Matt And Jeanine Kinsey
As a husband-and-wife team, we saw our MSP grow each and every year for the last 13 years, but we were STILL struggling and not paying ourselves what we were worth. FAR from it, in fact. We understood marketing was important, so we had tested the waters. Once we hired a local marketing consultant (that didn’t work out). Another time, we hired an appointment setter to cold call (again, that didn’t work out). We even tried a couple of “other” IT marketing programs (not Robin). In total, we spent around $10,000 and countless wasted hours. Net result of all of this? One measly $500-a-month client.
So, we went back to our comfort zone: REFERRALS through network marketing. With 90% of our business coming from BNI, all we knew was VERY SLOW, UNPREDICTABLE growth.
Then Covid Removed The One Thing
We Were Doing To Keep Our Business Afloat
With the lockdowns, we could no longer survive on networking or BNI. Our largest customer didn’t know if they would be open in 60 days. Another large fundraiser client saw their earnings drop to zero. All these clients were pivoting, and we were nervous. Would we go out of business and have to go back to working for someone else?
Just as the depth of the situation became clear, we got an e-mail from Robin and signed up for the Toolkit, Rapid Implementation Workshop and, ultimately, Accelerators. We HAD to make this work, and our three most important goals were to 1) understand why our past actions had not resulted in SUSTAINABLE, LONG-TERM and CONSISTENT GROWTH (answer: we were spending our time IN the business, not ON the business and marketing), 2) fix the basics, including our target market, unique selling proposition, website, etc., and 3) establish a concrete, REPEATABLE marketing plan.
How We Survived The Covid Recession And Increased MRR By 58%
At the start of this year, our goal was simply to get all these marketing campaigns set up and running consistently. While we have gotten new clients and new MRR from our efforts, we are equally excited to actually have a marketing plan for the first time. Our advice is to start with what you can and then add a little to it over time. This way it becomes a habit that’s easier to keep moving.
The Single E-mail That Produced
A $7,000 Project From A “Ghosted” Lead!
We ran our FIRST campaign while at Robin’s workshop. It was the 9-Word E-mail. I simply e-mailed five prospects that had “ghosted” us. The first four responded that they had moved on (yay, closure). Then the fifth triggered a $7,000 project just in time to close out the year!
The Easiest Money I’ve Ever Made
One of the campaigns I would urge all members to run is the QBR or, as we call them, TBR (for technology business reviews), as Robin shows you to do in the Toolkit. This is key. We actually were doing these with our clients prior to engaging with her. Were we getting anything from them? Typically NOT. The reason: when presenting additional services to my clients, I always feared they would object and ask, “Why aren’t you already doing that for us?” It was a mind block I couldn’t shake for years.
Once I accepted that cyber security is constantly improving and that I’m doing my customers a DISSERVICE by not offering them better technologies, I gained a new confidence in upselling my clients. Through 10 Technology Business Reviews, five of our clients have upgraded their services. That’s an additional $2,000 on the books every month just from a simple conversation!
SURVEY: Get A FREE Custom Marketing Road Map With A Program Advisor…Click Here
Scoring 3 New Contracts Worth $4,000 In MRR
With A Unique Cyber Security Cross-Sell Campaign!
In January, we worked with our cyber security partners to promote our very first cyber security webinar. Through sending e-mails, posting on Facebook and LinkedIn and making follow-up calls, we got 80 customers and prospects to register and 40 to attend. In the webinar, we conducted a LIVE hacking demo that really got their attention! Then we followed up a webinar replay as well as the cross-sell campaign.
From this single marketing activity, we added almost $2,000 in additional MRR from existing clients who added dark web and cyber security features to their existing contracts. Plus, we gained three NEW managed services clients worth $4,000 in MRR and $6,000 in projects! This webinar was so successful, we plan to do a webinar every quarter.
