2 MSPs Reveal their 1 Sales and Marketing Strategies that Scaled their Business

Ever wonder what top MSP businesses are doing to scale their business? Today you're going to be hearing from two members from our elite program and you're going to be getting the insider tips of some of the number one strategies they've implemented to grow their sales and marketing. Hi, I'm Laura Hennings, a coach here at 7 figure MSP and so excited because today we're joined by one of our elite members, Ken Satkunam, and he is also a member of our 250k awards. And Ken, welcome.

Hey, thank you. An amazing job pronouncing my last name. I know it's risky to even try, but I. Kudos to you.

Thank you so much. And how's the event treating you so far?

Well, I always love coming to these events. It's, it's one of the best parts of the quarter for us. It's, it, you know, the whole concept of course is mind reset and that's exactly what it does for me. So I'm excited to be here.

We have the honor of being with one of our elite and trailblazer and 250k awards member, Jim Ray Ryker. Jim, it is so nice to have you here today. How's the event treating you so far?

So far it's been great. Enjoying the hotel, enjoying the staff has been wonderful. Room's good, air conditioning works really well.

Love that, love it. For those of you that are watching, you all know that consistency is key when it comes to scaling your MSP business. Jim, we really wanna hear from you what has been the number one thing that scale system or strategy that has kept you in the game when it.

Comes to sales from a sales perspective, I think, well, consistency is key in sales. One thing that's been really good for us is just kind of diversifying, not putting all the eggs in one basket. You know, we have multiple callers, you know, we with multiple companies, we have, you know, lead gen that comes from, you know, five or six different places. So just really, that diversification has really, really been fruitful because you never know where that next lead's gonna come from. Right? Networking, social events, go where your customers are, you know, you have to hang out where the customers that you want are going to be looking for your services. We have recently started doing some really cool stuff with AI using things like seamless for listing. We also just employed an AI dialer that can do 40,000 calls a minute that has a fantastic AI interview process for prospecting clients. And we're feeding it lists that are AI driven and Then giving those to our callers for follow up. That so far has been really, really good. We're seeing, you know, four to six calls a week, sometimes more. Where we're getting those FTA is and actually having to sit there, I just had to hire two more sales guys to drive that because we've had so much success with that. It's been really great. So from a sales perspective, I think I answered the question. But that's diversification and just kind of focusing on new technology. It's there, Take advantage of it, use it.

Well, short of giving you all the credit. 7 figure MSP, the membership. Right. So in 2020, we actually got involved in the program. We're kind of at that moment where we kind of had to make a decision where we're going to take the business. We ran into Chris's program started. It's been successful for us. We started to see some, you know, sales growth. But the truth is really transformational. It allowed us to be able to upsell our current customer list, bring in cash flow. That allowed us to really, really trigger our mergers and acquisition strategy, which is where we've seen the farthest growth trend for us.

I love that. So, you know, a lot of people, they think that it's an overnight success, but it's really what you do that bridges you to get there. So when it came from shifting from like seven to I think eight figures, right. You guys are.

We're not quite there yet. We are high sevens, I guess.

Great. I mean that's still fabulous. So what was the turning point to get you from six, multiple six to that high seven figure?

Yeah, I mean, again, mindset, right. I love Rhino. Harry's keynote today about imposter syndrome is like defeating the self making, you know, making us all believe, right. That we were able to do this. But really it came down to having the right coaching. But really the execution of that coaching. So many people get into these programs and they don't see the success. And it really comes down to execution. And it's a daily thing. Right. You know, we have to execute every single day, even if it's just a little bit baby steps.

That's something that we also believe in. 7 figure MSP is working smarter, not harder.

100%.

We have a lot, actually. This is a good question because a lot of people when it comes to marketing have talked about, even when you're doing automated stuff, how can you make it feel like it's still personable and.

Sure. So there's a couple of different ways to do that. You know, for us, a lot of the personal stuff is the follow up, really. It's the engagement that follows the AI interaction, the, you know, the follow up email, the follow up phone call, or also on the front end, you know, if you can send them, you know, if it's a large prospect, you send them something on the front end, let them know you care, hey, here's who I am. You know, just so they know who you are when you, when you call or when they get those automated calls or emails or whatever, just kind of be present, you know, just let them know that you're, you're a real company, you exist. You know, big thing for us is, you know, our reviews, like Google reviews, you know, website reviews are. We use Smile Back. I love that. I use it as a sales tool. We talked about sales a minute ago. That's a huge selling tool. When a customer wants to know, are you going to do a good job for me? You know, from a personal standpoint, because we can promise the world, right? It's all about the deliverable. When you're delivering that, you can go to the website and go look at my smileback reviews right here on my website. I post them real time. These are real customers. These are closed tickets from every single day. They can look at those and see that we have a, you know, 99%, whatever it is, you know, CSAT score from all of our clients. That puts a real, you know, it puts a real touch on something that is otherwise impersonal. So I think it's really good to do those kinds of things and let them know that, hey, we're a real company, we exist. There's real people out here talking about us. They love us, they love what we do. We've saved their business one way or another. The testimonials are big too. Those kinds of things are really good to kind of drive that and reconnect you back to, hey, we're a real company, we actually exist. We have human beings that answer the phone, right?

