Greg Jones: How Vendor Policy Shifts and AI Automation Are Changing MSP Growth Strategy

[00:00:00] Dave Sobel here, reporting from ChannelCon in San Diego. And I'm sitting down today with Greg Jones, Senior Vice President of MSP Success for EMEA and North America at Kaseya. Now, quick disclosure before we start, Kaseya Brands have sponsored the show in the past, are not currently a sponsor, and Greg doesn't know any of the questions I'm about to ask him. Greg, welcome to the show. Greg Jones, Thank you, Dave. Thank you for having me.

[00:00:22] Greg Jones, Now let's start with the book. You've spent the last four years talking to MSP owners about what they've learned, and you put a hundred of them into a book. What did you hear that really surprised you? Greg Jones, I think for me, it was, you know, this project was not about me. It was more about the community. I started something many years ago, which was just post on a Wednesday on LinkedIn. And it was a topic I'd heard in a room that I thought, that's great. I want to get it out.

[00:00:51] I put it into video format, and it went down really well. Gets thousands of views each week. And then quite a few people said to me, hey, you should categorize the best ones into a collection, put it into a book. So I've done it. It all goes to charity. It goes to Alderhead Children's Charity, which is the biggest children's charity in Europe. I sit on their board. And it's just ultimately, it's vendor agnostic. And it's to help MSPs or IT service providers to grow and scale, really.

[00:01:19] A lot of the standard teams, as you'll imagine, you know, sales, marketing, growth, business operational maturity. And, but yeah, it went down really well and become a bestseller in North America and America. So yeah. Congratulations. So let's make it concrete. Let's give somebody something that they can implement right away. I know there's got to be a story in there that immediately comes to mind and go, this is a good one. Let me share a little bit of it. Tell me a lot of stories.

[00:01:44] So one of them I want to focus in and probably will be around sales. You know, a lot of people track sales within their MSP business, but they track it via a monetary number, which is super important. But when we're tracking against the number, arguably, sometimes it's too late if that number doesn't happen in that month or that quarter.

[00:02:05] So what I always say to MSPs is whether you have a whole sales team or whether you're just an individual in sales, reverse engineer that number down into the actions that you actually have to do this week, this month, this quarter to get to that number. Because in your systems, you'll know your average deal size. So you can reverse engineer it.

[00:02:29] That way, if you're doing the actions each week, law of probability will say, if I'm doing the actions, I'm much closer to that number. So for me, implementing sales playbooks or cut books is a really good way to just make sure we're moving closer to the goal. I would say that's one in there, one of many hundreds. There's 150 tips in the book, 50 from people around the channel, from big names, you know, I don't know, Rob Ray's in there, Gary Peaker, you name it.

[00:02:59] And then there's 50 at the back from me. So, yeah. Well, let's talk to somebody with Kaseya data, because I want to get your interpretation on a couple of things. One of the things that I was digging into is the Kaseya report says clients are spending $25,000 a year or more, and they went from three quarters of the market to four in 10 in a single year. So it's a shrinking size and I would say diversification in the smaller side. Do you have a sense of what's happening in the market with MSPs? Why the rise of smaller ones, according to this data?

[00:03:27] So there's an awful lot of new MSPs that we're seeing coming into the market. A lot of those are starting to be very bespoke or niche MSPs. So we're just seeing the trends out there from the market data, you know, we're not leading that charge. We're just categorizing it.

[00:03:45] And then if we look at the other end of the spectrum, we're seeing a lot of MSPs being acquired by some of the bigger players and amalgamated into, you know, MSP hyperscalers or, you know, so it's a very interesting market at the moment. Now, the other one we're looking at Kaseya's own state of the MSP report, right? So the report says 48% of MSPs name AI as their client's top need, right? And 13% can charge for it.

[00:04:14] So there's a gap there. There's a 35-point gap in there. Like, who's capturing that value right now? The MSP, the vendor, selling AI? What's happening in that gap? Yeah, so Dave, that's a great point. And there's a lot that MSPs could be doing on that. But it's challenging, right? Because none of us ultimately know what the holy grail looks like or the finish line when we talk around AI. We're starting to pivot, adapt, and evolve our businesses. But none of us truly know what this utopia looks like.

