What if you only had 90 days to win new clients?

[00:00:02] Speaker A: Want to grow your msp, but fear that the one thing getting in the way is you. Here comes the mindset, the confidence, and all the tactics to make it happen. Greetings and welcome back to the show. And here's what I've got coming up for you today. What would you do if you only had 90 days in which to win new clients? 3 unbelievably important questions to ask yourself about your existing clients and my this special guest is an MSP owner who's been running his own podcast for eight years. I've asked him to pull out the best ideas he's ever heard and summarize them for you. Welcome to episode 293 powered by MSP marketingedge.com Paul Green's MSP Marketing Podcast Are you ready to take the MSP experiment? How would you do if you had to win a load of new clients within the next 90 days? Yes, just 90 days to find and sign up new managed service clients. The reason isn't important, it's a thought experiment. But does the sound of having to do that make your blood run cold? If so, let's dig into why it's such an important test and the real world benefits to your msp. This is kind of based on a question I was asked on a podcast I appeared on a few months back. I can't quite remember which one it was right now, but the host asked me if I had to start an MSP from scratch, what would I do? And I think he was waiting for me to suggest which RMM I would use and which PSA and what my tech stack would look like. But the answer I actually gave was that I would figure out all of that stuff only after I'd won some clients. So I'd focus all of my time, effort and energy into creating a pipeline and then shaking that tree until some new business fell out of it. Yeah, I know I've mixed up my analogies there, but you see the point I'm making, right? I've never actually owned or run an MSP, but I've been a business owner for 20 years and there's no point getting your operations ready and perfect if there are no clients to put through those operations. So let's make that a real life question for you. Not what would you do if you started again with your msp, but if you absolutely had to generate new business in the next 90 days, what would you do? Don't get too hung up on the whys about this. Just imagine you've lost a big client or your Personal circumstances dictate that you just need more cash. The reason is not relevant. What's more important is to talk about what you would actually do. A quick aside, if that was a real situation for you and you desperately needed more cash in the next month or so, that cash is going to come from your existing clients. There's always more revenue and certainly high levels of profit to be made selling something to your existing clients than winning new clients. But for the purpose of this piece here, what would you do to win new clients in just 90 days? Well, let me break this down into a series of suggestions. The first of those would be actually the way that you think and the way that you act. One of the reasons that many MSPs really struggle with marketing and winning new clients is because they simply don't take it seriously. If you're only spending 20 or 30 minutes a day or even a week on marketing, how can you expect to get momentum on that? How can you expect to get traction? There are MSPs that have full time departments of people who are generating leads, warming up those leads and turning them into clients. And I appreciate these are probably bigger businesses than yours, but they're properly resourcing what is a critical function of growing a business. So if you need new clients in the next 90 days, you have to throw yourself into that task. That means a minimum of 90 minutes every single day working on your marketing. And that really is the minimum. Depending on how early, urgently you needed new clients, you'd spend more and more and more time. I've always thought in the back of my head that if my business was in real trouble and I needed to generate new revenue urgently, I reckon I could free four to five hours a day. Just things I could just drop in my day and it might create a bit of chaos. And I'd be calling in all sorts of favors from colleagues and perhaps even parents to help ferry my child around to after school clubs and stuff. But if it came to it, I could arrange that within like 48 hours. And that means that very quickly I'd have four to five hours a day of extra time to invest into new marketing to win new clients for my business. And in this kind of emergency situation, the 90 day thing, you'd have to be willing to do the same thing, even if that creates some short term pain, because it is only short term and it will ease quickly once the new clients start coming in. So time is a necessary resource. And also cash, you need a bit of that as well. It always shocks me how little some MSPs spend on marketing, how little they invest when there are some amazing marketing resources out there. And obviously I've got to give a shameless and blatant plug for my own service here, the MSP Marketing Edge, which is for as little as £149 or $199 per month. And we only work