The Evolution of Powered Services Pro

[00:00:01] Welcome to the Powered Services Podcast, your go-to source for all things MSP. Each episode, we're diving deep into the world of MSPs, exploring cutting-edge solutions, strategies, and insights that empower you to supercharge your services. Join us as we connect with industry experts, thought leaders, and tech visionaries who are reshaping the managed services landscape.

[00:00:31] Plug in, power up, and prepare to elevate your MSP game to the next level. Now, here's your host, Dan Tomaszewski. Greetings, everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Powered Services Podcast. Super excited to have you all with us. Today, we're going to change gears a little bit. We're going to talk about some cool things happening in the Powered Services world.

[00:01:01] There's a lot going on, and I feel like it is super important to kind of go through what we're seeing, what we're doing to the program, how we're helping enabling you, the MSP, and really dive into the future of what's going to come and how we can help you navigate 2025. So, you know, in doing this, I get to bring on a great co-host today, Mr. Andrew Moon. Mr. Andrew Moon, how are you doing today?

[00:01:32] Dan, I am doing awesome. Is this my first time being on the podcast with you? I think it is. Is it? No way. I think it is. No way. All these years of your podcasts and things, like this is the first time? I think so. Maybe the second. I feel like it's the first. It was so memorable, you can't remember. Exactly. But I have a really cool announcement for the Powered Services community, and I'm super excited about this.

[00:02:01] I've known Andrew for a long time. We work super well together in terms of just our brain powers of how we think of marketing, how we think of execution of things, audio, video, all the cool things. And, Andrew, you are officially on the team as our director of education and are leading the team that's going to help enable MSPs in 2025 and on. That's going to get in the trenches, right?

[00:02:26] And help them understand how to implement the marketing, how to take things to the next level. And I'm super pumped. All the things you and I have been talking about now that you're on board as an official employee. Yeah, same, Dan. I've been in this space for 20 years, and what you built with Powered Services, the conversation you and I started to have last June, like I was super excited about the direction things are going.

[00:02:55] And here we are 20 years later, and we still have that same problem MSPs have, sales and marketing. So I think we finally have the solution to it in a total package today. Yeah, I mean, look, every survey you go on, I see the industry reports. I see them from the peer meetings that I get a chance to oversee is when we ask what are the top priorities for 2025, it is almost unanimous. It's sales and marketing.

[00:03:24] Everybody needs sales. They want to see, you know, growth in their company. They need marketing to be able to generate sales. And look, it's the top thing every time. So, you know, in sales and marketing, it's not like a product you just buy and it's just rinse and repeat, right? Like there's a lot. You need to understand where the industry is going. You need to understand the trends. You need to understand how to overcome objections. And objections change quarter over quarter, month to month, right?

[00:03:52] And so there's so much that goes into it that, you know, we put a ton of time into the whole, you know, growing the business. And we help do that in powered services. We have campaigns that come out every month. We have some marketing specialists in giving people one-to-one coaching we're going to talk about. But let's get into kind of like the first phase, I'm going to say, which is the framework.

[00:04:20] You know, we're launching a marketing framework that's going to be completely revamped. We're taking it to where the world is today as we speak. And then obviously it will be iterated as the world changes and things goes on in marketing. But we're going to launch this, what, April timeframe? And can you kind of take us through what that looks like? That's our goal. That's our first big project for myself and our marketing specialist team is to really put a roadmap in place.

[00:04:49] Because I think that's the part that's been missing is we have, you know, people that can do marketing. We have different groups you can belong to. But nobody's really giving you that start-to-finish solution of how to execute, how to monitor, how to manage, how to see what's working and what's not working.

[00:05:08] And I'm excited that I think we have a very simple framework to take the complexity out of the big, you know, 800-pound elephant in the room for most MSPs, which is marketing. We don't, you know, it's not something we're generally inclined to, but I think it's a hurdle that can be overcome. Um, everybody's trying to sell the easy button out there.