And we care. We're there for you, right?

100%.

Yes. We also agree that testimonials and social proof I think are the number one thing that you can implement more of. You can never have enough social proof for sure. Is there any other types of marketing or content that you would also hold up there with social proof as being important?

So from a marketing standpoint, as you know, it's like, are we talking about.

Like collaterals or whatever comes to mind.

So I mean, just, you know, like kind of like what we're doing here, you know, have a booth, have a, you know, a backdrop, do podcasts, do, you know, group conversations. We like to have kind of our weekly huddles and, you know, put them out there for content and go, hey, this is the battle we're fighting this week. That's a thing that people are having to deal with. And here's how your business could, you know, either protect itself against this, or if you happen to fall victim to something like this or whatever, here's ways you can overcome that. Here's ways we can help you. Of course we're going to try to throw that in there. But putting that kind of material out is really beneficial to get people to understand and kind of connect, if you will.

Love that response. I think a lot of people can resonate. So we talked about a lot of the fun stuff. Let's talk about maybe some of the. Some of the wisdom that you gained from challenges was there. I want you to recall, maybe a setback that you had when it came to sales or marketing and how you were able to successfully pivot.

Wow. Challenging for marketing is all over the place from a challenge perspective, because marketing is hard, it's not easy. And I think the word pivot is really, really important. You know, there's a lot of guys out there, and this is, this is, this is my wisdom to anybody out there that's trying to do marketing right now from a smaller company, you know, we're a little bit bigger, so we actually have a real marketing budget. We spend substantial amounts of money every month on marketing. But I know there's a lot of MSPs out there that are struggling with this, and a lot of business owners get stuck with ROI on marketing. And you're not gonna, you're never really gonna get a good return on marketing, as far as I'm concerned. I think if you're chasing it from that direction, I think that's a failure, because marketing is more about. It's more than just trying to get a return on that investment because. And it takes so much time to build that reputation and that presence through marketing. Sure, you can throw buckets of money at it and do it faster, but at the same time, if you're truly looking for a return on that, it's not a one for one, because you want that person to know who you are when they do need you. Right. Not everybody that sees that marketing effort or interacts with that marketing campaign might need you at that moment. So you might not get a return on it. This Month, it might be six months, it might be six years from now, but you've continually put your name and your business and your logo and your presence, everything that your company is, is out there in the world and I hate to do it, but the injury lawyers are the worst. Right. So. Or the best, depending upon how you look at it. Right. I'd love to see the ROI model on that, but I mean, if you're on every billboard and every radio station and you're constantly in people's faces when they need you, they're going to know where to go to find you. Right? So when you're trying to look at that from an ROI perspective, you don't really see that immediately. Maybe not year one, year two, year three, it might be year five when that really starts to churn. But, but you have to look at it as, this is just something you have to do to keep your name and your business in front of the world. Right? Because if they don't know you're there, how are they going to know to call you when they need you? If they, if they don't know you're there and they don't know what you do, you know, you could be the best CyberSecurity company, best MSP, best whatever in the world. If nobody knows you're there, how to find you, what good is that? You know, maybe you'll get some word of mouth referrals and have some key select clients, but if you really want growth and you want to go forward, you have to be out there and you've got to be visible.

Right. And that's kind of some of the dangers that we've seen some MSPs make is they operate from bare minimum behavior is what we talk about. But like you said, consistency, continuing to put yourself out there, it's to the heavens when it comes to marketing and establishing omnipresence is something that we believe and something that we are so proud of you for honestly mastering from what it sounds like. And of course you're also in a growth mindset where you're always going to be there to innovate and experiment. And I think that's also huge in marketing as well.