with one MSP per area, but I'll just leave that one there. So you need a mindset of total urgency that's vital and you need to resource it properly. Those are kind of a couple of the basics and two other of the basics that you need is to sure that your website and your LinkedIn are as good as they can possibly be without spending tons of time on them. When someone's thinking about talking to you, they will check out your website, they'll have a look at your LinkedIn as well, both your personal profile and your business profile. And it really doesn't take that much effort to get both of these assets to be as good as they can be. The basic rule is to make them reflect who you are as a person and the benefits of working with you. People will choose you or not choose you based on their ability to relate to you and how you can make them feel. If your website is cold and it's all about tech and stock images and looks the same as all the other MSP websites, then you're going to get the same results as all the other MSPs, which is a poor pipeline of prospects. Never be afraid to stand out, to be a little bit different, although not by using a gimmick. Be human, be real and talk to people in their language. At this point, let me mention the three step lead generation system that I've been recommending for years and years in which my MSP marketing edge is built upon. We help MSPs to implement it. It's six words, super simple but incredibly powerful. Step one, build audiences. Step two, grow relationships with those audiences. And step three, convert relationships. Now, I've got videos on YouTube and podcast episod dedicated to this system, but if you've only got 90 days, we want to do the super speedy version of it. So let me give you now a version that takes more time and more resources. It's more intensive if you like, but it should give you results faster. So it's not something you'd build for the long term. It's the emergency version. You start by auditing what you already have. Very rarely in an established business are you really starting with any marketing from scratch. More likely you're already sitting on a bunch of assets that you're not leveraging enough. So what data do you have of prospects in the business that you're not using? Do you have a draw full of business cards of people you've met at events over the last 10 years that you never really followed up on? Do you have inquiries on your outlook that all the people you spoke to years ago and they have, you have no idea what's happening with them today? These are all marketing assets that you can leverage because you can email all of these people, you can phone them, you can add them on LinkedIn. And yeah, sure, some of them are dead, but some of them are also no longer the one man bands or one person bands they were 10 years ago. Now they've got 25 staff and they're dissatisfied with their incumbent MSP. But you have no idea until you reach out to them. So look at emails, notes from calls, find old notepads, read everything from back in the day, any old interaction from anything up to 10, even 15 years ago. It could be a relationship you could renew in the next 90 days. That's step one, which is to build audiences. Now step two, grow relationships. And the first thing there is to invest some of that time that you've created each day into spending time on LinkedIn. The key to marketing your MSP is to get the right message in front of the right person at the right time. So Every day on LinkedIn I suggest you focus on the four Cs Connect, Contact, Content and comment. That means connecting to new people, sending them a message to contact them when you are connected. Putting content on LinkedIn every day, that one piece of content every 24 hours works best right now for the algorithm. And then finally commenting on other people's posts. And it's this commenting which encourages people to connection request you. So it's not just a flood of one way requests from you to other people, it's two way traffic. LinkedIn is an amazing place for MSPs to go farming for new clients, but it isn't a fast place. It's really hard to speed it up. It's farming, not hunting. So for that reason I suggest you get out networking. Not the cables, the early breakfasts, meeting people in a hotel room, that kind of thing. See if you can find one event every single weekday for the next 90 days and go attend it. And that might not just be in your town, but other nearby towns. Or you might look at vertical specific events, but your goal is to get in front of Other human beings, at least three, four, maybe even five days a week, start meeting people, start building relationships. Because unlike all of the digital stuff, which is free and easy to do but takes a long time to build a relationship, in networking you have to put time and effort in, yet the relationship is built significantly faster. Don't assume you're going to get clients from the first time you meet someone, but you may meet the same person two or three times over a number of weeks or months, and that leads maybe onto them referring you to someone they know who's looking for a new