We could never have closed these deals without the work we did in the Rapid Implementation Workshop to build our credibility. We practically closed the deals BEFORE presenting the proposals! Among our biggest credibility builders were:
- Our testimonials – We sent out e-mail requests to 15 clients and received both written and video testimonials from 12 customers.
- Our new and improved “Robinized” website that features our client testimonials, Five Reasons to Choose MK Tech Group, our security tips, referral program and more.
- Our Unique Selling Proposition, which we created from the great testimonials we received!
How We Are Building Our E-mail List And Response Rates
Every Monday at 9:00 a.m., our Weekly TechTips E-mails go out to our existing customers and their employees. Several clients even told us they were REQUIRING their employees to read the tips each Monday – that’s how valuable they are!
I originally set up the campaign in Keap for four weeks and then to go out every few weeks after that, which will extend the campaign further. This way, we never run out of content for those in the pipeline. Once we exhaust the best tips, we will cycle them back and start over. In addition, we added a Weekly TechTips E-mail link on our website and began promoting them in Facebook posts. The numbers are growing slowly…but they are growing!
The Unique Way We Use Postcards, Newsletters And Facebook
To Stay Top-Of-Mind With Clients And Prospects
On the 15th of every month, we mail 250 TechTip Postcards to our customers as well as our best prospects in our target market. To create a more integrated marketing campaign around the postcards, we also:
- Put out a Facebook post promoting the postcard offer and then time it to the exact day when our audience should receive the postcards.
- Create a landing page that promotes the postcard offer.
While only two sets of postcards have gone out, we’ve already received one response. Because we are dedicated to mailing these postcards every month, we know this drip marketing campaign will pay off soon!
To round out our drip marketing, on the first of every month we e-mail our Done-For-You Newsletter to 250 clients and prospects. Then we add it to our Newsletter Archives on our website and include the e-mail teaser and link on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Next, we plan to move to the Done-For-You Newsletter and have them printed and mailed for us.
Each month we feature one customer in a “Spotlight” article. We try to choose customers who are in our target market (attorneys and CPA firms), have a high referral potential and could benefit from the extra exposure. They are always honored and happy to participate!
Here’s a good tip for maximizing your marketing content: take advantage of Technology Marketing Toolkit’s Monthly Blog and Newsletter feature. On the second Wednesday of each month, we repurpose our newsletter content to create a blog post. Then we e-mail it to everyone in our database and promote it through social media.
Create Fire Within Yourself
With The 3 C’s
Before my dad passed, he left us with probably the truest words ever spoken: “It’s not what you do at your best that defines you. That is potential. Neither is it what you do at your worst. That’s a bad day. It’s what you do CONSISTENTLY, day in and day out, that truly defines you.”
Do you also want to be on fire? The necessary elements for a roaring fire require three things: CONSISTENCY – this is the fuel for your fire. You must execute consistently, both operationally and in marketing, to get consistent results. COMMITMENT – this is the heat for your fire. Commit to making the personal and business changes needed to affect your results. CLARITY – this is the oxygen for your fire. You must be crystal clear with your prospects about why they should partner with you. YOU bring the first two elements, and Robin and her team bring the last one.
Fired Up With A 58% Increase In MRR!
Since meeting Robin, we have increased our monthly recurring revenue by $6,950 per month, with $13,000 in projects. For us, this is more than a 58% increase in MRR and adds $96,400 in annualized business to the books! We also have multiple proposals in the works, including one for a $26,000 project and as much as $3,200 in MRR, and another one for a $5,000 project and possibly $2,800 in MRR!
With the oxygen that Robin’s team breathed into us through the workshop and the 90 days that followed, the entire MK Tech Group team has been FIRED UP! That feeling soon evolved into a roaring fire of one success after another. Every week we were making progress and changing the trajectory of our business, still knowing we had barely even scratched the surface of what is possible! Today, we are far more confident business owners because we have a SYSTEMATIC and PROVEN strategy to execute on a consistent basis. And we know these habits will serve us for the rest of our lives!
