Advice for the First Year MSP
Over on my YouTube channel, I posted the video below. It's long, but I think it's filled with vital information for new IT consultants.
The five things you need to know are summarized as: Three things to do, one thing you must not doing, and an important tip to guide you through the first year.
The big challenge is: Keep your business alive for the first year. Plan and execute. Be deliberate and intentional. Okay. Sounds good. HOW do you get started as an IT service provider without going out of business the first year?
Most businesses, in general, don't survive the first five years. Eighty percent of them go out of business. For many of them, it's not a big bang. They just wither away and use up all their resources, and then they're done.
Here are four options for you to think about and one huge tip that will help you with your mental approach as you go through the first year of your business.
1. Free Stuff (Really)
The first thing to dig into is the treasure trove of free stuff. More than almost any industry I've ever seen, we have an industry filled with massive free information. This information falls into several categories: blogs, podcasts, videos, free events, and more.
Every vendor has (or should have) a training program to help you learn about their products and services, sometimes in great detail. You can find out about a lot of stuff before How do you spend any money.
On the education front, I personally love blogs, and I know a lot of people think, "Oh, I don't want to do all that reading." Videos are awesome for quick access to content. Podcasts are a bit slower than videos, but also have lots of great content. Neither videos nor podcasts (both of which I produce) are truly random access.
A blog is much easier to index and therefore to search; to have lots of rich keywords; and you've got an entire title full of keywords. Plus, blog are a wonderful permanent URL for great information.
Our industry has many - many, many - free channels on YouTube, on podcasts, on web sites, and in blogs. They're all over the place.
And then there's a whole bunch of people, myself included, who have free products. You want a white paper on this or a checklist for that? It might just be available for the a low price of your email address.
You can always unsubscribe to any list you get added to. I recommend that you be a good citizen: If you're going to unsubscribe, just click Unsubscribe. Don't block them or report them as spam. You got something for free.
At least be nice about it if you're going to leave the list. But there are people who log on, download, unsubscribe, all in a matter of seconds. So don't worry that someone will notice that you unsubscribed.
Among the free things you'll find are great webinars. Many webinars are sponsored. Some people give free information in a webinar so that it's the lighter version of what you know to be the sales pitch at the end, and they're going to sell you into a bigger program.
But if they're good at what they do, they have true educational value so that you realize they are giving you something first before they ask for money. Those are the truly best webinars.
Some webinars are sponsored by vendors. And for the most part, you're going to get 45-50 minutes of education and five minutes of commercial. And that's normal.
Again, nothing is free. There's no free lunch. So the price of admission is, you've got to sit through a commercial. But very frequently, especially with the vendors that I deal with, the information is going to be about how to run your business most effectively, followed by, "... and this is brought to you by a company."
I don't tend to do webinars where we do a deep dive into cybersecurity sponsored by a cybersecurity person. I do stuff like that in interviews. In a webinar, what you're going to find is, "Here's true content sponsored by..." and that's it. No heavy sales.
Now, vendors will also have their own webinars where they basically say, "Let us show you how to use our tool to improve your business."
The first question, the most important question that I ask in a podcast interview is always, How do How do we make money if we give you some of ours? If I sign up for your service, if I buy your stuff, if I resell your products, how do I make money as an IT consultant?
The very best vendors, and the very best vendor webinars, are going to be the ones that give you actual education or training. (Not walking you through their menu options and the latest and greatest color scheme for their new Whiz-Bang feature with all the newest buzzwords.
Bottom line: You'll want to constantly be searching for good channels that give you lots of of free education. The cost is usually an email or some contact information.
A cautionary note about free trials. This is a personal irritation of mine.) Some vendors seem to think that free trials are actually free.
They want you to sign up, use the tool for 30 days, and then become a reseller. But that's not free to ME. If it's a really good product, I'm going to have to spend those 30 days installing it, configuring it, securing it, making sure that I don't mess anything up, making sure I don't punch holes in my own security, learning the tool, trying to figure out.
So, while I'm running a business, I have to take 30 days, and the clock is ticking to figure out whether or not I want to use your product. There has to be a better sales proposal.
