MSP Succes Magazine - June/July 2022

MSP Succes Magazine - June/July 2022

MSP SUCCESS MAGAZINE How To Prepare Your MSP For A Successful Acquisition Or Merger

5 Key Strategies For Triple-Digit Growth How To

FINALLY Get Your Website To Produce

Fred Voccola, CEO Of Kaseya, Reveals His Plan For Kaseya, The Datto Acquisition And Why So Many MSPs Are Rallying Behind His Vision For IT Complete

June/July 2022

MSPSuccessMagazine.com

“After Adding Over $50,000 In Managed Services Contracts With Our First Three Marketing Campaigns We Had To Do Something I Never Thought Would Happen!”

Ross was skeptical when his partner first told him about the Technology Marketing Toolkit. At the time, Ross was much more a CTO than a CMO, spending most of his day working with clients to build complex cloud environments and on big technical issues. His partner convinced him that if they wanted to grow, Technology Marketing Toolkit was the right move, but they would never have believed what happened next.

Ross Brouse Continuous Networks

In Ross’s words, “From our first three marketing campaigns, we closed more than $50,000 in new monthly recurring revenue from four new clients, and I begged my partner to stop all marketing and sales.” He was swamped and needed to catch up. That was in addition to $19,980 in project work and $63,000 in hardware sales, all in one quarter. Once Ross made some key hires with the new revenue and put some systems in place, he says, “ I now spend 90% of my time working ‘ON’ the business. I’ve paid off all my credit card debt, lost 60 pounds and am in the best physical shape of my life! “Robin Robins and Technology Marketing Toolkit have given me and Continuous Networks the marketing, sales and processes foundation we truly needed. We will continue to harness what Robin gave us to build our own foundation for success!”

Scan To Watch

To See How Ross And Thousands Of Other MSPs Have Achieved Similar Results, Watch This Presentation Now At: toolkitlive.com/autopilot

VOLUME 3.5 June/July 2022 CONTENTS

4 Letter From The Editor

14 5 Key Strategies For Triple-Digit Growth

6 The Current State Of Cybersecurity 8 Where Have All The Good Salespeople Gone? 10 The 7 Deadly Inbound Lead Sins 12 How To Prepare Your MSP For A Successful

21 Be Inspired

22 What MSPs Do For Backup

24 How To FINALLY Get Your Website To Produce 27 Top Tech Tips So You Can (Finally) Take A Vacation

16

Acquisition Or Merger

Fred Voccola, CEO Of Kaseya, Reveals His Plan For Kaseya, The Datto Acquisition And Why So Many MSPs Are Rallying Behind His Vision For IT Complete

The paper used in the production of MSP Success Magazine includes post- consumer waste and is produced using sound environmental practices, waste reduction, and energy-efficient operations. Our paper has FSC certification and passes the SFI Chain of Custody Standard. Read more at WFPaperCo.com/sustainability.html.

