d love to schedule time to catch up with you so that I can realign on what kind of connections and value I can add to your world. Here’s a link to my calendar. I look forward to catching up. We then are driving our network back into these conversations. And in those meetings we’re focused on looking for ways to add value and re-engage this person, not sell this person. Build real relationships because when we’re in that room building real relationships, that’s where we find all these opportunities that right now you don’t know exist in your network.
Can I do a cynical British thing? And maybe this is just a British thing and I’m conscious we have listeners and viewers all over the world, but if I got an email like that from someone that says, Hey, let’s reconnect, jump on a call to talk about again, whatever it was you just said, much more succinctly than I can. My arms fold at that point and my cynicism thinks, ah, you’re just trying to sell me something. It seems like even though everything you’ve talked about here is about being authentic and authentically helping people, and the more you help them, the more help they give you, that comes across as an inauthentic thing. So tell me I’m wrong and tell me that actually it works and it works because you do it and you get results from it.
So when you’re first starting, there will be tension in your network because it’s going to feel new to your network. That’s very normal. We don’t need everyone to engage. And in fact, even if they respond with some sort of thing saying, well, what are you trying to sell? Or what’s your real motive? You’ve done what you’re trying to do, which is create a conversation. Now how you handle that conversation for sure, and this happens, I still get it in my own network sometimes where people will be like, Hey, why are we getting together? What are you trying to sell? What’s your motive? And then I just reiterate, my motive is literally just to catch up, figure out what your priority is right now because I’m doing a ton of networking and I want to make sure that I refer the right people to you.
And that typically will get someone to be like, okay, fine, I’ll get on a 30 minute call and we can chat. And then when you get on that call, you cannot sell. You have to get on the call and ask genuine questions. And what happens over time is your network wants to get on your calendar because you are adding value, you’re making connections, you’re focused on them. And so for me, 36 inbound connections last month, that’s 36 new people that are positioned to me, edified to me just because of my own network in the meetings I’m doing. I also know I’m going to get a 30% response rate. So when I send those check-in emails, 30% of people in any check-in are going to reply. Some will take meetings, some will just say, Hey, Devin, yeah, thanks for checking in. Hey, here’s a link to what I’m promoting right now. And that’s all they have time for. Great. Again, at least we’re top of mind in this dead network that we have is starting to do something.
I mean a 30% response rate, that’s crazy as in crazy good. surely. Let me turn this into a question. Is it overwhelming for you? So if you’ve got 36 people and you managed to book 12 meetings, so suddenly you’ve just filled six hours of your life, plus the prep, plus the notes, and then you’ve suddenly got all of these connections and all of these things that people are looking to do, is that overwhelming or is it very much part of your system just to file that away until you get opportunities to connect people and help them add value?
So you can do this system on a spreadsheet and it can work and you can do it at a small volume that way. Obviously the volume I do it at is another level, right? So 52 new meetings last month, 120 ish connections sent out last month. Again, the 30 plus inbound. So obviously I’m doing it at a rate that’s much bigger, but my system’s built to support that. And so I recommend connection meetings, if you’re doing virtual can be 30 minutes, they don’t need to be an hour. If you’re doing them in person, they need to be an hour. You need the time for ordering the coffee, finding the table, doing the stuff. The follow-up I buffer the time right after, you need about 15 minutes of follow-up after a meeting to send two to three connections and send a recap email. And then you need a task management system where you can assign a task that says, Hey, I’m going to check in with you in three weeks to see how those connections were. I’m going to check in with you six weeks after that to nurture the relationship and send the check-in. Really, that’s all of your time commitment. The rest is on your network opening doors for you and you just putting them on your calendar. So yes, right, your time will be a constraint in this process, but if you want the outcome, this is a great marketing strategy to shift how you’re building your network and to tap into again, that untapped value that I know exists in your network.
Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And look, Devin, I need to give you kind of an apology because in five years of doing this podcast, I think those are the most cynical follow up questions that I’ve ever asked anyone that I’ve ever had on the show, but you handled them brilliantly. So thank you very much. Let’s finish off with one final question. What do you actually do to help MSPs implement a system like this and how can we get in touch with you?
Yeah, first, thank you. I love the challenging questions because this is not the normal conversation. And so you should be skeptical and you should be asking those questions and I would expect nothing less. I love that and hopefully I was able to provide some value there. Two ways to connect with me, first one, grab a copy of the book – Connection Expansion – the whole system is in here. All the scripts, I don’t hold anything back, it’s value packed, it’s on Amazon, and no matter what country you’re in, you can grab it. Paperback, hardcover or audiobook. And visit devinsizemore.com, all my stuff’s on there. Ton more value in content. My biggest way that I’m helping people right now is I run a connection group. And if anything we said today, you said, you know what, I want to lean in a little and I want to build my network, especially outside my market – I want to go after some verticals or some new markets – just come hang out with us and let’s build our networks together. And over time, you’ll start to learn all the different pieces for the system and then you can really capitalise on it.
George from Los Angeles, where his MSP is based asks: I’m getting a small amount of traffic to my website but I’ve no idea where it’s coming from. What kind of traffic tracking should I be doing?
Well, there are many, many different ways to track where your traffic is coming from. Let me tell you about three that could work for you.
So one of the best ways, but also one of the most expensive is to invest in a CRM called HubSpot. Now, this will over time allow you to see the ROI, the return on investment from traffic sources and also see which specific pieces of content on your website generate the most revenue. So, which get the most traffic coming in that then go on to become clients.
Another way to do this is to set up different data capture pages for each lead source you’re using. And this will tell you exactly which methods have generated the most leads. You’ll need a CRM that’s capable of lead source tracking. Most of them can actually do this.
And then finally, the simplest way to track traffic is to use something called UTMs. And this is some code that’s added to the end of your URL, which passes its information onto Google Analytics, and you’ll have seen URMs. It’s like your domain.com/utm source equals something like that. The good news is there is a free tool provided by Google to help you build these UTMs. Just go and Google this phrase, Google Campaign URL builder, that’ll take you to the tool and it’ll link into your Google Analytics.
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