msp. Or it might set up a conversation that you have with them. Networking really is a great place to go farming for business. But most MSPs don't bother with it. And I do understand that. Personally, I don't like networking myself. In fact, I actively avoid it. But in a situation of urgency, what I would do is hit a turn of networking events consistently over 90 days. And if you do this, it will propel your relationship with prospects forward and quickly enhance your reputation and profile. And then the final step is to convert relationships. And I'm afraid you need to do another activity here that may be uncomfortable to you, but that is to pick up the phone for 60 to 90 minutes every day and make outbound phone calls. Phone anyone and everyone, everyone on those old business cards or those old contacts you found. Phone everyone you meet at networking events, whether you believe they've got any business for you or not. You use the phone to reach out to people and build relationships by talking about their favorite subjects, themselves and their business. The last thing you do is talk about your MSP and what you do. These calls are a relationship building exercise. Most MSPs have massive follow up failure and would never do this. So they miss out on the low hanging fruit, the easy winners that are just sitting there, but you don't find out about them for the sake of not making a phone call. This kind of marketing, it really is a numbers game and the phone just speeds things up for you massively. My final thoughts on this. A lot of the stuff I've just described there really doesn't sound like fun, does it? And yet it works because when you throw yourself into 90 days of activity like this and you see it through day in, day out, even on the days you really can't be bothered to do it, something amazing happens, you build up big mo, also known as big momentum. And momentum can count for so much within marketing. You should always be aiming to get a ton of momentum going in your marketing. Once the wheel's spinning, don't let it slow down. In fact, keep speeding up and up and up and up. So I know this is a fictitious 90 days, and you probably don't have that kind of urgency in your msp, but is there something here that's made you think, yeah, I could do that? Paul Green's MSP Marketing Podcast still to Come There are loads of great MSP podcasts out there, although some of them do seem to come and go within a couple of years. But it's the ones that have been going consistently for years and years and years that often have the real gold dust hidden within them. My special guest today has been running his own podcast for eight years now, and he also runs an MSP business. So I asked him to highlight the ideas from his podcast over the years that have made the biggest difference to his msp. He's going to reveal what those are for you in the next few minutes. You ready for a bit of daydreaming? Think about how you feel about your MSP's current clients. So maybe you've got one or two clients that are much bigger than the rest of them or have been with you for much longer than the rest. Does that sound like your business? It's very common. And it's also very common to hope that the awesome retention of these key clients just continues. In fact, I hope that all your clients will enjoy the same retention. But of course, hope is a terrible strategy. So here are three unbelievably important questions that you should ask yourself about your clients. And these three questions are so important that you need to take them very seriously. So turn off your phone unless you're watching this video or listening to this podcast on your phone, mute your PSA's notifications. In fact, better still, switch off your WiFi and snap your SIM card in half. Maybe even go and borrow an energetic dog just to take it for a super long solo walk where you can't be disturbed. And then, when you've done all of this, ask yourself these three questions, thinking about your existing clients. What do they need? What do they want? And how can you best satisfy these needs and wants? Let me repeat those what do they need? What do they want? And how can you best satisfy these needs and wants? If you can answer the first two of these questions, you'll know what's happening in your client's head, their needs, and what's happening in their hearts. Their wants. And then you can answer the third question. How can you best satisfy them? When you give your clients what they need and want, they will truly see you as a partner. And the word partner is overused within the channel. Big vendors think that the second you sign a contract with them, you become a partner. But that is not the case at all, is it? Partnership needs to be earned and that's by satisfying your clients needs and wants. Do this for your clients and they'll never ever, ever want to go to any other msp because they will feel that you know them better than any other technology expert could. That is a genuine partnership and it's the route to the world's most insanely great retention. Paul Green's MSP Marketing Podcast still to come. Earlier on I suggested that