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Welcome to Episode 297 of the MSP Marketing Podcast with me, Paul Green. This week…

• Every MSP should listen to this book: If you implement the simple ideas inside this book, it will dramatically improve your marketing – you’ll get more attention and ultimately a lot more business for your MSP.


• Would your MSP tackle a one off project to unlock MRR?: There is a way to warm up reluctant prospects and build a solid relationship with them, before asking them to sign a monthly recurring revenue contract with your MSP. Here’s how.


• This MSP looks back on his biggest marketing mistakes: If you could go back to when you started your MSP, what advice would you give yourself to avoid your biggest marketing mistakes? This is the question I asked my guest, see how his answer compares to yours.


• Paul’s Personal Peer Group: Are Google’s Core Web Vitals still a thing in 2025? Find out how this affects your MSP and what you should be doing about it.

Every MSP should listen to this book

I know I know, you want to grow your MSP, but actually you barely have enough time to stay on top of the big shows on Netflix, let alone learn how to improve your MSP’s marketing. But could you make the time if all you had to do was read or listen to just one single book?

Let’s dig into a new book that if you implement the simple ideas inside, it will dramatically improve your marketing. You’ll get more attention and ultimately a lot more business for your MSP.

What was your lockdown experience like? Well, some people had a terrible experience, of course, but others discovered new things about themselves. So for example, I discovered a bit of a renewed love of running which led me to doing a couple of half marathons over the years after. And actually I lost about two stone in weight, which sadly has come back now and doesn’t seem to want to go again. But also back then I fell in love with reading one more time and I got through tons of books that summer.

And one book that I read for the first time ever, which I had been meaning to read for years, was a book called They Ask You Answer, written by a guy called Marcus Sheridan. And this was instantly an insane book for me and it resonated with me in every possible way. So I went away and I implemented as much of it as I could in my own business, and I kept telling the MSPs that I was working with that they should do exactly the same. And actually, I decided I had to get Marcus onto my podcast, which finally happened in January 2023. If you want to listen to that episode, Google MSP Marketing Edge and Marcus Sheridan, and you’ll find the podcast episode. It’s episode 164. Marcus was very generous with that interview and it helped to position, They Ask You Answer in ways that made it super relevant to MSPs.

I tell you all of this as background as it helps to explain why I got so excited earlier this year when I heard that Marcus was releasing a new book. It’s been billed as They Ask You Answer 3.0. Version two was a bit of a refresher to the original book which came out in about 2019, whereas this new book is more than just an update, this is a reinvention for the modern age. You see, They Ask You Answer first came out in 2016, that was nine years ago, and the world has changed dramatically since then, hasn’t it? No more so than with the AI tools that we have today. And so They Ask You Answer has changed into something new called, Endless Customers. That’s the name of the new book and it’s available currently as a hardback, but it is also on Audible as well. And you can access more details about the book at the website endlesscustomers.com.

Now, let me be brutally clear about this. You NEED to read this book.

This is the one of the most valid marketing books that any MSP can read. And it’s not just ideas or opinions, it’s field tested stuff.

It’s been field tested for over a decade, and I know that many MSPs have used this. In fact, I know that Marcus Sheridan understands the MSP market based on my conversations with him a couple of years ago.

Endless Customers shows you how to become the most trusted and recognised MSP in your marketplace. How? By harnessing the power of the right content, getting your website right, the right sales activities, the right technology, and having a culture of performance. And there are so many big ideas in this book, but they all come with instructions on how to implement them, how to make them happen, and bake them into your business.

I look at a lot of MSP’s websites and their overall marketing, and I’ll be honest, the ones that excite me the most have used either this exact system or their own version of it. And you can see that those MSPs are so completely different from their competitors. You can see that the way they stand out, in fact, it almost makes me pity the MSPs that they are up against. And wouldn’t you want to be that MSP? Wouldn’t you want to be the one that other people look at and realise it’s going to be very difficult to catch up to?

So become that MSP before someone else gets there. It’s not an overnight transformation, but it is a transformation of your entire business. And it starts with one book, Endless Customers. Please get it, read it, listen to it, get copies for your team, give it to your team to read. In fact, there’s some suggestions inside the book about how you turn your entire MSP into an Endless Customers culture. This could be an insane differentiator and competitive advantage for your MSP.

Would your MSP tackle a one off project to unlock MRR?

Many MSPs hate this kind of work and refuse to do it, and yet by doing so they’re missing out on potential new clients. Wouldn’t you love a way to warm up reluctant prospects and build a solid relationship with them, before asking them to sign a monthly recurring revenue contract?

Well, that’s what this hated work can do. Let me tell you what the work is, why I think you should consider taking it on and how to use it as a marketing tool.

Would you take on a one-off project with no guarantee of monthly recurring revenue just to build a relationship with a prospect? I asked this question recently in my free MSP Marketing Facebook group. If you haven’t joined that by the way, just go onto Facebook, search for MSP Marketing, nip over to groups and you’ll see it there – MSP Marketing Facebook group. Free to join, but it’s only for MSPs, a vendor free zone. Anyway, I asked that question there and the answers were very clear cut. Many MSPs shouted, yes, a few shouted a very vociferous no, with a few kind of sitting on the fence. Let me read you out some of the comments.

First of all, we’ve got here some big fans. Darren said: Every day if their finances check out and there’s additional opportunity. And he means of course, for monthly recurring revenue. Sebastian said: Yep, best way to get in the door and also getting paid for a lead instead of you paying to acquire a lead. I like that. And James agreed with him saying: Providing the project is costed for and priced that shows it can deliver a profit at your required rate. You never know where that prospect may be in 12, 18 or 24 months time.

Rob said as well: Yes, definitely. A lot of our MRR has come as a result of one-off projects. We use it as an opportunity to impress and give an experience that they may want more of, often going slightly over what they were expecting and highlighting other things whilst working on the project. It gets their thought process whirring. It’s also an opportunity to get in and see what they are really like. Oh I like that, so it’s almost like he’s checking them out as they’re checking him out.

And then finally, for the yeses, Jeff said: Yep, absolutely. We have gained many clients from a relationship built just from a one-off project. Some of our biggest clients, even most of them, have had a bad relationship with another MSP. Doing a one-off project allows them to try us. You can prove to them you’re going to do what you say, at the time you say it, and within the budget that you gave.

Now then, as I said, there were a couple of people sat in the middle. So Jim said: It depends on the project. I regularly refer people to other computer repair guys locally as I’ve become quite adept at spotting nightmares on the phone. I like that. And actually Dan replied to that exactly this: Scope out whether there’s any leverage. If there isn’t, don’t waste your time.

And we did have a few definite nos as well. Gerard said: Nope, little chance it leads to MRR. Also too much sales and overhead time. And Rick said: No, as he’s a hundred percent focused on MRR. Our model for the last 20 years, defining the edge of projects with people you don’t know on equipment you don’t support or didn’t sell is a slippery slope best avoided.

So where do you sit on this question? To me, it’s a very smart way to overcome one of the biggest marketing problems that all MSPs face.

They won’t buy from you until they trust you, but they can’t trust you until they like you, and they can’t like you until they know you. Asking a business owner or manager to sign a contract and shift everything over to you, it’s a massive perceived risk for t