Building and Ecosystems with the ConnectWise PitchIT and Invent Programs

[00:00:00] Hey everyone, welcome to the latest installment of MSP Business School.

[00:00:05] As always, I'm Brian Doyle.

[00:00:07] I'm Tim McNeil.

[00:00:08] And I'm Rob Rogers.

[00:00:10] And then Rob Rogers, thanks for coming back to the show.

[00:00:14] You're welcome sir.

[00:00:15] We missed you there for an episode or two.

[00:00:17] Good to see you and you're all festive over there in your box for you guys listening.

[00:00:21] Rob's got himself an upside down elf and a Christmas tree while the rest of us are not acknowledging the holidays apparently.

[00:00:27] But you know. But before we get deep into that, I'd love to have each of them introduce themselves. So let's start with you, Andrea. Tell us a little bit about your background and what brought you into the crazy world of MSP? Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for having me on today. I super appreciate the time. So I actually made my way to the MSP space back in 2010 where I kicked my career off

[00:01:43] at ConnectWise. about two weeks apart from each other back in 2010. So no experience to the channel prior to. So I learned about the wonderful world of MSPs back in 2010. I started in the marketing department. I was the creative director for, at the time was Connect Live and LabTech and Quixel and Screen Connect and then moved into the ecosystem team

[00:03:00] in 2017 and I've been working alongside Andrea ever since.

[00:03:03] And I am the build a sales strategy. I had no idea what he did. I had to figure it out. And that was that was clear back in 2005. Borsch. And then I was there, I was what he did.

[00:05:25] So, started, went down that path and stayed in, stayed in the name of for a while and never, and always worked with the partners, always worked with MSPs, and still to this day.

[00:05:29] And it's actually, most of my friends are MSPs.

[00:05:32] So it worked out well.

[00:05:33] They somehow were all dysfunctionally functional together.

[00:05:36] So yeah, and that's all.

[00:05:39] That's really it.

[00:05:40] That's a great assessment right there.

[00:05:42] Right?

[00:05:43] It is.

[00:05:44] It's been a little time on the service providers side.

[00:05:46] It has to be a little a Shark Tank competition, right? It's a Shark Tank like competition because obviously we don't have the trademark for that. But it's really about finding the best of the innovators in the space. You know, the MSPs are constantly looking for to do their stack alignment. They're always looking for vendors that match up in pair well with companies like ConnectWise

[00:07:02] because, you know, I think ConnectWise is this is why we're Andrea Roykins in the play on our team. And so you have to do well with us and make it easy for these partners to do business with.

[00:08:20] Yeah.

[00:08:21] And so just kind of elaborate on that.

[00:08:23] I think really the spirit of P is that you kind of get the

[00:09:41] leadership help regardless of whether you get the money or not,

[00:09:44] which is, I think one of the things who were leading the sessions. So we grew significantly our ecosystem. So it was a fantastic program for us that was able to help us hand over fist through many different areas. So, and that's not even talking about the part where we went into the event program and where it helped us there as well.

[00:11:00] So I can speak as somebody who was in the group

[00:11:03] who didn't get the second level Connect, which is saying a lot. I mean, we took up more space than most of the other companies. Well, we took up so much space they couldn't even put you in the solution we go in. So, I mean, really. So it was really good to see that. And it was good because everybody was energetic

[00:12:21] and it was sort of a ruckus.

[00:12:23] And a lot of people wouldn't know why this existed.

[00:12:27] And we go to all of you guys throughout that entire conversation and the topics were so diverse. It was really fun to go, oh, so what's this week all about? Yeah, it's a neat program. Andrea kind of hit on it. A lot of these vendors that come into play do have MSP roots, right? And one of the things that's always been a pain point for MSPs is selling and marketing, right? And so maybe you learn that, then you come up with this great innovation

[00:13:41] and you have this solution, like, oh, I'm gonna be a vendor now.

[00:13:43] Well, guess what?

