IT Provider Network - The Podcast for Growing IT Service Providers

10 Things to think about before you launch an initiative in your MSP – ITPN-047

If you're like me you started 2020 or Q1 for that matter with a list of initiatives you need to accomplish in your business. For us, we follow the 3HAG and Gazelles methodologies, so our 3-year initiatives get broken down to our annual goals which become or quarterly priorities. Somethings these priorities are to support the company, a division, a department or even a specific product or service. Whatever the objective is we always want to make sure that everyone is rowing in the right...

Mind the Gap – ITPN-046

Show notes to follow Ask your questions or share your feedback •Comment on the shownotes below •Email [email protected] (audio files welcome) Get on the mailing list Low Volume by it is THE PLACE TO BE for all of my insider information. If you're on the list, you'll be the first to know. Signup Here Tell 'Em I Sent You If you investigate or purchase any product or service that I have talked about, please remember to mention that I sent you. I may or may not get a small co...

Mind the Gap

Show notes to follow Ask your questions or share your feedback •Comment on the shownotes below •Email [email protected] (audio files welcome) Get on the mailing list Low Volume by it is THE PLACE TO BE for all of my insider information. If you're on the list, you'll be the first to know. Signup Here Tell 'Em I Sent You If you investigate or purchase any product or service that I have talked about, please remember to mention that I sent you. I may or may not get a small co...

What I learned from Jay McBain at Marketopia’s 4U2GROW Conference

If you don't follow Jay McBain from Forrester Research, you should. Not only is he a thought leader in our industry and a really nice guy but if you don't follow him you would have missed his recent article The 64 Best Channel Podcasts Of 2019 where the IT Provider Network was listed among the best of the best. It was really ironic because I just saw Jay present at Marketopia's 4U2Grow conference in Clearwater last month. Jay actually did two presentations but his first one blew me away...

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Information on upcoming training from Tony Robbins, Dean Graziosi, and Russell Brunson - Live April 30th

Who do you want to serve? ITPN-043

Kiss that Frog

One of my favorite Peter Gabriel songs is "Kiss that Frog"  and today I want to urge you all to start each day by kissing that frog ... although I pretty sure my advice is a little different than Peters. The dreaded Task List You know all the things on your to-do list that never seem to get done?   The stuff you push off every day because something more important gets in the way, or at least that's what you keep telling yourself and your co-workers, clients or employers. These are the frogs ...

Drive to the Finish – Themes and how you can use them – ITPN-EP41

Drive to the Finish – Themes and How You Can Use Them I recently implemented a quarterly theme that I want to share with you today. I hope you’ll get a good grasp of the tactical things we did but I hope you’ll also take away the secondary meaning, the importance of taking care of your employees. It’s crucial you include them in the success of the company and make everyone feel wanted. This theme relates to the book Scaling Up by Verne Harnish where you concentrate on four different things; p...

What do Jordi Roca, Chris Brogan and Michael Porter have to do with your MSP?

What do Jordi Roca, Chris Brogan, and Michael Porter have to do with your MSP? As I am sure all of you do, I get inspiration from all different kinds of places.   This week three different things caught my attention, Let me tell you the stories and then we can talk about how that applies to our businesses. Jordi Roca Jordi is the youngest of three boys and perhaps the most talented pastry chef in the world, but he wasn’t always “that guy”.   He started out as many of us do,  a little lost a...

Marketopia 4U2GROW Conference – 3 Key Takeaways

It seems that there is a new conference for IT Service Providers almost every week and making the decision on which conference to attend can be tough.  There are big conferences,  Channel X, IT Nation, and DattoCon come to mind.    Medium size shows like Robin Robbins Bootcamp, Gary Pica's Snizzfest and Marketopia's 4U2GROW conference. I was fortunate to attend Marketopia's 4U2Grow conference for the second time a couple of weeks ago.   If you remember back to episode 31 of the IT Provider N...

Tips for High Performance Remote Teams – ITPN-EP38

Are you getting the most out of your remote team members? In his excellent article, Rob Rawson, of the Time Doctor website.  Rob lays out 25 tips for high-performance remote teams.   In this episode of the  IT Provider Network Podcast, I am going to go through the article and give you my take on how to get the most from remote teams. Since 1994 roughly half of our team has been remote.  Always full-time W2 type employees but with the freedom to work wherever they lived. Compensate for the...

