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The IT Experts Podcast

Ian Luckett

The IT Experts Podcast with Ian Luckett, is designed to help ambitious IT/MSP business owners build a profitable tech business.

In this show you will learn the complete tried and tested strategies that are working today as Ian helps techie business owners in the IT / MSP community on a daily basis.

The content of this Podcast is a blend of expert advice and Interviews with some of the most successful people in the industry, offering massive value and a wise range of topics from his MSP profit Builder System.

Whether his guests are experts from large enterprises, established IT/MSP businesses, serial entrepreneurs, or world class techies, they all have great stories and content to share.

So, if you are preparing your IT/MSP business for growth, then we will help by sharing what IS and what ISN'T working in business right now.

Our outcome for you listening to this podcast is that we help you to spend quality time working ON your business rather than being consumed IN it!

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Sunday · 35 min
EP307 - The MSPGH September 2026 Intensive Round Up with Stuart Warwick, Julie Hutchison, Peter Williamson, and Ian Luckett
In this episode of The IT Experts Podcast, I take you behind the scenes of the MSPGH September 2026 Intensive, the two day client event at The MSP Growth Hub where MSP owners step away from the day to day and rebuild their plans for the next 16 weeks. We share one of these round up episodes three times a year, and this time I am joined by three of our coaches, Stuart, Julie and Peter, to talk through what happened in the room, what landed with our clients, and what any MSP owner can take from it. Stuart opens by explaining why the intensive exists in the first place. He is the first to admit that taking time out to work on the business sounds like a cliché, and he is right that what you focus on expands. Our clients are building an owner not needed business, one that works for them and gives them a choice about the role they play and the time they put in. The MSPGH September 2026 Intensive gave them space to look at what is happening right now, then step back to a 36,000 feet view and ask whether they are heading in the right direction. We also ask everyone to book a decompression day afterwards, and once clients have been to one or two intensives, they tell us they would never skip it. We talk about why we run three intensives a year on a 16-week cycle. Stuart explains the thinking behind it: a couple of weeks to ramp up, a solid block of focused work in the middle, and a couple of weeks to wind down and refuel. Each intensive is themed around a pillar of the MSP Scale system, and the MSPGH September 2026 Intensive was all about maximising your opportunities through sales, marketing and account management. Stuart's opening session reminded everyone what a great time it is to be an MSP. Small businesses are the backbone of the UK economy, and almost every one of them relies on an MSP in some form. AI is creating huge interest, and most businesses are still driving around with their L plates on, so they need guidance on governance, guardrails and cybersecurity more than ever. Recurring revenue makes the MSP model a golden goose, and to scale it, owners need to step out of the technical work and lead the business. Mit Patel from Assurix then shared how he grew Netstar to an 8 million business, and how understanding lifetime client value gave him the confidence to invest heavily in marketing. If a client is worth £80,000 over five years, how much would you invest to win one? It was a timely jab in the ribs for the room: spend on marketing and spend it on a system you know will deliver. That led nicely into my session on reimagining account management. Our previous workbook was 19 pages. The new relationship revenue engine runs to 49 pages, broken into manageable chunks with diagnostics covering triggers, white space selling, raising prices and much more. Every client now has an account management maturity score alongside their scaling maturity score, and a group challenge built around a real account scenario sparked some of the best conversations of the two days. Peter explains why this matters for smaller MSPs where the owner still handles every account, and for larger firms that need clear KPIs to measure the return on their account managers. Julie talks about growing future leaders from within. The people already in your business know how it works and often want progression, so look for potential, desire and skill that can be developed. She also explains a small tweak we made to the order of our planning sessions, linking goals, plans and masterminding so clients completed their 16-week plan on day one. Her advice is refreshingly simple: do not leave your plan for the train home. Across all three conversations, one theme from the MSPGH September 2026 Intensive keeps coming back. The room is maturing. Stuart calls it solidity, I call it deliberateness, and Julie describes a safe culture where people can say what they need to say. Peter saw new members settle in quickly, and Mit told us he had never seen a group of MSPs follow one framework with such focus and commitment. If you are on your own growth journey, the lessons from the MSPGH September 2026 Intensive are clear. Take time out to plan, keep your focus tight for 16 weeks, nurture the clients you already have, grow your own leaders, and surround yourself with people who will be honest with you. Do that consistently and the rest will follow. Make sure to check out our Ultimate MSP Growth Guide, a free guide that walks you through a proven process to take your MSP from stuck to scalable, without working even more hours. It's 44 pages rammed with advice, insights and inspiration to help you decide what support is available to you now if you want to grow and scale your business. Click HERE to get your copy. Connect on LinkedIn HERE with Ian and also with Stuart by clicking this LINK. And when you're ready to take the next step in growing your MSP, come and take the Scale with Confidence MSP Mastery Quiz. In just three minutes, you'll get a 360-degree scan of your MSP and identify the one or two tactics that could help you find more time, engage & align your people and generate more leads. Once you know where to focus, the next step is fixing it. Chances are, what needs fixing looks familiar: proposals still waiting for you to price, discount requests sitting on your desk until you're back, and a pipeline that goes quiet the moment you stop chasing it. That's growth tied to your calendar. Sign up for The MSP Growth Bootcamp, where you'll get the 5 frameworks Ian and Stuart built with more than 200 UK MSP owners, so growth no longer depends on you being in every deal. It's 5 self-paced sessions with a workbook for each, plus 3 months of live monthly implementation calls with Ian while you put them to work. If you're serious about growth and want to explore what this could look like for your MSP, you can book a Right Fit Clarity Call with us HERE. OR To join our amazing Facebook Group of over 400 MSPs where we are helping you Scale Up with Confidence, then click HERE Until next time, look after yourself and I'll catch up with you soon!
October 11 · 19 min
EP306 - The Overwhelm Trap That's Holding Your MSP Back with Ian Luckett
In this episode of The IT Experts Podcast, I take a short, sharp look at the overwhelm trap that is holding so many MSP owners back. This one came straight out of our recent two-day client intensive. We asked everyone in the room to work out their top priority, and then Stuart asked a simple follow up question: what is the one thing that will stop this from happening? Every single owner gave the same answer. Themselves. It was a powerful moment, and it told us that the biggest blocker in the business was sitting inside the owner's head. When we dug into that together, the cause was clear. Owners were busy, teams were underperforming, client demands were constant and vendors were on the phone every day trying to sell something new. You work long hours, you pick up work in the evenings and at weekends, and it feels like climbing a mountain where the summit keeps moving further away. You worry you are letting clients down because they are not getting enough of your attention, and you worry you are letting the team down because the one to ones and town hall meetings keep slipping. That is the overwhelm trap in a nutshell, and it builds quietly as the business grows until you start to lose control. The ripple effect of the overwhelm trap is where the real damage happens. Every decision you make in your MSP is a decision to spend money, whether that is on people, a new tool or another subscription. Make those decisions under pressure and you will make some poor ones, and poor decisions cost money. Your team starts to wonder why you keep buying bits and pieces nobody needs, confidence begins to drop and good people start to leave. People leave a person far more often than they leave a business. Accountability slips, growth stalls and stress climbs. Then your health takes a knock, and as I like to say, you have 99 problems until you have a health problem, and then you have one problem. So let's do something about it. I share five practical steps to help you climb out of the overwhelm trap. The first is to recognise the early signs. Working late, skipping breaks, arriving home grumpy and carrying work into the evening are all signals worth noticing before they turn into illness. Trust me, wishing for a week in bed to slow things down is a poor plan, because when you are run down your brain stops working the way you need it to. The second step is to stop before reacting. I want you to respond to situations with a clear head, because quick, knee jerk decisions are where costly mistakes and wrong hires happen. This is where self awareness comes in, and I promise I am not going to go woo on you. Dig out your DISC behavioural reports, or complete them across the whole business if you have not done so yet. Every client of The MSP Growth Hub gets one, because understanding strengths, weaknesses and how each person likes to communicate changes how you lead, how you coach and how your team works together. The third step is to inspect what is really causing the pressure. Stuart told me years ago to go with the data, and it has stuck with me ever since. A hunch formed after a poor night's sleep is a shaky foundation. Look at your KPIs and your plans, compare where you want to be with where the numbers say you are, and dig into the root cause. Has the team been trained on the systems you are asking them to use? Did the client receive a proper onboarding with a clear expectation exchange? Are ticket numbers jumping around, or are the finances telling you something? Go deep until you find the cause behind the symptom. The fourth step is to clarify your highest value priority for this week and for today. Review your annual priorities and your quarterly or 16 week priorities, and choose the actions that will win back your time fastest and pull you clear of the overwhelm trap. When a client joins The MSP Growth Hub, the first thing they nearly always say is that they need time, which is why our onboarding focuses on what will free up their time first. Once your weekly rhythm is in place, you protect your diary and delegate to your team, and that changes your life, your business and everyone around you. The fifth step is to eat the elephant one chunk at a time. Execute one focused action before moving on to the next, break your plan down and find a buddy who will hold you accountable, whether that is your partner at home or a colleague in the office. Nine times out of ten, a busy owner is looking at a leadership challenge, so take a look at how you are showing up. Julie's episodes on the podcast are a brilliant place to start, and they walk you through the leadership models we use every day. Escaping the overwhelm trap brings greater clarity, better decisions, more energy and better sleep. Your shoulders drop, you lead with confidence, and your team works calmly to their plans while you work to yours. Overwhelm is rarely self-inflicted. Most MSP owners never set out to have a large team, a long client list and people calling on them all day without the tools to cope. Work through the steps, break them down and let me know how you get on. That is how you build an MSP that grows without relying on you for everything. Make sure to check out our Ultimate MSP Growth Guide, a free guide that walks you through a proven process to take your MSP from stuck to scalable, without working even more hours. It's 44 pages rammed with advice, insights and inspiration to help you decide what support is available to you now if you want to grow and scale your business. Click HERE to get your copy. Connect on LinkedIn HERE with Ian and also with Stuart by clicking this LINK And when you're ready to take the next step in growing your MSP, come and take the Scale with Confidence MSP Mastery Quiz. In just three minutes, you'll get a 360-degree scan of your MSP and identify the one or two tactics that could help you find more time, engage & align your people and generate more leads. If you're serious about growth and want to explore what this could look like for your MSP, you can book a Right Fit Clarity Call with us HERE. OR To join our amazing Facebook Group of over 400 MSPs where we are helping you Scale Up with Confidence, then click HERE Until next time, look after yourself and I'll catch up with you soon!