[00:13:44] There's a whole another subset of challenges

[00:13:46] like building a channel program and building, that I should invest my time into to understand, you know, the why behind it, right? So Rob, you know, you touched upon a little bit about the ecosystem, but maybe you can kick off with, what were some of the things that were gained by both sales maturity and slash OSR from a consulting standpoint through the pitch at process? Sure. So there's two things that I thought were very valuable

[00:15:02] about the program.

[00:15:03] So Tim and I have been in business on the OSR side

[00:15:05] for a long time, but we've never touched SaaS and just our understanding of what we had to do in 2024 based on the things we learned in 2023 was just, it leveled us up way faster than we would have ever been able to do on our other. Yeah, I love that. I agree with that. That's great. I think your first line was spot on. You have to come ready to do stuff.

[00:16:20] Yeah.

[00:16:21] I think what you see, again,

[00:16:23] we're putting you in an accelerated incubator program

[00:16:25] and we're giving you access to things

[00:16:27] that you don't have access to unless you give a choice business. Yeah, absolutely. I do think that, I mean, the gauge, the engagement this year, I think was strong across the board, right? I remember you saying that in previous years, maybe not as much I felt like everybody was really all in for for a book. Yeah, I miss it all the time. Well, it

[00:17:41] was pretty contagious after after a while, right? Everybody

[00:17:45] was just in it. Well, you're speaking some foreign language right now. I don't know what to say. No, you gotta give me a minute to process this. And I'm like, thank God. And she brings in Louie a couple weeks into it. But she's like, what do you wanna do? And I was like, I don't know. I don't even know what pitch it is. Like, I'm like, all right, let's figure this out.

[00:19:01] And, you know, and then it was, luckily, like, I,

[00:19:05] obviously I'm like a walk was a motion basically. But you know, I think it just goes to show what we're able to do. And we really worked well as a team and then being able to have the different connections internally at ConnectWise, but then also to Louise point about the community outreach between Louis, Sean and myself and the variety of different resources we've been able to

[00:20:22] work with throughout our careers here.

[00:20:24] People just came together and we're So I wanted to make sure we beat right into them as well. Yeah, I call it up. Yeah. And let's dive a little bit into that. Because that was going to be kind of segued right in, Louis, to what I wanted to talk about, about the PICHA program for vendors that are thinking about it. And while I talk about this, I'm going

[00:21:40] to put up the link again for any vendor

[00:21:42] that might be thinking about joining ConnectWise,

[00:21:45] PICHA for next year.

[00:21:46] So you can get some information.

[00:21:47] You'll see that at the weight of the finals. And then I know when we got into the final three, I think it gave us two or three more podcasts in channel program.

[00:23:00] We should give a shout out to the mike. She like looked at everybody and just smiled like yeah I just made my bitch. Oh yeah totally totally so you know I went out there and did my pitch and you know it did not quite cut the muster but it was you know it's why, like, my advice everybody always is like, go tell your mother what you do since he understands. Because they will, because they will do the, they're so honest to a fault. Because they're like, huh? What? Yeah, Sean, that is a great example. Cause for my first 20 years of my career, my mother

[00:25:40] thought I sold telephones.

[00:25:41] I've never sold a telephone in my life.

[00:25:43] That's a perfect example of I never sat down with her. Yeah, absolutely. So overall, Invent is our official integration collaboration program. And we really have two goals with Invent. One is really focused on the technical side of your business. And the other is on the marketing invisibility side of your business. So from a technical standpoint, we

[00:27:00] want to ensure that we're working with vendors the best

[00:27:02] we can to ensure that your integrations into our solutions

[00:27:07] are best in class for the program itself. So we want to ensure, as can, connect wise wants to ensure if we're certifying an integration, we're essentially putting our stamp of approval on it. So we're going to do whatever it takes

[00:28:23] to ensure from a security standpoint that we are covered. We're doing our de-jiligence. And they looked up at our little certification integration sign and like apparently I didn't think it was that as Involved as it was but I literally had MSPs coming up to me at it nation asking us if we were integrated because it's serious business And people take it seriously on the MSP side because you guys took it so seriously

[00:29:40] And yeah, the the you know the code review is serious

[00:29:44] All the stuff that you guys did were not just rubber stamp stuff going through the you know the paperwork

[00:30:45] potential vendors when you can just hit the easy button almost and look the drop down of who is certified and go at it. And that's an important piece.

