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Learn how to collect social proof obsessively and build it into your marketing to attract new clients. Also this week, why every MSP needs a dispatcher, and how to get vendors to pay for your marketing.
Welcome to Episode 334 of the MSP Marketing Podcast with me, Paul Green, powered by the MSP Marketing Edge.
If there’s one marketing habit that I wish every MSP would build into their regular rhythm, it’s this. Collect social proof. And not casually, I mean obsessively because nothing builds trust faster than a client telling the world that they’re genuinely happy with you. You can talk about your service all day long, but the moment someone else says, “These people are amazing,” the whole dynamic changes. So let’s talk about why social proof works, the three types that every MSP should be collecting and how to do it in a way that never ever feels awkward or forced.
To understand why social proof is so powerful, you need to look at a bit of basic human psychology. Back when humans were still figuring out fire and trying not to get eaten by dinosaurs, survival depended on sticking with the group. If the herd ran, you ran. And that instinct is still baked very deep within our brains and our gut reactions. Even though we like to think of ourselves as rational, independent, modern decision makers…
People are still heavily influenced at an emotional level by what other people are doing. That’s why testimonials, reviews and case studies work so well.
They quietly say, “Hey, people just like you trust a business like this and that feels safe.” So as I said, there are three types of social proof that every MSP should be collecting, and the first is reviews.
Reviews are the most powerful form of social proof because they live on third party platforms that you don’t control. So places like Google. They’re public, they’re credible, and that makes them so much harder to fake. And that’s also why if you have to prioritise, I’d always prioritise reviews over collecting testimonials. A simple and very effective tactic is to ask a client to leave you a Google review and then reuse that review in your own marketing. So you get it on the third party platform, but you use it in your own website. So you could screenshot it and include it in proposals or as I say, your site or social posts or even better than screenshotting it. Get your website designer or any designer to recreate the review so that it looks consistent across different screen sizes while keeping the exact wording that you’d see on Google Reviews.
And there are, just out of interest, three great moments when you should ask for a review. During the first 90 days of working together, when everything still feels fresh and positive, just after you’ve completed a big project successfully or right after you’ve saved them from something serious. The only real rule for this is don’t ask for reviews if you’re in the middle of any kind of difficult conversation with your client, which sounds obvious, but you’d be surprised how many people forget or they don’t realise that there’s a bit of conflict going off at the same time, we’ve sent them an email asking for a Google review. So that’s reviews.
The second type of social proof is testimonials. And testimonials are like a review except you have control over them. That’s what makes them different. So they come directly to you. And that might be as a quote or a video clip or an email that you’ve asked permission to reuse. And because you control them, they’re easy to polish and deploy across all of your marketing. And yes, they do work, but they don’t carry the same weight as a public review because everyone knows that you could have edited them. That said, one strong video testimonial, especially from a well-known local business or a business that’s well known in your vertical, that can be absolute gold.
And then the third and final type of social proof is case studies. So if reviews are the match, case studies are the bonfire. A simple case study is simply a story that wraps social proof into a narrative and our brains love stories because they feel more real, they’re more believable and more memorable. The structure that makes case studies work is simple. First, you demonstrate relevance by showing that this client looks just like your ideal prospect. Then you describe the problem from the client’s point of view and not a technical one at all. Then you poke the pain a little by explaining what that problem costs them or how it felt. You introduce the solution by explaining what you did. Again, don’t drown it in tech. And then finally, you show the happy ending by demonstrating how the client was able to move forward successfully because of your help. And you can see why video works brilliantly here. Even a quick Teams recording can be enough, although it would be better to hire a proper videographer to film your client in real life. 20 to 30 minutes of footage gives you tons of videos that you can use across multiple platforms.
And once you’ve got that, you can repurpose it into written content, LinkedIn clips, and website copy. One good case study can fuel your marketing for years, because of course, most ordinary business owners and managers are only looking for an MSP once every five years or so. So they’re simply not seeing your case study more than once. And if you were to collect a new case study every couple of months, you can see why I say this should be a habit because you genuinely cannot have too much social proof.
So here’s a simple challenge for you this week. Go and get one new piece of social proof, just one. Ask one client for a review or record a 60-second testimonial over Teams, or even write up your first proper case study using that structure. You’ve already done the hard work of delighting your clients. Now, let those clients help you prove it and attract even more of the right ones.
At some point, every MSP reaches a stage where the biggest challenge is no longer technology. It’s actually customer experience. Tickets are getting logged, work’s getting done, but clients and the users working for the clients, they don’t always feel heard or acknowledged, or there’s a risk that they don’t feel looked after.
