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Welcome to this SPECIAL edition of the show, Episode 294, of the MSP Marketing Podcast with me, Paul Green.
I’m interviewing an ordinary business owner and he’s going to talk about why he’s unhappy with his current MSP and is thinking of switching.
SPECIAL: Why this business owner will switch MSPs
For MSPs looking to find new clients, this is the holy grail. It’s taken nearly 18 months to arrange this, but boy is it going to be worth it. It’s a conversation with an ordinary business owner, the type of person who might be your dream client. It’s the number one wish I hear – I’m the owner of an awesome MSP, but it’s so hard to get new clients if only I could get in their head to find out what I could do to attract them, especially if they’re currently with another MSP who they’re thinking of leaving. Well, here we go.
Now I’ve agreed to keep his identity anonymous so he can be extremely open with answers to questions like, why he’s unhappy with his current MSP, what’s changed in the last few years, what he likes and dislikes about them, and why he’s thinking of switching. Oh, and most importantly, what could you offer him that would win him and keep him in your business?
Welcome to this very special episode of the podcast, and I have a treat for you today. This is an idea I’ve been trying to implement for years and years because I think it’s really going to help you get an insight into what happens in the head and the heart of an ordinary business owner when they may be thinking of switching MSPs. We’re going to interview today someone who’s been a friend of mine for over 25 years, but his identity is going to be kept a complete secret. In fact, I’ve given him a false name. I’ll introduce you to him in a second.
He’s with an MSP right now that was acquired sometime in the past, and as I’ve been talking to him over the last few months, I’ve realised his satisfaction levels with his incumbent MSP have been going down and down and down. They’ve done nothing wrong, it’s all just tiny little things that have chipped away and he’s now getting to that point where he might be ready to switch MSPs.
Let’s see if today we can figure out how he thinks, how he feels about his MSP and what are the things that he would go looking for from another MSP. If you can understand how ordinary people think and act, the chances of you getting them to come to your MSP goes up dramatically. So let me introduce you to my friend, we’re going to call him Jason. His real name is Sean, but we’re not going to use that, we’re going to call him Jason. That’s not his real name that was just a joke.
Jason, thank you so much for jumping onto the call. Obviously we don’t want to identify you because we don’t want any awkward conversations between you and your incumbent MSP. So without revealing what you do as a business or where you’re based, just give us an idea of your company. So how many staff have you got? Are you like a professional services company or a consumer driven company? Give us a bit of an overview.
We are I guess a professional services company. We’re a marketing business at heart, obviously based here in the UK, and we have got staff who are employed in the UK and in the Philippines. We’ve also got contractors in the UK and the Philippines as well.
Okay, so you’re spread around the globe, even if that’s just two locations, which is a pretty common setup these days I think for many businesses. Obviously this is your business, you started this, you’ve grown this over a number of years. If you go back in your mind to when you first started to take on professional help. so before we talk about the switching and the dissatisfaction you might have now, let’s talk about why you picked an IT company back in the first place. So when was the point you first realised, oh, I can’t do all of this computer stuff myself?
Well, I guess I came from a corporate business where all of IT support was organised and pretty much on hand. We were just given the phone number or the email address to get hold of somebody if we needed help with our devices. So when I started up the business nearly 10 years ago, I knew at some point I’m going to need IT support. And it was within a few months, I guess, of starting the business that I reached out to somebody. I’ll tell you where it began, who I’m with now and who I was with before they were acquired is not where I started. So I started off with somebody local, had a bit of help from them, but then I ended up in a conversation with someone through, let’s call it networking, and started to realise that these guys could offer a service.
There was a relationship there first before I made the decision to settle with my MSP, who I’ve been with eight or nine years now.
Got it. Got it. So essentially you were in the MSP space, Jason, I nearly said your real name then. We call that break fix, how you started. So you started with someone who just helped you out a bit when you ran into a problem and then you say about eight, nine years ago you met someone at networking and you got into a more formal relationship and did you sign a contract? So were you paying them money on a regular basis?
No, I don’t recall signing a contract. I may have, but it might’ve been just a very low key one if that was the case or just an arrangement over email. I’ll tell you what, the point where I went from somebody helping me out to signing up with an IT support company, was when I started employing staff so that they had a bit more structure when they had problems. Don’t talk to me, here’s the phone number, here’s the email address, they’ll sort you out.
