How to Reach New Buyers and Grow Your Relevance with Existing Buyers

The top worry of the MSP operators I've been advising for 20 years is resonating with buyers — how do I reach new buyers while growing relevance to the ones I've got?

The answer has become more complicated as the buying process evolves from the classic awareness, evaluation, consideration, purchasing, boom!, through Jay McBain's "28 Moments of the Customer Journey," to where we are today: the dynamic and frustratingly (for us) random buyer's journey of discovery. We don't create demand anymore. We must sense it, capture it, serve it differently.

What I'm seeing in the marketplace might sound counterintuitive: As sophisticated AI-driven marketing solutions proliferate; successful MSP owners and managers are finding what's old is new again.

The vast majority of MSPs are small businesses. The average MSP, globally, serves a client base of 122 customers, 60% of whom employ fewer than 150 people, according to Mordor Intelligence. Only 5% of MSPs serve clients with more than 500 employees.

At that scale, there's no substitute for getting out with your customers, spending time with them, and constantly demonstrating not only value — which is paramount — but also human emotions that reassure customers and attract new buyers: concern, alignment, partnership, caring. The most successful MSP operators, I find, are the ones who spend the most time on the road visiting clients.

I urge MSP managers to get inside the minds of their best and longest-standing customers to find out firsthand what matters the most to them, what services would deliver greatest value and what special challenges their businesses face. Don't ask them — go inside and learn for yourself.

This pays double dividends: it will help build business with existing customers and make you a lot smarter when talking to new potential buyers in the same industry segment.

But What Should I Do on Monday Morning?

Satisfying buyers' journeys of discovery — "marketing," as we've always called it — requires MSPs to develop a voice that matters and speaks to buyers and customers precisely "where they are," by which, we mean, the most powerful messages delivered through the most effective channels.

Depending on the size of the MSP, that could be high-cadence podcasts or a Reddit channel or speaking at a local service club or a local college with a computer science program.

To maintain ROI discipline and focus, I coach a 5-Step Framework for messaging and content:

Make Managed Security Offering a Buyer-Friendly Marketing and Sales Tool

Managed security is often cited as the No. 1 new-business driver. No wonder surveys show more than 90% of MSPs now offer managed security services. Offering managed security can also be a great marketing tool.

One example I've seen: MSPs that sponsor monthly "Cybersecurity Awareness Days," which are hosted at the offices of the MSP's best clients. Talk about "what's old is new again" — these companies bring in quality lunches and present a 15-minute clinic, covering the steps employees can take to protect the company from security breaches — simple things, like not clicking on mysterious attachments in company email.

Too many MSPs, in my opinion, sell their clients online security training that's delivered by others. It's true MSPs are focused on getting customers to subscribe to recurring services, but in this case, it's better marketing for the MSP to offer the security training to its clients.

This is a great business opportunity in the UK, thanks to the Cyber Essentials certification program. The number of organizations following Cyber Essentials mandates is a tiny percentage of the UK's 5.5 million private sector businesses, according to InfoSecurity Magazine. Smart MSPs should get in there, do the training, help companies earn certification that in turn reassures their customers and demonstrate value.

MSPs can help burnish the image of beleaguered IT teams inside customers. Normally, IT staff are the "no-bots" often denying requests for that sorely needed new laptop or monitor. MSPs can throw a rare positive light on buyers' small IT staff by being "the cybersecurity people" — folks who come in and coach cybersecurity hygiene and distribute high-quality snacks — presented by your friends in the IT department.

The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid

I borrowed that phrase from a 2004 book, of the same name, by University of Michigan Business Professor C.K. Prahalad, who prescribed a long-tail method of deriving profit from the world's poorest people.

In the MSP world, small customers are often viewed as almost more trouble than they're worth. Many MSP executives ignore their small customers, regarding them as "the home of churn." But, in fact, small customers are the best upsell opportunities. Smart MSPs can grow small customers by innovating pricing and packaging strategies that slowly but consistently grow revenue while building protective barriers to churn.

I hope these ideas for resonating with buyers prove helpful. Buyers' journeys of discovery only have three stages — buyer develops clarity on their problem; buyer researches like mad to understand every facet of possible solutions; buyer selects the provider/guide offering the best chance of nailing the solution — but buyers wander randomly, they do not march directly through these stages.