And that’s usually the moment that an MSP realises they don’t just have a service desk problem. They actually have a customer service gap. And that’s why I believe every MSP needs to hire a dispatcher. And yes, a dispatcher brings operational benefits and we’ll talk about those in a second but the real magic of this role, I believe, is what it does for the client experience.
A dispatcher’s primary job is not fixing issues. It’s making sure that every single person who reaches out feels seen, heard, and acknowledged.
They want to feel that someone’s taken responsibility that they’re not just shouting into the void. Imagine that you’re one of your clients or one
of the people that work for your clients, and you submit a ticket and it’s a kind of annoying problem. It’s not a major problem, but it’s something you’d really hope to get fixed in a few hours or so because it’s just annoying you. And in most MSPs, you submit that request and you might get an auto response, but then you might not hear anything for a few hours, or you might get a bit of a message back, but it’s just like a random update. It doesn’t really tell you anything.
Whereas when you’ve got a dispatcher in that exact same scenario, every single ticket that gets submitted, the dispatcher phones that person. They literally pick up the phone and they call them and they acknowledge the problem, they perhaps ask a couple of follow-up questions if necessary, and they empathise with the user. They’ll say to them, they could use these exact words, “This is a really annoying problem, isn’t it? So what I’m going to do, I’m going to get one of our senior technicians onto this straightaway and I hope to have an update for you in the next hour or so.” And what the dispatcher has actually just done is they’ve bought your technicians some time to really look into that problem while also keeping the customer happy. This is great, right?
From a customer’s point of view, that matters far more than whether or not the ticket is resolved in five minutes or 55 minutes. When users know that there’s a calm, organised, pleasant human being at the other end who understands what’s going on, their anxiety just drops immediately. And you know, reassurance is a massive part of good IT support, isn’t it? You must have learned that so many times over your career. So let’s take a moment to just make sure that you and I understand exactly what I mean by a dispatcher.
A dispatcher is the person who sits between the clients and the technicians, and their job is to make sure that every user feels heard and nothing ever gets lost, while ensuring that the technicians always know exactly what to work on next. So from an internal point of view, a dispatcher typically works alongside the service desk manager, and they’re not replacing that role at all. They’re very much supporting it. They help to route tickets efficiently, making sure the right work goes to the right technician and that priorities are set properly instead of emotionally.
Now that alone massively improves flow and maximises technician time, because instead of technicians constantly checking queues and answering phones and responding to interruptions or trying to decide what do I work on next, what’s the priority. They can just focus on actually resolving things. And here’s the important commercial point. A dispatcher usually costs significantly less than a technician. So by hiring a dispatcher, often you’ll free up enough technician capacity that you can delay or maybe even completely avoid having to hire another tech, which is another big win. But again, the real benefit shows up in how your clients feel. Every user gets acknowledged quickly and they know what’s happening next. They’re kept informed if there’s an unexpected delay and they’re never left wondering whether anyone has even seen their tech support request. Over time, that builds trust and patience and dramatically reduces their frustration even when things go wrong.
One of the biggest mistakes MSPs make is assuming that the dispatcher has to be technical. They do not. In fact, some of the best dispatchers come from outside IT altogether. Just think about people who already thrive in fast-paced customer facing environments, perhaps someone who’s run a local coffee shop or a hotel receptionist or someone who’s fronting a car service department. These are people who are really good at juggling priorities and managing expectations and staying calm under pressure. Oh, and communicating clearly and smiling while they do it. They know how to deal with people when they’re stressed, impatient, or frustrated. Well, that’s IT support, right? You can teach basic IT and systems people. You can teach processes, but it’s almost impossible to teach someone empathy, organisation, and great communication skills. I know these things can be developed, but it’s easier to bring someone in who’s got all of those things and teach them a bit of IT.
And a great dispatcher brings all of those things to your MSP. Empathy, organisation, great communication skills. Wouldn’t it be cool to have someone who is the friendly, consistent face of your service desk, someone that clients recognise and trust… everything gets easier. Technicians are protected, workflows better, and the clients feel better looked after. And do you know what? As a side effect of this, your MSP starts to feel more professional, more controlled, and more scalable, both to you, your technicians, and your clients. I genuinely believe that a dispatcher is not just overhead, they’re leverage. When you get this role right and you get the person right that’s in that role, the improvement in customer service alone more than justifies the decision.