you went networking. And that ties in really nicely with a question that's been sent to me by an MSP about what should go on their business cards. Let me give you the answer to that in the next few minutes. Do you suffer from analysis paralysis? For many MSPs looking to make more money and grow your business, there's just too much advice and knowledge out there. Information overload. Not only is there so much, but a lot of it is conflicting advice. So you wouldn't be blamed for not knowing where to begin. Well, the paralysis ends here. My special guest today can distill eight years worth of learning in just a few minutes. What are his credentials? He owns an MSP and he has his own long running podcast. Eight years in fact. So I've asked him to give us the very best things he's learned from his podcast. To you right now. [00:16:25] Speaker B: Hello everyone. Uncle Marv here and I am the host of the IT Business podcast and I have a boutique MSP in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. [00:16:34] Speaker A: And this is kind of weird for me where I'm asking the questions and you're giving the answers because you and I have done this two or three times before, but it's been on your podcast, the one that you just mentioned. So thank you very much for taking the time to come onto my show. In fact, because of your podcast, Uncle Marv. That's why it feels weird calling you Uncle Marv. I'm just gonna have to call you Marv. I'm sorry, I can't do it because of your podcast. We want to learn what, what you've done to improve your MSP and sort of your greatest lessons from all the years that you've been doing that podcast. Because it is a great podcast. You've been doing it so consistently. I watch, you know, I don't watch every single episode because I don't think anyone watches every single episode, every podcast, but you have some really cool people on. You do some really interesting subjects, and your passion for the things you're talking about always comes over, which is just amazing. So let's delve a little bit more into your story before we talk about the lessons you've learned. So how long did you say you'd been running your own MSP for? [00:17:32] Speaker B: So I started my business in 1997, and I transitioned into MSP around 2014, 2015. [00:17:41] Speaker A: Okay, and what was the trigger that made you get. Were you in break fix before? [00:17:45] Speaker B: I was doing whatever came up. So. [00:17:48] Speaker A: Anything? [00:17:48] Speaker B: Yep. Breakfast, reselling, whatever. [00:17:51] Speaker A: Cool. And what was. What was the trigger that made you go down the managed services route? [00:17:55] Speaker B: So it was odd because I kind of was already doing a little bit of it. My law firm clients were paying me retainers, which is almost the same as the recurring revenue that MSPs were getting. But what really stuck for me is I was looking for a way to support one client that had five offices, and I wanted to be able to have access to all the machines from all the branch offices. They were all across the state. And I had been doing it with patchwork products up until, you know, 2014, 2015, when I ran into some other people that said, oh, no, you need an RMM tool. You need this. And that's how I made the transition. [00:18:35] Speaker A: It's cool, isn't it? It's kind of weird, I guess. What is this, 11 years on? It's kind of weird hearing you talk about, you know, there being a time when perhaps you didn't know that RMMs were the tool or, you know, that you needed a psa. And I know you're not the only. Only person in that situation, you know, just 10 years ago. It does seem kind of weird now in the. That that's the basic tool, isn't it, that, you know, having those tools in place, you're not really business. But even. Even as, you know, short a time ago, as a decade ago, that was. That was not necessarily the case. So you've obviously been. So you've been in business since 97, which is. What was that? Was that like XP? Was. Was that the. The OS at the time? [00:19:13] Speaker B: I believe it was. God, I remember. I Remember installing Windows 3. 1. Let's see, I was still at the store, so it was. We had just started with 95, 98. That was it. [00:19:25] Speaker A: Amazing. Amazing. My very first PC that I owned was Windows Millennium Edition. Do you remember that? [00:19:30] Speaker B: I do. We tortured that Thing. [00:19:33] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah, I remember that was, that's probably why I'm a Mac person now, because that was, that was my first proper intro to PCs and it was horrendous. I didn't like that. But anyway, so you obviously have this podcast now, which you do on a regular basis. So tell us what got you started with the podcast and a little bit more, what it's about and who it's for. [00:19:53] Speaker B: So it was around that time that I started running into other people and learning about this MSP community. At the time, I was actually paired up with other computer repair shops, other IT business owners that weren't necessarily MSPs, but we were supporting businesses. And there was a bunch of podcasts that