October 4 · 39 min
EP305 - The 2026 State of the Channel – What Every MSP Needs to Know with Carolyn April and Ian Luckett
In this episode of The IT Experts Podcast, I sit down with Carolyn April, VP of Research at GTIA, to unpack the 2026 State of the Channel report and what it means for your MSP right now. We hear plenty of opinions at industry events about where the channel is heading. This conversation brings something different to the table, real data from across the entire channel ecosystem, built on fifteen years of research. If you want to understand the forces shaping your business over the next twelve months, this is one to listen to with a notebook in hand. Carolyn April opens by explaining how the State of the Channel began as a pulse check on the health of the industry, back when GTIA was the association arm of CompTIA. The sample goes well beyond membership, covering MSPs, ITSPs, resellers, consultants, vendors and distributors. That breadth gives the findings real weight, and it means the trends we discuss reflect what is happening in businesses like yours. The first big theme is confidence. MSPs are feeling optimistic, and that optimism is tempered with caution. AI brings huge opportunity alongside a significant business shift, and the wider economic and geopolitical picture makes forecasting harder than ever. I shared a conversation with an MSP owner who has lost seven good clients this year because those businesses closed their doors. Nothing to do with the service they delivered. Carolyn April explains why resilience matters so much here. The MSPs that came through the pandemic in good shape were the ones with strong operational fundamentals already in place, healthy cash flow, lines of credit and a clear view of their numbers. This links directly to something we see every week inside The MSP Growth Hub. So many owners believe a couple of new clients will fix everything. When we relaunched our account management framework with 55 MSPs in the room, not a single new sales tactic was needed to give them nearly two years of valuable work. The data backs this up. The companies ahead of plan, who track their margins and know their numbers, are the same companies doing more with AI, doing more with cybersecurity and setting higher growth targets. We then explore what surprised Carolyn April most this year. For the UK and Ireland, workforce and skills gaps came out as the number one challenge, the only region to rank it first. We talk about the lasting effects of Brexit on skills mobility, the growing maturity of offshore service desks and account management, and the leadership challenge of managing remote teams well. Around 65 to 70 percent of the conversations we have inside The MSP Growth Hub come back to leadership, so this one landed close to home. AI adoption is where the gap becomes really clear. The study found 98 percent of channel companies are using AI in some form. Only 20 percent have a strategic approach with governance, policy and a named leader responsible for AI. That maturity gap is immense, and Carolyn April makes a strong case for getting your own house in order before taking AI services to market. The opportunity is huge. Complexity is the number one driver of channel health, and customers who dive in too quickly, or not at all, need a trusted advisor to guide them. That is why consulting is on the rise. We also tackle pricing. Token based AI costs are already causing sticker shock at enterprise level, and traditional per user and per device models are starting to feel out of step. Consumption and outcome based pricing are on the horizon, and nobody has the blueprint yet. My advice is simple, approach with caution and avoid embedding every tool so deeply that you cannot unwind it. The biggest surprise of all was vendor satisfaction. In the UK and Ireland, the share of partners who were very satisfied with their vendors fell from 37 percent to 19 percent. Programme changes, a heavier sales focus and the disruption AI is bringing have all played a part, alongside a wave of new AI vendors competing for attention. Carolyn April closes with three clear priorities. Put AI governance and a strategic leader in place first. Strengthen your operational fundamentals across finance, sales and marketing. Tackle workforce challenges through outsourcing, partnering with other MSPs and upskilling the brilliant people already on your team. The mindset shift is clear. Growth comes from building a resilient, well led business first, then using AI and new opportunities to accelerate from a strong foundation. To get hold of the full report, head to GTIA.org and become a member. You can also catch Carolyn at ChannelCon EMEA in London on 9 and 10 November, where she will be presenting this research and hosting a panel with some of the biggest names in the industry. You can connect with Carolyn April on her LinkedIn HERE. Make sure to check out our Ultimate MSP Growth Guide, a free guide that walks you through a proven process to take your MSP from stuck to scalable, without working even more hours. It's 44 pages rammed with advice, insights and inspiration to help you decide what support is available to you now if you want to grow and scale your business. Click HERE to get your copy. Connect on LinkedIn HERE with Ian and also with Stuart by clicking this LINK And when you're ready to take the next step in growing your MSP, come and take the Scale with Confidence MSP Mastery Quiz. In just three minutes, you'll get a 360-degree scan of your MSP and identify the one or two tactics that could help you find more time, engage & align your people and generate more leads. If you're serious about growth and want to explore what this could look like for your MSP, you can book a Right Fit Clarity Call with us HERE. OR To join our amazing Facebook Group of over 400 MSPs where we are helping you Scale Up with Confidence, then click HERE Until next time, look after yourself and I'll catch up with you soon!
September 27 · 21 min
EP304 - Stop Chasing Revenue – Start Building a More Valuable MSP with Ian Luckett
In this episode of The IT Experts Podcast, I want to challenge one of the most common success measures in our industry. Are you measuring success, or are you simply measuring size? After more than 300 episodes, some themes keep coming back, and this is one we hear every week from prospects, clients and the wider community. It is the gap between how much revenue you bring in and how much profit you keep, and why closing that gap is the key to building a more valuable MSP. So many owners set their sights on the million-pound turnover mark, or on growing to 30 people, as if headcount were the prize. I know MSPs well past a million pounds who are making very little, and I know MSPs turning over six or seven hundred thousand who are absolutely nailing it, with more in their pocket than competitors twice their size. A bigger turnover means more money flowing through the business. It often means more cost flowing out the other end too. You can run a profitable million pound MSP with eight to ten people. When I hear of a million-pound business carrying 24 people, I know straight away the numbers cannot work. Bigger teams bring more complexity, and that complexity lands on the owner. Most MSP owners never planned to lead large teams, which is why leadership is the area we help with most inside The MSP Growth Hub. Here is the test I often share. If you are too busy to make decisions, too caught up in the tech, or the person everything waits for, you have a leadership opportunity sitting right in front of you. The most successful MSPs grow because the owner has time to think. Strategic thinking time leads to better decisions, better clients, and better profit. We also talk about the clients who quietly drain your margin. Many owners fear saying no to anyone. Some of your biggest clients are the noisiest and most demanding, and very few MSPs track profitability by client or by service. In some cases, you would be better off letting that client go, because the cost of serving them outweighs the value they bring. I share the story of MSPs who joined us bloated, with ten or twelve people in the wrong roles. One owner described his approach as destroy and rebuild. He took control of his most important clients, built the right team around them, and came out leaner and stronger. Another member recently sold his business for an eight times multiple with a smaller team than he had two years earlier. He walked out with no earnout, because he had become ONN, owner not needed. Three or four years before the sale, he knew his numbers so well it was almost unhealthy. That is how a more valuable MSP is built. From there, I walk through four practical actions. The first is to measure net profit and EBITDA before you celebrate revenue. Keep a close eye on client concentration, so that no single client represents more than 10 to 15 percent of your revenue. I share an old analogy about pound coins leaving a drawer each morning and returning each evening with friends, because every pound that leaves your business should come back with a return. Track revenue per employee and aim for north of £150,000, and track profit per employee alongside it. These are the numbers that separate a busy business from a more valuable MSP. The second action is to attract profitable, right fit clients. If someone is shopping on price, let them go. Make sure projects and managed services each stand on their own commercially, so a dangling carrot does not leave you in a pickle. The third is to build a lean team with the right people in the right roles. Keep spans of control to six to eight people per leader, design roles that are plug and play, and use AI to upskill your people and raise quality, rather than to cut heads. The fourth is to review your KPIs monthly and quarterly so they drive business value. Even a small MSP can start with one or two. This is not about boiling the ocean. Something Stuart taught me many years ago still guides how we work. Where is the data? Show me the data. When your decisions rest on meaningful business metrics, you invest with confidence, you know which opportunities will pay, and you build a more valuable MSP that is easier to scale and far easier to sell on your terms. Better clients beat more clients. We do not want you to build the biggest MSP in town. We want you to build the best one. So I will leave you with the same question I close the episode with. What are you measuring in your MSP this month to move your profitability up? Answer that honestly and you are already on the path to a more valuable MSP, with more time, confidence and freedom as the owner. Make sure to check out our Ultimate MSP Growth Guide, a free guide that walks you through a proven process to take your MSP from stuck to scalable, without working even more hours. It's 44 pages rammed with advice, insights and inspiration to help you decide what support is available to you now if you want to grow and scale your business. Click HERE to get your copy. Connect on LinkedIn HERE with Ian and also with Stuart by clicking this LINK And when you're ready to take the next step in growing your MSP, come and take the Scale with Confidence MSP Mastery Quiz. In just three minutes, you'll get a 360-degree scan of your MSP and identify the one or two tactics that could help you find more time, engage & align your people and generate more leads. If you're serious about growth and want to explore what this could look like for your MSP, you can book a Right Fit Clarity Call with us HERE. OR To join our amazing Facebook Group of over 400 MSPs where we are helping you Scale Up with Confidence, then click HERE Until next time, look after yourself and I'll catch up with you soon!