6 core functions you need to pay attention to in your MSP business ITPN-EP37

In today's episode of the IT Provider Network Podcast,  I am going to share a thought process that was shared with me by my coach Alex Charften.     As you know if you have been listening to the ITPN podcast for a while,  we do a lot of forward planning in our company.   We follow the Gazelles Scaling Up methodology  Each division sets "rocks" or objectives for each quarter but there never seemed to be any congruity between these rocks and the real things that needed to be improved in our com...

Finding your USP in a Purple Ocean

In this episode of the IT Provider Network Podcast, I am going to share an exercise with did to determine where our Purple Ocean lies.     Join me as I talk about through the process of finding your USP or Unique Selling Position and how it can help you get more deals. The strategy I talk about in this podcast is from the book Blue Ocean Strategy available on Amazon. Ask your questions or share your feedback •Comment on the shownotes below •Email [email protected] (audio files ...

Your Best Prospects Are Your Existing Clients ITPN-EP35

In today's episode of the IT Provider Network, I want to talk about one of our most important assets and one that is often neglected. I would bet that many of you are like me in your business, you sell hardware and software to your clients when they have needs.   They call or write to you when they have a new user and need a new computer.  You might even have your VCIO call on them to drum up hardware refreshes or new technology initiatives but I’ll bet that you can’t tell me all your client...

Is this a six-inch putt? ITPN-EP34

Visioning Update I wanted to give you an update on the visioning process that my company went through two weeks ago when we met on the tail end of the Gazelles spring summit in New Orleans.   I detailed what visioning is and why you need it in episode 33 of the IT Provider Network but in case you missed it here is a quick overview. Visioning is looking into to the future and describing what success looks like then. At that point in time.   It’s now the how to; it’s the motivation and the dir...

Visioning – Why you need it and how to do it. ITPN-EP33

Visioning and the Deli Man If you’re on the IT Provider Network mailing list you know that tomorrow at 5 am I am heading out to New Orleans for some team building and to soak in some fresh ideas at the Gazelles Summit. Come Together Because my management team is in 4 different states and three different time zones it’s going to take the better part of Monday to get everyone down south. We’ll get settled in then on Tuesday and Wednesday, the team along with our Gazelles Coach Doug Diamond will...

Maybe your managed services offer sucks?

Yeah...maybe it does. Are you having problems landing new clients or converting your break-fix clients to managed services?  If that’s the case, maybe you should step back and look at how you're positioning your products and services in the market.   Maybe just maybe your offer sucks? In this episode of the IT Provider Network, I am going to share with you a new way of looking at how you communicate with your prospects and clients and how you can close more business. I’ve spent the last yea...

Outsourcing your appointment setting – ITPN-EP31

In the last episode of the IT Provider Network, Episode 30, we talked about building an inside/outside sales organization within your company. In today's episode, I want to share with you my recent experiences outsourcing telemarketing and appointment to a 3rd party. INTRO Episode 31 has taken quite a while to get recorded. I have had a crazy end to the winter. I attended three different conferences and launched the beginnings of another business. My first conference was PodFest 2018 in Orl...

Inside Sales Process Build or Buy? – ITPN-EP30

Inside Sales and Appointment Setting Build or Buy One of the questions I hear the most is how can we get more leads so we can build our business. Well, there are a few ways you can do it, and today I want to share with you my experiences with telemarketing or appointment setting. At our MSP we have experience in both building an in-house inside sales program and more recently outsourcing it to an industry-specific appointment setting service. In the next two episodes of the IT Provider Netwo...

Employee Success Plans – Helping your Employees Succeed – ITPN-029

Hello Again! Hi before we get started on Employee Success Plans I wanted to take a minute to re-introduce myself. My name is Terry Rossi and I am the co-founder of an award-winning Company (I always wanted to say that, in the 23 years we have been in business I never have).   We are a company with two halves.   We develop, sell and implement an enterprise document management solution to manufacturers all over the world and we are an MSP, we provide outsourced IT services to companies in the N...