Got it. So you were happy to invest the money into someone else fixing those problems so that you could focus on what you wanted to do and not your staff complaining about slow computers or this doesn’t work?
Absolutely, yeah. I mean, I know my way around a computer, but I’m no where near as skilled as someone whose job it is to fix computers.
Yeah, absolutely. So the MSP that you were with got acquired, and again, we don’t want names or anything like that, but I want the MSPs that are listening to this to understand how ordinary business owners feel when their MSP is acquired. I always think that’s a great time to go looking for, to go and try and pick up clients from that MSP. So if you’ve got a competitor in town that’s been sold to a super MSP, I think that’s a great time to go and talk to clients because of the levels of dissatisfaction that Jason is going to be talking about. So how long ago did this acquisition happen and how did you feel about it when it first happened?
Well, I think it was about three or four years ago. There was an interesting moment actually that came about before the acquisition was announced. And what it was, was we all of a sudden had a large contract put under my nose with the incentive of some discount for signing up for the next 12 months, and it all felt a bit rushed and hurried and I ended up, it didn’t feel right that I was given a deadline to get some incentives, but I had to sign off a 25 page contract, which I would not do. I would want to read that to see what was in it. And the headlines on it were locking me in for 12 or maybe 24 months. And I didn’t realise till afterwards what was going on because it came out of the blue and that was all part of the sale of the business as they were looking to lock everybody in on firmer contracts than what they had in place for the time leading up to that point.
I guess I remember it rubbed me up the wrong way at that time and then I didn’t sign the contract.
But anyway, we ended up, within a few weeks we found out that this business had been acquired. It all made sense and I don’t think for me anything really changed other than that, we were still dealing with the same company that had just been sold. So yeah, that was kind of what happened at that point. And it’s probably more in recent years as they’ve merged the acquired business into the master business that started to notice that things have changed how they operate a bit.
That makes sense. And just one follow up question on the contracts. I think we can all look at the MSP that was selling and very quickly was scrambling to get his paperwork in place to sell that business. Had that been done perhaps 12 months earlier with less rush with less incentives, so it was a case of, oh, actually Jason, we’re formalising all of our client agreements, here’s an agreement, take your time to read it, but we would like you to sign this because it protects you and us. And this is a bit of a leading question, but do you think that would’ve been a more palatable thing for you to swallow than that sudden rush for you to sign the contract?
Yeah, it was the rush, I could feel something going on, I didn’t know what it was but it was certainly nothing that had happened previously. So I think if they had taken a bit more time with it, had a deadline of three months away rather than three weeks and then three days, I probably would’ve read it through and gone, yeah, that feels like a fair deal to sign all of that off to get an incentive. I guess the other thing that I’ve always been held back by with arrangements like this, particularly committing to 12 month subscriptions for software like Office 365 for example, is we are a growing company and we’re not always adding new employees, sometimes we’re taking some away. So it fluctuates quarter by quarter as to how many licenses we need. So I’ve always sort of steered clear of 12 month contracts thinking not till the business has really settled and even now eight or nine years on, I still am much happier paying a little bit more for a monthly contract or license that we can get rid of when we don’t need it.
Yeah, that makes perfect sense. There’s two things to unpack from that then I think for MSPs listening. Number one is at the point you think I might sell my business, that’s the point to get your clients onto contract, not as you’re actually going through the sales process. It takes a year, 18 months to go from thinking about selling a business to actually signing on the dotted line. So yeah, the slower you can make that for your clients, the better. Obviously you don’t want to give away what’s happening. The second thing for you, Jason, is you have no idea how difficult Microsoft makes 365 licensing for MSPs. Really, there’s a whole, it’s just one of the most difficult things which should be quite simple but all to do with that 12 month licensing. But nevermind, there we go.
So you are with this MSP, they get sold to someone else. Initially you don’t see anything that’s changed because you’re still dealing with the same people and the same office that you’re dealing with before, but slowly things start to change as they integrate, as you call it, the master MSP integrates the new acquisition in. So what kind of changes did you see, and this is where I’m really interested in you as the end decision maker. So if we remember why you hired these people in the first place, you hired them so that they can concentrate on the technology and you can concentrate on the business, which is the perfect relationship, but you must have noticed things changing over time. So tell us what kind of stuff changed and how it impacted you.