[00:05:34] But we want to give you an end-to-end solution with the people and process in place to execute consistently and to build systems, not one-off random acts of marketing. Yeah, look, it's super important in the world of marketing, like you said, is there really is no easy button. Um, even though there are solutions, there are, you know, contractors, there are platforms, there are a lot of things that can help aid and assist.

[00:06:01] But nobody knows this business better than you, the person behind the driver's seat of the MSP, um, in understanding the customers, the questions, the ask, what happens when you're in the boardroom? Um, but then more importantly, from a framework perspective is like, what happens after they say yes? You know, in having your business, you know, being able to look at the operational aspects. So the other framework that's in powered services is the True Methods framework.

[00:06:30] So once we help you go out and sell and market, the sales process, the handover, the relationship, you know, to what you should be doing as you grow and scale and you have roles that you need to create inside your organization, where do you put them? How many employees or how many seats to that employee, right? Like all these decisions that you have to make, we have the frameworks, they're going to be able to help you.

[00:06:53] And then it kind of leads to like, I'm going to go to a second part of it real quick is the one-to-one, you know, we have one-to-many, you know, sessions where you can get on coaching calls, you get to hear as a community what's going on. But then that one-to-one aspect, I don't know any other really programs out there that dedicate one-to-one where you can sit down and build a strategy with a marketing specialist, have them look at your business, have them kind of hold you a little bit accountable, right? Like you're going to have some homework that you're going to have to do.

[00:07:22] But that's pretty cool. Walk us through a little bit of the one-to-one. You know, that was another component that I think like no other program, I've been around, you know, the MSP industry. I've owned my own MSP. I've been, you know, been retired, quote unquote, retired for 10 years.

[00:07:38] But I've participated in a lot of programs out there, and I don't know of a single program out there that has a marketing person, not just a virtual admin, but a trained marketing person to sit down with you one-on-one, be able to map out what you're doing, audit what you have right now, and give you a roadmap as to how to improve.

[00:08:05] And we just hired another marketing specialist today based upon demand that we have. We see that like this, I think, is the secret sauce that finally will, you know, help MSPs execute is that one-on-one, that extra touch, that extra, you know, effort and having somebody look at that that nobody else is doing. Yeah, well, I think it's like, you know, there's lots of programs out there, and I think they all serve a purpose, right?

[00:08:33] Like, every one of us has a place, and some people connect with other programs versus, you know, other, or sometimes they'll have all of them, right? Like, I think there's strategies to be played there. But, you know, the coaching aspect of one-to-one is really important, because it's great. You can log into a portal, download content, great. But what if you don't know what you're doing? And what if you're just out there posting things to post things, and then you say, well, LinkedIn doesn't work.

[00:09:03] Our webinars don't work. Is it webinars don't work, or is it the strategy is not aligned? And I hear so many times, like, websites don't work. Chambers don't work. LinkedIn doesn't work. This doesn't work. Well, why are so many MSPs seeing success there? Why are so many people having their strategies work together because all those four, five, six phases are working together as a force multiplier? It comes with putting down the foundation and the strategy.

[00:09:32] And we talk about it, and I think people get tired of hearing it. But the strategy of understanding who your customer is, what you want, what size customer do you need? What areas are you targeting? And all of those things matter. Because if we're just spending money to spend money, we could all do that. But let's spend money to start getting results and work with people that are going to help me look at that and actually make it happen. Like, I think that's the cool part behind this.

[00:10:02] Yeah, and that's the big – for me as an MSP, that was the part that I pushed back on for so long was taking the time necessary to understand who I'm selling to. That, you know, it's not a small business with 10 computers in my area. Like, you can't market to that many people.

[00:10:19] But knowing I have a defined niche that I serve and knowing all of their pain points, knowing their frustrations, and more importantly, knowing what their business goals are and how do I help them get from A to B with their business goals, with their vision. And, again, it's the same as us as MSPs. We have a reason why we get in business. We have goals we want to achieve. Your small business customers have the exact same goals.

