Marketopia 4U2GROW Conference – 3 Key Takeaways

IT Provider Network - The Podcast for Growing IT Service Providers

English - September 25, 2018 13:33 - 12 minutes - 9.06 MB - ★★★★★ - 28 ratings
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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 Network, Outsourcing your appointment setting, I talked about the pros and cons of outsourcing telemarketing for lead generation.

I signed up with Marketopia at the 2nd annual 4U2Grow conference last year. For MSP's they offer the normal plethora of marketing services. Website design, Email Blasts, Pay Per Click and SEO services but their big seller for MSP and Vendors alike are callers. 1/2 time or full-time telemarketers cold calling on behalf of MSP's to end users and vendors to MSP's.

Marketopia clearly is doing a bunch of things right. This year they were named to the INC 500 list in position 232. Marketopia, having scaled its revenue at an impressive 2041% growth rate has joined the ranks of others on the INC 500 list including ClickFunnels (#76), KnowBe4 (#96) and Pax8 (#68).

Their conference 4U2Grow and the associated roadshows are a big part of their success. This conference for their clients and prospects is an educational event with little or no direct pitching but the Marketopia sales team are always looking to close deals at the show. Jeff Laws and Austin McCord are gently working over their prospects and trying to make deals before the end of the show.

On day one of the conference, I was asked to host a VIP Mastermind for existing Marketopia clients. It was an intimate group of MSP's big and small from all over the county. We talked about what's working and what isn't. It was honest and straightforward. If you have listened to this podcast for a while you know that I call it like it is, if you are trying to BS me I will call you out on it.

I did it, called some people out, a few times in the MSP's mastermind and with Marketopia too. We are in an industry that is constantly changing and I made sure I let Terry Heddon, the CEO of Marketopia know where I saw some BS in the industry but that's a whole different podcast.

So what was my big takeaway from the conference? Well, I had a few. Most of them came from Terry Heddon or his wife Andrea but Adam Slutski formally of connectwise fame. Here they are.

1 - We have a lot of business in our existing client base that we may not be capitalizing on. We need to make sure we are doing our best to sell our whole stack to as much of our client base as possible.

Here are strategies for increasing sales into your existing base.:

Identify products or services that your client could buy but doesn’t.
Develop a plan for expanding your relationship with contacts within the account.
Keep trying to add value for all the contacts you know at the client.
Give clients ideas on how to improve their business operations - become more efficient, more profitable and improve their customer servide.
Make customers feel they have a special relationship with you.
Identify your customer’s customers and help them win.

2 - We need to be more strategic in our marketing. Specifically our about us page.

Did you know your website's "about us" page is the 2nd most visited page on your website second only to the home page. Do they still call it a home page?

Put some effort into your about page, have a listen to Tools for publishing and monitoring your social media networks for some tips on your About Us page. Also, check out Hubspot's Awesome About Us Examples for more inspiration and this great article on How to Write an About Page.

Heres a couple common Mistakes

You don’t have an About Page

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 Network, Outsourcing your appointment setting, I talked about the pros and cons of outsourcing telemarketing for lead generation.

I signed up with Marketopia at the 2nd annual 4U2Grow conference last year. For MSP’s they offer the normal plethora of marketing services. Website design, Email Blasts, Pay Per Click and SEO services but their big seller for MSP and Vendors alike are callers. 1/2 time or full-time telemarketers cold calling on behalf of MSP’s to end users and vendors to MSP’s.

On day one of the conference, I was asked to host a VIP Mastermind for existing Marketopia clients. It was an intimate group of MSP’s big and small from all over the county. We talked about what’s working and what isn’t. It was honest and straightforward. If you have listened to this podcast for a while you know that I call it like it is, if you are trying to BS me I will call you out on it.

I did it, called some people out, a few times in the MSP’s mastermind and with Marketopia too. We are in an industry that is constantly changing and I made sure I let Terry Heddon, the CEO of Marketopia know where I saw some BS in the industry but that’s a whole different podcast.

So what was my big takeaway from the conference? Well, I had a few. Most of them came from Terry Heddon or his wife Andrea but Adam Slutski formally of connectwise fame. Here they are.

1 – We have a lot of business in our existing client base that we may not be capitalizing on. We need to make sure we are doing our best to sell our whole stack to as much of our client base as possible.

Here are strategies for increasing sales into your existing base.:

Identify products or services that your client could buy but doesn’t.
Develop a plan for expanding your relationship with contacts within the account.
Keep trying to add value for all the contacts you know at the client.
Give clients ideas on how to improve their business operations – become more efficient, more profitable and improve their customer servide.
Make customers feel they have a special relationship with you.
Identify your customer’s customers and help them win.

2 – We need to be more strategic in our marketing. Specifically our about us page.

Did you know your website’s “about us” page is the 2nd most visited page on your website second only to the home page. Do they still call it a home page?

Put some effort into your about page, have a listen to Tools for publishing and monitoring your social media networks for some tips on your About Us page. Also, check out Hubspot’s Awesome About Us Examples for more inspiration and this great article on How to Write an About Page.

Heres a couple common Mistakes

You don’t have an About Page
I can’t find your name or credentials
I don’t know what you look like
You’re writing is boring
You use video alone
You go on and one
You think the about us page is about YOU

3 – Great tips for Hiring ANYONE

I actually did three podcasts on hiring. and I am releasing a book called “Hiring in the Digital Age : Tips to take the pain out of interviewing, hiring and onboarding new people in your small business” . I think Adam Slutski, former Connectwise CRO and now strategic advisor to Marketopia, gave a great talk on hiring salespeople. While Adam concentrated on salespeople I think his advice applies to almost anyone we hire in our businesses. Some of his key points were

They need to be quick thinking – You need a flexible thinker
They need to be insightful – You need someone that is a quick study
Then need to be determined – this is not a quick or easy sale
They need to be Passionate – Proud, Goal Oriented, and customer focused.

I think this applies to everyone in our companies

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