[00:04:44] I think what we're seeing around that percentage gap at the moment is MSPs not knowing how to commoditize from that, being able to really sell a tangible benefit. And a lot of those conversations go back to helping their customers, the SMB, SME, on the outcomes of technology. Because no one really wants to buy AI. They want the outcomes of AI. So the business afters, if you like.

[00:05:10] So we're seeing a lot of MSPs move to AI as a service. Or as I prefer to talk about it, it's more of a business process as a service. Because AI is really helping streamline business processes. And a lot of MSPs out there do an incredible job. Ultimately, they're just helping their customers, ID, SMB, SME market, to be better businesses.

[00:05:37] And a lot of that conversation goes back to flawed business processes. So we have a long way to go as an industry to, one, capitalize on it. But also as well to get that clear path to help SMBs, SMEs. You know the LogMeIn name. But when did you last look at what it does for MSPs today?

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[00:06:30] Now I want to get your take on something because there's a lot of discussion around the use of AI, cassette intelligence, to be able to get better data and do more. And if you look at this, the ultimate goal there would be to automate more and more away. And in theory, that drives down ticket volume. You actually move from end customers even logging anything and making those tickets disappear. So I really want to get a little bit of a sink. Do you see MSPs revenues going up because of those changes and outcomes flat, coming down?

[00:07:00] Like where are you and the Kaseya team thinking about the way of AI is impacting MSP revenue? Yeah, so that's a great question. And it's very much, we're helping MSPs. Ultimately, we are here to support MSPs. Not only, I'm not talking from a just products and services standpoint of view. A big focus of what we're doing at Kaseya is truly empowering MSPs around the success of their businesses. Helping them adapt, pivot, and evolve within their businesses.

[00:07:28] So if you look at my department, that's nearly, what, 200 individuals that do not carry a sales number, a quota, a target. Don't get me wrong, they have KPIs, but they're on the KPIs of the success of our partners growing and scaling. So one of the programs I look after in EMEA is called our True Peer. It's a peer group of MSPs. And a lot of the work that we're doing in there is helping MSPs identify new markets to be able to pivot and move into.

[00:07:59] Because you're right, I don't know what it's going to end like in the future, but I think the market is changing fast. I think we'll be looking at a very different business landscape in the next five to 10 years. So it's about, ultimately for us, making sure MSPs are successful. Because I'll be really honest, Dave, without MSPs, we are nothing. We are only the size and scale we are today because of the MSP community.

[00:08:25] Without them, we're just a company with some great products. So for us, that's integral that we help MSPs understand where we're at today and what it might look like in the future. You know, will we get it all right? Absolutely not. But four aren't, it's four warns. And, you know, that's about the journey. Now, you brought up your MSP success team and the 200 people. That was literally my next question there. So you've said they're not measured in sales performance. Yes.

[00:08:54] So tell me, what are they measured on? How do you measure partner success? So part of it, well, it's multifactored really. Because some of the programs that I own for the business, I own Kaseya's global partner program globally for all of our partners. I own Kaseya's MDF pot, which is a huge pot of money managing in the millions to help MSPs grow and scale. I own the True Peer community in Amina. I look after that for Dan Tomacheski and Gary Peker.

[00:09:24] And we reverse engineer the success of our partner numbers based on the individuals in the team. So what does that mean? So it might be around a return for MSPs if they engage in our MDF program, making sure that my team have helped them execute a successful event. Does it make sense? Is it the right agenda? What are they trying to achieve? It's not about Kaseya. It's not, I don't even care if a partner has, say, a logo.

[00:09:51] In fact, I would prefer if they didn't, because it's not about a product. It's about helping that MSP grow and scale. And we understand that ultimately, if an MSP grows and scales, there's a direct correlation with our success in the market, growing and scaling. So all of the KPIs are on the success of our partners. So it might be around events. How many events have we been to in the channel? How many internal events? How many touch points did we have on MSPs?

[00:10:20] You know, we have a lot of MSP partners. You know, that's really what it's about. It's not a sales number or a target or anything like that. Yeah. The team are, I'll caveat, the team are, of course, evangelists of the products overall, but they are not about selling products or services. Gotcha. Now, I want to get a little sense. You sit on GTIA's executive council and you run partner success at one of the biggest vendors in the space.