Time and time again, I've been asked, "Can you do a 30-day this and a 30-day that?" For me, the answer is no - I'm not in the business of test-driving your stuff. That's my personal bias.
For the most part, unless you've already decided that you're probably going to buy something, I wouldn't waste my time going through the 30-day free trial just to decide that you're not going to do that. They need to figure out a better way to sell you on how you can make money selling or using their stuff. Then, when you click the big buy button, you are already sold on their product or service.
I have many websites out there. Most of my free stuff is either at https://mspwebinar.com or store.smallbizthoughts.com. I do have many things that you can download, free educational materials that you can take advantage of, in addition to blogs, podcasts, and videos.
In my weekly newsletter, I have a list of other people's stuff that you can get access to. I'm a big believer in sharing information and links, and hoping that other people will share my stuff as well.
2. Join Communities!
The second big treasure trove of information that you should access in your first year of business is communities. Some communities are paid and some are free. Either way, there are massive resources inside of communities.
I know every industry has people who help each other out, and I've seen it time and time again. Technology is unique. Some new technology might be invented right now, as you're reading this. It will grow to its peak in a few years, and it will reach an amazing threshold and great success. You've seen this a thousand times.
And after a few years, that new tech is old tech, and it will begin to fade out, to be replaced by the next big thing. Think about what that means. Somewhere between three and five years from now, someone reading this blog could be the the single most talented person in the world on that technology.
Somebody is going to be. The absolutely brand new technology is going to go through that regular cycle we all know about. Someone will be the greatest at that technology in the entire world, and somebody will be in the top 10%. You get to be one of those people.
You could go from entry-level to best-in-the-business in that technology. But the march of time continues. That technology will be replaced. There's a constant refresh of technology in our industry.
And as a result of this never-ending trend, we are constantly having to learn, we're constantly having to have an open mind. This gives successful technical people a mindset of growth, a mindset that fundamentally says, "I can learn new things. I can get good at things I'm not currently good at. I can use that to improve myself, my business, my skillset, my company."
And so that growth mindset, that fundamental belief that we can grow and expand and learn new things, means that we approach everything with a certain openness. We approach our business, our family, our clients, our employees, and each other with a belief that we are learning, everybody around us is learning.
Everybody around us hasn't seen this new technology before.
Everybody around us has gone through some hurdles to get here.
Everyone around us is going to go through more hurdles to get to the next level.
And we can help each other get there.
We all know we're going to learn faster if we get a bunch of people together and talk about something that we're all challenged with.
This industry has so many community opportunities. They're on Reddit; they're on Facebook; they're on LinkedIn. They're all over the place. Some of them are paid, some are free.
If you were only going to join a handful of communities, I would say everybody should be a member of the Small Biz Thoughts Technology Community. (https://smallbizthoughts.org) Yes, it costs money.
Everybody should be a member of the Tech Tribe. (https://thetechtribe.com/) Yes, it costs money.
Everybody should be a member of Ascii. (https://ascii.com) You can attend a whole lot of stuff for free, but it's not that expensive, and you should just join because what the heck, right? You're going to get so much out of it.
Everybody should join Comptia. (https://comptia.org) For the most part, Comptia has programs for people who pay. but you can do an awful lot of stuff without having to pay.
All of them have opportunities for you to meet people.
All of them have opportunities for you to get involved.
And when you decide that you're going to be a professional in this industry, then you need to join the National Society of IT Service Providers. (https://nsitsp.org/join) Your entire company can join for as little as $150 a year. That's the place where you can meet people who are interested in having this be their profession and to elevating everybody in the industry to the next level.
When you do join a group or community, participate! Jump into a conversation, ask a question, post up your challenges. Some groups are open to everybody and are not quite a free for all, but anybody can ask anything about anything and you're free to do what you want. Of course, there are community guidelines.
Other groups are very tightly controlled, and they're really a front for a sales proposition. That's fine, too. Just know what you're getting into. You may need to sit through a certain amount of self-indulgent behavior, and then you get a whole bunch of stuff for free.
There's only so close we can get to a free lunch.
We share information for lots and lots of reasons.
