This is how you stay productive as an MSP Owner

This is how you stay productive as the owner of an msp. I'm here with Chris Weiser, CEO and founder of Seven Figure msp. And we're going to dive in and talk about how you might be struggling with prioritizing your tasks, hitting your growth targets. And we are going to break it all down to make it easier for you, the owner of an msp. Hey, Chris, what's up? Not much.

You know, we're right here, live here in Denver. It's pretty cool. I love it.

Yes, yes, Live here in Denver. All right, so we've got about 300 MSPs surrounding us right now live here in Denver, thousands streaming right now. And let's break it down. How they can learn to prioritize their time and become more productive and I guess more happy at the end is the ultimate goal.

Well, I'd say there's a bunch of different reasons, but for the most part, most MSPs are really, instead of prioritizing sales and growth and cash flow, they're prioritizing tech. And note, I know your brain is immediately going towards. Oh, so I shouldn't be a tech focused msp? No, we're not saying that. You still should be. That should be a default. You should be a good MSP as a baseline. But you need to also, really, what do we get better at what we focus on, you know, if you want to. Like, I actually just did a little bit of a weight loss journey over the last couple years and I lost a bunch of weight. It didn't just magically happen. I had to focus on it. I had to make it purposeful. I had to do things to get there. Same thing comes with sales and marketing in your business. So I think, you know, thing for me, number one and you know, talking to my CRO, which is awesome, we talk about this every single day. We're so growth focused. Does that make us a bad coaching firm? In fact, I think because we have more revenue, more cash flow, look at the events we can put on. We can have all these people here. We just had an amazing AI speaker. We had Penn Jillette on our stage yesterday. We can make things way better because we charge more because we have more money. That's sales focused, growth focused. So that's my number one.

I always say what you focus on grows, but I guess with your weight loss journey, it's the opposite.

Well, I mean, got better at it.

You know, but I was just thinking about, I was like, that's the only thing it doesn't apply to but in business, what you focus on grows. Yes, I think that's a really, really valuable lesson. But let's talk about like the practicality of this. Cause you owned an MSP before starting this company. So what does an average MSP business owner's day look like when they're focusing maybe perhaps on the quote unquote, wrong things in the morning and how all of a sudden you didn't do anything to grow your business?

Well, for the most part it's not just the wrong things in the morning, but it' usually the wrong thing, the wrong mindset, the wrong things. Overall sales is an afterthought. Marketing is an afterthought. So I think you know, the things that you're probably doing. And again, I'm going to say directly to you guys, this does not mean you neglect service. This does not mean you neglect support. But you have to learn how to delegate. You need to learn how to lead. You need to have systems and processes can't be everything shooting from the hip all the time. You have to be okay with letting go of some control. And that word right there, that control factor. We actually did a panel with three of our larger MSPs that are growing. And I know you were listening to that yesterday.

Yep.

All three of these guys are over 300k in monthly recurring revenue. They're all very focused on I am not going to be the control piece. That was like the overarching statement was we are not. I'm not going to be the bottleneck. And I think, you know, so I think the overall mindset that you have to have as an MSP owner is I am going to be the thought leader, but I'm not going to be the bottleneck. So how do we get past that? And it's different for everyone in my world. As an MSP owner, I didn't want to be the control factor. I was not a control freak.

Yeah.

So I liked tech, but it was an enabling piece to get me to success. It wasn't the only reason I did it, which it's tough. I had my keynote on Tuesday afternoon. One of the things I asked was how many of you started out as single person shops? What was it, 80% of the room?

Yeah, 80%, yeah.

So that's very typical. I also was a single person shop. So we have to get to a place where in that beginning, yes, you're controlling everything. Yes, you're running everything. But I had my first contract was a $6,000 a month contract back in 2004. It was the end of 2004, $6,000 a month. My immediate job wasn't to run that way for six months. I hired a help desk guy in the first two weeks. So I immediately had somebody that was answering my clients. Never called my cell phone ever. I never had that. Not because I was lazy or didn't want. But I didn't. I wanted to focus on not. I think I could give them better service that way. Right. But most MSPs is like, oh, I gotta hand that right here. So I think that to me, that's like the biggest thing.

That's the biggest thing. So I love that how from the beginning you took the delegation CEO role and you're like, nope, I am going to allocate funds here before I pay myself as a.

And I kind of didn't even know. I didn't really know what I was doing.

So it was a really good guess.

It was just. Honestly, it was a guess, but it was like, I don't want to be the. Like, I didn't want to be a slave to a phone.

Yeah.

And then I started to do some education and some training and some thought leadership stuff and, and started to realize, okay, this is the right path that I'm going down.

Right.

And I have to continue to go down that path as much as I can.

Yeah.

Well, that's kind of what led me.

As a senior leader in your company. I think you just have really good intuition too. And I don't know if you know that about. I try that about yourself.