Fred Voccola, CEO Of Kaseya

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

The Serenity Prayer A favorite piece of wisdom that hangs on the wall in my office: God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. When Kaseya announced the acquisition of Datto, there was much gnashing of teeth and unhappiness with a relatively small group of MSPs. And yes, it is a small number IF you don’t just look at the hate feeds and actually count the numbers. Datto has roughly 18,500 clients, and Kaseya has 17,500 (as told to me direct from each organization). If we estimate about a 20% crossover (another number provided to me), that’s an aggre- gate total of 28,800. Stay with me, there are a few key lessons in this … While I have better things to do than count the individuals who posted their unhappiness with the acquisition, I would safely estimate it’s well under 500, and more like 100–150 if you consider that those individuals posted multiple times on multiple feeds, AND you take out all direct competition chiming in. But if we wanted to use 500 to ensure we were NOT shooting low, that means a grand total of 3% of Datto clients and 1.7% of the total for both organizations posted about their unhappiness. If you estimate there are 144,000 MSPs out there, then that’s 0.3% of the entire universe of clients for them. Folks, that’s a very tiny minority. A loud one for sure, but a minority all the same. Of course, social media would have you think there’s far more of it than there is due to their algorithms promoting “heated” debates and automatically showing more of what is getting interactions (more on this in a minute). That said, I do think Kaseya has a PR problem that needs to be addressed. It’s never a good thing to get this kind of passionate disapprov- al for all to see, and it ought not be shrugged off. It is my understanding that Fred Voccola, CEO of Kaseya, is personally taking phone calls from MSPs who were extremely unhappy, and I can bear witness that he was the “last man standing” talking to a long line of MSPs after taking the stage at my Boot Camp back in April. So, what to make of all of this? For starters, if you allowed this to get you angry, distract you, and put you in a bad mood, I’d suggest a rereading of the serenity prayer. There’s nothing you are going to do or say to change this acquisition or any others that will surely follow, so why waste any time on it? Several years ago, I bought Salesforce and was flat out lied to in the demo about the software’s capabilities and the costs associated with getting it to work. Was I angry? You bet. But I had to come to the point of just letting it go, paying out the contract, and pouring my energy into a new system (Infusionsoft, now Keap). You can’t saw sawdust, and allow- ing yourself to waste even a minute online posting about how irritated you are, reading and responding to comments about the acquisition, or otherwise engaging in the online “mob” ONLY makes you angrier and distracts you from far more important things you HAVE control over and WILL impact you more directly. Second, I would caution any entrepreneur with honest ambition running an MSP to stay OFF social media as much as possible. Yes, I use social media myself and don’t feel it’s ALL bad — but, if you are not careful, it can burn up a lot of hours that could be put to much better use, including nonwork activities such as getting some much-needed exercise, reading something truly educational, spending time with your family, or simply relaxing away from the screens.

Founder And CEO, Technology Marketing Toolkit, Inc.

Social media is engineered to fuel hate and negativi- ty , divide us instead of unify us, and give a voice and platform to every malicious, narcissistic arsehole in the world — and, like it or not, you ARE a product of your environment and what you pay attention to. No one, including you, is strong enough to avoid social media’s influence. MULTIPLE studies have found a strong link between social media and increased depression, anx- iety, loneliness, self-harm, and even suicidal thoughts, not to mention sleep deprivation, addiction (to the platform), and distractions to the point of being unable to focus. Clearly, this is not good for anyone, but considering the need for you, the entrepreneur or high-performance individual, to focus and manage your state of mind and energy, you really need to be careful to avoid addiction to social media at all costs. And when a “news” item like this hits (or ANY news item), it’s natural to run to the feeds to see what others are saying and chime in. Finally, my feeling is that Kaseya will NOT destroy what is great about Datto. You don’t acquire a company for $6.2 billion with the goal of destroying what made it worth buying in the first place. What will change and how it will change remain to be seen, and I personally feel that if Fred can pull off his vision for IT Complete, all MSPs in our industry will greatly benefit, either by becoming an IT Complete customer or by raising the bar for ALL vendors in this industry to solve two of the biggest problems all MSPs face — vendor fatigue and operational complexity. To see the interview I had onstage with Fred at the opening night of Boot Camp, go online to MSPSuccessMagazine.com/Fred-Robin-BC. n

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The Current State Of Cybersecurity

