The NOT an MSP Show

Andrew Moon: Happy hump day.

Everybody.

See, we need to get those faces like
we have in the, in our, uh, thumbnail.

Just like those frozen faces.

How's everybody doing?

And I, I hump day.

It's cold, rainy here in the
United, here where I'm at in the us.

Scott Riley: Oh man, it's

Richard Tubb: It's very cold here.

Yeah,

Andrew Moon: So we got it cold
all the way around the board.

Is it raining there too for you guys?

So

Richard Tubb: it is.

But don't worry, Andrew.

There'll be plenty of hot air
to warm things up really soon.

Andrew Moon: uh, it's good to
see you guys again this week.

Yeah.

Richard joining us from
LinkedIn land this week.

Uh, he's from Maryland.

Let us know what it's
like over in Maryland.

I think you're a couple, probably a
couple hours away from me, Richard.

Uh, but thanks for joining
us again this week.

We appreciate that.

Like those repeat guests.

Uh, so if this is the first time
you're catching the show, let

us know as well in the comments.

Or if you happen to be listening to this
on the podcast, let us know whether this

is the first time that you've listened
to the show and what you think of it.

And obviously give us some, some ratings
and some feedback would be great.

Uh, we always like that so.

So anything new in your world?

Uh, Pete, you gotta talk about that
big, huge honking TV behind you

Pete Matheson: So yeah, as I, as
I just, so I'm shooting a video

where I use a 65 inch TV as Iuse
monitor for a while and um, yeah.

Yeah, it's big . It's, uh, very
interesting to work on when you're

sat there and you're having to
like physically move your body in

heads to, uh, see what's going on.

Right.

It's, um, the reason being because
there was a 55 inch Samsung arc,

which is this really nice curve, like
massive thing that you can swivel

and make vertical really cool, but
it's like, $3,500 I think, to buy it.

And this 65 inch TV is,
I think it's $2,500.

It's about 1500 pounds.

So it's almost half the price
and it's basically got the same

specs apart from the curve.

And it doesn't flick into
like a, a vertical thing.

But, uh, yes, it's interesting.

It, yeah, def definitely fun to work with.

Andrew Moon: I bet that you

Scott Riley: Is' it not

Andrew Moon: far do you

Scott Riley: the front row?

Yeah.

It's like, is it not like being
at the front row of the cinema?

You know, like nobody wants

Pete Matheson: I, I think if you could,
if you could wall mount it, it would

make a big difference because I also
stupidly have one of these Ikea desks,

which is only 60, um, six 60 millimeter
deep or serious 600 millimeter deep,

rather than a kitchen worktop rather than
a, you know, 80, which is normal desk.

So, um, yeah, if, if you had
a normal desk and will mounted

it, it might be acceptable

Andrew Moon: so it's, it's,
it's official across the board.

Richard said it's raining where he's at
as well, so he said that beats the snow.

This would all be snow if, uh, if it was
a little bit colder, if it, so anyway.

Right.

Let's jump into our topic this
week, our topic this week.

We touched on, uh,
Richard's point last week.

I figured we make this
the topic of the show.

How do we reduce customer support costs?

How do we reduce the cost of our help
desk while at the same time maintaining

high levels of customer service?

We'll, we'll specify that at the
end there, that in the asterisk,

in the parenthesis, without
sacrificing the customer service.

So who wants to jump in and,
and fire away on this one?

And we probably have many, many areas
that all of us have experience with

Richard Tubb: I, I think this, this
topic came up because on the last

show we were talking about my travels.

I was a IT nation, uh, in Orlando and
then Arons Summit, uh, the week before,

uh, or a few days before that as well.

So, loads of vendors from all over the
world, especially IT nation, hundreds

and hundreds of vendors there and MSPs
going around and sort of checking out all

the different solutions and offerings.

It was interesting, some of the
conversations I had with MSPs while I

was over in the US they were talking
about, oh, this solution looks

good, or This vendor solution looks
good, but they seem to be focused

on how much the solutions cost.

Now I can totally understand
that, you know, you wanna know

what the license cost is or the
ticket price, uh, for those things.

But I was trying to reframe the
conversations with the MSPs.

So instead of focusing on what these
tools cost, I was saying to them,

well, what are they gonna save you?

What are they gonna make you in
money, in savings in time and money?

And I think that's, for me, that's, um, a
big mind shift that the MSP industry needs

to undergo is when you are looking at.

Uh, manage service contracts with clients.

You wanna be looking for opportunities
to lower your cost of support.

I said on last week, show for me, the
old man of the industry, having been

doing this for a long time, it's a
fundamental tenant of managed services.

You're always looking to
reduce your costs of support.

So that's where the
conversation came from.

And if, you know, I'm sure we're
gonna have loads of different

examples, but the one that.

That jumped out to me was I was
speaking to an MSP who had implemented,

um, a content filtering solution
with, uh, one of their clients.

Uh, and we were actually talking about
how much it had cost them to implement,

but after the first 12 months they
looked at it and that sort of return on

investment there, they'd actually saved
the equivalent of two members of staff's.

Of salaries because they were spending
so much time fixing, uh, you know,

breaches, fixing machines that have
been, uh, that are dying and having

to re-image them and all those type of
things that when they put the content

filtering solution in place, they blocked
out, you know, 90% or so of the issues

that they were previously experiencing
and having to raise clients who were

having to raise tickets and to deal with.

So for me, that's a really good example,
and we won't go into the specific

tools that they used in that, but for
me it's just a really broad example

of, okay, the tool costs this much,
but it is gonna save us this much.

We're gonna lower our cost of
support and the return on investment.

It's really simple to see

Andrew Moon: That one's interesting.

I think that one's interesting
to, to cuz everybody's about

the latest cybersecurity tool.

You know, one pane of
glass, all of that stuff.

But that's interesting.

The content filtering is actually a better

Richard Tubb: It's such
a basic thing, isn't it?

But loads of MSPs still don't
use those type of tools, so yeah.

Andrew Moon: Yeah.

Scott Riley: I, um, I always like to think
that if you, if you stop to take a look

through your regular service test tickets
and look for your repeat incidents and

then look at how you can weed those out.

Um, and a real simple example of this,
and this is going back a few years from

um, when I was in a previous msp, we
had a very large network, uh, division.

It's jazz.

Hey, jazz.

Um, sorry for those who are
listening, jazz is just, there he is.

Yeah.

Hello.

Um, we had a very large
networking division.

Um, Like 50 or 60 million of our
revenues were coming from network

services and we would have thousands
and thousands of DSL router endpoints.

And what we know is that every few
weeks, um, the DSL speeds get slower

and slower and slower until eventually
the DSL router will just not do

anything and it just needs a kick.

It just needs a reboot.

But of course, that's an
outage and that's a ticket.

