Every once in a while, there’s a book that stops you in your tracks and makes you take inventory of everything you do in your business. The Pumpkin Plan by Michael Michalowicz is one of those books. It will prompt you to re-evaluate how you run your MSP business.
Success breeds success. We’ve all heard this statement before. Want to be successful?… Hang out with successful people. Want great clients?… Get more great clients. Easier said than done, right? If we want great clients for our business, the first step is to get rid of the ones stealing all your energy and focus.
Over the past several months, a peer group we belong to has been studying The Pumpkin Plan. It focuses on the importance of getting the right clients and removing those clients that rob your company of the time and energy needed to grow and prosper.
What can your MSP business learn from The Pumpkin Plan?… How about “lots?”
Each year Americans start one million new businesses, nearly 80 percent of which fail within the first five years. Under pressure to stay alive, let alone grow, it’s easy for entrepreneurs to get caught up in a never-ending cycle of “sell it—do it, sell it—do it” that leaves them exhausted, frustrated, and unable to get ahead no matter how hard they try.
This is the exact situation Mike Michalowicz the author of The Pumpkin Plan found himself in when he was trying to grow his first company. Although it was making steady money, there was never very much left over, and he was chasing customers left and right, putting in “twenty-eight-hour days, eight days a week.”
The punishing grind never let up. His company was alive but stunted, and he was barely breathing. That’s when he discovered an unlikely source of inspiration—pumpkin farmers.
After reading an article about a local farmer who had dedicated his life to growing giant pumpkins, Michalowicz realized the same process could apply to growing a business. He tested the Pumpkin Plan on his own company and transformed it into a remarkable, multimillion-dollar industry leader.
First, he did it for himself–then for others. And now you can do this for your MSP business and help your clients as well.
What Is The Pumpkin Plan?
It’s a 7-Step Plan to “grow a pumpkin.”
- You have to plant the right seeds.
- Water, water, water.
- Remove all the diseased or damaged pumpkins from the vine.
- Weed like crazy!
- Remove all of the less promising pumpkins that are still on the vine. Put all your attention on the best one.
- Nurture your one special pumpkin. Put all your attention on this pumpkin; stand guard over your “baby.”
- Watch it grow. Eventually, this will happen so fast you can actually watch it unfolding.
And, it’s also a simple strategy to grow a remarkable business in any field:
- Plant the right seeds: Don’t waste time doing a bunch of different things just to please your customers. Instead, identify the thing you do better than anyone else and focus all of your attention, money, and time on figuring out how to grow your company doing it.
- Weed out the losers: In a pumpkin patch small, rotten pumpkins stunt the growth of the robust, healthy ones. The same is true of your clients. Figure out which ones add the most value and provide the best opportunities for sustained growth. Then ditch the worst of the worst.
- Nurture the winners: Once you figure out who your best clients are, blow their minds with care. Discover their unfulfilled needs, innovate to make their wishes come true, and overdeliver on every single promise!
Help Your Clients Grow Their Businesses Using The Cloud
When it comes to the Cloud, there are many organizations out there that are perfect for the Cloud, and there are many that simply have no interest in what it can do for them. What we learned from The Pumpkin Plan is to cultivate relationships with companies that can grow into large pumpkins using the Cloud versus trying to convert those smaller pumpkins that have no interest in it.
Speaking with companies or partners that understand the Cloud will make your life easier, lessen your sales cycles and the can eliminate time wasted trying to educate or convince those that may never grow into prized giant pumpkins.
The Pumpkin Plan is full of stories about other successful entrepreneurs. It will guide you and your clients through unconventional strategies to help you build a truly profitable blue-ribbon company that is the best in your field.
Take a copy of The Pumpkin Plan with you on client visits. Better yet, purchase a copy and give it to the clients who understand how using the Cloud will help them grow.
If you or your clients have questions about this or the Cloud, then let’s connect!