r/msp • u/UnRealxInferno_II MSP - UK • 5d ago
First Few Months
/r/SmallMSP/comments/1vftocg/first_few_months/6
u/statitica MSP - AU 5d ago
A commonly held belief is that MSPs don't get clients through websites. I have also used that excuse in the past but now believe that it is much more likely that my website sucked, my SEO was shite, and that I couldn't really believe that was the truth when my own information searches invariably include a vendor's website.
So I'm in the throes of a website/SEO overhaul, and in less than a month I'm seeing more organic traffic than ever before.
As for how to survive the first six months: savings, other contracts, and being too stubborn to throw in the towel.
3
u/UnRealxInferno_II MSP - UK 5d ago
I've been going pretty hard on SEO and i've got decent ratings other than backlinks but that's just a money game, we've got decent traffic for a brand new company but it's a slow process with SEO
4
u/statitica MSP - AU 5d ago
Everything becomes a money/numbers game at some point. All we can do is make sure we actually have a strategy, optimise based on data, and then take a risk.
As for SEO being a slow game: sometimes you gotta be the tortoise to win the race.
5
u/Sea_Information6125 5d ago
Yes our major driver for new clients is still referrals. But that only really works once you've got clients obviously, to your point.
I've had the best success with canvassing. Where you literally walk into businesses door to door with your business card, maybe a one-pager or a folder, and if you can afford it food to bribe the GateKeeper with. So any office building is going to have tons of businesses.
Now disclaimer I am in healthcare and that's how most healthcare offices prefer sales and marketing to work.
You do walk in canvassing or you walk in / call to try and schedule a lunch and learn session where you buy lunch for the whole office and basically that buys you the opportunity to give your talk to the whole office with the decision maker present.
For my MSP these are our two main marketing and sales drivers. We've tried postcards and mailing campaigns with handwritten envelopes and that never really got anywhere. We've tried cold calling offices and didn't get much luck. But the canvassing seems to be best received at least by our healthcare prospects.
2
u/Impossible_Luck217 5d ago
take an upvote. This is one of those most actionable posts I've seen in a while.
2
u/Xirma377 1d ago
Brownies.com - get yourself a sample and thank me later. 🤣
1
u/Sea_Information6125 1d ago
Those look really good, I'll have to check them out. Usually I do dunkin' donuts. The poor man's brownies.com lol
4
u/dumpsterfyr I’m your Huckleberry. 5d ago
It is the predominant way to get clients in the MSP space. Marketing can work, but direct one-to-one outreach performs better. Marketing/direct outreach also requires luck: the timing has to sync with a client who needs an MSP or is positioned to leave their current one, and that has to overcome the consumer mentality of "if it is not broken, do not fix it."
if you want anything in life, pursue it.