I’m cautious about interviewing companies that provide services to MSPs. After all, you get bombarded by sales content day in and day out, and I don’t want to add to the noise. But when I interviewed Megan Killion of MKC Agency in Orlando, a revenue consultancy specializing in scaling MSPs and other channel companies, I was super impressed by the combined sales/marketing paradigm that she uses. Megan champions ethical marketing practices, elevating marginalized talent, and empowering businesses to thrive in competitive markets. She also has an offer for our podcast listeners: 20% off the first 4 months of her newest program IF you complete this worksheet before your first call with her (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gmqzRXv54EdZBFGtUxZAnqc-wLpMaIjDHIpv7H9tZFY/edit?usp=sharing, NOTE that you will need to request access). Here's what I learned in this episode:

• Why sales needs to be a function of your business instead of just outsourced
• MKC's value add is helping create a scalable internal program
• How Megan designed her sales offerings, and how you should too
• Megan's take on hiring sales talent the wrong way
• Megan's secret sauce for finding sales talent the right (and easy) way
• Can technical people become effective sales people
• Why technical owners are unlikely to create effective sales organizations without help
• Does the hunters vs farmers framework make sense
• Prediction, project planning, copywriting, social skills, time management: these skills and more are required to be an effective sales resource
• What size MSP is best positioned to benefit from her services
• What constitutes ready for growth
• Embracing the 'suck' of the middle (organic growth is not easy)
• You must understand your clients to build messaging
• How will AI affect your sales process
• The difference between inbound and outbound and how they go together

Financial Modeling Service provides M&A and Intermediary services to IT companies. As a former IT company owner, Jeff Greenspan understands your business and will work with you to achieve an optimal result based on your specific needs. You can reach Jeff at Jeff.Greenspan@financialmodelingservice.com or through his contact form at https://financialmodelingservice.com/contact-us/.

S2E2 features a conversation with the US team of Ionos, a hosting and cloud provider looking to compete with Azure, AWS, and Google Cloud. I'd heard that Ionos was a billion dollar company, but when I checked their market cap in late December, it was just over $3B! What's up with that? So I sat down with Seth Helgesen, Zachary Watson, and Brian Wick to get a better understanding of Ionos's potential value to you. Takeaways from the episode include :

• What are the key Ionos differentiators
• Is any hosting equipment required
• Where are the colo facilities
• Is redundancy available
• Ease of migrating to the Ionos platform
• What security features are built in
• Who does Ionos integrate with
• How does pricing work
• Direct and distribution channels
• Partner/Reseller programs with marketing dollars
• What does the roadmap look like
• Support for monolithic legacy applications
• Object storage just launched
• A special offer for podcast listeners

Financial Modeling Service provides M&A and Intermediary services to IT companies. As a former IT company owner, Jeff Greenspan understands your business and will work with you to achieve an optimal result based on your specific needs. You can reach Jeff at Jeff.Greenspan@financialmodelingservice.com or through his contact form at https://financialmodelingservice.com/contact-us/.

With his company Olive and Goose, Ankur Kothari provides proof that you really can run an MSP from anywhere. From his not-quite-humble beginnings at Microsoft, he's built an impressive three-division IT company headquartered in Seattle but with an international clientele. And when he's not strategizing, he's enjoying the intellectual flavors of Barcelona, learning both Spanish and Catalan while connecting with the vibrant but quite different European startup community. Takeaways from the episode include:

• What roles does Ankur play in his company, and how that differs from expectation
• Europe is ahead of the US from a sustainability prespective. How might that affect US MSP's relationships with their clients in the near future?
• Be faster to hire, and faster to change
• The most common error made by young MSPs
• How Olive and Goose drives organic growth
• How to create a beachhead in a new area
• The hunter/farmer model
• The opportunity that AI presents for MSPs who are able to assist their customers with adoption
• Ankur's take on rollups for higher EBIDTA multiples
• Growth opportunities, no matter the type, must be evaluated to ensure that they offer value to all of the firms stakeholders

Financial Modeling Service provides M&A and Intermediary services to IT companies. As a former IT company owner, Jeff Greenspan understands your business and will work with you to achieve an optimal result based on your specific needs. You can reach Jeff at Jeff.Greenspan@financialmodelingservice.com or through his contact form at https://financialmodelingservice.com/contact-us/.