The way that prospects are searching for a new MSP is changing. AI is now playing a key role in the research phase, and I’ve got three things you can do today to keep up. Also this week, discover the one action that KILLS sales for MSPs, and the mistakes you’re likely to make hiring your first sales person.

Welcome to Episode 317 of the MSP Marketing Podcast with me, Paul Green, powered by the MSP Marketing Edge.

Does AI recommend your MSP?

The way that prospects are searching for a new MSP is changing dramatically. The old way where people just went onto Google and did their own research is increasingly being replaced by the new way, where someone gets AI to do the research phase for them and then just validates the suggestions made. That means you need to understand what the AI insisted buying journey is and make sure your MSP has all the correct marketing resources in place. You know how for years we’ve all been obsessed with SEO, search engine optimisation. Getting your keywords right, building back links, and just ranking higher on Google. That’s been the game for years.

The game’s changing again, and if you’re not watching what’s happening with AI discovery, you could slowly find your MSP disappearing from view.

Let me explain. So I was recently reading a pretty cool newsletter and it was about a company called, I think it’s pronounced “Docebo”. They’re not in our world, they sell something called a learning management system, goodness knows what that is. But they’ve been quietly killing it frankly, in a new world of what’s got many different names but seems to be being called “answer engine optimisation” or AEO. You may have heard me refer to it before in videos or on the podcast as GEO, but let’s call it AEO, answer engine optimisation, from here on forward.

In simple terms, this is all about being discovered inside AI tools like ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, or Perplexity. That’s where many people now are now going to do their research. So instead of just going onto Google and typing What’s the best MSP for me or IT support near me, they’re asking ChatGPT, What’s the best IT support for a 20 person business that’s a legal practice or something like that. To use the example I was reading in the newsletter, they’re going on to ChatGPT and saying, What’s the best LMS, learning management system, for a 500 person company with a remote workforce? And if you’re not one of the companies that the AI mentions, then you don’t even get a chance.

So that company I was telling you about, Docebo, they noticed this some time ago and they decided to go all in on giving AI the resources it needs to make sure they come up in that AI research. And now nearly 13% of their high intent leads, that’s a bit of a marketing term for people who actually go on to book demos, so for you a high intent lead will be someone who books a 15 minute call into your calendar. For that company, 13% of their high intent leads are now coming from AI discovery that’s gone up 400% in a year. And they’re doing this, because they’re a big business, but it’s all being powered by one person in their marketing team using the right strategy and a bit of clever AI automation.

And here’s what I really found fascinating from reading this newsletter. They realise that the real battle here is no longer about generic keywords or anything like that… it’s actually about brand. So when people are using AI tools, they’ll get a recommendation and then they’ll take the brand and they’ll go onto Google and search for the brand name directly. So this company Docebo, they shifted their focus from trying to rank on Google for best LMS, which is their keyword, to making sure that more people actually knew their name, Docebo, which is a big mindset shift in your marketing. And if you’ve had an SEO driven strategy, you might need a similar big mindset shift.

Because it means that the most important metric isn’t how high are we ranking on Google, it’s how many people are searching for our own brand. In other words, your reputation becomes your SEO. So you run an MSP and you might be thinking, well Paul, this is fascinating, but we are not playing at Docebo level, and of course you’re right. But this shift does affect you too because over the next couple of years, as we go into 2026 and then 2027, your prospects are going to stop Googling IT support this town or near me, and instead they are going to ask their preferred AI tool, Which IT companies in my area have great customer service and specialise in cyber security. And if those AI tools don’t know about you, if they can’t find enough trustworthy, well-structured up-to-date content about your business, then you’ll vanish from the shortlist before it’s even written.

And that’s why now is the time to start building your discoverability. So I’ve got for you three things that you can do…

Number one: Keep your website content fresh, structured and factual. So AI tools, they love data tables, they love clear headings in blogs and they love real case studies. Make sure you’ve got plenty of that on your website.

Number two: Make sure your brand name is mentioned in lots of the right context, so obviously on your websites, but also if you can get other articles written about you elsewhere. Obviously if you can get mentions on review platforms where they actually put the business name in, that would be fantastic if you can get your customers to do that. And you might even try and build up mentions of your MSP in forums like Reddit or Quora. Not because the humans are going to go there to look for you, but because it’s going to help with your AI discoverability.

Number three: Focus your SEO more on who you are and what problems you solve, rather than chasing random keywords that don’t convert. So yes, SEO is still going to be a thing going forward, but I think this is quite exciting because it’s hard if you are one of 50 or 60 MSPs in a town and someone else is already dominating traditional SEO for keywords, this is great, because now you are focusing your SEO on making sure that more people know about your MSP. And this company Docebo’s research and success in fact shows what’s possible. They’re now generating pipeline and leads and clients from AI searches, and they’re doing it right now. And they’ve done it not by gaming the system, but by creating genuinely useful high-trust content that AI can easily understand and find and surface and pass and turn into research for people.

So here’s my opinion, just as we all have to learn SEO as part of our marketing. It’s something we’ve all had to do over the last couple of decades. Now we’ll all need to learn AEO over the next few years, and this really is the start of the next big shift in online visibility. And if your MSP isn’t being mentioned by the machines, it might as well not exist.

This one action KILLS sales for MSPs

There’s something that all MSPs do because it quickly solves a problem for a client, but it’s a disaster if your client watches you do it. It can completely change their relationship with you and actually make it a thousand times harder for you to sell them more strategic services in the future. So what is this thing? You’re going to laugh when I tell you because it’s something so simple, yet it is so dangerous. And I promise you that by eradicating it, you’re going to make more profit from your existing clients.

I subscribe to hundreds of different email newsletters. Anywhere I can see value in learning from someone, well, I’m happy to be on their list and I dedicate just a little bit of time each day to reading email newsletters that top up my brain. Now, recently I got an email from a guy who actually writes good advice about productivity for high achievers, but I did a massive double take when I saw this in his email. So let me read it to you.

It said, Hey Paul, you’ve probably heard the hype. Wake up at 4am and you’ll dominate the day, crush your goals and unlock next level productivity, right? Well, let me tell you what actually matters. This is what he’s writing in his email. He says, I’ve been waking up at 5am since 2013 and recently shifted to 4am when I started driving for Uber in March of this year. And here’s the truth, it’s not about the clock, it’s about what you do with the time once you are up. So that’s the end of his email.

Now, that’s actually really good advice, but just listen to this line once more. I recently shifted to 4am when I started driving for Uber in March of this year. So please don’t think that I’m criticising this guy, and I’m certainly not criticising driving for Uber, that’s not my intention at all. You do what you need to do to survive, right? But this guy, in all of his marketing on his website, he’s positioning himself as someone who offers productivity consulting for high achievers and high achievers do not value advice from someone who gets up at four in the morning to drive an Uber. This is a massive disconnect between audience and message. And it’s no different for MSPs who visit a client site and get their knees dirty, plugging in cables under desks, or they answer the help desk phone for a password reset. Again, this is not a criticism, it’s just an observation.

If a client sees you on the floor plugging in cables or talks to you regularly for low level tasks, frankly they’re very unlikely to ever hire you for strategic technology advice.

You and I know that you can do both levels to a very high standard, but the clients don’t. You’ll make more money and keep clients longer by positioning yourself at a strategic