Pete Busam of Equilibrium Consulting

[00:00:02] Hello ladies and gentlemen today is June 27th and for this month This is the very last MSP initiative alive or MSP talk We like to call it for the month, but don't worry

[00:00:16] We keep doing this twice a week almost every week unless I'm stuck on an airplane and that does happen We'll get some housekeeping out of the way and then we'll we'll get into the good stuff

[00:00:25] So MSP initiative a comm this is where we park all the stuff that we do here So for example this session is being recorded and we will park it here and this tags back to our podcatchers and our YouTube pages

[00:00:38] And we're all the various formats of this show get recorded in parks So use whichever one fits you best They are there for you to rewind and you know tell us that we yeah need to do something afterwards so MSP community minds we did one of these

[00:00:53] In Nashville early in a year and actually our inaugural one was in Denver last year We come back to Denver September 25th and 26th really are proud of this event It is a totally educational event right networking is there like every other event. We all love that but

[00:01:09] MSP panels actual workshops We're not trying to swipe your card at the end of that either right like you're gonna learn actual things from people in The trenches and from experts from around the industry

[00:01:19] The two-day event and we really don't even charge you anything to be there other than you actually have to get there So yeah, you might have to drive or fly parachute in You know take one of those uber copters

[00:01:31] I don't know but if you can get there in Denver September 25th 26. It's definitely worth your time then We have a ton ton ton ton of community block parties

[00:01:44] Remaining this year. We just completed two in the same week and that's the first time we've ever attempted to do that Worked out. Okay. We had PAX AP on in Denver and datacon in Dublin

[00:01:55] So we have many to round out the year connect wise it nation in Australia in August Paseo data con in Miami in October another case of data con in Sydney in November then we got the big it nation Connect in November in Orlando

[00:02:12] So PAX AP on Berlin in October So like we're on every continent not really Antarctica not yet, but maybe one day anyway We have some community offers if you can take advantage of them great feel free and lastly our industry calendar

[00:02:27] I mean there's hundreds of events and if you really want to go check them out feel free. They're all there for you we gave you all of our homework and There it all is MSP initiative Com that being said we bring back long-time friend of the show and

[00:02:45] You know a guy who's been in the industry for quite some time in the sandbox Playing with the rest of us bring back Pete from Equal-lubrium consulting in a probably very nice and warm Myrtle Beach South Carolina. How you doing today Pete?

[00:03:02] I think we're cooler than you guys. Oh, let's see. What's it? I got 80 degrees and mostly sunny at the moment Okay, where we're 88 So yesterday we were a little bit cooler than you get yeah yesterday we're like 90 something and yeah

[00:03:17] And we got a little rain overnight finally cooled down It was been in the 80s and 90s for about two weeks You know we can have to so for some reason not when we decided to go do a block party in Europe It was very cold

[00:03:29] 55 degrees and windy and a little rain and I was like why is it so cold here? Why'd I have a jacket and hat on it's summertime?

[00:03:35] So it's very much weird, but and then for some reason we came home it was hot here and then it finally got hot over there And I'm like Yeah, we need to fix this warm weather thing. I don't know. I don't mind it

[00:03:48] You move you move down there from New Jersey my friend. I'm sure you absolutely Looked at it for a reason You don't have to deal with the cool. Yeah, the colder winters that you you know We we are you know subject to up here in the Northeast

[00:04:01] You know with their jacket down here's a pretty soon on George DC my messages in the chat. Oh, I see I see hold on Maybe okay. Let me press the button for you. That's okay. We're recording all good now. We're going live. All right, so anyway

[00:04:18] So how are things Pete? It's been some time. I know you You're you're out for the count for a little bit there. How's that? Everything's good. Everything's good. I mean you know back back up and running at full steam pretty much 95% and

[00:04:37] Looking looking for some new challenges that I'm gonna bring in over this year. So, okay Wow One is with the company and and then personally I'm gonna go out and see if I can't do a 5k before the end of the year Wow

[00:04:50] Well, listen, I don't want to play out unless you're willing to share I like you definitely had some like personal things that you had to get through at the end of last year, right?

[00:04:58] So, yeah, well, you know, I wanted to make sure I did it right. So not just a single bypass But when tuple so I went for all of them was down for the count two days

[00:05:09] Was there really that many arteries that go into a heart? Yeah, I thought it was just four I guess I missed one all five were all five were plugged up and Pretty amazing that I was actually walking in November and December Wow

[00:05:26] All back up great surgeons to carry me did all the physical therapy and now I'm Getting back in it and so yeah, briefly in In your whirlwind tour of Denver for beyond And you were out and where was George like where's Waldo? Where's George?

