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Welcome to Episode 316 of the MSP Marketing Podcast with me, Paul Green. This week…

• MSPs: Do this daily… or fall behind: Find and protect a little bit of time every day to learn something that makes you better. Because if you want your MSP to grow, you have to grow first.


• Turn $1 into THOUSANDS for your MSP: Let me tell you the true value of every dollar of new MRR – monthly recurring revenue – that you generate. And how one small upsell today could still be paying you in 10 years time.


• Why your MSP doesn’t charge higher prices: There are all sorts of psychological and emotional reasons that MSPs don’t put up their prices. My guest is an expert at pricing and positioning, and he’s going to tell you how you can name your price.


• The Marketing Minute: Don’t miss this simple tip to reach your dream clients.

MSPs: Do this daily… or fall behind

The amount of information and ideas is increasing all the time, and it’s so easy as an MSP to feel like you are falling behind. But you don’t have to be a slave to all the digital noise out there. In fact, it’s much more powerful if you block it out and instead find and protect a little bit of time every day to do this core activity. Let me tell you how to ignore the noise, what this activity is and why the world’s most successful MSPs do this every day.

Let’s talk about learning. Now, wait, before you roll your eyes and think, oh Paul, I just don’t have time for training, stick with me for a second because I’m not talking about signing up for an MBA or sitting in a three day marketing seminar with bad coffee and uncomfortable chairs.

I’m talking about setting aside 30 minutes a day to learn something that makes you better… as a business owner, as a leader, as a marketer, as an MSP.

Half an hour, that’s it. I mean, it doesn’t sound much, but over a year, even if you’re just doing it weekdays, that’s well over a hundred hours of focused improvement. Imagine what you could learn, what you could change in that time. And the best part is, learning doesn’t have to be formal. In fact, the best kind of learning often isn’t formal. You could be listening to a business audiobook just while you’re walking the dog – that’s learning. You could be watching a great YouTube channel or listening to or watching a podcast while you’re making lunch – that’s learning too. You could go for a coffee, sit outside and actually read that book that you bought six months ago. You know, the one that’s been sitting on your desk looking at you accusingly gathering dust. All of this counts.

The point isn’t what you are learning or how you are learning it, it’s that you are building a habit, a routine of small daily improvements. Because that’s how the most successful business owners think. They’re constantly upgrading themselves, not in big leaps, but in consistent steps. And as you run an MSP, there is a lot to learn. Marketing, leadership, sales, strategy, systems, time management. I mean even personal stuff like mindset or communication. Every small improvement in all of these areas has a direct effect on your business, which has a direct effect on your personal life and your earning capacity.

Here’s what I recommend. Treat your 30 minutes of learning as non-negotiable. I mean, literally put it in your calendar, protect it like it was a client meeting, because in a way it is one, it’s a meeting of you with your future self. And if you’re not really sure where to start, just pick one thing that’s holding back your business right now. Maybe you struggle with consistency in marketing, or managing your team, or handling sales conversations. So find a book or a podcast or an online course that helps you with that.

And remember, you don’t need to finish it all in one go. Just start. Do a chapter a day, one chapter one episode, one video at a time. And soon you really will find that your thinking has leveled up. You’ll be coming up with new ideas, making better decisions and solving problems faster, all because you made that small daily commitment to get just a little bit better.

So here’s your challenge then get in your calendar right now, schedule 30 minutes every day, every weekday at least for learning. And this could be first thing in the morning, it could be your lunch break or it could be after work. Just get it in the calendar and make it happen. Because if you want your MSP to grow, then you have to grow first.

Turn $1 into THOUSANDS for your MSP

We all know that monthly recurring revenue is key to your success as an MSP, but have you ever sat down to work out just how valuable it actually is? Let me tell you the true value of every dollar of new MRR that you generate. And once I do, you are going to look completely differently at things like quarterly business reviews and client update meetings.

MRR is one of the best things about your MSP business model, but I bet you’ve never thought about it like this…

Imagine you wanted to keep building your MSP for 10 more years and then you’re going to exit, you’re going to sell the business. And today you sell one additional service to one of your clients, and it’s just like $4 per user per month and they have 10 users. So that works out at $40 of new recurring revenue, four users at $4 a month, $40 a month of recurring revenue. You with me so far? That’s $480 a year.

Now if they keep buying that over the next 10 years, that of course adds up to $4,800 of revenue, right? And that’s some lifetime value there in a $4 a month service. But this gets even better. Let’s say that you buy this service for $2 per user per month. So you are making a 50% profit margin and $2,400 of gross profit across the next 10 years, which is so cool. Now, I know you’ve got to keep the business for 10 years to deliver it, but it’s not like you have to do anything. I’m assuming you are buying that in at $2. You are selling it out at $4. We’ve not even talked about price rises here, $2,400 of gross profit over the next 10 years for doing nothing.

And you know what? When you come to sell the business, this puts even more money in your pocket. So let’s assume when you come to sell it, you get one times annual recurring revenue. So you take a whole year’s worth of monthly recurring revenue. And a lot of MSPs when they sell, they sell for one times annual recurring revenue. So that simple upsell is going to add another $480 onto your sales price because if you think about it, that annual of that $4 x 10 users x 12 months is $480. So that’s going to go onto the money that is given to you to buy the business off you.

All of that cash, huge amounts of cash from selling one $4 a month service. So tell me again, why aren’t you selling more monthly recurring revenue services to your clients every single day? If you just think about it that way, that one small upsell today could still be paying you in 10 years time and make your business more valuable when you come to sell it. Compounding doesn’t just work in finance, it works in your MSP too. So a question for you. What could you sell today that your future self will really thank you for?

Why your MSP doesn’t charge higher prices