By Jason Manar, Chief Information Security Officer, Kaseya

appear in the form of port scanning, spear phishing, harvested credentials, and password spray techniques to gain access to networks as well as the cloud. It’s critical to have mitigation strategies in place such as a strong firewall, credential harden - ing, multifactor authentication, strong and unique passwords, centralized log monitoring, rigorous configuration manage - ment, and enforcement of the principle of least privilege to safeguard customers’ organizations. Like the latest social media trend, another tactic that is hard to stay on top of is phishing. This age-old method continues to be the No. 1 preferred way of attacking organizations through creative emails that can fool even the smartest people. Some of the more successful scams range from an email pretending to be from the company’s CEO requesting some urgent action, or a communication that appears to be from a legitimate financial institution threatening immediate consequences if the recipient does not click on an “authentic-looking” link. The best way to combat phishing is using anti-phishing solutions combined with employee security training that engages workers and helps them understand they are a company’s first line of defense. One highly sophisticated incident I witnessed as an FBI agent was when a group of cyber actors wanted to hack into a large corporation by targeting the company’s CEO, but he was diligent at locking down all his personal information. All they were able to get was his business email address. The cybercriminals, however, used property records to uncover his wife’s name. They then tracked her social media accounts and discovered the name of their children’s school. With this infor- mation, they set Google alerts for the school and waited. When they received a Google alert for a school lockdown due to an emergency, the cyber actors pounced and sent an email to the CEO’s business email with a malicious attachment purporting to have the names of all the school’s emergency contacts. The CEO clicked on it and as a result, the attackers infiltrated the company’s network and remained there for a year before they were even detected. Another issue affecting cybersecurity today is finding the next generation of security professionals. It’s already difficult to hire for any position, especially those that require technical experience. Many job openings and salaries are competitive, so finding talent can be daunting. Adding to the problem is hiring people who have the right skill sets to build well-rounded security teams. Larger tech companies, like Kaseya, are trying

Cybercrime is on the uptick and here to stay. Cybercriminals are get- ting more sophisticated with their attacks,

putting a larger burden on MSPs to protect not only their clients, but also themselves. Gone are the days when having a playbook was a luxury. In today’s landscape, it’s a must. And forget the one-and-done approach. IT professionals need to regularly review their security strategies and adapt them as cyberthreats are continuously evolving. MSPs are uniquely positioned to serve as trusted advisors to their customers, working collaboratively to both implement and foster a

security-first culture in their organizations. Cybersecurity Trends At A Glance

Reconnaissance by Russian state-sponsored cyber actors is on the rise. Their tactics seem endless and most often

MANAGED SOC PLATFORM

Built for MSPs delivering cybersecurity to SMBs

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Security Championship Program MSPs can encourage their customers to establish a Security Champion Program within their organization. This involves designating certain employees as “security champions” to help identify severe threats and act as security ambassadors. Champions are responsible for: • Organically building institutional security knowledge

to address this shortfall by partnering with universities and engineering schools to cultivate talent and incentivize new hires to grow within their organizations. All tech companies, however, can address the talent short- age by providing educational programs and individualized career paths for employees, whether they’re coming in as a tech, a Security Operations Center analyst, or an account manager — the only requirement is that they have the desire to diversify themselves and learn about cybersecurity. These initiatives allow workers to seek out and gain additional training and opportunities to expand their knowledge so they can be competitive for one of those positions within the organization. This is one step toward solving the hiring challenges around cybersecurity. Importance Of Helping Customers Focus On A Security-First Culture The key to creating a security-first culture is education — and that applies to both a company’s executive team and its employees. To have a long-standing impact, MSPs will need to win over their customers’ leader- ship team on the importance of a security strategy and building out their security stack. It doesn’t have to be an uncomfortable conversation like talking to your kids about drugs and alcohol. No one will argue the devas- tating effects a cyberattack can have on a company, from lost revenues to reputational damage. Collaborating with customers to help find security gaps helps stakeholders make educated decisions on how to potentially prevent catastrophic losses and protect their business. Every plan should account for security awareness education. Onboarding should incorporate training, followed by monthly phishing campaigns to confirm retention and that employees are following through on preventive measures. With more people working remotely, it’s essential that workers are up to date on email security. Employees may come to see the training as cumbersome or boring, so it’s helpful to rely on tools that deliver engaging content that is “to the point” and uses gamification in the form of points, badges, leaderboards, and scoreboards; this is huge when it comes to these types of training programs. Interactive components such as selecting an avatar make it engaging and fun. Solutions Every MSP Should Offer Clients Choosing solutions to help secure customers’ environments can be overwhelming. Every organization has a risk tolerance gauge, which is why a quantitative assessment simulation based on that tolerance is crucial to help understand the prospective costs associated with the value of what needs to be protected. A client is not going to spend $3 million to protect a $30K asset. Once there is buy-in from a company’s C-suite, various tools help ensure customers are safe. Key technologies should offer unified tools that incor - porate application scanning, managed detection and response, backup and recovery, and anti-phishing and security awareness training — preferably through a learning management platform that offers engaging content and customizable videos. The better solutions will also automate these tasks to free up time for IT professionals. This may be a lot for small- to medium-size business internal IT teams to tackle, which is why outsourcing to an MSP is ideal. They can offer integrated solutions and address various security issues depending on the organization’s budget. Cybersecurity Is 24/7 Cybersecurity is a continuous process that never ends. Understanding that the current threat landscape is always evolving, MSPs need to imple- ment cybersecurity programs that mirror what attackers are doing. Do not become complacent. Educate yourself on the cybersecurity ecosystem constantly, even if it’s just blocking out 10 minutes a day. Remember, you are the trusted advisor. n