[00:05:47] Yeah, it was it was a whirlwind. That's the first time we've tried as you know You've been following this whole You know tour of things that we've been doing over the years but that was the first time we did two block parties and like four days and Wow

[00:06:04] That was very interesting to move in between You know Denver and Dublin and like literally just warp speed or plane speed But yeah, I didn't even get to really finish beyond you know, I left I left the rest of the crew there to smile and

[00:06:22] Get a little bit of love there, but it was happy that we were able to pull it off I mean, I was worried that we were gonna do it Well, I didn't make it to the Denver one, you know as a recovering guy still like watching my

[00:06:36] My endurance level and it wasn't wasn't as high so I kind of I think I was in bed before the first bus was pulling out Listen, I'm very happy to hear that you're you know doing much better

[00:06:48] I was worried for you there like I'm sure a lot of other people were and Hey, you know, I went down my own health track, right? And not too far So I feel I know definitely nowhere near the you know severity

[00:07:01] But I definitely feel the feel a lot better now in June of 2024 than I did at the beginning You're probably one of the only people in the channel. They got to see me live within about a month of it I I'd be honest with you. I I was

[00:07:16] you know, you I'll show I'm shocked that you're you know in that short of time right modern medicine, whatever you want to call it maybe just a lot of hard work but a little bit of both but

[00:07:27] From what you look like at that, you know what when I saw you last in Myrtle Beach till now is like night and death. Yep Yeah Feels feels good got some color back Don't have that horrible vest that wants to shock you when you're not the

[00:07:43] Fixed fixed to it properly. Wow Well good news and now we're back to you know, your specialty, right? Marketing and lead generation and The whole the whole conversation which hopefully hasn't I don't know if it's changed dramatically in the last six months

[00:08:03] But as all things go, you know, if you're I would love to know if like Are you advising people to go start a tick-tock page? And you know, is that how we're gonna find people new business and MSP land or is that I think

[00:08:18] We're finally at a pivotal point where people, you know, they've been sitting back saying it's election year Stock markets doing well. And so Companies surprisingly are spending some money and going And we're starting to see a lot of MSP growth I

[00:08:39] Think in last year we we we saw growth, but I think this year we're seeing exponentially but now We're at that pivot point where we're eating our own MSPs are eating other MSPs either through acquisition Or they're eating the clients of the other ones through services

[00:09:00] So, you know, it's it's it's at that point now of the ecosystem of saturation And MSPs are just on top of each other in every region. It's just a saturated market

[00:09:12] I don't know. I mean, there's a lot of people out there that say that the you know, you know saturation of specific areas is largely over You know over Exaggerated like meaning like not every company out there that can use an MSP has an MSP

[00:09:30] Mm-hmm. I think there's still plenty of opportunity and new businesses are opening every day, right? But with the most part we're seeing a lot of companies now that are going through quoting and processes with our clients that are

[00:09:42] That are probably into their second or third MSP now. Okay You know, it's very interesting you have I Don't know if you've cracked it or maybe you just have a very good methodology to it

[00:09:58] But I bring it up cause I regularly because people like almost forget that it exists Like I call it free money That don't copyright that free and money are very, you know, very, you know, ubiquitous words, right?

[00:10:14] But free money meaning there's a lot of MDF money out there And and we hear it and you read the articles how many much of it goes unused every year and Like most companies that even have a formal FDM the F program

[00:10:27] Like I think something like the average is half of it doesn't get allocated Like it just sits in the pie budgeted. It like doesn't get claimed and like You do a lot of this right you help MSP

[00:10:38] We do like figure out how to unscrew the the cork that's holding up that money Tell us what the magic is. What's the secret? Well, the magic is to know which partners are giving money and then you've got to stay on top of it

[00:10:51] So you use it before it expires. Okay This year we've already helped customers spend roughly A quarter of a million dollars Okay, that's a lot of money. So it's a lot of money that's on the table And a lot of people just don't realize because they don't ask

[00:11:11] And they don't know where to start or their Their reps are not really savvy and co-op or MDF either so they kind of push away from it instead of pushing through it so we've

[00:11:27] I don't want to say we've cracked the code because there's a lot in our space that that know how to do it and do it very well Also, but I think we've we've brought a lot when you start looking at What a marketing program costs It offsets

[00:11:41] Cost of our our programs So you can pay for us if you're if you're a decent Microsoft provider 100 of what we do on a monthly basis And be covered by your mdm Wait, wait, wait, wait

[00:11:57] There's 90 000 microsoft partners a lot of them sp is not all of them, but a lot of them Where do I even go like there's 8 000 portals for microsoft? I don't even know where to go look to actually figure out what the options are for mdf for microsoft

[00:12:15] Well, there's a there's a 56 page guide that changes regularly From microsoft of of what's eligible and how it's eligible and all that The best place to start is through distribution Okay Distribution will want you to spend money with them and their mdf

[00:12:33] Taking the mdf and holding that money and taking it from vendors and using it in their program But what you'll get caught up in is postcard campaigns or things that really don't drive any value to you Don't drive any leads because there's no follow-up or there's very little

[00:12:51] um Personalization that goes into it. So you'll spend a lot of mdf for no return, right? Whereas when you come into a program like us to do it for you We'll actually customize put out build campaigns and launch so okay, so if you're working with apaxate

[00:13:15] Sure web and ingram Cinextech data or whatever right one of those guys Your recommendation is if you want access to microsoft mdf start there Yep, and of course if you're tier one or a direct company You just go into your portal and you make your claims

[00:13:34] But a lot of people leave a lot of money on the table with microsoft Because there's all kinds of things but A lot of vendors a lot of vendors don't do mdf in the classic way because

[00:13:45] They were all based on transactional sales if you think about back in the day We used to sell a piece of hardware desktop a computer switch or whatever And based on our volume was how we accrued our mdf and co-op. Yeah, right? accessories Okay