Featured guest: Laura Johns has spent the last 20 years promoting some of the most impactful technology solutions across the globe. Today, she lead The Business Growers, a fast-growing marketing firm focused on building predictable revenue engines for MSPs, IT service providers, and telecommunications companies.
The Business Growers provide full-service, done-for-you marketing support to clients in more than 20 states, bringing deep industry expertise and a clear focus on results. They help MSPs and IT leaders increase monthly recurring revenue, improve retention, and win more long-term managed contracts.
Could you imagine getting vendors to pay for your MSP’s marketing? Well, you don’t need to imagine it. It’s real, and it happens every day to MSPs across the world. There’s hundreds of millions of dollars available in something called MDF, marketing development funds, and yet very few MSPs are using it to subsidise their marketing.
My special guest today runs a fast growing MSP marketing agency, and she knows the good, the bad, and the ugly about MDF. So if you want to subsidise your marketing, here right now, are the answers.
Hi I’m Laura Johns, founder and CEO of the Business Growers, a marketing operations and lead generation company that serves managed services providers.
It’s so cool to have you on the podcast finally, Laura. You and I met in real life for the first time at ScaleCon in New Orleans last year, which you’ve just told me that you only live a couple of hours away from. And we were on the naughty table with Nate Freedman and Cassie from TechProMarket. Marketing was there as well. And I remember Nate kept whooping and hollering and throwing comments out. It was such fun, such fun. I hope it happens again this year.
So it was lovely to meet you and what I want to get you on the show talking about today is I know is one of your specialist subjects, which is MDF, marketing development funds. And it’s something we haven’t actually mentioned in the podcast for a number of years, which is crazy because I know that there are tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars sat in vendor’s bank accounts, which should actually be in MSP’s bank accounts.
So before we talk about that, do you want to just tell us a little bit about you? So what’s your kind of journey within the MSP world and how did you get to where you are now?
Sure, yes. I think that I can officially say I’m the only tech focused marketing agency in the state of Mississippi. Although we do have a lot of budding tech companies that have come up in the last decade or so, we are not necessarily known for our technology, so I’m really proud of that. I’m from the deep south, I’ve always been in technology, started my career working for a telecommunications company that was embedding cellular technology inside of an electric metre. So monitoring electricity through cellular, which was really progressive. That was my first job out of college, did graduate school, continued to work there for 10 years, which this day and age I hear is unheard of when you start a new career to stay somewhere for 10 years, but I loved it. And it was that startup and that culture of startup was really, really a cool experience for me.
And then that company actually sold for a $100 million in 2014. And once they sold, I went to work for the parent company that was a metre manufacturing company in Washington. Then after that, went to work for a managed services provider, so stayed kind of in the industry and led marketing for them. And really this MDF was a big part of my story even then. So at the time, the company I worked for was an AT&T reseller. They were reselling connectivity and other things through AT&T. And they were starting a program for partners that allowed them to get upwards of 10 to $15,000 a quarter based off of how much they were selling. And we were a very small, at the time, lean managed services provider business. And so that was my marketing budget, essentially. I was having to figure out how to maximise those dollars so that I could accomplish my own goals in the business.
So from there though, I went on to start my own marketing agency where after I saw a lot of problems that I was experiencing leading marketing there, tried to find a need for, which was coming around the whole managed services provider business with kind of a turnkey marketing offer so that they could focus on operating the business and then let somebody else handle these long sales cycles and staying on top of opportunities and things like that. So it’s been kind of a journey, but all in telecom and all from the state of Mississippi, which has been kind of fun.
That’s amazing. That’s such a great story. So let’s assume everyone who’s listening to this or watching this on YouTube, let’s assume no prior knowledge. So just give us the 101 on MDF. So what exactly is it, and what isn’t it? I think that’s probably a good place to start.
Yeah, so marketing development funds, it looks different with different vendors. I think that that’s the first thing to know is that it’s not cut and dry. It’s going to depend on their own systems. I do think that some are much better than others. I feel like sometimes it can be a catchphrase that brings people in to the vendor, but also gets really complicated in how to use it. I think the statistic, now, I don’t know, so nobody go look this up, but I believe that it’s less than 10% utilisation for this industry typically of the MDF that’s available. I will get that statistic though if it’s true or not.
Should we make it real? Let’s just declare it now as a real stat.
We know for a fact based on all of our clients that are using it, that they come to us and they say, “I know I have MDF with X, Y, and Z vendor, and I’ve never used it.” So then we start digging in and we realise, I think the reason that it’s really underutilised is because it’s complicated and it’s different for every vendor.
