How We Used Education to Outsell Bigger MSPs

Have you ever looked at another MSP in your market and thought, how can we possibly compete with them? They have more technicians, a bigger office, more salespeople, and probably a much larger marketing budget. Sometimes it feels like they have every advantage!

Back when we were an MSP, we competed against companies much larger than ours all the time. But over the years, something interesting happened. People started calling us first. That wasn’t because we suddenly became the biggest MSP. It was because we had become the MSP they already knew.

Why Size Matters Less Than You Think

If you run a smaller MSP, under several million dollars, you’ve probably felt this too.

After nearly 40 years in this industry and working with lots of other MSPs, I’ve learned something very different. People don’t necessarily buy from the biggest MSP. They buy from the MSP they trust the most, and trust is something you can build long before someone ever becomes a prospect.

It Was Hundreds of Little Things

Looking back, I can’t point to one video or article that changed our business. It was hundreds of little things.

We wrote articles and white papers. We gave seminars and spoke to business groups. We held webinars and showed up on social media. For years we produced our IT Done Right videos, hundreds of them, and today I’m still doing this podcast! We kept putting out information that helped business owners understand technology and make better decisions, and slowly, we became one of the go-to experts. People knew who we were before we ever sat down with them.

That’s when I realized something really important: education changes the sales conversation before the sales conversation ever happens.

Think about it. Say someone has watched five of your videos, attended one of your webinars, read a couple of your articles, and followed you on social media for six months. What happens when they finally need an MSP? You’re not a stranger anymore. They’ve heard how you think, you’ve already answered a lot of their questions, and most importantly, they’ve started to trust you. That’s a completely different sales conversation!

“But I Don’t Have Time to Become a Content Creator”

If that’s what you’re thinking right now, I’m not asking you to become one. I’m asking you to teach what you already know. I think about it in three simple steps.

Step one: answer the questions your clients are already asking. You don’t have to sit around trying to invent content. Your content walks into your business every day. Do I really need MFA? Why do we need cybersecurity training? Should we move the server to the cloud? What happens if our internet goes down? How do I know our backups actually work? There’s your content. If one client is asking it, chances are ten prospects are wondering about it too. Just answer it!

Step two: teach it somewhere. This doesn’t have to be complicated. Write a short LinkedIn post, record a two-minute video on your phone, or put it in your newsletter. You could talk about it at your chamber meeting, speak at a local business group, hold a lunch and learn, or run a webinar. You don’t have to do all of them. Just pick one and start showing up.

Step three: keep doing it. This is the part most people miss. You don’t become the go-to expert because you posted three videos last month. It happens because you keep showing up. Eventually people started mentioning videos of ours they’d watched. That’s when you realize they’re paying attention.

How We Built Our Cloud Business

Cloud is a great example of how this worked for us. We didn’t build our cloud business by telling everybody they needed to move to the cloud. We educated them. We talked about downtime, business continuity, working remotely, backups, and security.

Once a business owner understood the problem, cloud often became the logical solution, and we didn’t have to push nearly as hard because they understood why. That’s the difference between selling someone and educating someone.

Become Known for Something

You don’t need the biggest budget, a huge sales team, or the biggest MSP. You need to become known for something.

Be the MSP that explains cybersecurity better than anyone else. Or the one that understands cloud, or law firms, or manufacturing, construction, or business continuity. Whatever your expertise is, teach it! When you teach consistently, you stop chasing every prospect, because some of them start coming to you. And when they do, you’re no longer trying to prove you’re an expert. You’ve already shown them.

Your Challenge This Week

Write down the question you hear most often from your clients. Just one. Then answer it somewhere: make a video, write a post, or send an email. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Just teach. Then next week, do it again!

If you need a head start, check out our free Cloud Academy for MSPs. It’s full of done for you campaigns, content, and webinars to help you start showing up.

You may never become the biggest MSP in your market, and that’s okay. Become the one they know, the one they trust, and the one they call.

“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” – Benjamin Franklin

Have a great week and weekend!