Well, that, and that goes back to the word pivot, right. If, if something you're doing is not working or it's not running the way you want it to work, you know, give it some time, throw some money at it. If it doesn't perform, doesn't, you know, do the things you want it to do, make changes, you know, do Something different. Set reasonable, attainable goals. You know, just, you know, I call it rowing the boat. We all have to move in the same direction, kind of row the boat forward. We all want to go forward and, you know, make the company better and grow. Right. So, you know, sometimes that requires a pivot. You know, if this program, this tool, this, you know, marketing, whatever is not performing, what can we do to change that? And, you know, like what we talked about this morning was super valuable. I wish, I wish I could have had that 10 years ago. It took me, it took me a decade in business to learn that my way is not always the best way to get from A to B. Right. When you have a collective of people and some really smart people on your team and you don't utilize those people or those people are not targeted and dialed in and focused on the same things, moving the same direction at relatively the same speeds, then you're not going to perform and you're going to get, you know, paralysis by analysis is what I call it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

You have to just keep going forward and pivot if things don't work out, you know, just if it doesn't work, flip, do something different.

So of course we all have our hard days too. Let's be real, where it feels like ish is hitting the fan.

Yeah.

So what did you and your team do? What did you do personally as a leader to help you stay in the game mindset wise to stay strong when you had those moments?

Yeah. And yeah, I mean, the truth is everyone wants to talk about the wins and the successes and like the home runs. And the truth is it's a grind. Right. Like business is a grind. And I think for us, of course, it's taking care of ourselves personally, our health, making sure people can get time off and get away, reset. But really I think it's getting the right people, having the right team and everyone just comes together to support people. One of our guiding principles is care. And really it is about taking, not only just taking care of the customers, which is what you would expect, but also taking care of each other. So people have issues that kids let them take care of those things and know that we have their back.

It's really refreshing to hear that from you, Ken, because if I was listening to this, I would be like, I want to sign up with that team. Right. And thankfully, at seven figure msp, that's what we pride ourselves in is making sure we have a all hands on deck approach, which I'm really happy you share because I truly Believe that's also the key to success is the care.

Yeah.

Right. Because in a world actually this is a great pivot into marketing. So many people are bombarded with still like inauthentic just they feel like they're being targeted, they feel like they're just another number. But for you, what was a marketing approach that you took that helped you maintain your values while still connecting with your, with your audience?

I mean, that's a great question. You know, thankfully I have team teammates that are handling a lot of our marketing stuff. But, but really it's about, for us content creation. It's, it's being able to demonstrate to our prospects and our, our niches that we, that we are subject matter experts. Right?

Yes.

And so we, we like to do a lot of education. Right. So we produce a lot of different content around what's going on in cybersecurity, what's going on in general, how to manage risk. And so growth is another one of our guiding principles. And so it's all about education. We educate ourselves, we educate our customers.

As experts.

Right, as experts.

You know, Ryan had that great talk today about imposter syndrome and it comes up still because whatever next level you're at, the way that I've that we think about it here at 7 figure MSP is that just means you are leaning into uncomfortability because you're going into the next level. Jim, it's been so great having you here today as one of our OG original members. We have a lot of people that are listening also wondering should I, should I join 7 figure MSP elite or any of the other awesome programs we have? What would you say to people that are on the fence?

Well, if Cindy loves to hear me say this, I would say do the things right. You're not going to get anywhere if you don't take action and do stuff and go forward. Right. And this program has been instrumental in us going forward and growing our company and building what we have. You know, I'm up for a 250k MRR award this time around, but I need Chris to get a 500k Mr. Award because I'm closer to that.

Heck yes.

When I started this program I was 60k ish mrr and now we're, we're over 400 targeting 500k right now. So yes, you know, we, we've grown through mergers and acquisitions, we've grown through marketing. But more than anything that we have done individually, this team, this group, this program has been absolutely instrumental in, in really correcting A lot of bad behavior, fixing a broken mindset or broken mindsets or head trash. As soon as head trash is huge, we all have it. Everybody struggles with it. I know when I started the program, I was like, oh, another peer group, you know, pay the money, blah, blah, blah. It's just going to be expensive. And, you know, it was like, I can't afford to do it or whatever. I don't need to spend the money on this. And then I backed up and I looked at it and I said, you know, I can't afford not to do this. And looking back on was absolutely the right decision. I mean, we have grown so much since starting this program. You know, when I started this program, we were. I hate to throw numbers out there, but I want to say we were right at maybe $2 million ish, and we're going to hit 6 million this year. And I feel very strongly that we will be 8 million by the Middle of next year. That's where we're targeted right now. So the growth that we've had and all of that and the connections we've made, the relationships that we've grown, the strategy that's been acquired, the reduction of head trash. And even this morning, I mean, it's. After years of coming to the program, I'm still getting stuff out of it, which is really, really valuable, especially for me as a business owner. You know, we have multiple locations, I've got, you know, 30 staff members, you know, things like that, and trying to build my team and grow and go forward. I'm still taking things away with it, you know, away from the conferences. So it's valuable for me to be here. But at the same time, I also get to be a mentor, which is also valuable to me to be able to talk and, you know, have these kind of conversations with people and tell them, hey, this is, this is what we did and this worked for us. Or this is a thing that you can do to maybe help your business grow or whatever. And we can have some of those private offline conversations and just be able to help people as well as still be able to get something from, you know, from the meetings. You know, like this mindset reset is really important for a lot of people and it's something that continually has to kind of resonate. It's not something you can kind of want and done because it's always there, especially in people that are wired like most MSP business owners.