[00:14:02] And we would accrue we would get point values or whatever that would turn into dollars at after you met a certain threshold Now you still have sales volumes, but microsoft is a more traditional They've rolled that model through where A lot of the newer ones

[00:14:20] That are in the security spaces will help you with things they will launch to do webinars and soft costs soft dollars for them to help go and do So we work with them to bring in those resources also and handle all that so

[00:14:37] You're not having to coordinate it once we get plugged in We pulled together Okay, so You know five webinars going on we heard microsoft as a big guy No, I think almost

[00:14:50] Every msp i interact with is doing something with microsoft. So there's money if you're not it's pretty pretty wild Yeah, I I agree. Maybe you're all google i don't know but i would say almost 99 point something percent microsoft Would do you have any other vendors?

[00:15:07] You'd be comfortable sharing that you feel That your msp clients are successfully able to get you know mdf programs running through sure so lenovo's got a really good rich plan Okay, so hp's got a decent rich plan again traditional type vendors Datto

[00:15:27] Kasey has got some really good pending on which product line or what you're doing but Primarily around the data, but they've changed those pieces now

[00:15:36] Um, and they've they've you know have to roll up and you need to meet certain goals. It's not as opportunistic as it used to be Okay sonic wall watch guard Again traditional hardware kind of style vendors, but They look at an opportunity not necessarily a sales volume so

[00:16:00] You can do unsolicited proposal to some of these partners and bring it to the table and if they approve it Then you work with them and you get some money Wow, I mean by the way That was like a half dozen right there that you just rattled off

[00:16:16] I would say they're pretty popular and widely used I you know like again, I don't you know 1 800 lenovo like who do I even like I assume this is again through distribution No, actually you go you go directly to the novo and it's in your partner portal

[00:16:32] So inside your partner portal you go in and you look at your sales volume Um, obviously you need to make sure that distribution is Is reporting properly so you know what your your numbers are because it is accrued based on volume

[00:16:47] But you know as long as you're doing volume I you can push it through um, and same thing, uh, we work directly with You know the channel members inside the teams that are in so

[00:17:01] It's very rare for us to be talking to somebody at distribution even if you move through distribution We'll go directly because You know, we'll know the parties that we can talk to to make it happen So there's do you have a place like

[00:17:16] I don't know if it's internal or or do you have a document that maybe is external But like is any of this all in one place or do you call way 100 p and get the information?

[00:17:25] Yeah, pretty much you call us and we work with you and and do it. There's no, uh There's no consistent program against any one of the partners so Everybody's got something a little different and and they've got a little tweak to it Some are better than others but

[00:17:44] Well, I gotta be honest with you though that as somebody who you know like You could go borrow money, right? You go to the bank traditional, right? You could you know

[00:17:55] Bring investors into your company. You could swipe your credit card and hope that you have a zero percent for I don't know whatever 1215 months But like literally free money I'm sure there's tasks that need to be done in order to like

[00:18:08] Satisfy some of the programs, right? Like hey, did you actually spend it? Did you know how many people came right then like after everything's you know got their own little strings attached But I mean it's literally free money that goes unused and like to be honest with you

[00:18:24] I don't think anyone does it well You know like from like from you know unless you're a larger msp and you've been doing this for a long time And you know like what where the money comes from

[00:18:33] I would say the majority people out there. They just it's a magical foreign concept So like if this is something that you've You have the right person and the right companies and you know exactly what needs to be done in order to get somebody

[00:18:44] To you know the point where money gets transferred. That's a win and and to be honest with you Not a lot of people Step forward with that as they're opening conversation, right? Like they're like, hey, this is why you should invest and this is why you

[00:18:57] Yeah, this is how we're going to create a growth plan But a growth plan with somebody else's money sounds a lot good better than me having this way my credit card on my

[00:19:06] Well, and you know marketing is always an overhead function people most owners look at overhead as You know, it's a drain on overhead. It's a drain on their profit. It's not something that's a direct bill

[00:19:18] So if you can find ways to use other people's money to fund that marketing effort Um, your attitude can change and with that you can get and fuel some growth into your business and you know brand equity as well as demand equity Yeah shift from branding to demand

[00:19:36] No, I mean listen, so it's a it's a big thing of you know It's one of those things that everybody talks about and believe it or not even the big guys They don't like to deal with it because of the reporting on the back end

[00:19:50] But that's part of what we do we deal with Reporting and a lot of the companies that are willing to give because they work with us know that they're going to get their reports on the

[00:19:59] Back end and know that they're going to get a tighter relation relationship because we push that relationship Needless needless to say right if you go and get money the first time and then you burn the bridge and you can't go back again

[00:20:11] And whatever the interval is every year every quarter every whatever like everybody gives this out differently at different times That sucks because it's one and done. I don't want one and done. I want to be able to go back and ask for more right so

[00:20:25] Successfully going through it where they're going to let you come back and do it again I think that's all very important or else You know you got to shoot your bullet and then you're going to be out and you're back to your credit card

[00:20:36] And like no offense. I want to keep on taking that microsoft money. I'd rather let spend their money than my money Yeah, they're Really good about it and it's like clockwork