were out there. I had just kind of found out about them and they were talking about the same daily struggles that I was having. And I said, you know what, I, I can listen to these people because they're, they're talking about the same thing. And so I met them and started to be a guest on their podcast. And a slot opened up for a business focused podcast for techs that wanted to support business. And it had been on a hiatus, but people were looking to bring that back. And so I offered to help with that. And I would, you know, do all the work and let the talent guy, you know, the person that everybody really wanted to listen to, I would let him just show up and I would do all the work for him. So that's how I got into the podcasting. [00:20:59] Speaker A: That's brilliant. And what would have been your favorite moments over the last few years? [00:21:04] Speaker B: Wow, favorite moments. So I can say this. So because of the podcast, I've been able to do a lot of things that I had not originally planned. They weren't really part of the MSP space. But being able to attend conferences as a podcaster, a lot of conferences I wouldn't probably pay to go to between, you know, the ticket price, airfare, hotel. But I've been able to go as a podcaster. So that's been one thing, I would say. The other thing is because of the podcast, that community that I was originally a part of, we're all still friends, we all still hang out. We have another conference that we have done that started out as the Unconvention and is now called TechCon. And it's basically all those people that we started with in terms of sharing information over the original podcast. [00:21:58] Speaker A: I love that, absolutely love that. It's funny you talking about going to exhibitions. So I went to scalecon in Las Vegas for the first time last year. And it's the first time I've been to the U.S. professionally. So I've been to the U.S. you know, dozens of times. But it was the first. My debut appearance and the first 30 minutes walking into this big hotel in Vegas, I felt like a celebrity because there were all these people coming up to me saying, oh, you're Paul Green. That's amazing. Can I get a selfie? It's so cool to meet you. And I texted my girlfriend later that day saying it's like being a celebrity. And she, obviously, she didn't believe me. But this is. This is the power of a podcast. And I think for. We're not really talking today about msp, starting their own podcast, but for anyone listening to. Listening to this or watching this on YouTube, that's thinking, I'd like to do a podcast. Just do it, right? It's not difficult, you know, if Marv can do it, if I can do it, anybody can do it. And I think, you know, it can be a very powerful tool for an MSP to reach an audience. It's easier if you have a niche or a vertical. So, you know, if you. If you are an MSP that supports CPAs, let's say in Florida, we'll go with your state, right? It's the easiest thing in the world to do a technology podcast for CPA, for Florida CPAs. That's. I mean, that sounds like the smallest podcast in the world, but actually, you know, that's. That's the most focused podcast in the world. And I think the secret of any podcast is knowing who you want to reach and why they would be interested in listening to you and then sort of going for it like that. And the side benefit is you get recognized when you go into convention centers, which is. Which is kind of cool. I'm sure. I'm sure you've had exactly the same experience, Marv. So let's talk about what lessons you've learned from your own podcast that have helped you in your msp. Because obviously you didn't, as you just told us in your story, you didn't start a podcast to help your msp, but it's inevitable because of the cool people that you're interviewing and the ideas that are coming up. It's inevitable that you've come away from podcast recordings and thought, oh, that's a really good idea. I've got to implement that. So tell us some of the best ideas you've heard in the last couple of years. [00:23:59] Speaker B: I don't know If I can pick just a few best. I mean, obviously, we learn about other people's way of running their business, and we take little bits and pieces from each one of them. Probably some of the big things, of course, are going to be the way that we, you know, price our services. Everybody kind of talks about their philosophy and how, you know, their clients respond. And of course, everybody's, you know, we all think our clients are different, our MSP is different, but yet we're all really doing the same basic thing. But it's how we can identify what works when it comes to pricing for this client, for that client, that's probably one of the big things. Of course, the way that we do projects, the way that we, you know, do the support of a specific service, cybersecurity, voice over ip, those are all things that, through the podcast and being able to interview other people, hearing what they do, which then may lead to a conversation off camera where we come back a week later and say, okay, remember that thing you mentioned on the show? Tell me more about