Boston hasn’t been good to me—flight wise that is.
There are a ton of great MSPs in the Boston area we provide marketing services for. However, from a “get out of Logan Airport” perspective, Boston isn’t my town.
Flight delays due to runway construction, crappy weather, and an acute illness took its toll on me during and after this event. Yet, this never stopped my desire to learn, and my commitment to helping managed IT services companies achieve stratospheric success.
“Stratospheric Success” is the term I came up with when I took over Ulistic from David and Helen West in September 2010. Not initially, however. I think I decided on it a few years later when hanging with Bob Burg at the Dunkin' donuts in Jupiter, Florida.
Burlington, MASS Was the Venue for Ulistic’s High-Performance Club Meeting on June 16 & 17.
Canadian and U.S.-based MSPs joined me in the Boston area for two great days of work on our businesses, instead of in our business. The Ulistic High-Performance Club brings together MSPs from Vancouver and Toronto in Canada, to Santa Cruz, San Francisco, Colorado Springs, Toledo, Dallas, Buffalo, Boston, Lakeland (Tampa), Atlanta, Cedar City (Utah), Las Vegas and St. Louis in the U.S.
I couldn’t ask for a better group of smart MSP business owners.
A big “Thanks!” to Wayne Gosselin, from Centerpoint IT, and Microsoft for making this happen.
I’m humbled by the growth and the expansion of this group, and how our members are starting to gel as a group of business professionals. These guys are all after one common goal, to hit “Stratospheric Success” for their MSP business.
What did I learn from our meeting at the Microsoft Tech Center in Burlington, MASS? Lots!
Everyone has the same challenges, but they all attack it differently. They all want their marketing efforts to net new business opportunities. It doesn’t matter if these new business opportunities come from new customers or from existing customers. They all want marketing to drive new opportunities and help them grow a stratospherically successful managed services business.
This is what I’m committed to as well.
Actually, our High-Performance Club members reminded me what to focus on when serving our clients. Not only were these great people here to help each other, they were here to help me grow a successful MSP marketing consulting business—One that helps MSPs (not all MSPs) get their fair share of net, new business opportunities.
What did we learn during our managed services marketing peer group in Burlington?
- There’s no one thing when it comes to marketing. Good marketing involves a series of events and strategies. When executed according to a plan, it can achieve amazing results. Many of our HPC members are now on pace for K in net new MRR from their MSP marketing efforts. This is significant according to many industry experts.
- The landscape is changing right before our eyes. We had a great discussion on “Cyber Security.” Why not? It’s “the new buzzword” after all. Our discussions were about how to best approach cyber security and offer a complete solution. Companies like KnowBe4 and Breach Secure Now offer training that MSPs can use to increase awareness for their clients.
- There’s a world of opportunity out there. Atlanta IT support expert Wayne Gosselin from Centerpoint IT gave us a high-level demo of what they’re doing to drive awareness about Microsoft technologies through their Customer Immersion Experience events each month in Atlanta. These CIE events are an awesome way to introduce Microsoft’s new technologies to business professionals, and show them how they can use them in their business every day.
There were many more things that we learned, but to be honest, I haven’t quite absorbed it all. It will take time to sink into my brain!
All I can tell you is this (and it really makes sense after last week): Ulistic is not the MSP marketing company for those who want a “set it and forget it” type of program. This type of marketing mindset is poisonous and has never worked for us. In order for me to truly succeed, I need a handful of strategic partners like those in my High-Performance Club who are committed for the long term.
We weed out HPC members who aren’t as committed as we are. We just welcomed two new members and “kicked another to the curb.” Why? Because it took him 18 months to decide on a logo before we even got started his website development. This is not the definition of a commitment to marketing excellence.
The above video is a great example of what the members of the Ulistic High-Performance Club really think. Unfortunately, I was a tad bit “under the weather” and was unable to join them after all the flight delays from my “Logan curse.” Are you committed to marketing your MSP? If so, make some popcorn, watch, listen and learn. Enjoy!
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