[00:20:48] Some of it you get some of you just get back every month as you know part of your commissions that come back and all that And then there's other parts that you accrue and then there's opportunity based Then there's even something that if you're doing projects

[00:21:02] Okay, you can go in and you can actually do a proof of concept Write it up put it into the portal and put the results in and you can get money back And for every project that you do that's a microsoft conversion or an update or an upgrade

[00:21:20] You know here's a big one for everybody windows 10 to windows 11 coming by the end of next year, right? If you started doing migrations and updates and you do that project You can actually put that into the portal in the microsoft incentive in the opportunity side

[00:21:36] And as you deliver upload your invoices and upload your performance and your labor into it And they will give you a percentage back So yeah, really no and so there's back end money on your projects too that microsoft will do it to say

[00:21:52] Hey, we know we didn't give it to you on the licensing We know that what we did over the last couple years diminished maybe your licensing profitability, but If you're smart enough you get on the back end and you put that in and you push it

[00:22:05] And you go in and do that reporting and there can be so it could be $50 or it could be $1,000 or $5,000 That you get for a project depending on the size or the magnitude of what you're doing

[00:22:18] If you didn't if that's the only thing anybody walked away from this session with that's a win because you're all doing it probably projects and professional services are a chunk of every

[00:22:28] IT men's service companies if you're not doing it. I don't know how things are going but bottom line is effectively, you know Talk about profitability right you set a price you charge your customer

[00:22:39] You did the project then you came back and got like a it's almost like a rebate bonus, right on top Yeah, that your customer doesn't even know about I that's awesome

[00:22:49] I mean and I won't say what geography but we had a customer last year that's in new york city So I said the geography They pulled about 100 165 thousand dollars from microsoft In projects and project in total back end mdf and compensation Six figures man

[00:23:13] That's a lot of money a lot of money free money. You just got to know where to go and know what to do That's part of you know, hey value add here guys, right? You're like, hey, why should I invest in an outside, you know

[00:23:25] specialists for our company Here it is if they're paying for themselves Yeah hard not to argue so that i'm glad we started down this road because man We talk about this all the time but you're actioning it

[00:23:37] I think that's the big difference like I had no clue you could get project rebates or incentives from microsoft And I haven't been for a while So that's awesome. Yeah, I mean you have an msp so you could do the same thing

[00:23:50] Wow, that's crazy my number. I'll show you how to do it in your portal See six five minutes Six five minutes 1-800 p. That's my answer. Yeah, all right, so

[00:24:03] We're gonna we're gonna cycle to and you mentioned earlier, but I think it's worth going right into it brands versus demand Oh It's tough, right by the way. I love I love that arrives brand versus demand uh

[00:24:19] A lot of people especially when you're when you're first starting out spend a lot of money that they're like, oh well branding and it's like You have no expectation of return. You just literally melting the credit card. And it's like

[00:24:31] Unless you have the money to burn, you know, like you just putting your name out there is great, but Yeah, especially if it's like your own cash and there's not a lot of it

[00:24:41] Like how far can that take you and then the main thing right like in the beginning of any new division company, you know Project rebrand whatever a lot of promotion. There's a lot of excitement

[00:24:54] And then all of a sudden it kind of like settles back down into regular life And then all of a sudden you're like, well, how do I generate business and new customers?

[00:25:01] That's always been this cycle, right? No matter for as long as we're all in here. This is how it goes circle um It's it's a cycle. So you got to you got to start out you got to say, you know, if you've never done marketing

[00:25:15] You've got to say for six months you're doing branding Uh, something should fall into your bucket But as you start to come down Your marketing needs to ramp into demand need more landing pages more outbound

[00:25:29] Reach so you have to start thinking about maybe a rep or some calling Uh, making sure that you're out at events, you know, that's you should be doing that anyway, right?

[00:25:40] Even during the branding, you know, a lot of people say oh marketing's gonna do it. So we don't have to know Just like we build community in the it channel by going to trade events Uh, you have to as an owner go to your local events

[00:25:53] You have to be seen you have to be heard and you have to have your brand associated And the more that you do that the more relationships because let's face it people buy from people they know and people they like

[00:26:05] Right. So if you're not doing that, that's part of branding But that's where you start to make your transition into demand where you're actually putting more ask into your marketing and less brand into your marketing and so a lot of marketing companies um Wouldn't say fail, but they

[00:26:27] They don't make that transition for the for the company at that start to look at it at that fourth month and say How do we start moving you into demand? How do we keep you balanced at brand and keep that level?