And that's someone's gotta get on and
get into the service test system and

then get the remote access details and
then get onto probably the other device

and then hop across and try and issue
a remote reboot or get the customer

on the phone and reboot that device.

Um, and as I said, we had
thousands of endpoints and this was

happening frequently, daily with
hundreds of tickets every month.

And you know what it needs, and we all
know, we can see here now, go, well, geez,

this is a really obvious answer, is just
a bit of automation and a bit of script.

We put all of the rooters that were
DSL rooters into batches, and we would

schedule an out of hours maintenance
window to reboot them proactively.

Um, I forget what it was.

I dunno if we did it weekly or
every two weeks for the different

clients, but essentially it was just
a simple case of going, what are the

things that are wasting our times?

Okay, well there's so much time
wasted on these DSL reboots,

and we know what the answer is.

It's a clear fix.

Why don't we just do this?

and it's, it's that kind of behavior that
you just go, I know it's hard because

we get busy in service desk and we get
so many tickets through and you just

concentrate on going from one to the next,
to the next to next and getting closure.

But taking that step back and going,
what are the, what are the patterns?

What are the recurrences?

What are the things that we can tune out?

What, and again, always back to
what can we automate so that someone

doesn't have to do this cuz it's just a
thankless job that no one wants to do.

How can we weed this stuff out?

And I think that makes a huge difference
in lowering your costs, but also it means

that your engineers doing less of the
really NF work and you know, they can

then spend more time on more interesting
things that are actually either really

gonna help a customer in a personal
way or actually spend some more time

to put some more time back into service
desk and making, you know, things.

Andrew Moon: How often did you do that?

Scott Riley: The stepping back piece.

So we would do that once a month.

So we had a service desk manager,
um, who would then sit with head

of operations and we would go
through and we had different, we had

different segments, if you understand.

So we would have like networking, we would
have cloud services, data center services.

And so once a month we would go
through and look for repeat patterns

and then go, right, what are
these, how can we weed these out?

And some of them we knew were
just long-term issues that.

We just couldn't do anything about
the technology didn't support it.

We didn't have the right access methods.

We just, there wasn't an easy way
to automate it, but for anything

else, we would try and find a regular
fix that we could just implement.

That meant we didn't do things.

In some cases, it actually meant that
we would stop selling products because

we would look at something and go,
this was great when we put it out.

But here we are, 12 months, 24 months
later, living with the legacy of

such a massive headache and service
tickets that we can't keep selling

this because it's just a massive drain.

The customers don't enjoy it.

We get really bad service reports, the
engineers can't stand working on it.

We have to, you know, we
have to sunset this product.

So again, we were a large scale MSP
there, so, but that was a monthly cadence

where we had to do that because you're
talking thousands of service desk tickets.

There had to be a way for
us to continue to filter it.

Service desk at that stage
would've been, I wanna say 30.

About 30 heads in service desk ranging
from first to to second line there.

And then third line was in a
separate set of teams in their

specific, um, specialties.

But there were 30 people in kind
of first and second dealing with

that level of, of incidents.

Andrew Moon: What about you, Pete?

Did you do

Pete Matheson: I, I'd probably add to.

Add to Scott's comment there.

So, so, you know, looking for efficiencies
and the things you can automate, um,

there's, I, I guess the more traditional
MSP model, you'd start thinking about

having like a knock and sock at some
stage, or, you know, either outsourcing

it or having at least dedicated
staff in, in the house to run that.

Um, and typically I always found it's
like the, the knock and sock that would

do the heavy lifting in terms of the
automation cuz they automate the knock

and sock, you know, all the reports, all
the alerting and all those kind of things.

Um, but I, I, I think there's a case,
and I I've mentioned it before of having,

um, you know, certainly not in the,
you know, the nimble MSPs, but as you

start growing, actually have a dedicated
role for, for an automation engineer.

And that's not just to sit there on the
knock and sock, it's to really sit down

and look at the business processes,
look at the help desk system, um,

even doing things for clients as well.

Like how can you, um, you know,
implement and automate your

clients, um, kind of their own
processes and procedures internally.

Um, almost as a, you know,
like a value add service you

can resell to your clients.

But certainly there were so many things
that, um, You know, we had a, a role that

was an automation engineer, and their role
was basically look at, look through the

business, speak to the engineers, find
out those things that just take time.

People do repeatedly over and over again.

They're boring, they're time
consuming, or they're simple and

can be very easily automated.

Um, even down to the,
the more complex stuff.

But, um, and the great news is
that that whole role is r dealable.

So you can claim the tax back here
in the UK for that entire role.

The, the chair they're sitting on
there, you know, the salary, the pension

payments, the software they're using,
like everything can be r and dealable,

which is a really, really good benefit.

And, um, You, you just run through the
business and, and automate everything.

Uh, there there were so many things we,
we put automation through and yeah, like

Scott said, it's, it, it's about stepping
back and realizing that you could spend,

you know, maybe 10 minutes automating this
thing once versus the one to five minutes

doing it every week for, for Infinity.

So I'd always choose to do, you
know, do take the time and do it

once, but do it really, really well.

Um, and, and similarly I guess to
that effect, going back to your

discussion, uh, Andrew, or no, sorry
Richard, um, in terms of buying the,

the right application, the right bit
of bit of software to begin with, um,

and certainly from my perspective,
it was always keeping growth in mind.

Cause I don't wanna have to, you
know, buy the tool or products,

whatever it's gonna be today.

And then by the time I've added a
couple of members to my team, Added a

couple of clients, then I have to go
and find a different tool because it's

now not scalable and, you know, won't
sufficiently supply or, or work for them.

So with every single tool I look at,
it's always can I add like another, you

know, whatever your aspirations are, can
I add another 30 staff to this tool and

it's gonna, you know, it's gonna last.

I'm not gonna have to swap
things out again in years time.

Cause we all know how difficult it is
to, you know, PSA tools and RMM tools.

Once you're in, you're kind
of in for, in for life almost.

Cause it's such a big
thing to, to switch over.

So just be, um, yeah, be very sure of the
tools that you are, you are taking and,

uh, and, and yeah, to Richard's comment,
it costs, it, it does of course matter,

but when you are looking at the, the
right tool to do the right job, but you're

basically looking for the best tool,
you know, I want the best tool that's

gonna do the best job for my clients.

If that's what it costs, that's
what it costs within reason.

Um, of course.

And, um, I think mostly, you know,
nowadays when I speak to clients

about, you know, which products
and which tools and services,

the, the added cost comes from.

Having too many tools almost, which is
perhaps being an almost like an overly

cautious approach of, you know, how many,
um, next gen antivirus engines do you

need to be running on one platform to
make sure your clients are protectors.

Um, and of course, yeah, you've got your
web filtering, your email filtering, but

you know what, what levels of web filter?

Well, there's a, there's a rooter or
router version of web filtering, filtering

versus the DNS version that's installed
locally versus the, and so you can kind

of, you know, we all know layering up is
good, but there's also a certain extent

where you can maybe layer too many layers.

