The podcast powered by the MSP Marketing Edge
Welcome to Episode 275 of the MSP Marketing Podcast with me, Paul Green. This week…
- Why the tough life of an MSP owner is worth it: Running a business can feel like it’s sucking all your time and energy, but the big picture is that you can work towards the lifestyle you most want to live.
- How a messy office damages your MSP’s sales: Is your office a pristine, tidy space with zero mess or an untidy space packed with clutter? Find out why your environment impacts your effectiveness.
- EXCLUSIVE: How to reduce tickets while delighting clients: My guest explains why digital organisation is vital for business health and how you can help clients consolidate, archive and purge their data for a more effecient work flow.
- Paul’s Personal Peer Group: Do you ever wonder how happy your staff are? I have the questions to help you find out the answer.
Why the tough life of an MSP owner is worth it
What is it with people like you and me running on fumes? If you’re running an MSP, I know what it’s like right now. That boost you had from time off over Christmas, all that recharging festive fuel, that was months ago. It’s all long gone. And yet we keep pushing, don’t we mile after mile after mile, hoping we can keep the business going, hoping we can keep it growing. But is this actually the best way to run an MSP? Stick around to be reminded why we do this, how to keep your energy levels up and the unexpected benefit to your life and lifestyle in the long-term.
So this is my 20th year as a business owner and my goodness that has gone so quickly. I kid you not, I was 30 when I started my first business and I was young and cool and now I’m this old man, I’m age 50, I’ve got the creaky back, I’ve got a dodgy knee. And if you’re in your twenties or thirties right now, do not get cocky kid. This is going to happen to you as well. Although by the time that you reach the age the I am now, I’ll be in a nursing home, anyway.
One of the constants of being a business owner is that it is hard work. I have a great business now with a great team at the MSP Marketing Edge and we do great work for MSPs all over the world with our service. But I still have weeks where I’m working more hours than someone with a job would. If I worked for someone else in a job, I would never do those 50, 60 week hours, rarely anyway. And if I look back over the last 20 years, there have been many of those periods of time where you throw yourself into projects or problems or whatever it is. I’m sure you do exactly the same.
The truth is only business owners can understand this…
Running a business that you own is more than just something you do. It’s more than just a job. It’s very much a way of life.
It has a unique way of sucking every single last ounce of energy and every last second of time out of you. And do you know, as I hear myself saying that, I realise that I’m not really painting it in a very good light for someone who’s actually thinking of starting their own MSP. So sorry if that’s you. But I think actually before anyone starts their own business, really they need to understand the downsides as well as the upsides. It is an all consuming thing and especially so with an MSP because running an MSP is surely running one of the most difficult kinds of businesses in the world.
There are so many details you need to be across, there’s so much that changes. And of course you have to be both proactive and reactive at the same time. You have to be proactive stopping things from going wrong, but then reactive...