September 20 · 23 min
EP303 - Why Raising Your Prices Could Be The Fastest Way to Win More Clients with Ian Luckett and Stuart Warwick
In this episode of The IT Experts Podcast, Stuart Warwick joins me to talk about one of the topics that makes most MSP owners squirm in their seat, raising your prices. It sounds simple on paper and it gets an eye roll from almost everyone who hears it, yet putting your prices up is genuinely one of the fastest routes to a healthier, more profitable MSP. We start by unpacking why raising your prices feels like such a psychological battle. Most MSP owners are scared their clients will leave, go out to tender, or feel hard done by. What we uncover is that the real block sits underneath that fear. Raising your prices is really about positioning yourself for value. Until you value your own business and translate that into the right pricing for what you deliver, no pricing conversation will land properly with your clients. Stuart makes a point that stuck with me. Most MSPs have not touched pricing for their legacy clients in five, ten, even fifteen years. Costs keep moving, hardware, chips, licensing, inflation, yet the invoice stays the same. The starting point for raising your prices is always your numbers. Do you know your margins? Do you know what each client is actually costing you to service? Without that clarity, you cannot confidently or intelligently decide where prices need to move. One story from the episode says it all. A client of ours had a base price of between fifteen and twenty pounds a user and genuinely believed they could not compete on anything higher. It took five years for them to shift that belief. Once they rebuilt their packaging, told the story properly to their existing base, and phased the change in gently, they added one hundred and eighty eight thousand pounds a year in additional profit. That is profit, not turnover, and it transformed everything from pensions to investment in new technology, eventually helping them toward a strong exit. We also talk about the ninety percent problem. New clients are easy. You set your pricing, your margin looks healthy, and everyone is pleased. The real heavy lifting sits with your existing base, because the vast majority of your recurring revenue usually sits on legacy packages that have never caught up with the value you now deliver. Raising your prices for existing clients means selling a story, not simply issuing a new invoice. Explain what has changed, cybersecurity, cloud, automation, the modern tools you now provide, and frame the new pricing around the outcomes they get rather than the number itself. Stuart shares a brilliant piece of thinking here too. If you have a sensible, well framed conversation with a client about raising your prices and they agree, you make more profit. If they say no and decide to leave, you also make more profit because you remove a client who was quietly costing you money. It genuinely is a win either way, and once you know your numbers, most MSPs can point to two or three noisy clients who are doing exactly that. We close by talking about confidence and selling without selling. Nobody loves the idea of pushing products, yet raising your prices sits far more comfortably when you shift the framing from selling to helping a client buy. Know your numbers, build real belief in the value you deliver, tell the story with clarity, and bring your existing clients with you at a pace that respects the relationship you have built. Price condition new clients from day one so annual increases become an expected part of working with you rather than an awkward surprise years down the line. Higher profits, stronger retention, and the confidence to invest in recruitment and marketing all start from the same place. Raising your prices properly, and believing you deserve to. Make sure to check out our Ultimate MSP Growth Guide, a free guide that walks you through a proven process to take your MSP from stuck to scalable, without working even more hours. It's 44 pages rammed with advice, insights and inspiration to help you decide what support is available to you now if you want to grow and scale your business. Click HERE to get your copy. Connect on LinkedIn HERE with Ian and also with Stuart by clicking this LINK And when you're ready to take the next step in growing your MSP, come and take the Scale with Confidence MSP Mastery Quiz. In just three minutes, you'll get a 360-degree scan of your MSP and identify the one or two tactics that could help you find more time, engage & align your people and generate more leads. If you're serious about growth and want to explore what this could look like for your MSP, you can book a Right Fit Clarity Call with us HERE. OR To join our amazing Facebook Group of over 400 MSPs where we are helping you Scale Up with Confidence, then click HERE Until next time, look after yourself and I'll catch up with you soon!
September 13 · 17 min
EP302 - Why Your Biggest Client Could Be Your Biggest Problem with Ian Luckett
In this episode of The IT Experts Podcast, I want to talk about one of the most common reasons MSP owners end up coming to the Growth Hub for help, and it is one I wish more people addressed before it becomes a crisis. That dreaded phone call. Your biggest client rings up and tells you they have been bought out, they are in financial difficulty, or they are simply leaving. If you are lucky, you have a three year contract in place. If you are not, you could lose that revenue overnight. This is client concentration risk in its rawest form, and it catches so many MSP owners completely off guard. Client concentration risk builds quietly. On paper, your revenue looks healthy because your biggest client keeps growing with you. Underneath that growth, your exposure is increasing every month. Your costs stay fixed while your income becomes tied to the decisions of one organisation you do not control. When that client leaves, the cash flow shock is sudden, staff redundancies can become a real possibility, and instead of planning for growth you are firefighting to survive. I want to share the five steps we walk our own clients through in the Growth Hub to manage client concentration risk properly, and I would love for you to take action on these today rather than filing them away for later. The first step is to calculate the revenue percentage contributed by your top ten clients. Many owners only look at their bank balance and assume everything is fine. A healthy bank balance tells you nothing about debtors, accruals, or how exposed you really are. Once you know the numbers, you can start making informed decisions rather than hopeful ones. The second step is to stress test what would happen if you lost your largest client tomorrow. Look at your contract length, whether that is thirty days or five years, and talk this through with your team. Bringing your help desk and wider team into this conversation matters, because client concentration risk should never sit with the owner alone. The third step is to build and maintain a rolling ninety day cash flow forecast. This single habit gives you far more clarity than watching your bank balance ever will. It shows you your reserves, your incoming recurring revenue, and your project work, so you can make confident decisions around recruitment and resourcing rather than reactive ones. The fourth step is to set a target to reduce dependency on any single client over time. If your biggest client currently represents fifty percent of turnover, aim to bring that down gradually, perhaps to forty percent next year and thirty the year after. Best practice suggests no single client should represent more than ten percent of turnover for a strong business valuation, and closing that gap steadily protects you from client concentration risk without damaging the relationship with that client. The fifth and hardest step is strengthening what we call your new client runway, so you consistently replace revenue rather than relying on one relationship to carry the business. Account management keeps your existing clients happy, and it needs pairing with sales and marketing activity that brings in fresh leads every single month. We call this ONCA, one new client a month. Build credibility with your target market, stay consistent on your messaging, and bring your existing clients into events where they can introduce people who are not yet clients. Reducing client concentration risk gives you a more resilient business. Your valuation improves, your cash flow forecasting becomes sharper, and your leadership time shifts from firefighting back into planning for growth. No MSP owner wants that call from their biggest client to be the moment they finally address this, so I would encourage you to run these five steps this week with your team. Make sure to check out our Ultimate MSP Growth Guide, a free guide that walks you through a proven process to take your MSP from stuck to scalable, without working even more hours. It's 44 pages rammed with advice, insights and inspiration to help you decide what support is available to you now if you want to grow and scale your business. Click HERE to get your copy. Connect on LinkedIn HERE with Ian and also with Stuart by clicking this LINK And when you're ready to take the next step in growing your MSP, come and take the Scale with Confidence MSP Mastery Quiz. In just three minutes, you'll get a 360-degree scan of your MSP and identify the one or two tactics that could help you find more time, engage & align your people and generate more leads. If you're serious about growth and want to explore what this could look like for your MSP, you can book a Right Fit Clarity Call with us HERE. OR To join our amazing Facebook Group of over 400 MSPs where we are helping you Scale Up with Confidence, then click HERE Until next time, look after yourself and I'll catch up with you soon!
September 6 · 28 min
EP301 - Stop Thinking Small – The Mindset Shift That Helped Build a £10 Million Co-Managed MSP with Adam Monks and Ian Luckett
In this episode of The IT Experts Podcast, I sit down with Adam Monks, group director for technical services at Academia Technology Group, to unpack the mindset shift that helped him build a ten million pound co-managed MSP. Adam Monks started his career on the help desk over twenty years ago and worked his way up through service delivery, customer success and professional services before deciding to build something of his own alongside his co-founder Chris. What makes Adam Monks' story so valuable for MSP owners is that his business, SmartDesc, grew almost entirely through a co-managed model, working with organisations of three hundred and five hundred staff from the very beginning, rather than starting small and scaling up gradually. We talk about the early days, where trust and reputation carried everything. Adam Monks explains that in the beginning, clients are buying you, not your accreditations or vendor badges, because those simply take time to earn. Doing what you say you will do, delivering safely and quickly, and building a reputation for getting things done became the foundation for growth. That same principle stayed true even as the business scaled into the millions, though the accreditations and credibility markers mattered more as the deals got bigger. One of the most interesting parts of the conversation covers the middle years, where Adam Monks describes the frustration of being seen as too small for the bigger contracts, even with strong references and a track record of results. He shares how sector focus, particularly within the charity and nonprofit space, gave SmartDesc an edge because those organisations were more open to sharing recommendations with each other. We also discuss the nervous moments, including a year when two founding customers, who made up around seventy percent of revenue, were both due for renewal at the same time. Adam Monks recalls standing in the street with his co-founder weighing up what could happen if neither renewed. A turning point for the business came when growth stopped being reliable. Adam Monks talks candidly about the year the numbers flattened, and how that pushed him to bring in proper marketing support for the first time. Working with a specialist agency, SmartDesc introduced a monthly newsletter, quarterly round tables, webinars and events hosted through their Microsoft Elevate Partner status. Adam Monks is clear that round tables delivered the strongest results, not through instant leads but through consistent, senior level conversations that built trust over nine to twelve months. Alongside this, becoming a direct Microsoft CSP opened an entirely new revenue stream. We also get into the leadership challenge that so many MSP owners will recognise. Adam Monks describes the awkward middle stage of twenty five to forty staff, where you are too big to stay hands on with everything, yet too small to have a fully structured leadership team. Bringing in a fractional finance director helped SmartDesc break through that stage, giving visibility into which parts of the business, MSP services, fractional leadership, cybersecurity and procurement, were genuinely profitable, and allowing accountable leaders to own each area. Adam Monks also shares his honest view on running fully managed and co-managed services side by side, including the margin differences between the two models and why choosing fewer, bigger customers made sense for his business. The conversation closes with the story of SmartDesc's merger with academia technology group in October 2024, a deal that took the combined business to around two hundred and seventy five staff and gave Adam Monks a seat on the board. If you are an MSP owner who has ever felt boxed in by size, or you are wrestling with the leadership gap that comes with growth, this conversation with Adam Monks will give you plenty to think about and apply straight away. Connect with Adam Monks through LinkedIn and website. Make sure to check out our Ultimate MSP Growth Guide, a free guide that walks you through a proven process to take your MSP from stuck to scalable, without working even more hours. It's 44 pages rammed with advice, insights and inspiration to help you decide what support is available to you now if you want to grow and scale your business. Click HERE to get your copy. Connect on LinkedIn HERE with Ian and also with Stuart by clicking this LINK And when you're ready to take the next step in growing your MSP, come and take the Scale with Confidence MSP Mastery Quiz. In just three minutes, you'll get a 360-degree scan of your MSP and identify the one or two tactics that could help you find more time, engage & align your people and generate more leads. If you're serious about growth and want to explore what this could look like for your MSP, you can book a Right Fit Clarity Call with us HERE. OR To join our amazing Facebook Group of over 400 MSPs where we are helping you Scale Up with Confidence, then click HERE Until next time, look after yourself and I'll catch up with you soon!
