Meet Clare Davis, Account Manager
Clare Davis quickly became a tremendous asset to the entire team at The 20. Read below to find out more about Clare.
What do you do here at The 20?
I work with our awesome MSP partners as an account manager!
Describe The 20 in three words…
Supportive, visionary, agile.
As a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?
What’s the most challenging thing about your job?
Striking a balance between individual desires vs. collective needs.
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Every year of my life has been better than the last.
What do you think is the most important quality necessary for success?
Resilience
What do you like most about The 20?
The people and the vision.
What do you like to do in your spare time? / What are your hobbies?
Spend time with family and friends, travel, music, and be outdoors!
Where are you going on your next vacation?
Probably another wedding. ????
What’s your top life hack?
Understanding that comparison is the thief of joy.
Interested in working with Clare at The 20? We’re hiring! Check out our Careers page for more info.
By: Crystal McFerran | CMO, The 20
Originally shared via Forbes
How you run your marketing process determines how it nurtures the rest of your company. Marketing traditionally feeds sales, but it also helps with ongoing retention and expectations. Your marketing team is going to help you provide your customers with a way in, but it is also going to help keep them coming back and keep them happy. The right perception can make a mistake an issue, but not a problem.
Marketing and sales should act like a well-run kitchen. Your marketing team determines which raw ingredients make it to the sales team to be baked into a final product. Sometimes, you’re going to get something bad in the shipment. It doesn’t matter how good the marketing efforts are if your sales team can’t make use of the leads that are generated.
Avoid trying to filter sludge for water. Don’t just blindly burn money, and don’t let the process get overcomplicated. Marketing requires creative adaptation, so we can’t get caught up in what we should do, as it is ever-changing. Certain things are showstoppers no matter what, though.
Don’t filter sludge for water.
Some leads just aren’t that good. Not every lead has the same potential to become something of value. Throw out your obvious junk and grime before it damages your process. Even if you can filter it out, you still waste your time and resources the longer it takes to toss out the obvious no-go’s.
When you have marketing parties, don’t invite your dead-end leads. Each one of them isn’t only a waste of money; it’s also a potential liability. Don’t advertise to the leads you know aren’t going anywhere. If you target medium businesses and larger, you’re not going to put out an ad for companies you know have fewer than 10 employees. How much juice are you going to squeeze from rotten fruit? Even if you do get juice, are you really going to want to drink it?
Don’t burn money.
Marketing costs you money, and even if you use a wide net, someone still has to sort what it brings in, clean it and maintain it to keep the process going. You’ll catch something in a lake with no fish, but it likely won’t be anything you need. This burns time and money sorting out things that you don’t want.
By filtering the junk before you start spending real money, you can throw out the opportunities that aren’t really opportunities. Leads are like relationships: Some of them are toxic, and you won’t want to deal with them. Don’t waste money expecting them to change.
The marketing funnel starts with general awareness, and then you foster interest. But how much desire is there at that point? Your prospective lead can be all over the place for this process, so how much are they worth to you? If you know there is desire, it can be worth spending resources. But if they just want to browse, do you break out the samples and the goodwill, or do you wait to see what develops?
You need to gauge their interest in your company before you break out the fine china. Are they a good fit, and are they going to be willing to sign up? If not, how much does your sales team want new leads, and how much will it do to try to woo them?
Don’t overcomplicate the process.
A great campaign requires a lot of work and a lot of coordination to make it function, but you can’t let it get overcomplicated. How do you prevent the funnel from getting clogged, and how much safety do you put into the process? The irony here is that you don’t want your filter to be perfect.
The more complicated and error-proof the process, the less likely it is for your organic process to shake loose the mediocre leads. It’s OK if a little bit of junk makes it into the main filter, and it’s OK if a few good leads fall off if it keeps the process simple. A simple process tends to be more agile and adjustable.
When the process gets too complicated, it’s likely to break from the first adjustment that isn’t planned. The real world isn’t perfect; something will go wrong with your campaign. You just need to know that and be ready to change course to fix it. The less baggage you heap, the easier it is to adjust.