I do try and trust my gut a lot. And it's hard at times because we got a lot of. And we live in a different world now because, like back then and some of you as MSP owners, it's kind of different as an MSP owner too, because you, you're very local or regional, so usually your staff's in front of you. To me, it's actually easier to have gut intuition, remote, because you have time where you can go back and reflect and think about things. And you know, sometimes social media is hard because, you know, Michelle and I get in these text battles every once in a while and it's like comes across different than you want it to come across. So you gotta sometimes back away and be like, okay, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it to come across that way. But it's all. Now there's a way. I think it's easier when you're a remote company, but you still have to be very, very smart about planning things and just not Reacting as much as you can.

Yes, I think that that's, yeah, respond, not react. And so someone who's listening to this right now that's ready to delegate, their mindset's there. They're like, I need to do this. What is the first practical steps someone can take practical in their first step towards delegation.

So I think looking at your day, what is or and even maybe your week. So each day in each one of your weeks, I'm a time blocker a lot and I really focus on as much delegation as I can. So I'm looking at, you know, if I was an MSP owner, I would be looking at my day and what's sucking up the most, you know, what am I paying attention to first and what's sucking up the most amount of my time and then how can I offload that? Now the cool thing for you guys in this MSP period that we have right now, we have insane amounts of vendors. You can pretty much. I also said this during my keynote on Tuesday. I fully believe as we sit right now and then moving forward, the MSP is going to become much more of a general contractor type mindset. Which means like where the manager think about a construction company, could they do plumbing, could they do electrical? Sure, they could hire somebody internally, they could deal with it, but you know, what do they do? Hired out, hire it out, hire it out. Off source. Outsource. Outsource. And historically the MSP has been I'm going to outsource all my sales and marketing and I'm going to insource all my tech, all my support, all my management, all my alerting, blah blah, blah. So all the tech we keep here, well it needs that, that needs to flip And I'm that's again to go back to say that doesn't mean you suck at being an msp, but you can work with these vendors which the vendors are great now they're also channel only for the most part now which is very unique. You can do things that no vendor had. So I'm going to bring this, put a bow on this whole thing because now you're in a place where you're spending, you know, if, if your mindset is I'm tech focused, I'm tech first, I got all this other stuff you have to say I am going to embrace insourcing my money, my lead gen, my marketing, my sales. I'm gonna insource that even though it's uncomfortable and I'm gonna outsource my tech. So I would outsource personally if it was me right now, I would focus on outsourcing a complete security operations center. I'd outsource my help desk. I'd even potentially have a dispatcher internally that and I controlled the phone calls, but I'd have a person do that. And it came through me that we route boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. That's how I would do it and that's how I would save as much. Like I could go back in right now and start an msp and that's exactly what I would do.

Yeah, I think that's a big shift probably for a lot of MSP business owners.

I bet you 95% of MSP business owners are exclusively tech first mindset.

Yes. Maybe even higher than that huge shift. So it's like, it's also some self reflection on skill development, getting mentorship, coaching, because I think it's a time to have reflection on like, why did you start the business? Did you start the business so you could spend all of your time that you did, likely in your 9 to 5 in front of the computer providing tech, or did you want a lifestyle, both financial and time, that didn't require that?

So I, what I will say, and you're right, what I will say, there's definitely a class of MSP owners that started it because it's like, this is fun and I can do what I want, blah, blah, blah. Hey, if that's, if that stuff doesn't work for you and if you don't want a lifestyle, that's fine, it's okay. Nobody's saying you have to do whatever, but the challenge we have is those days are kind of really coming to a. Those days are numbered because now you have so much liability related to cybersecurity and hacking and breaches and all the, all this stuff that goes along with it. At some point, even if you're a break fix, we get, we got a guy here that just signed up for our elite program. He's $150,000 a month of break fix work. He has no contracts, has nothing.

I know I sold him.

I know you did. But he's, he's realizing all he's built himself is a project bin, basically. Right. So I don't know how to phrase that better, but it's, he's realizing that there's money left on the end, but he's still responsible for all the tech and the cybersecurity. And these clients now are starting to say, okay, I have an insurance that's coming, what do I do about this? And he's like, well, I don't, I don't deal with that. But you're expected to, right? And a great example of that is the insurance companies now say if you have on your website, we manage your technology, you're responsible for all of it. And they can point it at you and say you said you were managing technology that includes cybersecurity, MFA breach protection, all blah, blah, you guys know what I'm talking about, what happens then? So you have to, you have to plan for that. And, but it also opens up this massive, amazing sales window 100%.