August 30 · 36 min
EP300 - 300 Episodes later, What We Have Learnt with Ian Luckett & Stuart Warwick
In this episode of The IT Experts Podcast, Stuart and I mark a genuine milestone, our 300th episode, and 300 episodes later we sit down to share what we have learnt across seven years and every one of those conversations. This is not a tidy list of tips. It is a set of honest reflections on what has changed, what has stayed true, and what we would tell our younger selves if we could. We start with the belief that has shifted the most for Stuart. Every MSP owner knows they need a plan, and that has never changed. What has changed is the recognition that most owners already know what to do. The real gap is accountability, having someone or something that holds you to the actions you already know you need to take. Overwhelm shows up more than almost anything else in our coaching sessions, and it nearly always comes from a blurry list of a hundred things rather than a lack of knowledge. 300 episodes later, my own thinking has shifted too, particularly around vision, mission and values. I once believed that work was reserved for bigger businesses with bigger budgets. Seven years on, I have watched smaller MSPs transform once they get genuine clarity on who they are, who they help and why. That clarity becomes the foundation the rest of the plan sits on. Some lessons have stayed constant the whole way through. Stuart is firm that MSPs do not need more leads, they need a better business to bring those leads into. Structure, people, process and culture are the legs of the stool, and if any of them are weak the business cannot carry the weight of growth. On my side, the advice that remains just as true today is that MSPs must understand their target market properly. Too many businesses try to serve everybody, end up competing on price, and repeat the same generic messaging as every other provider in the channel. We also talk candidly about the mistake we see repeated most often, waiting for a crisis before making a change. Stuart shares how businesses often join us shortly before losing a major client, and how that shift from growth thinking to survival thinking can set a business back for months. I share a similar pattern, where owners have tried a marketing agency, a salesperson or a lead generation service without first understanding their own model, their own audience and their own value. Looking ahead, Stuart believes the next three years demand stronger processes, documentation and governance, so that AI can be layered onto a business that is genuinely ready for it. I focus on people, and the importance of bringing in younger, more driven talent who can push a business forward rather than simply maintaining what already exists. Being brave enough to shake up a settled team matters too. Finally, we reflect on the lessons we each wish we had understood sooner. For me, it is the power of a properly connected operating model, one that content, pricing, packaging and account management all hang off, rather than a model that looks good but lacks a true, connected story. Stuart reminds us that this connected story is what allows a business to articulate its value to employees, prospects and existing clients alike. If you are somewhere between four hundred thousand and nine hundred thousand pounds in turnover and feel stuck, this episode will resonate. Structure, accountability and a genuine understanding of your value are the threads that run through everything we have learnt, 300 episodes later. Make sure to check out our Ultimate MSP Growth Guide, a free guide that walks you through a proven process to take your MSP from stuck to scalable, without working even more hours. It's 44 pages rammed with advice, insights and inspiration to help you decide what support is available to you now if you want to grow and scale your business. Click HERE to get your copy. Connect on LinkedIn HERE with Ian and also with Stuart by clicking this LINK And when you're ready to take the next step in growing your MSP, come and take the Scale with Confidence MSP Mastery Quiz. In just three minutes, you'll get a 360-degree scan of your MSP and identify the one or two tactics that could help you find more time, engage & align your people and generate more leads. If you're serious about growth and want to explore what this could look like for your MSP, you can book a Right Fit Clarity Call with us HERE. OR To join our amazing Facebook Group of over 400 MSPs where we are helping you Scale Up with Confidence, then click HERE Until next time, look after yourself and I'll catch up with you soon!
August 23 · 30 min
EP299 - Why Most MSPs Stay Stuck – The Cost of Waiting, Overthinking and Not Taking Action with Neil Shaw and Ian Luckett
In this episode of The IT Experts Podcast, I sit down with Neil Shaw to unpack why most MSPs stay stuck, and what it really takes to build lasting momentum after years of plodding along. Neil spent over thirty years in the IT industry, built and exited his own MSP, and now helps other owners avoid the traps he fell into himself. We start by exploring what stuck actually looks like. It rarely means rock bottom. More often it is an owner who has found a level of success and settled there, surrounded by choice paralysis, too many options, and no clear next step. This is one of the clearest reasons why most MSPs stay stuck, they default to what they know rather than making a deliberate decision to move forward. We talk about the danger of referral success. When new business keeps arriving without effort, there is little pressure to build proper marketing or sales processes, which quietly reinforces why most MSPs stay stuck for years longer than they need to. Neil shares how he and his business partner stripped their own business back to basics, figuring out exactly what was missing before hiring ahead of need rather than waiting until they were creaking under pressure. We spend real time on letting go, and Neil is candid about how hard this is for techie owners who are used to doing everything themselves. His advice is simple and powerful. Look at the tasks that belong to old you rather than business owner you, and find the right person to take them on, even if they only reach eighty percent of your standard to begin with. Shiny object syndrome comes up too, particularly with the flood of AI tools now aimed at MSPs. Neil's advice cuts through the noise. Before buying anything new, work out what would break if you were away for a day, a week, or a month, then fix those things first. We also get into some of the most common regrets Neil has seen, firing bad clients too late, waiting too long to raise prices, and holding onto delivery work that should have been handed off years earlier. This theme of avoidable delay runs right through why most MSPs stay stuck, and Neil is refreshingly direct about the fact that most owners already know what needs to change, they simply have not made the decision yet. One of the most practical moments comes when Neil walks through his own client matrix, ranking accounts by spend and by how much hassle they cause, then working through the list from least favourite upwards. It is a simple, repeatable way to raise prices with confidence and free up capacity for the clients who deserve it. We also talk about trust, and how building a team who can think for themselves, rather than constantly asking permission, is one of the biggest unlocks for any owner trying to step back from day to day delivery. Towards the end we shift to momentum itself. Motivation fades fast once real life gets in the way, so Neil talks about the value of an accountability partner, someone to share your roadmap with and lean on when the energy dips. His rapid fire answers say it all, the best decision he ever delayed was getting rid of a bad client, and the worst was not raising prices sooner. If you recognise any of this in your own MSP, the message from this episode is clear. Understanding why most MSPs stay stuck is the first step, and taking one small, imperfect action this week is the one that actually moves you forward. You can find Neil Shaw through his LinkedIn and website. Make sure to check out our Ultimate MSP Growth Guide, a free guide that walks you through a proven process to take your MSP from stuck to scalable, without working even more hours. It's 44 pages rammed with advice, insights and inspiration to help you decide what support is available to you now if you want to grow and scale your business. Click HERE to get your copy. Connect on LinkedIn HERE with Ian and also with Stuart by clicking this LINK And when you're ready to take the next step in growing your MSP, come and take the Scale with Confidence MSP Mastery Quiz. In just three minutes, you'll get a 360-degree scan of your MSP and identify the one or two tactics that could help you find more time, engage & align your people and generate more leads. If you're serious about growth and want to explore what this could look like for your MSP, you can book a Right Fit Clarity Call with us HERE. OR To join our amazing Facebook Group of over 400 MSPs where we are helping you Scale Up with Confidence, then click HERE Until next time, look after yourself and I'll catch up with you soon!
August 16 · 22 min
EP298 - Why Your Summer Holiday is the Ultimate MSP Leadership Test with Ian Luckett
In this episode of The IT Experts Podcast, I explain why your summer holiday is the ultimate MSP leadership test. It is that time of year again, when the sun is out, the diary clears a little, and MSP owners either head off on holiday or spend the whole time thinking about it. This episode is not really about holidays at all. It is about what happens to your business when you step away from it, and what that reveals about the leadership you have built. I ask a simple question early on. Can you truly switch off when you go away, or are you still checking emails by the pool and worrying about what is happening back at the office? I am honest about my own habits here. I love what I do, and I like to use my holidays as strategic thinking time, scribbling ideas on a notepad rather than fully disconnecting. That said, there is a big difference between staying connected because you enjoy it and staying connected because the business cannot function without you. That difference is exactly what makes your summer break the ultimate MSP leadership test. I talk through the common fears that come up for owners when they consider stepping away. My clients need me. My team will not cope. Something important might come in and I am the only one who can deal with it. Every single one of these is a leadership issue rather than a holiday issue. If clients still need you directly, something is broken in your delegation and your SOPs. If your team cannot function for a few days, that points to gaps in training, trust, and clarity around roles. I share how Stuart and I have spent the last couple of years deliberately building the business so that when one of us is away, the team steps up rather than the other one having to fill the gap. Everybody knows their role, their boundaries, and what good, great, and not so great look like. That structure is what allows the business to keep moving, and it is a great example of passing your own MSP leadership test in practice. I set out five things to check before, during, or after your holiday. Step away from the business to take stock, rating yourself honestly against your numbers, your team, and your lead generation. Reflect on where you are at and what would genuinely make you happier with the performance of the business. Reset your thinking, remembering that you become the average of the people you spend time with, and that a good book or a stretch conversation can shift your perspective. Reconnect with your vision, your values, and what you actually want your life and your business to look like. Finally, give your team permission to step up, setting clear expectations so they can make decisions confidently within defined boundaries. I also touch on trust, asking listeners to rate how much trust they place in their team and to be honest about what is holding that back. Great leaders do not prove their value by being indispensable. They prove it by making everyone around them better, so the business keeps rowing in the same direction whether the owner is present or not. The heart of this MSP leadership test is one honest question. If you disappeared for two weeks with no contact at all, what would happen to your business? Whatever your answer is becomes your next leadership project. Your holiday is not the problem. It is the audit that shows you exactly where your business still depends on you, and exactly where a stronger, more valuable, more scalable MSP is waiting to be built. Make sure to check out our Ultimate MSP Growth Guide, a free guide that walks you through a proven process to take your MSP from stuck to scalable, without working even more hours. It's 44 pages rammed with advice, insights and inspiration to help you decide what support is available to you now if you want to grow and scale your business. Click HERE to get your copy. Connect on LinkedIn HERE with Ian and also with Stuart by clicking this LINK And when you're ready to take the next step in growing your MSP, come and take the Scale with Confidence MSP Mastery Quiz. In just three minutes, you'll get a 360-degree scan of your MSP and identify the one or two tactics that could help you find more time, engage & align your people and generate more leads. If you're serious about growth and want to explore what this could look like for your MSP, you can book a Right Fit Clarity Call with us HERE. OR To join our amazing Facebook Group of over 400 MSPs where we are helping you Scale Up with Confidence, then click HERE Until next time, look after yourself and I'll catch up with you soon!