MDF is based on what you’re selling in volume for that vendor, and you achieve milestones that allow you to have cash in the bank for promoting their services.
That’s kind of a big part of it too, is if you’re selling a lot of different things, you have to be really careful in your messaging and your marketing and not making sure that you are service forward, here’s this phone or this particular vendor that you’re using, because then that can complicate the message a little bit. So I think that a lot of businesses, depending on their size, don’t really want to lead with that brand, they want to lead with their brand. And that’s where I think, again, it gets tricky, but getting compensation on a regular basis for selling more of that product and the really good programs are doing it well, and it can be very motivating if you have somebody who manages it, which is kind of become our specialty in supporting our clients and doing that.
Got it. So you seek MDF funding and then manage the relationship with the vendors on behalf of the MSPs. That’s one of the things you do, right?
Yes, that’s right. Usually when they come in, we’re not going to go through the effort to find new MDF. One of the first things we do in onboarding is get a really good understanding of their services and their vendors. And then at that point, we have a good idea of what’s worth going after and what’s not. And then I would say probably two out of ten times they’re already using it to some capacity, but may not be maximising it. But yes, we will look at their kind of vendor list. We will start making contacts as their agency, if they will allow us, if not, sometimes in some cases, which is understandable, the company has to be the one doing the outreach and making the connection. But for the most part, they’re really good at kind of handing the reins over to us as their agency and we’re connecting with those marketing teams that are providing the communication and the guidelines around the MDF. And then our account managers are all trained on how to use it in strategy. It is strategic, you have to be very strategic because if you’ve got four vendors that all give you MDF, you have to be making sure that you’re qualifying for getting the money back in your bank account, right?
Yeah, that makes perfect sense. So you said earlier that vendors that run a good MDF program, which obviously implies there are vendors that run a bad MDF program. So I’m going to ask you just to make my life easy, don’t mention the ones that do a bad program but you can name names if they do a good program. So again, from the point of view of the MSP, what does a good program look like and what does a bad program look like?
Yeah. I think just like a sales compensation, especially in this industry, it has to be simple. And if you confuse the person that’s doing your sales, then you’re not motivating them. And so I think that the good programs understand that if it’s complicated and if it requires four steps and three days and multiple submissions and requirement of certain assets back and forth, that becomes complicated. Also, the bad programs are the ones that give a very, very small amount on the dollar. And I believe the ones that work best, and I am going to say one in particular, and if you look me up, you know that I’m a AT&T ecosystem partner, so our company is an approved marketing partner, which means 100% of the MDF that they give to their resellers is reimbursable with me because I’m an approved partner, but their program works well because they have two buckets.
Essentially, if you sell up to this much, you get $10,000 every quarter. If you sell up to this threshold, you get $15,000 a quarter. It’s not pennies for a dollar, it’s not confusing. And if you sell these two thresholds, the next quarter, you get the money. And so we have been able to build marketing activity around these budgets and then also give the feedback back to the vendor, “Hey, here’s what happened with your dollars this year.” Which that’s what creates really good relationships that I think the vendors appreciate, to be quite honest.
Yeah. And that’s such a simple scheme, isn’t it? If you sell more, we’ll give you more, and that’s it. And I can see the simplicity of that. I can also understand how big corporations would overcomplicate things. Let’s say it, Microsoft, right? And I’m not going to ask you a direct experience, but let’s be honest. And I’m not the greatest fan of Microsoft products, but even for me, obviously I have 365. Even for me as a 365 end user, just getting my invoice every month is so complicated, you have to log into a thing, you have to click at this, it seems to generate the invoice and take 60 seconds to do it. And it’s like, oh my goodness. I know MSPs struggle with it.
And I think to speak to that too, you said it, I didn’t, but that is one of the ones that is just too much trouble. But what I have seen in these programs or these vendors that work really well is even if they’re mega, AT&T obviously they’re a very big organisation, and a lot of people associate in their minds with AT&T complicated, however, they have a dedicated team just to partner resellers and they have kind of two different divisions – one’s a commission-based, one’s a top line revenue based – but they have these segments that serve a very particular customer with very particular outcomes and goals, and they understand what works for that customer. And I think if you try to take a big company, just for example, like Microsoft, and you try to blanket a reseller program where we know that every MSP is different and has different techniques and different systems in the way they sell, then I think that if you’re not willing to take the time and invest the resources in finding what they need the most and having a support team around that, then you’re not going to really be able to understand their needs and be the voice and be able to provide a program that makes it worth their time.