And if we're talking about the gentleman that just joined the elite coaching program, one of my favorite things talking about with him is he was sharing videos of like him and his partner and these trips they go on and these places he wants to be and he has a whale of a client right now and the transition he wants to make. And he's so disciplined and committed to making that shift. And I wouldn't let him leave. He was like standing next to me and I was like making him actually pay for the program when we were talking and he was like, and he's like, you're not gonna let me walk away, are you? I was like, no. Cause if I do, then I'm not doing my job holding you accountable to what you said you just wanted to do. And he was like, I wish I could find a salesperson like you. And I was like, we'll help you do that inside the program. But it's also a huge responsibility, I think of seven figure MSP to hold people accountable to what they want to do. And that starts in the sales process. And I also think that can be a reflection for our MSPs when they go to pitch themselves is to hold those companies accountable for what they need to do to invest in a true MSP service, full cybersecurity, to, you know, help their company as much as possible.

You brought up a really good point there. I still, there's, there's a danger with a sales first, just immediate shift. Because what happens is the MSP is saying, oh, I'm just going to pick this whole sales thing up and I'll drop it on somebody. I don't like to do this. That's not what we're saying, guys. We're saying shift tech to a secondary. Sounds bad, but shift tech to a trusted partner. No, not even that. But I want you to make sales first.

Yes.

Is what so I want, I'm not saying put service backward in your back. I'm Saying shift sales to where it's your priority. Which means founder led sales model with a system out of the box. You. I put this in my keynote on Tuesday. Also, sales and marketing sucks. I get it. It's not what we like to do, it's not what we like to tinker with, et cetera. It's not fun to build server. You know, it's not building servers, it's not building cloud environments. It's like. But you know what we had, all of these guys raised their hand in the room. Over 80% of that room said I was a single person shop owner. And then the other part of it was, how many of you have formal education? Did you hear Lindsay ask that question? She asked, how many of you actually have a formal tech cyber security? And it was like 3%. So you learn tech, I promise you, you can learn sales and marketing. And the thing about sales and marketing is this is a life skill. Once you learn this, like, Michelle didn't come from. You didn't even know what she thought it was Minneapolis St. Paul when we started.

I had to Google it.

Yeah, you didn't know what managed service provider or MSP was. But the same models transcend industries. It doesn't matter. Once you learn the principles and you become good at it and you start getting good at generating money. And I'll tell you what, the MSPs that we work with, you've now seen hundreds of them that we work with, the ones that are successful and make money, they're like, I love what I do. This is amazing.

Yeah, they love it so much that they brought us gifts. I got gifts.

Yeah, I got gifts from Hawaii.

Yeah. So cool.

Coffee and candy from Hawaii.

Thanks, Don.

Yeah, thanks, Don. But it's a great example of what you can do if you learn sales and marketing. And those same messages transcend across industries.

Yes, absolutely. And I think I want to add one thing to that. So it's interesting because our newest elite member that we've been talking about, he. He had hired a salesperson who was supposed to come here with him. And that person backed out last minute and didn't end up taking the job. And I looked at him and I said, this is actually the best thing that could have happened to you because you yourself as the founder first need to go through this and you need to execute and see this work and then you can consider it.

I fully believe the founder led sales model is the way to start with this. If you're first, if you've been tech first or service first, you need to. At the very least, you absolutely have to embrace it and lead it, because you should be there with them, going through their daily huddles, going through the sales management, working with them, showing them what to do. Even having your. Your fingerprints should be on the sales presentation because you're the one that, like, I don't care how great your salesperson is, they're never gonna be as passionate about your world as you are. Right. It's right here for you. Yes. Right.

And it's got to start there, and it's got to be right there first. So, anyway. All right. Any other final thoughts on productivity? Using your time the best way that you can as an MSP business owner?

Sure thing. I'll tell you guys. Get a plan, set some goals. Goals without a plan are pretty much streams and execute like crazy. These are important things that you have to do, and it's really, really critical that you put it into motion. And if you need help with that, we are an accelerant. I was able to build all this on my own. I'm not going to debate that. I didn't have a ton of coaching, but it took me 10 to 15 years to build it all. We can get you on the ground running in days, days to weeks at the most. Right?

Yeah. There was a story shared yesterday during my first timers lunch from one of our members, John, and he said, yeah, I joined the program, and I happen to have this great opportunity. Opportunity. A sales opportunity. I was going to go have the meeting, and it was within the. It was the first week that he was inside our program, and he was like, okay, here I go. And he downloaded, like, all of Cindy's templates. He didn't even have time to, like, change it to his branding. All he did was, like, do what he could. He just went and that one meeting, had he ran it differently, would have turned out very differently, he said himself. And he doubled his MRR in one sales meeting to close that client.

I didn't even know that.

Yep. Is that John H. Yes, it is. Yeah.

Okay.

It's a great story.

So I'm in there.

So. Yes. I mean, I just was like, well, thank you for coming to the program.

Actually, we released some numbers during my State of Elite on Tuesday. The average MSP to start in our program is 107 days. And their average increase was what was a 50? Just under 50. $400 in new MRR in their first 107 days. That's the average across all of our members.

So that's pretty good. If everybody would report their numbers. If you're listening, we no kidding.

It'd probably be higher half the battle. Yeah. So7Figuremsp.com if you want to talk to us or just hit the stuff on our channel. Awesome.