Insights as a Service

Join Brendan Ritchie and Paul Green from MSP Marketing as they delve into the nuances of modern marketing. They discuss the undeniable power of niche content, the transformative impact of understanding client trends and frustrations, and the significance of podcasts in today's digital landscape. They also highlight the importance of commitment and consistency and explore the art of generating standout content. This episode is packed with insights and strategies. Tune in for a masterclass in marketing strategy, personal branding, and much more! Chapters: 00:00:00 - Importance of Marketing in the MSP Sector 00:07:03 - Overwhelming for Techs 00:14:09 - Building Trust and Engagement with MSPs 00:21:20 - Tracking and Eliminating Red Tasks in MSPs 00:28:31 - Product Managers and Marketing Responsibility 00:35:45 - Putting Yourself Out There 00:42:40 - The Commitment and Consistency of Podcasting 00:49:35 - Three-step marketing strategy 00:56:25 - The Challenges of Business Ownership

In this era of state-sanctioned cyber warfare, Is your business approach to cybersecurity up to date? How can you keep your business and your clients, safe from cyber-attacks? Embark on an eye-opening episode of Insights as a Service. Barry Greene, former Principal Resiliency & Security Architect at Akamai Technologies , helps Brendan understand the origins, evolution, and best practice responses to disruptive cyber warfare campaigns! Get up to date on the real state of cyber warfare as Brendan and Barry discuss different sovereign state responses, how critical it is to take proactive measures in cybersecurity, how Australia's approach towards preventing cyber-kinetic incidents puts it at an advantage, and much more...

James Davis, the Pax8 Academy Director, joins Brendan to chat about the changing MSP landscape. From the decline of the traditional MSP model to pricing models and the challenges posed by SaaS vendors - they cover it all. Tune in to find out how you can shift your MSP to a more profitable model, the necessary skillset for a successful cybersecurity play, and where the industry is heading. So, grab your headphones and get ready to dive into this week's episode.

In this episode, Ally Bourke, marketing advisor and founder of The Launch Project, is here with Brendan to discuss the latest marketing trends and techniques for MSPs. They dive into the nitty-gritty of how to sell something that people don't understand. Discuss the power of storytelling, whether marketing content should be gated or not, and how marketing practices in Australia and New Zealand compare to the rest of the world. Along the way, they consider the pros and cons of agency vs. in-house marketing for MSPs and provide tips for building your marketing team from scratch. This episode is packed with valuable insights for MSPs looking to up their marketing game!

In this episode, Nathan Hutchison, Executive Coach from Pax8 is here with Brendan to uncover some of the main obstacles MSPs will face in 2023. They explore strategies for retaining key staff, understanding existing capacity within your MSP, and how to optimise it. They also cover the importance of pricing strategies and discuss projects on minimising scope creep.

Get ready for a fascinating conversation with John Milionis, Head of Channels and Alliances for ANZ at Zscaler! This expert in the field is with Brendan to discuss the competitive landscape for MSPs in Australia and New Zealand and the opportunities for growth and success. Learn about upskilling strategies, the rise of new platforms, SaaS opportunities, the differences between specialist and generalist MSPs, and the future of SD-WAN. Find out how Zscaler is supporting MSPs with integrated solutions and collaborations. Hear John's insights on the impact of cyber attacks on cyber security and the significance of Zero Trust. Chapters: 0:45 The competitive landscape for MSPs in Australia & New Zealand 4:15 How to upskill your team without resources 6:50 Vendors are the new platforms 9:50 The SaaS opportunity for MSPs 14:25 Specialist vs Generalist MSPs 20:30 The future of SD-WAN 26:00 What Zscaler is doing to help MSPs 31:30 Integrated solutions with other vendors 34:30 Have the recent cyber attacks changed perceptions on cyber security? 38:30 What is Zero Trust and how important is it?

Brendan attended his first course at Harvard Business School last month and gives us his review of the experience in the first episode for 2023. The course, called "Aligning Strategy With Sales", covered off on corporate and sales strategy conception, pricing, distribution methods, recruitment and performance evaluation, marketing methods, and much more. Check out the episode to hear how it went and whether it will suit people in your business.