Um, and it, and it does get very,
very expensive very quickly.

So, um, I guess to that, to summarize
that part is simplification to a certain

extent, um, to try and simplify things.

So it's, it's not just a, a massive
headache to keep things going.

Uh, so I know that's a
mixture of your thing there,

Andrew Moon: Yeah, and I, I agree with,
with what Scott kicked us off with.

I think that's a simple approach
that an MSP can make no matter what

size you are, is starting by that
step back, that 30,000 foot view.

To make the tickets not
coming into the first place.

I mean, that's, that's where we start.

That's how you reduce that
overall burden on the staff.

That's how you reduce cost.

We started doing it weekly.

Uh, I went to a weekly cadence and one
o'clock on Friday afternoon, one to two.

That was a time dedicated for
all of our staff to go through

the tickets for the week.

I went to a weekly cadence just
because tickets were a bit more

fresh in the text mines they, you
know, and, and that's what we did.

I actually did something a little
bit better, rather than me as

the MSP owner having to do it.

I delegated it to the guy that was
running my help desk at the time,

put him in charge of it, and that's
where we classify all the tickets.

Was it a, uh, could we automate,
is this a hardware problem?

Does hardware need to be replaced
or is this a training problem?

Is this, can, can it be, is it
training on our part or can we provide

training to the clients so that
those tickets don't come back in?

And we found, by classifying that, I mean
it dramatically reduced the amount of

tickets that we got because I put him,
he's like, okay, I could automate this.

Great, you're in charge of it.

And that was his job.

Over the next week when we came together
on the following week, he would have

that, that script, whatever it was,
we were using Continuum at the time.

You know, whatever that automation was to
prevent the ticket, if it was possible.

Those were implemented during
that week, that following week.

Um, so that helped dramatically of,
Richard, you, you wanted to make a

point about, uh, hardware, and I know
we could, it kind of go off on tangents

on hardware this year, especially.

Richard Tubb: We can go off on a wild
tangent for this, but the one, the,

there's two, two points I wanted to make.

The first one is, um, as well as looking
to lower your cost of support, one of the

things I learned really early on in my
manage subs career was to increase the,

uh, revenue that you generate as well.

And one area that's super, super simple
that I think MSPs overlook all the time.

And that's with the internet connection.

So, uh, Scott already talked about, you
know, the internet connection that the

idsl routed gets clogged up and he dies.

And automation is great for, for
restarting it, but lots of people

listening or watching today will know if
they look into the root cause analysis

of their, um, some of their tickets
that they've got, some clients who are

on really, really rubbish broadband.

And I'm not talking about the speed
here, although that's one aspect of it.

I'm talking about the provider.

We've got clients who, you know, insist
on using, um, uh, um, residential

grade broadband when they really
should be on commercial grade.

You've got here in the uk you've got
clients who are using like BT or Sky or

whatever it is, and no knock at those
providers per se, but if you look at the

amount of time that you actually spend.

Um, you know, resolving tickets
or even, oh, the Internet's

going slow, those type of calls.

So what we did, as soon as we started
having those type of tickets come

through, we went back to the clients
and we said, actually, what we

recommend is that you use, this is
p and we had a relationship with.

The local, local internet service
provider who provided business grade

support, but really importantly,
we made a margin from it.

And that's not the most important bit.

But the most important bit was
we had a really good relationship

with our support team.

So if anything did go wrong, it took us
way less time to actually go and fix it.

So we rolled that out
across all of our clients.

So think of the upshot here.

We're spending less time
resolving client tickets.

If we do have to resolve, go in
and deal with an internet issue.

We've got a good relationship with the
ISP service desk team, and we make money.

We make revenue offer each
and every month as well.

Win, win, win across the board.

So I'm intrigued, like Scott,
um, you know, most of your

clients work in the cloud now.

What, what do you do
from the internet side?

Scott Riley: Um, it's a really good
point because we've been asked a number

of times like, if we'll provide the
internet service and we, we don't.

Um, it's one of those things that
we've always stayed away from.

And so we have, if for everything
else, we have a recommended

set of partners that we use.

Um, and so generally if we have to guide
towards someone, it'll be somebody like

Gamma, um, where we would say, Hey, these,
you know, these are great people to use.

Um, but we don't, we don't get involved in
the internet connectivity side of things.

I know it sounds really strange as
a, as an msp, but it's just nothing.

, sorrys are just put in the comments
that there's no other connectivity

options other than starlink.

Is that because of Elon?

Um,

Andrew Moon: I, I think he was

Scott Riley: Elon's not.

Andrew Moon: He was at a
customer site this week.

He said we were at a customer this weekend
with, uh, 12 up, 12 up and 12 down the 5G

Scott Riley: Oh, I see, I see.

I didn't see the other, I just
thought he was, uh, just being

an advocate for Starling.

I just saw the second part as I'm really
sorry, Um, but yeah, no, we, we will, um,

we'll recommend a trusted partner again,
someone that's got a good reputation.

We've always had that conversation.

Now, even in previous businesses,
you know, customers will want to

pay for residential broadband.

You know, we, we can
have the conversation.

Well, the contention ratio is different.

I think you'll find on a, a business
broadband it's only 20 to one contention

ratio, but it's 50 to one a residential.

It doesn't mean anything to the customers.

But when you say to them, look,
there is no SLA on the residential.

So if it breaks, it'll come back.

When it comes back.

Might be a day, it might be a week.

If you're running a business, you'd
probably rather wanna know that that

SLA is like 99.9% and you've got a
guaranteed fixed time of four hours.

Um, that's more important cuz how much
does four hours, um, downtime cost

versus, you know, two or three days.

Um, I can't judge you Jazz.

I, jazz is saying, haha, judge me.

I can't judge you.

Only Elon will judge you for
not sending enough Starling

Andrew Moon: I think that touches
on a key point that msp how

important vendor management is.

Uh, I'm assuming, and I don't wanna
make a broad assumption, I'm assuming

that you guys all did vendor management
as part of your managed services.

Richard Tubb: correct.

Yeah.

Scott Riley: Yeah.

Andrew Moon: Cause I kind of assume
that now, and there's a lot of

MSPs out there, especially some
of the nimble ones that don't.

Richard Tubb: Well, should we explain
that the benefit of any, you know,

sort of newbies to the industry?

So when we talk about vendor management,
you know, when we're not talking

about your, your ConnectWise and your,
you know, super ops and, and, and

the MSP vendors per se, what we're
talking about is when your client

phones you and they say, we've got a
problem with our broadband connection.

Um, we're all familiar with the scenario.

You, uh, say to them, oh look,
we've taken a look at the router.

It's a problem with the isp.

You need to go and call them.

So they pick up the phone to BT or
Verizon or whoever it is, and the

people at the other end say, yeah,
uh, it's a problem with your route.