[00:10:49] You just have to understand what those are and figure out what are the impediments from helping them reach their goals. And then how do I take what we do and help them get there? Yeah. And I think that's, again, that missing component of having somebody walk you through that process and hold you accountable to make sure that you do that. Then all of a sudden you start to see the dominoes fall with marketing.

[00:11:12] Now all of a sudden things start working because you're giving a specific message to a specific audience with a specific result. And I think that's where we start with the marketing specialist. Like, that's ground zero. You got to have that before you can expect anything else to work. So now you'll come in. You'll be able to understand the framework. You'll be able to work with coaching in one-to-many and in one-to-one scenarios.

[00:11:40] And then I think the part that we were always missing, and we heard from a lot of folks, is this is great, but now I need a tool and a mechanism to post this content, to send my emails, to build landing pages, to track other aspects of my results on digital media. Like, what's going on? And we've launched this here within the last month. It's finally, there's been iterations, betas.

[00:12:04] And we landed, I think, in a really great place with what we call AMP, our automated marketing platform. And there's a lot packed into AMP. You know, I think the starting point to me is the health report card, where it looks at your business. Can you walk through, like, what's on this report card? Why is it important? I just learned the framework. I'm sitting there. I got tons of content. I got all these great things. I'm in my coaching calls.

[00:12:35] Why, all of a sudden, do I need this report card? And what's it going to help me with? The thing with the report card, I think that, again, I don't know of anybody else in the market that's doing it. But to really understand how the Internet sees you, how Google sees your business. So we all, you know, the big thing with marketing, we have to get attention. We have to be found before we can get things to work. But that report card actually tells you it gives you a graded score on your SEO.

[00:13:04] It gives you a graded score on how you're doing with social, a graded score on how your website is. Is it good? Is it bad? What parts of it are missing? What parts of it should you have? And, you know, again, the rubber meets the road there is now you have somebody to help you fix all of those things so that you're fixing the gaps in the foundation.

[00:13:29] Now you've got a marketing specialist who can work on how do we place that content in there to maximize the outcome and the ability for you to get where you want to go. And then we can take it a step further. That's where you can schedule your social posts. You can schedule emails and drip campaigns. And then you can build landing pages to take e-books and sales sheets and things and attach them and have all of those different lists and have all your different oil wells or whatever you want to call that,

[00:13:59] you know, constantly running. And you're going to be able to see all of that in one dashboard, one portal, one place to be able to truly take command and enable your MSP to be successful. I think that's the part to me that's so exciting is, you know, the marketing content that's in the portal, it's not there to sell any one of the Kaseya services. Now, let me be clear.

[00:14:26] We have everything in there for all the products if you want to go. But everything's written as it's coming from the MSP. Everything's written as it's their brand. There's no mention of any of us or any of the different things. It's all about the MSP and the campaigns that come out monthly are thought leadership campaigns that are going to help an MSP sell everything in their MSP. It's going to get them in the door and it's going to help them really start to have great conversations

[00:14:54] that sell everything, not just a single product. Yeah. And the amazing quality that is there with the marketing content, again, blew me away. I mean, I was kind of there with the infancy when you launched powered services back in, was it 2020? Something like that, yeah. We were just getting going. And, you know, I did a LinkedIn course with you. But now to see the evolution of that, like we literally have people that have worked in agencies

[00:15:20] that are running the marketing teams and putting these campaigns together. So, again, it's not just throwing things against the wall, see if it sticks. Like you have people that know how to market, know how to produce content that grabs attention where it doesn't look like everything else that's out there. And it's extremely professional. Like my market was attorneys. Like some of the marketing out there I would never send to an attorney.

[00:15:48] But everything that comes out of powered services, like that is agency quality stuff that would get the attention of attorney, a big law firm. And I think that's, again, the differentiator from other platforms that are out there. Yeah, I think there's a lot of the staff. We have over seven people on this team. Actually, I probably think we're over 10 now altogether on the one is we've been in an MSP. We get it.