• Facilitating open lines of

communication between teams

• Diversifying security resources in case of incident response

• Acting as a conduit between engineering and security teams for alignment and best practices

About The Author

Jason Manar is the chief information security officer (CISO) of Kaseya, a premier provider of unified IT management and security software for MSPs and SMBs. He plays a pivotal role in further solidifying the company’s security stance. Jason oversees information security and compliance, leading the cybersecurity division to identify the industry’s latest threats and vulnerabilities and intercept them. As CISO, he also ensures compliance with security requirements associated with government regulations, which vary by global region. Prior to joining Kaseya, Jason was a supervisory special agent (SSA) with the FBI’s Cyber Division where he worked in the Major Cyber Crimes Unit combating cybercriminal threats targeting U.S. entities.

Where Have All The Good Salespeople Go

B ack when I was buying a new home, I attend- ed a lawn and garden show with the inten- tion of attempting to find a good landscaper. A buyer with MONEY and an immediate need. I wanted to buy, but what I came home with was a big bag of appalled. First off, all the landscape displays were woefully lacking ANY sales presence. Only ONE had a crappy brochure set out for people to take — but even THAT was a brochure produced by one of their vendors who supplied the stone on display, NOT a sales brochure for the actual landscaping company. I walked around no less than a half dozen displays that must have cost thousands to put up (not to mention the sponsorship fee they had to pay to display there) without a single person present from ANY of those companies. However, the sales prevention didn’t stop there. I went on to visit another dozen or so vendors WITH salespeople who would have been better off left at home and replaced with a brochure. Not one — NOT ONE — attempted to ask any closing questions. NOT ONE attempted to make me a “show special” offer. NOT ONE asked for my information so they could follow up. Seriously, what a bunch of knuckleheads. In the case of a specialty concrete company, I asked a ton of buying questions and was very interested in having them do work at my new home. I spent roughly 15 minutes flipping through a book of pictures, asking about textures and colors. The sales rep (if they could be called that) never even suggest- ed I come visit their showroom. In fact, they never even asked what my first name was and just let me and my husband walk off without even trying to capture our contact information!

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one?

manager or owner of the company actually goes on-site with the rep for at least part of the show to ensure they have the pitch down and that they’re capturing prospects’ information correctly before setting the sales team loose with no supervi- sion for the four days of the event. Let’s imagine they actually sit down with the rep after the event and review all the leads that have come in, questioning each one to find out what happened, what the next steps were, who’s likely to close, etc. And let’s go wild and assume the owner/manager actually picks up the phone and secret-shops 1 out of every 10 leads who didn’t book an appointment or didn’t buy to check up and see what went wrong. And in a complete flight of fancy, let’s imagine that after a few weeks of these productivity and sales reviews, there are actual consequences and people actually lose their jobs for not follow- ing a fully detailed sales process or for simply being sloppy and lazy with the leads that were produced. Unheard of! I’ll bet you a dollar to a doughnut that many of the reps/com- panies that were there produced ZERO return for their invest- ment of time and money, complaining all the while about the show, the lack of qualified prospects, etc., etc. You know, I don’t expect everyone to be as experienced and capable at sales and marketing as I am, but COME ON! How do these people actually stay in business? And if YOU want to make sure you’re not in the same boat, you had better get to work on crafting a marketing/sales process, then constantly review, tweak, and INSPECT IT to make sure what you want to be done is actually being done. The SAME goes for the technical/operations side of the house. Don’t expect what you don’t INSPECT. Remember the Boy Scout motto: Be prepared. n