Sales is also responsible for helping you filter leads. Let them have the lead (or at least the data about the lead) sooner than later. They may know that a company isn’t a good fit for reasons that can’t be measured by your marketing campaign. Don’t intrude on their part of the process without a good reason, or you may hurt both campaigns.
Take the next steps.
Marketing is the first filter for your company’s sales. Don’t let the wrong things in the filter; don’t burn money, and don’t overcomplicate the process. When you prevail over these issues, you can work to make the campaigns generate more leads during the initial steps — and better leads during the later steps.
You need to work with your sales team to shape your goals and purpose for each campaign. If you are targeting new clients and your sales team is targeting upsells, you are working against sales, and they are working against you. Figure out what the bigger picture is, and make your efforts synergistic rather than antagonistic. Help them get the best ingredients so they can make the best meals.
Interested in The 20’s Marketing Program? Become a member.
Meet Matt Jones of Freedom Tech!
Tell us a little about your MSP…
Freedom Tech was established in 2011 in Rural Harnett County, NC – but is now headquartered in Raleigh with additional locations in Fuquay-Varina, Chapel Hill, Fayetteville, Lillington, & Southern Pines, NC.
How long have you been a member of The 20?
We’ve been a member of the 20 for about 4 months.
Why did your MSP originally look to partner with The 20?
Without customer service, you have nothing. Yes, we answer our phones live, but if our reception team couldn’t get an available tech at that moment, customers often felt they needed to make more calls or send more messages, usually to me. I’ve lost clients in the past solely because I couldn’t be in 3 places at once. We want our customers to have the ability to reach a technician any time they pick up the phone.
Tell us about the biggest change in your business since joining The 20.
Full Confidence to scale, knowing our customers will be under-promised, and over supported with the team on the help desk always ready to help. Now it doesn’t matter if the client as 1 computer, or 1,000 – I don’t have to worry, know we’ll take care of them, and I don’t have to find additional staff to do it.
What do you like most about being a member of The 20?
Our excitement & anticipation for the future. We’re now part of a team & collective that isn’t just hoping to help & grow the industry, but we’re doing it! A lot of IT Company’s are sitting around wishing, but The 20 is taking massive action to ensure we get where we want and need to be. Not later, NOW!. And the best part, there’s room for more on the journey.
What do you think is the most important quality necessary for success?
You have to be willing to take massive action. Period. Wether it’s lead gen, sales, or scaling. You have to take action this very second.
What are your biggest business challenges?
Honestly, lead gen is our weakest link currently. I can sell, I can fix – our lead gen pipeline is the area we’re working on more now.
What are your areas of focus for 2021?
Sales, Sales, Sales, Sales, Sales, Sales, Sales. – The Core: Lead Gen + Sales + Scale.
What advice would you share with an MSP looking to scale their business?
Stop letting your pride, your family, your head trash, or whatever else keep you stuck. I promise you, if you’re looking for a team that isn’t stuck, The 20 is it.
What book are you currently reading?
Scaling Up by Verne Harnish & Leadership Strategy & Tactics by Jocko Willink
Favorite blogs/podcasts
MSP Success Magazine, Jocko Willink Podcast, Law of Attraction Coaching
Interested in becoming a member like Freedom Tech? Click here for more information!
The 20 Announces Partnership with Liongard
Companies see future of MSP growth in standardization, scalability
Houston, TX, DATE, 2021 — Liongard, an automation platform for managed services providers (MSPs), today announced a new partnership with The20, a business development group for MSPs. Through the agreement, The 20’s partners now have access to Liongard’s platform, which enables MSPs to automatically document, audit and secure their clients’ systems from cloud and network to on-premise environments and beyond as they keep pace with ever-changing IT requirements.
“To keep pace with constantly evolving IT requirements, we are excited to offer Liongard to MSPs,” said Tim Conkle, CEO of The 20. “Liongard’s trusted platform enables MSPs to have greater visibility into how their systems are managed. With its capabilities, the solution gives our members a competitive edge.”