[00:30:47] So, you know, we talked a little bit about technical review, which is huge and we talked a little bit about, you know, obviously the opportunities.

[00:30:54] I mean, first of all, any vendor that's not working on building integrations to connect wise, you're missing a huge automation opportunity for your own application.

[00:31:02] The data that you can bring in there is huge. There's so much of it that, you know, that stuff is important. The next part is what we talked about earlier, which is getting listed and getting people wary, right? And so marketplace is basically like our storefront where people can browse and discover all the integrations that the Connectwise ecosystem offers, right?

[00:32:20] And you can filter by business need or by category or by certification,

[00:32:24] which is kind of what we do today.

[00:32:26] You get to learn a lot about the products, The minute we became certified, Leeds actually started flowing in. People were saying, oh, I'm here from the ConnectWise marketplace. So that next step as Rob was alluding to earlier is kind of critical even if for you to maximize the marketplace and that's something that we found out at VCIO Toolbox very quickly in the last 45 days. It's amazing. That's a good point because on average,

[00:33:41] yeah, certified integrators have about a five to one

[00:33:45] page view advantage over those competitors

[00:33:47] who are not certified. your passion for it is great. It really is. I like watching you pitch actually. Aside from like you have bad dad jokes, you're great. Wow. Okay. That's just a problem though. You got a lot. You got to let that happen. I swear. I love how he wore layers today with his sweater and his, you know, colored shirt. Like you see him. He's like a math teacher all of a sudden.

[00:35:02] He's like a sports lever, right? Exactly. And I'm not exactly what I'm going to tell you this. The difference between year one and year two is staggering. Simboda, who, you know, we have like four returns. They were all so much better and so much tighter in their presentation and their message, their delivery, their presence.

[00:36:21] It's pretty crazy how even what another year would do.

[00:36:24] You know, you're always the same stuff, it's not.

[00:36:26] It's totally different. is that entity because we have people that sell off and start new businesses, right? Yeah. And so if they end up coming into a new business, they can come back in. Yeah. Should start up. So beautiful. All right. So, uh, the last thing I'll do is put up, um, you know, how the content you are. Did you say you are applying? I don't know if I really got the official answer really. Yeah.

[00:37:40] 100%.

[00:37:41] Yeah. I wouldn't let them.

[00:37:42] I see.

[00:37:44] I would.

[00:37:44] I would write a, I know what I did like a choice.

[00:37:47] So we're just going to say yes.

[00:38:42] that you guys were in it, you know, congratulations for second place to you, Ryan, Ryan, Jim, I do hope to see you next year.

[00:38:46] And shout out to Marvin B for giving out a set of steak knives for prize number three.

[00:38:50] I said we do get to get a shout out, because, you know, that was, that was fantastic.

[00:38:55] But, you know, it's funny when we did the first year on the orientation,

[00:38:59] I remember telling the entrance at the time, like, you know, think of your guys

[00:39:03] as yourselves as like the class of 2022, right?

[00:39:05] Because you're kind of going through this thing together.

[00:40:04] I'll be the third echo here and just say thank you so much for having us on. Super appreciate the opportunity to kind of share with the group of our passion behind

[00:40:08] this program and what we do here at ConnectWise.

[00:40:11] I would say it's extremely fulfilling and gratifying to see the resonating impacts that

[00:40:18] the program and invent has had on you guys personally and as you go into running your

[00:40:22] businesses and then therefore into all of your relationships with your prospective MSP. This episode will be up on MSV Business School.com and anywhere that you get your podcast to include YouTube So please head on over there like subscribe to really appreciate it Guys, we really appreciate it today This was a it was long episode But content filled and I really hope that anybody that's still listening to this last 41 minutes If you're considering pitch it I can tell you that somebody who just went through it

[00:41:45] Apply try and if you do get in because it's not guaranteed