You need to speak to your IT department.

And they go back and
forth and back and forth.

What vendor management is, you
maintain that relationship yourself.

So the client phones you, it
doesn't matter what the problem

is, you are the one that then goes
to their vendors, their suppliers,

and sorts the problem out for them.

So this works super, super well.

Um, uh, when you go down the managed
services route, uh, and it goes even

better and lowering cost your support
and increasing your profit, if you've

got a really good relationship with
those suppliers, instead of just

inheriting the suppliers, the vendors,
uh, that perhaps your client was using.

Once you start using the best of breed,
you know, ISPs, backup providers,

whoever it might be in there,
that's when life gets a lot easier.

That's when you lower cost of support,
that's when you increase your profits.

Andrew Moon: Yeah, absolutely.

And, and I think, um, jazz said
that he just started getting

involved in lease lines at the
start of running the business, but

the liability was too much for us.

I mean, that's, that's
a one case scenario.

If even if you're not doing
that for them and providing

the service, the relationships
are on you as, as an MSP owner.

And I think that that's vital.

We did well, I never really got into
providing internet connectivity.

Um, again, we were in a bigger city, so
you know, it was Time Warner Cable, you

know, they did business class, but again,
I reached out to people, reps on LinkedIn.

I didn't want a customer
service rep that's, you know,

actually doing the tech support.

I want the guys who are actually out
selling it and you take 'em to lunch.

And by the way, that is
a great referral source.

Uh, they will bring you business.

Um, just say, Hey, take, you know,
I'd like to take you for lunch.

This is a thing we're
experiencing with our customers.

We wanna standardize on this internet
connectivity at all of our offices.

If we're able to, how
can we help each other?

Richard Tubb: Right.

Andrew Moon: You know?

And, and before you know it, I get
one or two leads a week as he's out

trying to sell internet connectivity.

He also realizes.

They've got trash networks, they've
got all kinds of support issues.

Who gets the referral?

Richard Tubb: We did it.

Andrew Moon: that

Richard Tubb: The board, Andrew, we
did it with ISPs and I'll, let me throw

some really crazy ones out to you.

Uh, air conditioning companies.

So when your client has like a comms
room built, uh, and they're like,

okay, we need racks and we did air
conditioning and things like that

in, we have that relationship.

So we would introduce 'em to our
partner, but as you say, these

are all service based businesses.

Um, so those, uh, air, that air
conditioning partner would also refer

us to other clients who, you know, it
depended on who got the relationship

and who go in there as well.

It reached the point where even as
a managed service provider, we were

referring people to an electricians,
to plumbers, all sorts of stuff.

And this might sound crazy,
what's it got to do with it?

But the whole point is you're building
this level of trust with your clients.

So they see you as the go-to
person who has got this network

of contacts to go out, you know,
and then you can help connect them

with just about anybody there.

So it's a really powerful way to
build up the trust with the client.

Pete Matheson: Question there.

So in

Scott Riley: isn't just
one of the wacky schemes?

Richard Tubb: Sorry,

Pete Matheson: think we all
talked at the same time.

Scott Riley: this sounds like Andrew's
wacky scheme from the other week where

he was like, oh, I, I'd like to introduce
cleaning companies and you know, I could

help them, you know, maintain their lawn.

And I'm like, were you just introducing
cleaning companies to leave USB

sticks, like rubber ducky, USB sticks,
lying around that people plug in and

oh no, it's caused an IT problem.

You know who you need
IT solutions provider.

They're like, is this one
of your schemes, Richard?

Are you getting electricians in?

And they're dropping little

Richard Tubb: No, I'm, I'm afraid.

Scott Riley: oh no, this,
this USB cables come undone.

Whilst I was plugging in
a new appliance out here.

Richard Tubb: No, we
definitely didn't do that.

But, but to the point about electricians,
for instance, you know, one we all

know at home once you find really good
tradesmen, they are work, they are

worth their pricing gold, aren't they?

You know, uh, people who actually
turn up when they say they will do

the work, you know, actually invoice
you and all of that sort of thing.

So, so that's the first part of it.

We built up that network, but, you
know, all of these people have got their

relationships with other companies and
other people that you would never meet.

And so, um, if you, if you
built a relationship with

them, it became reciprocal.

And like you and I, Scott, are
both into the go giver philosophy.

We know it's human nature
to wanna reciprocate.

So, you know, it wasn't
a financial thing per se.

We, we just knew that we would get, uh,
a connection to all of their connections

as well if we built up the relationship.

Andrew Moon: Yeah.

Pete,

Pete Matheson: Can I, can I
just ask what do you do from

a, um, a billing perspective?

Cause I, I've, I've had this conversation
with a few of my clients of, um, okay,

so you partner with a cabling company and
they do the cabling, um, in terms of do

you build a client and then the vendor
builds you and you pass the cost on.

And adding margin possibly.

And that kind of, that
discussion, do they go direct?

Because I always think that if, if
it's related to what you are doing

as the MSP say, say you're doing
a, you know, refresh for them, you,

you're migrating things, but maybe
you, okay, let's do an office move.

So you're doing some office move, you're
installing some new PCs for them as

well, and they need a rack, they need
all the kind of cabling stuff done.

So in that instance, I feel that it's
better for the cabling company to work

with you and invoice you, and then
you add it to your quote, you add your

margin and then invoice it to them.

Because at least then they're dealing with
one supplier from a billing perspective.

And it's the quotes, all one quote.

It's nice and easy to quote.

Whereas if you are, you know, bringing,
uh, potentially like electricians in at

that stage to do a, to help the office
fit out, that to me is where I'd separate

them and say, actually the electricians
have nothing to do with the it.

So that does need to be a direct
relationship and you can just

go and do your, your thing.

Andrew Moon: Yeah, that's

Richard Tubb: what we did.

And I think the rule of thumb
for us was do we add value

to this relationship or not?

So with the data cabling company,
we always subcontracted it.

And what I mean by that is, uh, to
your point, the, uh, we would go in, we

would spec up what the client needed in
association with our data cabling company.

They would deliver the work, they would
invoice us, we would invoice the client.

So we are effectively
project manage that there.

But an electrician, for instance,
might go in, uh, and we're just doing

the referral just for the sake of, you
know, making sure that our client met

somebody who was trustworthy, honest,
and really good at what they do.

And we would just make a
direct introduction there.

We wouldn't charge anything for that.

That would be part of the, you
know, the value add that we, uh,

gave with the managed services.

So it's, you've gotta look at it.

Rule of thumb though, do we add
value other than the introduction?

If we do, it might be
something we bill for directly.

Otherwise we might just intro
introduce them directly to that third.

Pete Matheson: For the situations where
either you are billing with the vendor's

costs in your, in your costs, or perhaps
you do have just a relationship set up

where they bill and they kind of quote
the directly, what is an acceptable

margin to ask for with that relationship?