Taking a Good Look at your Team – ITPN-028

Taking a good hard look at your team If you have listened to the IT Provider Network for any amount of time, and thank you for doing that, you will know that I am a big fan of outside coaches.   Mostly to help me do better at things that I am not good at, like taking a good hard look at my team and helping my find A Players. Oh before I forget,  one of my favorite coaching teams is Chris Brogan and Rob Hatch.  I am a member of their Owner Insiders group and I just received notice that the pr...

If you want to 10x your MSP you need the right mindset – ITPN-EP27

Want to 10x your MSP? Some people say that 10x’ing your business is easier than doubling it. Doubling it requires you to make continuous small improvements. You’re using your current people, processes, and capabilities but just trying harder.   Striving for 10x growth, on the other hand, requires whole new levels of creativity and innovation. It means making massive steps forward in your businesses efficiency, your resourcefulness and value creation you create. In today’s episode of the IT P...

All I want for Christmas is an EASY Button – ITPN – EP26

All I want for Christmas is an Easy Button. Doesn't everybody?   Don't you just want to pay a monthly fee to a coach and have your sales problems disappear? How about by a marketing program and have the leads fly in? Or Pick up a reporting tool and have your BDR's go really easy. We all want an easy button and guess what? So do our clients.   You need to Pay Attention I have a huge client that I have had for many years.  I started providing MSP services to them in 2008 and have steadil...

Year-End Planning in our MSP – ITPN-EP25

Make the Most of 2018 with Year End Planning It’s that time of the year. We have less than one month left to wrap it all up. In today's episode of the IT Provider Network Podcast, I want to walk you through some of the things we do to plan for the upcoming year.   December is always a crazy month for us. We are a Sub Chapter S corporation which is a type of tax structure in the US that requires that your corporate year end on the calendar year. So most small businesses are scrambling in Dec...

MSP Feedback and Questions Part Two ITPN-24

Tackling your Questions on Building, Growing or Scaling your IT Service Provider Business.   I’m Terry Rossi and in this episode of the IT Provider Network podcast, I want to share with you some of the feedback I have received on the show as well as some of my opinions on the questions you’ve sent in.  We are going to talk about getting started, sales compensation, contracts and more. Happy Thanksgiving! Crazy week this week for me.  It was Thanksgiving week in the US which means my company ...

ConnectWise IT Nation 2017 Key Takeaways -ITPN-23

My Big Takeaways In this episode of the IT Provider Network, I want to share with you some of the top takeaways from the massive ConnectWise IT Nation conference in Orlando last week. 3500 IT Peeps and plenty of cocktails Over 3500 attendees attended the two-day conference put on by ConnectWise, makers of ConnectWise Manage, Automate, Connect and Sell and the newly announced ConnectWise Unite.  As always it was an outstanding conference for anyone in IT. My Crew I took Brian and Alan my Chief...

Getting the most out of IT NATION – A Guide to Conferencing – ITPN-22

Tips for getting the most out of IT Nation or any conference for that matter.  I've been going to IT Nation for the last ten years so I hope you'll get something out of my experiences.   Even if you are not a Connectwise partner you can use this tips for any conference you attend. Getting Ready – Before you go   Book your flights and your hotel room.  I usually book the hotel as soon as possible and get the flights a little later hoping for a less expensive farther out. If you can stay at o...

Tips for Better Prospecting – ITPN-021

Get Out of Your Head and Get More Prospects In this episode of the IT Provider Network Podcast, I want to share with you some ways to do a better job prospecting,  get more first appointments and land more MSP contracts.   However, I just want to clear the air right away, if you're looking for a silver bullet you ain't going to find it here. I am going to share with you some of what we've done to get over 15,000 contacts in our database and hundreds of first appointments over the last 10 year...

Just Eat It, it’s good for you ITPN-EP20

Like your momma said,  "Just Eat It,  It's good for you!" In this episode of the IT Provider Network, I wanted to talk about the lifetime value of a customer and why you should "Just Eat It" sometimes to keep your customers happy and keep them paying you month over month. I also go over the Marketopia 4U2Grow conference I just attended and a little about their service offering.  Marketopia is part digital marketing agency part outsourced sales appointment setter.  It was a good conference bu...