There was nothing particularly significant, I guess I had a good relationship with the people that ran the company before it was sold. I knew them personally, I’d see them at networking events and chat and catch up and became quite friendly with them. So the owner, he departed obviously and then some of the staff. I think maybe all of them followed through into the master business or with the sale and over time people sort of moved on and so forth. And to be fair, the people that we’re now dealing with, I think some of them were there originally and some of them are new as part of the master business. They’re good people, no question. I think what is probably kind of greater with me a little bit is the bureaucracy that I feel coming in, which may be a result of it being a bigger business and a little bit more rigid to deal with compared to something which was smaller, almost a family business kind of feel to it.
The reason we’re having this conversation now is because, well, let me turn this into a question. Is the reason we are having this conversation now because your level of dissatisfaction has reached a point that you are thinking, do I want to stay with these people or do I want to move somewhere else?
I’m not actively looking. I’ve got other priorities, I’ve got bigger issues to fix than changing IT company. And I guess it’s a little bit like your accountant or even your marketing provider. It’s not something that you want to do willy nilly. You’ve got relationships and you’re kind of ingrained in their business a bit. They understand your business and everything’s set up.
I would be open to switch MSPs if I met somebody who encouraged me to come with them, but that’s not happened to this point.
I think what is interesting, there was a moment about four to six weeks ago which had become quite typical and that is we’ve just decided that we’re hiring a new person, we’ve offered them the job and I would, along with a few other things, say to them, right, I’m going to CC you on an email to our IT support company and you’re going to see me asking them to set you up on office 365 and get your email address sorted and so forth. And I’ll CC our marketing operations manager as well so that she can see the email address and then go and get your email address sorted out for subscriptions to the task management system, to the time sheet system to all of the other places that we need them subscribed to. So I sent that email off at something like 10 in the morning, went and did a day’s work thinking, right, that’s one job done and dusted and went back to my emails at about six o’clock that evening only to find that I had a question over it, Would you like that to be a monthly subscription or an annual? And I’m thinking, well, all the others are on monthly, why all of a sudden that question? And by the way, you’ve just cost eight hours of getting this job done, which we need done for the person starting tomorrow by asking that question.
Then I went back with an answer and the next morning I expected them to jump on it straight away and get everything in place for this person who we were meeting to onboard at something like midday the next day. And 11:00am came around and we still didn’t have an email address for them set up and I was told that their sales person would be in touch with me to sign off the paperwork. And as much as I didn’t really mind having to sign off the contract for a monthly subscription to a basic Office 365 license, we ended up in an onboarding meeting, first of all apologising to the person that we hadn’t got their email address set up and most of what we were going to talk about today and get them onboarded with is not available because that email address doesn’t yet exist. So that moment there, and it’s not the first time that’s happened, is the sort of thing where you do start to think, do you know what, there’s got to be an easier way than this.
And you said earlier that you’re not actively looking, but if you met the right person. You also talked about something we call inertia loyalty, which we’ve talked about a lot on this podcast, which is exactly as you said, Jason, that it feels easier to stay with someone you’re with than it does to move to someone new. Often people don’t buy until they’re ready to buy, and today you’re too busy doing other things in the business. But I guess if you went to a networking meeting or you had an email or a LinkedIn conversation with someone tomorrow and you could see that, oh, actually this is a different kind of IT company, they’re going to approach things a bit differently. There’s less bureaucracy. I haven’t got to talk to a salesperson. We can just pick up the phone, we can have a two minute conversation and we can just make things happen. And I think we can all see based on what you’ve just said, how that may put it in your mind, do you know what, maybe I will switch.
So essentially your MSP now is slowing you down. That’s the unintended consequence that something new you wanted to do, you’re clearly a fast mover. No MSP wants 24 hours notice to set up a new user, but as the end client, you don’t really care about that. I guess you just want to get that thing done.
Let me ask an open question. If your incumbent MSP that you’re working with right now, if they could do anything to address your dissatisfaction and make you feel more valued and make you feel, actually I do like these guys and I do want to stick with them, what could they do?