And that might be digging a bit too deep
into giving away your, your own figures

from at the time, whether you care or not.

But it'd be interested to know
what what you feel is normal.

Richard Tubb: Like we would aim for
like 20 odd percent, um, on there.

So, and it depends on the size
of the project, doesn't it?

You know, you and I both know Pete, that
20% of like a thousand pound project is

going to, you know, just be overlooked.

Uh, nobody's gonna bat an eyelid.

The same thing for, I dunno,
a 50,000 pound project is, is,

is gonna raise eyebrows there.

So we, we were, one of the things
we did back in the day was we

were really transparent about it.

So if the client asked us, oh, you
know, uh, should we, we want to, we're

paying over the odds here, we wanna go
direct or whatever, we'd say, actually

this is the value that we're adding
and we're charging accordingly for it.

Uh, and the other thing though, if, if
a client came to us and actually said,

we wanna go direct this person cuz we
wanna save on costs, that was usually a

red flag that they didn't appreciate what
we were bringing to the relationship.

So,

Andrew Moon: Yeah, that's, we were
usually about 20, 20 to 25% for us.

Um, and it was the, it was the same,
you know, electrical's a totally

different thing, you know, depending
on where we were in the city.

There's like, either there was
work that we couldn't do or

bill through just because of the
liability, the insurance aspect.

So, but, but we would bring
those companies to the

table, tell them the project.

We would do all the legwork and
the customer would just, we just,

here's the electrician we recommend.

That does, here's what the cost.

Like we had one, uh, they were moving
into a new office in one of the high

rises in downtown Columbus, kind of what
you mentioned, Richard new server room.

We needed to put in a separate, uh, air
conditioning unit in the server room.

Same thing.

Worked with the HVAC company, worked
with the electricians, got the whole

project, what it was gonna be from us,
got the electrician involved, got price.

We did all of that for the client.

And we just said, here, here's
the cost of setting up the server

room if for your new office move.

Uh, and I think, you know, if you're
watching this live, uh, let us know

in the comments to those of you who
are providing vendor management.

Uh, and if you're not, just tell
us whether you're, you are or you

aren't providing vendor management.

Uh, same if you're listening to this
or watching this after the fact.

I'll put that in the comments cuz I
think that this, this is another way

where we can add value to managed
services that is very overlooked.

Because I think when you go in
and, and this was one of the things

that when we sat down and gave,
you know, proposal presentations,

I spent a lot of time on that.

The vendor management aspect, we kind of
take it for granted, but when they start

adding up in their head what it costs
them and the frustrations that it costs

them to deal with the printer, the copier
company, and to deal with the internet

service and to deal with the cell phone
provider, those are the three things

that I would hit on right immediately.

We will do that for you.

And if those, those are pain points,
we're going to solve that for you.

This is how much it is for that solution.

Uh, so I think it's an easy way to up the
cost, uh, or the pricing of your services

without adding much in the way of cost.

Other than a few hours here and there,
which you're, you're gonna do anyway.

you all know we did that anyway, uh,
whether you're charging for it or not.

So

Richard Tubb: I want, I wanna throw out
one final point about the electrician

bit just to, to make Scott laugh here,
cuz he was like, well what is this?

There's some sort of scam.

You got an electrician union going on.

Scott, have you ever had to deal
with, and I know you have mate, but

have you ever had to deal with a
client site where the cabling has

been installed by an electrician, No.

Scott Riley: Yes.

Richard Tubb: If you've got a relationship
with a good electrician, they know

the limit to their knowledge and they
will say, yeah, we're gonna introduce

you to our partner who can bring a
data cabling company in to do that.

Anybody listening to this?

Who's ever had to support a network?

I'm talking about Cat five,
cat six or whatever that's been

installed by an electrician.

Uh, yeah.

You, that's, yeah.

You might as well give things up there.

Andrew Moon: Yeah, for sure.

Scott Riley: I'll just,

Pete Matheson: I, I was
just gonna throw in there.

So, um,

Scott Riley: Oh, go.

Pete Matheson: I was just gonna throw
in, so from, from Jess's comment there

about the lease line side of things,
I, I still think that lease lines is

one that you could bring in in house.

Like certainly internet connectivity
is one thing that's, it's

almost like a set and forget.

I think once it's in, it's just a
nice little margin to make every

single month for very little work.

If, if any, work at all really.

Um, to, to his point there of
like at the start of the business,

it's, uh, too much reliability.

Uh, the main thing I would say
there is just do obviously get solid

contracts and credit check, uh, if
you can have a credit check in place.

And a credit check system that can monitor
the credit check kind of status as well.

Um, that's the main thing that
saved our bacon a couple of times.

Um, and they're only on,
you know, small things.

I think we, very early days, we lost
one lease line that was like 1500 or

maybe two and a half grand or so, um,
which was a lot, you know, at the time.

But then you realized that actually
you might as well just get back into

business and figure out how you can
sell another one rather than trying to

recoup and trying to chase the legal
costs and all those kind of things.

But if you can have a credit checking
system that can monitor the status of

their company, and then they'll, it'll
pick up for if the directors change, if

the shareholders change, if there's any,
you know, big changes in the company.

Uh, you know, someone buys the company
outright, you'll know about it before

they've probably even had chance to
pick up the phone and, and tell you.

Um, which we did have in a few situations,
and actually it did mean we can get

our, you know, our foot in the door,
very early doors to say, Hey, we we're

just, you know, introducing ourselves.

We're the IT guys that look after you.

Um, do you wanna pop in and, you
know, have a meeting and we can catch

up and explain like what's going on.

And maybe you can also explain
what's going on as well.

Um, so just that, that, that's the
main thing I think is, uh, yeah, solid

contracts of course, always have a solid
contract for, for lease lines and backups.

You know, everything you do should
have a contract for, um, which is

interestingly something that not a lot
of smaller micro spe still have today.

Apparently they still don't
have their contracts in place,

which I'm, uh, I'm discovering.

But, um, yeah, contracts and credit,
credit checking systems, absolutely.

Andrew Moon: Yeah.

Yeah.

Just says most, most we do, but some third
party vendors want direct to customer,

so, so he does vendor management to an
extent it sounds like, which is good.

Uh, Jason Kemsey said Credit
safe.com is fantastic.

Completely international too, and
monitors companies you work with.

So

Pete Matheson: credit safe is good.

They seem to be, I mean, they're salesman.

If, if you, if you wanna get a good
deal on Credit Safe, just speak to them

and really knuckle them down at their
price cuz they'll always do a deal

Andrew Moon: Nice.

So I think, you know, we, so we
talked about, you know, if, if you're

just joining the show late, a couple
things that we've talked about thus

far is one, doing a 30,000 foot view.

How do you make the tickets
disappear and not come into the

help desk in the first place?