[00:26:41] But now we've got to ramp it up to start making special offers or things that Can get out that are going to drive people to Whatever your digital footprint is or pick up the phone

[00:26:54] No refer you whatever it might be. Yeah, like I'm gonna be honest with you if I'm spending money. I expect ROI That's just at this point on june 27 2024 like

[00:27:08] I want to measure every dollar going out of the bank account when it comes to the category of marketing because marketing and sales Supposed to be like, you know, simpatico, right? Like If you're doing this and this doesn't get fed. What are we doing? Like in my mind

[00:27:22] There's a one-to-one right? So You know for every dollar I spend I want to know what money I can you know reasonably expect And I'm being I think I'm being reasonable. Tell me if I'm crazy. I think you probably already think I'm crazy

[00:27:34] But that's okay on this stuff long enough to say you're crazy, but that doesn't mean that I'm not on that same train Sure. Sure. So if I say if I spend a dollar in marketing Branding demand whatever I don't care marketing

[00:27:48] I want to see the return on that dollar it's in 12 months. Is that reasonable? I think I think in 12 months you're gonna start at six months. You should start to see some return

[00:27:59] Okay at 12 months, you should start to see more consistency in the return. You may not see 100 Return them but at some point if you really think about it, whatever your spend is

[00:28:11] Um, most companies will look at it as you know, if they get one deal that hits the MRC then For the year of what their spend is then that one deal paid for their marketing now deal number two

[00:28:26] Is the profit market right? That's where marketing then accelerates. So You know getting yourself in but we're seeing much much bigger deals getting written than used to like we're seeing msp's closing 20k plus per month

[00:28:43] In there in their mr. R and they're you know, their ar are certainly growing commensurate Yeah, I mean listen if your average deal you didn't say average but like Alternate universe if your average deal is 20k mr

[00:29:01] That's you gotta be happy. I would hope the math looks really good on that deal so, so, I mean we see average deals are Probably you're sitting in that 3,500 to 4,000 MRR right now And the bigger deals we're seeing between 40 and 50 Wow And those are not all

[00:29:26] You know, those are not all there's a lot of different markets and what's available I'm thinking myself. I'm like, all right $20,000 a month annual revenue on that is what 240k ish So like but an account taken in that kind of

[00:29:41] Volume or in terms of you know, that's a bigger account Big accounts will also take a lot more energy though Yeah, I'm saying like don't don't get so like hey the numbers look good But how much do you got to do to service the

[00:29:56] trip, you know three digit organization is a lot different than you got to service the two-digit organization in terms of employee account Well, I think security and compliance services are helping drive some of the numbers up too because they're more consultative in nature than they are

[00:30:10] babysitting a babysitting a health desk No, they're they're much more Out there and there's other services that are behind them that are hard costs that you know You're not maintaining on staff, but you are maintaining

[00:30:24] A lot of the other parts of what goes on between your customer and the And the mdr center or the edr or what have you so it's yeah, no I I I agree That's fair. So like Other than you know, you know, uh, you know the homogenous

[00:30:45] You're like, hey, there's a lot of saturation. Well saturation. I think it's just everybody advertising. They do it everybody else I think that's where the saturation is. I think there's a lot of business out there That's not using an msp that probably needs one that being said

[00:31:00] Especially when I go to like data center websites internet provider websites like Like people who I don't even classify as it and msp and then they're literally saying the same damn thing as the who's in it so like How do you even differentiate the message at this point?

[00:31:19] Well, I think you know Are you going to trust are you going to trust your managed services to a data center? You know, maybe maybe your server maybe from some of the infrastructure where it's hosted because they can get to the hardware quicker than you could

[00:31:34] Right, but who's going to take care of the rest who's looking at the security and the overall rapper I mean we just saw this whole cdk in the automotive industry, you know now You know, you're a SaaS provider and you're saying oh for you know 15 bucks a node

[00:31:51] I'll do your managed services But if you really went in there Do they have the back end security and and specialists looking at that or did they just say You know getting into managed services is easy because we got their SaaS license

[00:32:05] We've got their infrastructure at least 50% of it. It's just their local So what does it take to take care of the local infrastructure? But let's see, you know if they break, you know, yeah for everybody that's listening

[00:32:19] We're gonna like pause on the the topic that we're on. Let's like a cdk right? It's actually pretty Real time, you know, like it's happening as we speak PDK is a company Like some of the companies in the msp land who acquired a bunch of

[00:32:35] Automotive dealership software and turned it into a SaaS solution. All right, so they rolled it all up You know the day, you know, there's like three players. Does that sound does that sound familiar?

[00:32:44] It's like three big companies and no automotive dealership space. So three big companies in the msp anyway um And then what did they do they convinced everybody to go cloud because that's where everything's going subscription cloud, right

[00:32:59] fine, we're used to this microsoft did the same, right and then Ransom attack shut all the dealerships down in one shot They've been down for I'm thinking something like seven and a half How to say how 10 days not just the dealerships its body shops its parts stores Yeah

[00:33:20] Banks linked so banks are being affected too You know, literally every part like inventory Service center like you're buying a car. You're applying for financing like the whole Just like your PSA should really if it's implemented properly is like

[00:33:38] Should tie your whole company together in an operating system same deal, right? And so like at the end of the day these people we're talking like thousands like not just all haunt this right talking like Tens of thousands of dealerships around cdk

[00:33:53] As their operating system these people are back to handwriting things and like typewriters and Triple kit paper and like a lot of people did not have the dr strategy for their operating system going down

[00:34:07] From a dealership standpoint, like I guess like if you take the computers out you can still do things by hand, but oh boy Talk about all of the stuff that has to be done once a system is back online now

[00:34:17] Hold on one second. Hold on. This is where it gets even worse So you're down the cost of business and your business is like at a standstill and you still have to sell things in order to keep the

[00:34:26] Business going okay, that's part of it. Here's the second part of it All of the personal Identifiable information right you got to buy a car So security number and there's you know all sorts of stuff. It's like credit score credit in for everything