[00:10:46] How do you balance that when the two may not be entirely in alignment? It's really easy. So I come from the MSP world. So I sit on, I'm in Kaseya. But I will tell you, I challenge Kaseya as any MSP would. You know, I look at things from the MSP side, the sense, and to be fair, you know, I'm sure you'll get onto it. But our new CEO, Rania, is challenging everything we're doing internally is how is this adding value to MSPs?

[00:11:15] Not about looking at it from a Kaseya lens. And when I come to GTIA, I am totally vendor agnostic. The same as I am when I'm in our true peer community, which is our peer group for MSPs. Quite frankly, I don't care what products and services an MSP has in their stack. My role and my team's role is about helping that MSP grow and scale irrelevant to their stack. If we're in it, great. We'll get that organic growth as well. So that's really how I balance myself. Oh, gotcha.

[00:11:45] Now, I want to ask a couple of some of the commercial terms changes that have been happening in the market. And I want to give you the wins before I do any of that. So like in particular, Kaseya's made some big changes, right? High watermark pricing on SaaS protection is now all gone. Mandatory contracts dropped. You know, big changes to the way that you're positioned in the market. Those are real changes. And there were some of the loudest complaints in the industry for three years. And you guys made changes around that. What partners are then also telling us is that, you know,

[00:12:11] there's been some changes in terms of auto renews around data BCDRs is what they're telling us. And what I want to understand is, is like, is the idea to change the contract terms or to make new options available? And give me a little bit of a sense of what's going on, because the partners are specifically coming back and telling us that they've been having changes made to contractors. Yeah. Yeah. So for us, it's about being more transparent, more clear with MSPs.

[00:12:41] You know, all of our contracting is black and white. It's upfront with MSPs. It's not about auto renewing things behind people's back. They get the notifications, but also as well, you'll see a lot of things that we've introduced the market to, to really help MSPs. So for instance, we've got catastrophic loss prevention that we've brought in,

[00:13:06] meaning if an MSP loses 20% of their revenue from a client, we will forego that contract. Let's say you lock into a contract and you might want to lock in for three years. You may, you might only want one year and it's up to you. The commercial terms will always be more advantage on a longer term contract because that's, it's just how business is done in a commercial model. However, we understand if you make a three year commitment towards today and you no longer need

[00:13:34] it in a year or even in six months, it is totally unfair to just keep charging you for something either you don't need, you don't want, or you don't wish, or maybe the market has disappeared or gone or evolved. So what we've introduced now is Flexmen. So you can take that money and spend it anywhere at all. It doesn't even have to be on a product. So let's say we're not about forcing you into any products and services.

[00:14:00] There are loads of great vendors out there because here is one of those. We all have great technology or tools, otherwise we wouldn't exist. We will allow you even to flex spend that into other services that you could leverage. It might be our sales and marketing platform. It might be our true peer community that is not about a product. That is solely about helping MSPs win, scale, dominate and pivot into new markets. So there's lots of changes going on at Kaseya.

[00:14:30] But a lot of the things that we're doing and bringing in is to help the MSP community. We don't want to go against MSPs because I said earlier, MSPs are the reason we are where we are today and genuinely, we will never forget that. If you look today under Rania, we have more in our MDF budget. We have more in our enablement team. We are putting more than ever into R&D research and development, catching up with some tech debt.

[00:14:58] You know, we've had some tech debt out there across our 42 different solutions, you know. So there's a lot of good things happening, you know. Will we get everything right? Absolutely not. We never will, you know. But we are there to support the MSP community. And we are working hard and tirelessly to empower MSPs.

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[00:15:51] Modern threats covered. Resilience built in. One pane of glass. Built on Hornet security. Now part of Proofpoint. Learn more at Proofpoint-Total-Protection.com. A discussion is made internally about the way a contract terms may be done. Do you and your team have a vote? Are you later in the process? Tell us a little bit about how that process works when a commercial set of terms is being discussed internal.

[00:16:19] So I'll be really honest. I'm not involved in those conversations. However, what I will say is some of the engagements of myself and my team will go into some of that decision-making process. And what I mean by that is when I say I'm not directly involved, some of the data that we will bring into the organization will be factored into any decision within Kaseya.