August 9 · 34 min
EP297 - How to Use Vendor MDF for MSPs so Everyone Wins with Gemma Telford and Ian Luckett
In this episode of The IT Experts Podcast, I sit down with Gemma Telford from the Archer Agency to unpack one of the most underused resources available to growing MSPs, vendor Marketing Development Funds, or MDF. With two decades of experience across tech marketing, including roles at Ingram Micro, Sage and Palo Alto Networks, Gemma Telford brings a rare view from both sides of the channel, having worked with vendors, distributors and partners alike. We open with a wider discussion on why so many MSP owners struggle to embrace marketing in the first place. Many of us built our businesses on technical strength rather than promotional confidence, and Gemma and I agree that the answer often lies in reframing marketing as simply clear messaging about how you help people, rather than something big or intimidating. Bringing in dedicated marketing support, rather than expecting founders or inexperienced hires to carry the whole function, is one of the most reliable paths to sustainable growth. From there, we move into the heart of the episode, MDF itself. Gemma Telford explains that marketing development funds sit within a vendor's budget specifically to help partners sell more of their products and services. Despite the funds being widely available, research referenced in the episode suggests that around sixty percent of MDF goes unused every quarter. The reasons are practical rather than mysterious. Vendors often allocate funding to whoever asks loudest, application processes can be convoluted, and many MSPs simply are not aware the money exists or how to access it. A significant part of our conversation focuses on the mismatch between vendor expectations and MSP realities. Vendors frequently want to see leads or return on investment within a single quarter, which rarely reflects how MSP sales cycles actually work. Gemma Telford shares an encouraging example of an ERP vendor taking a longer-term view, building multiyear plans with partners and trusting that results will follow, even if not immediately. This kind of collaborative thinking, she suggests, is exactly what more vendors need to adopt. Practical advice runs throughout the episode. Rather than approaching every vendor at once, Gemma recommends we choose one vendor to start with, ideally one connected to a business goal such as growth in a particular sector or vertical. From there, building a genuine plan, complete with revenue targets and a proposed timeline, gives vendors something concrete to support rather than a vague request for cash. Case studies and proof points are also flagged as powerful tools, since vendors are always seeking evidence that their products deliver real results for real customers. We also touch on the importance of relationships within the channel. Strong connections with account managers and channel teams can open doors that generic outreach never will, and we both agree that treating vendor partnerships as a genuine collaboration, rather than a transactional exchange, tends to produce the best long-term outcomes. Towards the end of the episode, Gemma Telford sets out three changes that would make MDF programmes work better for everyone. Vendors moving away from rigid quarterly ROI expectations, supporting partners to build their own plans rather than being overly prescriptive, and simplifying the application process so partners are not discouraged before they even begin. For any MSP wondering where to start, my advice is refreshingly simple, get a plan in place, understand your specialisms and messaging, and proactively approach your vendors rather than waiting to be noticed. This episode is a valuable listen for any MSP owner who has heard of MDF but never quite understood how to access it, or for those keen to strengthen their vendor relationships and unlock funding that is often sitting untouched. You can connect with Gemma Telford on LinkedIn or find out more about her work at the Archer Agency. Make sure to check out our Ultimate MSP Growth Guide, a free guide that walks you through a proven process to take your MSP from stuck to scalable, without working even more hours. It's 44 pages rammed with advice, insights and inspiration to help you decide what support is available to you now if you want to grow and scale your business. Click HERE to get your copy. Connect on LinkedIn HERE with Ian and also with Stuart by clicking this LINK And when you're ready to take the next step in growing your MSP, come and take the Scale with Confidence MSP Mastery Quiz. In just three minutes, you'll get a 360-degree scan of your MSP and identify the one or two tactics that could help you find more time, engage & align your people and generate more leads. If you're serious about growth and want to explore what this could look like for your MSP, you can book a Right Fit Clarity Call with us HERE. OR To join our amazing Facebook Group of over 400 MSPs where we are helping you Scale Up with Confidence, then click HERE Until next time, look after yourself and I'll catch up with you soon!
August 2 · 18 min
EP296 - Beyond the Money, What Wealth Really Means for MSP Business Owners with Ian Luckett
In this episode of The IT Experts Podcast, I take a step back from the usual growth tactics and invite you into a conversation about what wealth really means for MSP owners. We are past the midpoint of 2026, and rather than waiting until year end to reflect, I wanted to offer a checkup from the neck up right now, while there is still time to make the second half count. I talk through the MSP journey many of us recognise. You start in survive, move into drive, then into thrive, and eventually reach arrive, the point where the business works for you rather than the other way round. Along that journey, it is easy to lose sight of your original why. You get caught up in the grind, in the day to day running of the business, and somewhere along the line the reason you started fades into the background. This episode is my attempt to help you reconnect with it, because understanding what wealth really means to you personally changes everything about how you build and run your MSP. I share why Stuart and I built The MSP Growth Hub the way we did. Our own why is rooted in family, in supporting people with additional needs, and in using the business as an enabler for something much bigger than turnover or profit margin. That is the thread that runs through this episode. Profit should be treated as fuel for your vision, not the end goal itself. When you start asking what wealth really means beyond the numbers on a balance sheet, you open the door to a much richer definition of success, one that includes freedom, fulfilment, relationships, and the life you actually want to live outside the business. I cover the danger of decisions driven by fear rather than by vision and values, and how burnout, stress, and anxiety often show up when purpose has quietly disappeared from the picture. I share a simple challenge you can do right now, wherever you are reading or listening from. Revisit your original why. Write down how it has evolved. Bring your team into that conversation. I mention two books that have shaped my own thinking recently, Simon Sinek's Start With Why and Arnold Schwarzenegger's Be Useful, both of which pushed me to think bigger about the supported living homes I want to help build. We also explore the people you surround yourself with. You become the average of the five people you spend the most time with, so if you want a bigger vision for your business and your life, it pays to move towards people who inspire and challenge you rather than those who keep you small. I talk about building reflection into your leadership rhythm, measuring how far you have come rather than only how far you have left to go, and leading with transparency even when others doubt what you are trying to achieve. Ultimately, this episode is an invitation to define what wealth really means to you, in your own words, on your own terms. It might mean more time with family, more freedom to choose how you spend your Fridays, or the ability to give back to your community in a meaningful way. Whatever it looks like for you, the message stays the same. Profit is your fuel. It is not the finish line. I hope this gives you space to reflect and reconnect with your own purpose as an MSP owner. Make sure to check out our Ultimate MSP Growth Guide, a free guide that walks you through a proven process to take your MSP from stuck to scalable, without working even more hours. It's 44 pages rammed with advice, insights and inspiration to help you decide what support is available to you now if you want to grow and scale your business. Click HERE to get your copy. Connect on LinkedIn HERE with Ian and also with Stuart by clicking this LINK And when you're ready to take the next step in growing your MSP, come and take the Scale with Confidence MSP Mastery Quiz. In just three minutes, you'll get a 360-degree scan of your MSP and identify the one or two tactics that could help you find more time, engage & align your people and generate more leads. If you're serious about growth and want to explore what this could look like for your MSP, you can book a Right Fit Clarity Call with us HERE. OR To join our amazing Facebook Group of over 400 MSPs where we are helping you Scale Up with Confidence, then click HERE Until next time, look after yourself and I'll catch up with you soon!
July 26 · 30 min
EP295 - How Smashing Down Invisible Ceilings in Your MSP Can Help Your Culture Grow with Yvonne Matzk and Ian Luckett
In this episode of The IT Experts Podcast, I sit down with Yvonne Matzk to explore a subject I rarely get the chance to talk about on this show, the invisible ceilings that hold back talent, culture, and growth inside our businesses. Yvonne Matzk is the founder of Coachere, a coaching and consulting practice supporting leaders and the next generation of talent in the IT industry, and also the founder of the Channel Community, a free network built to help emerging talent find mentoring in a safe and inclusive environment. I loved hearing the story behind her book, Smashing the Class Ceiling, born from research showing that only nine percent of people working in tech came from a low socioeconomic background. Yvonne Matzk and her fellow founders at the Channel Community realised how many of them had come from working class backgrounds themselves, and decided to raise awareness of this gap by aligning with the Social Mobility Foundation. What started as a podcast grew into a book, designed to showcase people who started from humble beginnings and went on to build genuinely impressive careers. Yvonne Matzk introduces the idea of the class pay gap, a concept she told me she had never heard of until she began this work, despite having lived its effects throughout her own career. She reflects candidly on her early years on a training wage, doing work worth considerably more, and later struggling even as a business owner to ask for what she was worth. She explains that people from working class backgrounds often carry a quiet sense of gratitude that stops them from demanding fair value, while those from more privileged upbringings tend to carry a natural confidence that opens doors more easily. Listening to this, I could see clearly how it creates a hidden pool of talent that most MSPs never think to look for, simply because they keep recruiting from the same familiar places. Yvonne Matzk and I spent time discussing why this matters so much for MSP culture. Hiring people who look, sound, and think alike feels comfortable, yet it quietly limits how a business solves problems and challenges itself to grow. Yvonne Matzk argues that talent is everywhere, while opportunity is not, and I agree that businesses need to actively remove unnecessary barriers such as rigid degree requirements if they want access to that wider pool. She points to research showing that resilience, passion and work ethic predict success far more reliably than qualifications ever could, and these are the traits I encourage every MSP owner to recruit for. We also explored confidence, or as Yvonne Matzk prefers to call it, courage. She describes confidence as a learned behaviour shaped by upbringing and environment rather than something people are simply born with or without. Overcoming that conditioning, she says, starts with recognising fear for what it is and choosing to act anyway. I found this links directly into leadership, where Yvonne Matzk made clear to me that culture always starts and ends with the owner. If a leader is not willing to be vulnerable, admit uncertainty and model the behaviour they want to see, no amount of clever recruitment will shift the culture underneath it. Yvonne Matzk shared some genuinely practical steps I want every listener to try. She suggests MSP owners ask their own teams what the culture genuinely feels like, rather than assuming, and recommends simple anonymous surveys as a starting point for honest feedback. She encourages leaders to benchmark where their culture sits today against where they want it to be, then commit to closing that gap deliberately. I want to leave you with the same challenge Yvonne Matzk gave me, sense check your culture, ask your people what they really think, and rethink where you are looking for talent, because most skills are transferable and the right people are often hiding in plain sight. Connect with Yvonne Matzk through her LinkedIn and websites: Coachere and The Channel Community. You can get her book here. Make sure to check out our Ultimate MSP Growth Guide, a free guide that walks you through a proven process to take your MSP from stuck to scalable, without working even more hours. It's 44 pages rammed with advice, insights and inspiration to help you decide what support is available to you now if you want to grow and scale your business. Click HERE to get your copy. Connect on LinkedIn HERE with Ian and also with Stuart by clicking this LINK And when you're ready to take the next step in growing your MSP, come and take the Scale with Confidence MSP Mastery Quiz. In just three minutes, you'll get a 360-degree scan of your MSP and identify the one or two tactics that could help you find more time, engage & align your people and generate more leads. If you're serious about growth and want to explore what this could look like for your MSP, you can book a Right Fit Clarity Call with us HERE. OR To join our amazing Facebook Group of over 400 MSPs where we are helping you Scale Up with Confidence, then click HERE Until next time, look after yourself and I'll catch up with you soon!