Whether that's through
automation, replacing hardware,

or educating your customers.

Uh, second thing that we talked
about was getting involved.

The vendor side of things, helping
them with the vendor side of things to

decrease the amount of headaches for them,
decrease the amount of headaches for you.

Uh, anything else?

Uh, I think, uh, Scott, you had
another, another thing to look at

on the customer side, uh, in talking
about, uh, what we do with troublesome

customers would be another one.

Scott Riley: Well, so the, the topic was
reducing your customer support costs, and

I'm like, is that the customer's costs or
is it our costs to service the customers?

And I've, I've immediately
assumed it's our costs as the

MSP to service the customers.

And in which case, the next answer
is fire your rubbish customer.

Because we've, we've all had those
customers or you, you may be listing and

have those customers that you know don't
pay you enough, take up too much time on

the service desk, ask annoying, awkward
questions that have got nothing to do

with the service that you are providing.

And there's, there's a threshold, right?

We all want to be helpful and supportive
and, you know, love our customers.

But there are some customers who just
take it too far and you know who they

are, and you know that they're burning
too much time in your service desk.

And if you've got one of the popular,
you know, PSA tools, you'll be able

to track exactly how many hours
and how much it's costing you to

burn away on your service desk.

I would suggest that you fire those
customers because it will do two things.

One is it will reduce the, the cost
that they're taking out of your service.

Okay, but that will also
lose you some revenue.

I understand.

But two, it will send a very clear message
to your service team that you value them.

Because some of these customers
are driving your service

desk team absolutely crazy.

And their mental health is
suffering because they have to put

up with these lunatic customers
and their outrageous demands.

And for you as the MSP operators, to
maintain that customer and let that

contract renew, says that you value
the money coming from the contract more

than you value the staff in your team.

Okay.

And I think it's a really important
differentiator to say we won't have

these types of customers, we won't
put up with this kind of service, we

won't put up with these kind of people.

Just constantly taking, taking,
taking far more above and beyond.

And of course there's conversations
to be had, you know, with the

client, but at some point, and
you, you know who they are.

I'm talking to you.

You know who these customers
are, they need to go.

And it's the right
thing for your business.

Yes, it'll take a bit of revenue away,
but your team will be so thankful.

You'll look at those service desk people.

It's like when you take toxic
people out of a team and take

them out of the business because
they're just so self-centered.

The rest of the team are just
like, oh, oh my goodness.

They genuinely feel valued because you've
realized that you're there for them.

You're not just there for
the money from the customer.

Does that, does that make sense guys?

Andrew Moon: there.

Pete Matheson: I was gonna say that is
from what you were saying until the very

end, there was, yeah, you could say the
exact same thing about your staff as well.

And yeah, to your point there on
the staff, exact same situation.

Member of staff actually left of their
own calls and then after member of

staff left, like all the staff turned
around and said, oh my God, thanks.

He, thank God he's gone.

I wish you went soon and you just
kind of sat there going, oh, I

kind of, I should have really done
something about that sooner if it was

really driving everyone that crazy.

Um, but yeah, kind of you learn lessons.

Um, one thing I wanted to, to add onto
that, cuz yeah, you're quite right

in terms of getting rid of clients.

The, the, the thing I keep coming
up against time and time again

with, with all size MSPs actually,
and you say they're like, you're

tracking your time, you're like, you
know how much time you're taking.

Those people aren't,

Andrew Moon: know

Pete Matheson: which I,
I'm still find shocking.

Like people aren't, like they're using
the ticketing systems, but the number

of people I've spoken to who have
the ticketing ticketing system, they

use the ticketing system, they don't
track time in the ticketing system.

Um, so that's like the first step
is actually just make sure you're

putting your time in, um, you know,
from the very, very basic level of how

much engineering time you're putting
in, but ideally capturing all of the

time so that all the time spent on
quoting on pre-sales, you know, after

sales getting the whole journey.

Because when you're going to do
those comparisons, um, you know, we

had a, a client for example, that.

They're a great client from the
perspective of the, the day to day,

the technical support staff, you know,
all the engineers doing their job, but

trying to sell them anything would be
this like six to 12 month process and

multiple meetings, multiple demos.

We'd have to go back and do the
same demo three or four times

at their request sometimes.

And it kind of got to the stage where
we just, you know, probably on the,

the demo, maybe three or four, we just
turned around and said, look, it's

just not, even if we do this demo right
now, it's, we're still not gonna make

any money based on how much time and
effort we've already put in, you know,

the label you've put in for the quote.

So if as long as you're tracking
that, then yes, you can kind of put

reports together and figure out which
customers are the ones that are making

a profit or making a loss, and, and
that, that's fundamentally it is

having the, the data in the system and
going back to this automation thing.

Getting this report together, like having
this automated report that comes out

every single month is not that difficult.

As long as the data's in the system
to get a report that says, okay, this

month, here's a list of all your clients.

And did they make a profit?

Did they make a loss in
financial figures even?

Like, how much of a profit and
how much of a loss did they make?

And, um, you can even know color code
it, so you can just scan through the

list quickly, look for the red ones, and
those are the ones you pay attention to.

Um, and, and you're always gonna
have some that are very, very,

you know, near to breaking even.

Maybe you've made a little loss on
them some months because sometimes they

just have bad months and things happen.

But you're just looking for
trends and consistencies where

it's always the same client.

They're always in the red, they're
always making you a financial loss.

And at that stage, when you do go and have
a chat with a client, you've got the data.

So you can be like, look, here is
literally the data, here are the

reports that show we, we invest X
hours into you every single month.

You pay us y it, it doesn't make sense.

So either something needs to
change, either you need to.

You know, take on our advice, upgrade
your systems, repair the things.

So we are not spending all the
time fixing things, or your

price goes up or we fire you.

Maybe that's the last thing you do,
but yeah, at least you can kind of get

the chance to negotiate at that stage.

Um, so yeah, that, that, that's
just the thing I would add in.

Cause it's shocking that
people don't log their time.

I, I just, I can't fathom why
you wouldn't do that, but it, but

people, people don't, so, yeah.

Andrew Moon: um,

Richard Tubb: there's so many
upsides to it as well, isn't there?

So if you, if you log in the time, um,
you know, you can actually, uh, delve

in and see, uh, we talked earlier on, I
think Andrew mentioned about training.

So once you logging time, you can
delve in and say, this member of

staff at this client is always logging
tickets around, I dunno, Microsoft

words, you know, every day the phoning
Ed, do I do this in Word Excel?

So what we used to do is look at that
root cause and say, okay, we are gonna do

a free lunch and learn with that person.

We're gonna rock up there
with pizza or sandwiches.

We're gonna do some one on one
Excel word training with them.

And you know what?

Our tickets started dropping down The
other, uh, benefit that we found and

it's, we worked with, oh, I can hear
all sorts of things going on here.

