Paul Green's MSP Marketing Podcast

• Do marketing you can't automate or scale

  The podcast powered by the MSP Marketing Edge Welcome to Episode 309 of the MSP Marketing Podcast with me, Paul Green. This week… Do marketing you can’t automate or scale: In the early days of trying out new marketing, you can’t always jump straight to automation. Manual testing helps to figure out what marketing actually works for your MSP. MSPs: Imagine losing 17,000 connections on LinkedIn overnight: You don’t own your connections, your content or your interactions on LinkedIn… they belong to LinkedIn, you just get to borrow them. MSPs should have a combination of borrowed and owed audiences. The simple video every MSP needs to increase sales: Explainer videos are a key marketing tool and my special guest will explain how to create one and how to make sure it’s something your hottest prospects are desperate to watch. The Marketing Minute: Don’t miss this quick and easy YouTube marketing tip. In a world where you can automate almost anything so it can be done at any scale, here’s the strangest advice you are going to hear from me. I believe sometimes you should deliberately do marketing that will never scale up and that you can’t automate, even if that means that you personally have to sit and do a whole chunk of work. Why would I recommend this? Surely one of my jobs is to make your marketing easier. Well, yes, that’s true once you’ve figured out what marketing works, but doing marketing experiments yourself is an important part of figuring out the specific tactics that’ll work for your MSP. As business owners, you and I love things that are scalable and repeatable, right? We like processes, automation, efficiency, and yes, that’s where you want to end up with your marketing. But in the early days of trying out a new marketing channel, you can’t always jump straight to automation. And here’s why. Not all marketing works for all businesses. What works brilliantly for the MSP down the road from you might flop for you. The only way to find out what marketing actually works for your business is to test it manually in a way that doesn’t scale. For example, let’s say you want to try LinkedIn outreach, and sure, there are tools out there that’ll blast out hundreds of automated messages every week. But if you don’t yet know what message resonates with your ideal prospects, then blasting out hundreds of messages just means you’ll annoy more people faster. Instead, you’re better off writing a handful of personal connection requests every day. Try different approaches, test out different messages and see what kind of response you get. Once you know what works, then you can look at scaling or systemising it. Here’s another example, follow up emails. You might want to eventually build an automated nurture sequence inside your CRM, but before you do that, it’s worth sending a batch of personal follow-ups to prospects one by one to see which subject lines get opened, which wording gets replies. That kind of stuff. Once you know can then plug those learnings into automation and let software do the heavy lifting. And here’s my key point. Marketing is not a one size fits all game. Every market, every town, every vertical is slightly different. So in the early days of trying something new, you’ve got to be willing to roll up your sleeves and do the kind of marketing that just isn’t scalable. Let me give you three more practical examples: Number one – handwritten letters to prospects. Everybody has too much email, but nobody gets lots of nice stuff in the post...

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• The 3 big reasons your best technicians might leave you

  The podcast powered by the MSP Marketing Edge Welcome to Episode 308 of the MSP Marketing Podcast with me, Paul Green. This week… The 3 big reasons your best technicians might leave you: Surely one of the greatest fears of any MSP is that of losing one of your key technicians. Let’s explore the three big reasons why they might leave and what you can do to address those. How to turn tech newbies into your MSP’s biggest fans: If you confuse your prospects and clients with technology, it’s likely they will disengage and divert their attention elsewhere. Everything needs to be explained in the easiest possible way. Control freak? Your MSP may struggle to grow: Business owners are control freaks and often get so caught up in the details that they struggle to grow. My special guest shares how he could help you to improve your business by letting go. Paul’s Personal Peer Group: Have you ever considered starting a podcast for your MSP? Here’s a few things you should consider before you dive in… The 3 big reasons your best technicians might leave you There are many fears that MSP owners have. One of them is of course being breached, another one is running out of cash. But surely one of the greatest fears is that of losing one of your key technicians. And I’m so sorry to even bring this up, but it’s something that we do need to talk about because there are always very specific reasons why any employee leaves any business. I want to explore the three big reasons that technicians might leave you so you can address those in your MSP before something terrible happens. You’ve probably heard that people don’t quit businesses, they quit managers or owners… whoever’s managing them. Well, this is absolutely true, and in fact, studies have consistently shown that 75% of voluntary exits are due to the boss and not due to the role itself. Another survey that I found on Google show that 57% of employees left their job because of frustrations with their manager or leadership. So here are the top three specific reasons that a technician might leave your business: The first is poor management – a lack of support, micromanagement, or even bad communication. Managers who don’t coach, who don’t listen or who don’t trust their people well they drive them away. The second reason is no meaningful growth or opportunities. High performers crave challenge and progression, and without it they get bored or worse, they leave. And the third reason is feelings of being undervalued or unrecognised. If your techs aren’t getting feedback, recognition or meaningful rewards, they’ll just look for a place that gives them those things. But now for the good parts and how to flip the script and keep your top tech talent engaged, motivated, and loyal: Number one – coach them, train them, invest in them. Make development a habit, not just lip service. Training, whether you do this yourself or whether you pay for them to have training, it boosts retention massively and tailored development plans show that you’re serious about their future. Plus, if you invest in leadership, you won’t end up with accidental managers who drive people away. And of course that’s good because as you can develop managers who work for you, it’s going to be easier for you to hand over the reins for the business at some point when you want to take life a little bit easier. And we do get there, I promise you we do. Number two – give them room to grow and give them meaningful work to d...