We share information so that we can grow, so we can help other people to grow, so that our team can grow, so that we have a community view about how we operate and how this industry should operate.
All of those are things that you can get in the community. And some people will say, "I don't want to share my secrets with the competition."
Well, first, you have no secrets. After you've been in an industry for a short time, you'll learn that. Second, nobody is your competition until you decide you're going to compete with them for whatever reason.
We live in an expanding universe, and especially in IT, the amount of industry knowledge in existence expands every year. The number of clients and prospects expands every year. The amount of money in this industry expands every year. It continues to grow and grow and grow.
In thirty years, I have never met anybody that I consider actual competition. It's simply never the case that, if they get a dollar, I don't get that dollar. That's an absurd way of looking at the world.
I'm sorry, if you believe otherwise, that's okay. You have the right to be wrong.
It is great to get together in a group, whether that's five people, ten people, or 100 people. It might be in person or online. And then you can share your knowledge, share your challenges, and see how much people are willing to help you grow and improve your business.
There are groups that specialize in certain technologies, certain operating systems, certain vendor programs, certain sales programs, certain marketing programs.
There's a community for everybody about everything.
There are many places to participate for free, but most of the paid programs also have real value. You should have some budget. You should consider what you can afford, and allocate a budget to communities.
Of course, don't pay more than you can afford. If you need to go to a monthly program, do that. If you need to start out for free in a program program that allows that, and get as much as you can for free before you join at a higher rate, you should do that.
If you're not sure what communities to join, start with the list I mentioned here. Then, ask some people, join those communities, join other communities, poke around, see what you can find.
About five years ago, I stumbled onto a community I'd never heard of. They were people who had just gotten into this industry. They'd somehow found each other on Facebook. They started their own little group.
They didn't even know that the broader, already-connected community existed. Once they were exposed to it, all of them jumped in with both feet because they had a taste of what it's like to share information and to be connected and to help each other out.
They all became more successful because they found the bigger, broader community, which is not just inside one city or one country or one continent. It is worldwide. I am not exaggerating when I say that.
3. Join the Small Biz Thoughts Technology Community - https://www.smallbizthoughts.org
Yes, this is a bit of a commercial. You can skip this if you scroll down to #4.
But I promise you it's worthwhile. I put this community together to make you as successful as possible.
I've written over twenty books, most of them focused 100% on helping IT consultants be as successful as possible. I've done hundreds of videos, thousands of white papers, tens of thousands (maybe even 100,000) pages of supplemental materials, videos, podcasts, audio programs, trainings.
Oh, and lots of classes.
I bundled it all together so that you could buy it in one big program. I don't know what you think that's worth. If you bought it all separately, it'd be in the range of $15,000 - $20,000. But we provide that information on a subscription. The entry-level community membership at the Small Biz Thoughts Technology Community is only $799 a year.
That gives you access to everything, all the materials, all the downloads, all the checklist. If you wanted a starter kit on what you need to run an IT consulting business, this is it.
At that level, you also get one of the five-week classes for no additional charge over at IT Service Provider University. (https://www.itspu.com) Those classes are focused 100 % on running your IT business.
The next jump up is the Community Plus membership, which includes all of that. PLUS, you get access to ALL of the classes over at IT Service Provider University. That's 25 classes, which sell for $399 each. That is literally a $10,000 value on top of all the material inside the community.
Both memberships also give you access to me, to the community meetings that we have, the breakouts that we have, the marketing programs that we have.
So there's lots of juicy good stuff there.
Here's my challenge to you.
- Join for one year.
- Jump in with both feet and get as much value out of it as you possibly can.
- Engage me as much as you can. I challenge you.
- Read all the books. I challenge you.
- Download all the podcasts.
- Download all of the audio programs.
- Download all the training materials.
- Download all the checklists and the calculators and see if you can put them all to use.
Do not overwhelm yourself.
But pick a few things. Pick the first thing that you need. Schedule a Zoom meeting with me, and I will help you figure out where those resources are.
Download the resources, put that in place, move your company to the next level. Then pick one more thing and go from there.