Have you thought about starting a podcast for your business? Well, this week, we'll give you a head start by telling you all about the mistakes we made, the feedback we got, the hardware that sucked, the mics that worked best, the software we use, and how we define success.

MSPs that get their legal frameworks right minimise risk, drive profitability, and drive Enterprise value. Do you have the right agreements in place? How often do you review them? How are they aligned with ever changing SaaS vendor terms of use? Anne Hall from IT Agree joins Brendan this week to fill you in on how you can get your legal frameworks in order.

By now we have all heard about the Optus hack, with around 10 million people's data at risk, and up to 2 million sensitive records taken. This week we mark the start of Cyber Security Awareness Month by looking at what happened (based on current reporting), what could have been done to prevent it, and what best practice cyber security looks like. Darryl Turner, Head of DevOps at Lightwire, joins Brendan and Nick to go through all the details.

With the recent news of Optus being hit by a cyber attack, this is a timely episode. This week we discuss our experiences at the recent IT Nation Connect and Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo conferences.  We learned about the biggest cyber security breaches, the evolution in ransomware, mergers and acquisition (M&A) activity, and how every event kicks off with the same video.

The thing that makes a business great doesn't always scale. How do you hold on to your formula for success as head count and business complexity grows? This week Nick and Brendan talk through that, along with how the French do business, learning from rejection, and matching business hours to customer availability.

Greg Sharp sold Base2 to Kordia in 2021 for a 10x multiple, so he knows a thing or two about orchestrating a high value exit. He has also founded a number of other businesses, the latest of which is ZenContract, a SaaS play aimed at helping MSPs build value in their own businesses through simplifying scale. He joins Brendan this week to talk about what drives bigger multiples, where the MSP industry is going, the convergence of Telco and managed services, and what's next for ZenContract.

Matt Bristow, GM of ONGC, joins Brendan and Nick to talk about starting up a security operations centre (SOC) and how his business implemented a cost effective entry into the security space. The guys also discuss whether "guys" is a gender neutral term, how fibre build times are blowing out, and why a 20 mile march matters.

Will Slappey's business (IT Voice) had bought 8 business in the two years leading up to his chat with Brendan. That conversation was recorded 4 weeks ago, since then he has acquired two more. In short, he knows a thing or two about acquiring business in the ICT market. Check out this episode to hear his views on M&A during a recession, valuation methodologies, retaining key staff, and much more.

Zero Trust is a term increasingly used in cyber security circles, but it means different things to different people, and it feels like each brand has a different take on it. So how to make sense of what Zero Trust really means? Masaki Takeda, Network Delivery Manager at The Instillery, joins Brendan to get to the bottom of it.

So much of the value on offer at conferences comes down to the connections you can make, but it can be hard to come out of your shell and feel confident approaching strangers.  What should you lead with? How to get out of the chat if it's not going well? And what events are even worthwhile?  Harriet Mellor from Your Sales Co. joins Nick and Brendan to talk networking strategies, what defines success when you have your own podcast, and where regulation isn't keeping pace with tech.

MSPs need a Customer Success process that is scalable, repeatable, documentable, and efficient… with metrics and a system to ensure the customer feels heard. When you concentrate on the people, programs, processes, and products that make a positive impact for your customers, their success guarantees your MSP’s success. Marnie Stockman wrote the book on customer success for MSPs... literally, and this week she joins Brendan to spell it out.

Depending on who you talk to, a recession is either looming or is already here. But does that present opportunity in the tech sector? And for MSPs, could it ease the pressure caused by current the shortage of skilled workers? Nick and Brendan dive into all that, discussing the wasted money on digital ads and the razor-thin margins in the B2C telco space complicating Telstra's plan to bring support roles back onshore.

Brendan and Jeremy Nees (Chief Operations Officer at The Instillery) woke up early to watch the Zscaler’s Zenith Live, so you don’t have to. Cyber security is one of the biggest opportunities for MSPs to add value, and this episode will offer you a glimpse into the future of cyber security. From the highlights to frictionless user experience AND cyber security to the possible end of SD-WAN, tune in to this week's episode to get a full recap of the biggest event in cyber security, Zscaler's Zenith Live 2022.