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• MSPs: Stop using this 2008 marketing tactic

  The podcast powered by the MSP Marketing Edge Welcome to Episode 307 of the MSP Marketing Podcast with me, Paul Green. This week… MSPs: Stop using this 2008 marketing tactic: Some MSPs are trying to find new clients using outdated tactics from over 20 years ago. Let’s find out which tactics are working for building your email list and lead gen right now. Why ignoring Copilot damages MSPs’ retention: Whether you love it or hate it, AI tools are here to stay and we know that Microsoft is highly committed to baking Copilot into everything. Let me tell you why. Can MSPs win clients without embracing video?: The video revolution is happening, and it’s the MSPs who are embracing it who are winning new clients faster. My special guest reveals ways for you to use video easily and also something that he’s calling, the new social SEO. Paul’s Personal Peer Group: As an MSP owner, do you struggle to let go and delegate tasks to staff or outsource. Let me tell you why it’s such an important step to growing your business. MSPs: Stop using this 2008 marketing tactic You’re not doing MySpace marketing, are you? Some MSPs are trying to find new clients using outdated tactics from over 20 years ago. Building an email list is still one of the most effective things you can do, but are you asking for email addresses in the most modern way? Let’s find out which tactics are working for building your email list and lead gen right now, and which should have died out alongside MySpace. What I’m talking about here is lead magnets. Have you heard of those? Let’s discuss what they are, why you should care, and why your approach to them might be stuck in the past. First things first, what is a lead magnet? It’s something valuable that you give away for free in exchange for someone’s contact details. And usually that’s their email address, but sometimes it’s also their phone number or other information. The whole idea is to attract the right prospects and start a relationship with them before you try and sell them anything. Now, if you think about it, no one wakes up in the morning thinking, oh, I can’t wait to fill in another contact form today. You have to give people a reason to do it, and the lead magnet is that reason. So how would you use one in your MSP? It’s simple. You put it everywhere that you prospects might come across you. So on your website, your LinkedIn, both your profile and your posts, your email signature, anywhere really, and you promote it almost like it’s a service that you offer. In fact, the more valuable it feels, the more people will download or sign up for it. And then you can follow up with useful emails that guide them towards becoming a client, whoop. Now here’s the thing. For years the go-to lead magnet has been a PDF download, something like top 10 tips for cyber security or a small Business IT checklist. And don’t get me wrong, these can still work, but let’s be honest, PDFs are a bit old hat now, right? People are drowning in files they never open, and the guide that you put hours into creating is probably sitting in someone’s downloads folder and they’ve never opened it. So what’s better these days? Well, I believe these days, interactive content wins. And one of the best examples is an engagement quiz. The kind of thing that you can build with a platform like ScoreApp. If you’ve never heard of that, go and Google it, it’s a great app. And here’s why quizzes work so well. They’re quick – your prospect can answer a few easy questions in minutes.

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• Your MSP should AVOID these AI tools