Benefits of Liongard
The Liongard platform features trusted, automated documentation with Inspectors and Integrations to track historical changes and keep all documentation up to date to save time and increase productivity for MSPs.
- Custom, Actionable Alerts eliminate reactive responses so MSPs can stay ahead of issues.
- Robust Reporting features the historical configuration data and can be exported and shared in 1-click for easy customer reports.
- Unified Visibility delivered across the stack by mission critical Inspectors pulling data from more than 50 systems, and a growing number of Integrations, including Hudu, AutoTask, ITGlue, Connectwise and Kaseya BMS.
“We are thrilled to partner with The 20,” said Casey Higgins, Director of Channel and Alliances at Liongard. “Both of our companies believe standardization can help secure and scale MSPs, and I’m excited for the growth opportunities this provides for our industry.”
For more information about Liongard, visit liongard.com or request a demo.
About Liongard
Named Houston’s fastest-growing company of 2020, Liongard has defined a new segment focused on unified visibility through automated data aggregation. With automated discovery, Actionable Alerts, documentation and rich reporting capabilities, Liongard unleashes MSP teams to operate at 10x, optimizing their resources and more effectively serving their clients. Known for their user-centric design and constant innovation, Liongard is setting a new precedent for MSP vendors. Their platform’s nimble implementation enables teams to integrate automated documentation into their existing workflows for faster insight across all managed systems. To learn more or to request a free demo, visit liongard.com.
About The 20
The 20 The 20 is an exclusive business development group for Managed Service Providers (MSPs) aimed at dominating and revolutionizing the IT industry with its standardized all-in-one approach. The 20’s robust RMM, PSA, and documentation platform ensures superior service for its MSPs’ clients utilizing their completely US-based Help Desk and Network Operations Center. Extending beyond world-class tools and processes, The 20 touts a proven sales model, a community of industry-leaders, and ultimate scalability. For more information, visit: https://www.the20.com.
The 20 Announces Strategic Advisor
Full press release here
The 20, leading MSP consortium, announced the appointment of Daniel K. “Danny” Astin as Strategic Advisor to Tim Conkle, Chief Executive Officer of The 20.
In this position, Astin will be a thought leader and trusted strategic advisor to the CEO on the strategic direction of The 20’s corporate and security organizations which includes guiding the C-Suite in managing compliance issues for the company related to cybersecurity initiatives, governance and providing senior management with actionable guidance regarding company strategic growth opportunities.
“Danny is a trusted advisor with a strong background and proven success in advising high-growth private technology and companies in many different sectors and strategic situations. He will be instrumental as The 20 continues to execute on our MSP growth strategy,” said Tim Conkle, CEO of The 20.
A frequent presenter and advisor to SMB’s in the IT sector Astin has over 30 years of unique business experience advising corporations, SMB’s and the entrepreneurs that lead them. Astin’s advices regularly concern core strategies related to business, contract, litigation strategy, dispute resolution, geopolitical relations, reputation enhancement, crisis management and other key business strategics. Astin’s advisory experience includes prior service in the U.S. Navy’s Judge Advocate General’s Corps., as counsel to the Commanding Officer Michael; B. Nordeen (call sign “Nordo”) USS Constellation (CV64). After leaving active service Astin and Nordeen assisted a delegation of investors’ attempt to privatize shipyards in Taiwan at Keelung and Kaohsiung. During active duty Astin served simultaneously as Prosecutor and Defense attorney. Astin served in the Office of The United States Trustee, United States Department of Justice, (America’s bankruptcy “Watch Dog”), for oversight of some of the largest and most complex restructuring cases pending at that time.
“I am excited be a part of The 20 team, whose core values reflect mine and with such a talented team of professionals,” said Astin. “I am looking forward to playing my part in The 20’s growth story.”
Astin is founder of March Brown, Envoys & Advisors, and is Managing Partner of Ciardi Ciardi & Astin LLC (CCA) of Delaware, a nationally recognized boutique law firm headquartered in Philadelphia. Danny Chairs the International Business Law Consortium’s (“IBLC”), Salzburg, Austria, “Creditor Working Group”, and recently presented to foreign firms on the newly enacted bi-partisan “Corporate Transparency Act.” Danny is the Representative for the IBLC in Delaware interfacing with exemplary advisory firms situated throughout the globe.