The bottom line is, I encourage you to try one year of the Small Biz Thoughts Technology Community. And if you do that, and you jump in, and you get as much value as possible, I'm betting you'll want to renew your membership. I'm betting that you want continued access.
There's also a team membership. I won't go into that in great detail now, but if you need your entire team to have access, and you have three or more people, you absolutely should look at the team membership.
4. (The Killer) DO NOT Buy Everything Right Away
Even if you came to this industry because you got a bunch of money (You won the lottery, or you retired and took a severance pay, or you inherited a bunch of money from your grandmother), Do Not sign up for everything all at once.
Just because you have a bunch of money doesn't mean you should spend it all at once. Here's the key to success.
When you start out, even if you have a bunch of money in the bank, you can only change one thing at a time. That might be to hire somebody. That might mean to double the size of your business. Then you can do two things at a time. Great.
That takes money and that takes time, and you have to figure out how to do it right.
I highly encourage you, do not take your big bankroll and sign up for all the great tools and programs you hear about. Many people take this path:
- I have to have a remote monitoring patch management system (RMM). I'm going to sign up for that. I'll commit to a year and enough license to get a price break.
- Oh, wait, I need a PSA. I'm going to buy into that at this level. And now I have another big expense, and I'm going to sign up for a year of that at this rate.
- Repeat for marketing programs, security tools, and widgets galore.
So far, you have zero clients! Or maybe you have one client. Or maybe you have a couple of clients. They're probably not on managed services, which means you have no recurring revenue. So, your expected revenue next month is ZERO dollars and zero cents until something breaks, and then you get to make some money.
Do not go buy everything you could buy. Don't sign up for all the programs you can find. Don't sign up for big, expensive training.
Plan to spend a few hundred dollars a month, period. Why? Because that's how much you can consume when you are just starting out in this business or any business.
Buy into that. Then go get yourself a client!
Do not commit yourself to more expenses than you have revenue. We all do that from time to time. And you'll do it more than once over the course of the next twenty years of your career. But don't start out by buying everything when you have no clients, no revenue, and no signed contracts.
In Managed Services in a Month (https://www.managedservicesinamonth.com), I have a formula. Do this, this, this, this, this. It will get you where you need to go. Make sure that you have a plan. Prioritize the steps.
I would say that RMM is the first thing you need to buy. Then, get a good financial package (e.g., Xero or Quickbooks). A PSA is the third thing you need to buy.
And you do need to join some vendor programs. If you're going to be reselling Microsoft, you need to go join that program. If you're going to be reselling other products and services, you may have to pay money for those programs.
You may need some training. If so, buy training.
Take one step at a time and try as hard as you can to stay below the level of your current revenue. Yes, it takes money to make money, and there will be times when you will need to spend money for good reasons to expand. Sometimes you're going to have to spend a little extra with the assumption you're going to get a client.
But don't go spend twenty or thirty or fifty thousand dollars with no clients.
The reason I'm making a big deal out of this is that I've seen it more than once. I've had people who came to me for coaching, and I practically begged them to stop doing this.
Go get a client.
Go get a client and come back to me.
As soon as you have a client, we'll talk about the next level. But if you don't have any clients, then this is all just a great intellectual exercise. Nothing wrong with intellectual exercises, but if you also have to feed your family, and you intend to grow your business, you have to go get clients.
Focus on the basics. Focus on the fundamentals. Go get a client. Then buy the tools that you need today.
Early on, it is absolutely okay to pay the highest price "per desktop" to support one client so that you do it right. You want them to give you a good positive thumbs-up so that you can go get another client, and then another, and another, and another.
It's literally been twenty years since the first time I told people, "I will not buy remote monitoring licenses a thousand at a time." Why? Because, on the day that I need them, I might need to deploy ten, or I might need to deploy twenty. That leaves me with over 900 unused licenses that I'm paying for and I don't have any clients to support.
It's okay to not get the best price on everything on day one. You're starting out. Act like you're starting out. Be frugal with your money so that you can get to the next level, and the next level, and the next level.
It takes time, it takes effort, it takes perseverance, it takes education, it takes taking advantage of those free things, joining the right communities, investing where you need to.