July 19 · 21 min
EP294 - The Real Reason your MSP Marketing Didn't Work with Ian Luckett
In this episode of The IT Experts Podcast, I tackle one of the most common frustrations I hear from MSP owners every single week, the belief that MSP marketing simply does not work. I hear it constantly. Someone has tried an agency, a friend who knows social media, some pay per click, or a few Facebook ads, and each time the results fell flat. The real issue, as I explain, is not the tactic itself. It is the absence of a system that connects every activity back to booked calls and revenue. I open by challenging you to interrogate your marketing agency with one question, how does what you are doing connect to more booked calls. I have found that many agencies do not understand the MSP model, focusing on surface level activity like website redesigns and vague positioning work rather than a measurable path to pipeline. Inside The MSP Growth Hub, this connection between activity and results sits at the heart of the New Client Runway framework I teach from day one. I also address the MSP habit of leaning heavily on referrals. While steady referrals feel comfortable, I point out that this approach leaves owners exposed. If your biggest client leaves or a referral source dries up, you can lose a significant chunk of monthly recurring revenue overnight, with no backup plan in place. This is where account management, paired with consistent MSP marketing, becomes essential for protecting and growing your income. A central theme of the episode is what I call the stop start marketing cycle. I describe the familiar pattern, a quiet pipeline triggers a burst of marketing activity, a referral arrives, focus shifts back to delivery, and a few months later, the cycle repeats. I call this Groundhog Day marketing and I link it directly to why so many MSPs remain stuck under a million pounds in turnover. Without consistent visibility, you never build the compounding authority needed to be recognised as the expert in your niche. To fix this, I share five practical steps for building an effective MSP marketing system. The first is committing to a twelve-month runway rather than a three-month test, broken down into quarters and months so you know exactly what to focus on and when. The second is setting leading indicators, tracking visibility, conversations, and engagement rather than only watching for closed deals. I share a real example of a client who needed fresh leads, better numbers, and a profit first mindset, showing how leading indicators reveal what is really happening in your business. The third step is building weekly consistency. I recommend posting on LinkedIn at least three times a week from your personal profile and a couple of times from your company page, alongside keeping your Google Business Profile updated. I remind you that people buy from people, and visibility builds the trust required before anyone books a call. I also stress that the money is in the follow up, encouraging you to stay professional, purposeful, and persistent with every new conversation rather than sending one message and giving up. The fourth step is tracking pipeline momentum using our ONCAM framework, One New Client A Month, which helps you understand how many conversations and what conversion rate you need to hit your growth goals. The fifth step is treating MSP marketing as a genuine cost of growth, with a proper budget attached, reported on regularly alongside your other key performance indicators. I close by reminding you that sustainable growth is built on visibility, not luck. I encourage you to step outside your comfort zone, commit to the process, and trust that consistent MSP marketing compounds over time into a stronger brand, a healthier pipeline, and a more confident position in your market. Make sure to check out our Ultimate MSP Growth Guide, a free guide that walks you through a proven process to take your MSP from stuck to scalable, without working even more hours. It's 44 pages rammed with advice, insights and inspiration to help you decide what support is available to you now if you want to grow and scale your business. Click HERE to get your copy. Connect on LinkedIn HERE with Ian and also with Stuart by clicking this LINK And when you're ready to take the next step in growing your MSP, come and take the Scale with Confidence MSP Mastery Quiz. In just three minutes, you'll get a 360-degree scan of your MSP and identify the one or two tactics that could help you find more time, engage & align your people and generate more leads. If you're serious about growth and want to explore what this could look like for your MSP, you can book a Right Fit Clarity Call with us HERE. OR To join our amazing Facebook Group of over 400 MSPs where we are helping you Scale Up with Confidence, then click HERE Until next time, look after yourself and I'll catch up with you soon!
July 12 · 54 min
EP293 - Intelligent MSP Operations – AI, Automation and Observability at Scale – The MSP Insights Panel Discussion
In this episode of The IT Experts Podcast, I hosted an MSP Insights Roundtable on AI, automation, and observability at scale, bringing together three brilliant guests, Joe Burns, Fiona Challis, and Nick Horner. What struck me straight away was how all three agreed on one thing before we even got into the detail. AI, automation, and observability only work when you understand your own processes first. Joe walked us through how his MSP, Reformed, built its operational maturity by identifying repetitive tasks, spotting where human error crept in, and asking his team what they actually disliked doing. Only once that groundwork was done did he bring in automation, including an early AI triage system on the service desk, and it paid off. Nick added a perspective I loved, describing how starting small with clients avoids the scope creep that can derail an automation project before it even gets going. He shared a story about a modest HR automation that grew organically once the client saw the value for themselves, and how bringing end users into the process from day one builds the kind of trust that makes AI, automation, and observability actually stick. Getting genuine buy in, as Nick put it, turns a nervous stakeholder into a project sponsor rather than a blocker. Fiona introduced an idea I keep coming back to, becoming your own customer zero, assessing your own readiness before you ever take an AI conversation to a client. She told us most MSPs score only two or three out of five on her readiness assessment, which shows how much foundational work is still undocumented across our sector. We spent time discussing how observability has changed, moving away from juggling dashboards across Microsoft 365, PSA, and RMM tools towards a single intelligent layer that pulls everything together securely and quickly. Nick made the point that speed and accuracy no longer need a dedicated Power BI specialist, and Fiona reminded us that the ROI conversation always starts with measuring a baseline before you change anything. One of my favourite moments came from Joe, describing a law firm that spent three to four hours every week cross checking court lists against their case management system, a task his team solved with an agent in fifteen minutes. Fiona echoed this, encouraging MSPs to lead with one practical win rather than an overwhelming pitch, because solving a single small problem tends to open the door to many more conversations. We also got into the tension between compliance and outcome. Fiona argued that clients buy the outcome AI delivers rather than the technology itself, and Joe pushed back with honest feedback from his law firm clients, who want compliance answered first given how sensitive that sector is to reputational risk. Both agreed that governance needs to be built into the foundations of any deployment rather than bolted on afterwards. Drawing on Daniel Priestley's thinking around demand and supply tension, Joe warned us against pouring all our energy into operational capacity while neglecting sales and marketing, a gap that can quietly erode margins even as efficiency improves. Fiona picked this up with real enthusiasm, describing how AI and automation can make selling feel far more natural, framing every client conversation as a business problem to solve rather than a service to pitch. She introduced the three pillars she coaches MSPs towards, capacity, experience, and revenue, and stressed the importance of owning your intellectual property rather than giving away your hard built agents for free. We closed by sharing how each of us measures success, from outcome-based tracking to client and employee satisfaction scores, before final takeaways. Nick urged everyone to embrace the shift and stay ahead of the curve, Joe reminded us that capacity means nothing without the ability to sell it, and Fiona encouraged listeners to stop overthinking and take the first step. I came away from this session convinced, more than ever, that AI, automation, and observability can genuinely transform an MSP, provided the fundamentals are respected along the way. Connect with Fiona Challis through LinkedIn and website. Connect with Joe Burns through LinkedIn and website. Connect with Nick Horner through LinkedIn. Make sure to check out our Ultimate MSP Growth Guide, a free guide that walks you through a proven process to take your MSP from stuck to scalable, without working even more hours. It's 44 pages rammed with advice, insights and inspiration to help you decide what support is available to you now if you want to grow and scale your business. Click HERE to get your copy. Connect on LinkedIn HERE with Ian and also with Stuart by clicking this LINK And when you're ready to take the next step in growing your MSP, come and take the Scale with Confidence MSP Mastery Quiz. In just three minutes, you'll get a 360-degree scan of your MSP and identify the one or two tactics that could help you find more time, engage & align your people and generate more leads. If you're serious about growth and want to explore what this could look like for your MSP, you can book a Right Fit Clarity Call with us HERE. OR To join our amazing Facebook Group of over 400 MSPs where we are helping you Scale Up with Confidence, then click HERE Until next time, look after yourself and I'll catch up with you soon!