About The 20 MSP
The 20 is an exclusive business development group for Managed Service Providers (MSPs) aimed at dominating and revolutionizing the IT industry with its standardized all-in-one approach. The 20’s robust RMM, PSA, and documentation platform ensures superior service for its MSPs’ clients utilizing their completely US-based Help Desk and Network Operations Center. Extending beyond world-class tools and processes, The 20 touts a proven sales model, a community of industry-leaders, and ultimate scalability. For more information, contact us.
Follow The 20 MSP: Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.
In celebration of Women’s History Month, we wanted to take the opportunity to recognize the women who have impacted the technology industry. The following women have impacted this industry over the years and this list is only a fraction of the influential female leaders in technology.
Ada Lovelace, First Computer Programmer
Elizabeth Feinler, Pioneer of the Internet
Donna Dubinsky, Creator of Digital Assistants
Hedy Lamar, The Mind Behind Secure Wi-fi, GPS and Bluetooth
Grace Hopper, Esteemed Computer Scientist
Radia Perlman, The Mother of the Internet
“If your actions create a legacy that inspires others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, then, you are an excellent leader.” -Dolly Parton
As we celebrate and acknowledge these women, we want to assure women that they will always have a seat in the world of technology. A huge thank you to these women for their contributions and their impact in today’s world!
Want to join some of the amazing women here at The 20? Apply now!
The 20 MSP Named in the 2021 CRN® Partner Program Guide
Full press release here
Plano, Texas, March 29th, 2021 – The 20 MSP is being acknowledged by CRN®, a brand of The Channel Company, in its 2021 Partner Program Guide. This annual guide provides a conclusive list of the most distinguished partner programs from leading technology companies that provide products and services through the IT Channel.
Given the importance of IT vendor channel programs, each year CRN develops its Partner Program Guide to provide the channel community with a detailed look at the partner programs offered by IT manufacturers, software developers, service companies, and distributors. Vendors are scored based on investments in program offerings, partner profitability, partner training, education and support, marketing programs and resources, sales support, and communication.
The 20 is a group of Managed Service Providers across North America who have joined forces to perfect a single service delivery model with unified resources to deliver excellent IT support. Paired with outstanding service delivery, The 20 provides a successful platform with proven processes to help IT providers grow.
“We are honored to be recognized in the 2021 CRN Partner Program Guide,” said Tim Conkle, CEO of The 20.”We’ve seen impressive growth among our MSP members and we’ve worked hard to design a partner program that reflects our dedication to their success. The 20’s success is inextricably linked to that of our MSP members.”
“As innovation continues to fuel the speed and intricacy of technology, solution providers need partners that can keep up and support their developing business.” said Blaine Raddon, CEO of The Channel Company. “CRN’s 2021 Partner Program Guide gives insight into the strengths of each organization’s program to recognize those that continually support and push positive change inside the IT channel.”
The 2021 Partner Program Guide will be featured in the April 2021 issue of CRN and online at www.CRN.com/PPG.
About The 20 MSP
The 20 is an exclusive business development group for Managed Service Providers (MSPs) aimed at dominating and revolutionizing the IT industry with its standardized all-in-one approach. The 20’s robust RMM, PSA, and documentation platform ensures superior service for its MSPs’ clients utilizing their completely US-based Help Desk and Network Operations Center. Extending beyond world-class tools and processes, The 20 touts a proven sales model, a community of industry-leaders, and ultimate scalability. For more information, visit: www.the20.com.
Follow The 20 MSP: Twitter , LinkedIn, and Facebook.
About The Channel Company
The Channel Company enables breakthrough IT channel performance with our dominant media, engaging events, expert consulting and education, and innovative marketing services and platforms. As the channel catalyst, we connect and empower technology suppliers, solution providers and end users. Backed by nearly 40 years of unequalled channel experience, we draw from our deep knowledge to envision innovative new solutions for ever-evolving challenges in the technology marketplace. www.thechannelcompany.com
Follow The Channel Company: Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.