So, which would be what?

It's going to be all the head trash. It's going to Be the, We're an expert, but we don't feel like we are. You know, it's like, am I really the smart guy in the room? And it's like the answer is yes, you are. I mean, you didn't get where you are, you know, not knowing what you're doing. You know what I mean? But the other side of that too is, you know, a lot of people look at it and they go, am I the best guy out there? I don't know. You know, my dad told me when I was a kid, there's always going to be somebody better than you at something, right? You can't get wrapped around that. You just have to do the best you can with what you have and own it. You know, and that would be, that would be my advice, you know, do the best you can with what you've got and own it. Know your worth, know that you are intelligent and successful. I mean, anybody that's capable of being in this program is obviously they've gotten somewhere, right? If you're a business owner, period, you've achieved something that a lot of people will never, never do. I mean, the percentages are super small. So in the grand scheme of things, just getting to the table to have conversations about business growth and development and you know, hey, I can help secure your business because I go to conferences like these and I study and I learn and we try to stay on the cutting edge of technology and all of these solutions that are available. There's a lot of guys that are not doing that. So, you know, when you look at that and you go, am I the guy that's, you know, doing the right things and am I an expert? You know, the answer is yes, if you're, if you're doing the things. You know, I think everybody gets wrapped around that head trash and they just think, oh, I'm just a small little MSP and what do I know? Well, I mean, I don't know. What do you know? You know, if you know the things, then yeah, you are, you know, are you smarter than the people you're talking to? And smarter is relative, right? I mean, a doctor can go in and cut somebody open and do heart surgery and maybe that's not our game. But is that same doctor going to be able to go and, you know, secure his network properly and understand the risks that are out there for those types of things? You know, is he going to understand a zero day threat? You know, probably not. So who's the expert in that scenario? You know, it depends on what we're talking about. So everybody gets wrapped around, you know, am I qualified to be here? And you know, I think for most of us, you know, the answer is yes. And they just, you know, just don't want to believe it.

To choose to see it.

You got to, you got to see it. You know, sometimes you can't see the forest for the trees. Right.

We have a lot of people listening that are either starting or growing, even scaling their MSP business. If there's one word of advice coming straight from you, Ken, what would it be to set them up for success?

I mean, lean into the program. I mean get into the program for sure if you're not. And once you are in the program, lean into it. Take advantage of all the coaching, take advantage of all the education and training and take advantage of the community. One of the biggest, I think benefits that we see is just the other MSPs, you know, and come to these events. Right. And being able to network and talk through our issues, our successes, our challenges and then just execute, go through the steps.

Absolutely. You know, community is absolutely everything. Which is why we also encourage people to come to the in person to come get in the room with bad frickin ass people like Ken. And again, congratulations on the 250 and we have no doubt in our minds here at MSP and 7 figure MSP that you're going to go beyond that. And we are here for you every step of the journey.

I appreciate it, you guys have been so awesome. So thank you.

Thank you so much Ken.

Thank you.

So me and Jim and everyone here at seven Figure MSP are encouraging you to get in the room. You, you deserve to be here. Sure. We get our head trashed, we have imposter syndrome that shows up. Lean into community. And Jim is a huge testament to the power of how not only can you grow and scale your business, but how you can grow and scale yourself as a human, as a leader. So Jim, we are just so excited and grateful to have you as a part of the community and we cannot wait to continue to see you growing, hitting that 500k beyond because we know it's gonna happen too. So thank you. Thanks for being here.

I appreciate that. Thank you. I'm glad to be here and glad to help anybody. And if anybody out there wants to talk to me personally, feel free to reach out. I'd love to talk to you.

Beautiful. Thank you, Jim.

Sure.

If you want to learn the exact strategies that we teach here at 7 figure MSP, make sure to book a call with our team. Thank you so much again for being here. And if you found value in this, make sure to hit the subscribe and like button. We'll be seeing you soon.