  The podcast powered by the MSP Marketing Edge Welcome to Episode 306 of the MSP Marketing Podcast with me, Paul Green. This week… Your MSP should AVOID these AI tools: If you want to be more productive, do better marketing and ultimately grow your MSP, there are AI tools you’ll definitely want to avoid. Instead, here are five AI tools that you should be using right now. Why your MSP doesn’t stand out (and how to fix that): There are thousands of MSPs to choose from, so why would people choose you? Let me share a couple of good ideas with you and see if I can give you some inspiration. All successful MSPs have this in common: The easiest way to grow your MSP is to ask someone who’s already done it. My special guest has been growing MSPs for 20 years and has some ideas waiting for you to use. Paul’s Personal Peer Group: Find out what “relevance increases results” actually means and how can it help with your MSP’s marketing. Your MSP should AVOID these AI tools It’s one thing being overwhelmed by your business and not having enough time to find new clients for your MSP, but it’s another thing being overwhelmed with the choices of AI tools that are supposed to save you time and reduce overwhelm in the first place. Have you found the options and variations of AI tools so completely bamboozling? Well, if so, you’re not on your own. If you want to be more productive, do better marketing and ultimately grow your MSP, here are five AI tools that you should be using right now. And let’s be honest, there is a lot of noise about AI and a lot of it is hype. I follow a lot of AI newsletters very carefully to keep up to date with what’s happening, which of course is a never ending and somewhat overwhelming task in itself. Now while there is a lot of talk of people trying to do amazing things, often when you dive into the amazing things that all of these new tools should be able to do, they just don’t work that way. Well, they kind of work that way, but they’re never really good enough for you to rely on them. But saying that… There are some very real and very useful tools that MSPs are already using to save time, create better marketing, and just get more done. So let me give you a shortlist of what I think are the best AI tools you should know about right now: Let’s start with the most obvious one, ChatGPT or Copilot or Perplexity or whatever your preferred tool is. And yeah, I know it’s obvious but hear me out because the trick with getting the best output from your general AI tool is giving it good input. So let’s look at content creation for example. The worst thing you could do is just say, Hey, ChatGPT, write me a blog post about backups because it’s just going to generate boring AI slop that isn’t going to bring any benefit to your MSP. So a better way to use it is to shape content that you’re already getting from trusted content providers and get the AI tool to customise it to your specific audience. Let me give you an example. We create tons of content for our MSP Marketing Edge members and increasingly a number of them are using AI tools to tailor that content to their specific audience. So for example, some have created custom GPTs, which are then trained on their ICP, sorry to use two acronyms in a row there, but as you might already know, an ICP is an ideal client profile. So they’ve essentially taught the AI exactly what their ideal client looks like and then they put our content into that custom GPT and the AI tweaks and adjusts the content so it’s...

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• Is on-site support a competitive advantage?

  The podcast powered by the MSP Marketing Edge Welcome to Episode 305 of the MSP Marketing Podcast with me, Paul Green. This week… Is on-site support a competitive advantage?: Does your MSP still provide on-site support or are you thinking that maybe you should? Your decision could affect how successful your MSP is. How to find your MSP’s next 5 clients: Let me introduce you to the concept of the Dream 100 and how it could completely change your idea of marketing forever. Is this the only way MSPs should increase profits?: When profits are down should you reduce costs or focus your time on increasing sales? My special guest is an expert at operations and she’s got a unique spin on this exact problem that you are going to want to hear. Paul’s Personal Peer Group: Do you have a live chat or instant messaging option on your MSP’s website? There’s so many options it’s hard to know the right one to choose. But I have the answer for you. Is on-site support a competitive advantage? Some MSPs do do it, some MSPs make a point of saying, no way. We’re talking about providing on-site support. Obviously back in the day it went without saying, you just did it. But in our modern, remote first world, the need for in-person on-site support has completely changed. So are you still providing it or are you thinking that maybe you should or that you never ever will again, Your decision could affect how successful your MSP is. So let’s explore your options right now. Let’s be honest, a few years ago having engineers who could turn up at a client’s office and fix something kind of felt like a major selling point, but here we are in 2025 and most businesses now are hybrid or remote, that happened very quickly. Almost everything can be fixed remotely, so is on-site support still something worth shouting about in your marketing or is it yesterday’s news? Let’s look at both sides of this. The case for on-site support being a competitive advantage, first of all. It starts with the fact that some clients love knowing that someone will actually physically come out if needed. You think about clients with manufacturing equipment, specialist hardware, or those who just feel reassured by a human coming into the office. For them, we’ll be there in person if you need us, that’s a big comfort factor. And as we know, comfort sells. And not every MSP is offering this anymore, of course, so if most of your competitors have gone fully remote you’ll be standing out as we’re local, we’re personal, we’ll come on-site. That could be a differentiator in your marketing. It’s a trust builder. It says, we are not just faceless techs in the cloud, we are real people here for you. Now let’s look on the other side, the case against on-site support being a competitive advantage. Because on the flip side, as we know, most day-to-day issues don’t need it. Clients are used to remote support now, in fact they expect you to fix things fast online, over the internet. And for many, the idea of waiting for someone to drive over and come into an office kind of feels old fashioned, it’s not special anymore. And then of course there’s the cost. Offering on-site support means travel time, scheduling headaches, and of course engineers are less productive if they’re on-site. They’re not doing three things at once like they are if they’re in the office or working from home. So if your competitors are leaner because they don’t offer it, that could make your prices look higher for something the client doesn’t even...

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