July 5 · 27 min
EP292 - Inside The MSP Growth Hub - May 2026 Intensive Roundup with Stuart Warwick, Julie Hutchison, Peter Williamson and Ian Luckett
In this episode of The IT Experts Podcast, we take you inside The MSP Growth Hub for a look at what happened during the May 2026 Intensive event. Ian Luckett is joined by his business partner Stuart Warwick and coaches Julie Hutchison and Peter Williamson, each sharing what unfolded across two days dedicated to helping MSP owners build stronger, more capable teams. At the heart of the conversation is MSP team alignment, and why it sits right at the centre of scaling a business with confidence. Stuart opens by explaining the theory behind the Intensive itself. The MSP Growth Hub runs this event three times a year, and each one is themed around one of the three pillars of the Scale with Confidence model. This May the focus was Amplify Capacity, using a framework called Embed and Connect to help growing MSPs align their people behind the strategy and goals of the business. Stuart describes how the vision and annual plan cascade down into a sixteen week plan, then into departmental plans, then into a daily and weekly rhythm across the business. This is MSP team alignment in practice, connecting people to systems, plans and direction so the business becomes a genuine asset rather than something that owns the owner. Ian reflects that around eighty percent of the challenges MSP owners bring to The MSP Growth Hub trace back to a leadership opportunity rather than a team problem. He and Stuart discuss the difference between a peer group and a structured programme, and how pausing to look back at progress is often the moment clients realise how far they have actually come. That pause, built into the Intensive itself, gives them the chance to calibrate against others on the same journey, working towards genuine MSP team alignment rather than isolated effort, and walk away with practical steps rather than vague encouragement. Julie takes listeners through her session on maximising team dynamics, focused squarely on MSP team alignment through clarity of function and clarity of requirements. She shares a memorable exercise called There's Been a Breach, where clients were deliberately given incomplete information about roles and responsibilities. The resulting confusion mirrored exactly what happens back in their own businesses when expectations are not clearly set. Julie explains that most people arrive at work wanting to do a good job, and that a leader's role is to set them up to succeed by removing ambiguity around who owns what. Peter Williamson, newer to The MSP Growth Hub coaching team, brings his background in governance to the conversation. He describes helping clients map every function in their business against the people who currently hold the skills to deliver it, revealing gaps that point directly to training needs or new hires. Peter's simple diagnostic question, asking each team member whether they understand their role and have what they need to do it well, proved to be a powerful starting point for many owners in the room. He also shares a story from one client who, after embedding clearer roles and responsibilities, took a holiday for the first time in three years because their team could confidently carry on without them. Across all three conversations, a consistent thread emerges. MSP team alignment is not a soft nice to have, it is the mechanism that turns a business from something the owner is trapped inside into something that can scale on its own rhythm. Whether through cascading plans, clarity exercises, or mapping skills against functions, the Intensive gave clients practical tools alongside the confidence to use them. The episode closes with a reminder that these insights are available to any MSP owner ready to bring more structure to their team. Getting the fundamentals of roles, responsibilities and communication right creates the foundation for sustainable growth, freeing owners to lead rather than firefight. How to build a high performing technical team, when you do not know where to start by Ian Luckett STOP Attracting the Wrong People to Your MSP with Julie Hutchison and Ian Luckett Ready to find out if we're the right fit to help you scale? Book a right fit clarity call: https://go.themspgrowthhub.com/are-we-the-right-fit Make sure to check out our Ultimate MSP Growth Guide, a free guide that walks you through a proven process to take your MSP from stuck to scalable, without working even more hours. It's 44 pages rammed with advice, insights and inspiration to help you decide what support is available to you now if you want to grow and scale your business. Click HERE to get your copy. Connect on LinkedIn HERE with Ian and also with Stuart by clicking this LINK And when you're ready to take the next step in growing your MSP, come and take the Scale with Confidence MSP Mastery Quiz. In just three minutes, you'll get a 360-degree scan of your MSP and identify the one or two tactics that could help you find more time, engage & align your people and generate more leads. OR To join our amazing Facebook Group of over 400 MSPs where we are helping you Scale Up with Confidence, then click HERE Until next time, look after yourself and I'll catch up with you soon!
June 28 · 38 min
EP291 - The Real Lessons Learned from a £500k MSP Ransomware Attack with Ken Roulston & Ian Luckett
In this episode of The IT Experts Podcast, we share one of the most honest and eye-opening conversations we have ever had about a ransomware attack and the devastating impact it can have on an MSP. Ken Roulston joins me to openly discuss the events that led to a real world cyber incident which ultimately cost more than £500,000, challenged every part of the business, and tested the resilience of the leadership team in ways few business owners ever experience. This conversation is not designed to create fear. It is designed to create awareness. Every MSP owner believes they have the right security in place, the right backups running and the right processes protecting both their own business and their clients. Ken's experience demonstrates why confidence must always be backed up with verification, discipline, and continual improvement. Ken shares the full story of how a successful acquisition appeared to strengthen the business before a ransomware attack turned everything upside down. What began as a routine business trip quickly became one of the most stressful weekends of his career. A private data centre belonging to the newly acquired business had been compromised, leaving more than forty client environments inaccessible. As the investigation unfolded, it became clear that the attackers had gained access through one of the least protected customer environments before remaining undetected for several months. One of the biggest lessons from this ransomware attack is that strong technology alone is never enough. Human error, incomplete backup verification and inconsistent security standards combined to create a perfect opportunity for attackers. The discussion explores how backup systems appeared to be functioning correctly while failing to produce recoverable data when it mattered most. It is a reminder that testing your disaster recovery process is every bit as important as performing the backup itself. Ken explains the difficult decision to negotiate with the attackers after discovering there was no viable way to restore the systems independently. He openly describes the emotional pressure of balancing legal advice, customer expectations, and the financial impact while attempting to recover critical business systems. It is an extraordinary insight into a situation that many MSP owners hope they will never face, although every provider should prepare for the possibility. As the recovery began, the challenge shifted from retrieving encrypted information to rebuilding more than forty client environments from the ground up. The team worked around the clock for weeks to restore services, rebuild trust and move customers onto more resilient cloud infrastructure. Despite the enormous disruption, the business retained the majority of its recurring revenue and emerged with valuable lessons that continue to shape how Ken advises MSPs today. Throughout the episode we explore the practical actions every MSP should take immediately. Ken highlights the importance of enforcing minimum security standards across every client, verifying backups regularly, maintaining isolated recovery environments, and investing in your own cybersecurity with the same commitment you expect from your customers. One of the strongest messages throughout the conversation is that MSPs cannot afford to become complacent. Your clients' security directly affects your own business, making security standards a shared responsibility rather than an optional service. We also discuss how ransomware attacks continue to evolve as cybercriminals become increasingly sophisticated. With artificial intelligence accelerating both defensive capabilities and cyber threats, MSPs must continually review their security posture, educate their teams, and ensure every client understands the importance of maintaining modern cybersecurity standards. Building resilience is no longer about reacting to incidents. It is about creating systems, habits and leadership that reduce risk long before an attack occurs. If you are responsible for protecting client environments, leading an MSP or planning future growth, this episode offers valuable lessons drawn from genuine experience rather than theory. Ken's willingness to share one of the most difficult periods of his career provides an opportunity for every MSP owner to strengthen their own business before a ransomware attack forces those lessons upon them. The conversation serves as a powerful reminder that preparation, leadership and continual improvement remain the strongest defence against an ever-changing threat landscape. Every MSP can learn from this experience and use these lessons to build greater confidence, stronger security and a more resilient business for the future. Connect with Ken Roulston through LinkedIn. Make sure to check out our Ultimate MSP Growth Guide, a free guide that walks you through a proven process to take your MSP from stuck to scalable, without working even more hours. It's 44 pages rammed with advice, insights and inspiration to help you decide what support is available to you now if you want to grow and scale your business. Click HERE to get your copy. Connect on LinkedIn HERE with Ian and also with Stuart by clicking this LINK And when you're ready to take the next step in growing your MSP, come and take the Scale with Confidence MSP Mastery Quiz. In just three minutes, you'll get a 360-degree scan of your MSP and identify the one or two tactics that could help you find more time, engage & align your people and generate more leads. If you're serious about growth and want to explore what this could look like for your MSP, you can book a Right Fit Clarity Call with us HERE. OR To join our amazing Facebook Group of over 400 MSPs where we are helping you Scale Up with Confidence, then click HERE Until next time, look after yourself and I'll catch up with you soon!
June 21 · 31 min
EP290 - The Impact of Self-Awareness on You, Your Team, and Your Business with Mark Stevens, Julie Hutchison, and Ian Luckett
In this episode of The IT Experts Podcast, we explore one of the most powerful leadership skills any MSP owner can develop: self-awareness. While many business conversations focus on strategy, sales, systems, and growth, this discussion takes a different path. I am joined by leadership coach Julie Hutchison and Managing Director of Mark1 IT Mark Stevens to unpack how self-awareness impacts you, your team, and ultimately the success of your business. The conversation begins with Mark sharing his own leadership journey and the challenges he experienced as his business grew. Like many MSP owners, he found himself frustrated when team members did not perform in the way he expected. He wanted people to move at the same speed, think in the same way, and approach challenges with the same intensity. Over time, that created pressure, frustration, and a growing disconnect between what he wanted from his team and what they were able to deliver. What makes this episode particularly valuable is Mark's honesty. Rather than focusing on what was wrong with his team, he reflects on what he discovered about himself. Through coaching, reflection, and experience, he began to understand that many of the challenges within the business were connected to the way he was showing up as a leader. This realisation became the starting point for meaningful change. Julie explains that self awareness is not simply about understanding your personality. It is about recognising the impact your behaviour has on other people. Every leader influences the confidence, motivation, and performance of their team. When leaders become more aware of how they communicate, react under pressure, and set expectations, they create an environment where people can thrive. A key moment in the discussion centres around behavioural profiling and understanding different communication styles. Mark shares how learning about his DISC profile helped him recognise that not everyone thinks, works, or processes information in the same way. What felt obvious and straightforward to him often felt overwhelming or unclear to others. Developing greater self-awareness allowed him to adapt his communication and lead people more effectively. The conversation also explores the relationship between self-awareness and emotional intelligence. Mark talks openly about recognising the impact of stress, fatigue, and even lifestyle choices on the way he interacted with his team. Rather than allowing frustration to dictate his behaviour, he learned to pause, reflect, and respond more intentionally. This shift created stronger relationships and helped build trust throughout the business. One of the most powerful themes throughout the episode is the idea that leadership starts with personal responsibility. It is easy to blame team members when results are not where you want them to be. It takes courage to hold up the mirror and ask what role you might be playing in the situation. Julie introduces the concept of "Can't, Won't, Don't", a framework that helps leaders understand whether team members lack capability, confidence, motivation, or clarity. Instead of assuming people are underperforming, leaders are encouraged to become curious and seek understanding. As self-awareness increases, leaders become better equipped to identify the real barriers holding their teams back. They stop reacting emotionally and start creating conditions where people can succeed. This leads to improved communication, stronger accountability, and greater engagement across the organisation. Mark also shares how greater self-awareness transformed the culture inside Mark1 IT. What was once a source of frustration became a business environment he genuinely enjoys. Team members became more confident. Conversations became more productive. The business became more structured and aligned. Most importantly, people started taking ownership and making decisions with confidence. The discussion highlights another important lesson for MSP owners. Self-awareness is not a destination. It is an ongoing process. Every stage of business growth brings new challenges, new responsibilities, and new opportunities for personal development. The leaders who continue to learn, reflect, and adapt are the ones who create sustainable success for themselves and their teams. Throughout the episode, Ian, Julie, and Mark remind us that people are the most valuable asset in any business. Systems, technology, and processes all matter. Yet the way leaders think, behave, and communicate has a profound impact on everything else. When leaders invest in their own growth, they create ripple effects that influence culture, performance, and long-term business results. If you have ever found yourself frustrated with your team, questioning why people are not taking ownership, or wondering why progress feels slower than it should, this episode offers a valuable perspective. It provides practical insights, honest reflections, and powerful reminders that leadership begins with understanding yourself first. Self-awareness creates clarity. Clarity builds confidence. Confidence helps people perform at their best. When leaders embrace that journey, they create stronger businesses and more fulfilling places to work. Connect with Mark Stevens through LinkedIn and his website. Make sure to check out our Ultimate MSP Growth Guide, a free guide that walks you through a proven process to take your MSP from stuck to scalable, without working even more hours. It's 44 pages rammed with advice, insights and inspiration to help you decide what support is available to you now if you want to grow and scale your business. Click HERE to get your copy. Connect on LinkedIn HERE with Ian and also with Stuart by clicking this LINK And when you're ready to take the next step in growing your MSP, come and take the Scale with Confidence MSP Mastery Quiz. In just three minutes, you'll get a 360-degree scan of your MSP and identify the one or two tactics that could help you find more time, engage & align your people and generate more leads. If you're serious about growth and want to explore what this could look like for your MSP, you can book a Right Fit Clarity Call with us HERE. OR To join our amazing Facebook Group of over 400 MSPs where we are helping you Scale Up with Confidence, then click HERE Until next time, look after yourself and I'll catch up with you soon!