© 2021. CRN is a registered trademark of The Channel Company, LLC. All rights reserved.
The Channel Company Contact:
Jennifer Hogan
The Channel Company
[email protected]
Meet Matthew Ledbetter, Live Call Team Lead
Today we turn the spotlight on Matthew Ledbetter. Matthew quickly became a tremendous asset to the entire team at The 20. Read below to find out more about Matthew.
What do you do here at The 20?
Live Call Lead
Describe The 20 in three words…
Teamwork, Respect, FUN
As a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?
Growing up, I wanted to be a band director.
What’s the most challenging thing about your job?
Learning the process.
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Marine boot camp.
What do you think is the most important quality necessary for success?
Networking and asking questions.
What do you like most about The 20?
I like that everyone treats each other with respect.
What do you like to do in your spare time? / What are your hobbies?
I enjoy arcade games, playing fetch with my dog, and spending time with my family.
Where are you going on your next vacation?
Go on a cruise!
What’s your top life hack?
Never stop learning,
Interested in working with Matthew at The 20? We’re hiring! Check out our Careers page for more info.
MVP GrowthFest 2021
Are you ready for explosive growth?
Now is the time to jump in with both feet and take advantage of the opportunity you’ll find in the post-pandemic MSP landscape. Let’s kick off a new season of growth for your business at MVP Growthfest 2021 on April 20th from 12pm to 4:45pm ET.
This year’s special guest is the legendary Wayne Gretzky. Learn his incredible perseverance secrets and tips to overcome challenges that stand in your way, as well as gain the knowledge to go the distance in your pursuit of success!
You’ll also enjoy:
Expert help to improve your sales techniques and wow your clients.
Informative panels that will teach you how to find fresh opportunities.
Tips for impressing prospects that will open doors and close sales.
Plus, awesome giveaways including $15,000 in cash and prizes.
Don’t miss this unique opportunity to learn success secrets from MSP sales and business All-Stars and gain wisdom from a legend who knows the power of endurance and spirit!
Reserve Your Seat NOW!
Meet James McCarty of McCarty’s IT!
Tell us a little about your MSP…
McCarty’s IT was established in 1959 and is located in Parsons, Kansas. We serve customers in Southeast Kansas, Northeast Oklahoma, and Southwest Missouri.
How long have you been a member of The 20?
We joined The 20 in April of 2018.
Why did your MSP originally look to partner with The 20?
When starting out so much time was spent looking for vendors and as we know, there are tons of them. Most aren’t suited for startups. Sure they’ll sign you up, but you’re paying for a larger set of tools than you’ll be needing for a few years possibly. Then there’s the learning curve of figuring them all out. The 20’s model solved that. I paid for what I needed, I got a support team and a group of fellow members to help guide us through.
Tell us about the biggest change in your business since joining The 20.
When we started out it was just US. No support, no fallback plan, no one to back me up. Now, I have a team that’s got my back and can help through almost anything that comes up. It’s been huge for me and those I serve.
What do you like most about being a member of The 20?
I’ve seen disasters hit other dealers. From natural disasters to computer related disasters, the response has always been the same. As a group, we rally around those that need the most. It’s a great team!
What do you think is the most important quality necessary for success?
Persistence. You’ll have bad days. You’ll have bad weeks. You’ve only lost once you quit! Just. Keep. Going.
What are your biggest business challenges?
Finding the balance between charging forward as fast and as out of control as possible, while still providing the great level of service your customers expect and deserve.
What are your areas of focus for 2021?
Sales / Marketing / Growth
What advice would you share with an MSP looking to scale their business?
An MSP looking to scale their business?
Plug into a network of peers who are likeminded, that understand your platform, and are going the same direction you want to go. Together we get there faster.
What book are you currently reading?
Business Made Simple by Donald Miller
Favorite blogs/podcasts
Interested in becoming a member like McCarty’s IT ? Click here for more information!
