Who Moved My Cheese? How Smart MSPs Turn Change into 7-Figure Growth

When I ran my MSP, I learned one simple truth: the cheese always moves! A client leaves, a competitor undercuts you, Microsoft changes pricing, or a shiny new technology comes along that makes your old offerings look ancient. Sound familiar? It should! Change isn’t the exception in our industry; it’s the rule.

Now that I’m on the cloud provider side with Cloud Services for MSPs, I’ve seen it even more clearly. The MSPs who grow, really grow, aren’t the ones who complain about the cheese being gone. They’re the ones who sniff out where it’s moved and get there before anyone else!

The Book That Opened My Eyes

There’s a deceptively simple little book that shaped how I look at change: Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson. It’s a fun story about two mice, Sniff and Scurry, and two little people, Hem and Haw, searching for cheese in a maze.

But here’s the thing… every MSP owner has all four of those characters inside of them! Which one you let drive the bus determines whether your business grows or gets stuck.

• Sniff senses change before it happens.
• Scurry doesn’t overthink; just acts.
• Hem resists, complains, and refuses to adapt.
• Haw hesitates but eventually laughs, learns, and moves forward.

When cloud first started taking off, most MSPs were like Hem. They didn’t trust it. But I wanted to be Sniff and Scurry. We smelled the opportunity early and jumped headfirst into building cloud solutions before anyone else was even talking about it. People thought we were nuts. Competitors mocked us! But we got the best clients and built a seven-figure MSP because of it. That decision to embrace change was one of the smartest moves we ever made.

What Cheese Means for MSPs

In Johnson’s book, cheese represents what you value. For MSPs, that’s things like recurring revenue, key clients, cloud deals, security contracts, and reputation. But cheese never stays in the same place forever!

Twenty years ago, the cheese was on-prem servers. Five years ago, it was backup and disaster recovery. Today, it’s security, compliance, AI, and vertical specialization.

If you’re still standing in the same old cheese station, waiting for things to go back to “normal,” you’re going to starve while others feast.

Lessons That Changed Everything

Let’s break this down MSP-style. Here are the biggest lessons from Who Moved My Cheese? that helped me (and can help you) build a thriving business.

1. Change Happens

They keep moving the cheese! Client needs, vendors, and tech trends will always shift. Pretending otherwise is a fast track to going broke. Remember when backup tapes were gold or when block hours were the “safe” billing model? Both are fossils now. The MSPs who refused to change disappeared or they’re barely hanging on.

2. Anticipate Change

Smell the cheese often. Talk to clients about their business goals, not just tickets or projects. Are they expanding? Cutting back? Worried about compliance? That’s your signal! The best deals we ever closed came from spotting change in a client’s world before they did.

3. Adapt Quickly

The faster you let go of old cheese, the sooner you’ll find new cheese. Hanging onto unprofitable clients or outdated services feels safe, but it’s poison for your business. Cut loose what’s holding you back, even if it’s familiar.

4. Enjoy Change

I’ll be honest, I used to hate change! Every pivot felt risky. But every big leap, moving to cloud or building a security stack, paid off. Once I embraced it, it even started to feel fun. New cheese always tastes better, trust me.

5. Be Ready to Change Again

The cheese will move again, and again! The service that’s hot today will be old news tomorrow. The MSPs who thrive are the ones who bake change right into their business model. Adaptation isn’t a one-time event. It’s a way of life.

Time for Self-Reflection

Grab a notebook and be brutally honest with yourself.

• Where are you clinging to old cheese?
• Which services or clients no longer make sense?
• Where has the cheese already moved: security, compliance, AI, or a specific vertical?
• Where’s the new cheese waiting for you to act?

Pick one outdated service or low-value client and make a decision this week. Update it, raise the price, or cut it loose. That’s how you create space for new opportunities.

Final Thoughts

At Cloud Services for MSPs, we’ve lived this transformation. From running a traditional MSP to leading with cloud, compliance, and automation, we’ve seen firsthand that the only constant in tech is change. And those who embrace it win big.

As Spencer Johnson said:

“If you do not change, you can become extinct.”

Have a great week and weekend!