You have to juggle the balance of all of those things.
5. The Big Tip: Do One Thing At a Time!
I mentioned this a bit earlier. Do one thing at a time Get one client at a time.
If you don't have clients, or you only have a handful of clients, go through a short exercise. I call it the ideal client process. You can find that term on this blog. Or just search, "Palachuk ideal client" on the Google machine. If you're a member of the Small Biz Thoughts Technology Community, search for it under resources.
Once you've identified your ideal client, go find one person that looks like that, or gets close to looking like that. Make a deal with them, sign them up, get a contract. That contract will probably be small ($500-$1,000 per month). Great. Let's say you have $1,000 per month.
Now relax a little bit and go get another "ideal" client.
And here's a winning strategy I would encourage you to adopt your first year. This will make a huge difference your first year: Spend one hour a day - every day - doing something related to marketing.
There's only one exception to that rule. If you're going to spend time on a sales meeting or something related to sales, do that first. You are then absolved from your marketing hour.
If you spend two hours doing a sales meeting on Monday, that's two hours you don't have to spend on marketing. But the, on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, you go back to doing your marketing. One hour a day.
When you get to the point where you have enough clients, you can say, you can adjust this a little bit. With luck, though, it will be a habit you will continue.
Too many people go into business and they start out organizing the office, getting their stationery together (which nobody uses anymore), and building the perfect web site, and creating the perfect marketing material, and finding the right tools, and increasing their output of money for tools and programs.
And they don't have any clients. They don't have any money coming in. They don't have a revenue source. They certainly don't have recurring revenue, which which means they don't have a foundation on which they can build the rest of their business.
It is hard to be in business, and if you don't do it right, you will absolutely fail in the next five years.
That does not have to happen. There's so much free stuff. There's so many great communities. There's so many opportunities for you to engage. You should not fail.
But it means you have to put in the hard work. You have to reach back into that growth mindset that got you here in the first place.
And then you need to say, "Okay, how can I learn? How can I grow? What can I do to take my business to the next level?" Figure it out.
And if you know what? Here's the best news: If you can't figure it out, engage your community. Post something online, post something on a forum, post something inside of one of the communities that you've joined.
Ask people for help. Ask them what you should do. Ask them for ideas. You may not take their ideas exactly and precisely the way that they give them, but it's a great place to start.
Again, I remind you of all those books. You want managed services in a month? Read Managed Services in a Month. You need to figure out cloud services? Cloud Services in a Month.
You may not do everything in those books. You certainly may not do it the way I do it. But they will give you ideas. Books will put stuff into your brain and help you think about problems. You will see new ways to look at your business, how you might change things for your clients, or change your offering. You might even change your attitude, or your goals for the universe.
But remember, "One thing at a time." Don't overwhelm yourself. Don't buy three fire hoses and stick them in your mouth. Instead, go to the water fountain and sip what you can consume. Refresh yourself.
Go to the next level. One thing at a time. One change at a time. One client at a time. One sale at a time. One improvement at a time.
Rinse, repeat.
Go through this process with intention and you will be successful. And you have an entire community worldwide who will help you. All you have to do is engage with intention.
I know that's a massive amount of information, but please, if you have any comments or questions, put them down below. I would be very happy to engage with you, give you all the details from my perspective, and help you where I can.
I really do with you the best of luck in everything you do.
:-)
Resources mentioned:
My IT Blog
https://blog.smallbizthoughts.com
My YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/smallbizthoughts
My Store
https://store.smallbizthoughts.com
SMB Community Podcast
https://www.smbcommunitypodcast.com
MSP Webinars
https://www.mspwebinar.com
Newsletter
https://smallbizthoughts.com/newsletter
Small Biz Thoughts Technology Community
https://smallbizthoughts.org
The Tech Tribe
https://thetechtribe.com/
ASCII
https://ascii.com
CompTIA
https://comptia.org
NSITSP - National Society of IT Service Providers
https://nsitsp.org/join
No comments:
Post a Comment
Feedback Welcome
Please note, however, that spam will be deleted, as will abusive posts.
Disagreements welcome!