Yeah. No, that makes perfect sense. So I’ve got two final questions for you. The second question I’m going to ask and second is, as an MSP, how would you get started with this? Before I ask that question, we talked earlier about how these vendors come up with MDF funds, they put the money aside ultimately to sell product. And we all understand that and no one’s got an issue with that, but where that is an issue, as you correctly identified earlier, is where they want you to push a particular kind of router, say, and you and I as marketers know that the end business owner or manager that we’re trying to sell to doesn’t care about the brand of the router, but if we say to the vendor, “Hey, we’re going to spend your advertising dollar or your marketing dollars, and we’re going to do a really cool campaign, which is going to bring on some new clients, and then we’re going to standardize, we’re going to put your routers in all of their offices, but we’re not going to mention your name.” And there’s going to be one vice president of sales that rubs their hands and goes, “Great.” And then there’ll be a vice president of marketing who says, “But that doesn’t meet my quarterly quota for brand mentions on Reddit” or whatever. So is that a case of just working with vendors that get it and just finding that, I guess, 10, 20% or is there another way of doing that?
I think so. I think again, and I should have mentioned this earlier, but those successful programs are the ones that understand, “Hey, my logo doesn’t have to be bigger than your logo. I can be a very small part of your overall plan.” And if we’re doing marketing well as a managed services provider business, we are talking all about outcomes and we’re talking all about our customer’s pain points and their frustrations. And you’re right, they don’t care about the product. I feel like just in general for another podcast perhaps we talk about the fact that nobody cares about what you’re selling they just want you to solve their problems, that’s another topic, I’m sure you talked about that plenty. But I think that again, these programs that get it, they also understand that you have a bigger objective that you’re trying to meet. And so for example, going back to that AT&T, if you put their partner badge on there, which is small and they want it a third of the size of yours or they don’t want it, they want you to be at the top, they want them to be at the bottom, those types of things.
Some MDF programs are fine with even just, like for example, you’re doing an email campaign that powered by this particular vendor or we’re offering a two for one, if you buy connectivity, you get 10 phones free or whatever, but being able to bundle products that are not both the vendor’s product and be open to the fact that, “Hey, if they can sell on outcomes and my product gets sold, maybe it’s a small mention, but also if I’m their vendor of choice, hopefully I trust the MSP enough to know that they’re going to sell more.” And again, kind of going back to that, how can this MDF serve them best so that they’re going to be more motivated to sell my product? If you do it well, like a salesperson incentivise them well, then the nuanced things, I get we need to put a logo on there, but let’s not require it to be the whole message because if we’re going to be wasting time on sending emails about routers, then it’s worthless in my opinion anyway.
That makes perfect sense. Final question then, which is where do you get started? So obviously, an agency like yours will do this as part of your client management, but not every MSP can work with you. So is it as simple as you talk to all of your account managers, you just ask the question?
I would suggest spending a day dedicated or a couple of appointments during the week, you’re going to be talking to your account manager anyway, go ahead and let them know that on our next call or let’s schedule a call if you don’t have a regular routine depending on how substantial of a part of your business that product or vendor is, let them know you want to talk if they have MDF funds. Again, I would say you’re going to find that a lot of them do.
A good way to practice, in my opinion, and of course I’m always working smarter, not harder, is if they’ve got a good program they can send you the guidelines and the breakdown of what you get for what, and go ahead and put that into your AI tool of choice and compare those programs yourself, do some prompts about what might bring you the most value at this stage of your business with this many employees and this much revenue.
Start to do some of that research and data yourself, save yourself some time and look at what they’re actually offering to see, is this a pennies on the dollar or is this a lump sum based on my sales growth and what’s going to work best for my business? And then figure those out. A lot of times, again, if it’s not worth your time, it’s not a good program, it’s not worth your time, but there are some that are going to be good and substantial. And if you’re not taking advantage of it, you’re missing opportunities to influx some cash because you think you don’t have a marketing budget, but you might. You might actually have a marketing budget, you just don’t know.
I love that. Thank you, Laura. Tell us finally just a little bit about your business, what you do with MSPs, and what’s the best way to get in touch with you?
You can always find me on LinkedIn, I’m very active sharing lots of opinions, some you may like, some you may not. And then also, you can look us up at thebusinessgrowers.com. We are marketing operations, doing foundational marketing, getting you digitally visible to your target customers and ideal customers. And then secondarily, we’re doing lead generation for you as well once that good foundation is built. And I teach about it all the time. We’ve got YouTube, of course. If you go to The Business Growers on YouTube, you’ll find us as well and you can learn lots of things there.
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