Lessons from Gary Vaynerchuk and the Magic Castle – ITPN-EP19

I heard Gary V or Gary Venyerchuk doing a Q&A the other day and he was answering a question about the influx of content creators and how one can stand out in a crowded space.   He said,  "In a crowded mature market, you need to be better than the other guy". Ok, I might buy that you need to be good but I would also add you need to be memorable.  You need to create moments with your clients. There is a new book coming out that was the inspiration behind this episode of the podcast.  It by an...

MSP Feedback and Q&A – ITPN-EP18

In this episode of the IT Provider Network Podcast, I want to share some great listener feedback and do some Q&A for our listeners. We're going to talk about Selling into prospects that have an embedded long-term IT person Implementing Connectwise Manage and some outside services Renting or Buying Office Space Pros and Cons of providing company vehicles How do I handle Certs and Training   Special Thanks to the following for their feedback and questions William Burham Singular...

Steps to take when a Key Employee Quits – ITPN-EP17

You're having a great day when one two of your key employees walk in and quit! I've been in business for over 21 years and I have had more than a few key employee come and go.  It is part of what you signed up for when you became a business owner and entrepreneur.  Unfortunately, I walked in on Monday morning and had not one but two employees give their notice to quit.   Actually one quit and the other one retired. Now What? My two employees quitting had nothing to do with each other but you ...

3 Things I learned at Robin Robins Cyber Security Bootcamp – ITPN-EP16

Building a Cyber Security Practice in your MSP It takes more than great tools to build a new cyber security practice.  The tools are important but so is the right mindset.  Wrapping up my month of conferences, here are my takeaways from the Robin Robins cyber security bootcamp She used to work for Tony Robbins,  did you know that... isn't that funny? Last week I attended a Robin Robins Roadshow with a focus on cyber security.   She gives excellent value to IT service Providers and MSP's looki...

How to get Free Marketing Assistance – ITPN-EP15

Conferencing In this episode of the IT Provider Network, I am going to share with you some of my observations from conferences I have just attended and show you how you can get free marketing assistance from your partners. ASCII Summit ASCII www.ascii.com I attended the 2017 ASCII summit for NY and NY a couple of weeks ago.   It was great to connect with the ASCII leadership team, the vendors and my peers in New Brunswick.   ASCII is the oldest and largest group of independent IT solution pro...

Why most MSP’s Suck at Selling – ITPN-EP014

Most MSP's and specifically MSP Owners suck at selling!   There I said it!  At one time I identified myself with the majority of the issues that this podcast addresses.  But not anymore and I am going to show you how you can improve at selling in your own MSP.   I am going to show you how to suck less! The way I see it there are at least five things that cause MSP's to suck at selling: They are always chasing the shiny new object. Vendors are always trying to get us to expand our portfoli...

Helpdesk – What gets measured gets improved – ITPN-EP013

What gets measured gets improved – HelpDesk In today's episode of the IT Provider Network we are going to discuss ways you can improve your service team and specifically your helpdesk by holding your team accountable to some metrics. Volume – How many tickets are you generating on a daily, weekly, monthly basis Response – How fast are you responding to and solving customer problems Noise – What are your ticket types and who are your noisy customers Production – Who on your team is ge...

The 2 Times Rule and how to it can make you more money -ITPN EP012

The Early Days Back when my business partner and I started the company in 1995,  we were a couple of "snot nosed kids" as my mother used to call me when I was young.   We were really good at what we did which was installing and implementing ERP software for manufacturers.   We weren't however very good with finances.    We were fortunate in that the company started off with a bang.  We were traveling to some of the largest companies in the world and we were the Red Adair's of our eco-system. ...

Hiring – Onboarding – the first 90 days – ITPN -EP011

Make the first 90 days successful for you and your new employee As soon as the offer is accepted.   Get the Offer Letter Signed and start any pre-employment tasks Get a Voided Check for Direct Deposit If in the US get the w4 and i9 paperwork out of the way Order a pre-employee drug and background test Order any needed hardware and licenses for the new employee Have your plan together for where and what hours they will work In the days before the start date Set the new Employe...

Hiring – Testing and Interviewing for great hires – ITPN -EP010

This is the 2nd part in a 3rd part series on hiring. See episode 9 for some tips on creating your job description and advertisement.  In this episode of the IT Provider Network I am discussing tools and techniques to move the candidate from the inbox to the offer letter. Testing to weed out the noise. All of our candidates go through some sort of testing,  and most go through quite a bit of testing to hedge our losses against a bad hire. Start your Testing in the Job Advertisement - make the...

