The MSP Mindset Upgrade
Free Your Mind to Grow Your Business
Starbucks wasn’t always the giant it is today. It took imagination. Vision. A bold and bright idea…
Before Howard Schulz took over as CEO in 1986, Starbucks was just a coffee company. What Schulz did was reimagine the establishment as a “third place” – a neighborhood hub where you could hang out, listen to music, chat with friends, all while sipping on fancy espresso drinks straight out of an Italian café. Schulz committed to a whole new concept – and it spread like wildfire.
The lesson here for entrepreneurs of all stripes – one of many – is that mindset matters. If you run a business, the single most powerful tool at your disposal is what’s between your ears.
This doesn’t mean it’s your job to know everything and call all the shots. On the contrary, when your MSP business relies on what’s literally in your head, it radically bottlenecks growth. Mindset matters in that a huge part of your role as a business owner is spending time thinking about your thinking. Are your ideas driving growth – or holding you back? It’s the entrepreneur’s job to revisit this question, continuously and relentlessly.
To help you “fine-tune your decision-making machine” (aka “get your mind right”) we’re sharing 6 mindset shifts we see as particularly powerful for those operating in the MSP space.
The selection is based on the countless interactions we’ve had with the hundreds of MSPs who’ve come through our peer group. We’ve seen the following shifts in perspective unlock real growth – and in some cases, a single shift was all it took for an owner to break through a longstanding revenue ceiling.
Mindset Shift #1 – What You Sell: Services vs Outcomes
What do you sell? It’s a simple question with a lot of wrong answers.
Well, not wrong per se – just not as right as they could be. These answers include…
- IT services
- Managed IT services
- Tools
- Anything with the word “cloud” in it
When you think about what you sell, your mind should turn immediately to one thing and one thing only:
- Business outcomes
If you can train yourself to do that, you’ll start talking about business outcomes – on your website, in your sales meetings, in your QBRs…everywhere! The difference this can make is truly monumental.
Mindset Shift #2 – Other MSPs: Competition vs Case Studies
Most owners view other owners, first and foremost, as competition. Again, this isn’t flat out wrong – the MSP down the road is your competition. So is the national MSP opening an office in your city.
But if you’re always preoccupied with competing with other shops, it can get in the way of a much more productive activity: learning from them.
At The 20, we strongly encourage ambitious, growth-minded owners to start viewing other MSPs not as competition, but case studies. We tell new members – and old members for that matter – to study top MSPs the way an aspiring athlete might study an Olympian’s technique. How do they price? How are their teams structured? How do they speak to clients?
This philosophy is built into the way we do in-person events at The 20. The goal of these gatherings isn’t to let thought leaders talk at MSP owners; it’s to give peers a space to figure things out together.
Mindset Shift #3 – Selling Your MSP Business: “The End” vs “The Next Chapter”
Should you sell your MSP?
That depends on a litany of factors we won’t try to list here (check out this post for some robust reasons to make an exit). But whatever you do, we think it’s useful to think about an exit not as the end but as the next chapter.
That’s because a well-timed and well-executed exit opens up an entirely new path, one aimed at increased scale, ongoing relevance, and perhaps most important of all, long-term wealth creation and management.
We’ve carried out 44 MSP acquisitions here at The 20, and every single one of these deals was built around the idea that selling should secure a founder’s financial future. This LinkedIn post from our CEO Tim Conkle says it all: “The right exit is the key to unlocking generational wealth.”
Viewed in this light, selling your shop starts to look less like the end, and more like the beginning of something really special.
Mindset Shift #4 – Artificial Intelligence: New Tool vs New Reality
AI isn’t a new tool. AI is electricity.
Before electricity, streets were dark at night, shops windows were shadows, and information moved across the earth’s surface at a snail’s pace. Then came the electric current. It lit the streets, kept factories humming, and sped messages across the globe. With the advent of electricity, commerce didn’t just improve; it came alive.
We’re experiencing a similar seismic shift with the rise of AI, the long-term consequences of which are only beginning to unfold. And if you’re thinking of AI as merely a “new tool” to adopt, you’re not thinking nearly big enough – and, according to Fred Voccola, you’re falling for the “most dangerous lie” in business today. In a piece for Forbes, Voccola writes: “AI isn’t something you adopt. It’s something that demands a total rewiring of how you lead, decide and operate.”
This assessment feels spot on, which is why we’re encouraging the MSP leaders in our peer group to move fast on AI. This isn’t to say AI implementation shouldn’t always be tempered by a healthy respect for security and compliance – it most definitely should be. But at the end of the day, the AI race is exactly that – a race – and the MSP executives who go quickly, without the luxury of total certainty and absolute control, are the ones who’ll win big.
For a more focused breakdown of what MSP success in the AI era will require, check out our recent article: Can Smaller MSPs Survive the AI Revolution?
And for a compelling thesis about what the paradigm shift around AI will really look like for MSPs, check out this article from Pax8 – The Rise of the Managed Intelligence Provider.
Mindset Shift #5 – Sales: Convincing vs. Helping
Many of the MSPs that come to us for help are plagued by sales woes. They’ve got the service part down pat – or close – but winning new business continues to be a massive struggle.
Oftentimes, the root of the problem is how these leaders are conceptualizing the act of selling: instead of thinking of sales in terms of “helping people solve their problems,” they view it – and approach it – through the lens of “convincing people to part with their money.”
This already puts you at a disadvantage: people don’t want to part with their money, so the entire conversation takes on the tone of convincing them to help you, when selling success requires the diametric opposite. Seth Godin‘s famous definition of marketing as “the generous act of helping someone solve a problem” works just as well for sales, and the best closers know this.
What’s more, when you stop viewing sales as in terms of persuading folks to give you their hard-earned cash, it’s easier to resist the temptation to sell on price alone (an absolute growth killer).
Mindset #6 – Yourself: CEO vs CDO
Like many owners, you’ve likely adopted the title of CEO at your MSP: Chief Executive Officer. It’s a nice title. Very prestigious…But is it the best way to think about your own role?
Perhaps not. The problem is with the “E” – executive. Is it your job to execute everything at your company? Absolutely not. And in fact, trying to do everything by yourself is a great way to ensure that your MSP never grows past a certain point. So, if your role as leader of your MSP isn’t defined by doing, what is it defined by?
In a word, deciding. Your primary responsibility as a business owner is to make the right decisions – to see the big picture as clearly as possible, and act on it with conviction, velocity, and accountability. Everything else is peanuts.
By all means, keep using “CEO” as your official job title. But when it comes to how you’re mentally framing your duties, embrace a less familiar label: Chief Decision Officer. Doing so will help remind you: it’s not your labor that will drive your MSP forward, but your choices. This brings us full circle, back to the insight that launched our discussion…
Mindset matters!
Final Thought: Here We Go Again
We’ve been here before – about twenty years ago. In the early 2000s, the very idea of what an IT provider could be changed. Instead of providing reactive, “break/fix” services, IT companies began to promise clients proactive, managed services.
Today, our industry finds itself at a similar crossroads. With the two-pronged rise of AI and M&A, MSPs find themselves once again in need of a “mindset upgrade.” The old way of doing things is no longer a viable strategy, and the next era of managed services will belong to those bold enough to break from tradition and blaze a new trail.
But who said blazing trails can’t be a team sport?
The 20 is a tight-knit community of MSPs who navigate change, faster and together – and we’re currently accepting new members. Reach out today to start the conversation.