that. And people do it to me. People will write me or call me and say, hey, I heard you talk about this. Can you tell me more? So it's really more this. Again, we go back to community, the community of collaboration, being able to share thoughts and ideas to help each other out. And it's not always about the business either. I mean, I've had people come up to me and, you know, I may have said something about health, and that has spawned a whole nother discussion on health. And it, again, part of it's because people have seen me over the years, that, that consistency of. Of being there. And some people now, you know, it sounds weird, but people that know me, but I don't know them, they think we're friends. And so there are times where people will come up and be like, yeah, it's fine. Finally able to put a, you know, a face to the name or a face to the voice, you know, because a lot of people hear me in the car, they hear me walking around, and then we can actually talk and communicate and share some stuff. [00:26:14] Speaker A: See this? This is exactly it. This is what I was talking about. The. You are famous and you are the friends of the people who are listening to you or watching you, because, as you say, you're there with them in the daily parts of their life. They're taking the dog for a walk, the commute, and you're giving them ideas. I appreciate. Many of them don't come from you. They come from the people you're talking to and the information you get on, but you get the benefit of that, and I think that's just a wonderful thing. You also said a word which I want to pick up on, which is consist consistency. And I think looking at this as a, as a general marketing lesson, because you've been doing this, the podcast for, would you say, 2017? I think you said eight years. Eight years. So you, you've been doing that consistently for eight years, turning up, doing the hard work. I know for a fact there will be days where it's podcast o' clock and you think, I just can't. I'm too busy. I can't be bothered. I don't quite feel right today. I just want to go and have my dinner. I'm done. I just don't want to do this today. But you do it right. You turn up and you're consistent and you do the podcast and, and I know that because I have those days as well. So. As does every other human being. We all have it with anything consistent. But one of the key things with any marketing is to do whatever you're doing to do it consistently. And I see people, because I see people launching podcasts, doing a season, whatever a season is, it might be 10 episodes, and then they stop and they say, oh, we'll come back next year. But you never get to build up momentum. And I'm sure, you know, your podcast had very low listening viewing figures early on, and then it builds up over time. It's exactly the same as happened to mine my first week. No one watched it. You know, there was no one there. There was. In fact, it was audio only. No one, no one was listening. But now we have a pretty reasonable audience, and a lot of that is the, is the consistency of turning up. And I think there's some massive marketing lessons in that, which is, which is just wonderful. Okay, let's. [00:28:03] Speaker B: Well, let me, let me tell you this. That, yeah, I treat the podcast the same way I do the business. And, you know, in the podcast, you have to, you know, know who your audience is, ask them what they want, and give it to them. It's the same thing we have to do for our clients when it comes to the msp, you've got to know who your clients are or know what you're able to do for your clients, because they don't care what you're doing for all those other people that you support. They want to know what is it you're doing for me, how are you helping my business? And it's the same thing. But that thing about consistency in being there, sometimes clients aren't going to buy from you on the first or the second or the third, you know, time they, they see you or whatever. But down the road they may be like, oh, you know what, I've got this problem. I know this person that can help let me reach out. That's all it is. [00:28:56] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And I completely agree. And actually if they have a conversation with you today and then next year and the year after and the year after and each time it's, it's a consistent experience for, you know, you're professional, you're courteous and you're not pushy, you're not salesy. You're absolutely right at the point they're ready to buy, they're dramatically much more likely to buy from you because that consistency has, it pays off for you in the long term. So I love that. Wonderful. Thank you so much for joining me on my show. Next thing, you and I have to go on someone else's show together. We have to, we have to package ourselves up as a duo. We can do that or we get you, we get you to Scalecon 25 which, which is, I know is in the planning stages and you, you can be the celebrity this year. In fact, maybe we a roll, roll out a red carpet. We could maybe have you abseiling in or dropped off by helicopter. [00:29:42] Speaker B: We can have a