[00:16:16] Now, that only is only so good because the market changes. You know, the way we get into customers change. But that's the cool part with the one-to-one coaching and the consulting is we're watching the market change in front of us. And we're able to help you overcome those things in real time. We're also able to help you when we see your stats, right? Like when you get on a coaching call and you're like, hey, look, this is my... It allows us to tweak, change whatever is needed to the marketing and help you try an A-B test,

[00:16:46] right? And like really get in there and start seeing it. And then all of a sudden, those light bulbs go off when someone starts to get the clicks. They get the email fill outs. They get the phone calls. You know, we've heard members sharing ideas inside of the community of how they're leveraging Google reviews, AI, how they're leveraging all different kinds of things to help them grow. That's why the community is important. There's an aspect of people that just give you content and sign up for programs.

[00:17:14] There's an aspect of getting the community though. And then there's another aspect of taking everything we just talked about, including the community and having that one place where you can really feel like you can take your marketing and enabling your business to the next level. Yeah. And that was the other thing that excited me about coming over to Kaseo was being able to fix the sales and marketing, but then also to plug in with Truepeer with Gary's program,

[00:17:42] which I was a part of over a decade ago. So now I've got a solution that solves my operations problem. I've got a solution that solves my sales and marketing problem. And I'm making decisions based on data, not just whim or what I think might work. And that's what really excited me is for end to end. Like we have the solution for MSPs, which again, I haven't seen out there. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, look, we've evolved it.

[00:18:12] You know, I just, I thought it was important on this episode just to kind of tell everybody, you know, what we're doing, what's changing. You know, obviously exciting additions with Andrew. We've got the exciting additions of a new framework of exciting additions to the team and the marketing specialist team that's working with you, the MSP. Um, the launch of AMP with the health card and the report card of your business to be able to see where you're at.

[00:18:37] Um, I mean, PSP is evolving and I think we got a few more tricks up our sleeve before the end of the year. Um, but that'll give people a reason to keep tuning into the podcast and we'll drop some Easter eggs along the way. But, uh, I think we're all committed to making 2025 and beyond the best year for you as an MSP. And we want to wrap our arms around your MSP with you and help you take it to the next level.

[00:19:04] And, uh, we have all the tools, the resources, guides, people, knowledge that are necessary to do that. And, uh, couldn't be more excited that you're on the team, Andrew, and anything you want to leave everybody with. I'm excited to get out and meet, meet some of you folks. I've, I've been around in the channel for a while, so it's, it's, I've, I've been able to reconnect with people that I've known for 10, 20 years too, which is awesome. Um, but we have a lot of exciting stuff coming out.

[00:19:33] Um, I, I'm, I don't think I've ever been this excited about being in the MSP space than this year, uh, because I feel like this is the pivotal year where the MSP space morphs into something different. Um, and I'm excited to be part of it. Yeah. So stay tuned. We're going to keep bringing people on the podcast that are going to share what they're doing in their MSP. What are some of the best practices? Um, hopefully this was helpful. If you have questions, reach out here.

[00:20:01] If you're, if you're a Kaseya customer already, talk to your account manager. Um, if you're not a Kaseya customer already, reach out to me on the LinkedIn page, um, on, you know, email, whatever is, you know, the best source of communication. Um, we'll reach out and, and, and talk back and like go through everything with you so you can see what we're doing, but, uh, super excited. So until next time, everybody make it a great day.

[00:20:25] And that's a wrap for today's episode of the powered services podcast with Dan Tomaszewski. We hope you're leaving with your mind buzzing with new ideas and strategies to revolutionize your MSP offerings. Don't forget to subscribe for more insights and join us next time as we continue to decode the complexities of managed services. Until then, keep powering through.

[00:20:52] And remember the future of MSP is bright and fully charged. Thank you for listening and stay connected.