The IT Experts Podcast

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!

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!

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!

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!

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!