I think it would be a conversation where instead of having to sign off on something really quite insignificant every time we to add a new license that there’s just some type of standing arrangement that tell me all the questions that you want from me unless I tell you otherwise it’s going to be monthly, it’s going to be at the basic level, I’m going to need it within 24 hours. So the valid questions that your frontline people are going to be asking, they can have a look at the record and go, right, well I already know that even though he hasn’t mentioned it on this occasion, he wants monthly, basic and we don’t need to sign off on a contract for a single license.
That makes perfect sense. So they just make your life easy essentially. And I guess there are different types of people that like different things. So you want that so you can move at speed, but then another client might want the control of, I want to sign off every single new license. And I guess that MSP has got to try and be flexible to your needs, but also to document them so that they’re not constantly asking you again and again the same questions.
Let me flip that same question round and ask, if you met a new MSP tomorrow, what kind of things would they say or do that would make you sit up and think, I really need to talk to these people. I really need to pay some attention to these people.
I’d be more inclined to move to an MSP that’s local to us than just another one remotely somewhere in the UK. That would probably make a difference.
Occasionally you end up with a hardware issue. There is a local company in town here that I would take that repairs computers physically, I don’t even know if they offer IT services. I’ve never asked them, they’ve never asked me. But if there was a company that offered IT support and did computer repairs, that would be appealing.
Interesting. I say interesting because the vast majority, like 99.9% of the work is all done remotely by everyone now. Apart from hardware repairs, what are the benefits do you perceive there would be from having a company that’s local to you that could physically come into your office? Even if they don’t.
It’s probably just the hardware repairs and maybe just having the opportunity for a stronger relationship, a face-to-face relationship on occasions.
Which actually leads on to what is probably going to be one of my final questions, which is looking at your business strategically. So one of the things that I recommend to the MSPs that I work with is that they move their relationship to a strategic relationship as quickly as possible. So in layman’s terms, a non-strategic relationship is where the guys underneath your desk plugging a cable into your computer and you can see a bit of his butt crack. It’s not pleasant, no one wants to see that. The complete opposite of that is a strategic relationship where the owner of the business or the relationship manager or whoever it is, he’s talking to you about your business and your goals and what your growth plans are and what the big picture is for your business. And then they can give you a technology strategy or they can give you good advice. So have you ever had that kind of relationship with either with the first MSP that sold out or with the MSP that you have now?
More so with the MSP that we’ve got now. And to be fair, I think they sort of opened up a conversation like that and I think what happened is it, it never went very far. We had one or two conversations, I said, yes, we want to achieve this, that and the other, and they put some ideas to me. But because I think there was quite a bit of time between each conversation, and I don’t know whether you are the same as me, but I find it difficult to go back to things if it’s been a few weeks, I have to reset and go and remember about where do we get to and what was the objective here. Whereas if it was happening day after day after day and we had it sorted within a week, then I might’ve signed off on a bigger commitment to them.
But they did come from a strategic angle to some extent, their business development person, I would be open to that conversation. How could they help me better? How could we streamline things if we had better technology that we were not aware of, that could increase productivity for example. I suspect we are not as secure as we could be. I think we are, but they’d probably tell me otherwise. So I’d be open to hearing a bit more about how we could be more secure, so long as it’s not coming from a point of painting a very doom and gloom bleak picture that your company is full of risk, etc, etc. I’ve been put off by that in the past where the whole cyber protection is, for me, it’s been overcooked and you’re left feeling quite fearful of what could happen rather than necessarily supported.
Don’t sell cyber protection by trying to create fear. Explain it in a slightly more supportive way than that.
Yeah, I completely agree with that and that’s fascinating to hear an ordinary business owner say that. So Jason, thank you so much. You’ve been very kind with your time. Talking about your experience is what it’s like to be a real business owner stuck in this situation. It sounds like the MSP that’s got you could actually rescue you quite easily with a little bit of strategic work and some better account management, which is really interesting. Now, one thing you’re not going to be aware of is thousands of MSPs listen to this podcast all over the world. So I’m going to get like a thousand emails now from people who want an introduction to you. Do you want me to forward those emails onto you?
I don’t think we’re at that point. I’m more inclined to go and talk to our IT support company now and say, listen, we need to chat about a few things that we might need from you that we haven’t got at the moment. That’s, again, that feels like the more comfortable conversation than somebody saying, come with us.
That was supposed to be a joke, by the way.
Thank you very much.
I could just forward those emails on. Anyway, Jason, thank you so much for your time today.
No problem.
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