Andrew Moon: we're,
we're cheering that one.

That one is gold right there.

So

Richard Tubb: Okay, so the other
one I wanted to throw out there

was I'm not used to being cheered.

If it had been booing by
the way, I would've been

absolutely comfortable with it.

I'm, you know, used to
that being on stage.

But the other one I wanna throw out there
is if you're logging time, as Pete says,

you can look in and look at your vendor
tools as well and work out which ones

are working for you, which ones are not.

Makes it super easy to go back
to the vendor and negotiate

with them based on metrics.

Give an example of a US based MSP that
I was speaking with a few years ago now.

They just implemented a new BDR tool,
backup and disaster recovery, and it was

sold to them as, Hey, this is gonna, you
know, it's gonna save you a lot of money.

Were you gonna make a lot
of money with the clients?

And so on and so forth.

After about three months, the
engineer started to get a, a hunch

that they were spending a lot of.

Like dealing with issues, updates, all
sorts of crashes on these, uh, BDR units.

Sure enough, they went into the tickets
and they actually highlighted the metrics.

We are spending this amount of
time looking after this solution.

So they went back to the BDR vendor
and said, Hey, we've got a deal at this

cost, but it's costing us this much every
month to actually maintain the solution.

What are you gonna do about it?

They got one-on-one training, uh, you
know, uh, from the, uh, BDR vendor,

and they also managed to renegotiate
the contract as well, based on, you

know, we need to turn a profit on this.

So, so powerful.

Once you start managing by metrics as
opposed gut feeling, you can go back

and negotiate really well with people.

Andrew Moon: Yeah, that's a great point
with the one on one training though.

Go ahead, Pete.

Pete Matheson: I was just gonna say in
terms of actually doing that within the

various tools that you've got, um, so we
were doing it with ConnectWise and using

uh, bright Gauge to make those reports.

Cause you can make some
very customized reports.

Um, do the likes of Autotask and
Halo and all these other kind of

tools, can you do that natively?

I, I generally don't actually know.

Andrew Moon: I don't know either.

Richard Tubb: yeah,

Scott Riley: we, we have Halo for time
tracking, so you can, you can that.

Richard Tubb: most of

Pete Matheson: it's one of those
things, it's, it's a question to

ask the vendor cuz that's something
that the vendor should be able to at

least design for you or implement it.

Or, I mean, really they should
have one that's ready to go

that just pulls out the costs.

Uh, and when I say in terms of
like getting that data out and,

and knowing whether you've turned
to profit, don't forget it's not

just a, like they're paying, you
know, 2000 for support a month.

How many hours are you spending?

Factoring the, the cost and the margin.

All, all the products you sell, like, you
know, 365 licenses and the lease lines,

if there's that in there, data recovery,
you know, whatever else is in there.

You wanna take the total cost
of having that, um, client as a

client and how much time you spend.

So, yeah, just try and
capture all the time.

Absolutely.

Andrew Moon: Yeah.

And I think, uh, you know, you

Pete Matheson: The other thing, I'll,

Andrew Moon: go ahead.

Uh, touching on that, going

Pete Matheson: and

Andrew Moon: Richard's point on
training, um, that was an easy fix.

And I think that if, if you've got a
problem customer, ive, like, we had

one where it was just a problem user.

It wasn't a problem customer, it was a
problem user, but we were able to save

that account and really take it to a
different level when we did just that.

We did it one on one.

We just, I went to the CEO and said,
here it looks like Susie's having a

problem with this on a regular basis.

Here's what we would like to do to help
her do her job a little bit better.

It's not gonna cost you anything.

Absolutely loved it.

You know, we spent it, one of 'em
was, she was copying and pasting

email addresses from Excel and pasting
them an outlook to send emails.

It was a simple thing as showing her
how to use the address book and outlook.

And we just happened to notice that
when we were in there helping her with

support, that that's what she was doing.

So it's just those little things that we
take for granted that the clients know.

But spending 30 minutes, made
dozens of tickets go away.

So, Pete, go ahead.

What were you gonna say?

Sorry to cut you off.

Pete Matheson: The, that's all right.

The, the thing I was gonna say is gone,
but the other thing I'm gonna say is,

um, in terms of like reducing complexity,
I think as well and, and, um, This comes

off the back of the conversation I was
having with someone about their ticketing

system, about how they managed, like the,
you've got the ticket coming in, you've

got like an authorization ticket to go
out to get the ticket approved, and then

you've got maybe third party tickets and
they're doing all on separate tickets.

So rather than having one ticket where
you're kind of communicating with

everyone, they literally had three or
four tickets and like child tickets they

were trying to manage it with, which
just to me seems very overly complicated.

Um, and that runs through, I think,
quite often to things like the RMM

platforms and it's quite a common
one, um, that I have discussions

with of like, what do we monitor for?

Cause you switch everything on and
then your service desk gets flooded

with all the alerts of like when
the antivirus is an hour out of date

and then it goes away like another
hour later when it's fixed itself.

And so, I dunno what your guys' opinion
is, but my, my opinion is basically switch

everything off by default, uh, in terms of
like automatic ticket creation at least.

And then go through and pick the things
you want to have tickets created.

The stuff you care about, like
site down, connectivity down,

server down, backup fails, you
know, those kind of core things.

Start with those things first.

And then as you get more established,
you can then go through and

start enabling some of the, you
know, the individual things.

Uh, like event, event log monitoring,
God, that's like a minefield.

You'll get flooded with event logs,
but again, if you can pick the specific

event IDs of the, you know, unexpected
reboots, you pick those event IDs and

you just monitor for those ones rather
than kind of going here, we've got a

new call, like, you know, RM platform,
let's just go on connect ticketing

system, go, and then you realize you've
got like 500 tickets to fix all of

a sudden every day , it never stops.

And then everyone gets kind of ignored,
you know, everyone starts ignoring it.

You never get through it.

So that kind of

Richard Tubb: the new breed of

Pete Matheson: the RM platform.

Richard Tubb: new breed of vendors that
are coming through, Pete, you know,

this is why I'm so excited about them.

You know, your, your super ops and,
uh, AI based, um, uh, PSA tools and

things because they're looking at it
and they're going like, this is crazy.

The old way of doing things.

Either, most MSPs will either will be one
or zero about it, they'll be very binary.

They'll either turn it on and then
it'll get too chatty and they'll

go, oh, that's way too noisy.

We'll turn it off.

And they're missing out on
all the good stuff there.

So, you know, I'm loving what
the new vendors are doing.

This new breed of vendors, they're using
machine learning, they're using AI to say,

actually this is something we can do for
you out of the box, and we can serve you

up with the information that we know you
need to see, rather than just blur all of

this, you know, uh, noise across there.

So, you know, if you were coming into
the MSP industry now, as opposed to

what guys that have been in it forever,
it's an exciting time because, you

know, ai, machine learning's gonna
make things so much easier for the

MSPs to actually go through and, and
get real value out of these tools.