theme song obviously walk in there. [00:29:45] Speaker A: Love it. You could just be high fiving the audience as you go in. That'd be wonderful. Let's finish off. Tell us, just tell us a little bit more about your podcast. Who it's for. Obviously it's for msps, but who specifically it's for, why they would want to listen and where do we, where do we listen to it? [00:30:00] Speaker B: Yeah. So Uncle Marv's IT Business podcast and it's a show for IT professionals and managed service providers, essentially anybody that supports business, whether you're the business owner or the tech. And what we do is we talk about products, we talk about stories, we talk about tips, all those things we can do to run our business better, smarter and faster. I do interviews with other MSP owners, I do interviews with vendors in the space. That's one of the things we, we need to know. We need to know who are the vendors that can help us with the products to support our clients. And as to where you can find it, the easiest place for me to tell you to go is my website, IT businesspodcast.com and you'll find all the links to all of the podcasters out there, whether it's iHeart or Apple, YouTube, you'll find where you can go and subscribe to the show and follow. And it'll be both audio and video. So that's where you start. [00:30:55] Speaker A: Paul Green's MSP Marketing podcast. Paul's personal peer group. Oh, sir Producer James, what's our question this week? Well, Paul Stuart would like his question answered this week. Stuart's MSP is based in Washington and by the sounds of it, he wants to get something physically into the hands of his prospects and clients. His question is, what should go on my business card? I'm actually a huge fan of business cards along with all things physical, because thanks to the way our brains are wired, physical things have 10 times more impact on a person person than digital things do. If you meet someone in real life, you need to give them a business card, right? Yeah. Even these days it's still a basic business tool. So what do you actually need on there? Well, you only really need your basic details on there. Your name, your email address, your website address. Any more text than that is just clutter. And let's be honest, we know they can get all of the details, like your Instagram and your Snapchat and all of that. That was a joke. They can get all of that from your website. However, there's one thing missing from most business cards. I see your photo. To me, this is the most critical element of any business card. And why? Because when people meet you for the first time, they are less likely to remember your name. And it's almost guaranteed that they won't remember the name of your msp, but they will remember your lovely face and how you made them feel. And people might say, oh, I'm no good with faces, but trust me, if you say that, you are contradicting 100,000 years of evolution. Because we are the descendants of the cave dwellers who learn to recognize the faces of hostile enemies and avoid them. We know they avoided them because survival of the fittest, we're their ultimate offspring. So we're more likely to remember faces than the made up labels that we attach to ourselves, which is our name and our company name. We're also much more driven by our limbic system. I was talking about that earlier as well, wasn't I? It controls our emotions, emotional responses more than our rational thinking brain does. Put it like this. Have you ever spotted someone that you dislike walking into a room and you kind of immediately felt this sense of dread? That's your limbic system reminding you the way that face makes you feel. And yes, it's perfectly normal. You're not a bad person. In fact, most other people probably feel the same way. Now the good news is that you're a great person and when people see see your face entering a room, it makes them feel happy. So put your picture on the back of your business card. People will remember you, they'll remember how you made them feel, and they're dramatically more likely to refer you or to actually go on and do business with you. To submit your own question, email me. Go to mspmarketingedge.com and head to the Contact Us page. Coming up, Coming up Next week. Thanks for listening. This week Next week week I've got an unbelievably special episode for you and it's one that's actually taken me nearly 18 months to arrange and bring to you. You see, next week we're interviewing an ordinary business owner, but I'm not going to tell you his name because he's going to talk about why he's unhappy with his MSP and why he started thinking of switching. You'll hear him talk about how he feels. His relationship with his MSP has changed over the years years and the specific things that he likes and dislikes about the service he gets. It's a real warts and all conversation with the kind of decision maker that you want to reach. Oh, and best of all, you'll hear that he'd love to buy more cybersecurity and strategic advice if only someone offered it to him for MSPs around the world around the World the MSP Marketing Podcast with Paul Green.