Now, let’s imagine REAL salesmanship and leadership existed in these companies. The Fairy Salesmother visits, waves her magic wand, and suddenly, there’s a professional and effective sales program in place. Now, instead of having some goofball with greasy hair tucked under a baseball cap who stinks of smoke and is talking to their friends on their cellphone while I patiently wait to ask them what it would cost to fit my 9,000-square- foot home with the retractable screens they were selling (and who didn’t hang up but just held the phone away from their mouth and said, “You need help?”), someone actually gets a friendly, enthusiastic, and well-trained SALESPERSON to WORK the booth. This salesperson addresses people as they walk by, doesn’t have their nose glued to their cellphone the whole time; and actually attempts to ask some closing questions and asks for my email address — or heck, even a mailing address (gasp) — that they type into an iPad on the spot so it instantly gets entered into the company’s CRM, which then automati- cally associates it with that show for ROI purposes and kicks off a series of automated messages designed to get me into the showroom. Maybe one of the tasks set up is to mail me a Shock-and-Awe box with an authoritative book, a box of pop- corn to entice me to watch their well-crafted sales presentation, along with a book of happy client testimonials, a client bill of rights, a guarantee certificate, and a personal, handwritten note from the person in the booth thanking me for my time and offering me a bonus, discount, or other incentive to entice me to buy NOW. And then maybe it triggers the salesperson to actually call me and follow up the following week. Now, stretch your imagination a bit further ... Let’s imagine there’s actually some MANAGEMENT going on. That the sales

VOLUME 3 ISSUE 5 • MSPSuccessMagazine.com | 9

the

Inbound Lead Sins 7 Deadly

2

Centuries ago, the Roman Catholics named the seven vices that “spur other sins and further immoral behavior,” and after listening to hundreds of calls from inbound leads, we have aptly named the most common bad behaviors we see as the 7 Deadly Inbound Lead Sins.

Turning Away A Lead Because It Is For Break-Fix Project Work Some of you (or your folks who answer the phones) are dismissing leads who don’t come to you all wrapped up in a shiny bow, asking to get into a

contract with you. Most leads will come to you when they have a PROBLEM, and their current provider can’t or won’t fix it how they want. It WILL sound like break-fix work. It WILL sound like just a project, and many of you have wrongfully trained your techs to turn this away since “we only work with clients who do contracts.” It WILL be disguised as a nonqualified lead. But very often, it WILL turn out to be a “foot in the door” for a lucrative lead. Deadly Sin? LAZINESS/SLOTH. Don’t be guilty of refus- ing to do project work as a foot in the door. It will earn a lead’s trust and respect and lead to contracts, referrals, and bigger deals. Ignoring A Lead Because It Looks ‘Too Small.’ email not working, password reset), and some of the dummies answering your phone turn them away and let them hang up. Just like in the previous situation, you have to do some detective work to find the opportunity. It IS there, but you’re are giving up WAY too easily and expecting buy-now leads on a shiny platter. And to be blunt, it’s not realistic and ticks me off when I see it. 3 Speaking of foot-in-the-door-your-mouth, this is one of the sins I loathe the most. Someone calls in with a seemingly “small” project (e.g., laptop repair,