Hiring – Process and Tools to find great talent – ITPN – EP009

You’re growing, you’re hiring, your making decisions on new team members.  If you’re like me it is one of the least favorite things you will have to do as an entrepreneur.   You post an ad, have some interviews and hire someone that you basically have known for one hour. Then reality sets in. You basically only know a little bit about your new hire.  They may or may not be a great tech, or worse he may be a terrible fit for your culture and act like a cancer on your team. Hiring and Finding ...

The Holy Trinity-ConnectWise Sell, Automate and Manage-ITPN-008

ConnectWise - Quosal, LabTech and ConnectWise ConnectWise - Sell, Automate and Manage In French Cooking it's Mirepoix In Italian Cooking it’s Soffreto In Cajun Cooking it's the Holy Trinity In IT Services it's ConnectWise In this episode we are going to talk about the three tools that I use to run our managed services business.  Over the years we have standardized on tools that have been acquired by IT PSA vendor ConnectWise. We'll talk about using a quoting tool and why you need i...

5 Things to Keep your Customers Happy and Reduce Churn – ITPN-EP007

5 Things to Keep your Customers Happy and Reduce Churn This week was a rough week for me.  We had a couple of events that through off everyone in the service team.  The WannaCry ransomware outbreak and the media coverage caused panic throughout our client base.  We needed to react with communications, blog posts and new scripts to install the emergency patches released by Microsoft.  We are always looking for proactive ways to keep our customer happy and prevent churn. This was coupled with ...

Fries with that? Scaling your MSP like McDonald’s – ITPN-EP006

Would you like fries with that burger? Or better yet would you like to build a managed services business the size of Mind Shift or All covered. How about just build a highly profitable business with minimal drama. Today we're going to look at three things we can learn from McDonald's to grow and scale our IT Service Provider business. I was watching the new movie The Founder; it’s the story of the McDonald's brothers and Ray Kroc the milkshake machine salesmen that turned a burger shack in S...

Tools for publishing and monitoring your social media networks – ITPN-005

Episode 5 - Tools for publishing and monitoring your social media networks In this episode I hope to share with you three important things: The power of customer testimonials and your "About Us" page How content is too expensive unless you find ways to repurpose it Some tools you can use to manage your social media networks.   Show Links Using a project plan for settting up all your social media accounts - start with Directive's Ultimate Social Media Rig I caught a great episode ...

Tools for Creating Inbound Marketing Content – ITPN-EP004

Episode 4 - Tools for Creating Inbound Marketing Content Today I want to share with you some of the tools I use to create marketing and educational content for our company.     I’m going to do this as a two-part series, so today i will focus on the tools I use to produce our digital content and next time I will share with you the tools I use to publish, repurpose and monitor what we publish on the Internet. You have probably produced some content for the Internet.  As a company, we have dabb...

Building Rapport with Employees, Prospects and Customers – ITPN-EP003

Every wonder why you are not closing the deals you think you should or why you seem to be losing customers or employees left and right?   I was there once, there were a lot of reasons that this was happening but one of the main reasons was that no one in our company was building lasting relationships.   No one was building rapport.   On this episode of the IT Provider Network we are going to talk about some proven ways you can use to build rapport and lasting relationships with your prospects...

Why 90% isn’t good enough – ITPN-EP002

So often as a managed service provider was a running with our choke out and trying to get all the critical and urgent tasks done and we forget about the important ones that will really change the way we deliver service and delight our customers.  In today’s episode of the IT provider network we are going to talk about how 90% is not good enough.   Ask your questions or share your feedback •Comment on the shownotes below •Email [email protected] (audio files welcome) Get on the...

Multi Pronged Customer Communications – ITPN-EP001

In today's show we are going to talk about 3 great ways to keep in touch with your client base. I’m Terry Rossi and this is The IT Provider Network Show Episode Number 1   Ask your questions or share your feedback •Comment on the shownotes below •Email [email protected] (audio files welcome) Get on the mailing list Low Volume by it is THE PLACE TO BE for all of my insider information. If you're on the list, you'll be the first to know. Signup Here Tell 'Em I Sent You If yo...