Solving MSPs Biggest Problem

What's the biggest problem that any business faces when looking to grow? The only answer I can think of is Getting Customers and Keeping Customers. Without a constant stream of new customers and the ability to retain existing customers, your business is unlikely to last much longer. Well, today I'm here to talk about what you can do to make sure you get new customers and how to keep them. 

INTRO

If you're new here then hi my name is Pete, and I help MSPs and IT Business Owners to improve their businesses and live a happier, less stressful life, and today is no exception. 

I'm going to share with you three things you can do to get new customers and keep existing ones, and, if you stick around to the end, I'm going to share a little secret with you...

Sharing is caring so if you have any thoughts or suggestions about customer retention, please leave a comment for me, I would love to hear what you have to say! Now, let's get started. 

1. MARKETING

You've probably never considered yourself as the perfect form of marketing, but the truth is, you really can't get much better than you. Marketing is one of the most powerful things you can do as a business, it can have an influence on both existing and prospective customers. 

So how are you the best form of marketing? By showcasing what you can do to make your customers' lives better. Educating people on how to use their technology better, how to budget and plan for the coming changes in all of the latest cloud technology or in whatever field of expertise you specialise in. Educating new and potential clients tells them that you know what you're talking about.

Educating your customers will attract new clients who are thankful for all of the useful information you've given them - for free! I signed up for a service this year, based purely on the educational content they were putting out. I found it really useful. 

However, after signing up as a client, their content stopped, which means now I'm getting no 'extra help' which is what attracted me to them in the first place. This makes me feel like I'm receiving an average service that doesn't really differentiate them from anybody else.

When using customer education as part of your marketing, whether that's via YouTube videos, blog posts, or regular newsletters, make sure your existing customers get the same level of education as the ones you are trying to get. I send out free newsletters and always try to use them to educate whether you're an existing client or not. Get your copy to see what I'm talking about:

💌 Sign up for the weekly newsletter: http://news.petematheson.co.uk/

2. CUSTOMER FEEDBACK

I've made a few videos around customer feedback because I just can't explain enough how important this is. You can view one of the videos by clicking the link below. 

It sounds really simple, but there's an art to customer feedback. Not only do you need to know how to get it, but you also need to know what to do with it. First of all, make sure you listen to your customers, which means to the good feedback and the bad. 

There is a question I was once asked that has stuck with me ever since. What would the best IT Company in the world do?

When you think about it like that, it really sets the chinning bar for how you respond to feedback and in every area of your business. If you are using customer satisfaction tools like Customer Thermometer, to track the happiness of your clients. Great.

But what are you doing to encourage constructive feedback? Are you proactively reaching out and engaging with clients to ask for things you could improve on? 

Some of my best moments are when someone tells me about something that could be improved - because then I take that thought, and I apply the 'What would the best in the world do' to it. Approaching feedback that suggests improvement with that question in mind, can have a dramatic impact on your business and your staff.

It is important that you use any improvements you make to your business on the back of negative feedback or an improvement suggestion, as a marketing tool to communicate to your customers that you are listening, continually developing, engaging, and improving what you offer. 

It's like a Tesla that gets better over time with new features. You should be reinventing yourself in any area of business where you can see room for improvement. The bigger the business, the harder it is for you to do, which means smaller MSPs have a better opportunity to adapt very quickly to 'breaking' changes. 

I  have lost count of the number of times that I have walked in on a Monday morning meeting only to say "Right everybody, this thing that we were doing, we're not doing that anymore. We'll do this instead!"

I'm sure it drove them all nuts - but it came from the right place. It came from a willingness and desire to improve on something, day in, day out, and so we constantly improved and reinvented ourselves.

No, we didn't always get it right, and we very openly spoke about those moments to share our failures just as much as our wins. But by doing so it showed everybody watching that we cared.

3. STAFF FEEDBACK

Giving your customers the opportunity to pass on feedback is great, but it's equally important to extend this opportunity to your staff too. We should all know by now that having happy staff is the work equivalent of a happy wife, happy life! If your staff are happy, then that happiness will be passed through in their work and in every interaction they have with clients and prospects alike.

Check-in with your staff, regularly. If your team is too big for you to do that with each individual then delegate this down to your management teams to take care of. I'm talking about ditching the annual appraisals, and instead, having more regular informal catch-ups. Find out what's going on in their lives and do what you can to improve on the personal lives of your staff, helping them to reach their goals, interests, activities, or destinations.

Now there are of course some that you just can't please. The toxic employees that are right now, in your business and spreading negativity. Perhaps they may even be your most technically skilled member of staff!

But if they're toxic, then they need to go ASAP. It's something I wish I'd have done sooner in my own business. Avoiding taking on toxic staff, to begin with, is a good place to start, although not always easy. It is important to know what you want to look for in people. 

I read a book called the Fred Factor, which is a short story about a postman. A simple job you may think. But once you realise how a simple postman turned himself into so much more than that - THAT is what we should all have in our businesses. I would recommend having every member of staff read this book when they join up and use those qualities through your recruitment process to make sure you are hiring the right people too. 

MY SECRET...

You might be thinking that there aren't enough hours in the day to deal with things like marketing, customer and staff feedback. If only we didn't have to sleep, imagine what we could accomplish! So how do you make sure that these areas of business aren't left until the last minute?

The secret is just 90 minutes. Find 90 minutes, 5 days per week, where you can set aside time to focus on Getting and Keeping Customers.

If you open at 9 am, then come in at 7.30 am instead, and now you have 90 clear minutes with no customer distractions. If you function better in the evening, then a session from 9 until 10.30 pm is still just fine!

But make sure you close your email, switch your phone to airplane mode, shut down social media, switch off all distractions - and you use that time to focus on your business. 

Because if you aren't making an effort on the MOST important thing in your business, which is finding new customers, or keeping existing customers, you won't be having a business much longer.

My name is Pete Matheson, please head over and subscribe to my YouTube channel if you found any of this useful. In the meantime, take a look at these two videos below.

Thanks!

🎥 5 Ways to bugger up MSP Lead Generation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nv79c... 

🎥 MSP 101 Marketing Pillar Series: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list...