Pete Matheson: See, I, I feel it's.

Andrew Moon: you touched on that one.

Pete Matheson: I feel like it's a, I
feel like it's a complicated time to

come in now because there's, you've
got the new breeds of stuff and

you've got the, you know, the OGs,
the people that around for decades.

And it's the decision of going with
the, you know, the long standard vendors

that have got the history behind them.

They've got all the features built
out that, you know, the business

could operate off of, but they're
old, maybe a bit clunky, don't

work that well, not very efficient.

But then you've got the new ones,
which are shiny, fast, responsive,

but they're maybe missing a lot
of the features or maybe aren't

quite as well thought through.

So I, I feel it's like a really
difficult decision to make of

how, which one do you choose?

You go with the new one and maybe
it's gonna be, you know, maybe it's

gonna be there at some point in the
future, or do you just go with the

old boring, same old, same old that
everyone's used for like decades.

I, I, and I dunno which
way I'd go, honestly.

I dunno,

Richard Tubb: Microsoft Office,
they talk about like, most people

who install Microsoft Office
use like 10% of the features.

And I think MSPs are like that
when it comes to like PSA tools

and RMM tools and everything else.

You know, if you are going for the
all singing, all dancing tool, um,

I, nobody, I don't think anybody on
this call will listens to the podcast,

would ever say, Hey, we are using
such and such, um, a legacy PSA tool

and we're using all the features.

They always say things like, we're
using this tool but we're not using

it properly, . So if, if it were me,
if I was starting again tomorrow, I

would go for one of these new tools on
the understanding that by the time I

really needed that feature that we would
like to have, we've only got around

to implementing it by the time they've
got around to actually building it.

That that's the way I view things anyway.

Andrew Moon: Yep.

Exactly.

And I think that's the other,
it's a legitimate fear too, Pete.

So these upstarts that are coming
in, we've already seen it, one

of the, one of the big two or big
three are gonna end up owning 'em

at some point in all likelihood.

Um, just because it's, to have the
runway and the cash flow to compete

with them is difficult at this point.

So, yeah, it's a, it's
a really weird thing.

And I think, you know, uh, Richard,
you touched on AI chat bots.

There's whole different levels of cutting
down on tickets, uh, that we could go

into, you know, do a whole show on that.

Just, you know, the automation, how
to make those tickets, how to do,

how to make the robots work for you.

Um, but let me know in the comments too.

Uh, what was your number one takeaway
from today about reducing costs,

or most importantly, which one?

Do you want to implement first?

Uh, that way, you know, we can kind
of gauge where people's heads are

at and where we can, you know, kind
of plan out future content as well.

Um, but if

Scott Riley: We all know it's me, right?

It's fire.

Those customers.

It's me.

It's me.

Fire.

Fire.

Your horrible customers.

Love.

Love your

Richard Tubb: get a good isp.

Get a good isp.

That's the real

Scott Riley: Fire your customers.

. You're kidding.

Andrew Moon: well, I think this
was an important topic, especially

as we're going into a new year.

Uh, I think it's an important time for
MSPs to look at those things as, as

ways of cutting costs, trimming down
the amount of vendors that we deal with.

Um, but I think, you know, better yet,
going into the new year is, is upgrade

updating the service that we provide.

Um, maybe taking the next six, eight
weeks, uh, I don't even know how

many weeks are left in, not even that
it's four weeks left in the year,

uh, to really kind of plan that out.

Um, I think it's gonna be key for.

You know, 2023.

Any other parting shots from you guys?

I know we're coming up
on top of the hour, so.

Scott Riley: It's just framed in my
mind that new year is like new prices.

Right.

I'm just, it's so, I know it's not
related to today's topic, but it's new

year, new prices, it's time for price
rises where in the MSP industry, we're

terrible at putting prices up, I think.

And, and you know, we've had such a,
a challenging year economically in

all aspects of life and business that
you, we, we covered this last week.

Actually.

You made a really good point that
actually, if you're gonna put your

prices up, now's probably the time
because everyone's expecting it.

Um, so maybe go back and, and rewind
and check out last week's episode.

But I think just as I think about January
and New Year, four weeks left of this

year, it's time to be thinking about those
prices and value for next year as well.

Andrew Moon: Yep.

Pete Matheson: There was a fascinating,
um, graphic, I, I think you might

have commented on it as well, possibly
Scott, but, um, a, a graphic someone

shared about the inflation based
on which sector you are in and it

was in a low inflation section of
like there's no inflation in it.

And I think if anything that shows that
we are just so bad at putting up our

prices that we've just sucked up all
the inflation beneath us and haven't,

still haven't increased our prices cause

Scott Riley: We were at
the bottom of that graph.

Pete Matheson: probably more than a lot

Scott Riley: Yeah,

Richard Tubb: Can for

Scott Riley: There were
so many industries of us.

Richard Tubb: Freaking out
about putting prices up.

Uh, Amber, you can probably highlight
this for me, but Nigel and the tech tribe,

they've got like a one page, uh, letter,
uh, that's really good wording that you

can just send out with a price increase.

And I know the tech tribe has got,
you know, um, uh, templates for doing

automatic updates for like managed
service clients where you do that.

You know, um, every year there's a, an
increase built in, but those sort of

templates are absolute gold because we
as MSPs can procrastinate so much about

finding the right wording and what's the
right time of year and yada yada, yada.

As Scott says, just do it.

Grab a template, raise your prices.

2023 Bo, where you go.

Andrew Moon: Yep, for sure.

Uh, this is a good chat today guys.

Um, and if you guys have ideas
for future topics, please

let us know in the comments.

And again, we thank you for those of
you who showed up live with us today.

Uh, jazz.

Jason, uh, who else was there?

A few people

Pete Matheson: Virtual Girls

Andrew Moon: Yeah, Richard
Sarkisian, uh, bit Smart Tech

was on live, so we appreciate you
guys hanging out with us live.

Um, but yeah, any other,
any other parting thoughts?

If not, we will let wrap
this Hump Day edition.

Richard Tubb: Pete, when does
this video come out with your

gigantic times square size tv.

Pete Matheson: Um, I think it
is, we're about two weeks ahead

now, so towards Christmas, I
think maybe a week or two away.

Andrew Moon: Sounds good.

I'll be looking for that one.

I watched the one on the, uh, Samsung Arc.

That was interesting.

So

Scott Riley: interesting.

Richard Tubb: And I wanna know when,
uh, Pete's neck brace gets fitted.

That's the first week of January from when
he is been looking at the big TV Too much.

Yeah.

Andrew Moon: chiropractors visits.

Yep.

All right guys.

Well, well, thanks again.

Good hanging out with you this weekend.

We will catch you live next Wednesday.

Uh, same time, same place.

Peace.