These are behaviors that are KILLING your leads and your busi- ness. It takes SO much work to generate leads, and it hurts my heart every time I hear all of the work/time/resources/money flushed down the drain because it isn’t handled right. Dismissing A Lead Because It Is Not The CEO Or Owner Calling When there is a technology problem or frustrations with the current IT company are at an all-time high and prospects need a new IT company, it will rarely be the CEO who opens their computer, searches online for IT firms, and makes the initial call to you. The owner has people on their team to do this preliminary research and make appointments with the ones they choose. This becomes more frequent the bigger the company (and bigger the opportunity for you), so do NOT dismiss and offend the “research” person who calls you with an IT need. Deadly Sin? PRIDE. Don’t be guilty of overlooking and dismissing the non-CEO calling in for help. 1

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7

Deadly Sin? GREED. Don’t be guilty of turning away seemingly smaller opportunities because you think they’re “not enough” or “not worth it” for you. Killing Leads By Answering Your Phones All Wrong There are a few CRITICAL things you MUST do in your phone answering process that will literally either turn your phone into an opportunity well OR burn leads over and over again. Some of them are things like not answer- ing phones live, having a tech answer phones, making someone wait on hold, and so on. 4 Deadly Sin? ENVY. Don’t be guilty of being discontent about your growth or envious of others’ successes when you aren’t even doing the most basic of things like answering your phones correctly. Putting Off Off-White Leads Very often, your leads will call in asking about some- thing that isn’t quite in your wheelhouse. It will sound like an unqualified lead, but (just like the previous sins) you MUST dig to find the true opportunity! Remember, they are calling you and other IT companies and NOT going to their current provider. That existing relationship is on the rocks, and it is a perfect time for you to become their “go-to” for all things tech to build that relationship. Another common way people commit this sin of dismissing off-white leads is when they receive a form fill opt-in for a free report/checklist/discov - ery call, but the email provided is a personal email without a company domain. You may think it’s not qualified, but listen to this: When shopping for a new IT vendor, many people AVOID putting in their company email because they don’t want their current provider to see and sabotage them. 5 Deadly Sin? LUST. Don’t be guilty of salivating over the “perfect lead” that you ignore the opportunities right in front of you. Mistaking A Prospect Who Ignores Your Follow-Up As Not A Lead Just because you can’t ever get a hold of someone who filled out a form, downloaded a guide from your ad, or engaged with you and went dark, it does NOT mean they are not a qualified lead! ALL leads are qualified until you prove them not to be. Burn that into your brain. They just aren’t at the point in their buying cycle where they are ready to talk. They ARE a lead, and your job at this point if they are unresponsive is it to put them into your drip marketing so when they are at the point where they are ready to engage, they know just how to find you. 6 Deadly Sin? GLUTTONY. Don’t be guilty of overindulging and thinking that a lead that doesn’t respond isn’t a lead.

Not Having A DEFINED Process For How Inbound Leads Are Handled (And Managing It) This is the lead’s very first impression of you, and first impressions NEVER have a second chance. You only get this one shot to show a lead how professional, responsive, attentive, and devoted you are, so in the words of Robin, “Don’t f*ck it up!” But you can’t just have a process; you have to make sure it’s being followed. Use a call recording/call tracking software to do regular quality control checks on how your team is answering the phone. Deadly Sin? ANGER. Don’t be guilty of getting mad at how your team is handling leads when you haven’t ever given them a written, defined process and thor - ough training. The golden rule of inbound leads? Treat EVERY lead like a five- star lead! And if you are committing any of these sins, get down on your knees, beg for forgiveness, and make a solemn oath to me that you will stop sinning for good. And as you suffer your penance and start making changes, I challenge you to look for the disguised leads! Ask questions, dig for opportunities, and when that disguised lead comes in, ask yourself, “Where’s the opportunity in this?!” n

Allison Foelber is the VP of Done-For-You Agency Services at Technology Marketing Toolkit. She has been in the IT marketing industry for over 10 years and was even Robin Robins’ own marketing manager at one point. In her current role, she manages the team that builds conversion marketing funnels for clients that leverage the power of print, digital, and authority marketing to generate leads. All of the strategies used are

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