[00:16:43] So we do a lot of what are called EBCs, executive briefings, where we meet with MSPs on a one-to-one to do really a pulse check or a heartbeat for the relationship. Is it good? Is it bad? Is it indifference? What's working well for you? What's challenging with Kaseya? You know, what's challenging within the market? Where are you winning? Where are you losing? How can we help you more?

[00:17:07] And that all goes back in and feeds back up so that we look at all that data before we make decisions. But I will be really honest with you. I am away from products and services. When I said products and services, me and my team are evangelists of the overall products and services. But I have nothing to do with sales. I couldn't tell you the price of any of our tools, technology or services. Quite frankly, I'm not interested because that's not my role.

[00:17:35] My role is solely about empowering MSPs. Rebra brought me over back in the day from the MSP side of the fence into Datto to empower MSPs. And that has not changed under Kaseya, under Fred, under Rania. And I don't carry a sales number, a quota at the target. And I never, ever was. So last question. I want to ask a little bit more about the book. Every penny of profit goes to Alder Hager. Yeah.

[00:18:05] Besides your involvement, why that charity? I'm sure there's a bit of a personal story of why you're involved so deeply in that charity. Do you know, Dave, that's a great question. And one of the things that's probably going to surprise you is everyone thinks there's going to be this emotional story. I don't have kids myself. However, I went to a tech event at a children's hospital, which just sounds bizarre. They have a room that's called Batcave, the Innovations Cave.

[00:18:34] And it demonstrates technology being used in healthcare. And I went many years ago, probably, I don't know, maybe 12 years ago now, to see a presentation from one of the leading surgeons. And it blew me away, his presentation. The impact that technology could have on child healthcare and a wider community. And I got to see around this Batcave. And for instance, it was mind-blowing.

[00:19:04] We followed the journey of a little girl called Samantha. And we followed her health issues. But we followed it through technology. So what do I mean by that? Well, they took her through all of the scans in a nice sensory environment. But then we 3D printed the heart so that the surgeon could at least look at the issue. Then we augmented it. It went to virtual reality. They could walk down the aorta and look, my mind was blown.

[00:19:33] Because I've always been used to helping SMEs, SMEs around moving a business number. This was about the impact of technology, moving a life and helping. And from that day, I said, I'm getting involved with this charity. I became one of their business ambassadors. I still am today. And that ultimately is about introducing businesses to the charity to work with them, ultimately driving revenue into them to help support.

[00:20:03] So at the moment, we're saving up for an incredible new x-ray machine that is not scary. Like for us, an x-ray is not scary. For a child, it's a very different experience. So this is about improving outcomes, really. And that, for me, was a huge passion. I said, I took all of this knowledge from our community. Because it's not my knowledge. It's not Greg Jones' knowledge. It's from thousands of MSPs across the globe.

[00:20:31] I interview MSPs, go to events. It was how can we do something genuinely? One, I always realized our MSP community was powerful. Always. Always. I remember back in the day, Rob Ray, saying to me, you will have no idea how powerful this community is. And I always respected that. But I never knew until the day that book launched to become a bestseller. On day one, it wasn't about me. I've never wrote a book. I'm not a wordsmith.

[00:21:01] But it was the power of the community in Amir and North America to make that a bestseller and give tens of thousands of pounds to a charity to move the life of an individual. If people want to get the book, where can they do that? So if they head over to Amazon, they search my name or just the word or MSP, the acronym, it will come up number one. And yeah, every penny of it goes the whole day. Children's charity. Yeah, I love the support of the community. So yeah. Awesome. Greg, thanks so much for joining me there.

[00:21:31] It's been an absolute pleasure. Thanks for having me on. The hardest part of running an MSP? Doing it alone. The Small Biz Thoughts community has been the room where independent operators compare notes for nearly 20 years. Real peers, real numbers, real answers from people running businesses just like yours. Pull up a chair at smallbizthoughts.org. Interested in advertising? Head to mspradio.com slash engage.

[00:22:00] The Business of Tech is written and produced by me, Dave Sobel, under ethics guidelines posted at businessof.tech. Thanks for listening. I'll see you on the next episode. Produced by Picture This Video. Part of the MSP Radio Network. The Business of Tech and Single largest music and the American College swag. The Business of Tech and Ning The Business of Tech, Lindsay The Business of Tech and Nature By the way, Dave Sobel, under ethics and attorney,