[00:34:41] You know like this is stuff That's like Probably don't want that stuff out on the internet because like your identity can get stolen and like you know how that goes So like that's out there So not only was the sass company

[00:34:52] You know hit the dealerships who are responsible for your personal information that's on file is now affected Oh, and by the way Bad guys got smart over these years. What do they do? They start spam calling emailing and fishing Not just the dealerships hoping that one person

[00:35:10] You know bites right like could be hey, we're calling from cdk, you know We're cdk support whatever blah blah blah and then you know bad things can then too from there

[00:35:19] They're also calling the consumers whose data was now infiltrated and they're literally playing the same game on the other side So like talk about just Massive massive like implications here and by the way Back to the first part operationally

[00:35:37] These people these dealerships may not be back online for another week in a couple weeks. They're saying So like imagine a whole month going by your psas down accounting systems down You can't you can't order anything. You can't buy anything your handwriting checks payroll even right dude

[00:35:56] You can't even serve as vehicles It's so bad It's so bad that the parts people have a big inventory and they don't even know where the inventory is or how to find it in their parts warehouse Because they're so dependent upon the

[00:36:09] Product of the system to do it for let's rope it back into the larger conversation So what Pete's been saying is all right with cdk who? Advertises to out of motor dealerships like hey, you're going to give us your your operating system your sass software

[00:36:24] We're going to do all of your it support. You don't need another it company only an inside house it department Oh, by the way, we're gonna do your phones. We're gonna do your printers We're gonna do the starting sound familiar. They're acting as a managed services provider, but

[00:36:38] Now that this is all happened I argue if you were going to run a campaign right now to try and find new customers Might be a prime opportunity to start targeting parts automotive and service No figure we might have already launched them

[00:36:57] I mean at fifth if I don't know if you've just pulled that price out of sky But somebody came in there like $15 per workstation plus the I just I just pulled it out of the sky But I mean it's the same problem though. You look at insurance

[00:37:10] There's big insurance companies too that or insurance sass products that are Same thing and they run it and once they got you in the cloud They're hey, you don't need a local msp

[00:37:21] We can take care of it all and they do it at a lower price because it offsets the cost of The cost of their help desk which you're already paying for but Now it makes it a better cost center for them, right?

[00:37:36] It shows that they can make money But it doesn't mean that they're doing the same quality or the same level of services that a local msp would do And I think that's where it's hard to convince them because it's the old price versus

[00:37:52] Here's your marketing campaign. I'm not a marketing guy, but you know, I'm crazy So let me take a shot here Is your dealership it support shut off their phone lines? We answer our phones. Here's our number call us No joke cdk

[00:38:11] Literally disconnected their phone lines during this whole thing Mm-hmm. I feel the single support ticket. They just sent out blast emails. Hey, we're down Sorry, we're not fielding any support tickets. You just have to wait here's the update

[00:38:23] Could you imagine could you imagine telling your customer like I've been saying this for now for over a year from tier airlines? We're like, nope You want to interact with us? You got to use our app or our website?

[00:38:35] We're deleting our phone number our phone number now goes to disconnect. Could you imagine? As an iT company technology firm managed services. I don't care. Whatever works for you You literally tell people you cannot be reached by phone Mm-hmm. Nope

[00:38:52] If I was shopping for a provider, I'd just skip you and move on to the next one I if I have a problem. I need to call 911. I need to be able to get all of you So talk about the marketing opportunity for you right now

[00:39:03] Could you imagine you're the check signer of a car dealership or dealership group? And you haven't been able to get a hold of it support or your software company for two two weeks

[00:39:12] They're telling you's get at least be another two weeks. Maybe maybe more. I'm in the middle of this massive I can't do business on by the way. I might get sued by the time

[00:39:20] It's all said and done by anybody has ever bought anything for me because now their data is out there man I'm probably you know somebody right now And so, you know, there's there's part two of opportunity is is

[00:39:33] You know, we've got all this stuff in the cloud is what impact is this happening on the cloud? Because we're seeing more and more of these attacks and they're all happening out in the cloud and everybody's saying Oh, the cloud is secure. Well, not necessarily true

[00:39:46] So there's a lot of marketing and a lot of knowledge and education that can be provided around this too from the msp's in their local geographies how to intentions Yeah, I hate to even go back to

[00:39:59] What I think is an old theme but like hey, what's your dr plan? Can you flip backwards from the cloud? Is there a hybrid approach where if the internet's down your provider's down? There's an issue. Can you still keep running your business?

[00:40:12] And like before you would use the word backup and disaster recovery as a single theme But in reality, they are separate things that do cross each other But like what do you tell the 15 20 25 000 dealerships out there that for literally are just they didn't have a plan

[00:40:27] No, there was no backup. There was no Well, they're the backup the backup was the backup but the backup got encrypted too. So So that I'm being the ransomware people they did it. They they were very thorough

[00:40:42] But the fact is is that there's tremendous opportunity with sass providers trying to take managed services and these are several Things have happened in the last year that would basically demonstrate that Even in our own market with what we saw with

[00:41:00] Connectwise casay, uh, you know, we've seen it literally about Say it. I don't want to put names out there, but like There's a real eerie Like parallel to what we're talking about right now in our own space

[00:41:14] Like it's not like a couple years ago. We're not too far removed and now feel very You know the same so I'm not trying to say every you know, what are they? What was that?

