Don’t Hunt, FARM: The MSP Growth Model That Never Stops Paying

When I ran my MSP years ago, I tried every method under the sun to grow the business. Networking events, cold outreach, chasing referrals… you name it. But most of that felt like chasing shadows. I was hunting. And let me tell you: when you don’t catch something, you go hungry fast!

That’s when everything changed.

I learned about nurturing. Sounds kind of boring, right? But it built our MSP from the ground up and still powers growth for our cloud company today: Cloud Services for MSPs. Nurturing is the most consistent and scalable growth engine I’ve ever seen. And the best part? Anyone can do it.

Hunters Starve, But Farmers Feast

Let’s talk about the difference between hunting and farming. Most MSPs are hunters. They throw a line out (maybe a cold email here, a referral chase there) and they hope something bites.

But hope isn’t a strategy!

Hunting is short-term. If you don’t close something today, your pipeline stays empty tomorrow. That’s stressful. You’re always in survival mode.

Farming? Whole different game. Farming means planting seeds, watering them, feeding them… and trusting the process. You’re not begging for attention. You’re building relationships.

It’s intentional. It’s strategic. And yes: it works.

What Farming Looked Like for Us

I’ve got a diagram on my desk showing a farm. It’s a simple image, but a powerful reminder. We weren’t chasing low-hanging fruit. We were planting orchards!

When we ran our MSP, we built a full nurturing system:

• Monthly printed newsletters
• Email drip campaigns
• Handwritten letters
• Lumpy mailers (yep, the kind that make people open them)
• Call campaigns
• Postcards
• Shock-and-awe boxes

Every lead was treated like a seed. Even if they ghosted us… even if they said, “Not now”… we didn’t dig them up to check if they were growing. We trusted the system. And eventually, we harvested!

Why Nurturing Works (Even When It Feels Like It Doesn’t)

I get it. You send a few follow-up emails and hear… nothing. Crickets. Been there.

But here’s why you can’t give up:

1. You stay top of mind. Most MSPs lose deals to neglect, not competition. People forget you exist. A steady stream of value keeps you in their world.
2. You become the expert. While others just “check in,” you educate. You build trust. You become the one they look to when they need answers.
3. You build the relationship before the crisis. When something goes wrong (cyber breach, backup fail, bad vendor) you’re already the one they know and trust.

Nurturing turns your pipeline into a garden of opportunities. You don’t plant a tomato today and eat it tonight. But give it time? You’ve got rows of ripe fruit. More than you can handle!

But Who Has Time to Do All This?

You might be thinking, “This sounds great, but I don’t have time to write newsletters and mail lumpy stuff!”

Good news. You don’t have to start from scratch. At Cloud Services for MSPs, we’ve taken the exact nurture campaigns that worked for us and updated them for today. Emails, letters, mailers, call scripts, eBooks: you name it.

We’ve got campaigns built for:

• Vertical industries
• Seasonal triggers
• Disaster-prone areas (hurricanes, tornadoes, floods)
• And more being added monthly!

This is farming at scale. And it’s the difference between MSPs who survive… and MSPs who scale.

Your Challenge: Plant Your First Crop

Here’s your mission this week: Plant your first crop.

Pull a list of 5, 10, or even 20 leads you spoke to in the last year who didn’t close. Maybe they ghosted. Maybe they said, “Not right now.” It doesn’t matter.

Start them on a nurture campaign.

If you don’t have one, grab one from our Cloud Academy. It’s free for MSPs like you. And just by doing that? You’re ahead of 99% of your competition.

No need to reinvent the wheel. Just commit to watering your seeds.

Because when the rest of the industry is out there hunting in the cold? You’ll be harvesting warm opportunities.

That’s how we did it. That’s how our partners are doing it. And that’s how you build a scalable, sustainable MSP!

Thanks for reading! If you found this helpful, don’t forget to subscribe or check out our free Cloud Academy. It’s packed with plug-and-play nurture campaigns you can start using today.

And before you go, I’ll leave you with this quote from Robert Louis Stevenson that sits at the heart of everything we do: Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant.

Have a great week and weekend!