June 14 · 33 min
EP289 - Having a Stand vs Mastering the Show – Why Most MSPs Get Events Wrong with Steve Lloyd and Ian Luckett
In this episode of the IT Experts Podcast, we explore one of the most overlooked opportunities for MSP growth: exhibitions and events. If you have ever invested time and money into a trade show, only to come away wondering whether it was worth it, this conversation with Steve Lloyd is essential listening. Many MSP owners know they need to get out into the market, meet potential clients, build relationships, and generate fresh opportunities. The challenge is that exhibitions can often feel uncomfortable, especially for technical founders who are far more confident discussing technology than approaching strangers in a busy exhibition hall. The result is that many businesses turn up with a couple of banners, a table full of brochures, and a hope that the right people will stop by. According to Steve Lloyd, that approach is exactly why so many exhibitors fail to see a return on their investment. Throughout this episode, Steve Lloyd shares a completely different way of thinking about exhibitions. Rather than viewing them as a one-day event, he encourages MSPs to see them as part of a much larger business development process. Success begins long before the doors open and continues long after the exhibition has finished. One of the most powerful insights from the conversation is the idea that you are not simply renting a stand. You are creating a temporary shop inside a temporary shopping centre. When viewed through that lens, everything changes. You start thinking about customer experience, visibility, engagement, staff preparation, and follow up. You begin asking better questions about what success actually looks like and how you can create meaningful conversations with the people who matter most. Steve Lloyd explains that many exhibitors make the mistake of accepting the standard setup provided by the venue. Tables become barriers. Brochures create clutter. Team members sit behind their stand waiting for visitors to approach. Unfortunately, that approach rarely creates energy, excitement, or engagement. Instead, Steve Lloyd encourages businesses to take ownership of their space. Every element of the stand should support a clear message. Visitors should immediately understand who you help, what problem you solve, and why they should engage with you. Simplicity becomes a competitive advantage. Clear messaging consistently outperforms complicated explanations and technical jargon. The discussion also highlights an important challenge many MSP owners face. Technical expertise does not automatically translate into effective communication. It is easy to fall into the expert trap and overwhelm prospects with information. Steve Lloyd explains that successful exhibitors learn how to simplify complex ideas and connect with people who may have very little technical knowledge. Confidence comes from clarity, and clarity helps create stronger conversations. Another key theme throughout the episode is preparation. Steve Lloyd introduces what he calls the Exhibition Life Cycle, a framework built around preparation, promotion, execution, and follow up. Each stage plays a critical role in determining the overall success of an exhibition. Preparation involves far more than ordering banners and booking accommodation. It includes defining objectives, developing messaging, planning customer journeys, training staff, preparing follow up processes, and ensuring there are no surprises on the day. The more preparation that happens in advance, the more confident and effective your team becomes during the event itself. Promotion is another area where many businesses leave opportunities on the table. Steve Lloyd encourages exhibitors to build anticipation before the event begins. The most successful stands create awareness and excitement before visitors even arrive at the venue. This helps maximise engagement and creates momentum throughout the event. When it comes to execution, the conversation focuses heavily on human interaction. While games, competitions, and attractions can help capture attention, Steve Lloyd believes that well trained staff remain the most valuable asset on any exhibition stand. Great conversations consistently outperform gimmicks when it comes to building trust and generating quality leads. The discussion also challenges the traditional approach to exhibition competitions. Rather than offering prizes that attract everyone, Steve Lloyd recommends prizes that attract the right people. A free workshop, assessment, training session, or educational event creates far more value than generic prizes that have no connection to your expertise. The goal is to bring prospects into your world and allow them to experience the value you provide. Perhaps the most important takeaway from this episode is that exhibitions are not about making immediate sales. They are about starting meaningful conversations with the right people. Every interaction becomes part of a larger relationship building process that continues long after the exhibition has ended. If you want to generate better results from your next event, this conversation with Steve Lloyd provides a practical framework you can implement immediately. From creating stronger messaging and improving stand design to building effective follow up systems, the advice shared in this episode will help you approach exhibitions with greater confidence, structure, and purpose. Whether you are attending your first trade show or looking to improve the return on events you already invest in, the lessons from Steve Lloyd offer a clear roadmap for turning exhibitions into a powerful growth channel for your MSP. Connect with Steve Lloyd through LinkedIn and his website. Make sure to check out our Ultimate MSP Growth Guide, a free guide that walks you through a proven process to take your MSP from stuck to scalable, without working even more hours. It's 44 pages rammed with advice, insights and inspiration to help you decide what support is available to you now if you want to grow and scale your business. Click HERE to get your copy. Connect on LinkedIn HERE with Ian and also with Stuart by clicking this LINK And when you're ready to take the next step in growing your MSP, come and take the Scale with Confidence MSP Mastery Quiz. In just three minutes, you'll get a 360-degree scan of your MSP and identify the one or two tactics that could help you find more time, engage & align your people and generate more leads. If you're serious about growth and want to explore what this could look like for your MSP, you can book a Right Fit Clarity Call with us HERE. OR To join our amazing Facebook Group of over 400 MSPs where we are helping you Scale Up with Confidence, then click HERE Until next time, look after yourself and I'll catch up with you soon!
June 7 · 31 min
EP288 - Why Poor Governance is Killing the Value of Your MSP and How to Fix it with Ken Roulston and Ian Luckett
In this episode of The IT Experts Podcast, I sit down with Ken Roulston to explore a topic that many MSP owners know they should be paying attention to, yet often leave until much later than they should. Governance. Now, before you switch off thinking this is a subject reserved for larger businesses, stay with me. This conversation is one of the most important discussions we've had around protecting the value of your MSP, reducing unnecessary risk and building a business that is genuinely attractive to a future buyer. Ken brings a huge amount of experience to this conversation. Having built and successfully exited a £17 million MSP, he has seen first hand what separates valuable businesses from those that struggle to achieve the valuation their owners expect. Through his work with MSPs across the UK and Ireland, Ken regularly helps business owners understand the factors that drive value and the mistakes that can quietly destroy it. One of the points I often make is that every MSP owner will eventually sell their business. Whether that happens in five years, ten years or twenty years is almost irrelevant. At some stage, ownership changes hands. The question is whether you will be rewarded properly for all the hard work, investment and sacrifice that went into building it. That is where Governance comes in. Throughout our conversation, Ken and I unpack why Governance is far more than a compliance exercise. Good Governance creates confidence. It gives buyers reassurance. It reduces risk. It demonstrates professionalism. Most importantly, it helps you build a stronger business today, regardless of whether an exit is anywhere on your immediate horizon. We begin by looking at financial Governance and why understanding your numbers is only part of the story. Many MSP owners can tell you their monthly revenue and profitability. Far fewer fully understand the financial responsibilities that come with being a company director. Ken explains the importance of financial controls, cashflow management, solvency and proper accounting practices. These are not optional activities. They are part of your legal responsibility as a business owner. We also discuss how poor financial Governance can raise serious red flags during an acquisition. Buyers want confidence that a business is being managed professionally. Strong reporting, clear approval processes, documented decisions and consistent financial management all contribute to a stronger valuation and a smoother due diligence process. From there, we move into legal Governance, which is often where hidden problems begin to emerge. Ken shares examples of acquisitions where customer contracts, supplier agreements and employee terms created unexpected complications. In some cases, a single clause buried within a contract was enough to significantly impact the value of a deal. One example in particular highlights how an overlooked contract clause could force a buyer to seek approval from every customer before completing an acquisition. It is a powerful reminder that Governance is not about having paperwork in place. It is about understanding exactly what those documents mean and how they affect the future of your business. We also spend time discussing employee Governance. As MSP owners, our people remain our greatest investment and often our largest cost. Strong Governance creates clear expectations, supports accountability and helps protect both employees and the business. Ken explains why current employment contracts, documented processes and professional HR support are essential if you want to build a resilient organisation. Towards the end of the episode, we broaden the conversation into business risk. This is an area we regularly help MSP Growth Hub members address because many business owners spend their days helping clients manage risk while overlooking risks within their own organisations. Ken shares practical examples of the risks every MSP should be assessing, including customer concentration, supplier dependency, cashflow exposure and operational vulnerabilities. We discuss why creating a risk register does not need to be complicated and how taking time to identify potential threats can significantly improve decision making and business resilience. If you want to build a stronger MSP, improve its future value and avoid the costly mistakes that catch many owners out during an exit process, this episode is packed with practical insights. Governance may not be the most glamorous topic in business, although it could be one of the most valuable conversations you will have this year. As Ken says throughout the discussion, buyers are looking for confidence, credibility and professionalism. Good Governance helps you demonstrate all three. Connect with Ken Roulston through LinkedIn and his website. Make sure to check out our Ultimate MSP Growth Guide, a free guide that walks you through a proven process to take your MSP from stuck to scalable, without working even more hours. It's 44 pages rammed with advice, insights and inspiration to help you decide what support is available to you now if you want to grow and scale your business. Click HERE to get your copy. Connect on LinkedIn HERE with Ian and also with Stuart by clicking this LINK And when you're ready to take the next step in growing your MSP, come and take the Scale with Confidence MSP Mastery Quiz. In just three minutes, you'll get a 360-degree scan of your MSP and identify the one or two tactics that could help you find more time, engage & align your people and generate more leads. If you're serious about growth and want to explore what this could look like for your MSP, you can book a Right Fit Clarity Call with us HERE. OR To join our amazing Facebook Group of over 400 MSPs where we are helping you Scale Up with Confidence, then click HERE Until next time, look after yourself and I'll catch up with you soon!

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