[00:41:30] There's a movie out there around politics is like well every crisis is an opportunity. I hate to even think about that, but Here's the reality people are out there in this situation. They're in trouble they're gonna be stuck still for a little bit more

[00:41:43] And do they trust their existing setup now moving forward probably not probably lost So back to everyone who needs an IT company has an IT company

[00:41:55] It's one of those opportunities where I think a lot of those people who have an IT company may be switching to a new IT company Even if they could just run spreadsheets They'd be happy. They can't do that right now because everything's offline Amazing well

[00:42:10] So I can imagine p it seems like you've alluded to this some of your customers are already running campaigns now on Yep, have they you know, we've been very busy the last two weeks. Yeah I have has there been some early returns is it working? Um

[00:42:28] There has been some appointments said I don't know what the returns or what that they are We'll probably find out in our next meeting Next week or the week after as to what those meetings and come out, but I mean

[00:42:43] There's always opportunity and something and it's somebody that's that realizes and smart enough to say Um, we use the word business resilience It's not disaster recovery. It's resilience. How resilient is your company? You know, there's natural disasters just like they're always been now

[00:43:02] There's other things that are outside of influence and You know, it's how resilient are you have a plan? Did you ever think through these other things? Everybody's said, uh, we've heard dr bc

[00:43:16] Just like you said, it was a big thing three years ago. Right and we wore it out Um, and our ears are bleeding right now from just here in cyber security so much in compliance, right? So everybody's just it's a lot of noise

[00:43:30] Yeah, the noise is is if you're looking at real world examples You better take note because it's not It's not a matter of if it's when How resilient is your organization to come back and fight the fight?

[00:43:43] It's it's a little bit more of a premium word, but I like it It's it's a little it adds a little bit as the of a sophisticated, you know approach to it

[00:43:51] So I you know not again not a marketing person, but I I can tell you what I like We've we've stricken words. We've stricken words like protect and breach now incidents and resilience Right because you can't be protected nobody can protect you 100% anymore because Your own employee could

[00:44:12] You know have an incident on a password They didn't protect it problem. So and you can't you can't stay So I'll tell you I want to come I want to come back a little bit to our other discussion One of the things that that we worked on

[00:44:28] While I was in my recovery phase and business was going on we launched a new product We're lower ml Lower ml providers and it is a subscription base self serve And it's market fault mark it off of our brand right market vault

[00:44:51] Dot com and you basically can go in and get social media Logs you can order up a website You can get a lot of our full blown services there also, but it allows you to self service And in our tools and resources, we've aligned some partners to give

[00:45:10] demo software out that can let you load up your Software Or load up your social media to do it And so what we do in the social media side is we've given The graphics and a pdf with content in it and all the hashtags and everything

[00:45:28] So all you have to basically do is cut and paste it So you buy it you download it and within an hour your month is set for social media And then you just come back next month and buy, you know, you'll get your next core pack

[00:45:42] We also have Enhancement packs that will be video or motion or you know gifts and and stories and reels and things like that And then the blogs Are the same thing where you get the word document that's got all the seo information

[00:46:00] So with the suggestion and a link and everything. Oh, and by the way We'll be adding to the tools and resources partners that will make this 100 mdf And we'll we'll provide links on how to get your mdf so

[00:46:19] We're looking at a underserved oml msp and saying they need to get started with brand Right, and here's a great way to get started with brand Get some high quality images high quality content Get it out start working on things that you can do

[00:46:37] The one thing that lower ml oml don't have is a lot of time because As a single owner they're doing owner led everything, right? So this gives them the ability to launch at a very cost-effective price point as well as a low impact on their resource of time

[00:46:55] And if they pick up the phone will help them and guide them through it As part of the service. So number one just in case you're listening to this you never heard the term oml I know we love acronyms

[00:47:09] So this is uh, something that's come out of the peer group land called operational maturity level I think we should probably credit probably paul dipple is probably one of the You know most you know come up with things like this oml but um

[00:47:23] operational maturity level right if you're following You know you go google it right paul dipple oml You know it's like one through five right one is like hey, you know small starting out

[00:47:32] Don't have a lot of resources and then like five is i'm a machine and like the thing is like, you know Big corporation and and you don't have to be huge right just like the efficiency and the you know the

[00:47:43] functionality of your company right animal and predictable right perfect. So what pete's saying is hey If you're a smaller organization you haven't spent a lot of time You know in this category you're you know, you need you know, you need something

[00:47:55] But you haven't spent a lot of time here Maybe you don't have a lot of money and you know to invest in it at the moment But like you know, you need something and rather than just going to create a wicks website And just hope that that's okay

[00:48:07] Or a good go daddy or whatever right like hey here's something that's actually tailored specifically for You know itms p land and you literally you know not a lot a huge lift a little you know

[00:48:19] Probably not super you know expensive get you started right with something that doesn't look You know like you tried to you know carve it together on microsoft pain Which i think is still around for a little bit that being said There's a new version of it

[00:48:34] beautiful mark it vaults it Okay i t vault okay dot com. Yep What's the stink cost What's that what is it cost market vault marketing help No, no, no like how much does it cost 100 a month?

[00:48:57] $100 to get your your your social media going and then you buy your enhancement packs Um right now we're giving away the holiday pack for free So July so within the next two days we'll be uploading july July products will be up there because June is gone

[00:49:18] New products will be up and live worth of july my favorite holiday. Yeah You know and it's not just because of fireworks although those are fun too Add some barbecues in there and you know good weather hopefully and it's america's birthday Don't forget

[00:49:37] Uh, that's awesome for a hundred bucks a month probably spend the hundred dollars a month in chip filet That's probably I love probably spend way more than Yeah, 100 percent Okay, that's cool. That's new. I like it

[00:49:51] Yeah, so we we see in an underserved market and we know that they all want to get going but they just don't know where to start so That's a place to start and there's gonna be uh more coming and educational blogs are up there

[00:50:06] Uh to teach different things and videos that will be coming up on how-to's Um as well as equilibrium consult where we've got a lot of blogs and up on our linkedin page We've got some separate articles. We probably got about 50 articles up there

[00:50:22] And I've got a series that I write every monday called omni channel monday and it deals with all things marketing We broke down. There's some four part five part series Up there that deal with all different aspects of it all education No call to action in there

[00:50:40] But up on the equilibrium again, there's all we even did a we even did a WordPress series on how to secure a WordPress If you're doing it yourself, you know where here's a great resource. It's a five part series up on our

[00:50:55] Our company page on linkedin so all about education get up there. We you know our goal this year is to really help providers get going stay going and help them mature and and obviously You know, we're here to help them get in on educational perspective

[00:51:16] So sounds fun. Sounds like you've been working on a bunch of stuff Yeah, little by little That's good. Well more some more things are coming Hey, I'm glad I'm glad you're back in the saddle You launched new products

[00:51:30] We're still creating content, which is king right and what I don't know about tick tock and now I opened up We're still not pushing tick tock It's Some are doing it, but we're not pushing Yeah, and uh snapchat and you know, maybe some of the not business focused

[00:51:47] Business focused things out there, but I had a lot of things in reels and stories now for instagram and facebook Well, you know what short video clips are not a bad idea

[00:51:57] Yep, very good and even up on linkedin doing panels and informational type things you see more and more of that stuff I like that and linkedin is still You know creating organic content and linkedin is still a very good idea Yep

[00:52:13] Very good idea. I didn't even say put ads in just organic content linkedin if you're in business Please spend some time there and if you don't maybe sign up for this thing and put it in there, but either way

[00:52:25] Do something else it out bounce it out brand end demand There you go to do call to action, but don't do it all called action Do some education education is important, right? We're gonna we're gonna label this session brand end demand. I think that's the name

[00:52:41] Okay, that's good. That's good so mark it vault.com Equal ubrium console.com any other places we should send people to how do they get a hold of you linkedin You know, that's that's a i'm up there pretty regularly and all that and

[00:52:58] Uh, you know upcoming will be a comp team. We'll have a booth there and who knows maybe we'll we'll make a We can make a guest appearance or special appearance out of community minds Maybe maybe so for if everyone is looking for peter on all the social networks

[00:53:13] Pete I think everybody knows the spell that last name b u s a m just in case you want to send peter message If I was you I'd be like p. I need all that mdf information How do I do? Hook me up, man

[00:53:28] That's what I would send but I digress you do what you do best. I think a single message probably doesn't cost you a lot of time Take it for what it's worth this session We record it which means you can go backwards

[00:53:40] And rewind and make sure you start writing down all those names Pete said of all the people giving out free money That being said all the URLs are there, you know, definitely go to mspinitium.com under sessions It'll be on our youtube page be on the podcatchers

[00:53:53] This is a good one to go back and review because we talk about a lot of stuff That's like actual money making things for you. And if you don't take advantage of it

[00:54:02] It's on you. We at least got you to good information that can actually help you that being said Keep watching us here at mspinitium.com. We do these podcasts twice a week and all of them go back to I don't know march of 2020 So there's hundreds of episodes

[00:54:16] Got it I'm gonna give you one more thing Okay The msp initiative community we've got the website up on the special offers We're gonna go back and we're gonna add another offer with a special code in it only msp initiative members for marketing

[00:54:34] Oh get you 25 off of your hundred dollars for your first three months It was already like chick filet money the guys You know We we want we want to get these these companies started so I'm gonna give 25 off their first three months only with the msp initiative

[00:54:52] When we post this we're gonna make sure to have that in all the notes and we'll send it out and make sure everybody knows That's a special offer to take advantage of because guys like It's giving it away

[00:55:00] But if he's telling you as part of that hundred dollars a month He's gonna tell you how to get that mdf money. I would just give him the hundred dollars and say give me the mdf money But hey, I dig around

[00:55:09] Maybe we need to do a maybe I need to do a webinar on md. I think I think it would be a good idea Keep keep watching us here at msp initiative.com. We got uh msp community lines coming up in denver september 25 26

[00:55:22] And we got all those block parties keep keep coming and enjoying yourself Thank you for watching and we'll catch you on the flip side pete talked to you on the other end and we'll catch up with you later Thank you Here's guys